According to Trans Legislation Tracker, there are currently more than 300 bills pending in state legislatures that attack transgender health and well-being in one way or another. Some are directed at trans girls in high school sports. Some are directed at K-12 curricula. Some are directed at banning or regulating gender-affirming care among trans children and teens.
In just the past four years, the number of anti-trans bills introduced annually has skyrocketed by nearly 20x:
Anti-trans legislation has spread to a majority of US states:
This is the background for everything happening on the transgender front these days. Conservatives have mounted a vast and brutal attack on transgender people, and the size (and viciousness) of the attack is growing every year.
This has, unfortunately, produced a calamitous wedge issue among progressives. The question is how the medical establishment should treat gender dysphoric children and teens, and as you'd expect the research on this topic is (a) thin and (b) unsettled. What else could it be? It's both a difficult issue and a fairly recent one. It simply hasn't been around long enough to generate a well-accepted corpus of rigorous research that follows transitioning kids all the way into adulthood. Recent evidence hints that there may be some problems with current standards of care, but we don't know for sure.
So what do we do while we wait for more research? Given the ongoing assault on trans lives from conservatives, trans activists would basically like everyone to shut up. Maybe there are issues with currently popular treatments, but debating them in public does nothing but provide conservatives with political ammunition—usually twisted and willfully misinterpreted in service of their cause.
Non-activists don't accept this. As with most things, they believe that transparency and public debate are the best way to eventually establish best practices. Trying to hide the facts is both unlikely to succeed and bad for everyone in the long run.
The leadership of the trans community has long had a reputation for ruthlessness against heretics, and that plays into the ongoing war over how to discuss all this. Activists attack the non-activists with absolutely no holds barred: they are murderers, liars, zealots, and pawns of the right. Non-activists hit back with charges that the trans community has no interest in the truth.
The worst part of all this is that, as near as I can tell, both sides in this progressive civil war really and truly believe they have the best interests of the trans community at heart. But the war has long since reached such a fever pitch that everyone on every side probably thinks I'm being laughably naive here.
And me? I'm nearly always on the side of honest research being publicly debated. There are downsides to this—namely that partisans will often distort it for their own ends—but the downside of getting into the habit of suppressing honest research is far worse. At the same time, a topic that touches on raw emotions and life experiences as harrowingly as this one should be debated with extraordinary care and sensitivity to the harm it can produce. Facts and statistics are all very fine if you're literally presenting at a conference of fellow professionals, but outside that milieu it's not enough.¹ You need to make it crystal clear whose side you're on.
I'm on the side of trans people. I'm also on the side of (trying to) ferret out the truth—precisely because this is almost certainly best for everyone, both cis and trans, in the long run. These days, I'm not sure where that puts me.
¹Yes, I realize I'm hardly one to talk.
IMO, this is not true. What you're seeing is just the most vocal, loudmouth Karens demanding everyone else fall in line with their rules.
Exactly.
And not really related to people who've been longstanding in the community. Journalists love to interview trans people who are transitioning.
Not you know, people who transitioned before Kevin here started blogging.
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>The leadership of the trans community has long had a reputation for ruthlessness
Agreed that this is bullshit (as much as I love Kevin). Just look on Twitter for calls for actual physical violence against trans people. Let's not do false equivalence with trans people trying to demand basic human rights.
Came here to mention that exact quote: get back to me when these "heretics" are getting beaten to death singly, or when one of the "leadership of the trans community" walks intro a meeting place for such heretics and opens fire.
This is still not an issue anyone can morally play bothsiderism with.
"loudmouth Karens"
Let's please try to avoid that sexist and ageist term.
"I'm on the side of trans people. I'm also on the side of (trying to) ferret out the truth—precisely because this is almost certainly best for the trans community in the long run."
Surely, the biggest and most immediate problem is the 20-fold increase in the proposed anti-trans legislations. Address that first before trying to figure out what is best for the trans community.
I'd think the biggest and most immediate issue that needs explanation is the huge increase in the number of teens (especially girls) seeking transition. The state legislatures aren't reacting to some black-helicopter bogey man here. Maybe figure out the reasons for these increases and you'll also have some ammunition for what's best for the Trans community.
huge increase
So like how Utah went from having 1 transgender athlete in the entire state playing high school sports to 4 transgender athletes, a 300% increase that led to a panicked rush to pass a ban there before all girls’ sports were overrun by trans kids?
Huge increases in something small isn’t super impressive, even if it generates a big percentage rate of change.
+10 for common sense nummeracy, of which there doesn't seem to be much of these days. Also, you kids get off my lawn.
Yeah, huge increase. Also a reversal in the proportion of sexes presenting. Stop cherry picking Utah ... and ask the Penn women's swim team how "just one" male in the locker room affected them.
https://www.transgendertrend.com/surge-referral-rates-girls-tavistock-continues-rise/
It's impressive that you tell people to stop cherry picking and then pick a single incident to support your position.
So how many instances like that do you think are needed before a law is passed? Three? 20? 200? Why not make a la so it can never happen again?
What’s wrong with making the law before it becomes a big issue? And, in my opinion, one boy playing on a girls team is too much and warrants a law being put in place.
Because it's not true.
Trans kids come in all genders, and have, for as long as we know.
They also suffer greatly and the older a trans person is. The more likely they have attempted suicide.
The kids today can come out, dress as the like, transition or not, and... not commit suicide.
There's no mystery here.
Not is treatment for kids new. Twenty-five years ago, I went on hormone blockers for a year, and then chose hormone replacement therapy and transition. Others in my peer group did hrt and didn't transition m or did transition and skipped hormones. There's many ways to be trans.
I'm on the side of leaving decisions about medical care for children to their parents and their doctors. Any legislation that gets in the way of that is terrible in my opinion.
But not all of these "anti trans" bills are the same. The question of whether trans girls should be allowed so play girls sports is probably about the least important issue facing our nation right now and a lot of these bills are about that. As I said the issue is unimportant to the extreme but the people who think trans girls have an unfair advantage in girls sports are not coming out of left field, because they actually do have an unfair advantage. No one is worried about trans boys playing boys sports for this very reason. Now none of this means that these bills are not being push through to rile up the rubes by heartless monsters who don't care about trans kids and their struggles.
Also, remember the gay marriage wars of the 90s and early 2000s? We went from gay marriage bans all across the country to gay marriage being accepted by nearly everyone in about 15 years. I would not be surprised if the trans freakout follows a similar trajectory.
As you say, this is the least important issue and so this legislation is just hate bait for conservatives.
Let's leave medical care to transpeople and their doctors, and to the transchildren, their parents, and their doctors.
Decisions about education should be left to teachers and local school boards. Censorship laws and speech codes are harmful.
Conservatives hate non-heterosexual people and have decided the attack on transpeople is their opening to attack gay, lesbian and other non-het people, and anyone with a non-traditional gender role or sexual preference.
