This is a remarkable list of ‘tips’ for parents of gender-questioning kids for New York Magazine to recirculate this summer, just two months after the Final Cass Report dropped. Think of it as a time capsule of sorts: take it offline and bury it in the front yard, to dig up in a hundred years when all of this will make exactly as much sense as any of it would have made 15 years ago (no sense at all).
What's so strange to me is how anyone can look at this and think "sure, this checks out." The first stage of my peaking was when I first heard about the concept of non-binary. Having been somewhat sympathetic to (and interested in!) a more traditional view of transexualism, going as far back as my teen years in the 90s, "non-binary" did not strike me as an extension of that at all, but as something else entirely. Something so obviously ridiculous.
While I've become increasingly skeptical that transistion really helps anyone, you can at least make a case for it if it's rare (because humans are a weird species, so why not). It makes no sense at all that any of this would be common, nor that everyone's "true" gender (sex) would exist separetely from their sexed bodies. There exists a version of trans that makes sense (as a treatment for *something*, though certainly not literally being born in the wrong body) , but this is not it.
And I don't understand how really anyone of average intelligence could come to believe that we would be so different from every other mammal on the planet. This is no better than creationism. And while I fear it may take a solid decade for this to leave the mainstream, I have never in my life been more certain of anything than the falsehoods of this belief system.
"The first stage of my peaking was when I first heard about the concept of non-binary."
I could've sworn non-binary existed as a term before it's association with Transgenderism. I'm certain I first learned of it back in the early 00s (in my late teens, so it could've been around longer), but back then it just referred to someone who didn't see themselves as particularly masculine or feminine. Someone who liked unisex clothes and androgynous styles.
"This is no better than creationism. And while I fear it may take a solid decade for this to leave the mainstream"
As someone who was an obnoxious nu-atheist back in the 00s I think Transgenderism is worse that Creationism, not just because it's been far more successful (at least within my lifetime). Creationism is at least arguing about the nature of the distant past, Transgenderism asks us to deny the evidence of our own eyes and day to day experiences. Imo it's so dystopian and absurd that it beats 2+2=5 from 1984 to the point where you could take the 2+2=5 parts from the book and swap them for a prolonged scene where Winston is forced to call a naked man a woman and refer to "her penis" and it would be even more chilling than it was with the simple math.
"I think Transgenderism is worse that Creationism, not just because it's been far more successful (at least within my lifetime). Creationism is at least arguing about the nature of the distant past, Transgenderism asks us to deny the evidence of our own eyes and day to day experiences."
The term, nor the notion “non binary” did not exist; no one who chose not to conform with sex stereotypes denied their biological sex or said they didn’t have one.
I am no longer pretending that non binary is an actual “thing”; it isn’t.
The concept did exist, but it was more niche and debated. In the communities I hung around in at least, it was very rare to see someone waving the pink&blue flag.
Source: getting indoctrinated in the mid-noughties 🙃
This makes me so angry. The distortion of reality, the insidious messaging that a good parent would "believe" their child - it's so pseudo-religious, the only difference being that this particular religion, unlike most religions (and this is coming from someone who actively rejects all religion) is only about one's sense of self and has no broader application to the world, connecting individuals to each other - it's evil in disguise. It reminds me of Umbridge in Harry Potter, who would smile broadly and wear pink suits while she tortured her students.
As a parent who did not affirm and received nothing but hatred and vitriol from my daughter - but who believes I did the right thing and at least prevented her from destroying her body for 5 years until she reached 18 - I can state that this messaging is used by children like mine to support the notion that their non-affirming parents are evil, deserving of zero respect, and not to be listened to. So I have lots of reasons to be angry at the messaging.
As I was writing this comment, the news was on the background, and they just announced that "It may become illegal for transgender women to play sports in Nassau County." This is yet another distortion. They could have announced "it may soon become illegal for males to play on sports teams for females" - which was the law pretty much everywhere until about 5 or 6 years ago. This is the state of unreality we are living in.
"As I was writing this comment, the news was on the background, and they just announced that 'It may become illegal for transgender women to play sports in Nassau County.' "
It will not be at all surprising if, as this story is told and retold in other media outlets, it will eventually be described to readers falsely as an "assault on LGBTQIA+ rights." Compounded unreality.
Last week The Oregonian reported that a suburban high school track and field coach was fired for opposing the participation of so-called trans girls in girls'-only athletic events. In my protest letters, I identified myself as a gay man to disrupt the belief among progressives that all gays are natural allies of the trans cause.
There's just so much here that should raise red flags.
"There is plenty of rhetoric out there that might encourage a parent to question their child in this moment that’s designed to scare them into inaction or, worse, outright rejection. There is less guidance for those who choose to believe their children."
