As a gender non-conforming woman, I agree with so many of the points you've made. I've been (horrors!) misgendered before, but although I was variously annoyed or amused given the situation, I was, wonder of wonders, able to move on. People make mistakes! It's not the end of the world!
But seriously, if I'd been able to opt out of all that adolescent girls and young women have to endure (ahem! more or less constant sexual assault and objectification), I probably would have gone the non-binary route too. Now that I'm older and my personality has stabilized, being female is not so bad. Even good sometimes. It is unfortunate, I think, that being non-binary for biological females means rejecting femininity. And it's similarly peculiar that we are relying so heavily on gender stereotypes to assign gender. Does anyone remember when the insult used to be to call a non-conforming woman "sir" or refer to her as "him?" Now it's the complete opposite.
I was hanging out with a straight, very progressive, couple that I know the other day, and the subject of transgender kids came up. And the husband was telling me about a boy he knew in a friend's family who was very feminine. My friend used this kid as an example of someone who was "obviously" trans. A boy whose girl column behavior had marked him, in the eyes of this straight friend of mine, as someone who would be better off climbing all the way into that column and just identifying that way.
Don't get me wrong: if this kid, as an adult, identifies as female, and wants to transition? I honestly say go for it, there are unquestionably people who benefit from physical transition in some cases. But it was a moment when I saw pretty plainly that there's more than just acceptance and tolerance at work here. There are those who are comforted, from without, by the trans identity--because it neatly orders behavior that, to them, does not add up.
As a gay man, who often had feminine traits as a boy, and who struggled with my role as a man in my 20s, but eventually came to be very happy with it...let's just say I disagreed with my friend pretty strongly, LOL. But I was grateful to him for saying the quiet part out loud.
This should be about what is best for the child, but sometimes it's about what's best for everybody else. And for people who are questioning their gender, that is yet another obstacle for them to contend with.
One thing that struck me a few years ago, and that has been confirmed by the clinical experience in Holland and the UK, is that, at least among teen boys with gender dysphoria, the large majority (80-90%) are simply coming out as gay. The whole baggage of "gender" is a conceptual regression for them, feeding old superstitions about gay men as "women trapped in men's bodies." For the rest, the dysphoria (which has much more in common with body image distortions like anorexia and not with sexual identity) is simply a phase best waited out.
I have some experience with tomboys, both growing up and with one of my daughters. At least in those cases, there's no appropriate role for "gender" at all. They are simply a minority of girls who differ in some ways from most girls, but are nonetheless unequivocally girls, not "boys trapped in girls bodies," to voice that superstition again.
Sometimes, difficulty and/or waiting and seeing are the best path for the child. The fact that there's so little patience with the facts and unwillingness to face that fact in particular, is itself a big red flag.
I would be worried enough about this moment, which I agree is regressive, if it felt like a permanent and sustainable shift in our understanding of gender nonconformity, offering a comprehensive (and invasive) new strategy. Instead I think it's a doomed, incoherent fad that will hurt everybody when it falls to pieces--*masquerading* as a paradigm shift.
The totalizing piece of it drives me nuts. The insistence that everybody targeted for treatment must receive the same form of it.
But that's just one issue with it. There is a lot more fault to find! And now that people have begun reporting on the treatment conferences, ugh, this particular emperor may not even have an epidermis.
I just wish we could get out of this without it being a mess. The collapse of this thing will be so ugly and so complicated.
Yes. It will be -- already is -- ugly. We had more tolerance for "gender nonconformity" 40 years ago, as we understood that not all boys are stereotypically hypermasculine football players, but are nonetheless boys -- and not all girls are stereotypically "girly," but are nonetheless girls.
There are dominant types, then clusters of boys and girls who are a bit different, in different ways. That doesn't mean they're "trans," or that the gender concept is anything other than an incoherent idea trying to displace real medical and scientific understanding of variability within and between the two sexes.
Only in the last few years have we also begun to see the misogynistic potential of this movement, as a few radical feminists (whom most men and women wouldn't normally pay much attention to) did see and say decades ago, like Germaine Greer. What no one foresaw was how hyperaccelerated social contagion powered by social media would contribute to a major rise of mental distress among younger cohorts, including personal identity and self-image problems.
The real issue in what is called "gender fluidity" or the unscientific rejection of the gender that a child is born as the time of birth may very well be in far too many cases "snowplow parenting, in which parents believe their job is to clear obstacles out of their children’s way rather than to equip them with the skills to navigate those obstacles."
