Recently, I shared Joshua Jennifer Espinozaās āSonnet For The Intro To Critical Theory Professor Who Made Her Negative Feelings About Trans People Perfectly Clearā¦ā The poem captures the cruelties trans people endure when those in power cloak hostility under the guise of reason. I was inspired to share it following a series of conversations I had with a loved one, which compelled me to write the following:
āIf the number of teenage girls asking doctors to slice off one of their legs suddenly sky-rocketed,ā begins an article shared with me, ā...from barely zero to well into the thousands, what would the NHSās reaction be? Concern about girlsā mental health, surely.āĀ
This was not exactly what I was expecting to read.
The chat Iād had over the phone with my loved one had been about the rise of depression in young girls in the UK. They had been noticing it themselves, but admitted to paraphrasing from an article they had read, the very article I now find myself quoting from.
Its title, āTeenage life is scary ā even without gender clinics.ā
As I read on, I began to find answers to questions I had about the comments they had been making about the transgender community. These comments were sporadic at first, but as they became more frequent, they also became increasingly graphic.
...
I was reminded that kids are full of fantasies and fever dreams, which we ought to be wary of overindulging. It was stressed that this is a real crisis in England, and doctors looking to make quick cash could do so by capitalizing on the ātransgender trendā and āhacking awayā at the bodies of confused children.
They added that in Russia, doctors are chopping the heads off of dogs and splicing them onto the bodies of other dogs. āJust because you can do something,ā they said, ādoesnāt mean you should.ā
I donāt doubt that my loved oneās alarm was rooted in concern for the well-being of young people. But the shocking, violent imagery that accompanied this concern ā dismembered legs, butchered children, two-headed dogs ā I wondered where all this stuff was coming from. Now, I have an idea.
And it must be said, none of this stuff resembles the experience of beginning to transition for a child in the UK. None of it.
In Britain, minors are not offered surgeries of any kind. The reality is closer to paperwork, counseling sessions, and long waiting periods, a far cry from the fevered image of mad doctors and two-headed dogs.
A first appointment at the NHS gender clinic could take over two years to obtain. If and when a youngster reaches a specialist, the first steps are almost always exploratory: talking through feelings, mapping out history, assessing coexisting conditions such as anxiety, depression, or autism.Ā
During that time, patients are enrolled in the care of a team of mental health professionals. Mental health is, in fact, at the core of everyoneās involvement in this process.
Once this team reaches a consensus on treatment, puberty blockers were offered (to 16% of those receiving gender affirming care back in 2019/20) ā a medication that has been safely prescribed to children with early advancements in puberty for decades.Ā
These drugs are not an āamputationā as the article asserts; they do not remove anything. Instead, they temporarily delay puberty, granting teenagers and their families time to reflect without the irreversible changes of puberty racing ahead, and may even reduce the need for some surgeries later on.Ā
No responsible clinician suggests that side effects donāt exist; they do. All medical interventions carry some uncertainty, and this was discussed with patients and their parents. Numerous studies have documented minimal side effects, and if prescribed, the social and mental health benefits were determined to outweigh the risks.Ā
If medication stopped, puberty consistent with birth-registered sex would resume. If continued, at 16, the option for cross-sex hormones would then have been an option. Surgery would only become available at 18 years old.
Since April 2024, the NHS has stopped prescriptions of puberty blockers for under-18s, limiting access to those already enrolled in treatment or precious few clinical trials. The ban was made indefinite in December 2024 and only applies to trans youth. Cisgender children and adolescents continue to access them for a broad range of conditions.
These restrictions followed directly from the Cass Review, an independent evaluation of youth gender services launched in 2020. It was led by Hilary Cass, a paediatrician with negligible prior knowledge or clinical experience of trans youth and gender affirming care.Ā
At the time of writing, Cass, who invited input from established anti-trans voices while explicitly excluding trans expertise from the report, is facing legal challenges for failing to release documents to support her findings. The report itself has been rejected by many medical organizations around the world.
When published in 2024, the review also recommended the closure of the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service, then the sole NHS clinic for young people for over thirty years, and replacing it with regional hubs.
