Both great pieces. I regularly enjoy @Maci's thoughtful commentary on TGS posts and it's wonderful to see Glenn engaging directly with his readership. Bravo.
Glenn, if you explore this topic further with John at some point, I would be curious to know his and your thoughts on this latest piece from Matt Lutz in Yascha Mounk's "Persuasion" substack.
In it he examines the linguistic concept of *polysemy* (words having multiple meanings) and how it is applicable to the terminology of gender in the ongoing culture war around trans issues.
"My eagerness came from a place of envy. I wanted the time I had spent in the closet back. This is a bias that clouds every trans and gay person’s thinking about what is socially good. For this reason, trans people are not always the best judges of these circumstances."
This is eye-opening for me. I didn't know trans & gay folk felt that way although it makes perfect sense. Still, what I don't understand is the mania for forcing adults to let children transition when we know so many of them outgrow it. This is only part of what is truly sinister about gender ideology, and I can't figure out what the underlying agenda is. Why is it so important to these people to transition children and teenagers NOWNOWNOW? What's so terrible about waiting til you're 18? What's so terrible about social transition before then, but not medical transition later? My suspicion is they're afraid a lot of these kids WILL grow out of it, and they want to make them 'one of us' (gooble gobble!) before they decide, when they're older, that they're simply gay or have learned to deal with misgoyny or whatever. But I still don't get what the end goal is. A nation of gender-confused adults? Do they truly think they're going to 'erase', eventually, *both* maleness and femaleness? I wonder how many medically transitioned children will commit suicide once they grow up and realize they'd made the wrong decision.
The most disturbing part of the current trans movement and gender ideology is how quickly it's becoming a haven for sexual predators, between 'chicks with dicks' pressuring lesbians to have sex with their 'ladydick', the sudden 'identification' of adult male prisoners (including plenty of sex offenders) to get into female prisons, and the push for sex offenders like Darren Agee Merager into women's-only spaces. He's the guy with previous indecent exposure convictions parading his 'trans' dick in front of women and girls at the Wi Spa in San Francisco last year. One wonders how much longer the left can close its eyes to the gross misogyny and fake women there are in the trans movement. And I'm sorry, when one's primary purpose for transitioning (which doesn't include getting rid of The Dangler, as a trans friend of mine once called it), is aggressing against women and girls, one is a fake woman. A dude in a dress.
I knew a few transfolk before it became cool, so I know how difficult it is for them. One had a LOT of psychological problems related to this and today lives as a lesbian, but clearly has even worse issues than before. I had to drop her as a friend many years ago because of these issues, at least some of which was choices she'd made. I have lots of sympathy for true gender dysphorics but I'm not convinced all transfolk are. Some are AGP, and we need to talk about that a LOT more than the trans movement wants to, some trans are predators, some are doing it because it's 'cool', and unless you're pushing yourself on others (like predators) I don't terribly care why you're doing it, but I'd really rather we focus on the true dysphorics, the ones who really need medical help. I'm not interested in a post-modernist fear of biological difference, just because the right uses biology to oppress others. The answer is to challenge that toxic belief, rather than pretend that we're not different genders, different races, or whatever. It's getting in the way of real progress, and the trans movement is quickly becoming identified with erasing women and lesbians. (But not, ironically, gay men).
Throwing this out there for everybody: What can we do to challenge that? How do us critical thinkers challenge trans extremism? How do we find our common-thinking allies and come together? United we stand, n'est-ce pas?
Since the word "trans" suggests the myth of a transition from one sex to another sex, from now forward I will use my new word Gendales (Gender dysphoric males). This leaves the word "woman" out of the discussion and is a nod to the condition and also removes the need for the confusing words "gender identity."
The wishes of adult transitioners is how we ended up (in part) with the blossoming of pediatric transitioning, but we cannot reverse engineer the sexual binary. "Transition" is only cosmetic, you can feminize/masculinize a person, but humans cannot change sex. And every aspect of medical transition sacrifices bodily functionality in the cause of mental "health". The poor science behind and potential dangers of childhood transition (loss of sexual pleasure, sterility, liver damage, loss of brain & skeletal development, and much more) is becoming more evident.
