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being-kindrad · 4 months

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Q&A Panel with seven detransitioners, 2023, transcribed

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The following is a transcript of the first ever Q&A panel discussion with seven detransitioners filmed on Detrans Awareness Day 2023. Seven detransitioners speak publicly and answer questions from the audience at a film screening of the documentary No Way Back: The Realities of Gender Affirming Care.

The panel discusses the medical ethics of the gender affirmation model of care for gender dysphoria, and the untold harm personally endured by detransitioners Chloe Cole, Laura Becker, Luka Hein, Estella Suarez-Hamilton, Brian Wagner, Rachel, and Shape Shifter.

The panel answers questions from concerned parents about the relationship between gender distress, social contagion, trauma, and familial relationships, and panelists give advice about maintaining and repairing relationships with children and loved ones who are experiencing identity issues.

View the panel recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyJGijjI2JU

Transcript after the break.

Panel moderator: How do you guys feel? Had you not seen [the documentary] before? Did it bring up any feelings for you guys?

Estella (female detransitioner): It brought up a lot of feelings for me. I medically detransitioned this past year and I was still maintaining my social transition, clinging on to that, and kind of hearing about the process of other detransitioners and even speaking to some people who are here today, learning how much commonalities we have with this journey. It makes you realize that “oh, well, maybe this is rare, but maybe this is not so rare as they're saying.” Especially when it comes to medical consequences. I can speak for myself with some of the effects that testosterone has had on my body—it's menopause, it's going through menopause at nineteen. And when your body's not ready for that. And there was like a list of that, the incontinence, not being able to hold your bladder, not being able to sleep because of heat flashes that are painful. It's ridiculous, thinking that a teenager should go through that, when they're just at the cusp of adulthood, so it brought up a lot of emotion realizing that I wasn't alone in a lot of that. I know that I had a conversation with Chloe earlier this year about heat flashes and that was the first time that I had spoken to anybody about the itchiness and the uncomfortableness at night and realizing that wasn't just me, you know, and that's what you hear a lot, a lot of people being like “oh, well it's just you, I guess it just didn't work out for you.” It's like, it's not just me, you know, this is something that could happen and it's exhausting. So, yeah.

Panel moderator: Can we just go down the line really quick and introduce, you guys can introduce yourself, so we know who you are and then we'll open it up for questions.

Shape (male detransitioner): Hi, I'm Shape. I'm a male detransitioner, gender non-conforming. You guys may know me from YouTube or Twitter, so this was pretty powerful, also triggering, but powerful.

Rachel (female detransitioner): I'm Rachel. I transitioned when I was like 25, lived as a “man” for like seven years, realized “oh I don't need to do this and I'm running away from other things,” so I went back to living as a woman, more or less, a year ago, and just kind of opened my eyes to kind of like the whole gaslighting of this “trans marketing” like it's you know they—well not to get too far into it, but the whole thing is weaponizing empathy to make people believe that “oh you have to affirm these kids that's the nice thing to do,” but long term, well, I think you guys know.

Brian (male detransitioner): Good afternoon, my name is Brian Wagner. In my early 20s, I had substance use disorders and mental health issues. I transitioned from male to female, I lived my life as a transgender woman for close to 10 years, I detransitioned upon sobering up and getting to see a psychologist that was not an activist. The most powerful part of this documentary for me personally was when it talked about Jung's “Shadow Self,” because I think for a lot of society and especially the trans rights movement, detransition is a reality that they're not ready to see or face or accept quite yet, so thank you.

Estella (female detransitioner): My name is Estella Suarez Hamilton. I gave an introduction already so…

Luka (female detransitioner): My name is Luka Hein and I transitioned as a minor at 16 and de-transitioned around six months ago when I was 20.

Laura (female detransitioner): Hey everyone. My name is Laura Becker. I was in the documentary. My hair was looking a little messed up at the time, I had dyed it too many home dyes, pink—thank you—for a little while it was—so yeah, some of you may know me from Twitter, Funk God artist, and I designed some of the Detrans Awareness hats and shirts that some people might be wearing so that's what you may know me from.

Chloe (female detransitioner): I'm Chloe Cole and I'm somebody who also transitioned as a minor between the ages of 12 to 16. And I've been speaking out about my experience for not much longer than a year now, since I was 17.

Shape: I guess I should tell a little more about my story since everybody has. I transitioned in my early 20s as well, the first time I ever got any kind of mental health help was when I went to Fenway House in Boston and they completely ignored my internalized homophobia, other comorbidities, and affirmed me, like there was no pushback. I got on estrogen pretty easily, but my mental health declined after that, but I attributed it to being in a “wrong body,” so unfortunately I got cleared for the sex assignment surgery. That deteriorated my mental health even further. I have complications after multiple revisions. I have urinary tract infections every month, that's why I was going to the bathroom like a million times. I am unable to have sex, I have osteoporosis, I haven't been able to get any help really from endocrinologists or even surgeons to reverse this. This is all one giant experiment I fell into when I was very vulnerable and not in a good emotional place. I definitely got sold lies and “hardware fixes” for my “software issues” that actually never went away. And my biggest push for transition was internalized homophobia, I just didn't want to be gay, because I was brainwashed from very young age that gay is bad and sinful, so the minute I realized I could escape my homosexuality, I latched onto the idea that I'm a woman, but I realized that none of those transitions solved any of my mental issues, in fact it made it worse, thank you

Panel moderator: Okay, does anybody have a question?

Audience member: Hi. Thank you all for being here, you're all very brave, and I probably follow mostly on Twitter or something. I think like a lot of parents whose kid is in this ideology, fortunately, my daughter so far has not said she wants to medicalize, but I can see just socially things sort of upping, which scares the hell out of me, because she'll be 18 next year, so I'm wondering if you guys had seen this documentary when you were 17 would it influence you [several panelists shake their head no] or is there anything that you would say to somebody at 17 who's in the grip that you like would help them like, you know, for body acceptance or whatever it would be, I would love to hear.

Estella: Yes, if I saw this documentary it would have made a difference. There are some people that are stubborn and very hard-headed and I was one of them, especially when you're 19, you think you know everything. If somebody says “oh you're gonna get menopause,” “oh I don't care,” you know, because you don't know what that means. The more information people get I think from first-hand, it makes a difference. I remember—and I said this prior to when we sat down—I didn't get top surgery. I was on testosterone for over seven years, and I was socially trans before that, and then a little bit after that, but I never went for top surgery. Specifically I can remember I watched a testimony of somebody who was transgender, they were a transman, so they were a female, and explaining that they had done all this surgery, and all this hormones, and everything, and it still—they were feeling like it wasn't resolving anything. And I remember he was this big buff bodybuilding guy and I was thinking “oh he's so beautiful I want to be like that” and he was like “don't do it, it will not fix your dysphoria” and so that gave me enough to just hold back, hold back. When I came to Los Angeles, there was no gatekeeping. I went to a very popular trans clinic down the street from here, and I was new in town. It was my first time going and talking to them, and they had an interview with me and like a car dealership, you get a packet of papers and you're good to go, like they have everything. But because I had seen the testimony, I thought “well let me just give myself some more time to think,” and the more you read about long-term and the more you talk about these surgeries and how they affect you in the end, the more you realize “well this is maybe not the most creative solution and this is probably not the most healthy solution,” so that's—I think it would make a difference, I think that absolutely this this film is a snapshot into history, and a good opportunity for people to get a different perspective. Especially because it's going from a leftist view too, so it's very nice to be able to digest that.

Brian: When I first transitioned, or started to, I specifically remember I saw the testimony of a man named Walter Heyer, he's an elderly man who I believe did in fact have the vaginoplasty and it didn't stop me. Thankfully, I never had that done, but I was well aware of it. But I was in a very delusional and ideological mindset, so I really don't think seeing this would have stopped me, I really don't. But I would have just told my former self to be careful what you wish for and don't rush into anything, because changing your gender it's not like you know, shaving your head, or you know, something like that, it's very difficult to undo and the further you go, the harder and harder…

Rachel: One thing for me, in female social circles, I definitely felt like I got “cool points” for it and I was already in my 20s, and it's got to be ten times that when you're in high school, so I feel like almost anything you would say would just fuel it even more, because it's like “oh this is something you're not allowed to do,” and it's kind of risky, so that's more exciting. And I don't know if this would help, but one of the biggest reasons I detransitioned was because I realized I felt affirmed in my identity as a “man” when I was with my female friend group, but then as you get more and more masculine, they don't see you as a woman anymore, and your brain does literally change, like there is something different with the hormones, so any kind of feelings of belonging she gets like within her current social circle, just basically imagine losing all those female friend groups, because once you look like a man, it doesn't really work the same. So like I don't know, I'm not really even sure how to explain that to a kid, but like “would you do this if you were completely alone by yourself without the affirmation of all your friends?” And she'd probably say “yeah sure I would,” but people tend to socialize in gendered groups, so just imagine if she can't socialize with her current friends, because of the way that they see her as, like, a man, later on. I don’t know how better to describe that.

Chloe: So, I'm 18 now, I'm a legal adult and as many of you know, I travel around the country talking about this subject. And there's still a lot of things that I can't do legally, like I still can't buy marijuana, or nicotine products, or alcohol. I can't rent a car. I can't even rent a hotel room. Because I'm under the age of 21. And yet, at 13, I was allowed to make the decision to change my sex. But I really don't think that 18 is just some magical age where all of a sudden you're capable of, maybe legally doing something, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you really fully understand what you're doing. I mean, the estimate right now is that most people's brain development finishes at around the age of 25, and it's probably much later for a lot of other people. But brain development aside, there's still a lot of things that people at the age of 18, at the age of 25, and even beyond, don't know about the world. When you're young, you don't really have a lot of knowledge or experience having to do with the world, and I was lucky to find out that I wanted to have kids at the age of 16, and to stop transitioning then, but not a lot of women figure that out until much later now.

