If I had the power, I’d give everybody on Earth the ability to read everybody else’s mind. I know, I know, that sounds like an absolute nightmare, but hear me out. Sure, the first few generations would be rough. The divorce rate would be near 100%, we'd all know about that embarrassing thing that happened to you in college, your boss would find out how much you slack off at work. Those of us who grew up in a world where we could lie and dissemble and pretend would suffer terribly.
"If you are not trans, you should not speak about what being trans entails. It's really simple, isn't it? Don't talk about things you don't understand. Don't talk about other people's lives and experiences as if you knew better than them. 2023 seems to be a bit late a year to still have to teach, to adults, that if you still insist to talk about things of which you have no experience and that you don't understand, you'll have to accept the consequences."
This logic drives me crazy. I cut my teeth, largely through historical accident, on writing about human sexuality. I was bombarded on all sides with criticisms as my writing reached wider and wider audiences. First, trickled in the responses that I'm not doing enough. "Your writing is almost entirely heteronormative (odd, seeing as I myself may be hetero but my relationships and those I discuss are decidedly not normative). I wrote what I'm familiar with—at first. As I wrote more, I expanded to more and more topics that I have less and less, if any, experience with. Then it became, "How dare you write about things you have no experience with?"
The message was clear: damned if you do, damned if you don't.
If you write about the heteronormative relationships you're intimately familiar with, you're ignoring other people's situation. If you write about their situation, you're speaking about the experience of others without any real experience of your own.
What seems lost is a combination of two ideas:
1. That there's merit in both objectivity, observation of things from the outside, AND the phenomena and emotions of personal subjective experience. Both are merited and powerful forms of inquiry and neither should be shunned in favor of the other, as modern science and phenomenology have both shown, concerning the former and latter, respectively.
2. That there's value in ideas that don't confirm our inner experiences. I wonder how much of this is a byproduct of our technologies that feed us things we agree with, things we like, things that make us feel positive feelings via algorithm all day long. When all you've known or most of what you've known has been carefully hand-picked to conform to your biases, and it streams through a screen you stare at all day, that's bound to have some consequences. It's no wonder we can't engage with daring ideas anymore, let alone ideas that don't perfect conform to our preconceived molds about how the things and events in the world ought to be.
I absolutely must reiterate that I have many friends in the LGBTQ community and these pseudo-activists represent precisely none of them, and make them feel uncomfortable, probably in the same way the loud-mouth Trump and all of his ideological Republican minions don't represent me, a ginger-haired pasty white American dude who just happens to match the demographic of their most die-hard voters.
"Then it became, 'How dare you write about things you have no experience with?'"
Yep, couldn't agree more with all of this. I also hate the implication that empathy and our common humanity are useless in the face of these arbitrary boundaries. Nobody knows what it's like to be in somebody else's skin. I don't even know what it's like to be black or male or straight or any other "identity." I just know what it's like to be me. To understand other black males better, I still need to talk to them.
Most of all, I hate the hypocrisy of these people who are invariably happy to preach to other people about their experience. I don't know what it's like to be *insert identity group of choice here*, but you know all about me and how easy my life is, right?
Astute observation. It’s definitely an in-group/out-group sorting mechanism with which some people perch themselves atop lofty mountains and can pretend they’re the bastions of human experience (not to mention the judge and jury).
There is a place for "lived experience." It's called "literature," or "art." There is a place for objectivity, or shared experience, and it is called "science" in the broadest sense of the term.
Applying the epistemology of the former to the latter, as do the critical theorists, makes the latter impossible. That is why it is civilization-destroying. As if the critical theorists could care.
That's a little dramatic. First, phenomenological philosophy is some of the best philosophy one can read (highly recommended) and it takes the first-person perspective as its starting point. I hardly think that a small minority of people who are basically professional whiners are "civilization destroying" no matter how loudly they whine.
They can barely even win a handful of national offices in the ultra-safe districts. It's a tiny, tiny minority, even among left-wing voters (and I'd be willing to bet even among people who lean progressive), which is evinced by the fact that, in the US, we have a boring, middle-of-the-road President Biden and not a hardcore left-wing Bernie Sanders or, somewhat more mildly, Elizabeth Warren.
Annoying isn't the same thing as "civilization destroying" and we should keep that in mind.
Whether I am right or you are right depends on how far and deep it spreads beyond where phenomenological philosophy was originally intended. Some critical theorists extend it even to mathematics. Not many now, and let’s hope it stays that way. Better to nip nihilistic poison in the bud.
I've comfortably settled on the fact that there's just always going to be a minority population in every group of people who are just thoroughly crazy.
It has already spread much farther than I thought possible. Trans ideology that is now orthodoxy in the Anglophone world and much of Western Europe. The credo “trans women are [literally!] women” is the epistemic equivalent of the Catholic sacrament of the Eucharist, in that both are a form of transubstantiation.
This is no longer a fringe minority view. Even Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson felt constrained to deny it.
I think most people say “trans women are women” because they want to be nice, like a title. Coleman Hughes’ analogy is apt here. An atheist might use the term “father” or “priest” or “nun” when speaking about a clergy member. I do, even if I don’t believe in Catholic anything. Doesn’t mean I believe the ideology. I’m just being nice and that’s an important distinction to make. Most people want to be civil and Tunisian d .
Not being able to define a woman is legitimately a hard question. Steve QJ up there will tell you a woman is defined solely by the gametes. Does that mean that every single biologist in the field has killed or anesthetized every single animal they’ve observed to take a good look at their gametes? Of course not. They observed secondary sex characteristics. Does that mean all of biology is wrong? Also no. It just means that sex is complicated and tied up in a plethora of factors including sex cells, reproduction, hormones, phenotypes, mating patterns, behavior patterns, evolutionary pressures, and much, much, much more. As someone whose daily career is spent analyzing sex itself, I can say that’s a legitimately hard question to ask, one that nobody in good faith can give a straight, simple answer to.
Btw I was not referring to politics per se but to education media and cultural and other institutions that govern knowledge. There is where the deepest and most damaging inroads have occurred. I happen to like Elizabeth Warren and her protégée Katie Porter very much.
I'll add to that: the worst thing you can do is let anyone trick you into believing that minority is a majority. I too like Elizabeth Warren. I would've voted for her had she still been in the race by the time Florida's primaries started, but alas. What are the odds?
I advise caution because when they (someone, anyone) convince you that the threat is bigger than it really is, it's *very* easy to become the monster you set out to smite in the first place. There are millions of Americans who would, right now, trade our Democracy for Autocracy for a chance to own the "woke mob" and wouldn't think twice about it, arguably about half of one of our two major political parties—and they're still a tiny minority of a minority.
It's good to keep things in perspective that less than 30% of people belong to ANY given political party.
An excellent example of the ideologically motivated, phenomenological rot invading the hard sciences, Joe. From Jesse Singal’s most recent post. Not good.
Joe! I remember you. I always liked your articles on Medium. I'm not on there, kicked off for not being woke enough. Anyway, I'll check out your Substack.
