Here’s an excerpt from the chapter I contributed to Gender Rebels, a new anthology edited by Sybilla Claus (you can read my recent interview with Sybilla here!).
These points stood out for me and I wish someone could do a similar investigation on males wanted to be females:
"appearing isn't the same thing as being—and, over time, the difference between appearing and being starts to matter"
"To believe that you’re trans, you have to believe that there is a right and wrong way to be male or female. "
"Your sex is just something that you are, a fact about your body, that doesn’t determine what your interests are or what you want to do with your life"
"It's impossible for me to do "being a woman" wrong because it is just something I am."
Very clear and concise description of the reasons why people are getting pulled into this, and what might eventually lead them out. It gives me some ideas about things to emphasize in conversations with my daughter in hopes that she’ll eventually start to see a way out.
I just listened to a NYT piece on The Daily about the increased numbers of young women seeking breast reduction surgery (although breast augmentation remains the most common procedure) and the author, an older woman herself, interviewed many who had undergone this surgery and were almost universally happy which of course may be true for those who were actually suffering with day to day physical pain and discomfort but there was also the desire to escape the “male gaze” of sexualization and objectification as well. She noted that younger generations consume all kinds of cosmetic procedures very enthusiastically and comfortably without thinking of it as conforming to beauty standards and fashionable trends of one’s time
Instead they think of it as expressing personal autonomy and empowerment and the author mused that perhaps unlike her own generation’s preferred scenario where through maturation one achieves the ultimate satisfaction of embracing the body one has been born with and rejecting narrow definitions of beauty as well as the pressures of the “male gaze”, that has been replaced by the idea that women are making “choices for themselves”
I couldn’t help but wonder if this is a similar self-deluding narrative you are describing here and whether the test of time will allow these same women as they mature to realize that what they were actually doing was responding to external expectations after all and I suppose none of us can separate the two completely, we are all social creatures but I think it’s all too common that I hear stories of regret for average women as they age, that they didn’t love themselves more just as they were when they were younger, and didn’t appreciate what they had
Eliza, I think your writings are the only place I’ve read about the “imposter syndrome”. This seems very important to me; that these trans people will always know that they are posing as, not being, the opposite sex. I wonder if more young people could hear detransitioners talk about this, it would make a difference.
Beautiful. I wrote a piece about this myself: "How I failed to join a cult". Because for many of us, the experience of puberty is one of just not feeling able to compete on the rigid playing-field of 'girldom', shaped as it is by influencers and porn. Transition offers the illusion a back-door escape from the game, but actually the only way out is through.
Pop culture and advertising constantly send us the message that beauty is an essential part of being a woman with the subtext that beauty is a form of power. That's a toxic message for both genders. Girls don't feel they can measure up but boys want a taste of the power that comes with beauty.
This is so good! Will there be an English version of the book? (And a heads up to anyone about to look up this title on Amazon: it's a very different book with the same title there, one that celebrates gender ideology(
I'm curious about your first group. Do you think that is their end point, they still want to be male for some reason that will always be there or that is different than the reasons described in the other three groups, or are those in the first group sort of in a liminal place where one or more of those reasons from the other 3 groups has yet to be discovered or explored because the realization that they will never actually be the men they want to be is "enough" or overshadowing/distracting from the underlying reasons for why they want to be men in the first place? Or am I being too literal in how I'm thinking of these groups and one girl can actually fall into more than one group at once (for example, group one and three)? I hope that question makes sense.
I think there will be! There was interest, I know.
I don't think they're three separate groups. I think the desire to be male can persist long after a young woman has accepted reality. It's just recognized as an impossible desire.
This essay would be very helpful to parents suffering with a transitioning child. Sharing this post in PITT (Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans).
Thanks for this, Eliza. I found the idea of the perfect storm bubbling up as I read about the suffering and confusion that enchants young people, especially girls....
"This is what our minds do: make meaning. Especially when we suffer, we need meaning. And when that suffering feels senseless, we will make meaning out of whatever ideas are within our reach."