The other objection against gender identity theory is the misogyny--why didn't Matt Walsh ask the question "What is a Man?" Because it is women's spaces, women's words and women's safety that is at risk, not men's. For more on this, please read this recent post by Eliza Mondegreen, who writes elegantly on this topic. https://elizamondegreen.substack.com/p/respect-recognition-and-social-movements
Efforts to cancel the likes of Rowling may well be wrong, but this is where we are. Rather, this is where the gender ideology lobby has brought us. No dissent is allowed. Ever. By anyone. Least of all women who are gradually being erased from the landscape. And Andrew Sullivan is frequently called phobic for daring to suggest that medical experimentation on 10 year olds is a bit much. At this point, it is reasonable to say that the loudest voices in the trans movement appear as anti-gay as they are anti-women. When lesbians are targeted for not wanting intimate relations with biological men, this is no longer about identity or even politics; it's about an effort at forced conformity that rivals any totalitarian ideology. While part of me thinks the issue bears discussion, another part wonder what it is
being used to cover up. A good rule of thumb is that when oversized attention is given to one thing, it serves to distract people from noticing another, far more serious, thing.
The sad reality is that even the writer's position of people waiting until they're 18, or even 16, is considered out of bounds. We get hysterical lectures on the need for gender-affirming care practically from the cradle. I shudder to think how my youngest son would have fared in this environment. He did not conform to gender stereotypes. At time, he put on his mother's or grandma's shoes and we had every Disney heroine movie ever made. But not once did he question being male. That he is an adult gay man is not surprising and it shouldn't be. It is perfectly possible and quite common for boys and girls who do not follow gender stereotypes to become happy men and women, straight or gay.
I have always had a "you do you" mindset regarding adults. Make the choice that is right for you. But there is distinction between that and "make the choice that's right for you and everyone else must not just go along, but affirmatively applaud the choice." No, coercion is wrong. I have no doubt that this is an excruciating process for those involved but conscripting everyone else is a bit much. When we are told to treat the biologically male swimmer at Penn - whose own teammates say he is male in the most meaningful way - that's not progress or discourse; it's a modern day emperor's new clothes. When Martina Navratilova is hounded for daring suggest that bio men have some innate physical advantages over women, it's reminiscent of when someone dared to suggest the world is round rather than flat. Like any discussion, it is difficult to have a good faith debate when that quality if not present. Credit to Hummel for doing that much.
As someone who has been pushed to be a GC feminist, can I say the real impetus for me to be GC came from the 2017 discovery that tooth enamel is binary namely sex chromosome-linked isoforms of amelogenin, a peptide? They are hoping to refine in order to capture intersex but at the moment, it is the presence of amelogenin Y which determines male remains. This has huge implications for archelogy and medical forensics, particularly in trying to identify human remains after a mass tragedy (think 911 or a plane going down or indeed a mass grave site due to war with badly degraded bodies). Teeth are often the part of the human anatomy to be left. In order to have remains returned and properly identified, governments do need to know the natal sex.
Since 2016 when the NIH order that biological sex be taken as a variable in its research, we are starting to learn that the assumption of bikini medicine (humans are alike except for the parts covered by a bikini) was wrong. There is male/female patterned heart disease, females are more likely to die from asthmatic attacks, 2/3 more females get dementia, there are male and female placentas and this decided by the fetus. Some of the last research shows that sex matters in the way your muscles talk to your body. Several new hormones were uncovered. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/05/220531151959.htm
This sort of research needs to continue and people need to be made aware that you can't change your natal sex and that it is always going to be a part of your medical history. One size does not fit all.
How much beyond the id of remains and medicine, does society need to know your sex is a matter for debate, rather than for screaming and there needs to be a way of finding compromises.
There is no reliable test for young people under 25 (25 is when the brain stops growing) to determine if they will be persistently gender dysphoric. We do not know know enough about the long term implications of the drugs on the growing bodies and minds but we do know quite a bit that certain medical professionals share as an aside.
The removal of ovaries and hysterectomy has been linked to an increased risk of dementia (part of the reason why they go for the Mirena coil in perimenopausal women who are experiencing heavy period bleeding)
The very real problem of Young Onset Dementia and links transgender medicalization needs to be studied more particularly as there is evidence that when people have dementia, they can forget they have transitioned.
These sorts of factors need to be better understood and the medical profession needs to make people more aware of downsides of cross sex hormones and various procedures.
I blame the medical community gatekeepers here, not the patients who are in severe distress.
Marci referenced a JK Rowlling character and therefore I would like to reference Mrs Coulter from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials( The Golden Compass) who in interests of research oversees a programme of cutting children away from their daemons so that they can avoid the messy attraction of dust. In the third book, it becomes clear that the onset of the attraction of dust is Pullman's analogy for puberty. Mrs Coulter was basically preventing puberty and sexual development. This I think can be extrapolated out what is happening with children and young adults going down the medicalized route particularly as Dr Bowers said that children who are Tanner 2 and transitioned will likely never have an orgasm. Asking children to understand the complexities of sexual desire before they have experienced puberty is an adultification too far imho.
There also needs to be a proper debate about the need for single sex spaces for privacy, dignity and safety (this includes prisons) while at the same time ensuring that transgender people can have proper non discriminatory access to housing and work.