These are the same people that were measuring skirts a few generations ago, and insisting that women only take low paying, menial work.
Haters going to hate.
And of course, scaremongering. People will turn your kids gay and you won't get grandchildren. (same with abortion, birth control and women working).
I'd like to remain open-minded and learn more, but the relentless, misguided, vicious, wrong, and stupid attacks on J.K.Rowling have given me a background "anti" bias that I have to constantly push back on.
I'd also like some numbers: like, how many/what percentage of the young population actually has ambiguous genitalia? Has the incidence of this been increasing? Dramatically?
And what about the chromosomal story? Is there now something beyond XX, XY, X, XYY, XXY? Do we no longer have people who are genetically neither male nor female?
These things never seem to come up in the reports I've seen so far, just "cis" and "trans" and "gender" and the whole "pronoun" deal. Also, the thing with XX women being referred to as "vulvas." I mean, really.
Also, you kids! Get offa my lawn!
Intersex is on the order of 1% of the population. Scientific American had a good article on this a few years back. There are a lot of different ways for embryonic development to reach non-typical results.
Gender dysphoria also seems to be in the range of 1%, and the number of those transitioning is smaller yet. One of the reasons it's hard to reach firm conclusions about the subject is that the population is so small.
The population of the United States is something like 330 million. 1% of that would be 3.3 million people. While that is certainly quite small as a percentage, that still seems like a rather large potential study population.
Yes, but then they also have to be out and safe. Looking at that map, a significant number would not meet that threshold.
Add to that it's legal to discriminate against them in most states, and they suffer a higher suicide/hate crime rate, well... You aren't going to have 1% of the population, now are you?
A large number of my peers did not make it out of the AIDs epidemic or through their teen years alive.
There are plenty of trans people out there to study ... we just have to actually study them in a meaningful way. Its uniquely American to have lousy outcome statistics ... while Sweden and Finland decided medicalization was harming kids and they stopped. Why? Not because they hate trans kids but because the data showed affirmative treatments were not helpful.
That's quite a definitive comment to put out with no cites to any studies Try harder.
“In its latest Standards of Care, released in September, WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) notes the paucity of research supporting the long-term effectiveness of medical treatment for adolescents with gender dysphoria. As a result, the guidelines say, “a systematic review regarding outcomes of treatment in adolescents is not possible.” The Endocrine Society, in its own guidelines, acknowledges the “low” or “very low” certainty of evidence supporting its recommendations.
….
In Europe, concern that too many children might be unnecessarily put at risk has prompted countries like Finland and Sweden that were early to embrace gender care for children to now limit access to care. The United Kingdom is shutting down its main clinic for children’s gender care and overhauling the system after an independent review found that some staff felt “pressure to adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach.” ”
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-care/
No. Sweden and Finland did not. Your statement is in error, as you'e quoting anti-trans propaganda.
Ok then 1) tell me what Sweden and Finland did and 2) what is this anti-trans propanda?
You can't ... so let me tell you. Sweden's Karolinska noted "In December 2019, the SBU (Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Assessment of Social Services) published an overview of the knowledge base which showed a lack of evidence for both the long-term consequences of the treatments, and the reasons for the large influx of patients in recent years. These treatments are potentially fraught with extensive and irreversible adverse consequences such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, infertility, increased cancer risk, and thrombosis. This makes it challenging to assess the risk / benefit for the individual patient, and even more challenging for the minors or their guardians to be in a position of an informed stance regarding these treatments."
And thus the policy:
"In light of the above, and based on the precautionary principle, which should always be applied, it is hereby decided that hormonal treatments (i.e., puberty blocking and cross-sex hormones, see above) will not be initiated in gender dysphoric patients under the age of 16.
For patients between ages 16 and 18, it is hereby decided that treatment may only occur within the clinical trial settings approved by the EPM (Ethical Review Agency/Swedish Institutional Review Board). The patient must receive comprehensive information about potential risks of the treatment, and a careful assessment of the patient’s maturity level must be conducted to determine if the patient is capable of taking an informed stance on, and consenting to, the treatment."
Surely you can use google and inform yourself of Finland's actions so I can stop educating you.
They have to be “out” to convert. And sure, we might assume half are living in parts of the country which might preclude that. We are still talking about over a million individuals.
The NIH says the # of true intersex people is 0.018%, or about 1/5000.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/
No, it doesn't! Don't confuse a publication available on pubmed with the official position of the NIH.
That's a study, not a position, and only a select portion of intersex conditions.
Read Sax (2002) and toss the Fausto-Sterling numbers. There are conditions that affect Development but in no way affect the base identity or function of people... and once you toss them away you get .018% of live births in which there is an actual question about the sex of the child.
Inflating numbers to the level of "as many redheads as intersex" is just stupid.
Maybe I've missed something, but none of the criticism I've seen of J.K. Rowling strikes me as misguided, vicious, wrong, or stupid. (Relentless, maybe.) On the other hand, I've seen plenty of misguided, vicious, wrong, and stupid attacks -by- J.K. Rowling, and her defenders.
Right. Because there is nothing more hateful than trying to keep abused, traumatized women from sharing their safe spaces with intact males!
You're basically calling for discrimination against trans women. You don't want them to have the same access to shelters that other women possess.
Maybe there's some scientific basis for your stance. And maybe not. But let's be honest about what this viewpoint constitutes.
“Domestic violence shelters are often marked “women-only” with the goal of creating spaces for female empowerment, wherein women learn feminist principles of liberation and find a “sisterhood” of support by forging healthy female relationships.
…
“I once worked with a woman who was transgender, and whose partner had almost killed her. She had finally made the decision to leave the relationship and she went to a shelter in Massachusetts. When she got there, the counsellors were confused about her gender even though she had previously explained to them that she was transgender, and what that meant. The shelter staff asked her a set of intensive and grueling questions about her body including, ‘What is between your legs?’ . . . after this humiliating treatment, they told her that she could not be housed there because they decided that she was really a man. After being denied shelter, this woman went back to her batterer because she had no family, no friends and nowhere else to go.”––Emily Pitt, Director, Fenway Community Health’s Violence Recovery Program.”
https://californialawreview.org/print/6-are-womens-spaces-transgender-spaces-single-sex-domestic-violence-shelters-transgender-inclusion-and-the-equal-protection-clause/
Um, your position is stating that the needs of natal females are less important than the needs of transwomen.
Who's discriminating now?
Um, your position is stating that the needs of natal females are less important than the needs of transwomen.
Um, my position is stating no such thing. (Also, pro-tip: save the "um" and just debate in good faith. You're not nearly clever or knowledgeable enough to justify the level of condescension that tick signifies).
Your position certainly implies prohibiting trans women from using women's shelters. Obviously vulnerable people in tenuous situations should be shielded from violence of any kind. Perpetrators of violence should be barred from such environments no matter their gender particulars. A trans woman who does not engage in violence would obviously pose a smaller statistical danger to fellow residents than, say, a cis woman suffering from severe psychosis. Preventing the former from using needed services is neither progressive nor wise; rather, it's reductive, cruel, bigoted and counterproductive.