Praised by some as a lifeline, Tavistock was not without its criticisms. Being the sole gender clinic for trans youth in the UK meant years-long waits. Former staff alleged the service was overwhelmed, outcomes were not tracked rigorously enough, and concerns raised were ignored by superiors.Ā
While the public saw these issues taken to court and sensationalised by an eager press, reality also offers a picture of a single overstretched clinic, expected to meet a critical national need without the resources to do so.Ā
The closure was poorly implemented. Without establishing the new hubs with adequate capacity, referrals tumbled from hundreds to a few dozen a month, while the wait list surged passed 6,000. Paired with the national halt on puberty blockers, many teenagers have aged out of pediatric services without receiving care. Unless policy changes, many more certainly will.Ā
Prescription of cross-sex hormones has also been effectively halted. Though not formally banned, the NHS has issued no new prescriptions to minors since the Cass Review, citing the need for a āholisticā approach as there is ānot a reliable evidence base upon which to make clinical decisions.āĀ
This is despite the strong evidence that genderāaffirming hormones are lifesaving because they markedly improve mentalāhealth outcomes. Delays in prescribing puberty blockers and hormones can, in fact, worsen mental health symptoms for trans youth.Ā
The NHSās āholisticā turn is not rooted in a new scientific consensus, but a political backlash, peddled to the public by a small group of influential figures and championed by a childrenās author.Ā
Which brings us to the question: whose fantasies are we indulging here? Are they the feelings of teenagers trying to make sense of themselves? Or the imaginations of adults obsessed with spinning the trans experience into horror stories and encouraging fans to physically attack them in bathrooms?Ā
Journalists, like doctors, are responsible for using their tools with care. Columists understand that the words they use carry their own special weight, and how they are arranged has power.Ā
When a columnist writes about an issue they feel strongly about, flanking their points with violence, they do so intentionally. As Espinozaās lecturer cloaked their hostility toward her in the language of authority, or a type of reason, Freeman deploys a similar tactic, but the scale of attack differs in a particularly nefarious way. Instead of targeting an individual, the crosshairs are much larger.
While the article presents itself with the concern for girlsā mental health, Freemanās metaphors donāt land as compassionate pleas for attention to a very real and actionable issue. Instead, she uses images meant to cause alarm. The goal of using them this way is to prime well-meaning readers to associate gender care and trans people with this alarm.Ā
When writers with platforms like The Times weaponize words like this, their reach extends beyond newspapers and chats over the phone. Social and political debate fueled by violent language fuels violent policies, scientific processes are overshadowed, and thousands of young people swept up in the discourse are othered, attacked, and abandoned.
The spectrum of this discourse appears to consist of two sides. One is fairly complex: itās gender and identity feels threatened; it fears cancellation for expressing uncertainties; a fad is putting children at risk of perversion, or the trans boogie man. The other has its right to exist constantly under threat, while lifesaving care proven to work for them is withheld.Ā
The politics of this sort of incitement produces profoundly harmful results: women stopped in bathrooms and ordered to āproveā their sex; athletes misgendered as trans and subjected to bullying; the International Chess Federation barring trans women from competing, as if they hold some kind of intellectual advantage; and in the UK, recorded transphobic hate crimes have soared, rising more than eightfold since 2013.
The same movement that claims to defend girls makes their daily lives more precarious, subjecting them to further surveillance, harassment, and exclusion. It says that unless you conform to an ideal of femininity, your rights are provisional. It turns every woman into a suspect.Ā
This is the paradox: what masquerades as concern for girls is, in practice, an attack on their autonomy.Ā
My loved oneās feelings have since moved in a different direction. Now that civil protections and access to treatment for the trans community have been rolled back in the UK, they believe āweāve gone too far.āĀ
For folks like Freeman, Rowling, and Linehan, thereās still so much further to go.Ā
"Sonnet For The Intro To Critical Theory Professor Who Made Her Negative Feelings About Trans People Perfectly Clear At Multiple Points During Every Lecture After I Came Out To Her In That Fucking Gut-Churning 'Please Call Me By My Chosen Name And Not The One On The Roster' Email I'd Have To Send Out To All My Instructors Every Term"
Gil Duran has been covering Curtis Yarvin, The Butterfly Revolution, & the billionaires backing it on his blog here.
Turns out, heās hit a nerve. Check out Yarvin's feelings toward Duran over on his blog.
If you haven't read anything by him before, fair warning, Yarvin's writing is loaded with meta-modern irony, dogwhistles, & poached lore.
It's a type of double-speak designed to appeal to some, repel others, & ultimately make dangerous statements while covering his tracks.
For example, depending on your familiarity with Yarvin, you may know what he's getting at with all the references to biodiesel he makes when writing about Duran:
ĀØA ward is any resident who is not capable of earning a living, is not accepted as a dependent by any guardian, and is not wanted...
...As Delegate of San Francisco, what should you do with these people?Ā I think the answer is clear: alternative energy.Ā Since wards are liabilities, there is no business case for retaining them in their present, ambulatory form.Ā Therefore, the most profitable disposition for this dubious form of capital is to convert them into biodiesel..."
This, he says, is a joke. He continues:
"Our goal, in short, is aĀ humane alternative to genocide.Ā That is: the ideal solution achieves the same result as mass murder (the removal of undesirable elements from society), but without any of the moral stigma.Ā Perfection cannot be achieved on both these counts, but we can get closer than most might think."