FINA, the world governing body which covers swimming, diving and other water sports decided yesterday that in interests of fairness, the women's category needed to be for natal females (unless the male had never undergone any form of puberty). They are also going to create an open category for transgender athletes.
There is a crying need for more services which are properly attuned to those who are suffering from gender dysphoria particularly as they often have other mental health risk factors such as autism, eating disorders etc and patients need to be treated holistically. These services need to be where trans/non binary people are located (according the Canadian census - -this tends to be in large urban areas).
But it does need to be a debate where rights are balanced.
Finally there needs to be a proper definition of trans. One of the big cults in ancient times was that of Cybele. It was a castration cult with the priests all being castrated but there is evidence that not all castration was voluntary. It dated from the Neolithic times and was adopted by Rome. The priest were considered to be non-citizens. It was eventually supressed as Christianity grew strong in the Byzantine empire. Were they trans or not? I can give examples about the Vikings but I think the cult of Cybele is strong evidence that there has always been a form of gender fluidity.
Are you familiar with Jonathan Rauch? Like Andrew Sullivan, with whom he's had a long friendship, Rauch was an early "assimilationist" advocate for gay marriage and for the acceptance of homosexuality more generally. A couple of months ago, he wrote an article called "Walking the Transgender Movement Away from the Extremists" that I think you'd find compelling. He's an excellent writer, a deep thinker, and a treasured voice of sanity, one who recognizes the madness of left and right alike.
Where were the "my body, my choice" crowd when it comes to vaccines? The same radicals who shout "my body, my choice", in collective unison, like a dystopian borg, tell us the fetus's body has no choice and vaccines ought to be mandatory. This platitude, shouted from the marxist hilltop, is now being used to claim a five year old can take hormone replacement theory. Furthermore, I lived in a South American town for twelve years; my father worked for Petrobas; I went to a private boarding school in Rio. I NEVER saw violence against Trans in South America outside the sex industry. Violence against Trans does exist, but it's unlikely the Trans person was attacked because they were trans. They were probably attacked because they were working in the sex industry. We see the same violence against women, in the same industry, so it's not uncommon. Anytime you sell your body, you are going to be around some folks who might be unstable, drunk, on drugs, or perhaps all three.
She explains in excruciating detail the reasons she chose to transition: problems in her own life, lack of understanding by the adults surrounding her, the cultish environment of Tumblr, encouragement from school personnel, and an easy prescription for testosterone from Planned Parenthood. She describes the details of testosterone injection and the way she, a girl, responded to the first dose Then ultimately how she decided to stop the train. A brave person especially for speaking out.
My own view is that children and teens cannot give informed consent to the medical decisions we are talking about here, yet advocates such as our federal government leaders have declared that only supporting children and teens in a decision to transition is permissible with even some threats attached! Adults can do what they want but we should not be asked to pay for it.
Happy father’s day Professor Loury. Thank you. As a public health professional; I consider the context of “suicide threat”. Any youth who has been led to believe their life is meaningless unless they begin pathway to immediate hormonal/surgical procedures, is victim of abuse by woke advocacy groups. I don’t trust the supposed statistics from activists. A personal friend incorrectly told me in 2015-ish that “87% of African Americans are concerned about the rights of trans.” After getting called “Bitch, faggot” walking down the street and then seeing a woman call a guy that, I disagree with advocates’ lies. As a biologist, I repeat Dr. Heather Heying (PhD in Biology) by saying mammals cannot change their gender. The medical effect (hormones and surgery) is gender “mimicry”, not actual delivery to the opposite gender.
In a local gay Muslim group in 2018, I was age 50. Everyone else the age of my would-be children. The younger the group member, the more likely “trans” as identity. I wanted to ask, “What is genitalia of birth?” and “Are you considering pathway to hormonal/surgical change?”, but such questions would be incorrectly considered “anti-trans.” While waiting for a million years for Amazon to send me Shrier book, I told a Lesbian friend (age 65) about book or started to- but she interrupted with “Not interested.” Public Health silence on (a) Irreversible change to body (b) Suicide framing (c) Abnormally high idea-adaption rate among youth (d)Vilification of discussion; is unprofessional and is not public health.
Transgenderism is exceedingly rare and yet it is in the forefront of discussed topics ad nauseam. There is something profoundly wrong with this and there will be a price to pay for it. Vulnerable children/youth are being 'pulled' into it's sphere and are being sacrificed as political pawns, which will undoubtedly result in one tragedy after another. Abigail Shrier, author of Irreversible Damage, as well as others have written on this.