Luka: I think particularly when you have a child going into this and you're worried about them heading down the path of medicalization, every situation is different, but presenting a different perspective, I feel like, couldn't hurt. They may not listen, because young people tend to be rather stubborn, but it couldn't hurt. And you know your kid doesn't stop being your child when they reach 18. You still need to be there, and let your concerns be known, with care, and compassion, and a genuine concern for their health and well-being. Keeping that line of communication open, to be that safe adult for your child, even when your child is an adult, is something that young adults still need, everyone needs, to a certain extent. And there's gonna be young people who maybe didn't transition and they reach 18, and rush into stuff, but I don't think it's acceptable to give up on them just because they maybe won't listen or they're hard-headed. If anything, that's when you need to be more compassionate and really keep that line of communication open, because they deserve for you to keep trying.

Laura: Yes, so I think that this documentary definitely would have impacted my perceptions, because although I had a lot of magical thinking, was naive, very stubborn, I was also very overwhelmed and we all started to know the kind of common wisdom “kids need structure.” Everyone needs structure, we need to order chaos, because things are very overwhelming. And I was overwhelmed, that's a lot of what passive suicidal ideation is—just being overwhelmed and your brain goes to this solution, this fantasy solution of escape, so it can deal with it at that moment, and transition is very similar, the transition fantasy. So I think I really was hungering to be helped. I was very alone, from peers and family, and I really wanted a safe adult to really sit down with me and listen to everything, and tell me that they knew how to help. Not in a pushy way, or in a controlling way, but in a way that allowed me to feel like myself, and I just never really got that, because my parents, by the point when I was 19, when I transitioned, they were exhausted, and they were not very equipped to deal with it, and there was some abuse as well, to me, psychologically. So they just kind of did emotionally sort of “give up,” and because I was so stubborn, they said “okay.” And the thing is you know, you just kind of get used to people not seemingly really understanding you, you know. Teachers didn't understand, therapists just—low quality, low, shallow, shallow understanding and so they'll say “yeah you're valid” or like “sure you can, are you sure you want to do it? Yeah okay, you know, maybe it'll help, because you're already so f-cked up, you're already so mentally ill anyway,” so they were very desperate too, my parents. But I was suicidal and had unprocessed trauma—PTSD—so, definitely keeping that connection, I know it's very difficult, but still listening and still being there, and not giving up is this inevitable outcome that “this person is just going to be messed up and they're disabled and they're mentally ill and that's their identity” and trying not to see your child as broken, because I saw myself as a broken human being that didn't deserve love or was capable of achieving happiness, so of course you're going to go to desperate measures, like surgical interventions. So I would say this documentary would have really been a relief to me, because it just provided so many calming, intelligent, rational adults that are experts in the field, they know what they're talking about. It just would have relieved my existential anxiety and overwhelm to know that there is an alternative because I thought that there wasn't. I thought it was either “I'm inevitably going to kill myself and I don't want to live anymore as myself,” or “if I transition maybe that'll help I'm doubtful about it, pretty hopeless, maybe it'll help.” I didn't realize until several years too late, I mean too late in a short-term sense, for the surgery and hormones, that there were alternative pathways, and so I have been able to cure my gender dysphoria and treat my suicidal ideation and PTSD, still working on that one, that one takes some time, but yeah, thank you.

Shape: Yeah, this definitely would have helped me. A lot of things did resonate with me, specifically how autistic people think “black and white.” I didn't feel like I could have existed on a spectrum of a gender while being a biological male. Also the way that's like, I really got obsessed with transition when I found out that it was a “possibility,” so it kind of clouded my entire judgment. Also it's the first time I've heard how dysphoria shifts, so you fix kind of like one part of your body and then you get obsessed over another part, and that actually never went away—I'm still obsessing and experiencing body dysmorphia. Yes, it would have definitely helped me, because at the time I didn't know that many trans people, and definitely didn't know anything about detransitioners, I've heard a little bit, but all the stories were like “well those people were never trans on the first place,” you know, the same things they're telling me right now, so it's a very important documentary, it was pretty well balanced, I'm glad it was not really a radical documentary, it was very factual, so I think that it could help a lot of people.

Luka: I also just wanted to add that when it comes to a parent talking to their child about this, regardless of the age of the child, or anyone in general really, it's important to remember that only telling someone “yes” and telling someone “yes, you're valid” and only affirming them and only saying “yes” is not an act of love. That's not what love is. Love is not giving in to every whim and only saying “yes.” Love is putting up those boundaries and saying “no,” and having to keep someone safe, even when they might be upset at you for it, because only saying “yes,” and only going down one path, and only affirming, isn't love, it's enabling, and I feel like that's just something that parents need to understand with this.

Panel moderator: Thank you, we're going to have another question.

Audience member: Sometimes clinicians tell parents that if you insist too much, if you try to show your children a different reality, they will dig their heels in even further. [Some panelists nod.] What is the difference between the things that do that, versus the things that you think can actually bring on a shift in understanding?

Rachel: I think it's tricky, because I feel like I had to actually, unfortunately, transition to be grounded back in reality, because you’re told all these things—the thing with transition is it's sold as this magic cure, like the snake oil to cure anything, because we don't really understand what gender is anyways, and we haven't really done this experiment culturally. There are a couple people who did it, like, way early in the 1900s, like a handful of people, but it was out of reach for most people until medical science today, so there's this huge placebo effect, and when people have these different mental illnesses, we don't really know a lot of time how to solve them, but the thing is, the power of belief works really well, and transition, there's like this whole “gender euphoria” thing with testosterone, it is very euphoric. How do you bring people back to reality without them having to actually go through it? I think, and this is the tricky thing, I think that's why we're gathered here, is that we don't really hear the downsides of transition, right, we only hear about “oh, this is this euphoric thing that's gonna be life-changing, affirming, it’s going to be this person's real authentic self, and it makes us all good people for affirming, you know these trans kids because you know we have to save them from themselves from suicide.” I don't know, I think just sharing stories of like people who have gone through transition who were, or maybe still identify as trans, but found “hey, like there are some issues with this and there are other ways we can deal with this,” whether that's recognizing there's maybe autism, maybe there's internalized homophobia, there's other kinds of traumas, I think just people being more aware that there's this other side of transition that isn't the the “rosy” side of transition.

Estella: To understand your question, like “how do you avoid them from being you know upset that you're showing them the the other way,” and I remember the mindset that I was in at 19, at the time, I came out on social media because I knew that my parents would give me pushback and I just wanted to just spring it on them and just not give them any chance to have any kind of push back to me. So I remember my mother telling me “You'll never be able to fully get a penis! You'll never be able to impregnate a woman!” all these different things that were logical arguments and I was just like “No no, Buck Angel has a penis!” you know, all these different things, and I just wanted her to hear me, I just wanted her to hear what I thought was going to be a good idea, and I think that maybe a good solution would be “Okay, well, if you want to show me your resources or propaganda or whatever, then I would like you to watch some resources that are from my side” and then that way they could feel listened to and you could see what they're actually looking at and then give them an opportunity “Okay we watched it now please would you watch this documentary with me, or would you read some of the side effects and we'll go in and see ‘Do you know what a cyst is?’ ‘Do you know where those come from?’ ‘So here are all these different side effects.’ ‘What does atrophy mean?’ ‘When a woman goes through atrophy, is it just their uterus or is it their bladder? And all the muscles that are along with that?’” because that's something I didn't know until probably about a year ago, and I'm 27, and I should have been—a doctor should have sat down and talked to me about those, but that never happened, so if you had like a little “give and take” maybe that would be helpful, that's the best solution I can think of right now, in this moment.

Luka: I think it also is, you know, it's somewhat inevitable that when you give pushback, sometimes these kids are going to be upset. It is natural in child development for each age group, is there are boundaries, and it is very natural for kids to push against those boundaries in a healthy way, and it is the job of the adults to make sure that those boundaries are still maintained and that the kid can express that pushback in a healthy way. It's unfortunate with this issue that we've seemingly, as a society, not only we just removed the boundary to push against, but put a medical system there in place. But sometimes when you push back, they're gonna be upset, and they're gonna need a space to really express that, because you know when they are upset, that is an emotion that they are having regardless of if, you know, as an adult, you feel like maybe the reason is stupid, or they're overreacting. To that child, that's a very real experience, that they are very upset about this. And whether that be that they just need some space to go blow off some steam, or they need you to be there as a compassionate adult to explain to them why you did what you did, or they just need someone to listen, it is still a parent or adult's job to do that with a sense of care, because you know you can't force someone to realize things, but you can be there, and you can be there in the best way that that kid needs. And that's going to be different for every kid, and some of them are just, they're gonna be stubborn, they're gonna be upset for long periods of time, but I think just for this issue, we can't just throw out that responsibility that even if a kid is upset, as long as you are doing what you're doing with care, and they are able to process that emotion of being upset, that that is still a good thing, because you know the parents have a lot of emotions in this and they deserve a space to process those as well. The kids are going to have a lot of emotions, and we really have seemingly taken away that space that they need to process those to come to the realization that maybe you know “hey maybe my mom isn't pushing back because she's hateful, maybe she's concerned” or you know the parent being “maybe my kid isn't acting out because you know I told them ‘no’ but maybe they're acting out because there is a deeper issue there and they are crying out for help.”

