When it comes to trans ideologues, reasoning is useless. And you've gone over the same ground so many times. There are no longer any productive points to be made.
It's a religion, Steve. Time to move on. It's a waste of your good mind to endlessly rehash this.
When it comes to trans ideologues, reasoning is useless. And you've gone over the same ground so many times. There are no longer any productive points to be made.
It's a religion, Steve. Time to move on. It's a waste of your good mind to endlessly rehash this.
I don't agree that Steve should move on. There are so few people who are even *looking* at the trans issue. Most people are of the view, "Oh. Marginalized. Must support." If Steve doesn't do it, who will?
The kids weren't being groomed to look at Goths as the standard way of looking at things.
And the Goths weren't being supported by the TMC. The Techno-Medical Complex. I read recently that each kid who "transitioned" (euphemism if there ever was one).. Well, they're worth a cool $1 MILLION to Big Pharm. And there aren't any poor doctors amongst those who do this treatment, I'm sure.
Yeah nothing there I can ethically disagree with; I'm not making a comparison (goths didn't get their genitals cut off a few months after wondering if maybe they should join the club) but where goth just died out, I think "trans" is going to disgust people away. That dick-chick who played the final note with his penis, the young girls who age out of "trans" an become gay only now they've had pieces cut off, the tyranny of the pronouns and the torrent of rage, in time people are going to get sick of the whole thing and start yelling back at the one s whining about being "misgendered." I would hope that by now employers are winnowing out job applicants who append pronoun pairs to their CVs as likely troublemakers.
I've heard from people I've known for years and who usually research what they write about that there has never been surgery on anyone under 18, that blockers are fully reversible. This is a tenacious cult.
TY for Your reply, M Chris. I really hope You're right. I hope people realize, in the end, that they're really gay, when they've been told they trans. Tenacious sure is right.
I guess one thing that really bothers me is that the America Academy of Pediatrics refused a petition to just look into the science issues. The EU and the UK are light-years ahead of the U.S. on this. But, then, You've got the President trying to mandate "affirmative care," AKA conversion therapy.
It's a wonder to me how reason has been thrown out with the bathwater. TY again.
Gender transition is an experimental procedure. There are no longitudunal studies of either prolonged hormone use or surgery but several interviewees in the Walsh video claimed that there is a lot of suicide 7-10 years after transition, yet all we hear about is suicide among "trans" youth who were already having serious problems long before they ran into some online "trans" forum.
Academia is not allowed to perform such studies because if their research leads them to places the "trans" activists don't like they will be hounded out of their careers and receive late night death threats. A counselor who tells a disturbed girl that she isn't really "trans" is likely to lose his job.
The "trans" activists share a lot of attitudes with MAGA.
You are 100% correct in all You "said," Sir Fox. (Although the MAGA crowd would disagree.) I never saw the Walsh video, so that was news about trans people having high rates of suicide. Just stands to reason, tho. AFAIK, a (probably large) percentage of these kids have co-morbidities.
In Sweden they studied the science on this stuff. Like the errant notion that trans kids have a higher rate of suicide. They found the existing science to be LOW or VERY LOW quality. The study that "proves" this about "You want a dead girl or a living trans son?" IIRC, it was only ONE study of 55 patients, and (if memory serves, and it may not) boys who had dysphoria from a very young age. One study. Small sample size. Not at *all,* representative of almost all the so-called trans youth today. Who are predominantly girls.
That's why Sweden decided that the ONLY "gender affirming care" that was allowed going forward was in controlled scientific studies. IOW, shut it down.
I'm sure You know most or all-a this, Chris. But some others may end up reading this that would be majorly surprised. I know I was.
I put a link to the torrent for the video in my post; it is not on YouTube (guess why).
Until the fad GD was three times more prevalent in males, now it's overwhelmingly in females.
There is one surgeon in the video who is herself postoperative and she unhesitatingly dismisses any notion of post-surgical dissatisfaction or the idea that there is a fad element to it. Small wonder, it is probably making her rich, $70,000 a pop.
I have been more focused on the hyper-annoying people with their pronouns and their "nonbinary" horseshit, since the latter has no psychiatric basis at all. Dysphorics want to go from one pole to the other; NBs want to position themselves in between and never talk about anything else for the rest of their lives.
Now I realize just how wantonly destructive the activists are.
And of course the pharma and surgical communities are hovering helpfully nearby.
TY for Your reply, Sir Chris. Yeah, the prevalence *completely* flipped. Of course I dunno, but if they ever scientifically investigate (which seems unlikely at present), I wouldn't be surprised if there was some similarity between the GD and anorexics and them all.
Yeah about the surgeon. But, really? $70K a pop? If so, phew!
But even people who aren't making any money aren't gonna be able to express any notion of post-surgical dissatisfaction, right? Or few, if any. Who's gonna wanna admit they made *that* big a permanent mistake?
