Lisa, you probably saw Helen Lewis' article in The Atlantic yesterday. I thought it was a giant step forward and I think you are partly responsible for bringing that piece into the light if only by the insistent, yet undogmatic way you've pursued this issue. Take a victory lap. You are making a difference. Your voice is important. You helped claim the middle ground by making it safe for people to come forward.
Thank you for being there and for sorting through your reactions, and, most of all, for continuing to try to do something about this "situation," for want of a better word or in the attempt to sanitize what I could have called this absolutely fucking shit show. As a parent with a kid still mired in the horror, I just want to thank you.
When I've seen Kenneth Zucker describe a child he believes might be "true trans" he describes oddly sexed toys and activities, which demonstrate that "brain" something or other he, Blanchard, Cantor and Bailey continue to spout. Just as promoted decades ago by Harry Benjamin and "first well-known transsexual" Christine Jorgensen, it is hype for a profit-making industry. My ex-husband was bothered, he said, "occasionally" by a desire to be "not like my father" (who was physically violent, not socially appropriate, probably had OCD and/or was on the ASD spectrum) which as soon as a PhD psychologist was involved, turned into 'gender dysphoria." He'd heard of Jorgensen's book, Conundrum. There is a very strong thread in the history of the surgeries, of the early "transitioners," advertising, promoting through lecture tours, writing about the big success of a childhood "transition" such as the Dr. John Money writing about David Reimer as the John/Joan case until Reimer's suicide.
EPATH and WPATH will never take ownership of this history. They will never recognize their contribution to the wreckage in families where a father of young children "transitioned," and indeed, they will blame the traumatized mothers, as the diagnosing "sexologist" did in my husband's case. My husband was hugely successful after the surgeries; the database management company he's an executive at promotes "trans ideology" through their "pronouns page," continuing the tradition of promotion and advertising. My ex-husband had all the surgeries, but he will never know what it is like to be a woman or what it feels like to have a woman's genital nerve endings, a woman's sensation of the milk letting down during breastfeeding, or what it is like to recover from 2 vaginal births. These are facts. To talk about facts is not part of a genocidal plot. The "genocide narrative" is classic narcissism on a grand scale.
May 5, 2023·edited May 5, 2023Liked by Lisa Selin Davis
EPATH "dismissed the 'attacks' (otherwise known as criticisms) as ideologically-driven pseudo-science."
1/ Yes, they did - and worse, the keynote speaker outright declared "we will not listen" to such criticism. Bummer...though, the (limited) changes Davis notes is a good sign, likely pointing to internecine tensions in EPATH.
2/ Clearly, much of the congressional criticism is "ideologically-driven" - a Republican culture war issue intended to get votes and distract attention from the Republican Party's destructive greater program.
Now that doesn't mean right wing criticisms aren't right; but it's either naive or disingenuous to overlook a/ how closely this 'classic' right wing culture war strategy is like previous attacks on groups' rights (gay marriage, women seeking abortions), and b/ the partisan motivation of this strategy.
3/ They're concerned about children? About the safety of women in bathrooms? Really? Let's talk about Republicans positions on guns - and how many kids have been killed in schools in the last year, and how many women have been gun murdered by spouses.
4/ The liberal watchword "complex" is seized on a lot in transgender discussions - including on this website. You wanna know what would be "complex"? "Complex" would be facing the dangers and harm of medicalized transition, and, at the same time, the clear and present menace of the Republican Party to the economic and political welfare of most Americans - including many Republicans.
Upshot: Focusing narrowly on trans medicine misses the big picture that issue is embedded in - it distracts both liberals and right wing citizens from identifying the menace of the organizational right; and distracts liberals from the Democrats' own refusals to support popular issues like medicare for all.
Thank you, Lisa, for such a nuanced, thoughtful, and deeply felt report. I just don't know how anyone, once they go down the rabbit holes, can hold on to the idea that cutting off healthy body parts is a reasonable thing to do to anyone.
I point to a practitioner, John Brinkley, who made lots of money in the 1920s by implanting goat glands into impotent men as a cure. His patients gave "consent," they were desperate to fix a problem, and some claimed to be cured. He spread the word through his own radio station. Authorities had a hard time shutting him down, despite his lack of medical training, despite the harm he was committing, despite the obvious nature of the fraud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Brinkley
How is what Brinkley did to desperate people significantly different from what the "gender affirming" care practitioners are doing? And it was still so difficult to stop him *even though* he didn't have the support of medical and legal institutions. (He was almost elected governor!)
