I’ve got covid so please forgive any unusually sloppy thinking or typing (can’t blame sloppy thinking or typing that’s within my normal range on a virus). Breathtakingly dishonest article in Vox that challenges the reader to “stop worrying about what happens if we let kids transition. Worry about what happens if we don’t.” Shifting the burden of proof is what you do when you don’t have the evidence you’d need to make a real argument for radical interventions on children.
This is one of the most important articles you have written. I always knew that kids were being influenced, but you show us exactly how it is happening. There is simply no possibility that tens of thousands of kids were naturally trans and have now figured out that they can do something about it (i.e., transition). Rather, we are influencing them to THINK they are trans when they are not. Kids are extremely impressionable. All you have to do to influence them is to say, "Maybe you are trans", and they will take it from there. What saddens me is that there are so many kids who can't love themselves as they are. Thank you.
I'm pushed for time and you tell me this is one of the most important articles Eliza has written. I'm going to have to find time to read all this as that is high praise indeed!
They never address this conundrum. If there have always been this many "trans kids," (assuming arguendo that's a real thing), and they just didn't feel comfortable expressing who they were or didn't have the words, why haven't we seen massive amounts of suicides since those kids were not being socially and medically transitioned until now? According to their constant refrain, the suicide rate is through the roof (at least 41%) if trans kids are not immediately socially and medically transitioned. So where are these huge numbers of suicides up until now, and how much has the suicide rate among young people plummeted since we began offering these treatments?
this is one of the chilling issues at the cold heart of many of the suicide arguments.
until c1910 at the absolute earliest, and in reality much, much later, the idea of medical transition was nothing but a fantasy. it was physically impossible to change sex. further, sex roles in many societies were imposed with a significant amount of rigidity. this suggests that distress at being unable to live as the sex one wants should have been even higher than it is in societies like ours where there is a fair amount of flexibility in gender expression.
so where are the historical records of large numbers of suicides and attempted suicides of all these people who were not just socially barred from transitioning, but knew it was physically impossible to become who they really are? what barred the cases of actual suicide, who often left notes, letters, and other personal documents indicating their own psychological distress, from listing "I'm living in a body that is sexed the wrong way" from among the causes?
yes, there are isolated cases of this phenomenon, but they are incredibly small in number. but the trans rights argument is clear: unless a trans person can physically transition, there is a huge likelihood--up to 40% of cases or more--that they will kill themselves, or at least try to. there should be tens of thousands of such cases across all cultures and throughout history. if the trans argument is as clear and obvious as advocates say, this record should also be clear and unambiguous.
i've read a great deal of history and analysis of gender issues in European & American culture and elsewhere. there is no such evidence. to the contrary: when medical transition became possible, and moreover when it became widely discussed, THEN you started to see claims of it being necessary or people will kill themselves. first came the cart, then the horse.
one reason trans advocates can't admit this is that it suggests that social circumstances--namely the availability of technologies that make transition possible at all--profoundly impact people's gender identity. this opens a can of worms that they can't have opened. somehow it's just a coincidence that the number of people who see themselves as trans or nb exploded just when it became possible to alter one's body to conform to these ideas.
contrast this with other forms of discrimination, in which it is easy to find huge amounts of historical documentation, clearly and directly expressed, of their existence. including, as Eliza says, of gender non-conformance: that's a given. But there is very little record of people directly saying that they are not the sex they appear to be, or not any sex at all, and that being prevented from altering their bodies to align with how they see themselves in their minds is a matter of life and death.
The Atlantic article referenced in this essay clearly lays out, regarding the amputation-desiring, how the awareness of something can create an obsession with it.
SCA, your comment "how the awareness of something can create an obsession with it" puts it very well. We should also consider that the message "If you don't let kids transition, they will commit suicide" is being heard by kids, and the determination to get what they want (transitioning) or they will kill themselves is then cemented. Kids, in my opinion, are every bit as vulnerable to obsessive states as adults are. Indeed, because of their less developed brains, they may be even more obsessive than adults (but I am only guessing). One thing is for sure: We have always known that kids are obstinate.
Another message kids have gotten from trans activists is that this is a decision that SHOULD BE THEIRS, and that fuels the resentment when parents or other adults say "no". The idea that this decision should be theirs also fuels their suicidal thoughts if they don't get what they want.
As I keep saying, Anita Bryant was right that LGBT people want to convert children, but it is the T's who are doing it, not the G's. I've been a G for 60 years, and kids were never on my radar.
It was the Atlantic writer who framed it that way so I can't take credit.
I think everyone ever dealing with this issue has been wrong in one way or another, large or small. Anita Bryant couldn't distinguish between homosexuality as a normal variant in sex attraction, and the fact that anyone of any sexual attraction can be a healthy person, or unhealthy.