I, too, am shocked by the reappearance of judgmental, narrow-minded, stereotypes. Interestingly, when I was in my late teens, my father continually ridiculed me because he thought I was not "masculine" enough... despite the fact that I was an award-winning amateur wrestler and AAU Jr. Olympics weightlifter. The reason he thought that was because all of my friends were female, I was a bookworm, and I did not like stereotypical male activities (which I found to be mostly a waste of time). Later in life, in between academic careers, I was a jewelry designer. Of course, because of my occupation, the fact I was single, and I dressed very avant-garde, everyone thought I was gay. (I'm not.) Now, I am a middle-aged, Italian/Irish American, well published, professor with three grown children. Because of this, everybody assumes I am sexist, racist, and privileged. Does it ever end?
Regarding Snowplow parents: I can't help but wonder if this is an outgrowth of our wealth disparity. Parents fear their children will fall into the nether classes without the constant coddling that smooths their path. That anxiety tells us something about how we feel about the class divide and how utterly destructive it is to think of yourself as qualitatively better because of your financial status.
What an astonishingly ignorant mess. There's absolutely no reason to blame trans people for whatever she's imagining has changed for gender non-conforming kids. No one who's knowledgeable about trans kids is teaching anyone that sex or gender is interchangeable with sex stereotypes. No one is "medicating" kids for being gender non-conforming. I'm not sure why this writer decided fearmongering about trans people was helpful or benefits kids in any way, but the opposite is true. Let someone who knows what they're talking about write about this, because this person isn't it.
I have found this writer to be the opposite of a “fearmongering” voice in this discussion and examination of the gender ideology world. She is asking questions. If I had school age children I would be asking questions. Look at the statistics of how many kids have decided that they are ‘non-binary’ or ‘trans’. Read about social contagion and it’s history of influence through the centuries. I think a lot of us want equality and compassion for trans folx but want to make sure that medicalization is not rushed into. It’s not fear perhaps it’s caution because decisions are being made about bodies that can never be changed.
This writer refers to trans men as women in this article and generally avoids acknowledging, let alone valuing, trans people's actual experiences and insights. If she supports equality and compassion the way you do, she has a really awful way of showing it. Her "just asking questions" leaves out important information and has a very clear agenda, and it's feeding a moral panic that pathologizes trans people, demonizes a totally inaccurate strawman of trans advocacy, and spreads misinformation about trans healthcare.
You talk about "acknowledging" and "valuing" the "experiences" of "trans people." That's not the point. That's basically a request to respect purely subjective claims and non-evidentiary assertions. Subjective "experiences" aren't relevant where the debate is over objective facts and truth. Specifically, "trans people" isn't an agreed upon classification. There is no objective class of humans or children who are "trans." There isn't even a hard definition as to what that means. It's a political term, not a medical classification. There are people who are dysphoric, and a good deal of debate in the field as to what that actually means and what the causes are. Further, dysphoria is a psychiatric disorder. That means they suffer from a pathology. So your objection to "pathologizing" "trans people" is null and void. The field of psychiatry already pathologizes them, and it does not recognize the concept of "trans people."
And again, this isn't about a "moral panic." It is about facts and truth and evidence. There is no such thing as "trans healthcare." Health care is about intervening to address demonstrable pathogenic conditions which afflict an otherwise healthy physiology as per medicine. People who suffer dysphoria have a pathogenic condition per psychiatry, not medicine. It's a disorder, not a disease. Medical interventions to relieve dysphoria are not "health care" because they are not addressing disease. From a purely medical standpoint, the person's health and physiology is not at risk or under threat, so the intervention is by definition elective.
These are the facts. Wanting to relieve someone's mental or emotional suffering is laudable, but not at the expense of facts. If acknowledging facts "marginalizes" someone or fuels their discomfort, then the only remedy is to help them acclimate to the facts. Asking the rest of us to play pretend with them or to disregard the concept of objective facts entirely is not an option.
You realize every single human experience of quality of life, happiness, etc, is subjective, right? Your refusal to acknowledge that trans people exist (despite being clearly defined in the modern scientific sense for 100 years) isn't a compelling argument, no. There's no debate among experts that some trans people benefit tremendously from access to medical options. You believe that trans people have no right to determine their own needs, despite those needs and the efficacy of their medical care being supported by research. Your definition of medicine ignores other areas that like trans care don't require a lens of pathology... Ever heard of reproductive health?
So yes, you know nothing about this, but good job elaborating the ignorant fringe nonsense the writer also believes here.
