I want to pull on some threads brought up by Linoak and Athena in earlier comments: the ideas of a person who is truly trans (“born in the wrong body”) and collateral damage. There is a huge question that doctors (and politicians and activists) aren’t answering and journalists aren’t asking that is KEY in this discussion. They believe there are “true trans” people who are really “born in the wrong body” (put aside for a moment any feelings you have about this belief - just accept for a moment that these people either genuinely believe or are comfortable believing it’s true). How many cases are you willing to get wrong so that the “truly trans” person can access everything they want as quickly as they want and with no obstacles or discomfort whatsoever? And what are you going to do to help those people who got the wrong treatment?
We already know they think 1% collateral damage that’s ignored and dismissed and not supported is just fine (as a small example, go to the website of the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association. Search “transgender voice” and “detransition voice” and see how many results come up for those in the two groups - transgender and detransitioner - seeking information on voice therapy). It’s time to start pinning people down with some hard, pointed questions. So what is your acceptable number of people harmed so that the “true” people get everything they want immediately and without question? 5%? 10%? 25%? *IS* there a number where someone like Jack Turban or Chase Strangio would say, “Whoa, we’re getting this wrong too often. We need to make changes.” Is there a number where the endocrinology society, the APA, the AAP, gender clinics, the ACLU, Rachel Levine, or Jeffrey Marsh would even talk about or acknowledge detransitioners, much less care about them and say they deserve respect and proper support? It seems like even the more nuanced and sympathetic commenters in the article would be unlikely to publicly voice any support or concern for detransitioners. They seem willing only to go as far as to express some reservations about the least sympathetic takes within their own self-recognized echo chamber.
I have wondered why trans-identified people are so okay with the GAC protocol. If they aren't preoccupied with denying known risks and outcomes, they should be pretty dissatisfied with it. Imagine any other medical treatment where the patients didn't want to speak up about bad outcomes, as if allowing others to suffer harm is somehow standing up for their rights… to be medically harmed? Is everything associated with this the upside down/newspeak? I get the MDs, who are the self-serving, ideological, ignorant monsters in this, but the SJW 20- and 30-somethings should get that they are indeed just collateral damage and cash cows. I would assume they'd have no problem calling it out in any other population.
"If you think you're trans then you are" and then saying "But you were never really trans" when someone regrets it - can these people not hear themselves?
However to me the buck stops with the gender-affirming model of care as fundamentally dangerous and unethical. It should be outlawed full stop, for people of all ages. People can follow whatever gender journey they like, but as soon as permanent bodily changes are considered, the medics holding the scalpels need to be damn-well sure they're doing the right thing.
And by "outlawed" don't necessarily mean via legislation, but definitely within professional bodies, as a matter of medical ethics, so that anyone practicing it is struck off. (Sadly I wonder if we will only reach that point when the number of detransitioner stories reaches a critical mass).
What I don't understand is why trans people are encouraging others to become trans. I think it's because they want to increase their numbers. But being trans is supposed to come from inside. If that's true, then encouraging people to become trans is completely illogical. Certainly, trans people must be aware that SOME of the people they are encouraging are not actually trans -- that being the case, convincing them they are trans MUST have a bad outcome.
If a gay man encourages a straight man to try gay sex, there is nothing at stake. But when a trans person encourages someone to be transgender, that person can end up sterile and/or maimed in some way. The stakes are HUGE.
I have read enough to know that there are a lot of complications with the surgeries that are being done. That in itself is a good reason to be cautious. The only good advice that anyone can give in this area is -- GO SLOW!
Brilliant as always, Eliza. Thank you. It's very interesting to see the conversations that detransitioners are sparking within the world of those still caught up in this. I hope that this is ringing ever-more alarm bells among them, and consciences about the effects their demands are having on those who fell for it or got caught up in it and regretted it.
Regarding detransitioners "taking responsibility" for their initial decisions, that viewpoint is possible only if one doesn't realize one is caught up in mass propaganda or a cult, and are being lied to that a person can have a "brain-body mismatch" which wrong-sex hormones and surgeries can resolve.
I realize my assessment is much less sophisticated than yours. I appreciate your analysis over my more superficial and not very accurate one. Thank you.
