healing in the homophobic deep south +homosexual, transmasc, dysphoric+ --- mainstream trans activism has a misogyny and homophobia problem and it's up to all of us to call it out --- sometimes conflicting reblogs of different perspectives as I try to understand this world I was born into with the body I'm locked in. Also, I'm not the writer and also I'm not a slug š nor a clownfish š +any pronouns just be nice bro+
Clownfish can change from male to female.
Humans aren't fish. Female to Male. Still two sexes. Still binary.
Female mimics exist in many bird species. It's a mating strategy. Key word mimic. Not change. Also it's males that mimic females to mate with the.. Again 2 sexes. Binary.
Swallowtail butterflies. Females can have 4 genotypes. 3 of which mimic more toxic species of butterfly. Males can not have this gene because it's double sexed. Nothing to do with trans or sex changing. Also, again, male and female. Binary.
Seahorses. The female deposits her ova into the males pouch where he fertilizes and incubates them. Unusual. And exception. Still male and female. One makes sperm the other eggs. Binary.
Hyenas. This is dumb. Males impregnate females and females give birth. Female genitals are shaped weird(ouch!!) Still male and female. Binary.
A skink species. Can change sex in the egg when exposed to hotter or cooler temps. Temperature being the sex determinator in many reptile species is well known. It's chromosomes in humans that determines sex and temperature in some reptiles. And it's in the egg. Before hatching. And again it's female to Male. Binary.
Another lizard. Female lizards ovaries got damaged and began developing male characteristics including rudimentary testes. Same thing happened in chickens. It's rare but happens. No sperm is produced no actual sex change. It's caused by a defect which causes hormonal changes.
Komodo dragon. Parthenosenesis. Boring happens all the time in some reptiles. Snakes too. The female creates fertile eggs without sperm that are basically her clones. Nothing to do with trans or sex change.
Jellyfish can be hermaphrodite. OK cool. Humans can't. Also weird hiw hermaphrodite are male and female. Binary. See a pattern?
Starfish. They can lose body parts that then grow new appendages that can be the opposite sex. Also groping around to find a mate because you have no eyes isn't "mating behavior". Same sex can't mate with each other. It's mate seeking behavior. Weird and super cool. Nothing to do with trans. Also binary sex.
Oysters. They can sex change. From male to female. They do this after mating. Swap from producing sperm to eggs. So do plants. Super cool. Also an example of binary sex.
Bass. Some fish species can change sex. From male to female. Super weird and cool. And binary. And humans aren't fish.
Banana slug. Hermaphrodite. Binary. Not human.
Another bird species where males mimic female coloring as a mating strategy to avoid attack by other males. Binary. Not trans.
Bird species exhibiting and abnormality that causes half the body to be female half to be male. Super cool. Not normal. Not trans. Not human. Also binary.
Another bird species where females with damaged or defective ovaries exhibit male characteristics. Boring. Not actually male. Binary.
More parthenogenesis in lizards. Only females can do this. Binary. Not trans.
Snails that can sex change and be hermaphrodite. Cool. Still binary and not humans.
None of the species in this article, or anywhere else on Earth, validate the nonsense that humans can change sex or that sex isn't binary.
Also, even if all these animals could have a gazillion different sex variationsā¦.that has nothing to do with humans. Itās always been so weird to me how the Transactivist crowd parrots āseahorses can change sex too!āā¦Babe, we arenāt seahorses.
in 2013, i made a post saying that i didnāt want anyone with rape fantasies to be my friend. i made sure i put a lot of effort into saying that it was just a me thing, and that it only applied to people who werent survivors, and it only applied to people who were the aggressor. i put a lot of effort into making sure i said everything just right, so as not to alienate anyone, while stating the most wishy washy boundary of all time. (kink shaming was much more real at this time.) this was the first time a friend messaged me to tell me that i was being a terf (or the 2013 equivalent, i canāt remember. radscum, perhaps.) i had made them feel like a pervert, which is how transphobes make them feel. (i guess it wasnāt much taken into account that i was trans, too.) i VERY recently found out that this person is an offending & still active pedophile. i remember spending the better part of an entire week profusely apologizing - groveling - to this person. the more i apologized the worse their anger got, and the worse my fear got. it was like i was feeding them. i think about this every so often when i see friends doing this kind of groveling for these kinds of reasons. its okay to stop.