This uber rare condition should be dealt with on a private/medical basis. Society, in particular children, should not be forced into the constant exposure of it. Nor should anyone be forced into affirming the lie that men can be women and vice versa or face punishment for not doing so as occurred with 13 year olds in a Wisconsin school district, who were punished for not using another student's preferred pronouns.
Thank you for sharing. All of this is difficult, deeply personal, and painful for many of us. I have found recently that much of these issues arise when one’s personal *values* butt up against someone else’s *reality*. As a pragmatic person, I think that the realities really must be considered.
My whole life has been complicated by my sex — both because of the physical (health issues that are more common or exclusively female) and because of gender expectations. It has always been my hope that over time these difference would shrink, to the point that sex/gender would only matter in a small and constrained portion of life concerning attraction and reproduction and medicine. And for a time they were shrinking. The problem to my mind, is that this so called “gender ideology” seems to actually increase and solidify these differences. And worse, in ways that seem wrong-headed and even hurtful. I still have not heard how the idea of transgender (as opposed to the now out of fashion transsexual) doesn’t reinforce a gender binary (as opposed to the sex binary), gender roles, and gender stereotypes.
My daughter is 14 and immersed in this questioning (as are a vast majority of her friends, male and female). She tells me that a trans woman is a woman and to deny that they are the exact same is to wish them all dead and to be transphobic. Huh? I believe that all people deserve respect and dignity, and to live as they wish in safety. But I wonder, in this worldview, at what moment a trans woman becomes a woman. It seems in my daughter’s mind to be retroactive, as a little boy even that trans woman was a girl, even before dysphoria. But this understanding denies entirely that my experience is shaped by my body, not my internal perception of it. It feels like victim blaming, gaslighting, and misogyny all in one. Maybe I’m over sensitive, I certainly am on the wrong side of the curve of being impacted by sex/gender (although it seems many women also feel this way).
I have read a lot about this subject of late, and it seems as is the case with so many other issues these days that people think they understand what the issue is but do not in actuality — because the situation is so heterogeneous. Some states have laws that minors legally can/must receive medical “gender affirming care” even without or against parental wishes. Others are outlawing any “gender affirming care.” Some people believe trans people only transition after years of counseling and introspection. That certainly is not the case among the youth I know. Online there are endless resources where youth can learn to, for example, bind their breasts and hide it from their parents. There are even charities that will provide these binders free of cost to youth, even though studies among grown ups (they haven’t studied impacts on growing bodies) show that they can be dangerous if done to much, to long, or too tightly. The focus is entirely on affirming, any resistance or ambivalence from a parent is automatically hateful.
The science seems to indicate the best course for adolescents, teens, and young adults is to provide supportive emotional services that are “gender exploratory” not with a goal to confirm or deny any identity. Evidence is that many youth have additional mental health issues like anxiety and depression, not helped by dealing exclusively with gender dysphoria, and often ignored when “gender affirming” medications are administered. Evidence seems to be even changing names and pronouns can prolong dysphoria. As a person of science I find the way medical treatments are being used without a clear evidence is heartbreaking. And it is even more sad to see the public discourse be so unbalanced and ill informed.
As a side note, the puberty blockers that are used are also used in grown women to help with various hormone based gynecological problems. They are at the bottom of the list to try and are limited in their use to 6 months or at most a year because of the risks/damage that they can do to an adult. I really can’t understand why they would ever be prescribed indefinitely for growing bodies. Or worse, how they are universally characterized as safe and reversible.
Most importantly, I hope we can all take a breath and remember that no matter how deeply challenging these subjects are that we should treat each other with respect and compassion.
-Amy
PS There as an interesting essay about JK Rowling in the Atlantic a while back and how much of the hatefulness directed at her is from the youth who read her books and learned from them to be open and accepting…
SUCH a good, balanced, calm and calming read. Thank you, both. This level of human connecting and sharing is so welcome. I appreciate the Rowling and Harry Potter piece, yes, as well as your openness about your own experience and life, Maci!
Of note, too: what is happening with age elsewhere (Sweden's U-turn, for e.g.) And imagine, in some places the level of maturity is assessed individually! That speaks to human flexibility, care, and more--instead of textbook responses.
Wonderful, balanced and authentic letter, thank you.
Both great pieces. I regularly enjoy @Maci's thoughtful commentary on TGS posts and it's wonderful to see Glenn engaging directly with his readership. Bravo.
Glenn, if you explore this topic further with John at some point, I would be curious to know his and your thoughts on this latest piece from Matt Lutz in Yascha Mounk's "Persuasion" substack.
https://www.persuasion.community/p/what-is-a-woman
In it he examines the linguistic concept of *polysemy* (words having multiple meanings) and how it is applicable to the terminology of gender in the ongoing culture war around trans issues.