Laura: Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. I just wanted to add on to the idea of boundaries. What I often tell parents is, you know, this isn't palatable to hear, but the reality is that whether you tiptoe around—I've known parents that tiptoe around every little thing and they're walking on eggshells all of the time and it's extremely stressful—and I know parents who just get right up in there and take charge and say “no I'm the parent and I'm doing this” and I've known both sort of methods being taken and it is up to the individual parenting style, and the relationship you have with the child, but the reality is that as Lukas said, pushing back against authority and against parental wisdom is natural, normal, and even healthy. It can be an opportunity to further develop the relationship, because a child needs to learn how to manage their emotions. They need to learn how to take “no” for an answer, they need to learn how to look critically at other people's perspectives, and so it's very difficult. But repair is the other side to preserving a relationship. There will be conflicts, sometimes severe conflicts and damage will be done to the relationship, and so I think a lot of parents are focused so much on not damaging the relationship, which is understandable, but once it is damaged, I think that's when a lot of people might get into a really worse situation than if they had focused more on just the long run, you know, each little incident or confrontation is a smaller battle in a longer war, a war of preserving a relationship and having just a healthy life for everyone involved. I think focusing on “how do you repair” learning how to repair with your child is going to be critical, because it might be a very long period of time where they're processing things and if you act resentfully towards them, or bitter, or start punishing them, overly criticizing them. This is a more severe version of what may happen, but I had a parent who would verbally abuse me and gaslight me about it, and you know, I understand that they were angry and they were emotionally dysregulated, and that shouldn't have happened, but once it did happen, there was another opportunity there, the real work could have lied in the repair, that they had an opportunity to repair their relationship and further understand my perspective, but instead of doing that, they would gaslight me about it, and say that it was my fault, and say that never happened and that they did nothing wrong and in fact, I was, you know, punishing them or being a b-tch to them, you know, it was like very manipulative, that really damaged me, to feel it was all my fault, no matter what I did. Any emotion I had was unacceptable, and so whether it's arising to the level of like verbal abuse, or just—it's a spectrum of behaviors—but being able to repair and to acknowledge, you know, “I understand that this is painful for you” and not adding a “but” into it or like “but I feel this way” or like “but you're not listening” or like “you're so difficult, you're so difficult to deal with” you know, something I've heard a lot.

[cont] Really listening, and allowing them space so that they can start to trust you again, because the more you push when there's already been a damage a fracture to the relationship, the further and further away they're going to get, and then you might try to cling on even more, they're going to keep going. So it is inevitable that there will be damage, and I do think it's more prudent in the long term to think about the bigger picture of the relationship, and you may even lose what many people consider to be the biggest battle of all, which is when they get testosterone, when they get a prescription for hormones, when they get surgery, when they become an adult and they do something permanent, the reality is that even that is only a battle in the long-term war. There is life after the surgeries, obviously none of us advise doing it, but I think a lot of parents are so focused on just preventing that surgical outcome that they may lose sight of other ways to better the relationship, and once gender is over, what if they what if they forget about gender, what if you forget about gender, what what would that even be like? Are you consuming so much of your life based around that? Is there anything else in your marriage but just talking about the kids' gender problems, for example. And I'm not criticizing anyone, but I feel, you know, think about the long term, and things come and go, you know.

Shape: I'll be quick, I feel like one thing I've learned being in trans and detrans community, a lot of us have childhood trauma and if your kid thinks that they may be trans, maybe there's some trauma you don't know about, maybe you failed to protect them from predators, maybe you're the source of the trauma, because a lot of parents have been traumatized as kids themselves so they have all those personality disorders that they kind of transfer to their kids, so sometimes you need to look at yourself as well before communicating better with your child. Also unfortunately right now a lot of trans activists such as Jeffrey Marsh are teaching children online that they should go “no contact” with their parents if parents try to push back on transgender identity, which is completely crazy. It's pretty much emotionally manipulating parents to agree to support their transition, which sucks.

Chloe: Right. I mean, I agree that as a parent there are going to be some things that you'll have to do for your child that you may not necessarily want to, that they may not necessarily want, or that might not be the best for your relationship in the short term, and for a lot of parents this does involve taking away all Internet devices like their computers, iPads, phones, whatever else might give them internet access, and I think in most cases this is a good approach, but I think that if you're going to take something away, you have to replace it with something. A lot of these kids, the problem is a lot of them are addicted to the internet, because they were introduced to at a young age, and these devices are very stimulating, and for a lot of kids, especially kids who may not necessarily have a lot of friends at school, it can give them a sense of community online, but I really don't think that the internet and technology in general is really appropriate developmentally for most kids and teens, and a lot of these kids, they don't feel like they really belong to any communities in person, they don't really have any friends at school, a lot of them are bullied, many of them aren't really active in clubs, or sports, or extracurricular programs. If you're going to take away this one big thing from them, you have to replace it with I think one of those, which they should be in already.

Brian: Yeah, just real quick, I think one of the things that would have helped me in the beginning was if I had just gotten out of my woke echo chamber at my college, like if I had someone took me surfing, or gone dirt biking, gotten into some kind of rigorous exercise, I think that would have really helped, but yeah it's true. My psychologist, when my dad wasn't down with it, she was like “eh, you just won't have a father anymore” and I cut him out of my life for many years and I regret that now but, you know, had I just gone camping with my dad a couple times, or just listened to—I mean once I started listening to—it's really corny, but I started—I listened—there was two podcasts with Joe Rogan that I listened to as a trans, I was like “no no no, I'm still a man, I like man things,” and you know, not that women can't like, you know, MMA fights and, you know, certain things, but, you know it really realized that, and being sober, I was like “I made a huge mistake,” and yeah, take your kids out in nature.

[Time is reached, panel ends. Panel moderator thanks panelists, and informs the audience about current bills being considered in the legislature.]

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feminismisstillahatemovement · 11 months

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If I recall correctly you are on the 'trans/nonbinary identities are mental illness' wagon, and I wanted to know your perspective on why claims like that cause extremely negative reaction. I remember I used to react very negatively myself a year ago or so until I analysed that actually there is nothing wrong with mental illnesses to BEGIN with, so claims like that should not be hurtful? A thing I can think of is that term 'mental illness' automatically suggests need to 'heal' it, but that's also not true. For example autism and ADHD are also mental illnesses, but they are not supposed to be "healed", nor CAN be healed, it is just a different way of brain to work. Saying that about genders is also not supposed to automatically invite misgendering; again, mentally ill people often need accommodations and some of their requests and boundaries respected, and if someone refuses - THEY are kind of mean (if not straight up ableist), so many people would try to adapt just to be kind and accepting. So, respecting pronouns and name can also count as accommodating in this case, and if you don't do that then YOU are the bad guy here. Same as ignoring boundaries a mentally ill person vocalised makes YOU kinda mean. (of course utopia of everyone respecting everyone will never happen, but we always aspire to be kind and condemn the cynical individualists that refuse simply because)

I am just not sure why as soon as it is suggested for gender, all respect and validation for mental illnesses goes out the window. From what I've seen personally, the "opposition" is rarely ableist beyond using a single slur you know which one (and when they TRY to be, they get destroyed by their cis+het political associates that are autists or people on schizo spectrum. source: check 4Chan demographic). My only guess is crimes that have to do with trying to "fix" it and religious fanatics treating it as being possessed by a demon or something (happens to gays and lesbians too), but it seems like 1) this sort of people will be awful to others regardless of whether they think it is mental illness or not and 2) there is always a percentage that WILL go after more vulnerable ones - if not queer people then other demographics, and it is inherent flaw of humanity that cannot be a problem of only a concrete group. It is not 'society vs trans' issue, it is 'a percentage of society destined to be destructive and people who are weaker or different are the first targets' issue.

Again, not here to debate, and not asking you why you think these identities are mental illness, just questioning a logical error (if not a double standard) that I've been noticing regarding this claim and wonder what's your stance on why suggesting this is considered atrocious after all the (correct) claims that mentally ill people DO deserve love and respect. Like, why this claim is always seen as derogatory and never as value-neutral?

The thing is, I don't actually have any hard and fast rule or belief or explanation for the explosion of people identifying as transgender the past decade or two: it seems obvious a large proportion of the people - particularly teenage girls - are under the influence of social contagion, and another subsection of older males are autogynephiliacs who have found a way to come out of the closet and have their kink applauded instead of mocked by society for the first time.

But then there still remains the much smaller group of people within all that who really do have some sort of genuine gender dysphoria, and we still don't have any conclusive explanation for why that is: is it the brain misfiring and receiving conflicting information because of being exposed to too many of the opposite sex's hormones in the womb? Does it correlate to the introduction of the birth control pill? Would it be better treated the way we treat body dysmorphia, like anorexia or xenomelia, and try to help people find ways to come to terms with the body they see in the mirror, rather than encouraging them to hack bits off it?

I really don't know. Whatever is going on, it's clearly something that needs to be treated seriously, as a genuine medical issue, not a fetish or sexuality, which is why it is so odd it so quickly got bundled in with the LGB movement, where it clearly doesn't fit. I would say one of the reasons even discussing the phenomenon has become such a minefield is that it got wrongly included under that umbrella, which made questioning it as an 'identity' some kind of assault on sexual preference. Which is pretty twisted in itself, when you think about it; like treating bulimia as nothing more than an optional sexual fantasy.

