I have long believed that the psychiatric profession has abrogated its responsibility to bring critical thinking to this topic. Why does the gender dysphoria delusion get the special status of a "normal variation". The only thing that is aberrant is the "distress", and that is why the breasts are removed. Right?
The activists who have pushed to get "gender dysphoria" eliminated as a diagnosis are presumably motivated by not wanting to be seen as having a disorder. Even if they do.
Of greater concern is our recent inability to perceive objective reality. Our entire society is suffering from our elites deciding on a better reality and attempting to force it into being by punishing fact. Past occasions of an elite losing the ability to recognize reality have not ended well. We need to be more proactive about fighting this lest we wind up in re-education camps or worse.
Yes, I have read of past such movements. They do appear pathological in being so intentionally divorced from reality. Most of the cults I have known about have at least some very out there beliefs. It is realistic to be afraid of this development that has already taken hold in the U.S. and many Western nations.
The entire system of thought around "gender" arises from the psychological makeup of the people who have "gender dysphoria," which I think is at least partly because those people predominate in the "gender medicine" specialty. In my clinical work with men who had "gender" conflicts, I found that many of them thought quite concretely about their "gender" issues. Most if not all subjective experiences around their "gender" problem were converted to physical ones ("I feel like a woman, therefore I must be one"). Thus, the solutions to the person's emotional and cognitive conflicts were felt to require physical solutions. ("I need to get a new body to fit my feelings"). People with "gender" conflicts are very similar to people who have eating disorders ("I feel bad because certain foods make me feel that way when I eat them"), and "I will be happy when I have a different body." These are examples of thinking that is not only concrete but denies the internal sources of bad feeling and focuses instead on external sources. People who think like this are typically less open to psychotherapy, because their philosophy of life emphasizes external, uncontrollable causes for their unhappiness. Psychotherapy is based on the philosophy and evidence that people do better when they "have an internal locus of control."
It becomes very hard to dissuade people stuck in this line of thinking though, because if you use terms such as “truth,” “facts,” or “objective,” they write off the argument as being an expression of power/hierarchy/oppression. The undermining of the concept of truth or reality is, in my view, the deeper issue. If we can’t agree on a shared reality or facts, then disagreements become unresolvable. I’m not actually sure how you begin to reason with someone who embraces this worldview.
Making it even trickier are that some elements of this worldview have some truth to it. For example, a person’s understanding of the world will be mediated by the lens of their experience and “positioning.” As in, although objective reality exists, an individual can never claim to have experienced or understood it in its raw form. So any statement I make about “objective reality” can reflect my subjective experience and position.
I agree that the philosophical conflict we are facing is between realists and anti-realists.
One of the most amusing aspects of radical postmodern standpoint theory is that its adherents want to say that all truth claims are reducible to someone's individual standpoint or "lens," but they are unable to understand that standpoint theory itself is just a set of thoughts constructs developed by a group of white guys in Western Europe.
I agree with you that postmodern standpoint theory includes some interesting ideas about how we perceive and describe the realities we live within. Woke people are, however, generally unable to work with concepts like "some elements of this worldview have some truth to it." They convert nuanced statements into absolutist, overgeneralized, all or nothing claims, such as, "Racism exists, so all situations in which a black person is victimized are about racism." Some people call this type of thinking "social justice fundamentalism."
Totally agree. I think the framing as "social justice fundamentalism" is the correct framing. I grew up in a very conservative religious environment where I was not taught "how" to think, but rather "what" to think. The flavour of the critical social justice movement is extremely similar to the religious conservative environment in which I grew up. The answer to the question is assumed, so instead of curiousity, they lead with this sense of certainty. But underneath that pretense is fragility and fear, which is why they can't hold nuance, grey, or tension.
As an aside, the claim "all truth claims are reducible to someone's individual standpoint" is itself a truth claim. But the circular logic here is often lost on its adherents.
Years ago a friend of mine was talking to me about her deteriorating relationship. She and her partner argued a lot about a variety of things without being able to come to an understanding or a resolution. My friend said she had discovered that all of the arguments actually boiled down to a single dispute about whether there are shades of gray or only black and white.
How can society take a man's claim to "feel like a woman" seriously enough to respond to it with therapeutic interventions such as hormones and surgeries?
It may be facile to say that no man can possibly feel like a woman because only women can feel like women. Besides, any one woman, like any single man, is only an expert their experience of being a woman or man, respectively.
But isn't that true? Doesn't it take magical thinking or some other form of non-objective, unscientific reasoning to conclude that because a man says he feels like a woman he is one? And that making physical changes to a man's body alone can somehow complete what nature meant to do but never got around to?