Every feeling is subject. The facts of reality are not. "Trans" people is not a thing. There is no such scientific definition not can there be. If you disagree, you're welcome to outline the empirical, material, verifiable and measurable characteristics which distinguish "trans" people from other people. Fallacy of assertion will not save you. Nor will appeal to authority. There is a great deal of debate, among experts and others, as to the "benefit" of medical interventions for emotional distress. Start with Genspect, SEGM, 4th Wave, Transgender Trend, Dr. Debra Soh and Dr. Ray Blanchard. Whatever "research" you think you can dig up, it's always going to be non-evidentiary and statistical. Because all things related to gender dysphoria and what some people call 'trans' is based on self-reported feelings, not on any confirmed medical differences. And that is always shaky "researchy." I believe ADULTS have every right to believe what they want about themselves and to seek whatever intervention with their physiology they can arrange with other consenting adults. I do not believe they have a right to demand that everyone else share their subjective opinions about themselves or to impose it on children.
Emotional needs don't constitute "disease." Those "needs" translate into a great deal of abuse in the medical field when people on anti-depressants, for instance, become drug addicts. "Reproductive health," by the way, is also not "health care" unless there's a pathogen. Abortion isn't health care. It's an elective procedure. Pregnancy isn't illness. Neither is puberty. You can argue whether abortion should be available as an elective procedure, but "health care" it most assuredly is not. In point of fact, I know a great deal about it, far more than you do, and based on a growing body of evidence, notably the preliminary CASS report in the UK, it's far from "fringe nonsense" but actually the medical consensus. The only reason it hasn't yet emerged as consensus is because activists such as yourself have successfully bullied medical professionals into silence for fear that expressing their honest opinions will incur the wrath of activists and cost them their career. Successful implementation of totalitarian intimidation in the service of fake "science" doesn't mean it's actually science. If you were to honestly and anonymously poll the whole of humanity and the medical establishment, there's no question this is the overwhelming majority opinion.And because we're basically talking about children here, and the rights of parents to decide what happens to their kids, you really have to face the fact that your position is doomed. You will never persuade anything close to a majority of parents that their children's health is best managed without their consent. Yours is a doomed and losing viewpoint. Unsupported by evidence and science. I'm sorry that may result in a significant number of people suffering gender distress to face ongoing distress and possible marginalization, but the cost to families and civil liberties of adopting the posture you suggest, which is that a majority of society should pretend to believe what they don't really believe just to protect the emotional fragility of a tiny minority, is irrational beyond comprehension.
Sadly, as is evident from the demands of TRAs (Trans Rights Activists), "agree to disagree" is not an option. For the rest of us, that's fine. But their demands require everyone to adopt their definitions and accept their self-image as objective fact. Anything less than complete ideological capture of the whole of humanity equates to "marginalization." If and when they decide that they're fine living in a world that does not see them or treat them as they see themselves, that's detente. Don't hold your breath.
Where in this is there any “blame” put on trans people? And I see sex stereotypes commonly used as a basis for gender identity. Dianne Ehrensaft, one of the top clinical purveyors of medicalization, is widely known for pushing this nonsense — that if a toddler girl pulls out her barrettes, it means she’s saying she’s really a boy. Look at the posts on the various adolescent social media sites and you’ll see no shortage of kids who “don’t fit in” because as boys they don’t like sports or some other such superficial garbage. When clinicians ask parents about their child’s GNC history, they ask specifically about stereotypic behaviors — did your son like dolls, etc. How are you missing this? And how are you missing the point of this article which is about raising resilient kids?
She repeatedly claims that a lack of acceptance towards GNC kids is because of trans people, education about trans inclusion, trans "lobbying," and evidently the very existence of trans healthcare. (Mis)attributing causality that way is blame. Her source on this being due to trans anything? A link to one badly done drawing that trans experts find objectionable and offensive. How are you missing this?
That Diane Ehrensaft quote is about a specific colleague's childhood experiences of communicating about his gender. Not a dictum about barrettes as a diagnostic or a rule for any medical decisions. It is an obvious reality that stereotypes inform how kids communicate about gender, because they inform how all people communicate about gender. It's not that disliking barrettes makes someone a boy, it's that kids do sometimes use those stereotypes and gendered expectations as part of how they communicate. Even this article notices that phenomenon, though it misunderstands it--kids often start to feel safer liking whatever colors and toys they want to like when they know they're seen correctly and respected no matter what, when they no longer feel compelled to symbolically reject or embrace stereotypes in order to communicate an aspect of themselves that isn't otherwise being heard.
Clinicians ask about kids' histories with gender expression, but no good clinician is doing that in a prescriptive way, just collecting information. And trans people have advocated for decades for people to stop requiring stereotyped behavior from trans people and stop misunderstanding gender expression as indicative of gender identity--where's that in this article?.But hmm, wait, this writer says teenagers who come out as trans without a history of childhood gender nonconformity are even more suspect and less legitimate than those who were visibly GNC as kids in stereotypical ways--seems like she doesn't actually understand the point she claims to be making if she's contradicting herself that way.
And when the one and only example of kids supposedly not being raised to be resilient is kids being taught that misgendering people can be disrespectful... Yeah, that's not really an article about raising resilient kids.