The "ism" part of transgenderism is also a big problem, in that the arguments we are hearing "for" it every day emerged out of idiotic and short-sighted feminist theories back in the 1970s: the teaching that "gender is a social construct". This is not true - the basic gendered division of labor is universal across all societies and all periods of history - but it infiltrated academia, and from there got adopted by the far left as another one of the "identities" they could claim were being oppressed by western civilization, which they sought to destroy.

This is, of course, entirely the wrong way to approach a medical condition people are actively suffering with, but by politicizing transgenderism, it made questioning the narrative surrounding it a political act, and anyone doing so fair game for political attacks, which has had a hugely chilling effect on any open debate over how best to treat the people affected. Again: the worst possible way to treat vulnerable, real-life flesh and blood people seeking help.

Whether gender dysphoria is mental or biological or both in origin, I think that the people suffering from it deserve compassion and help and attempts at understanding. It must be an unimaginable nightmare to wake up each morning and see someone in the mirror you feel is not you. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, and neither would anyone genuinely living with it.

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theconstitutionisgayculture · 1 year

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I agree with your stance on gender dysphoria, but I still have questions. What sources made you conclude that gender dysphoria is a mental illness? You can't say common sense, we know that already. Furthermore, I believe that gender dysphoria is primarily an effect of trans social contagion. However, do you genuinely think there isn't a single person out there with genuine dysphoria that isn't a result of social contagion?

I never said all gender dysphoria is a social contagion. Dysphoria and dysmorphia are both, as far as we can tell in the inexact field of psychology, real things. You can find definitions for both in several different medical sources. I'm willing to believe those conditions exist unless some evidence comes to light to show otherwise. And that's part of the problem as a whole, because those studies just aren't being done. Especially when it comes to gender dysphoria. There's too much money and ideology tied up in modern gender "studies" and "treatment" for anyone to want to risk rocking the boat by accidentally discovering that gender dysphoria is caused by a rare circumstance during pregnancy or, even worse, that it doesn't exist at all as currently defined. I don't personally think that last is true, mind. I do believe gender dysphoria exists. But for the most part, that's what it is. A belief. I'm choosing to trust the untrustworthy field of psychology and the people who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria that the condition is real and people have it.

That said, I also think a lot of people who currently say they're trans these days, especially if they're underage and even more especially if they're little children, are the victim of either grooming or social contagion. I have seen nothing to show me that trans kids exist and there are generations of studies and medical proof of the effects of puberty. Kids going through puberty, especially young girls, often experience dysmorphia over their changing bodies. Kids going through puberty are maturing rapidly from children to adults and are being inundated with hormones and it's a very confusing time. They often don't know who they are as people and have to navigate the often turbulent seas of self-identity for the very first time. Kids in that situation are very open to manipulation, self-manipulation very much included. I can think of at least three things about myself that I hated when I was going through puberty that a trusted adult or group of friends could have used to convince me I was trans if they wanted to. Just look at how many young girls go on birth control to stop or regulate their periods. Do you seriously think it would be hard to convince those same girls that they could avoid the other unpleasant aspects of becoming a woman if they became a man instead? Especially with how prevalent the idea is that men are privileged and woman face a life of discrimination and abuse? What about young gay boys who just want to be attractive to their straight crushes? How hard would it be to convince them they're better off as a girl? There are so many alternative explanations for the sudden explosion of "trans kids" other than "they all have gender dysphoria and they all need to transition as soon as possible" but you're not allowed to entertain them at all.

Of course there's social contagion. But that doesn't mean every adult with dysphoria is "contaminated".

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thatstormygeek · 10 months

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why the fuck does Jervis from "The Stock Dork" think they need to chime in on any trans topic anywhere?

The fuck does a site that claims it "is on a mission to teach investors about the ins and outs of building real wealth by investing in stocks and other assets" have to say about being transgender?

Spoiler alert: nothing good.

This entire story is sus.

First, who the fuck is South West News Service?

Wait, what? That sounds an awful lot like a clickbait factory.

They specifically tout that their content is aimed at triggering an emotional response. So yeah - clickbait factory. Fantastic.

Which explains a lot about how this story makes no fucking sense.

This kid had weird gender feelings at the age when most kids have weird gender feelings. News at fucking 11.

Right here, she specifically admits she doesn't know what she's talking about, but that doesn't stop her from making sweeping, unsupported generalizations about a marginalized community. And it didn't stop these folks from printing them.

The timeline makes zero sense. She first thought she might be trans at 13. Her parents were "initially skeptical." And yet, by 16, she has already legally changed her name, gone on T long enough to deepen her voice and grow facial hair, and then detransitioned. In her video, she claims to have started T at 15 (instead of the 16 in the article), but she also says she had one visit with one doctor who barely talked to her before handing over a hormone prescription. Which is not remotely how it works for minors in the US. And not how it works for most adults, either.

Did she change schools? Move to another town? I mean, how did she manage to not have a single friend who knew she was trans? She'd been on T for six months and somehow fully passed as a cis guy? In high school? With bathrooms and locker rooms?

Zero mention of puberty blockers, either, so I'm guessing she started to get boobs and have periods in there somewhere.

This story is basically the Transing Your Kids urban legend note for note: There's the 'girly girl' with her 'rapid onset gender dysphoria' caused by social media 'contagion.' The 'doctors hand out hormones like candy.' The 'everyone loves trans people and hates detransitioners' theme. And the 'being trans is a trend' plus a bonus 'trans influencers are to blame.'

The only thing missing is her being a lesbian that her parents pressured to transition out of homophobia, but that point doesn't play as well with the straights.

Hang on. Her 'mum' said? But this is published on a USian site.

Wait...her parents gave a statement to The Post? Which "The Post" would this be? Ohhhh.....the New York Post. Note, the 'original' article on The Stock Dork didn't link to this one. Or the SWNS site above.

I feel for this kid. Something fucky is clearly going on here. And whatever you think about what age kids know their gender, I'm of the opinion that 16 is not old enough to consent to being part of your parents' grift. So I hope she gets free of whatever is going on here and gets therapy to work through her issues so she can grow up to have a good life. Preferably one that doesn't involve taking rights away from other folks.

The overarching point is that, again, transphobia is profitable. I didn't go looking for this article. It was highlighted on my MSN home page in Edge.

Some shitty stock tips site based in Florida published a clickbait factory piece that was plagiarized from at least one major tabloid because they believe it will bring eyes to their site. And they were right. Again, I saw this on my MSN friggin' homepage.

Fucking worst timeline.

#this is my brain on life #us politics #the world is a trashfire #transphobia #transphobes eat shit #trashpool says fuck this shit

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butch-reidentified · 2 years

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can you explain where you think the line is on "sex dysphoria" versus "gender dysphoria" with regards to your theory about dysphoria in a proportion of transsexuals. I do not buy sex dysphoria as having a (primarily) neurological etiology because I don't think you can clearly separate the two. mostly because a lot of expressed dysphoria centers on secondary sex characteristics which occur at puberty (and are unlikely to be represented or expected in a neural set up prior-- such as presence or absence of breasts) or are things that have no distinct neurological correlate (such as having a beard or not, or the distribution pattern of one's own body fat). I do suspect at least some transsexuals might have an atypical sensory response to certain body parts (that is instantiated neurologically as all responses to stimulus are) and thereby show abnormalities on certain testing but this does not tell us the cause. It also does not explain why almost universally (unless you have a political, religious, or psychological/medical viewpoint otherwise) those who experience dysphoria go to great lengths in attempting to experience the social world as the other sex, to conceal from others' view their sex characteristics, and feel distress that they can't-- surely if it was just a bizarre neurological disorder you'd just have say men and women confused and upset about their bodies and at best wanting to become null or eunuch members of their sex.

I've touched on this a few times in a few of my other posts related to dysphoria, but I don't consider "social dysphoria" to be related in any way to what I talked about in the previous asks, and I do not think it should even share the "dysphoria" label. As I've said before, in my model, "social transition" in people with supposed neurological-type dysphoria is typically only an incidental byproduct of medical transition; as in, one has started being perceived more often as the opposite sex in day to day life, and it becomes functionally easier, safer, and more convenient to more or less assimilate. Of the people I know or have spoken to with neurological-type dysphoria, not one of them has ever cared about "experiencing the social world as the opposite sex" so to speak. They don't care about pronouns and they think whining about "misgendering" is silly. If female, they do not bind - typically that will only increase the sensations, or at least the awareness of them, by making one hyperfocus on her breasts.

As I've also said in my other posts, I believe this type of dysphoria is a tiny percentage of those currently identifying as trans. Most currently identifying as trans are struggling with other mental health issues, gender nonconformity, social contagion effect, internalized homophobia and/or misogyny, trauma, or any myriad of other potential issues. Of those who DO experience this type of dysphoria, I have not known them to experience such discomfort with sex characteristics that lack a distinct neurological correlate, such as facial hair or voice.

Importantly, many people I've known with this expression of dysphoria either don't transition or very minimally transition. Those who do transition medically usually have done so as a last resort by far, after years of other attempts at treatment/management, and either don't call themselves the other sex in the first place, or return to sex-accurate labeling sooner or later if they were seduced by trans ideology at first. I don't know anyone with this expression of dysphoria who doesn't become disillusioned with gender ideology sooner or later (mostly sooner).

As for sex characteristics that develop in puberty, imho there's simply not nearly enough information to speak on that. This is one of the many reasons I keep emphasizing how abysmally little we actually understand about the nervous system (and genetics & epigenetics too, honestly), and the fact that what we /do/ think we know is frequently discovered to be incorrect or incomplete later on. My theory is based in a small portion of the sad quantity of information we have now, the research I've done officially & unofficially, numerous interviews with individuals who describe themselves as sex-dysphoric or physically dysphoric as well as with medical and mental health professionals who treat them using non-affirming approaches, and on my own experiences with sex dysphoria and years of various treatment/management attempts ranging from total avoidance to therapy with a radfem therapist (who I adore and am still close with) to partial medical transition with sex-accurate identity retention.