We know that anyone who so much as whispers thoughts of being trans racial in the white-to-black direction will be roundly scolded; if they really insist, they will be ostracized without a second thought.
This question probably comes up so often that one might say sex realists have taken to perseverating over it. Sigh.
I personally have no experiences in which I am walking around and "I feel like a woman." Some women have told me that they have an experience of "feeling like a woman," but then I learn that this terminology meant they perceived themselves as pretty and were getting male attention that day. I believe that people who have psychiatric issues around "gender" are the only people who are preoccupied with the idea that they "feel like" either sex or neither. And yes, of course I agree with you that people who can't sort out which sex they are and deal with it are, at least in that sector, not functioning well within reality. (Many of them do function very well in sectors that don't require being realistic about sexual identity).
So, how do you respond if you are challenged with something like: “Well, of course you wouldn’t notice that you feel like a woman, because you are part of the cisheteronormative oppressor group, and as such society is set up for people like you to succeed and feel comfortable. Your privilege blinds you to your own experience.”
(I obviously don’t believe this, I just encounter this line of thinking and don’t know how to respond. Especially as a white, heterosexual male, I occupy the pinnacle of the “oppressor” group, so anything I say can be dismissed as a mere expression of my privilege and power.)
There is no opening at all to respond to attacks of this type. The woke cult is a religion, and mouthing the slogans and dogmas gives the members a feeling of power that is more important to them than anything else. The string of phrases “racist, male supremacist, cisheteronormative,” etc., is the equivalent of street corner preachers yelling that you are “under the influence of Satan.”
Focusing on the content of verbal abuse is not worth anyone’s time. It is admittedly easier to shrug it off when we are in fact not “heteronormative” or “white” or whatever, but none of that really matters to the social justice activists. Glenn Loury, John McWhorter and Coleman Hughes have all said that they have been characterized as “not black,” “race traitors,” and worse, because they disagree with a lot of “anti-racist” dogma.
What matters most is that you don’t allow social justice fundamentalists to rattle your sense of yourself. They are superficial thinkers with very limited life experience, being mostly young white women from affluent, sheltered backgrounds. They have a lot of difficulties getting along with other people because of their anger issues, hysterical emotionality, and abusiveness. Ultimately, they will end up with only their self-righteousness to keep them company, because they are at least as horrible to each other as they are to the rest of us.
I love the similarity you draw between street corner preachers and CSJ proponents, and I appreciate your statement about not focusing on the content of verbal abuse. It really is the same, in that their beliefs are unfalsifiable, and that engaging with these people is a waste of time. (The authors you mentioned are great examples that even occupying the “right” categories is insufficient for acceptance)
Perhaps I extend too much grace in trying to understand, or give their voices too much weight in my own thought processes (as in, I get rattled). I think I do this because I see the nuggets of truth in their worldview and statements. For example, when someone confidently states “I know I’m not a racist,” I admire that and would like to have that same level of confidence in making a statement like that about myself. I don’t think I am racist, and I certainly strive to treat everyone with dignity and respect, regardless of their superficial characteristics.
However, can I really state that I don’t have unconscious biases toward people who are different than me, and that those unconscious biases don’t impact my treatment of others in ways of which I am not aware? Isn’t the tendency to treat people as “other” so fundamental to being human that, despite my best efforts, it will always be possible that this shows up, even unconsciously, in my behaviour?
I use “racist” here as emblematic of the various types of discrimination which CSJ adherents purport to be targeting. I also see that “softer” versions of these ideas have really taken in the general culture (I live in an urban centre in Canada), and it’s just so challenging to speak against them, even in a group of moderate progressives, because there is a general acceptance of ideas like “if you’re white, you are inherently privileged” and the like.
I advise that we give no weight at all to accusations that are shaming, punitive and absolutist, as in "You are stained with the Original Sin of your ancestors and are beyond redemption. All you can do is eternally confess your sin and put yourself last in every line." People who want to join religions that teach the doctrine of hereditary sin are of course free to embrace that belief, but no one has the right to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us.
The idea that all of us might at times prejudge individuals incorrectly and unfairly because of their group identities, is realistic and reasonable. (At the same time, "stereotypes" of groups are the best predictors of behavior of randomly selected members of those groups. This has been known by psychologists at least since I was a grad student in the 1970's). Social justice activists who attack people for being "transphobes" and the like are not, however, talking about occasional mistakes made by well-intentioned people who might be unfamiliar with the norms of a domestic or foreign subculture. In fact, most social justice activists are completely unfamiliar with the subcultures of the minority groups they claim to speak for, and they frequently push policies that these groups do not like and which affect them adversely.