"My eagerness came from a place of envy. I wanted the time I had spent in the closet back. This is a bias that clouds every trans and gay person’s thinking about what is socially good. For this reason, trans people are not always the best judges of these circumstances."
This is eye-opening for me. I didn't know trans & gay folk felt that way although it makes perfect sense. Still, what I don't understand is the mania for forcing adults to let children transition when we know so many of them outgrow it. This is only part of what is truly sinister about gender ideology, and I can't figure out what the underlying agenda is. Why is it so important to these people to transition children and teenagers NOWNOWNOW? What's so terrible about waiting til you're 18? What's so terrible about social transition before then, but not medical transition later? My suspicion is they're afraid a lot of these kids WILL grow out of it, and they want to make them 'one of us' (gooble gobble!) before they decide, when they're older, that they're simply gay or have learned to deal with misgoyny or whatever. But I still don't get what the end goal is. A nation of gender-confused adults? Do they truly think they're going to 'erase', eventually, *both* maleness and femaleness? I wonder how many medically transitioned children will commit suicide once they grow up and realize they'd made the wrong decision.
The most disturbing part of the current trans movement and gender ideology is how quickly it's becoming a haven for sexual predators, between 'chicks with dicks' pressuring lesbians to have sex with their 'ladydick', the sudden 'identification' of adult male prisoners (including plenty of sex offenders) to get into female prisons, and the push for sex offenders like Darren Agee Merager into women's-only spaces. He's the guy with previous indecent exposure convictions parading his 'trans' dick in front of women and girls at the Wi Spa in San Francisco last year. One wonders how much longer the left can close its eyes to the gross misogyny and fake women there are in the trans movement. And I'm sorry, when one's primary purpose for transitioning (which doesn't include getting rid of The Dangler, as a trans friend of mine once called it), is aggressing against women and girls, one is a fake woman. A dude in a dress.
I knew a few transfolk before it became cool, so I know how difficult it is for them. One had a LOT of psychological problems related to this and today lives as a lesbian, but clearly has even worse issues than before. I had to drop her as a friend many years ago because of these issues, at least some of which was choices she'd made. I have lots of sympathy for true gender dysphorics but I'm not convinced all transfolk are. Some are AGP, and we need to talk about that a LOT more than the trans movement wants to, some trans are predators, some are doing it because it's 'cool', and unless you're pushing yourself on others (like predators) I don't terribly care why you're doing it, but I'd really rather we focus on the true dysphorics, the ones who really need medical help. I'm not interested in a post-modernist fear of biological difference, just because the right uses biology to oppress others. The answer is to challenge that toxic belief, rather than pretend that we're not different genders, different races, or whatever. It's getting in the way of real progress, and the trans movement is quickly becoming identified with erasing women and lesbians. (But not, ironically, gay men).
Throwing this out there for everybody: What can we do to challenge that? How do us critical thinkers challenge trans extremism? How do we find our common-thinking allies and come together? United we stand, n'est-ce pas?
Since the word "trans" suggests the myth of a transition from one sex to another sex, from now forward I will use my new word Gendales (Gender dysphoric males). This leaves the word "woman" out of the discussion and is a nod to the condition and also removes the need for the confusing words "gender identity."
The wishes of adult transitioners is how we ended up (in part) with the blossoming of pediatric transitioning, but we cannot reverse engineer the sexual binary. "Transition" is only cosmetic, you can feminize/masculinize a person, but humans cannot change sex. And every aspect of medical transition sacrifices bodily functionality in the cause of mental "health". The poor science behind and potential dangers of childhood transition (loss of sexual pleasure, sterility, liver damage, loss of brain & skeletal development, and much more) is becoming more evident.
The other objection against gender identity theory is the misogyny--why didn't Matt Walsh ask the question "What is a Man?" Because it is women's spaces, women's words and women's safety that is at risk, not men's. For more on this, please read this recent post by Eliza Mondegreen, who writes elegantly on this topic. https://elizamondegreen.substack.com/p/respect-recognition-and-social-movements
Efforts to cancel the likes of Rowling may well be wrong, but this is where we are. Rather, this is where the gender ideology lobby has brought us. No dissent is allowed. Ever. By anyone. Least of all women who are gradually being erased from the landscape. And Andrew Sullivan is frequently called phobic for daring to suggest that medical experimentation on 10 year olds is a bit much. At this point, it is reasonable to say that the loudest voices in the trans movement appear as anti-gay as they are anti-women. When lesbians are targeted for not wanting intimate relations with biological men, this is no longer about identity or even politics; it's about an effort at forced conformity that rivals any totalitarian ideology. While part of me thinks the issue bears discussion, another part wonder what it is
being used to cover up. A good rule of thumb is that when oversized attention is given to one thing, it serves to distract people from noticing another, far more serious, thing.