- Asking any questions equals rejection? You shouldn't ask any questions because my "scare" your child and caused them to maybe reconsider or slow down?
- There's "less" guidance for those "who choose to believe?" Affirmation only is the only guidance given by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the National Education Association, the US Government, the top hits on any google search, and every main stream parenting and news organization out there. Already this author is not giving an accurate story.
"we found that many big-picture questions have pretty straightforward answers. That includes the hard stuff, too, like how they weighed medical decisions"
- Beware anyone who tells you that parenting and complicated medical decisions for your child - the "hard stuff" - have "straightforward answers."
"A shift was happening in my relationship with my daughter. She breathed easier, smiled more, and would spontaneously burst out with “I love you, Mommy!”"
- Parents everywhere know that all your parenting decisions should be guided by whatever creates the path of least resistance with your child, makes them smile, and makes them burst out with "I love you, Mommy!" We should never say no to our children about something giving us serious misgivings because we fear it might make them frown at us and say they don't like us.
The red flags are waving all over this piece yet so many people will just nod along and ignore all those little thoughts telling them something is not right because they're supposed to just trust what they're being told on this issue.
“Every decision is going to have side effects” is a poor reason to cheerlead your child's choice to become a permanent medical patient for the sake of appearing to be a member of the opposite sex.
I'm a permanent medical patient thanks to my shit show of an endocrine system. I tend to be very conservative with decisions about my health care, favoring the least disruptive and invasive options.
I take NP Thyroid although Medicare refuses to pay for it. They want me to take Synthroid, but Synthroid nearly put me in the ER because it caused blood pressure spikes and tachycardia.
I use insulin injections because chronic elevated blood glucose causes the body to break down rapidly. Metformin is the preferred oral treatment for diabetes, but I stopped taking it because I don't enjoy pooping my pants. I take Januvia and have no problems with it.
Similarly, I stopped taking Atorvastatin because I don't enjoy pooping my pants. Resuvistatin doesn't cause this problem.
I opted for the two antihypertensive medications that cause the fewest side effects.
I opted not to have a hysterectomy even though my GP, my OB/GYN, and the gynecological oncologist who would have performed the surgery were all gung-ho for me to have one, mostly because I'm an old bat who no longer has the potential to pump out babies. I was experiencing post-menopausal bleeding. The D&C with hysteroscopy revealed multiple small fibroids and polyps in my uterus.
The biopsy also revealed that I had simple endometrial hyperplasia with normal cells. This means I have a 1.6 percent (that's one point six percent) greater chance than a woman with no hyperplasia to develop endometrial cancer. I felt that the risks from the surgery outweighed the slightly elevated risk of my developing endometrial cancer, so I opted against the surgery.
Even though I find it discouraging, not to mention misogynistic, that removal of reproductive organs is the medical advice of choice for older women (doctors would never suggest a man should have his testicles removed for a slightly elevated risk of testicular cancer) at least the suggestion of a hysterectomy makes some sense for a woman in my position. Throwing the endocrine systems of confused adolescent girls into a state of imbalance and suggesting these girls can "become boys" via the removal of their healthy breasts and reproductive organs is unconscionable. All this is done without even exploring why these girls think they want to be boys.
I would not want the advice of someone calling themselves "genderqueer" on what to have for dinner, let alone on whether I should follow the advice of the Gender Woo Woo Clowns and march a vulnerable and troubled child to the gender clinic to help them start down the path to mutilation and endocrine disruption.
Wisdom can come by age, life's accomplishments, & esp. in my case mistakes. I hope individuals parents and families etc. can see gender ideology as just that;an ideology not truth. Please examine the Cass Report ,the WPATH files and from testimonies of those who gender transitioned and discovered the truth. Biology is male and female and that is reality. I'm a castrated man with a now closed surgical neovagina and breasts by female hormones. My wisdom is acquired by my mistakes H'mm maybe my balls are coming back(in Spirit)!
Wow, such a frank account of Manchausen by Proxy... I agree, I've been in those subreddits, probably off the back of your posts and it doesn't take long in those subs to see the confusion. It's tragic how everybody enables everyone else in the self-selecting echo chamber. People volunteer to be part of the vortex that will also swallow them up.
I don’t think it’s MBP because the acquiescence to the “process” is based in fear — scaring the parent (usually mom) into believing that the irreparable harm is in not aiding and abetting the transition (“if I don’t override my intuition, my child will DIE!”).
And once the process begins, the cognitive dissonance that happens—the conflict between intuitive sense and the process unfolding before their eyes—can only be quieted by loudly asserting the correctness of the decision.