Decent, mature people should reflect on feedback they receive from individuals they may have inadvertently hurt, but there are limits to this. Arrogant accusers who present their own claims with absolute certainty, who seek to legislate how everyone else should behave, and even claim to know what other peoples' unstated feelings, thoughts and intentions were in a particular situation, are individuals whose commentary is not worth our attention.
Josh — In the US, at least, Indian Americans have double the median family income of whites. Most Asian American groups also exceed whites, as do Middle Easterners and North Africans.
So much for the “pinnacle of the ‘oppressor’ group”.
Very accurate. I haven’t looked at the numbers here in Canada, but they are likely similar.
Even just selecting two minority groups - Nigerian and Ethiopian immigrants - would likely reveal a stark contrast in median wealth and education. Putting both those groups into one category would be a huge mistake if trying to correct for inequities.
There are few topics that are repugnant enough that reading about them makes me nauseous. This is one of the very very few. Even reading about Jihaadist indoctrination does not disturb me as much. I wonder how the individuals can write what is quoted here without being disturbed at the first writing.
(speaking as a doctor and surgeon) so basically the working theory is, 100% of people, including children, who experience significant “gender dysphoria” 1) their beliefs are always true and in their own best interest. and 2) the treatment is always affirmation of this belief and treatment with medication and surgery. and 0% of these people could possibly be mistaken and/or better treated with therapy to accept the body they were born in, their biological sex (and still live and express themselves however they feel). there is literally no psychological state known to man for which this could possibly be true. and the fact that alternative treatments are not being actively pursued and studied tells one all they need to know about this as ideology, dogma, agenda, not science. this is both tragic and evil.
Regardless of how much I read about this topic, I'm always surprised to find a lower rung I didn't know about or consider. The same overriding questions apply: how can so many clinicians blindly follow this obvious insanity and how do we stop it? Surely there are vastly more rational clinicians than those who align with this ludicrous movement. When we're talking about the health and well-being of children, adolescents and vulnerable adults, doesn't the moral imperative supersede concerns about career or status, especially given that finding like-minded colleagues through professional gatherings and associations shouldn't be difficult. One or two clinicians may rightly fear for their positions, but what about 100 or 500 or 1,000 or more complaints to the overseeing board? There must be some understanding that the same lawsuits that will cripple gender clinics will expand to any of the fields that are touched by this, discrediting and bringing shame and derision beyond the clinic doors to those who were merely silent. What organized push-back exists in the clinical fields and what is the status?
There is the Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine. There are other networks of people that I don't know as much about. But as a general answer, I don't hear from many colleagues who actively take a stand opposed to "gender affirmative care." Most of the national professional associations for mental health professionals are all-in with the gender ideology. Licensed mental health professionals in some states have to refrain from "trying to change a patient's gender identity," because that has become the state law.
As a psychologist in private practice, I have for several years, been disappointed and frustrated as to how many of my colleagues have just wanted to look the other way. And then the guilds themselves have been infiltrated by activists.
I am so thankful for your work and greatly appreciate this piece. It has been just over a year since we sent our Open Letter to the American Psychiatric Association about this “textbook.” Despite over 7200 signatures, there has been no response from the APA.
Transhuman/virtual reality/AI/bionic human tech overlord medical industrial complex tycoons stand to profit trillions and control everyone by destroying objective truths and reality
It's a fun conspiracy, but where's the solid, indisputable truth that anyone is out to "profit trillions and control everyone by destroying objective truths and reality." Conspiratorial thinking is not going to help solve the immediate problem of dismantling gender-affirming care.
Jennifer Bilek writes extensively about the conspiracy. It’s obviously a true conspiracy given the hard push EVERYWHERE in healthcare and in the media. Calling gender affirming care gender affirming care is like calling assisted suicide for depression mental healthcare.
The piece is greatly appreciated, and the detail and pragmatic approach even more so.
I've recently given thought to an area, less explored.
Perhaps offering the following as 'givens' to support how dangerous this action is to a long life:
- there is a propensity for those perpetrating this ruse to be TEMPORAL in nature/thought
- there is evidence to support the lack of long term considerations for related care and longevity across the client base (TEMPORAL mentalities seldom demonstrate real interest in long-term)
- Giving patients/clients no true understanding of lifelong outcomes; is part/parcel of the quick fixes of 'now'. Examining comorbidities first, is antithetical to selling the package
- initial data on such wholesale denigration of interdependent systems
is itself more worrisome then proponents allow for, and markedly beyond our current research/understanding.
Long story short:
The impact to longevity are/can be lethally inevitable. As a species we are too immature to grasp or manage wholesale human engineering. The stench of arrogance because we got TEK like CRISPR for Christmas a few years back, do not make the likes of 6 yr old's with Lego sets todays Frank Lloyd Wright of the genome.