I think Rebel's fundamental confusion here is between understanding and experience. Just because you don't experience something, doesn't mean that you can't understand it. Understanding involves objective knowledge that we all can have access to. Experience is personal and subjective. There are aspects of human experience that can't be resolved by argument. But the effect of drugs on the body is not one of them. I discuss this further in this paper.https://www.academia.edu/104703271/The_Privileged_Access_of_the_Underprivileged_How_Social_marginalization_produces_Epistemic_Privilege
"Just because you don't experience something, doesn't mean that you can't understand it. "
Exactly. And the opposite is also true. Just because you're trans, for example. doesn't make your thoughts on puberty blockers any more valid. Especially if, as in rebel's case, you transitioned at 43 and haven't taken them either.
All too often I get some reference to my white, male, heterosexual, boomer privilege as a reason I should sit down and shut up. I have no right to speak on a subject. The purpose of that is therefore they don't have to consider anything I say. While I referenced that to me, some form off it happened to us all. It's a cheep way to win without winning.
Indeed. From what I've read, the vast majority, like 80-90% of dysphoric children who go through puberty have their dysphoria disappear. But something like 95% of dysphoric children who go through puberty blockers eventually move on to X-sex hormones, which have huge effects on fertility, ability to enjoy sex, among other significant side effects. These are things to which children can't meaningfully consent.
And indeed, this is why England shutdown their main gender clinic, and Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark have all basically stopped putting dysphoric children on puberty blockers: because the evidence that the benefits outweigh the harms is simply not there.
Rebel writes: "If you are not trans, you should not speak about what being trans entails. It's really simple, isn't it? Don't talk about things you don't understand. Don't talk about other people's lives and experiences as if you knew better than them."
Ahh yes, "standpoint epistemology," or "positionality," as the critical theorists call it. I call it "just shut your damn mouth and submit." Exactly like the Catholic Church of the 15th Century.
And especially because Murphy wasn't talking about anybody's experience. If a man discovered that a certain birth control medication was dangerous, should he keep quiet about it lest he talk about other peoples lives and experiences? Heck, I think I'm right in saying that a man developed the first birth control pill. Obviously he had no business doing so. The pig.
All I need to know is that the “trans” are making dozens of completely unacceptable demands that I have no intention of obeying.
The fact that medical statistics and the late onset/outgrowing make plain that the great majority of “trans” are putting on an act and also not have GID is all the reason I need to be as “transphobic” as I please.
"Trans" jumped the shark and crushed a great deal of sympathy for the truly gender dysphoric when they attached themselves like leaches. It tends to lead to the thought that you expressed. Yet I know from things you have written in the past that you consider that to be unfortunate.
Why do I have a gut feeling that Rebel would have no problem putting a BLM flag in her window (assuming she's not black) and a Queers for Palestine graphic on her social media feed (again, assuming she's not Palestinian) ?
People love to say, back off, you don't get to have an opinion about MY issue while having boatloads of opinions about issues of which hey can't possibly have any personal experience.
Since one of the defining characteristics of the trans movement is extreme narcissism, it's not surprising that people like "Rebel" have a hard time finding compassion for anyone other than themselves, or accepting the validity of anyone else's point of view.
Yes it’s called having a moral compass. Protecting the innocent means protecting children. If you won’t stand up for the innocent you have no moral clarity and I think, when you look deep into the mirror, you know this. Hence the deflection and attack mentality.
There are experts. There are people who spent years in an affirming echo chamber who 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 they are experts. There are people with tribal bias whose thoughts are of the collective. Some people are clearly clueless, some just misinformed, etc.
There is a difference between challenging an idea for clarity and trolling. I understand the frustration that comes from people who are truly clueless about an issue but 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕. The same can be said for the "I think that I'm an expert" (not clueless but possibly quite wrong).
The issue, in my mind is that none of that is as irritating as some version of "sit down and shut up", "how dare you question my authority", because you are not a member of an intersectional group.
In the case of this commentary, questioning the wisdom of facilitating gender denying surgery and damnation to lifelong pharmaceuticals that are contrary to a child's biology is something that should be asked. To say that you can have no opinion about a disorder because you don't have it seems backward when members of a radical ideology won't because it is a challenge to their cherished view.
If a child identified as an amputee, would it be proper to affirm their mental disorder and amputate one of their limbs? They identify as a blind person. Affirm it by blinding them? Do people have no right to challenge such a radical action because they don't suffer from that disorder?
There are debates we could be having over this, but we're not. Because we're stuck between two communities; one in siege mode, where any compromise is seen as betrayal, and the other motivated by holy war, where any compromise is seen as another step towards victory. It's much the the abortion debate, that way. And in the case of the trans debate, we literally don't now the long-term effects. I tend to favor the side that's not made of Bible-thumping morons, but I wish they were less doctrinaire.
“I tend to favor the side that's not made of Bible-thumping morons, but I wish they were less doctrinaire.”
I don’t think Roisin Murphy is a Bible-thumping moron. I think in almost all polarised debates like this one, each side is caricatured by the other. So everyone who has thought carefully about the use of puberty blockers is painted with the same stupid brush.
Health authorities in England and Norway and Finland are not Bible thumping morons. The FDA, who still haven’t approved puberty blockers for use on gender dysphoric children, are not Bible-thumping morons. Buck Angel and Scott Newgent, both trans men who are very outspoken against puberty blockers, are not Bible-thumping morons.
I also think it’s terribly dangerous to make the assumption that concerns about children are always disingenuous.
I agree that there are other pressing issues facing children. But I think the normalisation of the idea that puberty is dangerous or should be treated as a medical condition is a significant problem. This isn’t a problem that will just get smaller over time if it’s ignored.
And in terms of "think of the children" (assuming, for once, that this isn't a reactionary dogwhistle), I'd think that gender issues are barely on the list of things threatening today's kids. You want to think of the children, make sure they'll have a world worth living in to grow up in.
Great article, Steve, as always, and I must say, I greatly admire your writing even when I find myself in disagreement with it. Perhaps we can chalk it up to differences in risk tolerance, but this is one part I take issue with:
"The argument you're making could have just as easily been applied to smoking before people realised how harmful it is, or lobotomies before people realised how harmful they were, or heck, even gay people who voluntarily submitted to conversion therapy at Christian camps because they thought it would "cure" them."
The problem is two-fold.
With this logic, we smite any possible progress based on the yet-unempirical possibility of future risk. I find the same problem with the people who seem eager to see genocide in Palestine so they can be proven right as they banged the drum in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on Israel about a *possible* future threat (genocide, ethnic cleansing, take your pick) that had not yet happened. This is like a collective anxiety disorder when we ignore truly grave events and prefer to focus on potential future threats yet to unfold. To do this with medicine and science, both of which imply a substantial degree of experimentation, is to strangle them both where they stand. Note: this does not mean that anything goes, it's merely a call for at least reasonable empirical grounds for our perceived threats.
The other one, well, I'm just going to have to draw from experience on. When I was a kid, I was diagnosed with ADHD. A lot of my Millennial peers were, too. When we grew up, we had quite different interpretations of the value of treating children with medications, even stimulants. I found value in science and reason (though I readily admit the limits of both). I subsequently saw a specialist and was later diagnosed again as an adult. My friends didn't always have the same experience. Many of them went down anti-science and anti-reason conspiracy theory rabbit holes and wound up fiercely bemoaning being drugged as children. They felt it was a violation of their human rights.