Stop putting words in his mouth; that's got to be one of the laziest debate tactics ever. Also, it makes me not trusts any positions you impute to other people that I haven't verified for myself. 'Your words unimportant and I do not hear them', to mangle a quote.
The "bathroom" bills are some of the dumbest moves I've ever seen.
You know what prevents a man from barging into a public women's restroom and raping a woman using the facilities? Nothing. There's no guards, no secret forcefields. The idea that a man determined to rape a woman would go to the trouble of beginning a transitioning process or identifying as trans, with all the risks involved in doing so, in order to gain access to a public restroom he could ALREADY access is so ludicrous as to require no rebuttal.
If the US states so concerned about trans bathroom use actually wanted to protect women, they'd not have huge stockpiles of unexamined rape kits and they'd be prioritizing investigation of actual rapes over "protecting" women by banning an entire category of people from using public restrooms. Then again, none of the lawmakers putting this legislation forward are trans; it's questionable whether none of them have ever abused or harassed someone.
+1
My god this is so true and well put it almost hurts. Please someone publish this.
Yup. Calling trans people rapists is calling for vigilantes to kill trans people.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/j-k-rowling-and-her-unending-lies-about-transgender-women-as-rapists-fd6abd6b8f38
I'm not calling Trans people rapists. In fact I didn't use the term at all. You are conflating.
Women seeking shelter from abusive male partners shouldn't have to share space with males of any sort. Its a mystery why the trigger-warning loving left doesn't understand how trauma works and that the simple presence of a male can be triggering.
Trans women are women. Period. Full stop. End of sentence.
No.
I feel that this kind of simplistic argument is not actually helpful. The issue is more complex than that.
When you say “trans women”, do you mean men dressing up as women? If so, no, they are men dressing up as women. They are not women. If you mean women dressing up as men, you are correct, they are women.
Oh, it's Atticus, here, the guy who advocates for higher maternal mortality, to discuss what he thinks women are.
Well, dear, I transitioned before you first commented on a blog. Go stuff your 80s style lavender scare.
Variation. There is variation in humans. But there is also still a mean and a standard deviation. A generous estimate of most of these conditions is about as prevalent as a person being 6' 8', some of the rarer presentations are as common as a person being taller than 7'. While these tall people clearly exist, they are clearly outliers with the adult US population forming a nice, neat Gaussian Normal distribution around a mean of 5'6" or so.
Sadly, there isn't strong agreement on the conditions themselves and what counts as Intersex vs Differences in Sexual Development. Estimates as high as 2% and as low as .1% have been given ... and that's a BIG range!
Or ... yes there are people with Intersex/DSDs. They are exceptions that prove the rule. They are humans who should be accorded the same respect we all wish for as humans.
And ... the thing is there isn't a spectrum of sex. There is a spectrum of secondary sexual characteristics for sure, but this doesn't affect the basic fact that humans are a sexually dimorphic species. We reproduce by sperm and egg. We reproduce by small, mobile gametes meeting large, immobile gametes. Further, we are not fish. Its fascinating that some fish change their sex but its irrelevant to mammals.
This may be true, but it's utter pointless in this discussion.
"relentless, misguided, vicious, wrong, and stupid attacks on J.K.Rowling"
Sp you're not keeping an open mind, you're throwing yourself fully on the anti- trans side.
Projection. Okay.
Nope, observation.
"How many/what percentage of the young population actually has ambiguous genitalia? Has the incidence of this been increasing? Dramatically?
And what about the chromosomal story? Is there now something beyond XX, XY, X, XYY, XXY? Do we no longer have people who are genetically neither male nor female?"
What you're talking about is intersex, which is quite different from being trans. Trans is where your gender identity differs from your chromosomal sex. Intersex is a group of medical conditions which result in the genitalia developing in unusual ways.
I wouldn't be surprised if a significantly higher fraction of intersex people were also trans, but the two are not at all the same thing. Most trans people are XX or XY, and their genitalia develop normally based on that.
When the trans folks stop claiming they are mentally ill, I will be on their side. Gay folks don’t need drugs, surgeries and therapy (mostly). They just want to love and have sex! Meanwhile, let’s ponder this craziness.
https://www.thefp.com/p/i-thought-i-was-saving-trans-kids
“The girls who came to us had many comorbidities: depression, anxiety, ADHD, eating disorders, obesity. Many were diagnosed with autism, or had autism-like symptoms. A report last year on a British pediatric transgender center found that about one-third of the patients referred there were on the autism spectrum. Frequently, our patients declared they had disorders that no one believed they had. We had patients who said they had Tourette syndrome (but they didn’t); that they had tic disorders (but they didn’t); that they had multiple personalities (but they didn’t). The doctors privately recognized these false self-diagnoses as a manifestation of social contagion. They even acknowledged that suicide has an element of social contagion.”
This seems like not worth defending.
I don’t want to enable the dysfunctional and way too often suicidal trans community.
https://www.washingtonblade.com/2022/12/22/hrc-staffer-transgender-activist-henry-berg-brousseau-dies-by-suicide/
How about not harassing people about their gender, hmm? Or crowing about their suicide?
Cis gender people take drugs (erectile, hormones, hair); have surgeries (cosmetic surgeries, prosthesis), and really, really need therapy. There are thousands of these to every trans related service.
So yeah, maybe don't.
Depends on your community. Sure, being harassed in Texas or ... I dunno ... Oklahoma is an issue. Here in Portland the kids aren't hiding, in fact they seem to be seizing the identity as a way of gaining (not losing) status among their peers. Justin's post rings true ... with kids creating conditions to compete in a version of Oppression Olympics.
Or perhaps you're just aware of them because there's a much larger percentage in Portland than in most places?
If you moved to Mobile you'd be pretty impressed by a whole different cast of characters.
I'm sure the % of the population here is much higher than elsewhere. Its an accepting place (on this issue) - I expect a lot of Trans people leave their rural areas and families behind to seek a more understanding place (much like happened with SF and 1960/70s gays).
But kids in high school aren't moving here because they are trans (well, a few). Most kids are immersed in it and the theory of social contagion seems like a really good way to understand what's happening.
Social contagion? I have no idea what life is like in Portland beyond what I’ve seen on Portlandia. But I just don’t see evidence in my metro area (Washington DC) that thousands of teens are openly identifying as trans at all, much less using trans identity to improve their social status in some kind of Oppression Olympics. If only a dozen kids or less are identifying as openly trans at each school, it doesn’t seem like a social contagion.
Dude, I lived in Portland and had a job at a downtown bank and was harassed out of a job for being trans.
Don't talk to me about 'maybe'. Bigots exist. Most of my friends from then aren't alive now.
