My interview with Corinna Cohn—a writer, self-described disenchanted transsexual, co-host of the Heterodorx podcast, and lately a busy advocate for common-sense approaches to curb an ongoing medical scandal—is up at Genspect:
I'm baffled by the perspective that cosmetic surgery plays a part in achieving authenticity. The idea that one's sense of how one ought to look is "authentic" seems infinitely exploitable by the multibillion dollar cosmetic surgery industry. If that's the case, how are we to tell what's authentic versus what's imposed by the industry? Perhaps the whole idea that authenticity is achieved by changing yourself comes from the beauty industry and more generally, capitalism.
I agree with all of that. The trans concept of "authenticity" is just a conceit. It is one of the thousand lies that trans activists are persistently trying to spread. What is "authentic" is the human body in its natural state. One of the reasons I never accepted the concept of gender identity was that I learned about it long after I came to understand that human intuition is often wrong. Gender identity falls into the same category.
Personally, I'm skeptical that evidence is going to fix this. In your last post, you said that the AAP is back-tracking on their position on "affirmative" care, and one has to assume that the AAP is doing that because the evidence on its effectiveness is not there. But In the last week I've been thinking about the selfish, hysterical behavior of trans activists, and I'm afraid that any new evidence will be buried under their hysteria. Hysteria shouldn't work as a tactic, but in truth, it does work. "I'm acting hysterical because you are trying to take my right to be my 'authentic self' away from me." Let's not forget that when children decide they are transgender, they go to their parents having been prepped by trans activists on social media not to take "no" for an answer. And therein is the problem: The so-called child victims of gender dysphoria are the ones demanding these things. That they have been brain-washed and pressured on social media by trans activists (and by their own teachers!!!) isn't apparent, either to their parents or to the public at large. We all understand that children do not have the maturity to give informed consent (which is why they can't get tattoos), and yet we are all conditioned to give children what they want. I mean, there probably isn't a parent in any Western country who denies sweets to their children because sweets aren't nutritious.
I think the best tactic is to convey the experience that trans parents have with their kids -- the horror of having a kid who wants to have her breasts cut off, or his penis cut off. But even there, you have liberal parents who are thrilled to have trans kids.
The activists have been very clever in painting gender dysphoria as being an existential torture which requires immediate emergency medical care. That is very hard to fight. If you couple that with the fact that we all know our kids are looking at porn on the internet, which means they are already grown up, then the impulse is to just trust that the kid knows what is best for him or her.
Eliza, did Cohn actually say anything about being disenchanted with her own transition to being a woman? (I assume she is MTF.)
Corinna Cohn has stated openly that many like him believe they cannot detransition or speak openly about their regrets, because they are dependent on the doctors for the hormones. If they completely stop opposite sex hormones when they've had their gonads removed, their body will respond with demineralization of the bones. The care of post-surgery detransitioners is purely experimental at this point, and the medical profession abdicates responsibility. There are no data on how many are in this purgatory. My theory, as the ex-wife of a man who went through a psychiatric crisis involving crossdressing, is that this diagnosis is not stable for anyone, child or adult. My husband let his non-credentialed groomer and her "supervisor" psychologist take over the plan of his life, to the extent that "the gender therapist" told me I needed to pretend I was male during intimacy. I let them know that's not on my Ouija board, and they later claimed my decision to opt out of a kink marriage "forced him to decide to live full-time as a woman." This was in sworn affidavits in court. If I'd had the agency to gather a group of women back in 1995, to publicly, calmly put our collective female feet down and say you are not part of our sisterhood, we're never going to accept you, find a different way out, they would have. "But it's so rare," was the retort. We were essentially assured this wasn't going to affect our private spaces, our sports categories or our safety; women were told to acquiesce. We were vilified if we didn't. Revelatory data on 50 trans widows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8-3fYh3TVc&t=573s
Thanks for your compassion. I've now collected information on 51 women who divorced the demanding husband, exposing the mental health malpractice of the diagnosis. uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com, for any woman in my shoes who wants to regain her voice.
If you listen through all the episodes of Heterodorx pod, Corinna talks about his experiences with medical transition and all the things which led him down that path. The Substack PITT has all those horror stories from parents of trans identified kids, they’re trying to get them out into the world.
Cohn is just someone I hadn't heard about yet. I'll investigate his/her situation. Does Cohn now identify as a man again?
I am simply amazed that there are so many people out there who are willing to tamper with their physical bodies. Both the male and female bodies are exquisitely balanced to be exactly what they are, and human medicine isn't up to the task of altering any of it. In my case, I spent my whole life avoiding any kind of surgery or invasive procedure. I won't even have a colonoscopy (there is no history of cancer in my family, so I feel justified). A week ago, I had my first surgery -- cataract surgery. It was a tremendous success, so I have at least broken through the barrier. Until now, I have always had a "hands off" attitude towards my body (beyond trying to eat properly and such).
That's a good article. Thank you very much. I am especially surprised that it appeared in the Washington Post because the Post is "all in" on trans ideology. In fact, they are so gung-ho that I have often wondered if the owner has a trans person in his or her family.