So, who has the moral upper hand, here? The answer is neither because it's not a black-and-white question. And either way you go, someone loses out. Kids who need treatment don't get it OR kids are treated who might not need it. I'll only speak for my own experiences here, as a soon-to-be-forty-year-old adult, I look back and part of me wishes my treatment would've been more comprehensive.
I'll readily admit that ADHD drugs and puberty blockers are nowhere near the same. Here's my stance: such judgments should be left up to the individuals in question and their medical staff. Not me, not politicians, not pop singers. Sure, everyone can have an opinion. But, my rather libertarian view here is there are truly no good or bad drugs, only ones that are misused and abused. To criticize an inert, inanimate drug is nonsensical and doing so is partially inextricable from criticizing *everyone* who takes that drug. To criticize ADHD meds is to say that people should not be taking them, which grinds my gears whenever I hear it. So, I can understand the sentiment of the people who are frustrated whenever someone (who usually don't understand that ADHD is 70%+ heritable) spouts off about the horrors of ADHD meds.
This isn't ideology. It's just consistency. I hold the same with all drugs except antibiotics, which we must fear losing their potency in the near future, so there's a collective externalization to factor in.
"I'll readily admit that ADHD drugs and puberty blockers are nowhere near the same"
Right, but this is the point. If you're taking the question of risk seriously, you can't just hold the same view with all drugs. Because some drugs are very different to others in their effects and long-term implications.
Criticising a drug isn't necessarily to say that people shouldn't be taking it or that it should be banned. It's usually to say that the safeguards for that drug aren't sufficient given the aforementioned effects and long-term implications. I'm not sure what these implications for ADHD drugs, so no comment there. But I'm not inclined to just hand over responsibility to the pharmaceutical industry and patients because one is motivated by profit and the other is hampered by fear and a lack of objectivity.
Again, lobotomies, thalidomide, silicone implants, these were all safe until they weren't.
So I have no problem with ongoing conversations, in the public and private spheres, about medications. This doesn't need to stand in the way of medical progress at all as far as I can see. It's exceedingly rare that a medication is banned as a result of these conversation. And on those rare occasions, it's because of a clearly demonstrated harm.
p.s. Drugs aren't inert. If they were, they'd be homeopathic remedies 😁
A medication needn't be banned, only shamed sufficiently to have profound effects. Case in point: prescription opiates, which only about 7% of people become hooked on, which also tracks slightly higher than the 5% of people who become alcoholics. Take a look at opiate prescriptions between 2008 and 2017 here:
Doctors stopped prescribing opioids because of so much media noise about the "opioid crisis" and what happened next was all-too predictable—take a look at fentanyl overdoses.
This is really interesting, but it's hard to draw a causal link here. Opioid prescriptions were rising during the same period fentanyl overdoses were flat. And overdoses didn't start to spike until 2015, long after opioid prescriptions were way down. I'm not saying there can't be a causal relationship there, but it's not clear.
That said, yes, addiction and abuse of other, more dangerous drugs are among the risks and long-term implications I'm talking about. I think it's absolutely right that there was a conversation about opioid addiction. Don't you? 7% isn't nothing. But I also think it should be framed in a way that makes it clear that in most cases, opioids aren't addictive. Basically, I'm advocating a clear eyed analysis of the costs and benefits. That's not happening with puberty blockers.
"This is really interesting, but it's hard to draw a causal link here. Opioid prescriptions were rising during the same period fentanyl overdoses were flat. And overdoses didn't start to spike until 2015, long after opioid prescriptions were way down. I'm not saying there can't be a causal relationship there, but it's not clear."
Sure, but that's true of literally everything epidemiological (which cannot establish causation)—including any discussion about puberty blockers.
"I think it's absolutely right that there was a conversation about opioid addiction. Don't you?"
I think it would've been had it been had honestly. But it was not. Which makes me wonder if we're capable of honest dialogue any longer in our (social) media ecosystem. The only reason I know all this is because it's my own upcoming article (I've researched for a year).
The thing is, almost no one is saying, "Yes, opiates are addictive, but there's only a 7% chance you'll become hooked."
7% isn't nothing, you're right, but it's just like (and often less than) any other side effect of any other drug, side effects that are usually minuscule-print footnotes.
So why the glaring discrepancy?
We don't have a "vaccine side effect crisis," a "peanut butter allergy crisis," or a "this psoriasis drug can cause you to poop water and drop-dead *crisis*" because a small number of people experience negative effects. We don't attach *crisis* to any other side effect except addiction, including ones that kill people.
190,000 people died from OxyContin between 1999 and 2017. Sounds scary and all, but 643,826 people died from car accidents during the same period, dwarfing OxyContin deaths. Do we have a driving *crisis* now?
"I'm advocating a clear-eyed analysis of the costs and benefits. That's not happening with puberty blockers."
I'm all for a clear-eyed analysis of the costs and benefits. I also realize it's not my business if people want to take them despite (reasonable) risks identified. The same principle as above applies here.
"Right, but this is the point. If you're taking the question of risk seriously, you can't just hold the same view with all drugs. Because some drugs are very different to others in their effects and long-term implications."
I absolutely can and I just did with the fundamental crux of the moral logic: that these choices should be left up to either the consumers themselves, if they're adults, or medical practitioners with far superior knowledge than laypersons, if they can't make those choices for themselves as consenting adults. We should caution people that some drugs are more dangerous than others—benzodiazepines don't carry the same risks as Tylenol. But to make that choice for them or to even shame their choice to take or not take one or the other is overstepping our boundaries.
I'm going to riff on this for a second because I think it's all part of the same issue that ties in with your original post. Today, we've woken up with these technologies that have granted us unprecedented access into other people's lives. With that has come an assumption most people make that they're entitled to be the judge of other people's lives. To them, I say, leave me alone and I'll suffer the consequences of my own actions, thank you very much.
"Drugs aren't inert. If they were, they'd be homeopathic remedies"
Drugs not taken are certainly inert. ;)
"Criticising a drug isn't necessarily to say that people shouldn't be taking it or that it should be banned. It's usually to say that the safeguards for that drug aren't sufficient given the aforementioned effects and long-term implications. I'm not sure what these implications for ADHD drugs, so no comment there. But I'm not inclined to just hand over responsibility to the pharmaceutical industry and patients because one is motivated by profit and the other is hampered by fear and a lack of objectivity."
I take issue with this entire premise, largely because our fear of drugs is born out of edge cases algorithmically catapulted to the top of the attention-for-money social media heap. Take addiction to prescribed drugs for instance. We all it an "opioid crisis" but per the NIH's data, the risk of becoming addicted to mind-altering drugs is a wimpy 5%.
That 5% gets a whole lot of media attention in the USA because fear sells. Millions of people are walking around with silicone implants and are doing fine, so declaring them "unsafe" isn't accurate. Which brings me back to my original point: with all medical progress, it's easy to find those edge cases and whip up a panic. Hell, we can even do this with things that are patently benign (carbs, anyone?).