āBut clownfish canāā I hate to break it you but you are not a clownfish. Bats can fly and live upside down in a cave and that sounds awesome to me, so I should be able to do it, right?
genderists look at the very few gnc women that girls have to look up toāthey look at mulan, joan of arc, arya stark, anne lister, mary ann talbotāwomen who either pretend to be men for their safety (most of the time so that they can marry women, or go on expeditions, or enter into war or academia) or simply wear pantsāand say āwell actually, they want to be menāā>āactually, theyāre transā ā> āactually, theyāre men.ā
it does not matter your intention, your reason for saying that, it matters the implication. you teach girls that no, you canāt actually be this, not unless you become a man first.Ā
and they look at gnc men like marquis de lafayette and marsha p. johnson and say,Ā āwell, actually, theyāre women, see? because theyāre wearing womenās clothesā. what do you think that teaches girls about what women are? womanĀ is not a costume. manĀ is not marriage with a woman. youāre just misogynistic and homophobic.
The trouble with JK Rowling is that she has done nothing wrong. Back in 2020, she wrote a carefully worded, compassionate piece about sex an
The trouble with JK Rowling is that she has done nothing wrong. Back in 2020, she wrote a carefully worded, compassionate piece about sex and gender. Itās here if you want to read it.Ā
In it, she described āa climate of fear that serves nobody ā least of all trans youth ā wellā. At no point did she express the even mildest disapproval of gender non-conformity, let alone call for ātrans genocideā. āTrans people,ā she wrote, āneed and deserve protection [ā¦] I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women whoāve been abused by men.ā
The response to this piece was obscene. Some of itās here if you want to read it. I am aware, however, that checking original source material is not the done thing when it comes to having an opinion on Rowling.Ā
Shortly after the publication of her blogpost, countless op-eds appeared explaining what Rowling āreallyā meant. To summarise them all, Rowling was lying about not hating trans people and wanting them dead, and you could tell this by the fact she said she didnāt hate trans people and didnāt want them dead.Ā
There then followed a succession of lengthy, meandering (and deadly boring) essays on what it meant to be a Harry Potter fan now that Potterās creator turned out to be evil. Idiotic references to the Sorting Hat, which confused maintaining a strong sense of self regardless of external forces with getting to choose oneās biological sex, seemed to be de rigueur.
As for the rape and death threats, it was quickly established that taking issue with tweets such as Ā āJK rowling suck my fat cock and choke on itā was transphobic. Indeed, when one group of literary figures signed an open letter condemning such messages, the response of over 200 writers, publishers and journalists was to sign a different one stating ātrans rights are human rightsā.Ā
Itās a response that could have been predicted by Rowling herself. āIt would be so much easier,ā sheād written in her original blog, āto tweet the approved hashtags ā because of course trans rights are human rights and of course trans lives matter ā scoop up the woke cookies and bask in a virtue-signalling afterglow.āĀ
That this was so obvious and so lazy didnāt matter to writers including Jeannette Winterson, Malorie Blackman and Joanne Harris. As witch-hunter Martin Del Rio put it in 1599ās Disquisitionum Magicarum Libri Sex, āit is evidence of witchcraft to defend witchesā. This may be why Kiran Millwood Hargrave, another signatory of the second letter (and, ironically, author of a novel about a witch hunt), refused to sit on a panel alongside Amanda Craig, a signatory of the first.Ā
The lack of support extended to Rowling by so many in the publishing industry has been nothing short of appalling. True, in the aftermath of the recent attack on Salman Rushdie ā and Society of Authors chair Harrisās initially crass response to the suggestion that threats against Rowling should be taken seriously, too ā it has been grudgingly acknowledged that all death threats matter, even those against women deemed to be TERF scum.Ā
āYes, I support trans rights,ā Harris eventually tweeted, āBut my personal feelings about the gender-critical movement donāt affect my belief in free speech, or what I do for the Society of Authors.ā
How magnanimous! This is not enough, though. Itās a position that still falls back on the misrepresentation of Rowling, positioning her as someone who does not āsupport trans rightsā. Whatās more, it is a position that uses the very rape and death threats it purports to condemn as a way of dodging accountability. Finally admitting that another woman should not be burned at the stake is not so gracious an act it entitles you to continue calling her a witch.Ā Ā
The monstering of JK Rowling has taken place in two registers: the obscene social media version, and the genteel, literary version, in which horrified articles are written about books not read, advertising campaigns imagine āHarry Potter without its creatorā and twee references are made to āthe wizard ladyā to avoid the distress caused by naming her. You might think the two registers are different ā the one, blind hate, the other, political disagreement ā but the latter depends on the former. How do we know āthe wizard ladyā is bad? Well, just look at how hated she is!