I did see an opinion piece (in WaPo of all places) where a black woman was saying there was a *significant* downside to they way they are medicalized for life. And some-a the side-effects she had to suffer from. Very revealing. But she never came right out and said it was a mistake. And You couldn't tell from the article how she felt about it, in the end.
I know it's not funny. But I chuckled at Your last three paragraphs. Because it's sad, but true.
And that last! Yeah, "helpfully nearby." I apologize if I already quoted this, but I "heard" each one was worth $1M a pop to the Big Pharms. TY again, Sir.
Walsh also brought up that other dysphoria where people want healthy limbs amputated because they feel mismatched with their bodies, just like young girls who want mastectomies.
She feigned to see no relationship between the two.
I would not have been able to stand it. No, I would not have struck her (never give as asshole a legitimate grievance) but I would have at that point sneered, "thanks for your time" and walked out.
jt, there are a bunch and they are right here on Substack. BARpod & Singal-minded, Lisa Selin Davis' Broadview, it is Wesley Yang's current and very deep obsession on Year Zero, Colin Wright of course, Andrew Sullivan has weighed in at least a couple times, Abigail Shrier's The Truth Fairy, and Graham Linehan's infamous The Glinner Update. This is the topic du jour and there are a ton of folks weighing in on it from all sides. So much so that the topic might have even reached a tipping point. Everyone I listed above is more or less coming from a perspective that is critical of current trans ideology (to varying degrees of intensity). It's on Medium where we get the rah-rah/must automatically support zombie-crowd. Quite the opposite here on Substack.
There are a number of trans writers who are also critical of trans ideology. I'd recommend TaraElla Project for a very balanced perspective. She is perhaps the only trans writer I'm familiar with who is openly critical of trans ideologues (as well as other woke models like postmodernism & CRT) while still remaining a progressive liberal. A highly intellectual writer (and quite dry). Another trans progressive, Contra Points, has also had her moments of being critical (mainly towards non-binaries and cancel culture though), but she's a YouTube personality. Of course there is also YouTuber Blaire White, who is very enjoyable, but she's full-on red pill/alt-right, so of course she's against modern trans ideology, despite being trans herself.
Personally, I would love it if Steve could tackle other topics, just as I'm very appreciative when BARpod & Singal-minded do the same. His style is straightforward, personable, and resonant, he does the research, and he is a very clear thinker. It would be interesting to see his thoughts on topics other than gender & race & cancel culture. (Not saying I don't appreciate his writings on those topics! His writing on those topics is why I'm here in the first place.)
If you read the history of "trans" affirmation you will see that studies are limited to teens who have been formally diagnosed as dysphoric. The rate of regret for those who undergo hormones and surgery is very low.
What has changed with the advent of the "cisnormativity" screamers is the removal of the dysphoria requirement; they call this "medicalizing" a condition which they insist as regarding as a choice that should be unconditionally respected.
This does harm.
One of the ugliest claims of the far right has been that being gay is a choice, by their definition an immoral one, and that any gay person can as easily choose to be straight.
With "trans" the activists take the opposite tact; that "trans" can be chosen, and that's OK.
Except that ... to accept this requires turning an indifferent eye to elective mutilation of people who will outgrow their "trans" beliefs in a few years, albeit missing pieces they were born with.
There is a condition called Body Identity Integrity Disorder in which people convince themselves that one or more of their limbs are cumbersome and unwieldy and seek to have healthy arms or legs amputated. People have even lain a leg across a railroad track (they bled to death in seconds). Some of them manage to find surgeons who will take their money and amputate (sound familiar?). In fact the two disorders are both called dysphorias and are regarded as related.
I don't see a lot of BIID activists screaming about the tyranny of fourlimbnormativity. But the "trans" shit is not far from that.
A quarter century ago there were three hospitals in the entire USA that would perform gender reassignment surgery and qualification was extremely strict: two years living as the other gender, exhaustive psychiatric screening. The great majority was rejected.
Now there are over sixty "gender clinics" and qualification is all but wide open. "I think I might be trans." Get on the table, count down from ten. Activists have manipulated every initially sober medical debate with screams of bigotry (always expressed in some idiotic words that didn't exist a few months ago) and demands that pharmaceutical and surgical intervention begin at ever younger ages.
Steve has written enough about the activists and it is amazing he hasn't gotten that email from Roger (he/him); I got it for saying that a transwoman is biologically male, which is about as controversial as saying the earth orbits the sun. Most of the articles written by "trans" are roiling with rage, these are clearly unbalanced people and by any metric, the gerat majority of those claiming "trans" are solely in it for attention.
I'm familiar with all but the TaraElla Project. I'll read her directly. But here's the thing: The folks You mentioned are doing good work but, on balance, they're a drop in the ocean.
I didn't mean to "say" that Steve should *only* write on trans issues. Just that it's important that he adds a drop in the ocean of insanity.