The almost Faustian bargain to throw away years (if not decades) of ones life for such a deal.
Following such directives is chilling, if not as many have pointed out criminal.
The learned Doctor Faust pridefully believed he had it nailed.
But the story has not changed, as the capricious convince the vulnerable to exclaim:
One impulse art thou conscious of, at best;
O, never seek to know the other!
Two souls, alas! reside within my breast,
And each withdraws from, and repels, its brother.
One with tenacious organs holds in love
And clinging lust the world in its embraces;
The other strongly sweeps, this dust above,
Into the high ancestral spaces.
If there be airy spirits near,
’Twixt Heaven and Earth on potent errands fleeing,
It's silly to bring up professional ethics in the context of gender-affirming care, I know, but it should be obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of the concepts that expecting therapists to be "social justice advocates themselves, working to change oppressive institutes and attitudes within the culture at large" sets them up for conflicts of interest.
I'm retired now, but when I was a lawyer I understood that the rules of professional conduct required that I place the client's interest above all others except in a few clearly delineated exigent circumstances. I was not permitted to serve two masters.
First, there must be few, if any, therapists who have the academic credentials and experience to be professional social justice advocates, assuming there is even such a discipline. What that means is that at best the APA is creating a generation of free lancers who are improvising when they make therapeutic decisions aimed at "[changing] oppressive institutes and attitudes within the culture at large." (Even writing that sentence gives me heart palpitations.) There will be no consistency from one therapist to the next or within a therapist's practice. Common sense suggests that the more recently trained the therapist is, the greater the risk that their notions of social justice will lead them in foolhardy directions.
Secondly, expecting a therapist to bring about social change through their practice is simply asking too much him or her.
Finally, given that the Minority Stress Theory is almost certainly fallacious, the therapist who includes social justice among his or her therapeutic goals as a result of embracing the theory will be doing a disservice to the client. It is not an exaggeration to describe the way GAC advocates apply the Minority Stress Theory as highfalutin' gaslighting:
"Transgender, nonbinary, and/or gender expansive (TNG) people often experience structural and enacted stigma, such as a hostile sociocultural climate, discrimination, rejection, victimization, and nonaffirmation related to their gender identity or expression…Stressors also stem from the general pervasive stigma against TNG people and oppressive systems and cultural norms that seek to invalidate or eliminate them [citations omitted]. These added layers of stressors explain the heightened mental health risks documented among TNG people."
First the therapist is taken in by ideologically driven mental health theory. Then the therapist teaches it to the gender afflicted client. It's a case of the blind leading the blind.
Leor Sapir has a new article at The Daily Signal detailing the completely astounding level of conflicts of interest among the framers of the Standards of Care 8. They all have significant intellectual conflicts, including taking fees for expert witness testimony in favor of "affirming care" as well as published papers, speaker fees and status as a director of a clinic. Obviously the aforementioned involves financial conflicts of interest as well. Part 1 of my analysis:
You would think that this state of affairs would yield a field day for an aggressive and experienced litigator charged with demolishing the bogus, compromised standards of "trans" care, paving the way for holding health care professionals liable for the harm they've caused their patients by following WPATH guidelines and others.
I’ve maintained for (literally) decades that psychiatry is the origin and promulgator the idea that trans isn’t a simple idée fixe delusion, or its own category of sex delusion. This article dissects the specific departures from what is at least some sort of consensus treatment for delusions. Definitional reversals - “objective” vs “subjective”, and the unfortunate misconceptions of intersectionality.
Admittedly the little sarcasm engine that could in my head went into spirals in all directions with double queer - that was a new one on me. Immediately, I’m double gay, I like men and men like men - similar to double rainbow the ice cream, one gay on top and one on gay bottom with a philosopher’s dark band in between (or Alexander’s dark band, similar to Alexander’s Ragtime band). Those are what mental spirals look like.
Excellent articles worth reading a couple of times.
Excellent piece.
I have long believed that the psychiatric profession has abrogated its responsibility to bring critical thinking to this topic. Why does the gender dysphoria delusion get the special status of a "normal variation". The only thing that is aberrant is the "distress", and that is why the breasts are removed. Right?
The activists who have pushed to get "gender dysphoria" eliminated as a diagnosis are presumably motivated by not wanting to be seen as having a disorder. Even if they do.
Of greater concern is our recent inability to perceive objective reality. Our entire society is suffering from our elites deciding on a better reality and attempting to force it into being by punishing fact. Past occasions of an elite losing the ability to recognize reality have not ended well. We need to be more proactive about fighting this lest we wind up in re-education camps or worse.