Recently, I've observed in various online spaces an uptick in individuals pursuing a degree or aspect of medical transition while retaining sex-accurate identity. I haven't had a chance to look into this or speak to many of these people, though. I don't know if this is related to dysphoria, or a body modification thing, or what.

My own experiences led me down this rabbit hole because I had the experience of dysphoria as a physical, bodily sensation for as long as I can recall, but intensely did not want to identify as male - even in my more libfem days. I could never really get on board with TRA rhetoric and ideology. I tried to understand and be supportive, but it never sat right with me and things like neopronouns always seemed laughable to me.

I actively abhorred the idea of identifying as male or relinquishing my womanhood in any manner. I didn't understand the purpose of chest binding or how on earth it was providing relief for anyone. I took so much love and pride in being gnc, in being a butch lesbian female, and resented being told that my dysphoria, or even medical transition, meant I had to disidentify. I loved my body and its appearance, and had no issue with how others perceived me. I had and have no mental health issues outside of normal responses to negative life circumstances (ie experiencing feelings of depression when my physical disability flares up and keeps me homebound for prolonged periods). I've been avidly female supremacist since I was in elementary school, and struggled with trans rhetoric around dysphoria and trying to reconcile why I felt so strongly that their narrative didn't apply to me.

Basically, the expression of sex dysphoria I've discussed isn't at all unique to people who medically transition or describe themselves as transsexual/trans, and exists entirely separately from the vast majority of trans-identified people's experiences of and definitions of dysphoria.

#mine #ask #non anon ask #non anon #sex dysphoria #dysphoria #dysphoria discourse #physical dysphoria #neurological model of dysphoria #ntsd #neurological type sex dysphoria

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onecornerface · 2 years

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The “transvestigators”

I recently learned about the Transvestigators. Some aspects of this seem new, other seem old.

I’m aware of more longstanding practices of “accusing” various cis women of being trans women-- examples include accusing Lady Gaga, Michelle Obama, “Hit or Miss” Girl, and others, of being trans women (or crossdressers, or “traps,” or what-have-you). Sometimes as a “joke,” and sometimes in seriousness. Non-conservatives may do this less but obviously aren’t immune-- I’ve seen people, seriously or jokingly, accuse Ann Coulter of being “really a man” too. (Ann Coulter does many very bad things. Sexist and transphobic methods of insulting her are also very bad.)

Some of the recent stuff I’ve seen seems new, though-- both in its scope of paranoia, and in its extension to targeting cis men by “accusing” them of being trans men. (Hurray equality?) Depending on various factors, this could turn out to be fuel for my contention that most types of oppression end up harming or targeting nearly everyone in some way or other.

The seemingly recent “Transvestigators” phenomenon seems to be a sort of community, as in the link. This involves both accusing cis women of being trans women (”really men”), and accusing cis men of being trans men (”really women”). I’m not sure how many people are doing this, and I hope it stays very fringe. I don’t think all trans-exclusionists are this nuts or at risk of ending up like this, but I do think it’s an illustration of what the basic paranoid logic of many types of transphobia can lead to.

For instance, it seems to be an amplification of problems that already existed, such as (1) obsession with trans women’s features such as hands and bones, (2) biologically unrealistic dichotomies of ideas about even what cis men’s and cis women’s bodies are like, and (3) the paranoid notion that ‘transgenderism’ is corrupting shockingly large fractions of the population (through e.g. “trends” and “recruitment” and “social contagion”).

(I don’t recommend looking into it unless you want to see some really off-the-wall transphobic paranoia. I leave it to the reader to determine whether these people are at fault, or whether they are likely too out of touch with reality for it to be their fault, or whatever other moral status seems most plausible to you (or whether moral fault is fake because hard determinism, etc.).)

In any case, it’s a potentially fascinating phenomenon.

In part, the new “equal”-ish element of the transvestigator phenomenon could be a manifestation of a recent increase in new (or new-ish) types of transphobia against trans men, in part related to trans men’s increased visibility, and new (or new-ish) anti-transmasc tropes among social conservatives and trans-exclusionary feminists. For instance, the last few years of pseudoscience discourse of “rapid onset gender dysphoria” mostly targets transmascs, and so does the various lines of bullshit in recent sensationalist books like Irreversible Damage. I’m pretty sure this is a change from earlier decades of transphobia that mostly targeted transfems while erasing transmascs.

(I have no opinion on whether the new anti-transmasc transphobia is worse or less bad than the older erasure of transmascs-- both obviously suck and are unjust).

Anecdotally I have heard that at least one of the transvestigators has accused Donald Trump of being a trans man (”female”). So there’s that. If true, I don’t know what political background it was coming from.

A lot of the transvestigators are obsessed with bizarre ideas about “bone structure” and the like, which seems like an interesting convergence (maybe not coincidental, I dunno) with some types of racism. Maybe there is extant literature on the relationship between transphobia, sexism, and racism that gets at some of this?

And (more likely coincidentally) the transvestigators seem to make many of their arguments via drawing lots of triangles on pictures of people, to prove they have the wrong bone structure-- this reminds me of Illuminati conspiracy theorists, who also are obsessed with seeing triangles everywhere. Also cf. the David Icke-style (and often antisemitic) theory that lots of people are secretly reptilians, and that careful analysis of photos or videos of their faces or bodies will reveal clues to their reptilian nature.

Finally, I have seen a post by someone who seems to think Mitch McConnell and Rachel Levine are the same person. I initially posted the image of this claim, but I didn’t want it showing at the top of my post (with my commentary below it, initially hidden) and I couldn’t quickly figure out how to get it to show up otherwise, so I deleted it. The paranoid style seems similar to the transvestigators, but I don’t know if they are directly related. I have not seen this type of claim elsewhere, and it seems to be in a league of its own. Rachel Levine really is a trans woman, but I very much doubt she is Mitch McConnell. I can’t rule out the possibility that the claim is a (bad) joke, but last I checked the account making it appears to be serious. However, I could be wrong about this.

#transphobia cw

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bumblee-stumblee · 1 year

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saw an ask you answered on my page somehow, not sure why. but wanted to correct some of the things said. many transgender kids are not getting shipped off to gender clinics. where i live it is an incredibly hard process to even get diagnosed with gender dysphoria. after that, they barely provide you with any help and instead have to seek out advice from a particular doctor. in most circumstances, said doctor is transphobic and is not interested on getting you on hormones or anything else. and if you do find a doctor who says they can get you on hormones, you better have ten years of therapy under your belt. being trans is not a happy go lucky trait i picked up off the ground to be trendy and cool. i struggled with my identity for many years, tried different labels, and only now am i beginning to be happy with myself as a transgender man. i have tried many times to read through radfem posts, try to understand where you’re coming from, read from peoples different perspectives but i just don’t think i’ll ever agree with your stances. i don’t understand how so many radfems like you sincerely believe we choose to be trans and are just poor little confused girls who got eaten up by the transgenderification monster, but it’s incredibly demeaning. i’d love to have a genuine conversation but sadly i don’t think it’ll go anywhere. just wanted to state my piece about that post and some views i’ve found on your blog.

We can have a genuine discussion if you like.

It's not like I don't believe gender dysphoria doesn't exist, I'm well aware it does and affects a very small percentage of the population. I just don't believe that many of the kids claiming they have it are all genuine.

Many of the girls that claim they are men might not have it and instead are uncomfortable with puberty as they've noticed that women are treated differently and want to opt out, or realized they are gay and have internalized homophobia.

There's also the religious groups that would prefer their kids get srs and present as the other sex so they can be 'straight'. I mean this is done in many countries that still considered homosexuality to be a sin and a crime.

I don't think that i would immediately label a doctor transphobic for not giving you hormones, and having years of therapy is a good thing so that they can make sure its not something else, autism or any underlying comorbidities. It's a good thing that they make you have therapy as dysphoria means you are mentally ill.

I don't think you choose to be trans either, i think many of you get introduced to the idea and groomed towards a certain direction. A lot of girls within the same friend group tend to get the social contagion whether it be trans or eating disorders. I also think, like I've said above that lots of girls want to opt out of oppression. There's so many change that happened to our bodies that put more attention to us and not much of that attention is good.

Teen girls are shit on so much, sexualized and demeaned that i don't blame them for wanting to opt out. But that shouldn't be the answer. We shouldn't make them go through life altering hrt and surgeries so that they don't have to deal with that.

And kids? They can't consent for these things. Children do not understand, they do not have the cognitive maturity to make informed decisions. They cannot consent. They should be made to wait until they are adults (until they're 26 if i had my way tbh, never met a mature 18yo) in order to be given hrt and surgeries.

So we can talk if you like and I'll attempt to understand what you're going through.

#radblr #radfem #asks

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secretgamergirl · 2 years

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A Little Trans Primer Supplement on “Transing Kids”

This post is a bit of a supplement to an old one I’m rather proud of- A Little Fact Checking Primer on Trans People, and also as a follow-up to decidedly less cheerful- A Little Horrifying Primer on Transphobes, and to a lesser extent, TIMs Aren’t Real. As I’m writing this it’s Pride Month, so I’d appreciate it if people circulated all of those around again.