Sure, some nutzo parents (usually moms) initiate the transition for MBP reasons, but the majority of youth transitioning is achieved through gaslighting.
"You’re walking to the bus stop, and your child tells you they want to wear a dress to school. Or they want a buzz cut. Or to paint their nails. Or maybe they tell you they’re transgender, or gender-queer, or trying to figure out if they’re a girl, a boy, or somewhere in between."
In 2024, any child who tells a parent that "they’re transgender, or gender-queer, or trying to figure out if they’re a girl, a boy, or somewhere in between" has been indoctrinated in gender identity ideology somewhere, most likely at school. As topics of spontaneous child-initiated conversations go, it's as plausible as an eight-year-old asserting that free will is an illusion. The framing of the hypothetical talk on the way to the school bus shows that the writers and editors of New York Magazine have so thoroughly internalized the trans world view that they've lost touch with reality to a certain extent. I expect most of the readers have too.
I suspect that insurance fraud is fairly widespread and not just with Medicaid. I don’t understand why there has not been more pushback from commercial insurance. In my experience (working for a major US hospital on insurance-related matters), they are usually looking for any pretext they can to deny claims.
It could be a hidden vulnerability for the trans lobby. It deserves more journalistic attention.
I feel like the way to attack this stuff is to attack it at the moral value (let boys and girls feel/act how they feel while still being boys and girls) that lies behind the "empirical sounding but devoid of coherent propositional content" gender identity bullshit. We have to figure out how to separate in the minds of these idiots the value of "there is no right way to be a boy or a girl, just "better than guessing" heuristics with a bases in biology, but not rigidly defined by it" from the destructive "people who are gender nonconforming are something other than their sex". So many people I talk to in academia think that these two things must go together and they think the only people against gender identity ideology are "Men should act like men and women should act like women or else Jesus cries" people. This is why I am skeptical of gender critical people allying with religious fundamentalists on this issue since the latter have alterior motives, were they in charge, just as damaging as the woke gender identity people and the normies we need to convince can easily see it.
I canceled my subscription to a Substack for the parents of trans individuals because of the excessive incidence of religiousity in the comments and right-wing conspiracy mongering that attributes the trans phenomenon to "cultural Marxism."
In fact, I criticized Genspect for having the chief proponent of cultural Marxism, James Lindsay, as a speaker at its conference in Denver of last year. Not only is Lindsay an extremely unpleasant and offensive individual, but his view that cultural Marxism is responsible for all that's terrible about progressive policies and programs is wildly off the mark. I was disappointed that Genspect did not respond. Stonewalling is a trans activist tactic, or so I thought.
I have long maintained gender critical activists can't afford to consort with right-wing critics of gender identity ideology such as Chris Rufo or James Lindsay because their toxicity will alienate otherwise persuadable people on the moderate left. I have been surprised by the amount of criticism my view has elicited.
Agree. Rufo is a crude political operative with an ugly right-wing populist agenda. Lindsay is glib and reckless and lacks any genuine philosophical spirit. My view is that they can say and writes what they please, but neither warrants my attention. The best gender-critical things I've read have come from the likes of Julie Bindel, Kathleen Stock, and our present host. The best journalism on the topic has come from writers like Jesse Singal, Katie Herzog, and Helen Lewis. There are others, but these come to mind most immediately.
Exactly - people like Rufo and Lindsey are actively harming the cause as both believe not in broad tolerance and free expression within a sex realist framework, but just seizing the apparatus to push some other ideological views. I have no idea what happened to Lindsey. He is unlistenable now. Rufo has always been a fraud - he has always struck me the same way Ralph Reed did in the 80's - just a political climber. Just look at what these anti-woke do when they get the institutional power - the new boss is the same as the old boss. I think one of the problems might be that some of these people who can't see what Rufo is live in Blue areas and have never been in a place that is largely Evangelical Christian - they don't get that these people are every bit as bad as the woke when they get anywhere near power by fiat.
I used to be a Lindsey fan back in the day, but something happened to melt that guy's brain. His more recent opinions is one thing - kind of a one trick pony that guy (and it's not a very compelling trick) - but the way he started talking to people online is what initially put me off. Very ironic for the guy who co-wrote "How to Have Impossible Conversations" to turn to online "screaming."
I would say the answer lies in the original meaning of gender critical, which was a feminist critique of gender, but TERFs have been so effectively demonized among the normies that they won't even listen to our arguments. They just call us evil bigots and "bioessentialists" for daring to state that women are female and our bodies matter. I don't know if this is a willful misunderstanding or if they are, as you say, simply idiots who let the crowd they'd prefer to be in with do their thinking for them. It feels like an intractable three sided conflict. As a feminist I personally wouldn't ally with antifeminists and gender conservatives for a "win" over the trans zealots, but I suppose I can see how others would make a different calculation.