You're dating yourself and your experience. I'll concede that all sorts of bad HAS HAPPENED. As for what's happening now ... your assorted comments demonstrate that you have no idea of what is actually happening in schools, with teens, with counselors, with doctors or even medical associations.
I'm concerned about the here and now. I will not sacrifice my child's health to make you feel better about yourself.
I'm sorry crap happened to you. It doesn't mean I owe you my child's life.
Maybe I'm as naive as Kevin, but it seems to me that "this craziness" is most easily defined as a symptom of the relentless persecution that gender-dysphoric teens are being subjected to by the right-wingnuts.
"both sides really and truly believe they have the best interests of the trans community at heart"
Ron DeSantis has the best interests of the trans community at heart? No.
Many people on both sides who are involved in the debate do have regard for the interests of the trans community (the best interests of any group are not necessarily the best interests of society as a whole), but there are extremists on both sides who are just fighting culture war. But the politicians on the Republican side are using this issue for their own advancement, and the Republican party is using it, like other elements in the culture war, to distract from their real economic objectives. And then Fox and the rest of the Republican media make money from stirring people up. You can't have a rational debate about these things when politics and big money are pushing one side.
In this case, the "both sides" are both progressives--hard core activists vs. everyone else.
Maybe Kevin was referring to the two side among progressives. But the side that has reservations about the most extreme trans agenda has little public voice - they are shouted down by the trans extremists and ignored by the anti-trans politicians.
I know a lot of people don't want to hear this, but trans people are not the only ones whose interests need to be taken into account here. Kids with other mental health conditions, girls with body hatred issues, and kids who don't have a strong internal sense of gender all matter too. And there is plenty of reason to believe that a significant number of kids in these categories are going into ill-advised medical transitions.
Plenty of schools are trying to be more inclusive by saying to kids, more or less, "are you trans? Look inside yourself to find out if you are trans!" and kids who have mental health issues, or body hatred issues, or lack a strong internal sense of gender (autistic people, in particular, tend not to have a strong internal sense of gender) can all too easily get confused into thinking they are trans when they are not. A cis kid with a strong internal sense of gender won't be negatively affected, but that doesn't mean no one will. I am somewhat autistic myself, and if I had been told as a teenager that I might be trans I could have believed it.
Back in the days when trans visibility was low and trans people were stigmatized, hardly anybody who wasn't trans would seek a medical transition, and I know medical gatekeeping often screened out people for bad reasons. But the situation has changed, both in society as a whole and inside the clinics. There are multiple firsthand accounts out there to indicate that a lot of these clinics are not being anywhere near as careful as they ought to be.
I favor oversight and sensible regulation of youth transition clinics. I oppose banning youth transition, because real trans kids obviously exist and can benefit in many cases from an early transition. There is no excuse for trans-bashing and it's very unfortunate that we're caught between hateful conservatives and vulnerable kids who need help. But the kids have to come first - both the trans kids and the kids with other issues, and that means being honest about what is truly in their best interest.
This.
We are experimenting on our children. There is NO TEST. There is no differential diagnosis. There is a LOT of diagnostic overshadowing going on. There is a lot of information out there that pushes vulnerable kids to a trans diagnosis and then the issues of ASD and trauma, even ADHD are completely ignored.
The evidence of this is everywhere ... Keira Bell and a raft of other detransitioners who seek transition and then realize -- after mastectomies, orchietomies and more -- that they aren't trans and its the other thing they need treatment for. The UK system meant Keira Bell wasn't suing for malpractice ... the first malpractice suits in the USA are coming and it won't be pretty.
There are still kids that follow the traditional pattern of gender dysphoria. Their feelings of being of the opposite gender show up starting at a very young age, and these feeling stay with them. However, now we have a huge surge in rapid-onset gender dysphoria, and it's not clear what is going on here. It's likely in part social contagion. No one knows for sure. But we do know that many studies say that gender dysphoria goes away in around 80% of children, typically after puberty. This suggests for many kids the best path forward is to simply wait it out.
I have a feeling a couple of decades from now, for treating kids exhibiting rapid-onset gender dysphoria, giving them strong chemicals to partially suppress their biological sex while their bodies mature is going to look very bad.
"Plenty of schools are trying to be more inclusive by saying to kids, more or less, "are you trans? Look inside yourself to find out if you are trans!" and kids who have mental health issues, or body hatred issues, or lack a strong internal sense of gender (autistic people, in particular, tend not to have a strong internal sense of gender) can all too easily get confused into thinking they are trans when they are not. A cis kid with a strong internal sense of gender won't be negatively affected, but that doesn't mean no one will. I am somewhat autistic myself, and if I had been told as a teenager that I might be trans I could have believed it."
Cites needed for so bold a claim.
Its a common observation from parents of ASD kids. Cites aren't needed, these are personal stories and should be believed at least as much as "self identification."
But ...
https://www.parentsofrogdkids.com/parents-stories/2018/10/23/do-you-have-asd-transition
https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/largest-study-to-date-confirms-overlap-between-autism-and-gender-diversity/
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/15/1149318664/transgender-and-non-binary-people-are-up-to-six-times-more-likely-to-have-autism
and listen to Dr. Susan Bradley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMH8T8FxLYg
...and what about the findings that testing transgender adults for autism find the same correlation?
This is the most excellent comment I've ever read on this subject. The problem I have is not with trans people but with the enormous danger of misdiagnosis leading to destroyed lives. My own daughter thought she was trans for a year. There was something strange about that, because she said half the girls in her class were like her. My reading, in retrospect, is that being trans was cool and being a virgin was not. And this being a boarding school, contagion went fast. My daughter, by the way, is at university now, living with a guy and happy to be a woman. Good thing I didn't rush her into "medical care" when she was convinced she was a boy born into the wrong body.
Society routinely prevents children against choices they are too young to make. They may not sign up for war. They may not marry. We try to protect them against teen pregnancy. All these protections are good. One day we'll wonder why we didn't similarly protect them when, in the turmoil of adolescence, they asked for what is euphemistically called "medical care for trans youth". It's just too early for that. They say they know who they really are, but they don't.
This isn't war. No one is letting children take hormones or have permanent alterations for gender transition.
What they are letting them have is talk therapy and after years of that, hormone blockers which slow puberty so they can grow up and make adult choices when they get to the medical age of majority.
The huge difference between the outcomes of children put on puberty blockers and those who aren't is worrisome. Almost everyone put on puberty blockers eventually progresses to cross-sex hormones and a lifetime of taking very powerful drugs. But something like 75-80% of non-medicalized gender dysphoric children revert to their biological gender after puberty.
If these children were assigned puberty blockers or not randomly, these stats would indicate that the vast majority of children being treated medically for GD are being greatly harmed by the medical establishment. Though these assignments aren't random, obviously, the huge disparity of outcomes is still very worrisome.