There is, of course, a simple solution to all of this.
Don't like drugs? Don't take them. Don't like abortions? Don't get them. Don't like guns? Don't buy them.
"I take issue with this entire premise, largely because our fear of drugs is born out of edge cases algorithmically catapulted to the top of the attention-for-money social media heap. Take addiction to prescribed drugs for instance."
Again, this is why you can't treat all drugs as if they're the same. Concerns about puberty blockers aren't about edge cases. They're about solid data that says they're unnecessary in the majority of cases and make children far more likely to medically transition (with all the health consequences that entails). There aren't many drugs I can think of that affect people in this way. And therefore, they should be considered on their own merits.
According to Wikipedia, around 10,000 people were affected by thalidomide. Considering that it was sold worldwide, for around 5 years, I'm betting that the percentage of people affected was fairly low. But we didn't let expectant mothers just roll the dice, because their decision would affect their kid.
As for, "if you don't like drugs, don't take them..." the implications of this get pretty bad pretty quickly, no? By this logic should we legalise all drugs, accepting the cost to public health and to crime and to society at large? Or guns, okay, I don't like guns, so I won't buy them. Does that decision keep me safe from other lunatics who *do* buy them? Do we, perhaps, need *some* guardrails here?
"Again, this is why you can't treat all drugs as if they're the same. Concerns about puberty blockers aren't about edge cases. They're about solid data that says they're unnecessary in the majority of cases and make children far more likely to medically transition (with all the health consequences that entails). There aren't many drugs I can think of that affect people in this way. And therefore, they should be considered on their own merits."
I'm interested in seeing this data.
"But we didn't let expectant mothers just roll the dice, because their decision would affect their kid."
No certainly not if we have a reasonable alternative. But I don't think there is a one-to-one alternative to opiates and possibly puberty blockers, too, but admittedly, I haven't investigated that far. It's more your specialty than mine.
"Do we, perhaps, need *some* guardrails here?"
Sure, make people wait a month to get the gun and conduct background checks. Make people have to be 18 to drink alcohol or smoke weed. I'm in favor of all these things. But it doesn't make these things "bad" they just are.
"Sure, make people wait a month to get the gun and conduct background checks. Make people have to be 18 to drink alcohol or smoke weed. I'm in favor of all these things. But it doesn't make these things "bad" they just are."
Right, again, I'm not saying that puberty blockers are bad and certainly not that transition is bad. Puberty blockers have been used for years for precocious puberty with well documented pros and cons. Transition is life-changingly positive for many people with gender dysphoria.
The issue is, trans activism in its current form, is hellbent on removing pretty much all guardrails, whether for kids, or for dishonest men who claim to be women.
I'm constantly baffled why nobody asks why we weren't talking about these issues 20 years ago. Well, it's because men couldn't legally become women simply by saying so. It's because people weren't tying to obfuscate obvious realities about biological sex. It's because people who transitioned did so to ease their medically diagnosed dysphoria, not to be edgy men in dresses deconstructing gender or because they were "transmaxxing (https://www.reddit.com/r/transmaxxing/comments/16y6c66/should_i_transmaxx/)" or because they were mentally ill and had been told by fetishists online that transitioning would fix them.
As you say, people need to be 18 before they drink alcohol or smoke weed or get a tattoo. But potentially making yourself infertile or chopping off body parts shouldn't require the same care?
Sorry, just realised that I hadn't provided this. Here's a link to a pretty good round up of all the studies (complete with links to the original papers) demonstrating that when children are allowed to go through their natural puberty without medicalisation, most of them are no longer dysphoric but usually just gay adults.
The optimistic interpretation of this second set of data is that puberty blockers are incredibly carefully prescribed and all the kids taking them are genuinely trans and go on to medically transition.
But given the shifts in policy in the Scandinavian countries and France, as well as the shutdown of the Tavistock gender clinic in England following findings of widespread negligence, I think a more realistic interpretation is that puberty blockers aren't carefully prescribed at all, but act as a gateway or first step on a transition pathway that few step off. Angst about puberty is, after all, nothing new.
Governments pass laws to govern the behavior of people. Propaganda to attain by-in from the public so it can be seen as the result of democracy is ubiquitous. What or who defends minority opinion and individuals from the tyranny of democracy. People petition government to impose their views on those who don't hold them. "But I don't want you to [cause goes here] for the good of society!"
100%, Dave. Spot on. Now, there’s an argument to be made that there are clear cases where one party harms another. But harming yourself is, by definition, never one of those cases. There’s also a difference between supporting something like healthcare finance and legislating individual morality. We pool money for healthcare with health insurance. That’s different from telling someone they can’t do something because we feel it’s morally objectionable or because we worry about the (usually extremely minor) risk it will hurt them.
"But harming yourself is, by definition, never one of those cases."
Except when you're a child.
If we were talking about adults, we'd basically be in 100% agreement. I'm not saying a word about cross-sex hormones or any other surgical options for adults because, as you say, adults should be free to suffer the consequences of their own actions.
But children are in a particularly vulnerable situation, especially with regards to this treatment. All the data say that at least 80% of children won't need these drugs if they go through their natural puberty. While around 95% of children will become lifelong medical patients if they're not allowed to go through their natural puberty.
So if you're prescribing these medications, you'd better have solid data-backed reasoning for doing so. And as far as I can see, the opposite is the case. Again, every country that has done a systemic review of puberty blockers has based or severely curtailed them. As well as shutting down some of the irresponsible gender clinics catering to children.
If you're excruciatingly offended by a silly turn of phrase, you can probably relate to people who whine about being misgendered. It's exactly as nonsensical. I must say, I'm getting a bit weary of the language policing Chris.
The trouble with conflating issues. If the issue is restricting something like a type of firearm, knowledge of firearms seems essential to making a decision. It can be honestly argued that it has nothing to do with mass shootings which nearly always happen in firearm free kill zones where people could not defend themselves from a bow and quiver of arrows.
I'm not trying to start a debate about a subject that is not a part of this commentary. I'm pointing out that I understand your frustration with people bringing in arguments from adjacent issues. Unfortunately, it is a part of the throw everything that isn't bolted down at an issue, hoping that something will stick.
It is also purposeful insult which does not facilitate thoughtful debate. If someone spits in my eye, I assume that they want to fight, rather than debate.
"If you are not trans, you should not speak about what being trans entails. It's really simple, isn't it? Don't talk about things you don't understand. Don't talk about other people's lives and experiences as if you knew better than them. 2023 seems to be a bit late a year to still have to teach, to adults, that if you still insist to talk about things of which you have no experience and that you don't understand, you'll have to accept the consequences."
This logic drives me crazy. I cut my teeth, largely through historical accident, on writing about human sexuality. I was bombarded on all sides with criticisms as my writing reached wider and wider audiences. First, trickled in the responses that I'm not doing enough. "Your writing is almost entirely heteronormative (odd, seeing as I myself may be hetero but my relationships and those I discuss are decidedly not normative). I wrote what I'm familiar with—at first. As I wrote more, I expanded to more and more topics that I have less and less, if any, experience with. Then it became, "How dare you write about things you have no experience with?"