I am not sure if that is true - I have talked to so many people in my field (academic libraries) that aren’t explicitly pronoun people/blue haired that are normal liberals and I can tell they have just been pushed downriver with this current just because this seems like the stuff you have to believe to not be a “God hates Gays” person. I have conversations about this stuff as my niece got caught up in this madness to destructive ends and most of them haven’t thought much about what any of this gender ideology stuff means empirically, just that it signals the right values.
My social circle is probably in roughly the same bougie liberal cultural tier, and I can see that's how they ended up at their current positions. But they seem so resistant to having any kind of heterodox conversation about it, I don't know if I could even get them to the point of thinking through the ramifications. Kudos to you for talking to people about it. Other than some close family members, I haven't felt it was worth the risk of dropping a bomb into a relationship. A close friend's lesbian niece (legally an adult but very immature, lives with her) is on this destructive path, and while I sensed my friend had doubts I gently prodded them, but she's fully capitulated now and signaled resistance is no longer welcome.
I think Scott Atran’s observation about religious faith and the tenuous relationship between beliefs and what we think of as “propositional content” fits gender ideology perfectly. Like with religion, I am not sure, for most believers, how much of their beliefs have much to do with “propositional content”. Replace religious beliefs with gender identity beliefs here and I think we are starting to grasp the phenomenon.
“Religious beliefs, in being absurd (whether or not they are recognized as such), cannot even be processed as comprehensible because their semantic content is contradictory (for example, a bodiless but physically powerful and sentient being, a deity that is one in three, etc). It is precisely the ineffable nature of core religious beliefs that accounts, in part, for their social and political adaptability over time in helping to bond and sustain groups In fact, it is the ecstasy-provoking rituals that Harris describes as being associated with such beliefs which renders them immune to the logical and empirical scrutiny that ordinarily accompanies belief verification.”
Yes, there are those propositions that are "believed" (or paid lip service) because they're so insane they "must be true." Virgin birth. Born in the wrong body. There's usually a deep desire and a trusted authority figure, too, to terminate the thinking or twist it somewhere unreasonable.
At this point I have to say I do blame the doctors. Doctors should have been telling "therapists" that the risks are too high, the evidence too weak, the follow-up too sketchy. The medical profession has truly sullied itself. They might as well be telling families to go ahead and give your child money to buy heroin.
Yikes. 😬 Freeing from what? Do you think some of these parents are looking for an easy way out from coping with their seriously mentally ill kids? It’s like some of them think they can skip the whole “my kid has no friends and an anxiety disorder and also budding depression” if they just trans them. This is why I have serious reservations about the new Abigail Shrier book (which I haven’t read yet but will)- some kids need a whole lot MORE therapy and at a young age. And it can be hard for parents to face that and then find proper, legit help.
I recommend the book 💯- therapy for serious trauma yes but todays therapists can send your kids down the gender rabbit hole if they ask your kids how do they feel in their body- who feels good in their body during puberty?? It’s the power of suggestion from well meaning but misguided therapists that is the problem as well as rumination on negative thoughts and feelings that can cause more spiraling.
I haven't read the book yet either, so I won't comment on that. I don't think the problem is that kids are getting too much therapy---I think the problem is they're getting drugs and affirmation without enough therapy (or any therapy at all) to address the underlying problems they're having.
"Expert permission" is not a phrase I ever wish to hear again.
This is another strand of this that I hate - the idea that your intuitions, feelings, knowledge of biology, self, and child can and should be set aside because a well-credentialed (in truth or at least appearance) tells you otherwise.
I am a Dad to three little girls and I can say from experience that almost without fail its when I ignore my instincts that things go sideways. Knowing that parents are advised to ignore their instincts makes me queasy.
It’s disturbing to me that anyone thinks a kid can consent to changing their sex. How many kids have actually seen the opposite sex organ in real life? I’m biologically female and didn’t see an actual penis until I was 16. How can a kid consent to changing something they can’t understand yet? Those who think kids understand enough that they can consent to change sex, do they also think kids can consent to having sex? The content I see on Reddit is especially disturbing. the entire movement is in denial about the sexual nature of being trans, and it’s just not appropriate for children.
What's so strange to me is how anyone can look at this and think "sure, this checks out." The first stage of my peaking was when I first heard about the concept of non-binary. Having been somewhat sympathetic to (and interested in!) a more traditional view of transexualism, going as far back as my teen years in the 90s, "non-binary" did not strike me as an extension of that at all, but as something else entirely. Something so obviously ridiculous.