Yes, I have read of past such movements. They do appear pathological in being so intentionally divorced from reality. Most of the cults I have known about have at least some very out there beliefs. It is realistic to be afraid of this development that has already taken hold in the U.S. and many Western nations.
They're trying to change it to "gender incongruence" now, so it's not "unease" because it just doesn't fit.
It doesn't matter. "Gender dysphoria" does not exist.
"Trans" does not exist. None of this is real.
Perhaps you posted this comment in the wrong place? Doesn't look related to my comment.
No, I'm blocked on the other one where you left a comment for me, so that's why I left it here.
I remember your name, but I don't remember what I wrote to you at the other site, or which one it was.
There’s a bug in Substack. Posts go to the wrong level quite often.
The entire system of thought around "gender" arises from the psychological makeup of the people who have "gender dysphoria," which I think is at least partly because those people predominate in the "gender medicine" specialty. In my clinical work with men who had "gender" conflicts, I found that many of them thought quite concretely about their "gender" issues. Most if not all subjective experiences around their "gender" problem were converted to physical ones ("I feel like a woman, therefore I must be one"). Thus, the solutions to the person's emotional and cognitive conflicts were felt to require physical solutions. ("I need to get a new body to fit my feelings"). People with "gender" conflicts are very similar to people who have eating disorders ("I feel bad because certain foods make me feel that way when I eat them"), and "I will be happy when I have a different body." These are examples of thinking that is not only concrete but denies the internal sources of bad feeling and focuses instead on external sources. People who think like this are typically less open to psychotherapy, because their philosophy of life emphasizes external, uncontrollable causes for their unhappiness. Psychotherapy is based on the philosophy and evidence that people do better when they "have an internal locus of control."
It becomes very hard to dissuade people stuck in this line of thinking though, because if you use terms such as “truth,” “facts,” or “objective,” they write off the argument as being an expression of power/hierarchy/oppression. The undermining of the concept of truth or reality is, in my view, the deeper issue. If we can’t agree on a shared reality or facts, then disagreements become unresolvable. I’m not actually sure how you begin to reason with someone who embraces this worldview.
Making it even trickier are that some elements of this worldview have some truth to it. For example, a person’s understanding of the world will be mediated by the lens of their experience and “positioning.” As in, although objective reality exists, an individual can never claim to have experienced or understood it in its raw form. So any statement I make about “objective reality” can reflect my subjective experience and position.
I agree that the philosophical conflict we are facing is between realists and anti-realists.
One of the most amusing aspects of radical postmodern standpoint theory is that its adherents want to say that all truth claims are reducible to someone's individual standpoint or "lens," but they are unable to understand that standpoint theory itself is just a set of thoughts constructs developed by a group of white guys in Western Europe.
I agree with you that postmodern standpoint theory includes some interesting ideas about how we perceive and describe the realities we live within. Woke people are, however, generally unable to work with concepts like "some elements of this worldview have some truth to it." They convert nuanced statements into absolutist, overgeneralized, all or nothing claims, such as, "Racism exists, so all situations in which a black person is victimized are about racism." Some people call this type of thinking "social justice fundamentalism."
Totally agree. I think the framing as "social justice fundamentalism" is the correct framing. I grew up in a very conservative religious environment where I was not taught "how" to think, but rather "what" to think. The flavour of the critical social justice movement is extremely similar to the religious conservative environment in which I grew up. The answer to the question is assumed, so instead of curiousity, they lead with this sense of certainty. But underneath that pretense is fragility and fear, which is why they can't hold nuance, grey, or tension.
As an aside, the claim "all truth claims are reducible to someone's individual standpoint" is itself a truth claim. But the circular logic here is often lost on its adherents.
Years ago a friend of mine was talking to me about her deteriorating relationship. She and her partner argued a lot about a variety of things without being able to come to an understanding or a resolution. My friend said she had discovered that all of the arguments actually boiled down to a single dispute about whether there are shades of gray or only black and white.
How can society take a man's claim to "feel like a woman" seriously enough to respond to it with therapeutic interventions such as hormones and surgeries?
It may be facile to say that no man can possibly feel like a woman because only women can feel like women. Besides, any one woman, like any single man, is only an expert their experience of being a woman or man, respectively.
But isn't that true? Doesn't it take magical thinking or some other form of non-objective, unscientific reasoning to conclude that because a man says he feels like a woman he is one? And that making physical changes to a man's body alone can somehow complete what nature meant to do but never got around to?
We know that anyone who so much as whispers thoughts of being trans racial in the white-to-black direction will be roundly scolded; if they really insist, they will be ostracized without a second thought.
This question probably comes up so often that one might say sex realists have taken to perseverating over it. Sigh.