The sad reality is that even the writer's position of people waiting until they're 18, or even 16, is considered out of bounds. We get hysterical lectures on the need for gender-affirming care practically from the cradle. I shudder to think how my youngest son would have fared in this environment. He did not conform to gender stereotypes. At time, he put on his mother's or grandma's shoes and we had every Disney heroine movie ever made. But not once did he question being male. That he is an adult gay man is not surprising and it shouldn't be. It is perfectly possible and quite common for boys and girls who do not follow gender stereotypes to become happy men and women, straight or gay.
I have always had a "you do you" mindset regarding adults. Make the choice that is right for you. But there is distinction between that and "make the choice that's right for you and everyone else must not just go along, but affirmatively applaud the choice." No, coercion is wrong. I have no doubt that this is an excruciating process for those involved but conscripting everyone else is a bit much. When we are told to treat the biologically male swimmer at Penn - whose own teammates say he is male in the most meaningful way - that's not progress or discourse; it's a modern day emperor's new clothes. When Martina Navratilova is hounded for daring suggest that bio men have some innate physical advantages over women, it's reminiscent of when someone dared to suggest the world is round rather than flat. Like any discussion, it is difficult to have a good faith debate when that quality if not present. Credit to Hummel for doing that much.
As someone who has been pushed to be a GC feminist, can I say the real impetus for me to be GC came from the 2017 discovery that tooth enamel is binary namely sex chromosome-linked isoforms of amelogenin, a peptide? They are hoping to refine in order to capture intersex but at the moment, it is the presence of amelogenin Y which determines male remains. This has huge implications for archelogy and medical forensics, particularly in trying to identify human remains after a mass tragedy (think 911 or a plane going down or indeed a mass grave site due to war with badly degraded bodies). Teeth are often the part of the human anatomy to be left. In order to have remains returned and properly identified, governments do need to know the natal sex.
The advances on radio isotopes is changing archaeological research in a major way. https://www.brighton.ac.uk/strand/what-we-do/research-projects/sex-determination-of-human-remains-from-peptides-in-tooth-enamel.aspx#:~:text=Sex%20determination%20of%20human%20remains%20from%20peptides%20in,depends%20on%20the%20quality%20of%20the%20DNA%20sample.
Since 2016 when the NIH order that biological sex be taken as a variable in its research, we are starting to learn that the assumption of bikini medicine (humans are alike except for the parts covered by a bikini) was wrong. There is male/female patterned heart disease, females are more likely to die from asthmatic attacks, 2/3 more females get dementia, there are male and female placentas and this decided by the fetus. Some of the last research shows that sex matters in the way your muscles talk to your body. Several new hormones were uncovered. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/05/220531151959.htm
This sort of research needs to continue and people need to be made aware that you can't change your natal sex and that it is always going to be a part of your medical history. One size does not fit all.
How much beyond the id of remains and medicine, does society need to know your sex is a matter for debate, rather than for screaming and there needs to be a way of finding compromises.
There is no reliable test for young people under 25 (25 is when the brain stops growing) to determine if they will be persistently gender dysphoric. We do not know know enough about the long term implications of the drugs on the growing bodies and minds but we do know quite a bit that certain medical professionals share as an aside.
We do know that people who have taken cross sex hormones have a higher tendency to Young Onset Dementia (before age 65) and are 20x more likely to actually commit suicide according to the longest study on transsexuals https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885 This explains about dementia and transgender adults. https://www.beingpatient.com/transgender-dementia-nonbinary/
The removal of ovaries and hysterectomy has been linked to an increased risk of dementia (part of the reason why they go for the Mirena coil in perimenopausal women who are experiencing heavy period bleeding)
The very real problem of Young Onset Dementia and links transgender medicalization needs to be studied more particularly as there is evidence that when people have dementia, they can forget they have transitioned.
These sorts of factors need to be better understood and the medical profession needs to make people more aware of downsides of cross sex hormones and various procedures.
I blame the medical community gatekeepers here, not the patients who are in severe distress.
Marci referenced a JK Rowlling character and therefore I would like to reference Mrs Coulter from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials( The Golden Compass) who in interests of research oversees a programme of cutting children away from their daemons so that they can avoid the messy attraction of dust. In the third book, it becomes clear that the onset of the attraction of dust is Pullman's analogy for puberty. Mrs Coulter was basically preventing puberty and sexual development. This I think can be extrapolated out what is happening with children and young adults going down the medicalized route particularly as Dr Bowers said that children who are Tanner 2 and transitioned will likely never have an orgasm. Asking children to understand the complexities of sexual desire before they have experienced puberty is an adultification too far imho.