At this strange moment in time "trans" activists are largely very mentally fucked-up straight men working out their fantasies and their aggressions on the bodies of kids, and especially on the bodies of girls. And no one has the courage to come out and say it bluntly; everyone ties themselves in knots trying to be "respectful" and "kind" and poring through research to determine conclusions that anyone with two brain cells could state for them.
Yes, I saw that one too, and basically the seriously sexually disturbed have been allowed to take over the public square and armored against normalcy by increasingly insane legislation.
I’ve wondered about this, too—where is the evidence of sex-dysphoric people having killed themselves 100 years ago? It’s just one item in a long list of unproven claims.
On a related note, lately I’ve been wishing that someone would keep a log of all the internal contradictions, illogic, and incoherence of claims made by TRAs and gender ID ideology’s adherents. Does anyone know of such a resource?
Well, a hundred years ago people didn't obsess over the things that they thought were impossible, so even if they wished they were the other sex, they would just accept what they were. People become obsessed with their rights to choices only when they know about the choices, and only if they think someone is standing in their way. What I think kids need to be told is, "You are too young to make this decision. Once you become an adult, you may have changed your mind. And then you will be the wrong gender for the next fifty years of your life." We need to appeal to their good judgement, and to their awareness of themselves as not-fully-developed human beings who may change their minds as they age. But of course, that's not what's happening. Instead, adults who have been brainwashed by transgender ideology are pushing them towards transitioning.
I think in a discussion like this it's important to note the perspective of anyone you quote. Gill-Peterson is a transgender woman, i.e. a man trying to force others to accept him as a woman.
I'm not an expert in this subject, or even an amateur researcher, but I've been interested by how many very well-known transsexuals had extremely emotionally turbulent early lives. James--later Jan--Morris; Bruce--now Caitlyn--Jenner; Richard Raskin--later Renee Richards; Eddie Izzard who hasn't quite picked a label for himself yet and seems most anguishingly trying to bring his long-dead mother to life (and he lost her when he was six)--we've enough information on each to begin to recognize a pattern.
And now we've got the Church of the Trans Militant, which seems to be driven in its crusade by some extremely aggressive straight men shoving their pantomime down everyone's throats.
None of this of course can be said on Twitter which is why, I think, it needs to be very clearly said in any forum where we can speak clearly.
Re the final quote: perhaps the writer HAS met a child and wants that child to have the same rights as an adult. Maybe the right to consent to sex? Did anyone else get a whiff of pedophiia from that or am I going nuts?
Thank you for this article. This made me think of another article you wrote, about how in a Reddit forum they were suggesting that just by having “doubts” a person was likely trans… no wonder the numbers of trans youth are exploding, if doubting is all it takes… What a mad world we’re living in!
Been sharing the Carl Elliott article since it first appeared two decades ago, so prescient. I don't really understand why Hacking's theories aren't more widely taught in mental health education. It explains so much.
Do you know the writer Peter De Vries? He was a novelist who you might describe as haunted by his mid-century Chicago-area Dutch Calvinist upbringing. His book “The Blood of the Lamb” is one of the most moving portraits of the death of a child I’ve ever read.
Anyway his book “Slouching towards Kalamazoo” has this paragraph which nicely captures some of the ideas you shared above.
“In the beginning was the word. Once terms like identity doubts and midlife crisis become current, the reported cases of them increase by leaps and bounds, affecting people unaware there is anything wrong with them until they have got a load of the coinages. You too may have an acquaintance or even relative with a block about paperhanging or dog grooming, a highflown form of stagnation trickled down from writers and artists. Once my poor dear mother confided to me in a hollow whisper, "I have an identity crisis." I says, "How do you mean?" and she says, "I no longer understand your father." Now we have burnout, and having heard tell of it on television or read about it in a magazine, your plumber doubts he can any longer hack it as a pipefitter, while a glossary adopted by his wife has turned him overnight into a sexist, to say nothing of a male chauvinist pig, something she would never have suspected before she encountered the terminology. The word was made flesh.”
There are other ways to combat body dissociation; mind/body therapies involving Pilates, cognitive behavior therapy, Feldenkrais physical therapy, Alexander body work have been used for PTSD for decades. Here's my contribution:
This is one of the most important articles you have written. I always knew that kids were being influenced, but you show us exactly how it is happening. There is simply no possibility that tens of thousands of kids were naturally trans and have now figured out that they can do something about it (i.e., transition). Rather, we are influencing them to THINK they are trans when they are not. Kids are extremely impressionable. All you have to do to influence them is to say, "Maybe you are trans", and they will take it from there. What saddens me is that there are so many kids who can't love themselves as they are. Thank you.