- Yes indeed. One of the ill winds adding to the storm is the terrible quality of education. The dominance of capitalist values and market forces caused us to abandon children to wage-slavery training instead of teaching them the important things adults used to know (it's been going on so long, most adults don't know them). And this is one of the biggies, the understanding that we cannot trust our intuition, and it will keep on pushing simple-sounding solutions into consciousness, dressed as genius, whether they're true or false. If kids were just innoculated with that, and taught the cure, we'd have a lot fewer problems.
And you ended on another touchstone of sanity, acceptance of who we are. Uber-capitalism has had a hand in ruining that too, when children grow up with advertising everywhere, the underlying message of which is that you're not good enough as you are.
If kids just knew that what appears reasonable is very often entirely wrong, and some git is always trying to get you to buy garbage, I think the Genderbread Piper would have had a lot harder time abducting them.
So glad to see this! I'd add that simply rebalancing how you use free time will create the openness in the mind to reconnect with the body. As a post-menopausal woman who had painful, flow-through periods only after I developed fibroids in my late 30s, I comment that we must work towards comfortable communication with gynecologists and we must help each other deal. I was fortunate enough to have my second myomectomy (surgery to remove a fibroid) with a top surgeon who preserved my uterus through laparoscopic surgery. He's actually a specialist on endometrius, which can be terribly painful and damage organs surrounding the uterus. I knew a woman who had her lung punctured by the spreading endometrial tissue. The fibroid Dr. Seckin removed from my body in 2008 was the size of my fist, basically the size of a non-pregnant uterus. If I hadn't had this procedure then, it could have detached from this internal wall and I would have likely bled out before they could save me. This is one reason it irks me so completely that my ex-husband not only claims to be "female" but also claims to be me, the mother of our now grown sons. After menopause, the lowered estrogen in my body stopped the formation of the fibroids. Here, I comment on the "gender psychologists'" utter abdication of their professional responsibilities towards women and girls and vulnerable youth through captured language in the studies, often hiding the negative results of "affirmative care."
These points stood out for me and I wish someone could do a similar investigation on males wanted to be females:
"appearing isn't the same thing as being—and, over time, the difference between appearing and being starts to matter"
"To believe that you’re trans, you have to believe that there is a right and wrong way to be male or female. "
"Your sex is just something that you are, a fact about your body, that doesn’t determine what your interests are or what you want to do with your life"
"It's impossible for me to do "being a woman" wrong because it is just something I am."
For the boys, the reasons are much the same. For both boys and girls, another key factor is medical complications.
Very clear and concise description of the reasons why people are getting pulled into this, and what might eventually lead them out. It gives me some ideas about things to emphasize in conversations with my daughter in hopes that she’ll eventually start to see a way out.
Clear, direct and true. Thank you for expressing this.
I just listened to a NYT piece on The Daily about the increased numbers of young women seeking breast reduction surgery (although breast augmentation remains the most common procedure) and the author, an older woman herself, interviewed many who had undergone this surgery and were almost universally happy which of course may be true for those who were actually suffering with day to day physical pain and discomfort but there was also the desire to escape the “male gaze” of sexualization and objectification as well. She noted that younger generations consume all kinds of cosmetic procedures very enthusiastically and comfortably without thinking of it as conforming to beauty standards and fashionable trends of one’s time
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/podcasts/the-daily/breast-reduction.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Instead they think of it as expressing personal autonomy and empowerment and the author mused that perhaps unlike her own generation’s preferred scenario where through maturation one achieves the ultimate satisfaction of embracing the body one has been born with and rejecting narrow definitions of beauty as well as the pressures of the “male gaze”, that has been replaced by the idea that women are making “choices for themselves”
I couldn’t help but wonder if this is a similar self-deluding narrative you are describing here and whether the test of time will allow these same women as they mature to realize that what they were actually doing was responding to external expectations after all and I suppose none of us can separate the two completely, we are all social creatures but I think it’s all too common that I hear stories of regret for average women as they age, that they didn’t love themselves more just as they were when they were younger, and didn’t appreciate what they had
Nice Eliza. Love the final paragraph. Sums it all up, thank you.
Brilliant and true. These young people need to have a voice as well.