"And trans people have advocated for decades for people to stop requiring stereotyped behavior from trans people and stop misunderstanding gender expression as indicative of gender identity--where's that in this article?"
Once again, you are confusing objective facts with subjective dogma.
"Gender identity" is a component of gender ideology. Not medicine. Nor is it part of psychiatry. It's a concept which gender ideologues claim exists, imagine exists, insist that everyone else recognize exists... but which is unsupported by any evidentiary process anywhere. Many if not most of us who are skeptics contend there is no such thing.
There is sex. That's a fact. It cannot be changed. All humans are defined biologically by their sex. Then there is "gender expression." That's simply cosmetics. Anything else is emotional, and emotions are not the domain of medicine or science.
You're clearly obsessed with demonizing trans people to satisfy some need of yours, and have run into the welcoming arms of anti-trans hate groups. Garland your hatred in pseudoscience all you like. Gender identity is a psychological concept, well supported by research. If you think human thought, emotions, and behavior are outside the realm of medicine and science, I'll just be over here highly relieved you're not a doctor or a scientist.
Hyperbole. Disagreeing with the notion of "trans identity" is not "demonizing." In point of fact, I believe these are deeply troubled people, especially if they are minors, who are not well served by "affirmation." You believe affirmation helps them and that anything less is demonization or hatred. But you have no grounds to make that judgment. You don't know why someone disagrees. What if my position is actually predicted on a love of truth and a love for what these disturbed people really can be? What if I think the whole premise of your position is harmful? Gender identity, as a matter of absolute fact, is a THEORETICAL concept and it is not supported by FACTS. The body of researchers who are protesting it is growing and whatever research you imagine supports it is heavily impacted by political lobbying. The real-world evidence to the contrary is contained in the documented experiences of detransitioners and desisters. Because, yes, THOUGHT and EMOTIONS are mysterious and are far, far, far outside the realm of medicine and science. That you believe otherwise makes you guilty of subscribing to pseudoscience. Again... Genspect for starters. Then do a search on Debra Soh. Inform yourself. Your desire to #BeKind has blinded you to the indoctrination of what is effectively a religious cult masquerading as an "identity." But it's nothing of the sort. It's a cult and the entirety of its dogma is at most five to ten years from imploding and putting people like you so far on the margins of accepted science and medicine it's going to make your head spin. Don't bother with apologies at that time. Those of us who know better already know what's coming.
There is no "fear mongering" in this piece. I suspect your next comment if asked why the 4000% increase in girls identifying as men is because it's more accepted now which evades the question. What exactly makes a kid trans without using stereotypes? GNC, gays, lesbians and autistic kids are being medicalized. Wake up!
Yes, this is a great example of the kind of ignorance this article is encouraging. You can't even try to refer to trans men respectfully for a half a second, you're really going with "girls identifying as men"? That 4000% stat is specific to specialty referrals in the UK, and the thing about % increases is that it's really easy to make things sound huge when something starts out as an extremely small number and merely becomes less minuscule, even when the actual numerical increase isn't very big at all. Why do you think trans kids don't deserve respect and support?
A kid's self-knowledge of their gender and communication of a trans identity/experience makes them trans, the same way non-trans kids' gender identities make them non-trans. Doesn't demand anything stereotypical. Trans kids' gender expressions are often more heavily scrutinized by people who want to invalidate their experiences, but they shouldn't be. At the end of the day people who support trans youth are actively advocating for all kids to have more freedom from gender stereotypes and more room to do whatever works for them as individuals as they grow.
Your assumption is that every person who is referred to a clinic who experiences gender dysphoria is actually trans; the trouble is, an increasing number of them are *not*, and find this out the hard way when they are encouraged to pursue medical treatments that don’t actually resolve the problems they have. They are visible if you are looking for them. Many find out their “gender dysphoria” was caused by some other underlying issue, yet the therapists who were supposed to help them totally neglected them in the face of their patient‘s self-described “trans” experience.
One drawing shown here might be a standalone, but the Genderbread person is apparently a popular way to talk about being *anyone*, trans included. It describes gender as being a spectrum of “femininity” and “masculinity” as defined by modern western culture. How many kids are actually feeling something innately “trans” on the inside vs. diagnosing their personalities as “trans” based on what is being taught by people around them, friends and adults alike? Instead of teaching kids there is a physical reality but it is independent of who you are as a person, that there should be no boxes, instead people are just creating more boxes.
As a gender non-conforming woman, I agree with so many of the points you've made. I've been (horrors!) misgendered before, but although I was variously annoyed or amused given the situation, I was, wonder of wonders, able to move on. People make mistakes! It's not the end of the world!