I'm pushed for time and you tell me this is one of the most important articles Eliza has written. I'm going to have to find time to read all this as that is high praise indeed!
They never address this conundrum. If there have always been this many "trans kids," (assuming arguendo that's a real thing), and they just didn't feel comfortable expressing who they were or didn't have the words, why haven't we seen massive amounts of suicides since those kids were not being socially and medically transitioned until now? According to their constant refrain, the suicide rate is through the roof (at least 41%) if trans kids are not immediately socially and medically transitioned. So where are these huge numbers of suicides up until now, and how much has the suicide rate among young people plummeted since we began offering these treatments?
this is one of the chilling issues at the cold heart of many of the suicide arguments.
until c1910 at the absolute earliest, and in reality much, much later, the idea of medical transition was nothing but a fantasy. it was physically impossible to change sex. further, sex roles in many societies were imposed with a significant amount of rigidity. this suggests that distress at being unable to live as the sex one wants should have been even higher than it is in societies like ours where there is a fair amount of flexibility in gender expression.
so where are the historical records of large numbers of suicides and attempted suicides of all these people who were not just socially barred from transitioning, but knew it was physically impossible to become who they really are? what barred the cases of actual suicide, who often left notes, letters, and other personal documents indicating their own psychological distress, from listing "I'm living in a body that is sexed the wrong way" from among the causes?
yes, there are isolated cases of this phenomenon, but they are incredibly small in number. but the trans rights argument is clear: unless a trans person can physically transition, there is a huge likelihood--up to 40% of cases or more--that they will kill themselves, or at least try to. there should be tens of thousands of such cases across all cultures and throughout history. if the trans argument is as clear and obvious as advocates say, this record should also be clear and unambiguous.
i've read a great deal of history and analysis of gender issues in European & American culture and elsewhere. there is no such evidence. to the contrary: when medical transition became possible, and moreover when it became widely discussed, THEN you started to see claims of it being necessary or people will kill themselves. first came the cart, then the horse.
one reason trans advocates can't admit this is that it suggests that social circumstances--namely the availability of technologies that make transition possible at all--profoundly impact people's gender identity. this opens a can of worms that they can't have opened. somehow it's just a coincidence that the number of people who see themselves as trans or nb exploded just when it became possible to alter one's body to conform to these ideas.
contrast this with other forms of discrimination, in which it is easy to find huge amounts of historical documentation, clearly and directly expressed, of their existence. including, as Eliza says, of gender non-conformance: that's a given. But there is very little record of people directly saying that they are not the sex they appear to be, or not any sex at all, and that being prevented from altering their bodies to align with how they see themselves in their minds is a matter of life and death.
The Atlantic article referenced in this essay clearly lays out, regarding the amputation-desiring, how the awareness of something can create an obsession with it.
SCA, your comment "how the awareness of something can create an obsession with it" puts it very well. We should also consider that the message "If you don't let kids transition, they will commit suicide" is being heard by kids, and the determination to get what they want (transitioning) or they will kill themselves is then cemented. Kids, in my opinion, are every bit as vulnerable to obsessive states as adults are. Indeed, because of their less developed brains, they may be even more obsessive than adults (but I am only guessing). One thing is for sure: We have always known that kids are obstinate.
Another message kids have gotten from trans activists is that this is a decision that SHOULD BE THEIRS, and that fuels the resentment when parents or other adults say "no". The idea that this decision should be theirs also fuels their suicidal thoughts if they don't get what they want.
As I keep saying, Anita Bryant was right that LGBT people want to convert children, but it is the T's who are doing it, not the G's. I've been a G for 60 years, and kids were never on my radar.
It was the Atlantic writer who framed it that way so I can't take credit.
I think everyone ever dealing with this issue has been wrong in one way or another, large or small. Anita Bryant couldn't distinguish between homosexuality as a normal variant in sex attraction, and the fact that anyone of any sexual attraction can be a healthy person, or unhealthy.
At this strange moment in time "trans" activists are largely very mentally fucked-up straight men working out their fantasies and their aggressions on the bodies of kids, and especially on the bodies of girls. And no one has the courage to come out and say it bluntly; everyone ties themselves in knots trying to be "respectful" and "kind" and poring through research to determine conclusions that anyone with two brain cells could state for them.
agree, & it's fascinating to read that in light of this WPATH transcript posted by Wesley Yang about embracing eunuchs as a form of gender identity: https://wesleyyang.substack.com/p/of-eunuchs-and-wannabes
Yes, I saw that one too, and basically the seriously sexually disturbed have been allowed to take over the public square and armored against normalcy by increasingly insane legislation.