This is a situation in which the punishment has created the crime and itās one that is needed by members of the publishing industry who have spent years embracing the arguments of the most extreme trans activists while ignoring those of feminists. They need Rowling to be a monster. Otherwise they might have to respond, not just to what Rowling has written, but to the realities of the movement to which they have pledged allegiance.Ā
Intelligent writers, many of whom call themselves feminists, have painted themselves into a corner from which they are now forced to play along with utter absurdities. They must pretend that Andrea Long Chu and Grace Lavery are thoughtful commentators on the contemporary sexual landscape, that the only reason a female writer would use a male pseudonym would be if she wasnāt a woman, and that the London Review of Books describing womenās fear of rape as āthe sort of fairy-tale fear-mongering that puts them in league with the far rightā is top-class feminist analysis.Ā
It is intellectually and morally degrading. I would not want to be the person who, having glibly conflated trans activism with supporting gender non-conformity and gay liberation, now finds herself on the same side as a movement which orders lesbians to āsuck my huge trans cockā. No wonder so many writers and journalists, rather than take responsibility for their own politics, prefer to promote the myth that theyāre taking a brave stand against the genocidal author of Harry Potter (while expecting an award for nuance and reasonableness for noting that they wouldnāt actually kill her).
The trouble with JK Rowling is not that she is transphobic, but that she isnāt. Her honesty has shamed a literary community that thought it could squint a bit and fudge things when it came to the question of āwhat is a woman and do they matter, anyway?ā Because of this, the extreme, violent misrepresentation of Rowling has become a way to defer any reckoning with the harmful messages those in publishing and the creative arts have been waving through.Ā
Extraordinary women werenāt women! Femaleness is an expectant ass and blank, blank eyes! Books which encourage children to accept their bodies are transphobic propaganda! Less than five secondsā consideration of such ideas would show them to be regressive nonsense, only JK Rowling disagrees with them and she wants people dead!Ā
Except she doesnāt and that is the problem. The monstering is wearing thin. Last weekās collective attempt to trash The Ink Black Heart by people who hadnāt read it felt far less enthusiastic than 2020ās shot at Troubled Blood. I do not think it can last. People like their fiction, but they do eventually tire of lies.
If trans women would just acknowledge that they're men who alter themselves to look like women, in order to ease dysphoria, I wouldn't have a problem with it.
I'm all for men wearing skirts. I'm all for men enjoying whatever stereotypically feminine things they enjoy. I'll even support medical transition, provided you're over eighteen, understand the health risks, and have faced persistent dysphoria.
The problem is that they've redefined "woman" to be a feeling. I can no longer use "woman" to discuss the tangible reality of having a female body. Presenting as women isn't enough for them, they have to be women.
Not only does this erode my ability to discuss sex-specific issues, but it leads to self-identification policies that allow men into female-only spaces. Female-only spaces that were created because of the physical threat men pose to women.
I was accused of "driving a shiv between cis and trans women," when I tried to discuss how cis women, face different issues from trans women. I didn't even say that trans women aren't women, but acknowledging a difference at all was enough to elicit hostility. (Their follow-up sentence was, "Someone should drive a shiv through you.")