And indeed, the standards of treatment for GD has moved away from medical treatment of minors in France, the UK, Sweden and Finland, because the evidence of improved outcomes for transitioning children medically is simply not there. Furthermore, medical transition, especially when it starts pre-puberty, often causes the inability to have orgasms, and infertility. It is hard to imagine how a 10 year old child can provide informed consent to medical procedures with these outcomes.
The legal system is a terribly blunt instrument and shouldn't be used to regulate private medical decisions. There are some children who probably benefit from medical treatment although it's far from clear that we know how to determine who those children are.
But we're also doing a disservice to our children if we tell them they can choose to be a boy or a girl. That's simply not true. You can choose to *present externally* as a boy or girl, but that's just not the same thing.
The most important issue here, to my mind, is not harming children. But it is also worth pointing out that taking the most extreme position of "trans women are women, period" also makes us look like idiots.
It leads us to celebrate Lia Thomas's victories in women's swimming, even though she went through puberty as a male. It leads to a convicted rapist being allowed to enter a woman's prison, because "she" decided after trial that she was trans ( https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-64501436 ). It leads us to tell children they can choose their sex, when they can't. It led California to pass a law saying that trans children can come there and get medical treatment for GD, even if their parents are opposed.
Trans women are women and trans men are men. It's interesting how nobody ever talks about trans men. Instead everyone focuses on various fears and the possibility of unfairness as relates to an assigned at birth male transitioning to a trans female.
That doesn't mean people can't/shouldn't discuss how it is difficult it can become people to identify their gender or sexuality. Or to discuss the best options to assist them in doing that but trans people are absolutely the gender they identify as.
And yes, trans people are people too! Which means they are complicated people who sometimes make mistakes. And like any group of people there is a small percentage that will do something stupid or terrible at some point in their lives.
The examples that people always bring up are no different that when any other subset of the population, but with trans people are always brought up like they prove a point.
They don't. Should every conversation about people from the Middle East talk about how some of them are terrorists? Should every discussion about straight white males have anecdotes about "but this one time, this one guy raped somebody?" Are all Germans hardcore Nazis?
And one time a guy that would dress as a clown for kids parties was actually a serial killer! So I guess we need to talk about what we will allow clowns to do in our society. They need our permissions to exist in the way they choose.
I would personally feel safer with my children in the presence of a trans person in comparison to just about any other subset of the population.
My point about the trans woman rapist wasn't that trans people are more likely to rape. That's obviously false, and obviously something I don't believe.
My point is that the Scotland's "self ID" scheme allowed this rapist to simply "transition" based on just saying "actually, I'm a woman", after being arrested for rape. And that defending this, as Nicola Sturgeon initially did, was stupid.
Just a total SWAG here, but I suspect there are, in fact, more male-type cis-men who are willing to use subterfuge to rape than the total number of trans people.
Should female-type women be protected? Well, look at all the forced pregnancy bills being passed.
At no point did self id do that.
Do you think women who are housed for assaulting women aren't taken precautions with?
What must go through your mind to think that someone taking estrogen is going to be some sort of addictional risk?
Thanks for the nice long-form comment.
Why is it worrisome that kids who have been asking to change their gender for years are given puberty blockers for years the. Decide "hey, I think I still want to change my gender!"?
The hard thing is that some kids are clearly Trans from a very young age, long before puberty, and remain consistent throughout childhood. While others aren't. If every Trans child was clear and consistent from age 3 onwards, being confident about treatment plans would be easy. But what is the right response when someone has never expressed any discomfort with their assigned gender until after puberty begins?
As acceptance of LGBTQIA+ kids grows, we'll have more kids growing up in supportive homes, which should help us figure this out. Kids will feel comfortable at younger ages being who they are, which will give medical professionals and families more time pre-puberty to figure out what is the best plan forward.
But who is the “open debate” in service of? Trans people/families are perfectly capable of evaluating research and getting advice from medical professionals themselves. Cis people who this issue will never directly affect “having a debate” about whether they think gender affirming care is the right trade off benefits trans people in no way. It’s no more useful than a bunch of people who know nothing about cancer debating if taking the Evil Dex is the right trade off - and then banning you from having it if they’re not convinced.
It’s not that the larger community has no role in private medical decisions, but it’s limited: To ensure there are protections against fraud and coercion, and that conditions for informed consent exist. Once those are met (which they are) it’s nobody else’s business.
Also, you’re completely missing the power dynamic. Choosing what question to debate and who gets to decide is not neutral, it is an exercise of power in its own right. In this case, a tiny minority’s right to make their own decisions about themselves is being debated among people who are not affected by it, but who have the power to end it. That is terrible grounds for a debate. Contrast that with, say, debating the best ways to support trans kids’ mental health. See the difference that how you frame the question makes? Any variant of “should XX minority be allowed to exist? Discuss” has no upside for the targeted group and inevitably carries the likelihood of great harm. We should choose to debate something else. (And no, I’m not talking censorship here, I’m talking ethical people making decisions based on an awareness of the consequences of their actions for others).
This is such a great response and 100% on point, Thanks for telling it like it ought to be told.
Trans people/families are perfectly capable of evaluating research and getting advice from medical professionals themselves
I think the worry is that, at least with the families of teenagers born with XX gender chromosomes, this "perfectly capable" you're referring to may not, in fact, be the case.
I have zero doubt that US right wing is gleefully using the various controversies for their own political ends. And in other news the sun will rise in the east tomorrow. But on the narrower, sub-issue of "the massive increase in teen XX chromosomed-persons transitioning to male" it does seem to me caution is in order, at least with respect medical procedures that are irreversible. Are the Swedes and Danes really that out to lunch on this?
Why are xx chromosome-persons needing this extra defense and from what?
I completely agree with you. What concerns me is how much the conservatives have inserted themselves into schools who are just trying to make all kids feel accepted for who they are. And I know that for some it's a religious[heh]/moral thing but for others it's really just a combination of ick and politics and I want them to stay out of it because of the potential for great harm.
Kevin, and I say this with as much respect as I can, I transitioned before you started blogging.
I've also been reading you since CalPundit. And replying in the comments!
We've gone through these things before. But right now, are places like the NYTimes putting forward experts or trans people? Or ideologues? The answer is the latter, and the criticisms of their coverage stem from this issue.
That's really the only question you need to ask.
I was doing public speaking as a young trans kid (tho I was the oldest in my peer group) over twenty-five years ago. I've seen the syntax change (for the better). I've seen administrations come and go, and the requirements to getting identification and treatment get worse and better. I know the standards of care in and out.
Good for you, Crissa.
It is hard to describe the NYT* news and editorial coverage as anything but anti-trans. (Not so true on the arts and culture pages.) It's been a combination of retro conservatives and so-called progressive moderates with "concerns." Those concerns are very much the same as when gays were allowed out of the closet and before that, when blacks were allowed out of the shadows. I don't need a lot of research to know that history will look back on the those having a moral panic about transgender people today will be viewed the same as bigots from earlier eras. Right now, we have a small and vulnerable minority that is not just marginalized but under attack. There's a mob mentality to the anti-trans movement. Laws are being passed. Individuals are being threatened and attacked. The proper response is to extend support. Too much of the progressive anti-trans concerns are just lending support to the conservative assault on people's rights.