Particularly after reflecting on the excellent Genspect detransitioner panel, I keep coming back to Lisa’s observation: “I have no evidence at my fingertips for this, but I don’t believe that most GNC kids are dysphoric.” If proper studies were done, I am sure this would be borne out.
As it is, though, the rampant pseudoscience around this subject continually takes my breath away. This is the opening para in a Psychology Today article: “Although various names have referred to it, the phenomenon of gender dysphoria has been well-studied for over a century. Gender dysphoria occurs when a person's biological sex doesn’t match their perceived gender identity. The scientific consensus is that this likely occurs due to anomalies in fetal development that lead persons to experience preferences for social roles and personal identity that are more typical of the opposite sex.”
The more I see of this junk science, the more I think “gender dysphoria” is not only a serious misnomer, but is also nothing more than a convenient label stuck on every child who has the least bit of difficulty with adolescence.
It’s infuriating. We have to find a way to fight back more effectively. The question is how. I know Lisa has been looking for a name to give a coalition to address this. Here’s a suggestion:
Coalition Against Medical Experiments On Children (CAMEOC)
And one more thing: the next time anyone responds to what I ever so carefully, with facts to support it, on these issues says, “yes, but do you know any transwomen?” I am really tempted to answer: “Yes. Do you know any detransitioners?” If not, as will surely be the case, I will point them to the Genspect video, and not entertain any further discussion until they have watched it.
Thank you--you have done so much! It's a huge battle but we are not alone--it is changing and it's in part due to you, to your listening, thinking, figuring stuff out and explaining it to us, and to everyone.
Lisa, I badly wanted to attend the Killarney conference, but now that I'm almost all the way through the remote-ticket videos, I am at peace with having been unable. I wonder which of these people asking brilliant questions might have been unable to attend I'd taken a spot.
I marvel at the work presented there and I read with admiration your skilled reporting about it all. As for the Pollyanna-versus-Downer effect, my needle swings right to left and back again maybe even more than yours. On both ends of the scale, though, i retain complete confidence that your writing is making a difference. Thank you.
Lisa: your writing is so clear, lucid, and empathetic. It is not surprising, actually, to come away from a conference so powerful as Genspect was, and then not fall into a low because there is so much that must happen, but is not happening at all near to the extent it needs to. Josie (who is now, directly, a paid subscriber, as we wanted to give you that at least that modicum of support), says she often feels this way after a really good education conference, from high to low, to back in the middle, wherever that is. But, to join in saying, as others have written here: YOU have made an enormous difference, and that you are just one person, to have such impact, is nothing short of remarkable. You have, for one, provided a place to which I can send everyone with whom I have a conversation trying to get them to recognize what is happening, confident that you are always and ever an honest broker and a great journalist dedicated to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.
Yes, we still have a vertical climb, and no, we don’t have time, as people are being hurt every day, but you, Lisa have and are making an enormous contribution, every day. Respect.
Thanks, Lisa. Very informative. There is a lot of mental pathology here. I must admit as a conservative Christian, I am not so reassured when a gender dysphoric youth goes through transition and then detransitions and then decides that he/she is homosexual that we should be content. These are really confused individuals and I am not content with the idea that being gay becomes a smooth road to fulfillment. I attend a church that has opened its doors to gays without affirming that the practice of same-sex lifestyle is approved by God. Look, I am a sinner and believe that we all need a personal relationship with Jesus and beg forgiveness. Sanctification is a very individualized process by which each of God's children become more like him. Thanks for listening without necessarily judging.
Diane Ehrensaft. That's how it happened at UCSF. She's all in 1000%. I think they were one of the leaders in the whole thing in the US. I love how Jamie Reed or Stella or Sasha said recently 'if you go to a gender clinic, you will see an endocrinologist at the first appt (yep!). An endocrinologist is there to modify hormones and only modify hormones. That is the only thing they do. There is no therapy happening in a gender clinic.'
Holy cow, you have to laugh at the chart on top of the story, in which **every** gender variation on the chart (real or imagined) gets some pretty/cool color pattern ... except "cisgender," which is oppressively gray. "Cis" people are so **boring**, so dull...
Lisa, you probably saw Helen Lewis' article in The Atlantic yesterday. I thought it was a giant step forward and I think you are partly responsible for bringing that piece into the light if only by the insistent, yet undogmatic way you've pursued this issue. Take a victory lap. You are making a difference. Your voice is important. You helped claim the middle ground by making it safe for people to come forward.