The message was clear: damned if you do, damned if you don't.
If you write about the heteronormative relationships you're intimately familiar with, you're ignoring other people's situation. If you write about their situation, you're speaking about the experience of others without any real experience of your own.
What seems lost is a combination of two ideas:
1. That there's merit in both objectivity, observation of things from the outside, AND the phenomena and emotions of personal subjective experience. Both are merited and powerful forms of inquiry and neither should be shunned in favor of the other, as modern science and phenomenology have both shown, concerning the former and latter, respectively.
2. That there's value in ideas that don't confirm our inner experiences. I wonder how much of this is a byproduct of our technologies that feed us things we agree with, things we like, things that make us feel positive feelings via algorithm all day long. When all you've known or most of what you've known has been carefully hand-picked to conform to your biases, and it streams through a screen you stare at all day, that's bound to have some consequences. It's no wonder we can't engage with daring ideas anymore, let alone ideas that don't perfect conform to our preconceived molds about how the things and events in the world ought to be.
I absolutely must reiterate that I have many friends in the LGBTQ community and these pseudo-activists represent precisely none of them, and make them feel uncomfortable, probably in the same way the loud-mouth Trump and all of his ideological Republican minions don't represent me, a ginger-haired pasty white American dude who just happens to match the demographic of their most die-hard voters.
"Then it became, 'How dare you write about things you have no experience with?'"
Yep, couldn't agree more with all of this. I also hate the implication that empathy and our common humanity are useless in the face of these arbitrary boundaries. Nobody knows what it's like to be in somebody else's skin. I don't even know what it's like to be black or male or straight or any other "identity." I just know what it's like to be me. To understand other black males better, I still need to talk to them.
Most of all, I hate the hypocrisy of these people who are invariably happy to preach to other people about their experience. I don't know what it's like to be *insert identity group of choice here*, but you know all about me and how easy my life is, right?
Astute observation. It’s definitely an in-group/out-group sorting mechanism with which some people perch themselves atop lofty mountains and can pretend they’re the bastions of human experience (not to mention the judge and jury).
There is a place for "lived experience." It's called "literature," or "art." There is a place for objectivity, or shared experience, and it is called "science" in the broadest sense of the term.
Applying the epistemology of the former to the latter, as do the critical theorists, makes the latter impossible. That is why it is civilization-destroying. As if the critical theorists could care.
That's a little dramatic. First, phenomenological philosophy is some of the best philosophy one can read (highly recommended) and it takes the first-person perspective as its starting point. I hardly think that a small minority of people who are basically professional whiners are "civilization destroying" no matter how loudly they whine.
They can barely even win a handful of national offices in the ultra-safe districts. It's a tiny, tiny minority, even among left-wing voters (and I'd be willing to bet even among people who lean progressive), which is evinced by the fact that, in the US, we have a boring, middle-of-the-road President Biden and not a hardcore left-wing Bernie Sanders or, somewhat more mildly, Elizabeth Warren.
Annoying isn't the same thing as "civilization destroying" and we should keep that in mind.
Whether I am right or you are right depends on how far and deep it spreads beyond where phenomenological philosophy was originally intended. Some critical theorists extend it even to mathematics. Not many now, and let’s hope it stays that way. Better to nip nihilistic poison in the bud.
I've comfortably settled on the fact that there's just always going to be a minority population in every group of people who are just thoroughly crazy.
It has already spread much farther than I thought possible. Trans ideology that is now orthodoxy in the Anglophone world and much of Western Europe. The credo “trans women are [literally!] women” is the epistemic equivalent of the Catholic sacrament of the Eucharist, in that both are a form of transubstantiation.
This is no longer a fringe minority view. Even Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson felt constrained to deny it.
Those are two completely separate issues though.
I think most people say “trans women are women” because they want to be nice, like a title. Coleman Hughes’ analogy is apt here. An atheist might use the term “father” or “priest” or “nun” when speaking about a clergy member. I do, even if I don’t believe in Catholic anything. Doesn’t mean I believe the ideology. I’m just being nice and that’s an important distinction to make. Most people want to be civil and Tunisian d .
Not being able to define a woman is legitimately a hard question. Steve QJ up there will tell you a woman is defined solely by the gametes. Does that mean that every single biologist in the field has killed or anesthetized every single animal they’ve observed to take a good look at their gametes? Of course not. They observed secondary sex characteristics. Does that mean all of biology is wrong? Also no. It just means that sex is complicated and tied up in a plethora of factors including sex cells, reproduction, hormones, phenotypes, mating patterns, behavior patterns, evolutionary pressures, and much, much, much more. As someone whose daily career is spent analyzing sex itself, I can say that’s a legitimately hard question to ask, one that nobody in good faith can give a straight, simple answer to.
Btw I was not referring to politics per se but to education media and cultural and other institutions that govern knowledge. There is where the deepest and most damaging inroads have occurred. I happen to like Elizabeth Warren and her protégée Katie Porter very much.
I'll add to that: the worst thing you can do is let anyone trick you into believing that minority is a majority. I too like Elizabeth Warren. I would've voted for her had she still been in the race by the time Florida's primaries started, but alas. What are the odds?
I advise caution because when they (someone, anyone) convince you that the threat is bigger than it really is, it's *very* easy to become the monster you set out to smite in the first place. There are millions of Americans who would, right now, trade our Democracy for Autocracy for a chance to own the "woke mob" and wouldn't think twice about it, arguably about half of one of our two major political parties—and they're still a tiny minority of a minority.
It's good to keep things in perspective that less than 30% of people belong to ANY given political party.
The two sides feed off each other
An excellent example of the ideologically motivated, phenomenological rot invading the hard sciences, Joe. From Jesse Singal’s most recent post. Not good.
https://open.substack.com/pub/jessesingal/p/i-still-dont-understand-the-point?r=9oxmc&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Arrgg!
Joe! I remember you. I always liked your articles on Medium. I'm not on there, kicked off for not being woke enough. Anyway, I'll check out your Substack.
I love the attitude and confidence of the id @growsomelabia. Own that :)
Why, thank you 🙏🏻
Great piece. But I think you meant “conversion therapy,” not “conversation therapy,” in your third from last paragraph?
😅 Thanks. Autocorrect likes to sabotage me sometimes.
Good catch.
Don't talk about trans if you aren't trans? Then don't talk about woman, womanhood, or being a woman if you aren't one.
I think Rebel's fundamental confusion here is between understanding and experience. Just because you don't experience something, doesn't mean that you can't understand it. Understanding involves objective knowledge that we all can have access to. Experience is personal and subjective. There are aspects of human experience that can't be resolved by argument. But the effect of drugs on the body is not one of them. I discuss this further in this paper.https://www.academia.edu/104703271/The_Privileged_Access_of_the_Underprivileged_How_Social_marginalization_produces_Epistemic_Privilege
"Just because you don't experience something, doesn't mean that you can't understand it. "
Exactly. And the opposite is also true. Just because you're trans, for example. doesn't make your thoughts on puberty blockers any more valid. Especially if, as in rebel's case, you transitioned at 43 and haven't taken them either.