I personally have no experiences in which I am walking around and "I feel like a woman." Some women have told me that they have an experience of "feeling like a woman," but then I learn that this terminology meant they perceived themselves as pretty and were getting male attention that day. I believe that people who have psychiatric issues around "gender" are the only people who are preoccupied with the idea that they "feel like" either sex or neither. And yes, of course I agree with you that people who can't sort out which sex they are and deal with it are, at least in that sector, not functioning well within reality. (Many of them do function very well in sectors that don't require being realistic about sexual identity).
So, how do you respond if you are challenged with something like: “Well, of course you wouldn’t notice that you feel like a woman, because you are part of the cisheteronormative oppressor group, and as such society is set up for people like you to succeed and feel comfortable. Your privilege blinds you to your own experience.”
(I obviously don’t believe this, I just encounter this line of thinking and don’t know how to respond. Especially as a white, heterosexual male, I occupy the pinnacle of the “oppressor” group, so anything I say can be dismissed as a mere expression of my privilege and power.)
There is no opening at all to respond to attacks of this type. The woke cult is a religion, and mouthing the slogans and dogmas gives the members a feeling of power that is more important to them than anything else. The string of phrases “racist, male supremacist, cisheteronormative,” etc., is the equivalent of street corner preachers yelling that you are “under the influence of Satan.”
Focusing on the content of verbal abuse is not worth anyone’s time. It is admittedly easier to shrug it off when we are in fact not “heteronormative” or “white” or whatever, but none of that really matters to the social justice activists. Glenn Loury, John McWhorter and Coleman Hughes have all said that they have been characterized as “not black,” “race traitors,” and worse, because they disagree with a lot of “anti-racist” dogma.
What matters most is that you don’t allow social justice fundamentalists to rattle your sense of yourself. They are superficial thinkers with very limited life experience, being mostly young white women from affluent, sheltered backgrounds. They have a lot of difficulties getting along with other people because of their anger issues, hysterical emotionality, and abusiveness. Ultimately, they will end up with only their self-righteousness to keep them company, because they are at least as horrible to each other as they are to the rest of us.
I love the similarity you draw between street corner preachers and CSJ proponents, and I appreciate your statement about not focusing on the content of verbal abuse. It really is the same, in that their beliefs are unfalsifiable, and that engaging with these people is a waste of time. (The authors you mentioned are great examples that even occupying the “right” categories is insufficient for acceptance)
Perhaps I extend too much grace in trying to understand, or give their voices too much weight in my own thought processes (as in, I get rattled). I think I do this because I see the nuggets of truth in their worldview and statements. For example, when someone confidently states “I know I’m not a racist,” I admire that and would like to have that same level of confidence in making a statement like that about myself. I don’t think I am racist, and I certainly strive to treat everyone with dignity and respect, regardless of their superficial characteristics.
However, can I really state that I don’t have unconscious biases toward people who are different than me, and that those unconscious biases don’t impact my treatment of others in ways of which I am not aware? Isn’t the tendency to treat people as “other” so fundamental to being human that, despite my best efforts, it will always be possible that this shows up, even unconsciously, in my behaviour?
I use “racist” here as emblematic of the various types of discrimination which CSJ adherents purport to be targeting. I also see that “softer” versions of these ideas have really taken in the general culture (I live in an urban centre in Canada), and it’s just so challenging to speak against them, even in a group of moderate progressives, because there is a general acceptance of ideas like “if you’re white, you are inherently privileged” and the like.
I advise that we give no weight at all to accusations that are shaming, punitive and absolutist, as in "You are stained with the Original Sin of your ancestors and are beyond redemption. All you can do is eternally confess your sin and put yourself last in every line." People who want to join religions that teach the doctrine of hereditary sin are of course free to embrace that belief, but no one has the right to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us.
The idea that all of us might at times prejudge individuals incorrectly and unfairly because of their group identities, is realistic and reasonable. (At the same time, "stereotypes" of groups are the best predictors of behavior of randomly selected members of those groups. This has been known by psychologists at least since I was a grad student in the 1970's). Social justice activists who attack people for being "transphobes" and the like are not, however, talking about occasional mistakes made by well-intentioned people who might be unfamiliar with the norms of a domestic or foreign subculture. In fact, most social justice activists are completely unfamiliar with the subcultures of the minority groups they claim to speak for, and they frequently push policies that these groups do not like and which affect them adversely.
Decent, mature people should reflect on feedback they receive from individuals they may have inadvertently hurt, but there are limits to this. Arrogant accusers who present their own claims with absolute certainty, who seek to legislate how everyone else should behave, and even claim to know what other peoples' unstated feelings, thoughts and intentions were in a particular situation, are individuals whose commentary is not worth our attention.