Thank you for being there and for sorting through your reactions, and, most of all, for continuing to try to do something about this "situation," for want of a better word or in the attempt to sanitize what I could have called this absolutely fucking shit show. As a parent with a kid still mired in the horror, I just want to thank you.
When I've seen Kenneth Zucker describe a child he believes might be "true trans" he describes oddly sexed toys and activities, which demonstrate that "brain" something or other he, Blanchard, Cantor and Bailey continue to spout. Just as promoted decades ago by Harry Benjamin and "first well-known transsexual" Christine Jorgensen, it is hype for a profit-making industry. My ex-husband was bothered, he said, "occasionally" by a desire to be "not like my father" (who was physically violent, not socially appropriate, probably had OCD and/or was on the ASD spectrum) which as soon as a PhD psychologist was involved, turned into 'gender dysphoria." He'd heard of Jorgensen's book, Conundrum. There is a very strong thread in the history of the surgeries, of the early "transitioners," advertising, promoting through lecture tours, writing about the big success of a childhood "transition" such as the Dr. John Money writing about David Reimer as the John/Joan case until Reimer's suicide.
EPATH and WPATH will never take ownership of this history. They will never recognize their contribution to the wreckage in families where a father of young children "transitioned," and indeed, they will blame the traumatized mothers, as the diagnosing "sexologist" did in my husband's case. My husband was hugely successful after the surgeries; the database management company he's an executive at promotes "trans ideology" through their "pronouns page," continuing the tradition of promotion and advertising. My ex-husband had all the surgeries, but he will never know what it is like to be a woman or what it feels like to have a woman's genital nerve endings, a woman's sensation of the milk letting down during breastfeeding, or what it is like to recover from 2 vaginal births. These are facts. To talk about facts is not part of a genocidal plot. The "genocide narrative" is classic narcissism on a grand scale.
EPATH "dismissed the 'attacks' (otherwise known as criticisms) as ideologically-driven pseudo-science."
1/ Yes, they did - and worse, the keynote speaker outright declared "we will not listen" to such criticism. Bummer...though, the (limited) changes Davis notes is a good sign, likely pointing to internecine tensions in EPATH.
2/ Clearly, much of the congressional criticism is "ideologically-driven" - a Republican culture war issue intended to get votes and distract attention from the Republican Party's destructive greater program.
Now that doesn't mean right wing criticisms aren't right; but it's either naive or disingenuous to overlook a/ how closely this 'classic' right wing culture war strategy is like previous attacks on groups' rights (gay marriage, women seeking abortions), and b/ the partisan motivation of this strategy.
3/ They're concerned about children? About the safety of women in bathrooms? Really? Let's talk about Republicans positions on guns - and how many kids have been killed in schools in the last year, and how many women have been gun murdered by spouses.
4/ The liberal watchword "complex" is seized on a lot in transgender discussions - including on this website. You wanna know what would be "complex"? "Complex" would be facing the dangers and harm of medicalized transition, and, at the same time, the clear and present menace of the Republican Party to the economic and political welfare of most Americans - including many Republicans.
Upshot: Focusing narrowly on trans medicine misses the big picture that issue is embedded in - it distracts both liberals and right wing citizens from identifying the menace of the organizational right; and distracts liberals from the Democrats' own refusals to support popular issues like medicare for all.
Thank you, Lisa, for such a nuanced, thoughtful, and deeply felt report. I just don't know how anyone, once they go down the rabbit holes, can hold on to the idea that cutting off healthy body parts is a reasonable thing to do to anyone.
I point to a practitioner, John Brinkley, who made lots of money in the 1920s by implanting goat glands into impotent men as a cure. His patients gave "consent," they were desperate to fix a problem, and some claimed to be cured. He spread the word through his own radio station. Authorities had a hard time shutting him down, despite his lack of medical training, despite the harm he was committing, despite the obvious nature of the fraud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Brinkley
How is what Brinkley did to desperate people significantly different from what the "gender affirming" care practitioners are doing? And it was still so difficult to stop him *even though* he didn't have the support of medical and legal institutions. (He was almost elected governor!)
It's going to be a long road, I'm afraid.
Particularly after reflecting on the excellent Genspect detransitioner panel, I keep coming back to Lisa’s observation: “I have no evidence at my fingertips for this, but I don’t believe that most GNC kids are dysphoric.” If proper studies were done, I am sure this would be borne out.
