22 Comments
Feb 9, 2023Liked by Unyielding Bicyclist

I have so much to think and say about this article Lisa that I don't know where to start. I'm from Dutch descent (I emigrated to Australia when I was 35) and I'm a lifelong lesbian. I'm finding myself revisiting my past sexual development a lot while being overwhelmed for the past 10 years with the explosion of gender identity ideology all around the world. I must say that I appreciate this wasn't happening while I was coming to terms with my attraction to other girls and women. I was free to invent myself as a lesbian without any influence from outside. When I fell in love with my first women lover in 1972, I realized why I'd been so depressed during adolescence, and why I'd been pretending to fall in love with men while I was never attracted to any of them. I loved hanging out with other girls and older women and had constant crushes on them. Being raised in quite a fundamentalist Roman Catholic church community actually helped to surround myself with women. Men and women lived quite segregated lives so I attended girl schools, was in girl scouting groups for 10+ years, and when I moved out of home at 17, I went into nursing training at a large Catholic institution for intellectually disabled girls and women, run by nuns. It feels like I grew up in a matriarchy with my mother and four sisters at home (and my Dad and three brothers), lots of aunts and nieces and cousins. So being warned against 'men' in general, but experimenting with my sexuality was overall done in a reasonably 'safe' and controlled environment. I also came of age in hippie times and a time of huge societal changes in all layers of religions and political persuasions. The Netherlands takes in a unique place during those revolutions that raged around me that not many people are aware off unless you were in it. It is why the Netherlands has the reputation of being so open minded and progressive. Thanks to the young generations who rebelled against conservatism and dogmatic religions from the late 1950s (Rock & Roll) throughout the 1970s and 80s. Before I became an out lesbian, I was a hippie first! A guitar playing festival goer wearing Indian clothing and smoking my first joints. I wrote and self published a book about my coming out process to describe the revolutionary times that I experienced then. I was more or less allowed to invent myself as a lesbian and was at the forefront of starting lesbian talking groups which evolved into lesbian and women's liberation movement. I was in the thick of that in the Netherlands all through the 1970s and 80s until I left Europe in 1988. I am deeply saddened that the thriving lesbian and women's liberation movement disappeared due to several factors, one of which was the rise of the men's rights movement but also transsexuals asserting themselves and demanding access to women only spaces, even taking over cafes and bookshops and meeting places that had been established by lesbian and women radical feminists. I've had some interactions with a Dutch detransitioner who was 'treated' with puberty blockers and testosterone as a young teenager at the Amsterdam university gender clinic but has since come to terms with being a lesbian all along. I am shocked to the core that 'homosexuality' does not feature in the research paper, or sexual function/development. And I feel deeply saddened that young girls growing up today have no positive lesbian role models or a lesbian culture to turn to and be welcomed by. I asked this now lesbian detransitioner if it would have been different for her if she'd had strong lesbian icons to admire and look up to, lesbians who'd appear on music shows, in news interviews, as a 'normal' cohort in society. She instantly answered that yes, it would have. What has happened to lesbianism and the strong culture that once thrived? Why was the Michigan Womyns Music Festival and all other festivals and events closed down? We need to analyze that because I am convinced it was a deliberate tactic and backlash against authentic and autonomous women loving women that threatened male dominated societies. The explosive rise in young women rejecting their womanhood and turning to 'transgender' clinics, is in my view a direct result of this backlash. AND the abolition of sex and women's studies at universities which lead to the introduction of 'gender' ideology, has proven to be detrimental to the psychological and sexual development of young girls and adolescent women. I must leave it here and I am writing a follow up book about this, but I feel unbearably distressed about young women growing up in a void of having no lesbian or women centred culture to turn to since patriarchal dominance has reinvented itself via transgenderism and self identification sex/gender changes but also the internalized misogyny by women in high political positions who are now imposing gender identity ideology in many countries. Transgender activists and lobbyists have been silently active behind the scenes for many decades. And now we see 'trans' women rise to the highest positions, overtaking empowered women born female. Can you all see what this is leading to? Every day pennies are dropping in my head. Every day a young woman is cutting off her breasts. I see them around me in the streets and parks. What is this telling us?

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Feb 9, 2023·edited Feb 9, 2023

I recommend becoming a paid subscriber to Lisa Selin Davis! I am. Thanks Lisa, for making the comment section open to all. An important fact not often covered is that those 2 seminal Dutch studies in 2011 and 2014 were partly FUNDED by a Dutch pharma company which manufactures gonadatrophin agonists--meaning a type of Lupron. When pharma companies fund studies, they influence which conclusions the researchers state. Thus, these famous Dutch researchers are compromised. Also, they don't want to be treated like Dr. Lisa Littman was, when she published an absolutely spot on, correct seminal study on Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria teens.