Today though I’d like to really drill down on one particular bit of misinformation, as it keeps coming up lately as “justification” for some truly horrific acts of discrimination and child abuse, so let’s just take a moment to pick apart the entire notion of “transing kids.”

Here’s the specific propaganda in question, written out as verbosely as I can ever recall seeing it:

“’Being trans’ is a mental illness known as Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria which is spread to children in the form of a social contagion, contracted either by reading blog posts full of dangerous ideas by trans people, or occurring spontaneously as a child seeks to be popular at school, or is inflicted upon a child by homophobic parents who would rather their child be another gender than gay. This then leads to them being fast-tracked into irreversible hormones which render them infertile and mutilating surgeries that they all regret and therefore kill themselves!” - FALSE

There are, frankly, more lies in that rambling paragraph than I can count without just picking the whole whole thing apart piece by piece and addressing it one item at a time. So let’s do that.

“’Being trans’ is a mental illness..” - FALSE

Despite the confidence of bigots as they routinely confront trans people shout “you’re mentally ill!” being trans is absolutely not a mental illness. Being trans is just one of those things a person can be. Like being left-handed, or being gay, or having detached earlobes. It is impossible for a person who isn’t trans to become trans, and it is impossible for a trans person to stop being trans. Anyone who ever tries to tell you otherwise is directly contradicting literally everyone you might think to check that with, from the World Health Organization to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

“...known as Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria...” - FALSE

I believe I may have covered this in an earlier primer, but “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” or “ROGD” is a completely fake disease invented by a bigot in the hope of creating a scientific sounding term to scaremonger with. The notion has been actively debunked and discredited since the term was coined, and even when initially presented, the “evidence” offered that such a condition might exist was a collection of anecdotes from forums dedicated to transphobia, claiming to have all had “young children” who all “suddenly declared that they were trans with no prior signs of this” who, on later examination, proved to be referring to children from the ages of 17 to 30 who by and large did not inform their overtly transphobic parents that they were trans until some time after they were safely out of their homes.

“...which is spread to children in the form of a social contagion, contracted either by...” - FALSE

The actual concept of “social contagion” is that one can track a phenomenon like repeating a joke someone heard to someone else through a large population in a fashion similar to how one might track the spread of a disease. Proponents of the whole “ROGD” thing instead seem to hope to convince people that there exist actual maladies one can contract by learning about them. Like if I explained to you that blue-blistering brain pox existed, and caused you to break out vivid blue sores, such sores would suddenly appear all over your body. As if I were a witch or something. It’s a downright astounding example of magical thinking.

“...or occurring spontaneously as a child seeks to be popular at school...” - FALSE

The idea that coming out as trans is a way to become more popular at school is the sort of thing that frankly could only possibly make any sort of sense from the mindset of an abusive parent learning that their child has discovered some exterior social support network, and I’m frankly amazed it’s an idea anyone even try to float with the general public. The unfortunate reality is that being openly trans at school opens a child up to violence and discrimination, both from other students, and from school staff, a basic fact of life one would think everyone would be intimately aware of as the most common verbal elements of all bullying are suggestions that the person being bullied is a boy with feminine qualities or a girl with masculine qualities.

“...or is inflicted upon a child by homophobic parents who would rather their child be another gender than gay.” - FALSE

This feels a bit like belaboring the point, but this is, first off, not a type of parent that exists. Homophobia is always rooted in the idea that same-sex attraction makes someone inherently less feminine/less masculine, and bigots have always envisioned some sort of spectrum on which being trans is some sort of more extreme version of being gay. It is extremely unlikely that there has ever been anyone in history who has had a child come out to them as gay and been met with an exclamation of “why couldn’t you just be trans!?” but it is exceedingly common for trans children to be asked “why couldn’t you just be gay!?”

In addition to that, it is actually less common for trans people to be straight. So for instance, a trans girl, whose parents mistakenly perceive her to be a boy, is more likely than not going to be attracted to other girls instead of or in addition to boys. So bigots pointing at any given trans girl and insisting her parents “changed her from a boy to a girl” because she liked boys are, more likely than not, wrong on both those counts.

“This then leads to them being fast-tracked...” - FALSE

So, first off, the disingenuous framing here is suggesting not only that being trans is a choice, it’s a choice other people make for you, which is just stunningly divorced from reality. Parents simply do not spend several years raising a child as one gender and then decide they’d like to switch things up. That does not happen, full stop. If that ever were to happen, one would assume the child in question would not be at all on board with the idea, and there would be absolutely no reason for them to go along with the plan without any objection or mention of it to others. Even if firmly coached or questioned, children can’t keep up the sort of deception that would require. To say nothing of needing to get doctors on board with this plan, school administrators, and various other authorities, all of whom, here in reality, are notoriously stubborn about acknowledging and accepting trans people, even when explicitly required to do so.

And speaking of how things work in reality, even the most accepting parents will not assume their children are trans even when making it real obvious. Every story you ever hear of any parent accepting a child as trans starts with that child making a surprisingly bold and unambiguous declaration of what their gender is. People, by nature, will naturally attribute anything less than that to basically anything else, which is rather understandable as being trans is, contrary to what you might think from all the public attention, quite the rare thing for anyone to be.

And of course if we’re talking about “fast-tracking” medical transition... well let’s save that for the next point.

“...into irreversible hormones...” - FALSE

“Hormones,” or to use the proper medical terminology, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is never administered to children, full stop. The very suggestion that it ever should be administered to children is something I would never expect any medical professional to ever sign off on either, as the idea behind it is to correct hormonal imbalances in trans people such that their levels of various androgens and estrogens are in line with people of the same gender who are not trans, and the typical human body does not start to produce those in particularly high quantities until after puberty.

Even after the onset of puberty however, when administering HRT to trans teens would actually be tremendously beneficial, causing them to develop in the exact same way as their peers, at the same time, with tremendous benefits to their overall health, social development, and self-image, we don’t administer it to them.

Decades ago, fearmongering over the concept that some teens might be misdiagnosed as trans, and that such teens would be “irreversibly damaged” by spending a few years with the wrong mix of hormones, a compromise was reached to instead administer trans teens puberty blockers. Drugs first developed for the treatment of precocious puberty (the condition requiring us to say “the typical human body” earlier) to delay the large-scale production of androgens and estrogens until legal adulthood, at which point, if they haven’t changed their mind, switch to HRT for a normal puberty (if a few years late in getting started), and if they are in fact one of these theoretical misdiagnosed teens, they can simply stop taking puberty blockers at any time, and unpause their normal development.

Such teens incidentally remain theoretical, as much to the frustration of organized transphobes, there have been approximately zero teens in the multiple decades where this has been the policy who have not continued on through the full period and gone on to start HRT, because again, there simply aren’t any people out there declaring other people to be trans, and trans people have to really argue a strong case to be acknowledged and given proper treatment. At time of writing, they don’t seem to have found a compelling way to argue how this rationalizes their position and seem to be relying on a general medical conspiracy.

“...which render them infertile...” - FALSE

Some countries have had policies in the past (and others still to this day) which prevent people from being legally recognized as trans unless they submit to forced sterilization. There is no actual medical, psychological, or ethical basis for this, nor is it part of the international standards of medical care for trans people, nor does HRT remove the ability to produce children. In fact, many of the same people spreading misinformation to this effect spend an equal amount of time throwing absolute fits over seeing language printed that acknowledges the fact that trans people are able to have children. That said, anyone planning to both have children and start a regimen of HRT should discuss things with their prescribing doctor because there are a lot of corner cases to account for there.

“...and mutilating surgeries...” - FALSE

Trans-related surgical procedures are not performed on minors. It’s a blatant lie to suggest they are. There are also no grounds for referring to such surgeries as “mutilating,” and there is a truly deplorable amount of misinformation out there on what such surgeries actually entail. If anyone uses the phrase “cut off” in regard to anything a trans person may chose to have done, that person is outright lying.

It is of course very much worth mentioning the very notable exception of people with certain intersex conditions, on whom it is alarmingly common for doctors to, in fact, perform rather horrifying surgeries the very day they are born, making the on-the-spot decision, frequently without even their parents’ knowledge or consent, and declare them a boy or a girl depending on exactly what sort of surgical result they were going for. This is, of course, a horrific practice that should be ended immediately, but is only relevant to the subject of trans children if one considers a boy whose genitals were trimmed down to resemble those of a girl and then declared to be such on his birth certificate to be as trans as a boy who was visually read and marked as such without any surgery to force him into that box, and we typically leave that call to be made by the particular boy who was given unethical surgery without his consent.

“...that they all regret and therefore kill themselves!” - FALSE

Possibly the most malicious lie spread about trans people is that medically transitioning (that is to say, any combination of HRT and surgery) causes regret in trans people, and leads to a high rate of suicide. The actual numbers cited come from a variety of disingenuous sources- some made up completely, some pulled from a particular decades out of date study which has become something of a holy relic for anti-trans extremists but does not actually have any relevance to anything involving trans people, and frequently numbers are pulled from valid studies on trans people, but from the wrong line (i.e. citing the likelihood of suicide among trans people PREVENTED from being able to medically transition.

If one is to look at any of the many, many actual studies conducted on the outcome of treatment for trans people, medical transition yields uniformly positive results across the board, and trans-related surgical procedures have a lower rate of regret of any type of surgery that is ever performed. i.e. more people are happy with gender affirming surgeries than say, knee or hip replacements.

Not that that has any relevance on children of course, because nobody is performing any such surgeries on children. In fact, no one is doing anything at all to children in regards to them being trans other than, hopefully, acknowledging that they are speaking the truth when they explain that they are trans, and addressing them properly after that has been cleared up. Which is something that should not be in any way offensive to anyone, but unfortunately gets very much under the skin of hateful people who get actively angry any time they hear a trans child is not being actively abused.