There also needs to be a proper debate about the need for single sex spaces for privacy, dignity and safety (this includes prisons) while at the same time ensuring that transgender people can have proper non discriminatory access to housing and work.
FINA, the world governing body which covers swimming, diving and other water sports decided yesterday that in interests of fairness, the women's category needed to be for natal females (unless the male had never undergone any form of puberty). They are also going to create an open category for transgender athletes.
There is a crying need for more services which are properly attuned to those who are suffering from gender dysphoria particularly as they often have other mental health risk factors such as autism, eating disorders etc and patients need to be treated holistically. These services need to be where trans/non binary people are located (according the Canadian census - -this tends to be in large urban areas).
But it does need to be a debate where rights are balanced.
Finally there needs to be a proper definition of trans. One of the big cults in ancient times was that of Cybele. It was a castration cult with the priests all being castrated but there is evidence that not all castration was voluntary. It dated from the Neolithic times and was adopted by Rome. The priest were considered to be non-citizens. It was eventually supressed as Christianity grew strong in the Byzantine empire. Were they trans or not? I can give examples about the Vikings but I think the cult of Cybele is strong evidence that there has always been a form of gender fluidity.
Hi Maci,
Are you familiar with Jonathan Rauch? Like Andrew Sullivan, with whom he's had a long friendship, Rauch was an early "assimilationist" advocate for gay marriage and for the acceptance of homosexuality more generally. A couple of months ago, he wrote an article called "Walking the Transgender Movement Away from the Extremists" that I think you'd find compelling. He's an excellent writer, a deep thinker, and a treasured voice of sanity, one who recognizes the madness of left and right alike.
(https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/walking-the-transgender-movement-away-from-the-extremists/)
I hope Bloomsday treated you well in Dear Dirty Dublin!
Thank you so much for writing this, Maci.
Thank you for the reply Maci.
Where were the "my body, my choice" crowd when it comes to vaccines? The same radicals who shout "my body, my choice", in collective unison, like a dystopian borg, tell us the fetus's body has no choice and vaccines ought to be mandatory. This platitude, shouted from the marxist hilltop, is now being used to claim a five year old can take hormone replacement theory. Furthermore, I lived in a South American town for twelve years; my father worked for Petrobas; I went to a private boarding school in Rio. I NEVER saw violence against Trans in South America outside the sex industry. Violence against Trans does exist, but it's unlikely the Trans person was attacked because they were trans. They were probably attacked because they were working in the sex industry. We see the same violence against women, in the same industry, so it's not uncommon. Anytime you sell your body, you are going to be around some folks who might be unstable, drunk, on drugs, or perhaps all three.
This is a story by a young woman who transitioned then detransitioned. https://lacroicsz.substack.com/p/by-any-other-name?s=r
She explains in excruciating detail the reasons she chose to transition: problems in her own life, lack of understanding by the adults surrounding her, the cultish environment of Tumblr, encouragement from school personnel, and an easy prescription for testosterone from Planned Parenthood. She describes the details of testosterone injection and the way she, a girl, responded to the first dose Then ultimately how she decided to stop the train. A brave person especially for speaking out.
My own view is that children and teens cannot give informed consent to the medical decisions we are talking about here, yet advocates such as our federal government leaders have declared that only supporting children and teens in a decision to transition is permissible with even some threats attached! Adults can do what they want but we should not be asked to pay for it.
Happy father’s day Professor Loury. Thank you. As a public health professional; I consider the context of “suicide threat”. Any youth who has been led to believe their life is meaningless unless they begin pathway to immediate hormonal/surgical procedures, is victim of abuse by woke advocacy groups. I don’t trust the supposed statistics from activists. A personal friend incorrectly told me in 2015-ish that “87% of African Americans are concerned about the rights of trans.” After getting called “Bitch, faggot” walking down the street and then seeing a woman call a guy that, I disagree with advocates’ lies. As a biologist, I repeat Dr. Heather Heying (PhD in Biology) by saying mammals cannot change their gender. The medical effect (hormones and surgery) is gender “mimicry”, not actual delivery to the opposite gender.
In a local gay Muslim group in 2018, I was age 50. Everyone else the age of my would-be children. The younger the group member, the more likely “trans” as identity. I wanted to ask, “What is genitalia of birth?” and “Are you considering pathway to hormonal/surgical change?”, but such questions would be incorrectly considered “anti-trans.” While waiting for a million years for Amazon to send me Shrier book, I told a Lesbian friend (age 65) about book or started to- but she interrupted with “Not interested.” Public Health silence on (a) Irreversible change to body (b) Suicide framing (c) Abnormally high idea-adaption rate among youth (d)Vilification of discussion; is unprofessional and is not public health.