But seriously, if I'd been able to opt out of all that adolescent girls and young women have to endure (ahem! more or less constant sexual assault and objectification), I probably would have gone the non-binary route too. Now that I'm older and my personality has stabilized, being female is not so bad. Even good sometimes. It is unfortunate, I think, that being non-binary for biological females means rejecting femininity. And it's similarly peculiar that we are relying so heavily on gender stereotypes to assign gender. Does anyone remember when the insult used to be to call a non-conforming woman "sir" or refer to her as "him?" Now it's the complete opposite.
I was hanging out with a straight, very progressive, couple that I know the other day, and the subject of transgender kids came up. And the husband was telling me about a boy he knew in a friend's family who was very feminine. My friend used this kid as an example of someone who was "obviously" trans. A boy whose girl column behavior had marked him, in the eyes of this straight friend of mine, as someone who would be better off climbing all the way into that column and just identifying that way.
Don't get me wrong: if this kid, as an adult, identifies as female, and wants to transition? I honestly say go for it, there are unquestionably people who benefit from physical transition in some cases. But it was a moment when I saw pretty plainly that there's more than just acceptance and tolerance at work here. There are those who are comforted, from without, by the trans identity--because it neatly orders behavior that, to them, does not add up.
As a gay man, who often had feminine traits as a boy, and who struggled with my role as a man in my 20s, but eventually came to be very happy with it...let's just say I disagreed with my friend pretty strongly, LOL. But I was grateful to him for saying the quiet part out loud.
This should be about what is best for the child, but sometimes it's about what's best for everybody else. And for people who are questioning their gender, that is yet another obstacle for them to contend with.
Well said.
"There are those who are comforted, from without, by the trans identity--because it neatly orders behavior that, to them, does not add up."
One thing that struck me a few years ago, and that has been confirmed by the clinical experience in Holland and the UK, is that, at least among teen boys with gender dysphoria, the large majority (80-90%) are simply coming out as gay. The whole baggage of "gender" is a conceptual regression for them, feeding old superstitions about gay men as "women trapped in men's bodies." For the rest, the dysphoria (which has much more in common with body image distortions like anorexia and not with sexual identity) is simply a phase best waited out.
I have some experience with tomboys, both growing up and with one of my daughters. At least in those cases, there's no appropriate role for "gender" at all. They are simply a minority of girls who differ in some ways from most girls, but are nonetheless unequivocally girls, not "boys trapped in girls bodies," to voice that superstition again.
Sometimes, difficulty and/or waiting and seeing are the best path for the child. The fact that there's so little patience with the facts and unwillingness to face that fact in particular, is itself a big red flag.
I would be worried enough about this moment, which I agree is regressive, if it felt like a permanent and sustainable shift in our understanding of gender nonconformity, offering a comprehensive (and invasive) new strategy. Instead I think it's a doomed, incoherent fad that will hurt everybody when it falls to pieces--*masquerading* as a paradigm shift.
The totalizing piece of it drives me nuts. The insistence that everybody targeted for treatment must receive the same form of it.
But that's just one issue with it. There is a lot more fault to find! And now that people have begun reporting on the treatment conferences, ugh, this particular emperor may not even have an epidermis.
I just wish we could get out of this without it being a mess. The collapse of this thing will be so ugly and so complicated.
Yes. It will be -- already is -- ugly. We had more tolerance for "gender nonconformity" 40 years ago, as we understood that not all boys are stereotypically hypermasculine football players, but are nonetheless boys -- and not all girls are stereotypically "girly," but are nonetheless girls.
There are dominant types, then clusters of boys and girls who are a bit different, in different ways. That doesn't mean they're "trans," or that the gender concept is anything other than an incoherent idea trying to displace real medical and scientific understanding of variability within and between the two sexes.
Only in the last few years have we also begun to see the misogynistic potential of this movement, as a few radical feminists (whom most men and women wouldn't normally pay much attention to) did see and say decades ago, like Germaine Greer. What no one foresaw was how hyperaccelerated social contagion powered by social media would contribute to a major rise of mental distress among younger cohorts, including personal identity and self-image problems.
The real issue in what is called "gender fluidity" or the unscientific rejection of the gender that a child is born as the time of birth may very well be in far too many cases "snowplow parenting, in which parents believe their job is to clear obstacles out of their children’s way rather than to equip them with the skills to navigate those obstacles."
Part of the "bubble-wrapped childhood" or helicopter parenting.
This is a wonderful essay. Thank you very much.