This of course leads us to the big question...

So if nobody is “transing” children, nor “diagnosing them as trans,” how do children (or teens, or adults for the matter) come to the understanding that they are trans in order to ask for proper treatment?

The simplest answer I’ve seen anyone give to this question is, “you get misgendered a lot, and it really bothers you.” I can’t really think of a better way to put it than that.

It’s not like this is the be-all end-all answer on the subject, but generally speaking, we all have a great many moments in our lives when someone refers to us with a gendered term. You’re on the phone with someone, they keep calling you “ma’am” or “sir,” someone’s starting a dance lesson with “OK now ladies...” or you’re watching some streamer shout “OK boys!” or any of hundreds of other things. For the vast majority of people, half of those terms are going to feel like you fit them just fine, and the other half are going to feel like they are describing a category of people you do not belong to. And of course if you’re non-binary it’s possible they’re all going to feel wrong, or right, or maybe you’re genderfluid and which ones feel right or wrong at a given point depend on other factors.

In any case, what typically happens with trans people is that over some period of time it sinks in that which of those gendered terms feel right tend not to be the ones people most typically use for us, and while it can very much vary from person to person how long we can put up with it without objecting (and you know, adjusting for fear of reprisal, repression, etc.) at a certain point you feel pretty obligated to start issuing corrections.

And then maybe you look into the whole HRT thing, because hey, turns out that even among the vast majority of trans people, the way humans are wired, which hormones are typically associated with the gendered terms that feel right for you, which mix of hormones makes your brain properly function, and how you’d ideally want your body to distribute fat, hair, bone densty, skin oils, etc. all line up in a really nice way, so you flip that androgen/estrogen ratio and everything’s great after you give things a bit of time to get into proper gear. Or almost everything, and that’s when you also throw a couple surgeries in the mix if you can afford them.

Other than that all you have to deal with is a bunch of really annoying paperwork, and of course living in a world where there’s a bunch of really weird bigots who have invented an astounding array of baffling and hateful ideas about people like you and just will not stop sharing them with absolutely anyone they can possibly reach. At least there’s the slight consolation that they’re so removed from reality they aren’t likely to recognize you’re one of the sort of people they’re lying about if they’re ever face to face with you.

#trans #transgender #transphobia #educational resource

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shinra-makonoid · 4 years

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I apparently “hung out with TERFs”. Me.

I got pissed when that person told me that, let me tell you.

#I hate people #It's only because I looked at their arguments and that I believe biology is a thing #And that social contagion of people thinking they have gender dysphoria is also a thing #Very extremist takes I know #I admit I leaned to GC on a moment mostly for their arguments #But I literally did this for everyone #HSTS TRA TERF GC Transmedicalists etc #I did them all #I didn't hang out with anyone but transmedicalists and TRA

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manlarp · 3 years

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I'm curious how you, as a rad ftm, view the whole truscum vs tucute discourse

Thank you for this really interesting ask. I often weigh up which side I think is better.

Cons of tucutes:

- They believe you don't need dysphoria to be trans, and focus more on gender euphoria. This trivialises transition and makes it more normalised to go and get hormones and surgery just because you might enjoy dressing/presenting as the opposite sex.

- Tucutes tend to be more supportive of new genders such as non binary, gender fluid, etc. These are inherently misogynistic because they are rooted in stereotypes, such as "only girls like wearing dresses" and "women are submissive". (Truscum also often hold these views, but I've seen it more in tucutes).

- They are far more obsessed with microlabels and identity politics than truscum. They are vocal about being trans and push harder to erase legal and biological sex.

Pros of tucutes

- They are less likely to point to suicide rates of trans people as a way to garner sympathy and deflect criticism. They don't make it seem like the existence of a trans person MUST be miserable; you can still live a happy life.

- They do not pressure anyone into proving their identity by getting hormones and surgery.

Cons of truscum:

- They are very fond of the debunked brain sex argument. They believe trans women have female brains and vice versa when the concept of a female brain is actually just misogynistic.

- They pressure people, especially and most dangerously children, into getting hormones and surgery to prove they are trans.

- They maintain that trans people will kill themselves if they don't get to medically transition, which is false, misleading, and manipulative. It also makes gender dysphoric people believe that there is no hope for them to have a happy life.

Pros of truscum:

- They tend to agree that gender dysphoria is a serious mental illness, which means they take it more seriously.

- They are usually more keen to go under the radar and pass as the target sex by focusing on their own transition, as opposed to changing the world around them to fit their gender identity.

- They don't see being trans as a cool thing, which is what has recently contributed to a huge social contagion of rapid onset gender dysphoria in young people, particularly heterosexual females.

So in conclusion, I believe there are nuances to each side of the argument. I would say truscum are closest to radfem ideology because they believe gender dysphoria is a mental illness, but there are still huge discrepancies, because truscum will cite brain sex, and never want to accept that their illness might be caused by society (like anorexia). Both tucutes and truscum are generally some of the most misogynistic people around, and I wouldn't side with either.

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ardellian · 4 years

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I. Am very ANGRY.

For all the trans people who read this - you are amazing, you are brave, and fuck everyone who dares to tell you how you are allowed to express who you are.

Anyway I went through JKRs essay on trans issues and tried to deconstruct it because a prominent Swedish political figure just supported it and these are EXACTLY the kind of arguments I have had to counter and it SUCKS. I will have to sit through this shit being thrown at me again not far from now. So this is... venting, I guess.

This is going to be long and if you want to understand it I guess you should read what she’s written; it’s on her homepage. But also don’t read it because it will probably make you sad and angry. It’s transphobic and ignorant, and just, please, stay away from it if you know that will make you feel like shit. I’m also going to be quoting her in the text below, so I’m putting it under a cut.

M’kay.

First, what even is she trying to say with this essay? She says she’s worried about the “new trans activism.” What exactly is worrying with this new activism? Well, she doesn’t say it outright, but it seems to be that she believes it’s getting too easy to transition. That the “rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation” is being eroded, and this is bad.

Through the essay I can find two main arguments she has to support this claim.

1. Cis youth (in particular cis girls) will be fooled into to thinking they’re trans.

The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.

Littman mentioned Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram and YouTube as contributing factors to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.’

She also supports this idea by sharing a personal history of being uncomfortable with gender roles, and confusing that with gender dysphoria:

“The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. I struggled with severe OCD as a teenager. If I’d found community and sympathy online that I couldn’t find in my immediate environment, I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he’d have preferred.”

“Fortunately for me, I found my own sense of otherness, and my ambivalence about being a woman, reflected in the work of female writers and musicians who reassured me that, in spite of everything a sexist world tries to throw at the female-bodied, it’s fine not to feel pink, frilly and compliant inside your own head; it’s OK to feel confused, dark, both sexual and non-sexual, unsure of what or who you are.”

3. A concern that fake trans women invading women’s spaces would make “natal women” less safe:

“A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law. Many people aren’t aware of this.”

“When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.”

Okay.

Let me make an observation here before I try to counter these points. She’s having very different problems with the ease of transitioning for trans women and trans men. If it’s too easy for trans women to transition, men will use this as an opportunity to prey on women. If it’s too easy for trans men to transition, young girls will be in danger of forsaking their womanhood. She clearly identifies with the young afab people who question their gender, but not with trans women who want to be recognized as such. Let that sit with you for a bit and I’ll see if I come back to it.

Let’s see if I can argue against these two points first.

1. Cis youth (in particular cis girls) will be fooled into to thinking they’re trans.

Her statistics aren’t wrong. There has been a huge increase in trans youth. This increase is especially prevalent in neurodivergent afab people. Trans health care, at least where I live, is struggling with how to deal with this. Those diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders often have difficulties with feeling comfortable in their bodies and the language used around that can be similar to the language used around gender dysphoria. Many people are concerned, as JKR obviously is, that these people might think that transitioning would get rid of these symptoms, when in fact they stem from something completely different. These people may transition and still have these symptoms. They may be disappointed.

The conclusion you’re implicitly supposed to draw from these statements, and those like what I quoted above, that these young trans people aren’t really trans. That they’re somehow being tricked by trans activists. You have to believe two other things for that: that young neurodivirgent people can’t interpret their own lived experience in a correct way, and that transitioning is harmful.

Because why would it be a problem if a young person questions their gender, identifies as trans, transitions, and then changes their mind? Who cares if they have an autism diagnosis? It is only a problem if transitioning is bad for you. And the part that people like JKR seems to think is harmful is that they might have “altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility”. But the unaltered body holds no moral superiority over the altered one. While fertility is something many people desire and something many who lack it grieve, it is not something that inherently gives your life more value. To JKR, the inherent harm of transitioning can only be justified if the person is really trans.

The tendency of a specific group to display a higher prevalence of identifying as trans is then used to cast doubt on their experiences. It’s a “social contagion” - they’re not really trans. But why does any of that matter? So what if a person identifies as trans because they see themselves in another’s story and go - that’s true for me too? Why can’t you believe them?

Well. Because you don’t really believe trans people are real. You believe that when young people speak of dysphoria, they are referring to the experience you had when you were young. And you’re happy with being a woman now. So surely they just need to accept themselves for what they are and they won’t be trans anymore.