Curtis Yarvin (aka Mencius Moldbug), Patchwork: A Political System for the 21st Century
This is your daily reminder that autocrats thrive on hopelessness. They thrive on fear. They win when the people become resigned and believe that fighting back is impossible.
Listen, thereās simply no denying that we are on the road to autocracy. But, believe it or not, weāre not there yet. (Yes, itās true!) We can turn back!
But in order to do that, we have to believe we can.
Thereās an Eleanor Roosevelt quote that gets repeated so often, itās almost lost its meaning, but I still think itās worth revisiting in a new light:
āNo one can make you feel inferior without your consent.ā
Donāt give them permission to make you feel lesser! Thatās what they want! They want you to just roll over and accept their dominance!
Listen, I know this whole situation is so fucking exhausting. And wouldnāt it be so great if we didnāt have to fight so hard for our basic rights and freedoms? But these are the cards weāve been dealt; weāre in this fight whether we like it or not.
So, do whatever you need to do to keep yourself sane. Weāre in this fight, but we need to take it in shifts or else weāll get burnt out and then they win.
Keep yourself sane. Find the moments of joy wherever you can. And remember that no one gets to make you feel lesser just because they want you to.
You share your location with the app. Your secure profile includes any military training and equipmentāfor emergencies only, of course! You may even find yourself linked to a local or neighborhood cell...
There is nothing at all illegal, or even sinister, about any of this...
A notification, without much warning, will tell you to go to such and such a place, and do such and such thing. Of course, your phone will know if you complyāand if you donāt, it will at least ask you for an excuse.ā
Trumpās Butterfly Revolutionā¦as conceived by IncelTech nub, CurtisYarvinā¦I seriously think he watched a little too much WestWorld, and believes the general populace can be chipped with a Musk Brain Implantā¦
I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the shift in my content.
If your head is in the sand because you need to protect yourself &/or look after your family, holy smokes, please absolutely do that.
My intention is not to push responsibility onto those being impacted as heavily as our immigrant & LGBTQ+ communities in America.
Iām sharing these things because I am a white, straight, cisgender male, & I canāt think of a single good reason for me to stick my head in the sand.
Our siblings beyond borders & binaries are having their rights stripped away.
That's why it is critical to make a fuss, cause a scene, embarrass ourselves, make mistakes, be open to feedback, stay alert, & pay attention to the chorus of dissent.
We might get a few things wrong, but let's give it a go anyway! Your best teacher is your last mistake, after all.
If we really start looking at what's happening we can figure out what to actually do.
(Hey! If Iāve spoken about your community & Iām getting things wrong, or you have any suggestions, you are welcome to do so anonymously. Thanks!)
You might be more than one. You might be different ones at different times. š«¶š½š«¶š½ you might not be one of these. There are more roles šŖš½ but this is an amazing intro.
You canāt just like the idea and envision yourself in one of these roles you have to figure out how to be about it ā„ļøš«¶š½
Vet found hanging draped in trans flag - by Zero šš³ļøāā§ļø
The suicide letter they won't publish
This is the message from Elisa Rae Shupe, the first person to obtain a non-binary gender transition, to the Trump Administration:
Fuck You America!
I donāt want your hatred.
I donāt want the military decorations and medals you awarded me.
I donāt want your pension money for my distinguished military service and service-connected disabilities.
I donāt want your health care to treat the mental illnesses you caused.
I donāt want more psychiatric ward commitments to keep me alive in a nation that I despise.
I donāt want to be buried in any of your state or national cemeteryās for veterans and military retirees.
I donāt want to be buried anywhere on American soil.
I donāt want any military honors or ceremonies to mark my death.
I donāt want my ashes to be stored on American soil.
I want my ashes or remains to be spread or buried in international waters.
I donāt want your flag anywhere near my body, remains, or ashes.
I donāt want any members of my family other than my spouse to be on the vessel that disposes of my ashes or remains.
My death is not a surrender.
My death as a member of the third gender and transgender population does not mean you won.
It solely marks the end of our association.
You are not the land of the free.
You are not a country getting made great again.
Too much demonstrated hatred throughout your existence extinguishes any claim to previous greatness.
You are a cesspool of zealots that worship a god that does not and has not ever existed.
Enjoy your new royal family and third world dictator.
I refuse to participate any further.
Have that Nazi piece of shit Elon Musk and his DOGE henchmen deduct the savings from my $93,000 of federal pensions from your bankrupt coffers.
The white man decimated and massacred the indigenous populations of the third gender on the lands now called America. It was only fitting that a white person restored it.
You cannot erase non-binary and transgender people because you give birth to more of us each day.