Transgenderism is exceedingly rare and yet it is in the forefront of discussed topics ad nauseam. There is something profoundly wrong with this and there will be a price to pay for it. Vulnerable children/youth are being 'pulled' into it's sphere and are being sacrificed as political pawns, which will undoubtedly result in one tragedy after another. Abigail Shrier, author of Irreversible Damage, as well as others have written on this.
This uber rare condition should be dealt with on a private/medical basis. Society, in particular children, should not be forced into the constant exposure of it. Nor should anyone be forced into affirming the lie that men can be women and vice versa or face punishment for not doing so as occurred with 13 year olds in a Wisconsin school district, who were punished for not using another student's preferred pronouns.
Maci,
Thank you for sharing. All of this is difficult, deeply personal, and painful for many of us. I have found recently that much of these issues arise when one’s personal *values* butt up against someone else’s *reality*. As a pragmatic person, I think that the realities really must be considered.
My whole life has been complicated by my sex — both because of the physical (health issues that are more common or exclusively female) and because of gender expectations. It has always been my hope that over time these difference would shrink, to the point that sex/gender would only matter in a small and constrained portion of life concerning attraction and reproduction and medicine. And for a time they were shrinking. The problem to my mind, is that this so called “gender ideology” seems to actually increase and solidify these differences. And worse, in ways that seem wrong-headed and even hurtful. I still have not heard how the idea of transgender (as opposed to the now out of fashion transsexual) doesn’t reinforce a gender binary (as opposed to the sex binary), gender roles, and gender stereotypes.
My daughter is 14 and immersed in this questioning (as are a vast majority of her friends, male and female). She tells me that a trans woman is a woman and to deny that they are the exact same is to wish them all dead and to be transphobic. Huh? I believe that all people deserve respect and dignity, and to live as they wish in safety. But I wonder, in this worldview, at what moment a trans woman becomes a woman. It seems in my daughter’s mind to be retroactive, as a little boy even that trans woman was a girl, even before dysphoria. But this understanding denies entirely that my experience is shaped by my body, not my internal perception of it. It feels like victim blaming, gaslighting, and misogyny all in one. Maybe I’m over sensitive, I certainly am on the wrong side of the curve of being impacted by sex/gender (although it seems many women also feel this way).
I have read a lot about this subject of late, and it seems as is the case with so many other issues these days that people think they understand what the issue is but do not in actuality — because the situation is so heterogeneous. Some states have laws that minors legally can/must receive medical “gender affirming care” even without or against parental wishes. Others are outlawing any “gender affirming care.” Some people believe trans people only transition after years of counseling and introspection. That certainly is not the case among the youth I know. Online there are endless resources where youth can learn to, for example, bind their breasts and hide it from their parents. There are even charities that will provide these binders free of cost to youth, even though studies among grown ups (they haven’t studied impacts on growing bodies) show that they can be dangerous if done to much, to long, or too tightly. The focus is entirely on affirming, any resistance or ambivalence from a parent is automatically hateful.
The science seems to indicate the best course for adolescents, teens, and young adults is to provide supportive emotional services that are “gender exploratory” not with a goal to confirm or deny any identity. Evidence is that many youth have additional mental health issues like anxiety and depression, not helped by dealing exclusively with gender dysphoria, and often ignored when “gender affirming” medications are administered. Evidence seems to be even changing names and pronouns can prolong dysphoria. As a person of science I find the way medical treatments are being used without a clear evidence is heartbreaking. And it is even more sad to see the public discourse be so unbalanced and ill informed.
As a side note, the puberty blockers that are used are also used in grown women to help with various hormone based gynecological problems. They are at the bottom of the list to try and are limited in their use to 6 months or at most a year because of the risks/damage that they can do to an adult. I really can’t understand why they would ever be prescribed indefinitely for growing bodies. Or worse, how they are universally characterized as safe and reversible.
Most importantly, I hope we can all take a breath and remember that no matter how deeply challenging these subjects are that we should treat each other with respect and compassion.
-Amy
PS There as an interesting essay about JK Rowling in the Atlantic a while back and how much of the hatefulness directed at her is from the youth who read her books and learned from them to be open and accepting…
SUCH a good, balanced, calm and calming read. Thank you, both. This level of human connecting and sharing is so welcome. I appreciate the Rowling and Harry Potter piece, yes, as well as your openness about your own experience and life, Maci!
Of note, too: what is happening with age elsewhere (Sweden's U-turn, for e.g.) And imagine, in some places the level of maturity is assessed individually! That speaks to human flexibility, care, and more--instead of textbook responses.
https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2017/mapping-minimum-age-requirements-concerning-rights-child-eu/access-sex-reassignment-surgery
Thank you again, for creating a true forum, Glenn!