All too often I get some reference to my white, male, heterosexual, boomer privilege as a reason I should sit down and shut up. I have no right to speak on a subject. The purpose of that is therefore they don't have to consider anything I say. While I referenced that to me, some form off it happened to us all. It's a cheep way to win without winning.
They aren’t even willing to play the game—-just compel a forfeit.
Indeed. From what I've read, the vast majority, like 80-90% of dysphoric children who go through puberty have their dysphoria disappear. But something like 95% of dysphoric children who go through puberty blockers eventually move on to X-sex hormones, which have huge effects on fertility, ability to enjoy sex, among other significant side effects. These are things to which children can't meaningfully consent.
And indeed, this is why England shutdown their main gender clinic, and Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark have all basically stopped putting dysphoric children on puberty blockers: because the evidence that the benefits outweigh the harms is simply not there.
Rebel writes: "If you are not trans, you should not speak about what being trans entails. It's really simple, isn't it? Don't talk about things you don't understand. Don't talk about other people's lives and experiences as if you knew better than them."
Ahh yes, "standpoint epistemology," or "positionality," as the critical theorists call it. I call it "just shut your damn mouth and submit." Exactly like the Catholic Church of the 15th Century.
And especially because Murphy wasn't talking about anybody's experience. If a man discovered that a certain birth control medication was dangerous, should he keep quiet about it lest he talk about other peoples lives and experiences? Heck, I think I'm right in saying that a man developed the first birth control pill. Obviously he had no business doing so. The pig.
All I need to know is that the “trans” are making dozens of completely unacceptable demands that I have no intention of obeying.
The fact that medical statistics and the late onset/outgrowing make plain that the great majority of “trans” are putting on an act and also not have GID is all the reason I need to be as “transphobic” as I please.
"Trans" jumped the shark and crushed a great deal of sympathy for the truly gender dysphoric when they attached themselves like leaches. It tends to lead to the thought that you expressed. Yet I know from things you have written in the past that you consider that to be unfortunate.
Why do I have a gut feeling that Rebel would have no problem putting a BLM flag in her window (assuming she's not black) and a Queers for Palestine graphic on her social media feed (again, assuming she's not Palestinian) ?
People love to say, back off, you don't get to have an opinion about MY issue while having boatloads of opinions about issues of which hey can't possibly have any personal experience.
🎯
Since one of the defining characteristics of the trans movement is extreme narcissism, it's not surprising that people like "Rebel" have a hard time finding compassion for anyone other than themselves, or accepting the validity of anyone else's point of view.
Yes it’s called having a moral compass. Protecting the innocent means protecting children. If you won’t stand up for the innocent you have no moral clarity and I think, when you look deep into the mirror, you know this. Hence the deflection and attack mentality.
"If you won’t stand up for the innocent you have no moral clarity and I think, when you look deep into the mirror, you know this."
Exactly. it's interesting, the mask of "be kind" is slipping further and further every day with people like this.
Wisdom. Thank you.
There are experts. There are people who spent years in an affirming echo chamber who 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 they are experts. There are people with tribal bias whose thoughts are of the collective. Some people are clearly clueless, some just misinformed, etc.
There is a difference between challenging an idea for clarity and trolling. I understand the frustration that comes from people who are truly clueless about an issue but 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕. The same can be said for the "I think that I'm an expert" (not clueless but possibly quite wrong).
The issue, in my mind is that none of that is as irritating as some version of "sit down and shut up", "how dare you question my authority", because you are not a member of an intersectional group.
In the case of this commentary, questioning the wisdom of facilitating gender denying surgery and damnation to lifelong pharmaceuticals that are contrary to a child's biology is something that should be asked. To say that you can have no opinion about a disorder because you don't have it seems backward when members of a radical ideology won't because it is a challenge to their cherished view.
If a child identified as an amputee, would it be proper to affirm their mental disorder and amputate one of their limbs? They identify as a blind person. Affirm it by blinding them? Do people have no right to challenge such a radical action because they don't suffer from that disorder?
There are debates we could be having over this, but we're not. Because we're stuck between two communities; one in siege mode, where any compromise is seen as betrayal, and the other motivated by holy war, where any compromise is seen as another step towards victory. It's much the the abortion debate, that way. And in the case of the trans debate, we literally don't now the long-term effects. I tend to favor the side that's not made of Bible-thumping morons, but I wish they were less doctrinaire.
“I tend to favor the side that's not made of Bible-thumping morons, but I wish they were less doctrinaire.”
I don’t think Roisin Murphy is a Bible-thumping moron. I think in almost all polarised debates like this one, each side is caricatured by the other. So everyone who has thought carefully about the use of puberty blockers is painted with the same stupid brush.
Health authorities in England and Norway and Finland are not Bible thumping morons. The FDA, who still haven’t approved puberty blockers for use on gender dysphoric children, are not Bible-thumping morons. Buck Angel and Scott Newgent, both trans men who are very outspoken against puberty blockers, are not Bible-thumping morons.
I also think it’s terribly dangerous to make the assumption that concerns about children are always disingenuous.
I agree that there are other pressing issues facing children. But I think the normalisation of the idea that puberty is dangerous or should be treated as a medical condition is a significant problem. This isn’t a problem that will just get smaller over time if it’s ignored.
And in terms of "think of the children" (assuming, for once, that this isn't a reactionary dogwhistle), I'd think that gender issues are barely on the list of things threatening today's kids. You want to think of the children, make sure they'll have a world worth living in to grow up in.
Great article, Steve, as always, and I must say, I greatly admire your writing even when I find myself in disagreement with it. Perhaps we can chalk it up to differences in risk tolerance, but this is one part I take issue with:
"The argument you're making could have just as easily been applied to smoking before people realised how harmful it is, or lobotomies before people realised how harmful they were, or heck, even gay people who voluntarily submitted to conversion therapy at Christian camps because they thought it would "cure" them."
The problem is two-fold.
With this logic, we smite any possible progress based on the yet-unempirical possibility of future risk. I find the same problem with the people who seem eager to see genocide in Palestine so they can be proven right as they banged the drum in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on Israel about a *possible* future threat (genocide, ethnic cleansing, take your pick) that had not yet happened. This is like a collective anxiety disorder when we ignore truly grave events and prefer to focus on potential future threats yet to unfold. To do this with medicine and science, both of which imply a substantial degree of experimentation, is to strangle them both where they stand. Note: this does not mean that anything goes, it's merely a call for at least reasonable empirical grounds for our perceived threats.
The other one, well, I'm just going to have to draw from experience on. When I was a kid, I was diagnosed with ADHD. A lot of my Millennial peers were, too. When we grew up, we had quite different interpretations of the value of treating children with medications, even stimulants. I found value in science and reason (though I readily admit the limits of both). I subsequently saw a specialist and was later diagnosed again as an adult. My friends didn't always have the same experience. Many of them went down anti-science and anti-reason conspiracy theory rabbit holes and wound up fiercely bemoaning being drugged as children. They felt it was a violation of their human rights.