The fact is that all of the blockers and cross-sex hormones damage the body long term and a different path must be forged. Also, why do these doctors and researchers not know how much teen girls always detest the changes puberty brings? Also, why is so much of the "education" on cross-sex ideation all about sexual orientation and sexual concepts children aren't supposed to understand if they are not being sexually used or molested? Below, my read of Dr. Stephen B. Levine's statements in an expert testimony paper. That means there was a malpractice case--in West Virginia!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FENgXNaldnA&t=277s

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Lisa, this is a tremendously helpful and clear analysis of the welter of research out there. Your take-away point superb: “How do we depolarize? We listen to and consider multiple sides, as the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy has done by publishing all of these different viewpoints within articles, along with rebuttals to them. We allow people to have all the information—the basis of informed consent. We don’t vilify our opponents. And we don’t accept the press or the medical industry politicizing research.” Thank you for making this free and shareable. The Twitter maven in our house, who is followed by many educators, has already put it out.

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there are many instances where the researchers producing these studys show their bias time and time again.

the statement "detransition was very rare" without any evidence of this occuring is just a lie and really a PR statement more than anything.

ive read most kids go on to hormones after puberty blockers becuase theyre only on blockers for a very short time. the minute kids go on the blockers doctors immediately advise to go on hormones becuase the blockers are so toxic. this can occur in 1-2 months. for the publishers of these studys to claim detrans is rare based on this built in progression is cynical.

we have seen time and time again publishers of studys and polls promoting gender care with intentionally misleading claims. these claims are promoted to an unsuspecting public and patients seeking answers without perspective and omiting other critical facts. its fraud. the activists, policy makers and unsuspecting public who support gender affirming care have been lied to.

i have read that many people who ID as trans come from religious homes. i thought of that when reading that all but one study participants were gay. i wonder if homophobia in their community caused anxiety that IDing as another gender was intended to address. being a kid is tough. and kids will belive and try anything. its often not known until 20 years later if they made a mistake or not. the last thing kids need are medical fraudsters making wild claims and pushing meds that cause perminant loss of sexual function.

much of the premises of gender affirming care are also false.

do parents kick "trans"kids out of their homes for being "trans" nope. evidence used to support this claim is based on decades old documentation of homophobia in minority communities. really nothing to do with being "trans".

its a lie. its since been documented that these communities arent nearly as homophobic.

is there such a thing as "trans youth"? this idea is a propaganda idea thats supported by separating kids who are dysphoric from real reasons theyre dysphoric and instead assigning a made up concept to their dysphoria. this myth is what US polcies of affirmation are based on. the documents that support this idea of "trans youth" read like russian propaganda. yet democrats swallowed it whole.

are people who ID as "trans" safer in spaces of opposite biological sex? theres no evidence to support this claim. men in drag are perfectly safe in mens spaces. the only problems that ever occur is in opposite sex spaces, tho its implied otherwise. if this is seen as a problem the appropriate responce is a public information campaign to raise acceptance of trans people using spaces of their biological gender, not setting womens rights back 300 years. of course, they are already accepted there.

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Every time I read about the polarization of this issue in the US, I wonder why this is not happening in Canada. Not that I would want the fracturing and demonization that comes along with the debate, but why are we not talking about this at all?? Aside from a couple of articles in the National Post and some uproar (short-lived, I should add) about the shop teacher with the enormous prosthetic breasts, I feel like there's no conversation about this in Canada at all. What's going on? Are we just too "nice"? I don't think that Canadian gender clinics are any more cautious then American ones. I don't think Canadian teachers are less likely to be trans-activists (I know for a fact that the Toronto district school board addresses a child by their chosen name and pronouns and allows them to use whatever washroom they want without consulting or even notifying parents). So why the silence?

Lisa, I am thinking of sending your article, along with Jesse Singal's pieces, to the major youth gender clinics in our city. Who knows, maybe they will plant a seed of doubt... Thank you for your work, as always.

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Wow, Lisa! This is excellent. Now I need to figure out how to get it out to my community.

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Not sure depolarization is possible if there's one side that holds an irrational belief. It's like trying to argue with a religious believer that there's no evidence for the existence of god. Rational (rooted in facts) and irrational ideas (ones rooted in feelings) will always clash.

No--I think the solution is more in the direction of helping "normies"--regular people--learn how to articulate how trans & gender ideology is wrong. I was a normie once and I thought trans rights were human rights, that adults have the right to legally change gender, and that women's rights were a done deal. Now I believe none of those. I see the dangers and harms that can come from those beliefs. More of us normies are out there than true believers in the religion--and if more of us turn against it, perhaps some future damage can be prevented.