My issue with the trans movement isn't dysphoric individuals trying to feel comfortable, but the denial of how biology impacts our lives.
controversial opinion but top surgery and other trans healthcare shouldnt be trans exclusive. so what if an autistic woman wants top surgery because boobs are a sensory nightmare?? good on her. she isnt "mutilating" herself any more than anyone else who gets cosmetic surgery for anything.
it doesnt have to be exclusively "trans healthcare." maybe a cis guy just wants boobs or a cis girl wants a dick. who cares. your bodys yours. customize that bitch. the more normalized it is to just do whatever with your body for any reason the easier itll be for the people who need to do it to actually go through with it because they wont be socially pressured as hard or harassed afterwards.
we can acknowledge that it was horrific medical abuse and misogyny to give women lobotomies, forced sterilizations, and heavy dosages of cocaine and opiates for āfemale afflictions,ā aka human emotions and normal biological functions. and yet one of the most prominent āhealthcareā trends is pumping unhappy girls with testosterone and removing healthy tissue and organs. weāre still treating womanhood like a disease instead of giving women and girls the mental health care we deserve.
Many have said their gender identity remained fluid well after the start of treatment, and a third of them expressed regret about their decision to transition from the gender they were assigned at birth. Some said they avoided telling their doctors about detransitioning out of embarrassment or shame. Others said their doctors were ill-equipped to help them with the process. Most often, they talked about how transitioning did not address their mental health problems.
In his continuing search for detransitioners, MacKinnon spent hours scrolling through TikTok and sifting through online forums where people shared their experiences and found comfort from each other. These forays opened his eyes to the online abuse detransitioners receive ā not just the usual anti-transgender attacks, but members of the transgender community telling them to āshut upā and even sending death threats.
āI canāt think of any other examples where youāre not allowed to speak about your own healthcare experiences if you didnāt have a good outcome,ā MacKinnon told Reuters.
ā¦
āStories with people who have a lot of anger and regretā about transitioning are over-represented in the media, and they donāt reflect āwhat we are seeing in the clinics,ā said Dr Jason Rafferty, a pediatrician and child psychiatrist at Hasbro Childrenās Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. He also helped write the American Academy of Pediatricsā policy statement in support of gender-affirming care. Detransitioning is a āvery invalidating term for a lot of people who are trans and gender-diverse,ā Rafferty said.
Some people do detransition, however, and some do so because of regret. The incidence of regret could be as low as clinicians like Bowers say, or it could be much higher. But as Reuters found, hard evidence on long-term outcomes for the rising numbers of people who received gender treatment as minors is very weak.
Dr Laura Edwards-Leeper, a clinical psychologist in Oregon who treats transgender youths and a co-author of WPATHās new Standards of Care for adolescents and children, said MacKinnonās work represents some of the most extensive research to date on the reasons for detransitioning and the obstacles patients face. She said the vitriol he has encountered illustrates one reason so few clinicians and researchers are willing to broach the subject.
āPeople are terrified to do this research,ā she said.
ā¦
A basic tenet of modern medical science is to examine outcomes, identify potential mistakes, and, when deemed necessary, adjust treatment protocols to improve results for patients. For example, only after large international studies analyzing outcomes for thousands of patients did researchers establish that implanted coronary artery stents were no better than medication for treating most cases of heart disease.
Stronger data on outcomes, including the circumstances that make regret more likely, would also help transgender teens and their parents make better-informed decisions as they weigh the benefits and risks of treatments with potentially irreversible effects.
āWe cannot carry on in this field that involves permanently changing young peopleās bodies if we donāt fully understand what weāre doing and learn from those we fail,ā said Edwards-Leeper, the clinical psychologist and WPATH member. āWe need to take responsibility as a medical and mental-health community to see all the outcomes,ā she said in an interview.
ā¦
In its new Standards of Care, released in September, WPATH cited Vandenbusscheās paper and a few others on detransitioning and continuation of care among younger patients. āSome adolescents may regret the steps they have taken,ā the WPATH guidelines say. āTherefore, it is important to present the full range of possible outcomes when assisting transgender adolescents.ā
However, Bowers, WPATHās president, is among several gender-care specialists who say patients are ultimately responsible for choices they make about treatment, even as minors. They should not be āblaming the clinician or the people who helped guide them,ā she said. āThey need to own that final step.ā
ā¦
Researchers acknowledge that studies that follow patients for only a short time may underestimate detransition and regret because evidence indicates some people may not reach that point until as long as a decade after treatment began. Some studies also lose track of patients ā a recurring challenge as minors age out of pediatric clinics and have to seek care elsewhere.