I, too, am shocked by the reappearance of judgmental, narrow-minded, stereotypes. Interestingly, when I was in my late teens, my father continually ridiculed me because he thought I was not "masculine" enough... despite the fact that I was an award-winning amateur wrestler and AAU Jr. Olympics weightlifter. The reason he thought that was because all of my friends were female, I was a bookworm, and I did not like stereotypical male activities (which I found to be mostly a waste of time). Later in life, in between academic careers, I was a jewelry designer. Of course, because of my occupation, the fact I was single, and I dressed very avant-garde, everyone thought I was gay. (I'm not.) Now, I am a middle-aged, Italian/Irish American, well published, professor with three grown children. Because of this, everybody assumes I am sexist, racist, and privileged. Does it ever end?
Thanks again for a great essay, Frederick
You spend your time on the internet questioning transgender dogma under your real name and you lack fortitude? I don’t think so LOL!
Regarding Snowplow parents: I can't help but wonder if this is an outgrowth of our wealth disparity. Parents fear their children will fall into the nether classes without the constant coddling that smooths their path. That anxiety tells us something about how we feel about the class divide and how utterly destructive it is to think of yourself as qualitatively better because of your financial status.
What an astonishingly ignorant mess. There's absolutely no reason to blame trans people for whatever she's imagining has changed for gender non-conforming kids. No one who's knowledgeable about trans kids is teaching anyone that sex or gender is interchangeable with sex stereotypes. No one is "medicating" kids for being gender non-conforming. I'm not sure why this writer decided fearmongering about trans people was helpful or benefits kids in any way, but the opposite is true. Let someone who knows what they're talking about write about this, because this person isn't it.
I have found this writer to be the opposite of a “fearmongering” voice in this discussion and examination of the gender ideology world. She is asking questions. If I had school age children I would be asking questions. Look at the statistics of how many kids have decided that they are ‘non-binary’ or ‘trans’. Read about social contagion and it’s history of influence through the centuries. I think a lot of us want equality and compassion for trans folx but want to make sure that medicalization is not rushed into. It’s not fear perhaps it’s caution because decisions are being made about bodies that can never be changed.
Do no harm is the imperative of medicine.
We want happy and healthy kids.
That’s all.
This writer refers to trans men as women in this article and generally avoids acknowledging, let alone valuing, trans people's actual experiences and insights. If she supports equality and compassion the way you do, she has a really awful way of showing it. Her "just asking questions" leaves out important information and has a very clear agenda, and it's feeding a moral panic that pathologizes trans people, demonizes a totally inaccurate strawman of trans advocacy, and spreads misinformation about trans healthcare.
You talk about "acknowledging" and "valuing" the "experiences" of "trans people." That's not the point. That's basically a request to respect purely subjective claims and non-evidentiary assertions. Subjective "experiences" aren't relevant where the debate is over objective facts and truth. Specifically, "trans people" isn't an agreed upon classification. There is no objective class of humans or children who are "trans." There isn't even a hard definition as to what that means. It's a political term, not a medical classification. There are people who are dysphoric, and a good deal of debate in the field as to what that actually means and what the causes are. Further, dysphoria is a psychiatric disorder. That means they suffer from a pathology. So your objection to "pathologizing" "trans people" is null and void. The field of psychiatry already pathologizes them, and it does not recognize the concept of "trans people."
And again, this isn't about a "moral panic." It is about facts and truth and evidence. There is no such thing as "trans healthcare." Health care is about intervening to address demonstrable pathogenic conditions which afflict an otherwise healthy physiology as per medicine. People who suffer dysphoria have a pathogenic condition per psychiatry, not medicine. It's a disorder, not a disease. Medical interventions to relieve dysphoria are not "health care" because they are not addressing disease. From a purely medical standpoint, the person's health and physiology is not at risk or under threat, so the intervention is by definition elective.
These are the facts. Wanting to relieve someone's mental or emotional suffering is laudable, but not at the expense of facts. If acknowledging facts "marginalizes" someone or fuels their discomfort, then the only remedy is to help them acclimate to the facts. Asking the rest of us to play pretend with them or to disregard the concept of objective facts entirely is not an option.
You realize every single human experience of quality of life, happiness, etc, is subjective, right? Your refusal to acknowledge that trans people exist (despite being clearly defined in the modern scientific sense for 100 years) isn't a compelling argument, no. There's no debate among experts that some trans people benefit tremendously from access to medical options. You believe that trans people have no right to determine their own needs, despite those needs and the efficacy of their medical care being supported by research. Your definition of medicine ignores other areas that like trans care don't require a lens of pathology... Ever heard of reproductive health?
So yes, you know nothing about this, but good job elaborating the ignorant fringe nonsense the writer also believes here.