I get it. I recognize myself in what JKR writes here. I felt “mentally sexless.” I also “found my own sense of otherness, and my ambivalence about being a woman, reflected in the work of female writers and musicians” and this reassured me. Find a woman who has not during a period of their life hated their body, I dare you. The world we live in does cause women to have strange relationships with their bodies. And it’s very easy from there to make the logical leap to the idea that young trans men are just girls who never found that reassurance! I might have also thought so, if I hadn’t connected with trans men in my teens, and actually tried to understand their experience, and realized that my negative feelings about my body not living up to some standard of beauty, about not being woman enough in some way, and not wanting to be “pink and frilly”, was not the same as their experience. I mean - I didn’t like my body because I thought it should look like a beautiful woman’s body, but they felt bad about their bodies because they thought they shouldn’t look like women at all! Young boys don’t find reassurance in texts about womanhood. Because they’re not women.

So I feel a bit sorry for her. Because I think that she sees herself in these young people, and it terrifies her - what if I could have turned out to be trans? But that would only be a problem if you think being trans is a problem. So maybe you could have been trans, JKR. Why does that bother you?

And god, if you want to talk about things that pressure young people into irrevocably altering their bodies, how about the “rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation“ that tries over and over again to make sure, double sure, triple sure, that you really are what you say you are. Trans people who want access to gender-affirming care have to show no weakness - if you slip up and say that you might not want surgeries, that can be used against you and you get nothing. Trans people repeatedly say they have to perform their gender to the extreme in order for health care providers to believe them. They’re being questioned and doubted and pushed and to get through that, you have to dig in and fight. This is not a process that encourages careful consideration and doubts - it’s a system that says: all or nothing, hesitate and you’re out.

So we get to her second argument:

3. A concern that fake trans women invading women’s spaces would make “natal women” less safe:

Here she draws a line between real trans women, who have passed through some rigorous testing process, and men who fake it. She uses her history of abuse as a cause to be worried about the safety of women if the gender binary were relaxed. The only argument she makes here is the one I already copied up there:

When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.

Let’s be charitable and say that she means men who would fake being women when she writes “any man who believes or feels he’s a woman“, and not trans women who just don’t perform womanhood according to her standards. But still the question remains - why oh why are you so scared of seeing a body that doesn’t agree with your ideas of a woman in a changing room? If that “fake trans woman” is there, and doing nothing wrong, then why are you so bothered about it? Why? Is the sight of male secondary sex characteristics inherently harmful to women? No! Are you afraid that someone might experience sexual attraction when looking at your body? Then do you think lesbians should also have separate changing rooms? No, you obviously don’t! Sexual harassment is never acceptable, and just because you have a same-sex space doesn’t make that space immune to it. Opening it up to non-conforming bodies does not make sexual harassment somehow acceptable. Those who enter spaces with sexual harassment in mind should be dealt with - but the presence of non-normative bodies is not sexual harassment.

Trans women are women, JKR says, and I sympathize with them - but only if they display their womanhood in a way that agrees with my idea of it. And they’re not like me. Only if they have the right kind of bodies, have gone through medical procedures, want to do these surgeries, will I extend my pity.

And fuck that.

Look, the kind of logic she presents here paints trans people into a corner where the only acceptable way of being is to subscribe to a certain kind of body. Which harms the very people she claims she wants to protect - young people questioning their gender. Especially non-binary people, whom she doesn’t even acknowledge.

And now let’s stop being charitable - JKR doesn’t believe trans people exist. She believes that those who say they are trans are tragically confused and we should only accept their words because we are nice. We should accept their delusions because we pity them. She doesn’t understand her own opinions this way, I’m sure. But fuck her understanding.

She’s upset because the idea of “womanhood” is moving away from her. She feels - I’ve felt this too! - that this push for increased inclusiveness is taking the focus from the real issues. Things that affect all women. But claiming that women have “unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class” is something that white women say. When anyone talks about “the real issues”, they usually mean “issues that affect me.”

I mean that’s privilege 101, people.

Ugh.

In conclusion, I’m still angry.

#jk rowling #jkr #transphobia #i'm sorry for venting on you #please don't interact with this if you know it will hurt you #look to be prefectly clear i am a cis woman so if i'm out of line let me know #i would be happy to stand corrected #but i #i'm just fucking tired

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dorianthey · 4 years

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debunking jk rowling’s “research” one statement at a time:

note: I will not be looking at JK Rowling’s anecdotes. I’ll only be pointing out flaws in data and retelling of events.

Image: “For people who don’t know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who’d lost her job for what were deemed ‘transphobic’ tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn’t.”

- Judge Tayler was asked to rule on whether a philosophical belief that gender is determined by biology is protected in law, not sex. This is why he ruled against Maya Forstater.

- Maya Forstater was a visiting fellow, meaning her placement wasn’t permanent and her contract was renewed on a year-by-year basis. The company she was working for, the Centre for Global Development (CGD), took issue with her insistence, both on Twitter and in real life, that she refer to transwomen as men and they believed she was fostering a hostile work enviroment. At the end of her contract, the CGD chose not to renew it. Judge Tayler made it clear that Maya Forstater retained her right to freedom of speech but that there were no grounds for her to demand that the CGD renew her contract.

Image: “Months later, I compounded my accidental ‘like’ crime by following Magdalen Berns on Twitter. Magdalen was an immensely brave young feminist and lesbian who was dying of an aggressive brain tumour. I followed her because I wanted to contact her directly, which I succeeded in doing. However, as Magdalen was a great believer in the importance of biological sex, and didn’t believe lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises, dots were joined in the heads of twitter trans activists, and the level of social media abuse increased.”

- Magdalen Berns wasn’t just a “brave young feminist” who also held strong views on “the importance of biological sex”, that was her whole thing. Her YouTube channel and Twitter were built around attacking transpeople under the guise of feminism. She even called Blaire White a “he”. That’s how far gone she was. She wasn’t your average “gender critical” feminist.

- Fun fact: Magdalen Berns also believed that the trans rights movement in the UK was the product of lobbying by Jewish billionaires, so take that as you will.

Image: “The fourth is where things start to get truly personal. I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.”

- Detransitioners are a miniscule amount of the population. Only 8% of people who identified as trans detransitioned (trans people only make up close to 1% of people so its actually 0.08% of the total population) and only 0.3% do so after surgery.

Image: “Most people probably aren’t aware – I certainly wasn’t, until I started researching this issue properly – that ten years ago, the majority of people wanting to transition to the opposite sex were male. That ratio has now reversed. The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.”

- A 4400% increase? It’s almost as if once trans people have access to gender clinics, they’re going to try and transition. Of course there’s been 4400% increase. It was unbelieveably difficult to get referred for trasitioning treatment before. The numbers were next to none. Now that its accessable, people are taking advantage of their resources.

Image: “The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018, American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said: ‘Parents online were describing a very unusual pattern of transgender-identification where multiple friends and even entire friend groups became transgender-identified at the same time. I would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.’”

- Woah, it turns out “entire friend groups” were trans??? It’s almost as if people become friends with people who have similar lived experiences to them. You know how so many LGB kid think they’re the only one who isn’t straight in their friendship group, but then it turns out that the majority of their friends were LGB? It’s the same thing.

- Littman’s paper has been widely discredited for poor data. For one, it doesn’t actually survey trans youth, its surveys parents. On top of that, it surveys parents from biased websites with such charming titles as “4thwavenow”, “transgendertrend” and “youthtranscriticalprofessionals”. Its bad data, plain and simple. She goes on to talk about how Littman was “subjected to a tsunami of abuse and a concerted campaign to discredit both her and her work”. Yeah, that’s because her work was bad. It should be discredited.

Image: “The argument of many current trans activists is that if you don’t let a gender dysphoric teenager transition, they will kill themselves. In an article explaining why he resigned from the Tavistock (an NHS gender clinic in England) psychiatrist Marcus Evans stated that claims that children will kill themselves if not permitted to transition do not ‘align substantially with any robust data or studies in this area. Nor do they align with the cases I have encountered over decades as a psychotherapist.’”

- I like how she doesn’t refer to a study, she just refers to claims a disgraced psychiatrist made.

- Of course, this is just blatantly wrong. Here’s a link to 51 peer reviewed papers that show that gender transition has a positive effect on the wellbeing of trans youth and 4 with mixed or null results: https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-well-being-of-transgender-people/

- Some studies literally show that parents affirming their child’s gender identity can reduce the chance that they’ll make a suicide attempt in a year from 57% to 4% (http://transpulseproject.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Impacts-of-Strong-Parental-Support-for-Trans-Youth-vFINAL.pdf). Affirmation and support is so important for keeping trans youth here.

Image: “I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria. Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans...”

- The “extensive research” she is referring to is a study that lumped together gender non-conforming (GNC) youth and transgender youth. Wow, cis GNC people exist? Science, you sexy beast, you’ve done it again. Trans people only make up about 1% of the population. Most GNC youth are just going to be GNC, not trans. It all pans out.

- The big study this all stems from also considered all the people who did not respond to the follow-up call (30% of participants) as “desisters”. It’s not good science.

- Something else that I need to say is that not all people who are referred with gender dysphoria in their youth transition then. That’s why puberty blockers exist, so kids can have more time to think about their gender before getting bad dysphoria when they start puberty. Blockers are completely reversible too, by the way. Things start moving again once you stop taking them.

The rest of her piece is largely anecdotal and I will not be “critiquing” her past dealing with abuse and assault. While I can understand people cussing her out on Twitter, I draw the line firmly before trivialising the trauma this woman deals with and thus, I will no longer comment. That being said, keep in mind that not everyone who comments on her anecodotes is attacking her or dismissing her issues.

Here it is. Do what you will :)

#trans rights #trans rights are human rights #jk rowling #harry potter

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