So, who has the moral upper hand, here? The answer is neither because it's not a black-and-white question. And either way you go, someone loses out. Kids who need treatment don't get it OR kids are treated who might not need it. I'll only speak for my own experiences here, as a soon-to-be-forty-year-old adult, I look back and part of me wishes my treatment would've been more comprehensive.
I'll readily admit that ADHD drugs and puberty blockers are nowhere near the same. Here's my stance: such judgments should be left up to the individuals in question and their medical staff. Not me, not politicians, not pop singers. Sure, everyone can have an opinion. But, my rather libertarian view here is there are truly no good or bad drugs, only ones that are misused and abused. To criticize an inert, inanimate drug is nonsensical and doing so is partially inextricable from criticizing *everyone* who takes that drug. To criticize ADHD meds is to say that people should not be taking them, which grinds my gears whenever I hear it. So, I can understand the sentiment of the people who are frustrated whenever someone (who usually don't understand that ADHD is 70%+ heritable) spouts off about the horrors of ADHD meds.
This isn't ideology. It's just consistency. I hold the same with all drugs except antibiotics, which we must fear losing their potency in the near future, so there's a collective externalization to factor in.
"I'll readily admit that ADHD drugs and puberty blockers are nowhere near the same"
Right, but this is the point. If you're taking the question of risk seriously, you can't just hold the same view with all drugs. Because some drugs are very different to others in their effects and long-term implications.
Criticising a drug isn't necessarily to say that people shouldn't be taking it or that it should be banned. It's usually to say that the safeguards for that drug aren't sufficient given the aforementioned effects and long-term implications. I'm not sure what these implications for ADHD drugs, so no comment there. But I'm not inclined to just hand over responsibility to the pharmaceutical industry and patients because one is motivated by profit and the other is hampered by fear and a lack of objectivity.
Again, lobotomies, thalidomide, silicone implants, these were all safe until they weren't.
So I have no problem with ongoing conversations, in the public and private spheres, about medications. This doesn't need to stand in the way of medical progress at all as far as I can see. It's exceedingly rare that a medication is banned as a result of these conversation. And on those rare occasions, it's because of a clearly demonstrated harm.
p.s. Drugs aren't inert. If they were, they'd be homeopathic remedies 😁
A medication needn't be banned, only shamed sufficiently to have profound effects. Case in point: prescription opiates, which only about 7% of people become hooked on, which also tracks slightly higher than the 5% of people who become alcoholics. Take a look at opiate prescriptions between 2008 and 2017 here:
https://healthcostinstitute.org/images/easyblog_articles/314/b2ap3_large_Figure-1-Change-in-Us_20190715-165510_1.png
Doctors stopped prescribing opioids because of so much media noise about the "opioid crisis" and what happened next was all-too predictable—take a look at fentanyl overdoses.
https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/e9b14ea/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1280x720+0+0/resize/840x473!/quality/90/?url=https:%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F32%2Fd0%2Fd879cb32d373e82e04cfaccaa86c%2Fla-1553140571-pob09qlwxw-snap-image
No bans need apply.
This is really interesting, but it's hard to draw a causal link here. Opioid prescriptions were rising during the same period fentanyl overdoses were flat. And overdoses didn't start to spike until 2015, long after opioid prescriptions were way down. I'm not saying there can't be a causal relationship there, but it's not clear.
That said, yes, addiction and abuse of other, more dangerous drugs are among the risks and long-term implications I'm talking about. I think it's absolutely right that there was a conversation about opioid addiction. Don't you? 7% isn't nothing. But I also think it should be framed in a way that makes it clear that in most cases, opioids aren't addictive. Basically, I'm advocating a clear eyed analysis of the costs and benefits. That's not happening with puberty blockers.
"This is really interesting, but it's hard to draw a causal link here. Opioid prescriptions were rising during the same period fentanyl overdoses were flat. And overdoses didn't start to spike until 2015, long after opioid prescriptions were way down. I'm not saying there can't be a causal relationship there, but it's not clear."
Sure, but that's true of literally everything epidemiological (which cannot establish causation)—including any discussion about puberty blockers.
"I think it's absolutely right that there was a conversation about opioid addiction. Don't you?"
I think it would've been had it been had honestly. But it was not. Which makes me wonder if we're capable of honest dialogue any longer in our (social) media ecosystem. The only reason I know all this is because it's my own upcoming article (I've researched for a year).
The thing is, almost no one is saying, "Yes, opiates are addictive, but there's only a 7% chance you'll become hooked."
7% isn't nothing, you're right, but it's just like (and often less than) any other side effect of any other drug, side effects that are usually minuscule-print footnotes.
So why the glaring discrepancy?
We don't have a "vaccine side effect crisis," a "peanut butter allergy crisis," or a "this psoriasis drug can cause you to poop water and drop-dead *crisis*" because a small number of people experience negative effects. We don't attach *crisis* to any other side effect except addiction, including ones that kill people.
190,000 people died from OxyContin between 1999 and 2017. Sounds scary and all, but 643,826 people died from car accidents during the same period, dwarfing OxyContin deaths. Do we have a driving *crisis* now?
"I'm advocating a clear-eyed analysis of the costs and benefits. That's not happening with puberty blockers."
I'm all for a clear-eyed analysis of the costs and benefits. I also realize it's not my business if people want to take them despite (reasonable) risks identified. The same principle as above applies here.
"Right, but this is the point. If you're taking the question of risk seriously, you can't just hold the same view with all drugs. Because some drugs are very different to others in their effects and long-term implications."
I absolutely can and I just did with the fundamental crux of the moral logic: that these choices should be left up to either the consumers themselves, if they're adults, or medical practitioners with far superior knowledge than laypersons, if they can't make those choices for themselves as consenting adults. We should caution people that some drugs are more dangerous than others—benzodiazepines don't carry the same risks as Tylenol. But to make that choice for them or to even shame their choice to take or not take one or the other is overstepping our boundaries.
I'm going to riff on this for a second because I think it's all part of the same issue that ties in with your original post. Today, we've woken up with these technologies that have granted us unprecedented access into other people's lives. With that has come an assumption most people make that they're entitled to be the judge of other people's lives. To them, I say, leave me alone and I'll suffer the consequences of my own actions, thank you very much.
"Drugs aren't inert. If they were, they'd be homeopathic remedies"
Drugs not taken are certainly inert. ;)
"Criticising a drug isn't necessarily to say that people shouldn't be taking it or that it should be banned. It's usually to say that the safeguards for that drug aren't sufficient given the aforementioned effects and long-term implications. I'm not sure what these implications for ADHD drugs, so no comment there. But I'm not inclined to just hand over responsibility to the pharmaceutical industry and patients because one is motivated by profit and the other is hampered by fear and a lack of objectivity."
I take issue with this entire premise, largely because our fear of drugs is born out of edge cases algorithmically catapulted to the top of the attention-for-money social media heap. Take addiction to prescribed drugs for instance. We all it an "opioid crisis" but per the NIH's data, the risk of becoming addicted to mind-altering drugs is a wimpy 5%.