Every feeling is subject. The facts of reality are not. "Trans" people is not a thing. There is no such scientific definition not can there be. If you disagree, you're welcome to outline the empirical, material, verifiable and measurable characteristics which distinguish "trans" people from other people. Fallacy of assertion will not save you. Nor will appeal to authority. There is a great deal of debate, among experts and others, as to the "benefit" of medical interventions for emotional distress. Start with Genspect, SEGM, 4th Wave, Transgender Trend, Dr. Debra Soh and Dr. Ray Blanchard. Whatever "research" you think you can dig up, it's always going to be non-evidentiary and statistical. Because all things related to gender dysphoria and what some people call 'trans' is based on self-reported feelings, not on any confirmed medical differences. And that is always shaky "researchy." I believe ADULTS have every right to believe what they want about themselves and to seek whatever intervention with their physiology they can arrange with other consenting adults. I do not believe they have a right to demand that everyone else share their subjective opinions about themselves or to impose it on children.
Emotional needs don't constitute "disease." Those "needs" translate into a great deal of abuse in the medical field when people on anti-depressants, for instance, become drug addicts. "Reproductive health," by the way, is also not "health care" unless there's a pathogen. Abortion isn't health care. It's an elective procedure. Pregnancy isn't illness. Neither is puberty. You can argue whether abortion should be available as an elective procedure, but "health care" it most assuredly is not. In point of fact, I know a great deal about it, far more than you do, and based on a growing body of evidence, notably the preliminary CASS report in the UK, it's far from "fringe nonsense" but actually the medical consensus. The only reason it hasn't yet emerged as consensus is because activists such as yourself have successfully bullied medical professionals into silence for fear that expressing their honest opinions will incur the wrath of activists and cost them their career. Successful implementation of totalitarian intimidation in the service of fake "science" doesn't mean it's actually science. If you were to honestly and anonymously poll the whole of humanity and the medical establishment, there's no question this is the overwhelming majority opinion.And because we're basically talking about children here, and the rights of parents to decide what happens to their kids, you really have to face the fact that your position is doomed. You will never persuade anything close to a majority of parents that their children's health is best managed without their consent. Yours is a doomed and losing viewpoint. Unsupported by evidence and science. I'm sorry that may result in a significant number of people suffering gender distress to face ongoing distress and possible marginalization, but the cost to families and civil liberties of adopting the posture you suggest, which is that a majority of society should pretend to believe what they don't really believe just to protect the emotional fragility of a tiny minority, is irrational beyond comprehension.
Let us agree to disagree about this.
Sadly, as is evident from the demands of TRAs (Trans Rights Activists), "agree to disagree" is not an option. For the rest of us, that's fine. But their demands require everyone to adopt their definitions and accept their self-image as objective fact. Anything less than complete ideological capture of the whole of humanity equates to "marginalization." If and when they decide that they're fine living in a world that does not see them or treat them as they see themselves, that's detente. Don't hold your breath.
Yep. Agree.
Where in this is there any “blame” put on trans people? And I see sex stereotypes commonly used as a basis for gender identity. Dianne Ehrensaft, one of the top clinical purveyors of medicalization, is widely known for pushing this nonsense — that if a toddler girl pulls out her barrettes, it means she’s saying she’s really a boy. Look at the posts on the various adolescent social media sites and you’ll see no shortage of kids who “don’t fit in” because as boys they don’t like sports or some other such superficial garbage. When clinicians ask parents about their child’s GNC history, they ask specifically about stereotypic behaviors — did your son like dolls, etc. How are you missing this? And how are you missing the point of this article which is about raising resilient kids?
She repeatedly claims that a lack of acceptance towards GNC kids is because of trans people, education about trans inclusion, trans "lobbying," and evidently the very existence of trans healthcare. (Mis)attributing causality that way is blame. Her source on this being due to trans anything? A link to one badly done drawing that trans experts find objectionable and offensive. How are you missing this?
That Diane Ehrensaft quote is about a specific colleague's childhood experiences of communicating about his gender. Not a dictum about barrettes as a diagnostic or a rule for any medical decisions. It is an obvious reality that stereotypes inform how kids communicate about gender, because they inform how all people communicate about gender. It's not that disliking barrettes makes someone a boy, it's that kids do sometimes use those stereotypes and gendered expectations as part of how they communicate. Even this article notices that phenomenon, though it misunderstands it--kids often start to feel safer liking whatever colors and toys they want to like when they know they're seen correctly and respected no matter what, when they no longer feel compelled to symbolically reject or embrace stereotypes in order to communicate an aspect of themselves that isn't otherwise being heard.
Clinicians ask about kids' histories with gender expression, but no good clinician is doing that in a prescriptive way, just collecting information. And trans people have advocated for decades for people to stop requiring stereotyped behavior from trans people and stop misunderstanding gender expression as indicative of gender identity--where's that in this article?.But hmm, wait, this writer says teenagers who come out as trans without a history of childhood gender nonconformity are even more suspect and less legitimate than those who were visibly GNC as kids in stereotypical ways--seems like she doesn't actually understand the point she claims to be making if she's contradicting herself that way.