Exactly!
I’ve wondered about this, too—where is the evidence of sex-dysphoric people having killed themselves 100 years ago? It’s just one item in a long list of unproven claims.
On a related note, lately I’ve been wishing that someone would keep a log of all the internal contradictions, illogic, and incoherence of claims made by TRAs and gender ID ideology’s adherents. Does anyone know of such a resource?
Well, a hundred years ago people didn't obsess over the things that they thought were impossible, so even if they wished they were the other sex, they would just accept what they were. People become obsessed with their rights to choices only when they know about the choices, and only if they think someone is standing in their way. What I think kids need to be told is, "You are too young to make this decision. Once you become an adult, you may have changed your mind. And then you will be the wrong gender for the next fifty years of your life." We need to appeal to their good judgement, and to their awareness of themselves as not-fully-developed human beings who may change their minds as they age. But of course, that's not what's happening. Instead, adults who have been brainwashed by transgender ideology are pushing them towards transitioning.
I think in a discussion like this it's important to note the perspective of anyone you quote. Gill-Peterson is a transgender woman, i.e. a man trying to force others to accept him as a woman.
I'm not an expert in this subject, or even an amateur researcher, but I've been interested by how many very well-known transsexuals had extremely emotionally turbulent early lives. James--later Jan--Morris; Bruce--now Caitlyn--Jenner; Richard Raskin--later Renee Richards; Eddie Izzard who hasn't quite picked a label for himself yet and seems most anguishingly trying to bring his long-dead mother to life (and he lost her when he was six)--we've enough information on each to begin to recognize a pattern.
And now we've got the Church of the Trans Militant, which seems to be driven in its crusade by some extremely aggressive straight men shoving their pantomime down everyone's throats.
None of this of course can be said on Twitter which is why, I think, it needs to be very clearly said in any forum where we can speak clearly.
Re the final quote: perhaps the writer HAS met a child and wants that child to have the same rights as an adult. Maybe the right to consent to sex? Did anyone else get a whiff of pedophiia from that or am I going nuts?
Agreed, and I think that was in fact Eliza’s point in referring to a hard-drive check.
It was... it struck me as very odd also (what adults to be alone with???)
Thank you for this article. This made me think of another article you wrote, about how in a Reddit forum they were suggesting that just by having “doubts” a person was likely trans… no wonder the numbers of trans youth are exploding, if doubting is all it takes… What a mad world we’re living in!
Been sharing the Carl Elliott article since it first appeared two decades ago, so prescient. I don't really understand why Hacking's theories aren't more widely taught in mental health education. It explains so much.
Oh my god. If there were really this established, 50-year track record, wouldn’t Lupron be FDA approved for gender dysphoria?
Do you know the writer Peter De Vries? He was a novelist who you might describe as haunted by his mid-century Chicago-area Dutch Calvinist upbringing. His book “The Blood of the Lamb” is one of the most moving portraits of the death of a child I’ve ever read.
Anyway his book “Slouching towards Kalamazoo” has this paragraph which nicely captures some of the ideas you shared above.
“In the beginning was the word. Once terms like identity doubts and midlife crisis become current, the reported cases of them increase by leaps and bounds, affecting people unaware there is anything wrong with them until they have got a load of the coinages. You too may have an acquaintance or even relative with a block about paperhanging or dog grooming, a highflown form of stagnation trickled down from writers and artists. Once my poor dear mother confided to me in a hollow whisper, "I have an identity crisis." I says, "How do you mean?" and she says, "I no longer understand your father." Now we have burnout, and having heard tell of it on television or read about it in a magazine, your plumber doubts he can any longer hack it as a pipefitter, while a glossary adopted by his wife has turned him overnight into a sexist, to say nothing of a male chauvinist pig, something she would never have suspected before she encountered the terminology. The word was made flesh.”
Peter DeVries, Slouching Towards Kalamazoo (4)
Hope you’re not suffering too much with the ‘rona, you seem as incisive as ever. Thanks for your work
Thanks for this Eliza {and wish you better soonest}.
There are other ways to combat body dissociation; mind/body therapies involving Pilates, cognitive behavior therapy, Feldenkrais physical therapy, Alexander body work have been used for PTSD for decades. Here's my contribution:
https://wordpress.com/post/uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com/4778
Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)
Hi Eliza, I republished directly on my site. Let me know if you want it deleted. (Get well soon!)
Quite OK by me!
Yes, Eliza, get well soon. I had Omicron in February and still feel its affects. But then, I'm old.
This is a very thoughtful and incisive essay. Thank you very much, Frederick
Didn’t you just have Covid a month or so back? :(