That 5% gets a whole lot of media attention in the USA because fear sells. Millions of people are walking around with silicone implants and are doing fine, so declaring them "unsafe" isn't accurate. Which brings me back to my original point: with all medical progress, it's easy to find those edge cases and whip up a panic. Hell, we can even do this with things that are patently benign (carbs, anyone?).
There is, of course, a simple solution to all of this.
Don't like drugs? Don't take them. Don't like abortions? Don't get them. Don't like guns? Don't buy them.
"I take issue with this entire premise, largely because our fear of drugs is born out of edge cases algorithmically catapulted to the top of the attention-for-money social media heap. Take addiction to prescribed drugs for instance."
Again, this is why you can't treat all drugs as if they're the same. Concerns about puberty blockers aren't about edge cases. They're about solid data that says they're unnecessary in the majority of cases and make children far more likely to medically transition (with all the health consequences that entails). There aren't many drugs I can think of that affect people in this way. And therefore, they should be considered on their own merits.
According to Wikipedia, around 10,000 people were affected by thalidomide. Considering that it was sold worldwide, for around 5 years, I'm betting that the percentage of people affected was fairly low. But we didn't let expectant mothers just roll the dice, because their decision would affect their kid.
As for, "if you don't like drugs, don't take them..." the implications of this get pretty bad pretty quickly, no? By this logic should we legalise all drugs, accepting the cost to public health and to crime and to society at large? Or guns, okay, I don't like guns, so I won't buy them. Does that decision keep me safe from other lunatics who *do* buy them? Do we, perhaps, need *some* guardrails here?
"Again, this is why you can't treat all drugs as if they're the same. Concerns about puberty blockers aren't about edge cases. They're about solid data that says they're unnecessary in the majority of cases and make children far more likely to medically transition (with all the health consequences that entails). There aren't many drugs I can think of that affect people in this way. And therefore, they should be considered on their own merits."
I'm interested in seeing this data.
"But we didn't let expectant mothers just roll the dice, because their decision would affect their kid."
No certainly not if we have a reasonable alternative. But I don't think there is a one-to-one alternative to opiates and possibly puberty blockers, too, but admittedly, I haven't investigated that far. It's more your specialty than mine.
"Do we, perhaps, need *some* guardrails here?"
Sure, make people wait a month to get the gun and conduct background checks. Make people have to be 18 to drink alcohol or smoke weed. I'm in favor of all these things. But it doesn't make these things "bad" they just are.
"Sure, make people wait a month to get the gun and conduct background checks. Make people have to be 18 to drink alcohol or smoke weed. I'm in favor of all these things. But it doesn't make these things "bad" they just are."
Right, again, I'm not saying that puberty blockers are bad and certainly not that transition is bad. Puberty blockers have been used for years for precocious puberty with well documented pros and cons. Transition is life-changingly positive for many people with gender dysphoria.
The issue is, trans activism in its current form, is hellbent on removing pretty much all guardrails, whether for kids, or for dishonest men who claim to be women.
I'm constantly baffled why nobody asks why we weren't talking about these issues 20 years ago. Well, it's because men couldn't legally become women simply by saying so. It's because people weren't tying to obfuscate obvious realities about biological sex. It's because people who transitioned did so to ease their medically diagnosed dysphoria, not to be edgy men in dresses deconstructing gender or because they were "transmaxxing (https://www.reddit.com/r/transmaxxing/comments/16y6c66/should_i_transmaxx/)" or because they were mentally ill and had been told by fetishists online that transitioning would fix them.
As you say, people need to be 18 before they drink alcohol or smoke weed or get a tattoo. But potentially making yourself infertile or chopping off body parts shouldn't require the same care?
"I'm interested in seeing this data."
Sorry, just realised that I hadn't provided this. Here's a link to a pretty good round up of all the studies (complete with links to the original papers) demonstrating that when children are allowed to go through their natural puberty without medicalisation, most of them are no longer dysphoric but usually just gay adults.
https://www.transgendertrend.com/children-change-minds/
But when children ARE medicalised, almost all of them go on to transition.
https://segm.org/early-social-gender-transition-persistence
The optimistic interpretation of this second set of data is that puberty blockers are incredibly carefully prescribed and all the kids taking them are genuinely trans and go on to medically transition.
But given the shifts in policy in the Scandinavian countries and France, as well as the shutdown of the Tavistock gender clinic in England following findings of widespread negligence, I think a more realistic interpretation is that puberty blockers aren't carefully prescribed at all, but act as a gateway or first step on a transition pathway that few step off. Angst about puberty is, after all, nothing new.
Governments pass laws to govern the behavior of people. Propaganda to attain by-in from the public so it can be seen as the result of democracy is ubiquitous. What or who defends minority opinion and individuals from the tyranny of democracy. People petition government to impose their views on those who don't hold them. "But I don't want you to [cause goes here] for the good of society!"
100%, Dave. Spot on. Now, there’s an argument to be made that there are clear cases where one party harms another. But harming yourself is, by definition, never one of those cases. There’s also a difference between supporting something like healthcare finance and legislating individual morality. We pool money for healthcare with health insurance. That’s different from telling someone they can’t do something because we feel it’s morally objectionable or because we worry about the (usually extremely minor) risk it will hurt them.
"But harming yourself is, by definition, never one of those cases."
Except when you're a child.
If we were talking about adults, we'd basically be in 100% agreement. I'm not saying a word about cross-sex hormones or any other surgical options for adults because, as you say, adults should be free to suffer the consequences of their own actions.
But children are in a particularly vulnerable situation, especially with regards to this treatment. All the data say that at least 80% of children won't need these drugs if they go through their natural puberty. While around 95% of children will become lifelong medical patients if they're not allowed to go through their natural puberty.
So if you're prescribing these medications, you'd better have solid data-backed reasoning for doing so. And as far as I can see, the opposite is the case. Again, every country that has done a systemic review of puberty blockers has based or severely curtailed them. As well as shutting down some of the irresponsible gender clinics catering to children.
If you can’t articulate in great detail the difference between automatic and semiautomatic then you have no right to an opinion on mass shootings.
I am shocked to see that excruciatingly offensive “you do you” shit in this column. If I keep seeing that, I will need to leave.
"excruciatingly offensive"
If you're excruciatingly offended by a silly turn of phrase, you can probably relate to people who whine about being misgendered. It's exactly as nonsensical. I must say, I'm getting a bit weary of the language policing Chris.
Noted
I think Chris is being sarcastic?
Sadly not.
The trouble with conflating issues. If the issue is restricting something like a type of firearm, knowledge of firearms seems essential to making a decision. It can be honestly argued that it has nothing to do with mass shootings which nearly always happen in firearm free kill zones where people could not defend themselves from a bow and quiver of arrows.
I'm not trying to start a debate about a subject that is not a part of this commentary. I'm pointing out that I understand your frustration with people bringing in arguments from adjacent issues. Unfortunately, it is a part of the throw everything that isn't bolted down at an issue, hoping that something will stick.
It is also purposeful insult which does not facilitate thoughtful debate. If someone spits in my eye, I assume that they want to fight, rather than debate.