As it is, though, the rampant pseudoscience around this subject continually takes my breath away. This is the opening para in a Psychology Today article: “Although various names have referred to it, the phenomenon of gender dysphoria has been well-studied for over a century. Gender dysphoria occurs when a person's biological sex doesn’t match their perceived gender identity. The scientific consensus is that this likely occurs due to anomalies in fetal development that lead persons to experience preferences for social roles and personal identity that are more typical of the opposite sex.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/talking-apes/202304/what-is-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria
The more I see of this junk science, the more I think “gender dysphoria” is not only a serious misnomer, but is also nothing more than a convenient label stuck on every child who has the least bit of difficulty with adolescence.
It’s infuriating. We have to find a way to fight back more effectively. The question is how. I know Lisa has been looking for a name to give a coalition to address this. Here’s a suggestion:
Coalition Against Medical Experiments On Children (CAMEOC)
And one more thing: the next time anyone responds to what I ever so carefully, with facts to support it, on these issues says, “yes, but do you know any transwomen?” I am really tempted to answer: “Yes. Do you know any detransitioners?” If not, as will surely be the case, I will point them to the Genspect video, and not entertain any further discussion until they have watched it.
I just really don’t understand how rapidly institutions got captured by this ideology Someone could fight a book about it.
Lisa, I hear your dejection and maybe your are facing an emotional crisis. Going further into the light is not easy. Please take care of yourself.
Thank you--you have done so much! It's a huge battle but we are not alone--it is changing and it's in part due to you, to your listening, thinking, figuring stuff out and explaining it to us, and to everyone.
Lisa, I badly wanted to attend the Killarney conference, but now that I'm almost all the way through the remote-ticket videos, I am at peace with having been unable. I wonder which of these people asking brilliant questions might have been unable to attend I'd taken a spot.
I marvel at the work presented there and I read with admiration your skilled reporting about it all. As for the Pollyanna-versus-Downer effect, my needle swings right to left and back again maybe even more than yours. On both ends of the scale, though, i retain complete confidence that your writing is making a difference. Thank you.
Lisa: your writing is so clear, lucid, and empathetic. It is not surprising, actually, to come away from a conference so powerful as Genspect was, and then not fall into a low because there is so much that must happen, but is not happening at all near to the extent it needs to. Josie (who is now, directly, a paid subscriber, as we wanted to give you that at least that modicum of support), says she often feels this way after a really good education conference, from high to low, to back in the middle, wherever that is. But, to join in saying, as others have written here: YOU have made an enormous difference, and that you are just one person, to have such impact, is nothing short of remarkable. You have, for one, provided a place to which I can send everyone with whom I have a conversation trying to get them to recognize what is happening, confident that you are always and ever an honest broker and a great journalist dedicated to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.
Yes, we still have a vertical climb, and no, we don’t have time, as people are being hurt every day, but you, Lisa have and are making an enormous contribution, every day. Respect.
Thanks, Lisa. Very informative. There is a lot of mental pathology here. I must admit as a conservative Christian, I am not so reassured when a gender dysphoric youth goes through transition and then detransitions and then decides that he/she is homosexual that we should be content. These are really confused individuals and I am not content with the idea that being gay becomes a smooth road to fulfillment. I attend a church that has opened its doors to gays without affirming that the practice of same-sex lifestyle is approved by God. Look, I am a sinner and believe that we all need a personal relationship with Jesus and beg forgiveness. Sanctification is a very individualized process by which each of God's children become more like him. Thanks for listening without necessarily judging.
Omg. You’re not kidding! That’s insane!
Diane Ehrensaft. That's how it happened at UCSF. She's all in 1000%. I think they were one of the leaders in the whole thing in the US. I love how Jamie Reed or Stella or Sasha said recently 'if you go to a gender clinic, you will see an endocrinologist at the first appt (yep!). An endocrinologist is there to modify hormones and only modify hormones. That is the only thing they do. There is no therapy happening in a gender clinic.'
FYI: extremely good article from Hadley Freeman in the London Times: https://archive.is/2023.05.07-003409/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bde6beee-ec3b-11ed-bf13-ef78badfc41f?shareToken=a65c0e4af9d3366dfe4d98dbcbb8e753
Holy cow, you have to laugh at the chart on top of the story, in which **every** gender variation on the chart (real or imagined) gets some pretty/cool color pattern ... except "cisgender," which is oppressively gray. "Cis" people are so **boring**, so dull...
Ridiculous.