So many important points. I was glad to see more insightful comments amongst the typical oversimplifications. Blaming detransitioners comforts many into believing we are completely in control of our destinies and are completely unimpacted by others. But we are not islands, for better or worse, we are deeply impacted by the world around us and all the people in it.
Thank you, Eliza, for wading through those horrendous posts and thought processes to write this excellent article! It's amazing how convoluted some trans thinking can be. Nothing like a cult (and lifelong drug dependency and irreversible surgeries?) to make a person narrow-minded and self-protective to such a nauseating degree. Best of luck in your research and studies.
An epitaph that reminds the reader of the inevitability of death, as if to state: 'Once I was alive like you are, and you will be dead as I am now.' It was carved on the gravestones of some Roman military officers."
Betrayal Blindness is an apt term, coined perhaps by expert on narcissism, Dr. Ramani. This phenomenon is the inability to identify those responsible for acts of betrayal. The mental health field, with exceptions like Dr. Stephen B. Levine, who testifies in the malpractice cases, believes their practitioners shall never be held accountable for using shady data, such as the Dutch studies to justify practices involving a rush to "transition." I call the hubris they have "Constructed Sexologist Mystique" as they hoard their "expertise" and close eyes and ears to recent data bringing it all into question, as well as suppressing and re-choreography of studies with results they predicted, desired and structured themselves to find, but the data isn't quite so perfect.
This is really incisive. I appreciate the sanity you inject into the conversation around detransition, particularly the point about how in one commenter's viewpoint, there's no room for medical malpractice being part of the "who is responsible for harm caused" question. It's either "you're responsible" or "someone else is responsible," no in between showing what is often a much more complex, nuanced reality.
I also appreciated the quotes you pulled showing how the trans community isn't a monolith, and how some commenters discussed their own concerns about suppression and self-censorship in the community.
I want to pull on some threads brought up by Linoak and Athena in earlier comments: the ideas of a person who is truly trans (“born in the wrong body”) and collateral damage. There is a huge question that doctors (and politicians and activists) aren’t answering and journalists aren’t asking that is KEY in this discussion. They believe there are “true trans” people who are really “born in the wrong body” (put aside for a moment any feelings you have about this belief - just accept for a moment that these people either genuinely believe or are comfortable believing it’s true). How many cases are you willing to get wrong so that the “truly trans” person can access everything they want as quickly as they want and with no obstacles or discomfort whatsoever? And what are you going to do to help those people who got the wrong treatment?
We already know they think 1% collateral damage that’s ignored and dismissed and not supported is just fine (as a small example, go to the website of the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association. Search “transgender voice” and “detransition voice” and see how many results come up for those in the two groups - transgender and detransitioner - seeking information on voice therapy). It’s time to start pinning people down with some hard, pointed questions. So what is your acceptable number of people harmed so that the “true” people get everything they want immediately and without question? 5%? 10%? 25%? *IS* there a number where someone like Jack Turban or Chase Strangio would say, “Whoa, we’re getting this wrong too often. We need to make changes.” Is there a number where the endocrinology society, the APA, the AAP, gender clinics, the ACLU, Rachel Levine, or Jeffrey Marsh would even talk about or acknowledge detransitioners, much less care about them and say they deserve respect and proper support? It seems like even the more nuanced and sympathetic commenters in the article would be unlikely to publicly voice any support or concern for detransitioners. They seem willing only to go as far as to express some reservations about the least sympathetic takes within their own self-recognized echo chamber.
I have wondered why trans-identified people are so okay with the GAC protocol. If they aren't preoccupied with denying known risks and outcomes, they should be pretty dissatisfied with it. Imagine any other medical treatment where the patients didn't want to speak up about bad outcomes, as if allowing others to suffer harm is somehow standing up for their rights… to be medically harmed? Is everything associated with this the upside down/newspeak? I get the MDs, who are the self-serving, ideological, ignorant monsters in this, but the SJW 20- and 30-somethings should get that they are indeed just collateral damage and cash cows. I would assume they'd have no problem calling it out in any other population.
"If you think you're trans then you are" and then saying "But you were never really trans" when someone regrets it - can these people not hear themselves?