That's not to say I agree with all messaging supporting the trans cause. I have at times been horrified by some people (who I know) who've attacked some (usually older) folks that are not antagonistic toward trans people but are more than anything puzzled, or just don't speak the right language. We need more dialog, less outrage.
Transgender is a hot issue these days. As you know, it's hardly a new thing. I remember a transgender section in a psych class I took in college in the '70s, and in the '80s and '90s, I was in men's groups with trans and gay men. But it was hardly a big political topic at the time. From my personal POV, what put it into the stratosphere was the last year of the Obama administration, particularly extending Title XI protections for bathroom use to students. A friend of my Republican in-laws went ballistic on me because I defended the new rule. I thought we were going to get kicked out of the restaurant. He kept going on about his (adult) daughter's rights. I had just been to a concert where women were choosing to use the men's room because the line to the women's room was too long. I told him he was worried about nothing. I stand by that.
I'm not sure how long it will take for the current moral panic will fade. Some religious fundamentalists will always be anti-trans. But the general public will likely be more at home with trans rights as more and more people get to know trans people.
* I did sign the NYT letter this week (as a contributor, under my real name, which for whatever reason never worked when I signed up at this site). The Times seems obsessed with the issue in a negative way (many, many "concerns"). It ought to be more supportive for a group of people who need all the support they can get.
Heh, saw that phenom (women using the men's bathroom (stalls) at a Sha Na Na concert at MIT (1971, I think). The women's bathrooms were pathetic in size - especially when a lot of Wellesley women came down for the free concert. There was a LOT of beer involved!
They came in to the men's bathrooms and said: "You need more stalls!" And went in the mostly empty stalls, did their business, and walked out. Since they were a "sister" school to MIT with a lot of cross courses between the Universities, us men just shrugged, but made sure to zip up before turning around from the urinals,
One woman steered her totally hammered date into the men's bathroom, marched him up ti a free urinal, unzipped his pants, fished out his dick, and held it aimed till he was dry. Then packed his dick back in in pants, zipped him up without catching it in the zipper, and marched him out.
We gave her a standing ovation of clapping. (Which is the only way to do this while peeing in a urinal or waiting in line.) And everyone still peeing did not turn around to do it while applauding - fortunately.
They never put that part in the movies.
Yeah, they're exactly the same arguments as in the 80s against gays. And trans then...
Also... What happened to forum avatars? I tried to upload a png to no avail.
Aha, Gravitar works. Sorta.
I think the “battle” between progressives on either side of this is even wilder than you suggest, because as far as I can tell they actually agree on literally everything except how/when to talk about this issue. It seems like that’s it. Everyone basically agrees that kids should be taken seriously and have ability to get treatment under medical supervision.
It seems like the primary issues are how people describe the current state of research, as well as likelihood of youngest kids getting too much treatment at too young an age. Some think these things are worth talking about and some think these are made up. But the goals are seemingly identical.
What treatment? And what is too young an age?
Why is it okay to treat cis gender children for precocious puberty, but not trans children?
Anti-trans activists aren't on the side of the best interests of anyone.
What do you think of anti-black activists?
Folks, its not just Bible-thumping conservatives who are worried about this. And Red Pills aren't just for conservative fever dreams. After you've been lied to about this issue by therapists, doctors and activists you realize something is going on.
Just out now ... https://affirmationgenerationmovie.com
The movie is made by "life long, West Coast, Liberal Democrats"
Watch that ... then we can have a discussion about what's going on and we don't even have to do it based on religious morals.
"The movie is made by "life long, West Coast, Liberal Democrats""
A production company that doesn't list its members or describes anything about itself. Yeah, color me skeptic.
Don't be so tribal.
One of the film makers uses a psuedonym to protect her son from backlash.
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2023/02/18/i-made-a-film-about-transgender-kids-that-doesnt-align-with-my-politics/
The oldest pattern of conservatives is the confessional, the conversion story. It always starts with, 'I was a life long whatist...' but they'll have an oddly short life as a whatist and an oddly shallow definition also.
I used to think liberals were for ideas and tolerance - yet Vimeo has been pressured to remove the film that really just tells stories of being harmed and tries to find an answer. No one suggests hurting anyone. No one suggests voting for a bad bill. All it says is "something fishy is going on here. Maybe we should think about it.".
A great demonstration of Kevin's point : "Activists attack the non-activists with absolutely no holds barred: they are murderers, liars, zealots, and pawns of the right."
Thanks for demonstrating his point!
A serious issue that informs all of this is the place of women in society and how it interacts with social conservative mental disorder.
Virtually every woman feels that being female is the worst possible thing any person could experience. So many women, especially conservative women, see someone transitioning to female and cannot imagine why they would do that.
A conservative man will see a trans-man and see someone who's avoiding their ability to oppress them, which he will find offensive, though understandable, but still offensive; and trans-women just offend their sense of purity.
So it's the perfect recipe for the mass wig out of wingnuts, of both the left and right.
Are you really that tribal? Social Conservatives suffer from a mental disorder? I'm sorry, but that's playground "I know you are, but what am I?" crap. I don't agree with many/most of the social conservative positions but they do need to be respected.
Lots of gender critical trans people will disagree with you about "being a woman." Their issue wasn't being female, it was being a lesbian in a conservative family. Some strict communities (looking at you Iran) find trans more acceptable than homosexuality.
Your position is one directional ... what of the transwomen? Are they just gluttons for punishment and wish to be oppressed? I think oppression is a poor lens for understanding the issue.
I'm just describing the social conservatives' characteristics reactions, --it's a learning disability based on an over sensitivity to anxiety. There's nothing you should respect about social conservatism except as an expression of an extreme personal deficit.
Most women have felt that being a woman is more an affliction than anything else, at least for a large part of their lives, and will tell you that if you ask them. That transwomen may choose not to focus on that isn't meaningful. This sense of general affliction will be worse for socially conservative women, barring wealth or some other lucky break, because they'll feel even less able to do anything about it, so they may become focused to the point of fanaticism on a veneer of status, like church ladies, or Ginni Thomas. This is not stereotyping them because they actively aspire to the stereotype.
"Virtually every woman feels that being female is the worst possible thing any person could experience."
I never met one, but anyway.
Perhaps all the women you know are particularly happy!
I wouldn't frame it as "the worst thing any person could experience", but nearly every single female friend or relative I have has at one point or another complained about some of the burdens that society imposes on women, and how their lives would have been easier had they been men.
Quite so. But that doesn't mean they would have liked to be men. In any case it's the hyperbole I was reacting to.
No one said they wanted to change their gender, either.