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Lisa, and all of you reading this, please check out this really significant piece:

https://www.thefp.com/p/i-thought-i-was-saving-trans-kids

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"Knowing that most such children will grow out of gender dysphoria and eventually reconcile with their bodies as they develop, why the pressure to intervene so young? “The crucial advantage of puberty suppression was creating ‘individuals who more easily pass in to the opposite gender role,’” Biggs writes, noting an emphasis on external appearance—that is, the goal was about gender conformity, with little thought to long-term health effects."

The emphasis on external appearance and the way it trumps things like sexual function and other long term effects is indicative of an earlier moment in transgender history, a time when the goal was to disappear into the gender you believe yourself to be. Increasingly, though, the trans identity is a thing unto itself. "I am trans" as opposed to "I am a girl/boy." Even so, the emphasis on superficial appearances should tell us something about the origins of these desires in the reductionist gender tropes of consumer culture and how their ill-fitting stereotypes send people shopping for something that fits.

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Three comments:

1. You refer to a statement by Marci Bowers to the effect that "Every single child who was truly blocked at Tanner stage 2 (9 - 11 years old) has never experienced orgasm." This statement was made at the Symposium "Trans & Gender Diverse Policies, Care Practices, & Wellbeing," held at Duke University on March 21 & 22, 2022.

It's strange that in a Reuter's special report from October 2022, one finds this passage:

"Bowers, the new WPATH president and a transgender woman, said she has worried that some patients who begin puberty blockers at a young age won’t ever be able to have an orgasm because they never experienced one prior to pausing puberty, regardless of whether they have surgery. <b>She said ongoing research has allayed many of her concerns, and “it seems not only probable but likely there is retention of orgasmic function</b>.”

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-care/

2. You refer to a critique by Jesse Singal of a 2022 study published in the journal Pediatrics. That study was actually published in the journal JAMA Network Open (just follow your own link to verify this).

3. How to proceed treating gender dysphoria given that the evidence base is so thin?

We need:

- comprehensive patient assessment for co-morbidities; and examination of whether they could explain gender dysphoria

- a very stringent informed consent process (most likely with a parental veto, in case of patients under 18)

- Non-adult patients who get blockers, cross-sex hormones or surgery must be enrolled in a clinical study. On this see this book:

Imogen Evans, Hazel Thornton, Ian Chalmers and Paul Glasziou: Testing Treatments: Better research for better healthcare. 2nd Edition, London, Pinter & Martin, 2011

http://www.testingtreatments.org/

Free download: https://en.testingtreatments.org/book/the-book/download-the-book/

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Thank you!!!

I will consider all logically possible interpretations based on the evidence, but there are not different facts. The facts don't have many sides! They don't care who we are or what we think. The outcomes might be contaminated by placebo effects (eg Clayton's recent article), but again, claims need to be tested for. If the AAP and wpath and endocrine society think their protocols are appropriate, produce the studies- they've got thousands of kids on these drugs, right?

So far they aren't finding what they wanted, to the point of not reporting in Chen et Al most of the outcomes they said they'd study. Wonder why.

I'm so glad you're writing this up so we can share it!!!!

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This is excellent, Lisa! Glad to be a paying subscriber.

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Feb 9, 2023·edited Feb 9, 2023

Thank you, Lisa, as always, for clear, thoughtful writing and reflection. Yes - echoing others' calls for people to pay for Lisa's writing.

Lisa's discussion of the clinic's greater "concern for passing than health" points to something very disturbing, to me, about the rise and acceptance, in certain circles, of gender-affirming care. Over the years, as I have struggled and questioned as the mom of a (now) trans-identifying young adult, friends have shared pictures and videos of female-to-male trans celebrities (most recently, Elliot Page): "Look how good he looks", even "look how hot he is". It was such a strange lens through which to think about my teen, that I didn't fully understand what they were suggesting. Now, I realize that for some people, a more typically attractive child is deeply more desirable than a kid who is different. There's a sinister pressure to conform underlying the medicalization of a vulnerable minority.

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This one quote should really be picked apart more and made more broadly known to anyone involved in this issue:

“When I attended a conference for families of trans and gender-diverse youth, I asked a panel of doctors what they wished they had more research on. Four of them refused to answer my question. The fifth said, “Sexual function,” and nothing further.”

So what’s behind the refusal to answer? Are the doctors themselves not interested in learning more? Are they to poorly informed to know the questions they should even be asking? Or do they know what the problems and unanswered questions are but they don’t want that to be out in the open? In the case of the former, we should be concerned about doctors who aren’t wanting to learn more or who are too uninformed or possibly even too scared to ask important questions. In the case of the latter, we have to acknowledge that informed consent is not possible and we are having information withheld from us. It’s time for doctors to go on record and answer these questions

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