Eliza, I think your writings are the only place I’ve read about the “imposter syndrome”. This seems very important to me; that these trans people will always know that they are posing as, not being, the opposite sex. I wonder if more young people could hear detransitioners talk about this, it would make a difference.
Beautiful. I wrote a piece about this myself: "How I failed to join a cult". Because for many of us, the experience of puberty is one of just not feeling able to compete on the rigid playing-field of 'girldom', shaped as it is by influencers and porn. Transition offers the illusion a back-door escape from the game, but actually the only way out is through.
Pop culture and advertising constantly send us the message that beauty is an essential part of being a woman with the subtext that beauty is a form of power. That's a toxic message for both genders. Girls don't feel they can measure up but boys want a taste of the power that comes with beauty.
Helen Joyce (UK) says that everyone is binary; being binarymeans you have a personality.
I wonder if that was, 'non-binary'.
This is so good! Will there be an English version of the book? (And a heads up to anyone about to look up this title on Amazon: it's a very different book with the same title there, one that celebrates gender ideology(
I'm curious about your first group. Do you think that is their end point, they still want to be male for some reason that will always be there or that is different than the reasons described in the other three groups, or are those in the first group sort of in a liminal place where one or more of those reasons from the other 3 groups has yet to be discovered or explored because the realization that they will never actually be the men they want to be is "enough" or overshadowing/distracting from the underlying reasons for why they want to be men in the first place? Or am I being too literal in how I'm thinking of these groups and one girl can actually fall into more than one group at once (for example, group one and three)? I hope that question makes sense.
I think there will be! There was interest, I know.
I don't think they're three separate groups. I think the desire to be male can persist long after a young woman has accepted reality. It's just recognized as an impossible desire.
This essay would be very helpful to parents suffering with a transitioning child. Sharing this post in PITT (Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans).
Thanks for this, Eliza. I found the idea of the perfect storm bubbling up as I read about the suffering and confusion that enchants young people, especially girls....
"This is what our minds do: make meaning. Especially when we suffer, we need meaning. And when that suffering feels senseless, we will make meaning out of whatever ideas are within our reach."
- Yes indeed. One of the ill winds adding to the storm is the terrible quality of education. The dominance of capitalist values and market forces caused us to abandon children to wage-slavery training instead of teaching them the important things adults used to know (it's been going on so long, most adults don't know them). And this is one of the biggies, the understanding that we cannot trust our intuition, and it will keep on pushing simple-sounding solutions into consciousness, dressed as genius, whether they're true or false. If kids were just innoculated with that, and taught the cure, we'd have a lot fewer problems.
And you ended on another touchstone of sanity, acceptance of who we are. Uber-capitalism has had a hand in ruining that too, when children grow up with advertising everywhere, the underlying message of which is that you're not good enough as you are.
If kids just knew that what appears reasonable is very often entirely wrong, and some git is always trying to get you to buy garbage, I think the Genderbread Piper would have had a lot harder time abducting them.
So glad to see this! I'd add that simply rebalancing how you use free time will create the openness in the mind to reconnect with the body. As a post-menopausal woman who had painful, flow-through periods only after I developed fibroids in my late 30s, I comment that we must work towards comfortable communication with gynecologists and we must help each other deal. I was fortunate enough to have my second myomectomy (surgery to remove a fibroid) with a top surgeon who preserved my uterus through laparoscopic surgery. He's actually a specialist on endometrius, which can be terribly painful and damage organs surrounding the uterus. I knew a woman who had her lung punctured by the spreading endometrial tissue. The fibroid Dr. Seckin removed from my body in 2008 was the size of my fist, basically the size of a non-pregnant uterus. If I hadn't had this procedure then, it could have detached from this internal wall and I would have likely bled out before they could save me. This is one reason it irks me so completely that my ex-husband not only claims to be "female" but also claims to be me, the mother of our now grown sons. After menopause, the lowered estrogen in my body stopped the formation of the fibroids. Here, I comment on the "gender psychologists'" utter abdication of their professional responsibilities towards women and girls and vulnerable youth through captured language in the studies, often hiding the negative results of "affirmative care."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwe5JkhZBEY&t=36s