Josh — In the US, at least, Indian Americans have double the median family income of whites. Most Asian American groups also exceed whites, as do Middle Easterners and North Africans.
So much for the “pinnacle of the ‘oppressor’ group”.
Very accurate. I haven’t looked at the numbers here in Canada, but they are likely similar.
Even just selecting two minority groups - Nigerian and Ethiopian immigrants - would likely reveal a stark contrast in median wealth and education. Putting both those groups into one category would be a huge mistake if trying to correct for inequities.
There are few topics that are repugnant enough that reading about them makes me nauseous. This is one of the very very few. Even reading about Jihaadist indoctrination does not disturb me as much. I wonder how the individuals can write what is quoted here without being disturbed at the first writing.
(speaking as a doctor and surgeon) so basically the working theory is, 100% of people, including children, who experience significant “gender dysphoria” 1) their beliefs are always true and in their own best interest. and 2) the treatment is always affirmation of this belief and treatment with medication and surgery. and 0% of these people could possibly be mistaken and/or better treated with therapy to accept the body they were born in, their biological sex (and still live and express themselves however they feel). there is literally no psychological state known to man for which this could possibly be true. and the fact that alternative treatments are not being actively pursued and studied tells one all they need to know about this as ideology, dogma, agenda, not science. this is both tragic and evil.
Regardless of how much I read about this topic, I'm always surprised to find a lower rung I didn't know about or consider. The same overriding questions apply: how can so many clinicians blindly follow this obvious insanity and how do we stop it? Surely there are vastly more rational clinicians than those who align with this ludicrous movement. When we're talking about the health and well-being of children, adolescents and vulnerable adults, doesn't the moral imperative supersede concerns about career or status, especially given that finding like-minded colleagues through professional gatherings and associations shouldn't be difficult. One or two clinicians may rightly fear for their positions, but what about 100 or 500 or 1,000 or more complaints to the overseeing board? There must be some understanding that the same lawsuits that will cripple gender clinics will expand to any of the fields that are touched by this, discrediting and bringing shame and derision beyond the clinic doors to those who were merely silent. What organized push-back exists in the clinical fields and what is the status?
There is the Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine. There are other networks of people that I don't know as much about. But as a general answer, I don't hear from many colleagues who actively take a stand opposed to "gender affirmative care." Most of the national professional associations for mental health professionals are all-in with the gender ideology. Licensed mental health professionals in some states have to refrain from "trying to change a patient's gender identity," because that has become the state law.
As a psychologist in private practice, I have for several years, been disappointed and frustrated as to how many of my colleagues have just wanted to look the other way. And then the guilds themselves have been infiltrated by activists.
There is also Genspect.
I am so thankful for your work and greatly appreciate this piece. It has been just over a year since we sent our Open Letter to the American Psychiatric Association about this “textbook.” Despite over 7200 signatures, there has been no response from the APA.
A year of their inexcusable silence is deafening.
https://www.fairforall.org/open-letters/open-letter-apa/
Transhuman/virtual reality/AI/bionic human tech overlord medical industrial complex tycoons stand to profit trillions and control everyone by destroying objective truths and reality
It's a fun conspiracy, but where's the solid, indisputable truth that anyone is out to "profit trillions and control everyone by destroying objective truths and reality." Conspiratorial thinking is not going to help solve the immediate problem of dismantling gender-affirming care.
Jennifer Bilek writes extensively about the conspiracy. It’s obviously a true conspiracy given the hard push EVERYWHERE in healthcare and in the media. Calling gender affirming care gender affirming care is like calling assisted suicide for depression mental healthcare.
Didn’t we hang Nazis for tortuous “medical” experiments?
Most of the "trans" advocates were and are disproportionately Jewish. Stop crying about Nazis.
What are you babbling about?
The piece is greatly appreciated, and the detail and pragmatic approach even more so.
I've recently given thought to an area, less explored.
Perhaps offering the following as 'givens' to support how dangerous this action is to a long life:
- there is a propensity for those perpetrating this ruse to be TEMPORAL in nature/thought
- there is evidence to support the lack of long term considerations for related care and longevity across the client base (TEMPORAL mentalities seldom demonstrate real interest in long-term)
- Giving patients/clients no true understanding of lifelong outcomes; is part/parcel of the quick fixes of 'now'. Examining comorbidities first, is antithetical to selling the package
- initial data on such wholesale denigration of interdependent systems
(endocrine, brain, neuromuscular, immunological, cardiovascular)
is itself more worrisome then proponents allow for, and markedly beyond our current research/understanding.