And when the one and only example of kids supposedly not being raised to be resilient is kids being taught that misgendering people can be disrespectful... Yeah, that's not really an article about raising resilient kids.
"And trans people have advocated for decades for people to stop requiring stereotyped behavior from trans people and stop misunderstanding gender expression as indicative of gender identity--where's that in this article?"
Once again, you are confusing objective facts with subjective dogma.
"Gender identity" is a component of gender ideology. Not medicine. Nor is it part of psychiatry. It's a concept which gender ideologues claim exists, imagine exists, insist that everyone else recognize exists... but which is unsupported by any evidentiary process anywhere. Many if not most of us who are skeptics contend there is no such thing.
There is sex. That's a fact. It cannot be changed. All humans are defined biologically by their sex. Then there is "gender expression." That's simply cosmetics. Anything else is emotional, and emotions are not the domain of medicine or science.
You're clearly obsessed with demonizing trans people to satisfy some need of yours, and have run into the welcoming arms of anti-trans hate groups. Garland your hatred in pseudoscience all you like. Gender identity is a psychological concept, well supported by research. If you think human thought, emotions, and behavior are outside the realm of medicine and science, I'll just be over here highly relieved you're not a doctor or a scientist.
Hyperbole. Disagreeing with the notion of "trans identity" is not "demonizing." In point of fact, I believe these are deeply troubled people, especially if they are minors, who are not well served by "affirmation." You believe affirmation helps them and that anything less is demonization or hatred. But you have no grounds to make that judgment. You don't know why someone disagrees. What if my position is actually predicted on a love of truth and a love for what these disturbed people really can be? What if I think the whole premise of your position is harmful? Gender identity, as a matter of absolute fact, is a THEORETICAL concept and it is not supported by FACTS. The body of researchers who are protesting it is growing and whatever research you imagine supports it is heavily impacted by political lobbying. The real-world evidence to the contrary is contained in the documented experiences of detransitioners and desisters. Because, yes, THOUGHT and EMOTIONS are mysterious and are far, far, far outside the realm of medicine and science. That you believe otherwise makes you guilty of subscribing to pseudoscience. Again... Genspect for starters. Then do a search on Debra Soh. Inform yourself. Your desire to #BeKind has blinded you to the indoctrination of what is effectively a religious cult masquerading as an "identity." But it's nothing of the sort. It's a cult and the entirety of its dogma is at most five to ten years from imploding and putting people like you so far on the margins of accepted science and medicine it's going to make your head spin. Don't bother with apologies at that time. Those of us who know better already know what's coming.
There is no "fear mongering" in this piece. I suspect your next comment if asked why the 4000% increase in girls identifying as men is because it's more accepted now which evades the question. What exactly makes a kid trans without using stereotypes? GNC, gays, lesbians and autistic kids are being medicalized. Wake up!
Yes, this is a great example of the kind of ignorance this article is encouraging. You can't even try to refer to trans men respectfully for a half a second, you're really going with "girls identifying as men"? That 4000% stat is specific to specialty referrals in the UK, and the thing about % increases is that it's really easy to make things sound huge when something starts out as an extremely small number and merely becomes less minuscule, even when the actual numerical increase isn't very big at all. Why do you think trans kids don't deserve respect and support?
A kid's self-knowledge of their gender and communication of a trans identity/experience makes them trans, the same way non-trans kids' gender identities make them non-trans. Doesn't demand anything stereotypical. Trans kids' gender expressions are often more heavily scrutinized by people who want to invalidate their experiences, but they shouldn't be. At the end of the day people who support trans youth are actively advocating for all kids to have more freedom from gender stereotypes and more room to do whatever works for them as individuals as they grow.
Your assumption is that every person who is referred to a clinic who experiences gender dysphoria is actually trans; the trouble is, an increasing number of them are *not*, and find this out the hard way when they are encouraged to pursue medical treatments that don’t actually resolve the problems they have. They are visible if you are looking for them. Many find out their “gender dysphoria” was caused by some other underlying issue, yet the therapists who were supposed to help them totally neglected them in the face of their patient‘s self-described “trans” experience.
One drawing shown here might be a standalone, but the Genderbread person is apparently a popular way to talk about being *anyone*, trans included. It describes gender as being a spectrum of “femininity” and “masculinity” as defined by modern western culture. How many kids are actually feeling something innately “trans” on the inside vs. diagnosing their personalities as “trans” based on what is being taught by people around them, friends and adults alike? Instead of teaching kids there is a physical reality but it is independent of who you are as a person, that there should be no boxes, instead people are just creating more boxes.