Even the choice of search terms can trip up researchers, as apparently happened in a study published in May by Kaiser Permanente, a large integrated health system based in Oakland, California.
That study examined 209 patients who underwent gender-affirming mastectomies as minors between 2013 and 2020 in Kaiserās northern California region. Its authors searched the patientsā medical records for words such as āregret,ā ādissatisfaction,ā āunsatisfiedā and āunhappyā as indicators of regret. They didnāt look for the term ādetransition,ā according to the study.
Their search yielded two patients who had expressed regret, or less than 1% of the group studied. The two patients, identified as nonbinary, had top surgery at age 16, and expressed regret within a year and a half.
Reuters found two other patients in the region covered by the study who donāt match those characteristics and whom the Kaiser researchers apparently missed. Both have been outspoken about their detransitions.
the lgb alliance is based out of far right headquarters 55 tufton street you dumbass gullible bitch
LGB Alliance was started by lesbians who left Stonewall UK to form an advocacy group for same-sex attracted people.
And this is just a climate blog run by a lesbian bitch.
Ultimately, I don't care who agrees with me and who disagrees with me. If conservatives decide to support gay rights, okay. If conservatives decide to put solar panels on their roofs, okay. If our neoliberal ruling class continues to promote homophobia, anti-government conservatives might swing around to gay rights. If our neoliberal ruling class continues subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, anti-government conservatives might swing around to climate campaigns. If they want to do that, I'm not going to stop them.
Earth is not made up of good guys who agree with you and bad guys who disagree with you. Earth is not a YA novel or a video game. It's a planet with a complex biosphere that's been overrun by humans, our cattle, and our fossil fuel emissions.
I recommend spending more time meditating on the biosphere and less time freaked out about lesbians on tumblr.
I spent two years learning about gender ideology, exploring my gender identity, and helping the trans community. I spent long hours talking deep into the night about Judith Butler and queer theory and the trans experience. I've explored everything there is to explore about that set of beliefs. Ultimately, I found that belief in gender identity and queer theory did not improve my life. It did not correspond positively with any of my life experiences. And the trans community became an actively negative force in my life. So I moved on. That was 5 years ago.
This is a climate blog. I pay attention to a lot of information that I don't agree with. The political future of Earth is a very complex topic. I try to read as many different perspectives on it as possible. Right now, I'm working through these two articles:
They may seem the cornerstone of democracy, but in reality they do little to promote it. There's a far better way to empower ordinary citize
See? It's complicated. Everyone has a slightly different perspective. But a diversity of perspectives is a sign of a healthy movement. Each climate thinker may see things in a different way. But everyone is able to come together to act towards their shared goals.
During my 2 years in the trans movement, everyone I interacted with daily was trans. And there was only one perspective allowed. There was no room for healthy debate. This was a very stressful environment to live in. I did not see any signs of a healthy diversity of thought in the trans movement.
LGB Alliance is a same-sex attraction advocacy group with a variety of different perspectives. There is room for healthy debate. The views of one same-sex attracted person do not represent the views of every same-sex attracted person. LGB people do not need a political party. We need an advocacy group to protect our rights regardless of our personal and political beliefs. That's why LGB Alliance includes same-sex attracted people who have trans experiences and beliefs. LGB advocacy shouldn't be based on one ideology or another. The main goal should be protection of legal rights for same-sex attracted people. LGB Alliance serves that purpose.
The other organizations that once defended gay rights have recently been co-opted by neoliberal corporations. Glaad, Stonewall, Trevor Project. These groups now serve specific political and economic agendas. They no longer defend the legal rights of same-sex attracted people. And they no longer allow a diversity of thought. They do not want a healthy gay rights movement. And they promote queer theory and encourage straight people to say the word queer. So the rights of same-sex attracted people are nowhere on their priority list.