Long story short:
The impact to longevity are/can be lethally inevitable. As a species we are too immature to grasp or manage wholesale human engineering. The stench of arrogance because we got TEK like CRISPR for Christmas a few years back, do not make the likes of 6 yr old's with Lego sets todays Frank Lloyd Wright of the genome.
The almost Faustian bargain to throw away years (if not decades) of ones life for such a deal.
Following such directives is chilling, if not as many have pointed out criminal.
The learned Doctor Faust pridefully believed he had it nailed.
But the story has not changed, as the capricious convince the vulnerable to exclaim:
One impulse art thou conscious of, at best;
O, never seek to know the other!
Two souls, alas! reside within my breast,
And each withdraws from, and repels, its brother.
One with tenacious organs holds in love
And clinging lust the world in its embraces;
The other strongly sweeps, this dust above,
Into the high ancestral spaces.
If there be airy spirits near,
’Twixt Heaven and Earth on potent errands fleeing,
Let them drop down the golden atmosphere,
And bear me forth to new and varied being!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Get me then a quill, dipped in precious blood; for this compact we shall make. (ad lib)
It's silly to bring up professional ethics in the context of gender-affirming care, I know, but it should be obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of the concepts that expecting therapists to be "social justice advocates themselves, working to change oppressive institutes and attitudes within the culture at large" sets them up for conflicts of interest.
I'm retired now, but when I was a lawyer I understood that the rules of professional conduct required that I place the client's interest above all others except in a few clearly delineated exigent circumstances. I was not permitted to serve two masters.
First, there must be few, if any, therapists who have the academic credentials and experience to be professional social justice advocates, assuming there is even such a discipline. What that means is that at best the APA is creating a generation of free lancers who are improvising when they make therapeutic decisions aimed at "[changing] oppressive institutes and attitudes within the culture at large." (Even writing that sentence gives me heart palpitations.) There will be no consistency from one therapist to the next or within a therapist's practice. Common sense suggests that the more recently trained the therapist is, the greater the risk that their notions of social justice will lead them in foolhardy directions.
Secondly, expecting a therapist to bring about social change through their practice is simply asking too much him or her.
Finally, given that the Minority Stress Theory is almost certainly fallacious, the therapist who includes social justice among his or her therapeutic goals as a result of embracing the theory will be doing a disservice to the client. It is not an exaggeration to describe the way GAC advocates apply the Minority Stress Theory as highfalutin' gaslighting:
"Transgender, nonbinary, and/or gender expansive (TNG) people often experience structural and enacted stigma, such as a hostile sociocultural climate, discrimination, rejection, victimization, and nonaffirmation related to their gender identity or expression…Stressors also stem from the general pervasive stigma against TNG people and oppressive systems and cultural norms that seek to invalidate or eliminate them [citations omitted]. These added layers of stressors explain the heightened mental health risks documented among TNG people."
First the therapist is taken in by ideologically driven mental health theory. Then the therapist teaches it to the gender afflicted client. It's a case of the blind leading the blind.
Leor Sapir has a new article at The Daily Signal detailing the completely astounding level of conflicts of interest among the framers of the Standards of Care 8. They all have significant intellectual conflicts, including taking fees for expert witness testimony in favor of "affirming care" as well as published papers, speaker fees and status as a director of a clinic. Obviously the aforementioned involves financial conflicts of interest as well. Part 1 of my analysis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsnMSpkewhU
You would think that this state of affairs would yield a field day for an aggressive and experienced litigator charged with demolishing the bogus, compromised standards of "trans" care, paving the way for holding health care professionals liable for the harm they've caused their patients by following WPATH guidelines and others.
Seems like the APA's aim is to create job security for GAC professionals through perpetual clients.
GAC seems to be the Globalists' care of depopulation,no?
Outstanding. I wish this could be in SciAm.
I’ve maintained for (literally) decades that psychiatry is the origin and promulgator the idea that trans isn’t a simple idée fixe delusion, or its own category of sex delusion. This article dissects the specific departures from what is at least some sort of consensus treatment for delusions. Definitional reversals - “objective” vs “subjective”, and the unfortunate misconceptions of intersectionality.
Admittedly the little sarcasm engine that could in my head went into spirals in all directions with double queer - that was a new one on me. Immediately, I’m double gay, I like men and men like men - similar to double rainbow the ice cream, one gay on top and one on gay bottom with a philosopher’s dark band in between (or Alexander’s dark band, similar to Alexander’s Ragtime band). Those are what mental spirals look like.
Excellent articles worth reading a couple of times.
Triple gay!
'Gender Affirming Care" is Elephantoplasty:
https://youtu.be/SnDm3HaCQeg
OMG, sadly - you are so right.
Perfect analogy!!