I'm grateful whenever I learn of a new person like this speaking on this issue that I can add to the list of resources. Right now I just have been putting all my thoughts and all good links and articles in a very long draft G-Mail. I'm thinking of making spreadsheets. This article is particularly needed now as young people ditch the idea of dysphoria and are on the road to change simply because they believe themselves to be the opposite sex and therefor of course you simply change! They think that looking at the sacrifice or consequences is something only an ignorant "cis" person would do. Look at this long term transitioned person saying these things. So important.
"The position of the clergy is that children are seeking authenticity of identity, and that any barriers to medicalization are tantamount to oppression."
How can clergy know so little about human nature and development as to think that children are capable of "seeking authenticity of identity"? Are they really that credulous?
Right? And "authenticity of identity" and being "born in the wrong body" seem to go against any religion or concept of almighty God. It is such a individualistic , post-modern concept. What type of compartmentalization and mental gymnastics do these clergy members engage in?
well they are credulous- they have faith. Belief in any religion, can never be proven... ( and the fact that there are so many, show that only one of them could ever possibly be 'the true and correct one'- so all those others would be false... ). ( And BTW, would they support the right of children who wanted to be Satanists, or be part of a different religion to the one they grew up in?)
but I don't want to be too critical of them- they have their own views, and the OP is trying to work with them, and find common ground. This sounds like a good way forward.
I echo the thoughts of others - what is authentic about an identity that requires such extreme body modifications?
It feels like there should be a debate about what "authenticity" actually means. To me it's about self-acceptance - accepting your inner nature, but also accepting your physical reality, and the limits imposed by that.
It also feels a bit like the fight against appropriation of Native American spirituality of the past two decades, and people who feel they are "Indian on the inside" - thankfully more or less won, I think. I was reminded of this article from 2009, which contained this stand-out line:
"Spiritual growth isn’t about rainbows and crystals; it is about being painfully and intensely honest with yourself. It’s about knowing who you really are."
I got a bit caught up with this myself at the time. Reading this article made me think. While I would have loved to have been Native American from pre-Columbian times, I am actually a blue-eyed European with frizzy hair and a more thoroughly British ancestry than the Queen.
Maybe gender ideology is the Trickster in a new form - the spirit of Coyote, or Loki, or in Christian terms, the Serpent/Satan.
I'm baffled by the perspective that cosmetic surgery plays a part in achieving authenticity. The idea that one's sense of how one ought to look is "authentic" seems infinitely exploitable by the multibillion dollar cosmetic surgery industry. If that's the case, how are we to tell what's authentic versus what's imposed by the industry? Perhaps the whole idea that authenticity is achieved by changing yourself comes from the beauty industry and more generally, capitalism.
I agree with all of that. The trans concept of "authenticity" is just a conceit. It is one of the thousand lies that trans activists are persistently trying to spread. What is "authentic" is the human body in its natural state. One of the reasons I never accepted the concept of gender identity was that I learned about it long after I came to understand that human intuition is often wrong. Gender identity falls into the same category.
Personally, I'm skeptical that evidence is going to fix this. In your last post, you said that the AAP is back-tracking on their position on "affirmative" care, and one has to assume that the AAP is doing that because the evidence on its effectiveness is not there. But In the last week I've been thinking about the selfish, hysterical behavior of trans activists, and I'm afraid that any new evidence will be buried under their hysteria. Hysteria shouldn't work as a tactic, but in truth, it does work. "I'm acting hysterical because you are trying to take my right to be my 'authentic self' away from me." Let's not forget that when children decide they are transgender, they go to their parents having been prepped by trans activists on social media not to take "no" for an answer. And therein is the problem: The so-called child victims of gender dysphoria are the ones demanding these things. That they have been brain-washed and pressured on social media by trans activists (and by their own teachers!!!) isn't apparent, either to their parents or to the public at large. We all understand that children do not have the maturity to give informed consent (which is why they can't get tattoos), and yet we are all conditioned to give children what they want. I mean, there probably isn't a parent in any Western country who denies sweets to their children because sweets aren't nutritious.
I think the best tactic is to convey the experience that trans parents have with their kids -- the horror of having a kid who wants to have her breasts cut off, or his penis cut off. But even there, you have liberal parents who are thrilled to have trans kids.
The activists have been very clever in painting gender dysphoria as being an existential torture which requires immediate emergency medical care. That is very hard to fight. If you couple that with the fact that we all know our kids are looking at porn on the internet, which means they are already grown up, then the impulse is to just trust that the kid knows what is best for him or her.
Eliza, did Cohn actually say anything about being disenchanted with her own transition to being a woman? (I assume she is MTF.)