I think that other than those opposed to them on religions grounds (which is the most common excuse for those who want to be bigoted against someone), the main reason so many conservatives, particularly men, are so opposed to trans people is simple male insecurity.
They particularly hate trans women because they are in absolute fear of getting in a relationship with one without knowing, shattering their sexual identity in the process.
To a bit lesser extent they oppose trans men because that means one less woman they could partner with, and because that trans man could now also take away other women from them.
If there's one thing I want to throw my two cents on is the harmonization of the State to the wishes of her citizens. And if that means protecting the most vulnerable from the mob - that should be the end of the discussion. The catastrophic nature of any interference from the State is tantamount [to] capital punishment - there are no respawns.
Like +10! Thanks for this note of sanity. It's always useful to go back to first principles, to the underlying rationale for decisions. This whole discussion has been interesting and sometimes enlightening, but has also gone off into the weeds a bit.
Yeah. First Principles - in order to form a more perfect union. Right? The problem though is highly complex and it's hard to move forward without mistake. That said, I'm willing to bet the mortgage that families dealing with this state of affairs have invested much time and resources into the decision and do not take it lightly. Meanwhile, Jim Bob, freshly elected off the farm to the Legislature "knows better," and is willing to legislate his knowledge. A horrible state of affairs.
Thanks, pain!
De rien.
Support for gender-affirming care is pretty mainstream and features a long list of professional organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association.
Beware of "experts". Not long ago childhood "memories" induced under hypnosis were accepted in courts. Families were torn apart and innocent parents thrown into jail for "sexual abuse" which turned out to be figments of the imagination of fervent psychiatrists. The word "gender-affirming", today, similarly makes me shiver. It assumes, with no proof, that the gender of a person is established and indisputable. That may be so with adults but not with children in the throes of adolescence, who may misinterpret their difficulties with their bodies. I've been through this with my own daughter and boy am I glad I didn't rush her into "gender-affirming care". It wouldn't have affirmed her gender. It would have changed it. She's grown up now and happy to be a woman. She wasn't a boy at age sixteen. She just sought an explanation for her young turmoil.
No, it was not, and no, those were never supported by those organizations.
You're lying about trans people and trans care. There is no rush.
Why are you lying about it, though?
There is something like 100x more cosmetic surgeries than gender procedures each year amongst kids under 20.
The lack of panic and concern over these life changing procedures certainly frames the fake panic and concern over gender procedures.
It all seems eerily similar to the fake 'concern for the children' arguments related to integration, mixed race marriage, homosexuality, etc...
how many of those cosmetic surgeries were for repairing defects, like cleft palates or the results of trauma, like burns as opposed to something purely cosmetic, such as a nose bob? people, kids included, have the right to be called whatever they prefer, dress as they prefer, be treated as they prefer, but lopping off body parts that they might later decide they wanted after all is a bit much for a child to make. (see the comment below.)
None. Because that's not how counting works.
https://www.plasticsurgery.org/news/briefing-papers/briefing-paper-plastic-surgery-for-teenagers
That single year of that single year of age accounts for 100s of times more surgeries.
My son at 11 years old started to want to wear dresses and talked about wanting to be a woman. We supported him and thankfully he was at a small school where the other kids just treated him the same even he showed up in a dress (kids can be pretty awesome). My wife and I did a ton of reading and talked to people, and I came out of that as a hard no on surgery before he was 18 and was really uncertain on puberty blocks. The reason--The research was shit, especially on longterm outcomes. I also had a family member go in for elective surgery and come out paralyzed on 1/2 of their body and so I do not believe any surgery should be gone into lightly. Right about the time he started hitting puberty, my son decided he was really gay, stopped wearing dresses, and is a really happy teenager (well, for a teenager).
In my time in the trans space it did become apparent that there are some extreme and intolerant views. Trans women in women's sports to me is indefensibly stupid. Men are 1.3 times stronger than women on average, pretty much the same as chimpanzees to humans. I hate that being an ally means you have to support this idiotic view. But that aside, most trans folks and allies are not demanding every kid who has some slant toward the other gender be immediately given access to all options. There does, however, need to be better study of longterm outcomes for children as it really does not exist right now. I guess I'm about four years away from this literature so maybe I'm wrong--can someone point me to longitudinal (scientific) study?
Thanks for sharing your story. Its important to realize that for many kids this can be a phase of identity development, and that refusing to go down the affirmation path doesn't immediately lead to suicide.
The one thing you do learn is that there are kids who identify trans pretty much from the moment they can talk. Those kids need to be listened to and feel like they are on a path toward becoming their true selves or they will likely die by their own hand. My son was never that kid but if a person reads the parent testimonials of those who lost their children, and don't become an advocate for those children, then I don't know what to do with you.
Good on you for supporting your child.
However, everything else you said is unscientific bupkis.
there are good reasons that conservatives see this as a winning fight. In particular, there are a few issues here that non ideological, reasonable people agree with them on. For example:
* trans women should not be competing in high level athletic events against people who were born as women. This is the kind of thing so blindingly obvious that you need a PhD not to see it.
* it is risky to perform gender affirming care on minors, who are likely to continue developing and changing their mind as they pass through the awkward adolescent phase.
In my own experience, after my eldest identified as trans, every individual in their friend group eventually identified as trans as well. This is more what one would expect from a fad rather than a biological imperative. There is nothing wrong with this, people should live as they wish. But it seems ill advised to use hormones and surgery which may not be fully reversible to affirm these decisions, at least until they are fully adult.
Why do trans kids, who've never had puberty or hormones, need to be excluded from sports? And why trans girls, specifically?
Come on. It's ridiculous that boys would be allowed to play on girls teams. For two reasons: fairness and safety. I think everyone can agree that boys are generally faster, stronger, etc. They would have huge advantages in any sport. Why would a boy get to make a girls team (or earn a scholarship or get more playing time) at the expense of a girl? There's also the safety issue. Boys are bigger and stronger and therefore put the girls at risk. For the same reason it would be insane for a JV team to play against a D1 college team, it's insane to have boys on the same field as girls. The risk of injury is too great.
Obviously this is different when the kids are real young. (And maybe that is what your comment is referring to.) It's typical to have coed teams in early elementary school. My kids played on coed basketball, soccer and flag football teams up until about 3rd grade. But after that there starts to be too much physical differences between boys and girls to consider it a level playing field.
My contribution to this debate is from Einstein's "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler" perspective.
Win or lose, we all have to keep choosing between the “Divide and Conquer” tribe and the “United We Stand” tribe.
Divide and Conquer implies “divide and conquer, and divide and conquer, and so on.”
United We Stand implies “united we stand and divided we fall.”
One choice is a sufficiently accurate reflection of reality, and the other choice is an illusion in lieu of reality.
One way to know which tribe wins in the long term is to wait and see. The other way is to think.
One thing that really bothers me is Divide and Conquer tribe members calling United We Stand tribe members Divide and Conquer tribe members. But then I remind myself that that's the nature of the beast.