While I've become increasingly skeptical that transistion really helps anyone, you can at least make a case for it if it's rare (because humans are a weird species, so why not). It makes no sense at all that any of this would be common, nor that everyone's "true" gender (sex) would exist separetely from their sexed bodies. There exists a version of trans that makes sense (as a treatment for *something*, though certainly not literally being born in the wrong body) , but this is not it.
And I don't understand how really anyone of average intelligence could come to believe that we would be so different from every other mammal on the planet. This is no better than creationism. And while I fear it may take a solid decade for this to leave the mainstream, I have never in my life been more certain of anything than the falsehoods of this belief system.
"The first stage of my peaking was when I first heard about the concept of non-binary."
I could've sworn non-binary existed as a term before it's association with Transgenderism. I'm certain I first learned of it back in the early 00s (in my late teens, so it could've been around longer), but back then it just referred to someone who didn't see themselves as particularly masculine or feminine. Someone who liked unisex clothes and androgynous styles.
"This is no better than creationism. And while I fear it may take a solid decade for this to leave the mainstream"
As someone who was an obnoxious nu-atheist back in the 00s I think Transgenderism is worse that Creationism, not just because it's been far more successful (at least within my lifetime). Creationism is at least arguing about the nature of the distant past, Transgenderism asks us to deny the evidence of our own eyes and day to day experiences. Imo it's so dystopian and absurd that it beats 2+2=5 from 1984 to the point where you could take the 2+2=5 parts from the book and swap them for a prolonged scene where Winston is forced to call a naked man a woman and refer to "her penis" and it would be even more chilling than it was with the simple math.
"I think Transgenderism is worse that Creationism, not just because it's been far more successful (at least within my lifetime). Creationism is at least arguing about the nature of the distant past, Transgenderism asks us to deny the evidence of our own eyes and day to day experiences."
Very well put.
Of course people were androgynous before 2000.
The term, nor the notion “non binary” did not exist; no one who chose not to conform with sex stereotypes denied their biological sex or said they didn’t have one.
I am no longer pretending that non binary is an actual “thing”; it isn’t.
The concept did exist, but it was more niche and debated. In the communities I hung around in at least, it was very rare to see someone waving the pink&blue flag.
Source: getting indoctrinated in the mid-noughties 🙃
This makes me so angry. The distortion of reality, the insidious messaging that a good parent would "believe" their child - it's so pseudo-religious, the only difference being that this particular religion, unlike most religions (and this is coming from someone who actively rejects all religion) is only about one's sense of self and has no broader application to the world, connecting individuals to each other - it's evil in disguise. It reminds me of Umbridge in Harry Potter, who would smile broadly and wear pink suits while she tortured her students.
As a parent who did not affirm and received nothing but hatred and vitriol from my daughter - but who believes I did the right thing and at least prevented her from destroying her body for 5 years until she reached 18 - I can state that this messaging is used by children like mine to support the notion that their non-affirming parents are evil, deserving of zero respect, and not to be listened to. So I have lots of reasons to be angry at the messaging.
As I was writing this comment, the news was on the background, and they just announced that "It may become illegal for transgender women to play sports in Nassau County." This is yet another distortion. They could have announced "it may soon become illegal for males to play on sports teams for females" - which was the law pretty much everywhere until about 5 or 6 years ago. This is the state of unreality we are living in.
"As I was writing this comment, the news was on the background, and they just announced that 'It may become illegal for transgender women to play sports in Nassau County.' "
It will not be at all surprising if, as this story is told and retold in other media outlets, it will eventually be described to readers falsely as an "assault on LGBTQIA+ rights." Compounded unreality.
Last week The Oregonian reported that a suburban high school track and field coach was fired for opposing the participation of so-called trans girls in girls'-only athletic events. In my protest letters, I identified myself as a gay man to disrupt the belief among progressives that all gays are natural allies of the trans cause.
Good for you for responding! I try too when possible, but there are so many of these distortions of truth out there, it's hard to keep up!
There's just so much here that should raise red flags.
"There is plenty of rhetoric out there that might encourage a parent to question their child in this moment that’s designed to scare them into inaction or, worse, outright rejection. There is less guidance for those who choose to believe their children."
- Asking any questions equals rejection? You shouldn't ask any questions because my "scare" your child and caused them to maybe reconsider or slow down?
- There's "less" guidance for those "who choose to believe?" Affirmation only is the only guidance given by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the National Education Association, the US Government, the top hits on any google search, and every main stream parenting and news organization out there. Already this author is not giving an accurate story.