Corinna Cohn has stated openly that many like him believe they cannot detransition or speak openly about their regrets, because they are dependent on the doctors for the hormones. If they completely stop opposite sex hormones when they've had their gonads removed, their body will respond with demineralization of the bones. The care of post-surgery detransitioners is purely experimental at this point, and the medical profession abdicates responsibility. There are no data on how many are in this purgatory. My theory, as the ex-wife of a man who went through a psychiatric crisis involving crossdressing, is that this diagnosis is not stable for anyone, child or adult. My husband let his non-credentialed groomer and her "supervisor" psychologist take over the plan of his life, to the extent that "the gender therapist" told me I needed to pretend I was male during intimacy. I let them know that's not on my Ouija board, and they later claimed my decision to opt out of a kink marriage "forced him to decide to live full-time as a woman." This was in sworn affidavits in court. If I'd had the agency to gather a group of women back in 1995, to publicly, calmly put our collective female feet down and say you are not part of our sisterhood, we're never going to accept you, find a different way out, they would have. "But it's so rare," was the retort. We were essentially assured this wasn't going to affect our private spaces, our sports categories or our safety; women were told to acquiesce. We were vilified if we didn't. Revelatory data on 50 trans widows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8-3fYh3TVc&t=573s
Thanks for your informative post, Ute. There is no doubt that you have been through hell.
Thanks for your compassion. I've now collected information on 51 women who divorced the demanding husband, exposing the mental health malpractice of the diagnosis. uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com, for any woman in my shoes who wants to regain her voice.
If you listen through all the episodes of Heterodorx pod, Corinna talks about his experiences with medical transition and all the things which led him down that path. The Substack PITT has all those horror stories from parents of trans identified kids, they’re trying to get them out into the world.
Cohn is just someone I hadn't heard about yet. I'll investigate his/her situation. Does Cohn now identify as a man again?
I am simply amazed that there are so many people out there who are willing to tamper with their physical bodies. Both the male and female bodies are exquisitely balanced to be exactly what they are, and human medicine isn't up to the task of altering any of it. In my case, I spent my whole life avoiding any kind of surgery or invasive procedure. I won't even have a colonoscopy (there is no history of cancer in my family, so I feel justified). A week ago, I had my first surgery -- cataract surgery. It was a tremendous success, so I have at least broken through the barrier. Until now, I have always had a "hands off" attitude towards my body (beyond trying to eat properly and such).
I wanted to learn more about them too and found this article. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/11/i-was-too-young-to-decide-about-transgender-surgery-at-nineteen/
That's a good article. Thank you very much. I am especially surprised that it appeared in the Washington Post because the Post is "all in" on trans ideology. In fact, they are so gung-ho that I have often wondered if the owner has a trans person in his or her family.
I'm grateful whenever I learn of a new person like this speaking on this issue that I can add to the list of resources. Right now I just have been putting all my thoughts and all good links and articles in a very long draft G-Mail. I'm thinking of making spreadsheets. This article is particularly needed now as young people ditch the idea of dysphoria and are on the road to change simply because they believe themselves to be the opposite sex and therefor of course you simply change! They think that looking at the sacrifice or consequences is something only an ignorant "cis" person would do. Look at this long term transitioned person saying these things. So important.
"The position of the clergy is that children are seeking authenticity of identity, and that any barriers to medicalization are tantamount to oppression."
How can clergy know so little about human nature and development as to think that children are capable of "seeking authenticity of identity"? Are they really that credulous?
Right? And "authenticity of identity" and being "born in the wrong body" seem to go against any religion or concept of almighty God. It is such a individualistic , post-modern concept. What type of compartmentalization and mental gymnastics do these clergy members engage in?
"What type of compartmentalization and mental gymnastics do these clergy members engage in?"
One in which progressive notions of social justice take precedence in case of conflict with doctrine.
well they are credulous- they have faith. Belief in any religion, can never be proven... ( and the fact that there are so many, show that only one of them could ever possibly be 'the true and correct one'- so all those others would be false... ). ( And BTW, would they support the right of children who wanted to be Satanists, or be part of a different religion to the one they grew up in?)
but I don't want to be too critical of them- they have their own views, and the OP is trying to work with them, and find common ground. This sounds like a good way forward.
I echo the thoughts of others - what is authentic about an identity that requires such extreme body modifications?
It feels like there should be a debate about what "authenticity" actually means. To me it's about self-acceptance - accepting your inner nature, but also accepting your physical reality, and the limits imposed by that.
It also feels a bit like the fight against appropriation of Native American spirituality of the past two decades, and people who feel they are "Indian on the inside" - thankfully more or less won, I think. I was reminded of this article from 2009, which contained this stand-out line:
"Spiritual growth isn’t about rainbows and crystals; it is about being painfully and intensely honest with yourself. It’s about knowing who you really are."
http://astheteachingdrumturns.blogspot.com/2009/09/recognizing-nuage-tricksters.html
I got a bit caught up with this myself at the time. Reading this article made me think. While I would have loved to have been Native American from pre-Columbian times, I am actually a blue-eyed European with frizzy hair and a more thoroughly British ancestry than the Queen.
Maybe gender ideology is the Trickster in a new form - the spirit of Coyote, or Loki, or in Christian terms, the Serpent/Satan.