I'm not a spokesperson for LGB Alliance. I'm not even from the UK. I believe LGB people should have an advocacy group that protects us from both right-wing and left-wing homophobia.
Same-sex attracted people are not a left-wing or right-wing political group. The trait of same-sex attraction is not political. It's an epigenetic trait that we have no control over. There are gay people of every political persuasion. There are gay people of every religion. There are gay people in every ethnic group on Earth. That's why we need a non-partisan advocacy group. LGB Alliance and LGBUSA are the closest thing to non-partisan that we have.
I endorse non-partisan advocacy. That does not mean I agree with every same-sex attracted person on Earth. We are not politically homogenous. Any group trying to force gay people to be politically homogenous only wants to control and exploit us.
A healthy gay rights movement maintains healthy political diversity while working together on non-partisan legislative goals. The fact that several conservative US legislators now consistently support gay rights is a sign of progress. My hope is that all people, regardless of political affiliation, accept gay people in their families and communities.
I also hope that all people, regardless of political affiliation, receive the best possible policy tools to survive climate change. That's why I don't care about the religious beliefs, gender identities, or homophobia of my climate allies. We share a goal so we respect each other while working together on that shared goal.
You need to learn to recognize twitter disinformation.
Claim: They had to admit in court that their membership is mostly heterosexual.
Fact: That court document refers to their mailchimp newsletter in 2019. They had optional subscription questions that asked about sexuality. 7% of subscribers ticked the "lesbian" box. 21% ticked the "gay/lesbian" box. And 32% of subscribers didn't fill out the survey. All of this is explained in the court documents. But twitter disinformation campaigns leave the context out.
This 2019 newsletter survey was unofficial and informal. In 2022, they hired a third party to conduct a formal survey of their newsletter subscribers. That 2022 survey showed subscribers are 34% lesbian, 33% gay men, 12% bisexual, 20% heterosexual. 1% preferred not to say. That's their subscriber list demographics.
And this is their conference attendance demographics.
Claim: LGB Alliance has spoken out against gay marriage
Fact: LGB Alliance is open to all same-sex attracted people including people who believe in queer theory. Queer theory was originally an anti-establishment anti-marriage off-shoot of the gay rights movement in the 1990s. The trans rights movement was born out of Queer Theory. A few of the veteran lesbian activists running LGB Alliance are pro-trans, pro-queer theory, and anti-marriage. Being critical of the institution of marriage does not mean you're arguing against gay marriage rights.
Claim: Allison Bailey says she doesn't believe gay children exist.
Fact: Allison Bailey talks at length about how most gender-nonconforming children targeted by gender curriculums aren't actually trans. They're kids who will grow up to be gay. However, she specifies that children do not have sexuality. Gay rights activists have been hounded for decades by accusations of pedophilia. So, many older activists go out of their way to remind people that children are not sexual.
What's happening here is left-wing homophobic reactionaries have created a disinformation campaign by taking LGB Alliance discussions out of context. LGB Alliance is run by older gay and lesbian activists. These activists have been carrying on inter-community discussions since the 1990s. Do you believe it's honest politics to cut off 30 years of lesbian and gay discourse and context? Do you believe it's honest politics to go out of your way to smear older lesbian and gay activists? I don't.
I also don't agree with everything that older gays and lesbians go on about. Some of it, like the queer theory anti-marriage stuff, is a big waste of time. But I'm not going to tell old gays and lesbians what they can and can't talk about.
LGB Alliance is not astroturf. They're run by volunteers. Astroturf movements actually pay people to become ambassadors for their cause. So let's talk about astroturf.
The first hallmark of astroturf is money. Astroturf movements have serious funding. I'm not talking about a few thousand dollars. Astroturf movements have at least $100 million to throw around.
The second hallmark of astroturf is speedy lobbying success. Unlike grassroots, an astroturf movement is immediately adopted by media, police, schools, institutions, and governments. This rapid success is fueled by the corporate lobbyists who constructed the astroturf project in the first place.