"we found that many big-picture questions have pretty straightforward answers. That includes the hard stuff, too, like how they weighed medical decisions"
- Beware anyone who tells you that parenting and complicated medical decisions for your child - the "hard stuff" - have "straightforward answers."
"A shift was happening in my relationship with my daughter. She breathed easier, smiled more, and would spontaneously burst out with “I love you, Mommy!”"
- Parents everywhere know that all your parenting decisions should be guided by whatever creates the path of least resistance with your child, makes them smile, and makes them burst out with "I love you, Mommy!" We should never say no to our children about something giving us serious misgivings because we fear it might make them frown at us and say they don't like us.
The red flags are waving all over this piece yet so many people will just nod along and ignore all those little thoughts telling them something is not right because they're supposed to just trust what they're being told on this issue.
“Every decision is going to have side effects” is a poor reason to cheerlead your child's choice to become a permanent medical patient for the sake of appearing to be a member of the opposite sex.
I'm a permanent medical patient thanks to my shit show of an endocrine system. I tend to be very conservative with decisions about my health care, favoring the least disruptive and invasive options.
I take NP Thyroid although Medicare refuses to pay for it. They want me to take Synthroid, but Synthroid nearly put me in the ER because it caused blood pressure spikes and tachycardia.
I use insulin injections because chronic elevated blood glucose causes the body to break down rapidly. Metformin is the preferred oral treatment for diabetes, but I stopped taking it because I don't enjoy pooping my pants. I take Januvia and have no problems with it.
Similarly, I stopped taking Atorvastatin because I don't enjoy pooping my pants. Resuvistatin doesn't cause this problem.
I opted for the two antihypertensive medications that cause the fewest side effects.
I opted not to have a hysterectomy even though my GP, my OB/GYN, and the gynecological oncologist who would have performed the surgery were all gung-ho for me to have one, mostly because I'm an old bat who no longer has the potential to pump out babies. I was experiencing post-menopausal bleeding. The D&C with hysteroscopy revealed multiple small fibroids and polyps in my uterus.
The biopsy also revealed that I had simple endometrial hyperplasia with normal cells. This means I have a 1.6 percent (that's one point six percent) greater chance than a woman with no hyperplasia to develop endometrial cancer. I felt that the risks from the surgery outweighed the slightly elevated risk of my developing endometrial cancer, so I opted against the surgery.
Even though I find it discouraging, not to mention misogynistic, that removal of reproductive organs is the medical advice of choice for older women (doctors would never suggest a man should have his testicles removed for a slightly elevated risk of testicular cancer) at least the suggestion of a hysterectomy makes some sense for a woman in my position. Throwing the endocrine systems of confused adolescent girls into a state of imbalance and suggesting these girls can "become boys" via the removal of their healthy breasts and reproductive organs is unconscionable. All this is done without even exploring why these girls think they want to be boys.
I would not want the advice of someone calling themselves "genderqueer" on what to have for dinner, let alone on whether I should follow the advice of the Gender Woo Woo Clowns and march a vulnerable and troubled child to the gender clinic to help them start down the path to mutilation and endocrine disruption.
What is NP Thyroid?
https://thyroiduk.org/if-you-are-hypothyroid/treatment-options-for-hypothyroidism/treatment-options-for-hypothyroidism/natural-desiccated-thyroid/
Wisdom can come by age, life's accomplishments, & esp. in my case mistakes. I hope individuals parents and families etc. can see gender ideology as just that;an ideology not truth. Please examine the Cass Report ,the WPATH files and from testimonies of those who gender transitioned and discovered the truth. Biology is male and female and that is reality. I'm a castrated man with a now closed surgical neovagina and breasts by female hormones. My wisdom is acquired by my mistakes H'mm maybe my balls are coming back(in Spirit)!
Wow, such a frank account of Manchausen by Proxy... I agree, I've been in those subreddits, probably off the back of your posts and it doesn't take long in those subs to see the confusion. It's tragic how everybody enables everyone else in the self-selecting echo chamber. People volunteer to be part of the vortex that will also swallow them up.
I don’t think it’s MBP because the acquiescence to the “process” is based in fear — scaring the parent (usually mom) into believing that the irreparable harm is in not aiding and abetting the transition (“if I don’t override my intuition, my child will DIE!”).
And once the process begins, the cognitive dissonance that happens—the conflict between intuitive sense and the process unfolding before their eyes—can only be quieted by loudly asserting the correctness of the decision.
Sure, some nutzo parents (usually moms) initiate the transition for MBP reasons, but the majority of youth transitioning is achieved through gaslighting.
Agreed.