There are things in life that are simply peoples own business. Trans, abortion are the two biggies. Let folks alone to deal with this. Stop fools from meddling. It's no one else's business.
"Let folks alone to deal with this" is a noble objective, but things seem to be heading in the opposite direction. So, what are the means of reversing that direction?
To an extent I agree. I don't think if a man puts on a dress and makeup that makes him a woman. He will always be a man no matter what. But, I really don't care what he does unless it affects me.
Now, if some boy says he's a girl and tries out for my daughter's lacrosse team, that is a different story. She could potentially not make the team because he took the last spot, lose playing time, or get injured because he is undoubtedly bigger and stronger.
There's a great line from the move Hoosiers (paraphrased): "There's two kinds of crazy in this world. There's the guy who gets naked and runs out in the snow and barks at the moon. Then there's the guys who does the same thing in my living room."
I do like how there’s all this concern for not harming children with irreversible medical procedures when it comes to transitioning… but little to no concern expressed for ending routine circumcision of infants who cannot consent to the procedure, even though it leaves a small percentage of men with disfigured or completely useless penises after the doctor snips a bit too much. The lack of concern for the latter suggests a lot of the panic over transitioning has little to do with “looking out for the children” and a lot to do with “I hate trans people and this is a good hook to hang my prejudices on.”
It's not hate, but that it activates all their anxieties at once --which they hate.
No children are being harmed with irreversible surgeries.
This is a lie.
It's intentional that they're lying.
The Fascist tactic is to always and everywhere attack the powerless. Make them the scapegoat.
They want Big Gobberment to force people to behave, leave or die.
I do find a lot of the "transparent discussion" articles slant towards alarmism, much like the alarmist rainbow lipstick articles of a decade ago. A lot of coverage of anything about teens veers toward moral panic because that gets engagement. Similar to the annual unfounded articles about how the latest generation is entitled and lazy, or, an area you're familiar with: the kids today can't read stories. The media don't cover teen issues especially well in general.
I certainly believe some of these issues deserve coverage, and I don't think more balanced coverage would satisfy some of the more extreme trans activists, regardless of how fair it was. But I do think the coverage needs to be more factual and balanced, regardless. They should cover it with the care and sourcing that they cover non-social issues.
"Non-activists hit back with charges that the trans community has no interest in the truth."
And they're largely correct.
So you're here supporting bigotry?
I tend to think liberals should be in favor of as much freedom as possible without hurting anybody else. And oppose discrimination. Thus, if a kid wants to wear the other gender's clothes and call themselves something they didn't call themselves before, let em. As for medical stuff, no drugs or elective surgery or anything like that before age 18. In response to what someone posted above, I'd impose the same rule for plastic surgery.
But wow, as for someone convicted of a crime suddenly changing their gender and as a result being sent to another prison, I really don't know what to do...
One thing I'll say from the wrong side of 60, is that maybe my main advice to people in their 20s would be: don't do things you can't reverse! You're gonna change your mind a lot as you grow up, I promise you!
So you're going to block those thousands of cis gender cosmetic surgery?
Also, hormone blockers aren't permanent. They merely slow puberty, which begins long before the age of 18.
No treatment is basically saying to torture trans youth.
The nasty anti-trans comments I see in my local paper come in two varieties: one is that there is no such thing, don't cater to them, they're suffering from a mental illness; and the other is they're all perverts who want to molest your children and they're being aided by drag queens.
I'm pretty sick of it. I worry about the kids who are actually struggling with gender identity because these nasty people just don't give a damn about them.
Not "thin" not unsettled either. In fact the most recent study was of 7k kids. And every major national professional organization that deals with trans* kids has agreed that care is the standard of care (Amer Med Assn, Amer. Psychiatric Assn, Amer. Psychological Assn, Endocrine Society, Amer. Academy of Pediatricians, Amer Academy of Pediatric Endocrinologists... etc. etc.)
But wait: 229,000 teens had gender affirming "top surgery" in 2021. Shouldn't we call a halt to this? These are lifelong decisions they may come to regret, and they're still too young to know.
Oh...sorry. None of them were trans. Go back to obsessing over trans* kids. My bad.
(BTW only 282 trans kids had "top surgery" in 2021 -- just .13% of total for teens 13-19.)
I once suggested that trans-women who have not fully transitioned should cover their penis with a towel when in the ladies’ bathroom and I was severely criticized. So yes, I think a lot of trans activists can be unreasonable. I also think this issue is getting way to much coverage to what should be a family, doctor and local issue.
BS.
Kevin writes: “There are currently more than 300 bills pending in state legislatures that attack transgender health and well-being in one way or another.”
These bills aim to prevent children from being prescribed hormones that block puberty (some children are being prescribed these drugs beginning at age ten or earlier). They also aim to make it illegal to prescribe cross-sex hormones to young adults. These laws also make it illegal to chop the healthy breasts off of 16-year-old girls. Children can not have any idea of what they are consenting to. Horror stories are emerging from young adults who are regretting these irreversible changes. Perhaps some of the effects of the drugs can be reversed depending on the length of time the child has been taking them, but you cannot recreate natural breasts or penises, for that matter.
There is also the issue of biological males on hormones competing in female sports. A biological male who cannot win sports against other males will generally wipe the floor, competing against women even if the biological male is on estrogen. This is a form of misogyny.
Children of any age need not be exposed to the burlesque of drag shows or drag queen story hour. Why is it cultural appropriation for a white guy to wear dreadlocks or a white girl to go to the prom in a Chinese dress, but perfectly fine for men to dress up as women and make a mockery of them?
What happened to the party of science? Now “the science,” says men can be women and women can be men.” It is absurd.
Used to be that progressives fought for little boys to be free to play with dolls and little girls to be free to prefer trucks. Now, boys who want to play with dolls must be girls, and girls who play with trucks must be boys. What is wrong with you, people? You have lost all common sense to some sort of idea of a genderless utopia.
Here are a couple of articles for you to consider. One of them is written by a progressive who gave gender-affirming “care” to children and is honest enough and caring enough to regret their actions. The other is about the Tavistock gender-affirming care center in Britain, which is now closed. All clinics offering gender-affirming care to minors need to be shut down.
https://www.thefp.com/p/i-thought-i-was-saving-trans-kids
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-did-the-tavistock-gender-scandal-unfold/
The bill Kevin refers to should be supported by anyone who cares about vulnerable children.
Like +5.
Although I have no idea why any doctor would "cut the breasts off" of a girl. Men have breasts, after all, and hormone therapy ought to be able to shrink those things down to "man" level. It's that other thing that would be cut off...
You're supporting someone making a gross description of something that does not happen.
'Chop healthy breasts off' you say, advocating to torture trans youth by lying about their treatment and making it sound gross ans as if children were so treated....
...and not kids who've reached the age of medical majority after years of talk therapy and consistent diagnosis and behavior?