Does any of this sound familiar? It should. Every year, we all make the same observation that pride is becoming more and more corporate. And guess what?
semi-regular reminder too fuck Mary Daly. I know iāve posted this here before but iām doing it again. this is exactly what i mean when i say feminism all too often centers OSA women and their feelings and attraction while giving the middle finger to lesbians.
More receipts of otherĀ āfeministsā doing this. The book is āGoing out of our minds: the metaphysics of liberationā by Sonia Johnson, which radblr loves quoting recently.
Here she asserts homosexuals arenāt lesbians, only feminists are.
She knows sheās straight and homophobic, and she doesnāt care.
Being a ālesbianā to hurt the patriarchy.
So sheās completely straight and her āloverā is just a friend.
Literally all these people just ādecidedā to be lesbians.
LMFAO you know realizing how many so-called āfeministsā (so called bc i believe you canāt be lesbophobic and actually be a feminist bcā¦. lesbians are women and an oppressed minority of women) are largely responsible or at least players in the prevalent belief that homosexual people chose to be gay. it explains why that thought was so prevalent in their age group by their other het peers.
Last month, the New York Times published an investigative report on the medical treatment of children who question their gender identity. The findings were decidedly mixed. The reporters showed that many patients benefit from puberty-blocking drugs, which help them transition to a different gender, but that doctors also fear puberty blockers have long-term side effects, and that the treatment locks at least some children into escalating medicalization before they have figured out their gender identity.
The response on the left was as if the newspaper had committed a hate crime. āIt is playing into the ongoing manufactured and weaponized conservative panic about trans existence,ā asserted a Slate podcast. āWild how normalized it is for journalists on this ābeatā to be aligned with straight-up hate groups and rely on anti-trans activists to link them with sources,ā tweeted left-wing journalist Michael Hobbes.
This interpretation that the Times had contributed to an atmosphere of hatred against trans people was repeated so often and so stridently that within the left, it came to seem almost obvious. A week later, when a murderer opened fire in an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, NPRās On the Media interviewed NBC Out reporter Jo Yurcaba, who explained that the murder resulted from ārhetoric that labels LGBTQ people as grooming children,ā including ācoverage, for example, in the New York Times that paints gender-affirming care for minors as something that is debatable.ā
There is a familiar pattern here in the way left-wing activists shut down internal criticism by treating any criticism of their position as either identical to, or complicit with, the far right. Extremists on the right, of course, use the same method to shut down their critics on the center-right. To the radical, the easiest way to win a debate is to insist that the only choice is between opposing poles. If you oppose any element of their argument, you have endorsed the enemy. If the criticism is tempered and credible, this only makes them regard it as more dangerous.
But this absolutist mind-set has had an especially pernicious effect on the issue of youth gender medicine. This is because the science is genuinely murky and embryonic, making the struggle to identify a humane and effective solution both difficult and necessary. The left has thrown itself behind a crusade to define such a position out of existence.
ā¦
The response to Bazelon was insistent that the divide she reported among medical providers was a pure figment of her imagination. (Texas Observer: āTHERE IS NO LEGITIMATE āDEBATEā OVER GENDER-AFFIRMING HEALTHCARE.ā Teen Vogue: āTrans healthcare is not actually a debate.ā) Representative Rashida Tlaib created a petition to ātell the New York Times to stop providing a dangerous platform for transphobic hate.ā
ā¦
The U.K., France, Sweden, and Finland have all recently reviewed the evidence of youth gender treatment and imposed some restrictions. Progressive activists insist these countries are all capitulating to right-wing anti-trans panic. At some point, they need to recognize that denying any grounds for debate or concern and calling anybody who questions their position a bigot is not a sustainable strategy. Helping trans children means developing effective and safe treatments that can withstand scrutiny. Suppressing the debate in order to head off a backlash only creates more abusive cases ā more therapists rushing children into conversion, more shady doctors peddling lucrative surgery online ā and creates the risk of a larger backlash.
The law of transgender equivalent exchange: The number of bright-haired lesbians and completely average straight dudes in grey hoodies will always remain equal, as whenever one transitions to the other, someone else is transitioning to the opposite direction.