"You’re walking to the bus stop, and your child tells you they want to wear a dress to school. Or they want a buzz cut. Or to paint their nails. Or maybe they tell you they’re transgender, or gender-queer, or trying to figure out if they’re a girl, a boy, or somewhere in between."
In 2024, any child who tells a parent that "they’re transgender, or gender-queer, or trying to figure out if they’re a girl, a boy, or somewhere in between" has been indoctrinated in gender identity ideology somewhere, most likely at school. As topics of spontaneous child-initiated conversations go, it's as plausible as an eight-year-old asserting that free will is an illusion. The framing of the hypothetical talk on the way to the school bus shows that the writers and editors of New York Magazine have so thoroughly internalized the trans world view that they've lost touch with reality to a certain extent. I expect most of the readers have too.
A lot of problems here, obviously. But openly advocating insurance fraud?
Like that hospital in Texas
True.
I suspect that insurance fraud is fairly widespread and not just with Medicaid. I don’t understand why there has not been more pushback from commercial insurance. In my experience (working for a major US hospital on insurance-related matters), they are usually looking for any pretext they can to deny claims.
It could be a hidden vulnerability for the trans lobby. It deserves more journalistic attention.
I feel like the way to attack this stuff is to attack it at the moral value (let boys and girls feel/act how they feel while still being boys and girls) that lies behind the "empirical sounding but devoid of coherent propositional content" gender identity bullshit. We have to figure out how to separate in the minds of these idiots the value of "there is no right way to be a boy or a girl, just "better than guessing" heuristics with a bases in biology, but not rigidly defined by it" from the destructive "people who are gender nonconforming are something other than their sex". So many people I talk to in academia think that these two things must go together and they think the only people against gender identity ideology are "Men should act like men and women should act like women or else Jesus cries" people. This is why I am skeptical of gender critical people allying with religious fundamentalists on this issue since the latter have alterior motives, were they in charge, just as damaging as the woke gender identity people and the normies we need to convince can easily see it.
I canceled my subscription to a Substack for the parents of trans individuals because of the excessive incidence of religiousity in the comments and right-wing conspiracy mongering that attributes the trans phenomenon to "cultural Marxism."
In fact, I criticized Genspect for having the chief proponent of cultural Marxism, James Lindsay, as a speaker at its conference in Denver of last year. Not only is Lindsay an extremely unpleasant and offensive individual, but his view that cultural Marxism is responsible for all that's terrible about progressive policies and programs is wildly off the mark. I was disappointed that Genspect did not respond. Stonewalling is a trans activist tactic, or so I thought.
I have long maintained gender critical activists can't afford to consort with right-wing critics of gender identity ideology such as Chris Rufo or James Lindsay because their toxicity will alienate otherwise persuadable people on the moderate left. I have been surprised by the amount of criticism my view has elicited.
Agree. Rufo is a crude political operative with an ugly right-wing populist agenda. Lindsay is glib and reckless and lacks any genuine philosophical spirit. My view is that they can say and writes what they please, but neither warrants my attention. The best gender-critical things I've read have come from the likes of Julie Bindel, Kathleen Stock, and our present host. The best journalism on the topic has come from writers like Jesse Singal, Katie Herzog, and Helen Lewis. There are others, but these come to mind most immediately.
Exactly - people like Rufo and Lindsey are actively harming the cause as both believe not in broad tolerance and free expression within a sex realist framework, but just seizing the apparatus to push some other ideological views. I have no idea what happened to Lindsey. He is unlistenable now. Rufo has always been a fraud - he has always struck me the same way Ralph Reed did in the 80's - just a political climber. Just look at what these anti-woke do when they get the institutional power - the new boss is the same as the old boss. I think one of the problems might be that some of these people who can't see what Rufo is live in Blue areas and have never been in a place that is largely Evangelical Christian - they don't get that these people are every bit as bad as the woke when they get anywhere near power by fiat.
I used to be a Lindsey fan back in the day, but something happened to melt that guy's brain. His more recent opinions is one thing - kind of a one trick pony that guy (and it's not a very compelling trick) - but the way he started talking to people online is what initially put me off. Very ironic for the guy who co-wrote "How to Have Impossible Conversations" to turn to online "screaming."
I would say the answer lies in the original meaning of gender critical, which was a feminist critique of gender, but TERFs have been so effectively demonized among the normies that they won't even listen to our arguments. They just call us evil bigots and "bioessentialists" for daring to state that women are female and our bodies matter. I don't know if this is a willful misunderstanding or if they are, as you say, simply idiots who let the crowd they'd prefer to be in with do their thinking for them. It feels like an intractable three sided conflict. As a feminist I personally wouldn't ally with antifeminists and gender conservatives for a "win" over the trans zealots, but I suppose I can see how others would make a different calculation.