However to me the buck stops with the gender-affirming model of care as fundamentally dangerous and unethical. It should be outlawed full stop, for people of all ages. People can follow whatever gender journey they like, but as soon as permanent bodily changes are considered, the medics holding the scalpels need to be damn-well sure they're doing the right thing.
And by "outlawed" don't necessarily mean via legislation, but definitely within professional bodies, as a matter of medical ethics, so that anyone practicing it is struck off. (Sadly I wonder if we will only reach that point when the number of detransitioner stories reaches a critical mass).
The knots people tie themselves into to protect a cherished belief never cease to amaze me.
What I don't understand is why trans people are encouraging others to become trans. I think it's because they want to increase their numbers. But being trans is supposed to come from inside. If that's true, then encouraging people to become trans is completely illogical. Certainly, trans people must be aware that SOME of the people they are encouraging are not actually trans -- that being the case, convincing them they are trans MUST have a bad outcome.
If a gay man encourages a straight man to try gay sex, there is nothing at stake. But when a trans person encourages someone to be transgender, that person can end up sterile and/or maimed in some way. The stakes are HUGE.
I have read enough to know that there are a lot of complications with the surgeries that are being done. That in itself is a good reason to be cautious. The only good advice that anyone can give in this area is -- GO SLOW!
Brilliant as always, Eliza. Thank you. It's very interesting to see the conversations that detransitioners are sparking within the world of those still caught up in this. I hope that this is ringing ever-more alarm bells among them, and consciences about the effects their demands are having on those who fell for it or got caught up in it and regretted it.
Regarding detransitioners "taking responsibility" for their initial decisions, that viewpoint is possible only if one doesn't realize one is caught up in mass propaganda or a cult, and are being lied to that a person can have a "brain-body mismatch" which wrong-sex hormones and surgeries can resolve.
I realize my assessment is much less sophisticated than yours. I appreciate your analysis over my more superficial and not very accurate one. Thank you.
So many important points. I was glad to see more insightful comments amongst the typical oversimplifications. Blaming detransitioners comforts many into believing we are completely in control of our destinies and are completely unimpacted by others. But we are not islands, for better or worse, we are deeply impacted by the world around us and all the people in it.
Thank you, Eliza, for wading through those horrendous posts and thought processes to write this excellent article! It's amazing how convoluted some trans thinking can be. Nothing like a cult (and lifelong drug dependency and irreversible surgeries?) to make a person narrow-minded and self-protective to such a nauseating degree. Best of luck in your research and studies.
I wonder what proportion of detransitioners are trans women.
One only hears these stories about girls who set out to become boys.
Or am I wrong? This is my impression, and the reasons aren't hard to figure out if this is indeed the case.
"Fui quod es, eris quod sum":
"I once was what you are, you will be what I am
Comment
An epitaph that reminds the reader of the inevitability of death, as if to state: 'Once I was alive like you are, and you will be dead as I am now.' It was carved on the gravestones of some Roman military officers."
https://www.latin-is-simple.com/en/vocabulary/phrase/704/
"Epitaph" for transgenderism seems relevant...
Betrayal Blindness is an apt term, coined perhaps by expert on narcissism, Dr. Ramani. This phenomenon is the inability to identify those responsible for acts of betrayal. The mental health field, with exceptions like Dr. Stephen B. Levine, who testifies in the malpractice cases, believes their practitioners shall never be held accountable for using shady data, such as the Dutch studies to justify practices involving a rush to "transition." I call the hubris they have "Constructed Sexologist Mystique" as they hoard their "expertise" and close eyes and ears to recent data bringing it all into question, as well as suppressing and re-choreography of studies with results they predicted, desired and structured themselves to find, but the data isn't quite so perfect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEuTLkt_7g8
This is really incisive. I appreciate the sanity you inject into the conversation around detransition, particularly the point about how in one commenter's viewpoint, there's no room for medical malpractice being part of the "who is responsible for harm caused" question. It's either "you're responsible" or "someone else is responsible," no in between showing what is often a much more complex, nuanced reality.
I also appreciated the quotes you pulled showing how the trans community isn't a monolith, and how some commenters discussed their own concerns about suppression and self-censorship in the community.