I am not sure if that is true - I have talked to so many people in my field (academic libraries) that aren’t explicitly pronoun people/blue haired that are normal liberals and I can tell they have just been pushed downriver with this current just because this seems like the stuff you have to believe to not be a “God hates Gays” person. I have conversations about this stuff as my niece got caught up in this madness to destructive ends and most of them haven’t thought much about what any of this gender ideology stuff means empirically, just that it signals the right values.
My social circle is probably in roughly the same bougie liberal cultural tier, and I can see that's how they ended up at their current positions. But they seem so resistant to having any kind of heterodox conversation about it, I don't know if I could even get them to the point of thinking through the ramifications. Kudos to you for talking to people about it. Other than some close family members, I haven't felt it was worth the risk of dropping a bomb into a relationship. A close friend's lesbian niece (legally an adult but very immature, lives with her) is on this destructive path, and while I sensed my friend had doubts I gently prodded them, but she's fully capitulated now and signaled resistance is no longer welcome.
I think Scott Atran’s observation about religious faith and the tenuous relationship between beliefs and what we think of as “propositional content” fits gender ideology perfectly. Like with religion, I am not sure, for most believers, how much of their beliefs have much to do with “propositional content”. Replace religious beliefs with gender identity beliefs here and I think we are starting to grasp the phenomenon.
“Religious beliefs, in being absurd (whether or not they are recognized as such), cannot even be processed as comprehensible because their semantic content is contradictory (for example, a bodiless but physically powerful and sentient being, a deity that is one in three, etc). It is precisely the ineffable nature of core religious beliefs that accounts, in part, for their social and political adaptability over time in helping to bond and sustain groups In fact, it is the ecstasy-provoking rituals that Harris describes as being associated with such beliefs which renders them immune to the logical and empirical scrutiny that ordinarily accompanies belief verification.”
Yes, there are those propositions that are "believed" (or paid lip service) because they're so insane they "must be true." Virgin birth. Born in the wrong body. There's usually a deep desire and a trusted authority figure, too, to terminate the thinking or twist it somewhere unreasonable.
At this point I have to say I do blame the doctors. Doctors should have been telling "therapists" that the risks are too high, the evidence too weak, the follow-up too sketchy. The medical profession has truly sullied itself. They might as well be telling families to go ahead and give your child money to buy heroin.
Best way to peak? Listen to transwomen. Especially on Reddit. Thanks, Eliza.
“It felt both freeing and nerve-racking”
Yikes. 😬 Freeing from what? Do you think some of these parents are looking for an easy way out from coping with their seriously mentally ill kids? It’s like some of them think they can skip the whole “my kid has no friends and an anxiety disorder and also budding depression” if they just trans them. This is why I have serious reservations about the new Abigail Shrier book (which I haven’t read yet but will)- some kids need a whole lot MORE therapy and at a young age. And it can be hard for parents to face that and then find proper, legit help.
I recommend the book 💯- therapy for serious trauma yes but todays therapists can send your kids down the gender rabbit hole if they ask your kids how do they feel in their body- who feels good in their body during puberty?? It’s the power of suggestion from well meaning but misguided therapists that is the problem as well as rumination on negative thoughts and feelings that can cause more spiraling.
I haven't read the book yet either, so I won't comment on that. I don't think the problem is that kids are getting too much therapy---I think the problem is they're getting drugs and affirmation without enough therapy (or any therapy at all) to address the underlying problems they're having.
"Expert permission" is not a phrase I ever wish to hear again.
This is another strand of this that I hate - the idea that your intuitions, feelings, knowledge of biology, self, and child can and should be set aside because a well-credentialed (in truth or at least appearance) tells you otherwise.
I am a Dad to three little girls and I can say from experience that almost without fail its when I ignore my instincts that things go sideways. Knowing that parents are advised to ignore their instincts makes me queasy.
I also recommend to any parent to browse r/detrans to read the results of youth transitions after the initial euphoria fades.
It’s disturbing to me that anyone thinks a kid can consent to changing their sex. How many kids have actually seen the opposite sex organ in real life? I’m biologically female and didn’t see an actual penis until I was 16. How can a kid consent to changing something they can’t understand yet? Those who think kids understand enough that they can consent to change sex, do they also think kids can consent to having sex? The content I see on Reddit is especially disturbing. the entire movement is in denial about the sexual nature of being trans, and it’s just not appropriate for children.
Not seen one, doesn't understand their own, thinks Santa is real.
The Cut comments are NOT having it.