One thing has give me genuine hope recently: the hyper-woke NYT has now run at least 2-3 articles in the past few months that are clearly questioning some of that ocean of insanity that is concerning to many of us here. I do think the tide is turning and the fringe perspectives are increasingly being seen as exactly that, fringe. Right now the shift appears focused on questioning the medicalization of minors (thank God, that is the place where I'd start too), but I can see it going in other directions eventually, like sports.
Or maybe I'm just a glass-half-full kinda guy LOL.
When it comes to trans ideologues, reasoning is useless. And you've gone over the same ground so many times. There are no longer any productive points to be made.
It's a religion, Steve. Time to move on. It's a waste of your good mind to endlessly rehash this.
I don't agree that Steve should move on. There are so few people who are even *looking* at the trans issue. Most people are of the view, "Oh. Marginalized. Must support." If Steve doesn't do it, who will?
IIt's a fad and just like every other fad it will die out after it's finished doing harm.
Seen a lot of goths lately?
Sorry I can't agree with You on this one.
The kids weren't being groomed to look at Goths as the standard way of looking at things.
And the Goths weren't being supported by the TMC. The Techno-Medical Complex. I read recently that each kid who "transitioned" (euphemism if there ever was one).. Well, they're worth a cool $1 MILLION to Big Pharm. And there aren't any poor doctors amongst those who do this treatment, I'm sure.
Yeah nothing there I can ethically disagree with; I'm not making a comparison (goths didn't get their genitals cut off a few months after wondering if maybe they should join the club) but where goth just died out, I think "trans" is going to disgust people away. That dick-chick who played the final note with his penis, the young girls who age out of "trans" an become gay only now they've had pieces cut off, the tyranny of the pronouns and the torrent of rage, in time people are going to get sick of the whole thing and start yelling back at the one s whining about being "misgendered." I would hope that by now employers are winnowing out job applicants who append pronoun pairs to their CVs as likely troublemakers.
I've heard from people I've known for years and who usually research what they write about that there has never been surgery on anyone under 18, that blockers are fully reversible. This is a tenacious cult.
TY for Your reply, M Chris. I really hope You're right. I hope people realize, in the end, that they're really gay, when they've been told they trans. Tenacious sure is right.
I guess one thing that really bothers me is that the America Academy of Pediatrics refused a petition to just look into the science issues. The EU and the UK are light-years ahead of the U.S. on this. But, then, You've got the President trying to mandate "affirmative care," AKA conversion therapy.
It's a wonder to me how reason has been thrown out with the bathwater. TY again.
Gender transition is an experimental procedure. There are no longitudunal studies of either prolonged hormone use or surgery but several interviewees in the Walsh video claimed that there is a lot of suicide 7-10 years after transition, yet all we hear about is suicide among "trans" youth who were already having serious problems long before they ran into some online "trans" forum.
Academia is not allowed to perform such studies because if their research leads them to places the "trans" activists don't like they will be hounded out of their careers and receive late night death threats. A counselor who tells a disturbed girl that she isn't really "trans" is likely to lose his job.
The "trans" activists share a lot of attitudes with MAGA.
You are 100% correct in all You "said," Sir Fox. (Although the MAGA crowd would disagree.) I never saw the Walsh video, so that was news about trans people having high rates of suicide. Just stands to reason, tho. AFAIK, a (probably large) percentage of these kids have co-morbidities.
In Sweden they studied the science on this stuff. Like the errant notion that trans kids have a higher rate of suicide. They found the existing science to be LOW or VERY LOW quality. The study that "proves" this about "You want a dead girl or a living trans son?" IIRC, it was only ONE study of 55 patients, and (if memory serves, and it may not) boys who had dysphoria from a very young age. One study. Small sample size. Not at *all,* representative of almost all the so-called trans youth today. Who are predominantly girls.
That's why Sweden decided that the ONLY "gender affirming care" that was allowed going forward was in controlled scientific studies. IOW, shut it down.
I'm sure You know most or all-a this, Chris. But some others may end up reading this that would be majorly surprised. I know I was.
I put a link to the torrent for the video in my post; it is not on YouTube (guess why).
Until the fad GD was three times more prevalent in males, now it's overwhelmingly in females.
There is one surgeon in the video who is herself postoperative and she unhesitatingly dismisses any notion of post-surgical dissatisfaction or the idea that there is a fad element to it. Small wonder, it is probably making her rich, $70,000 a pop.
I have been more focused on the hyper-annoying people with their pronouns and their "nonbinary" horseshit, since the latter has no psychiatric basis at all. Dysphorics want to go from one pole to the other; NBs want to position themselves in between and never talk about anything else for the rest of their lives.
Now I realize just how wantonly destructive the activists are.
And of course the pharma and surgical communities are hovering helpfully nearby.
TY for Your reply, Sir Chris. Yeah, the prevalence *completely* flipped. Of course I dunno, but if they ever scientifically investigate (which seems unlikely at present), I wouldn't be surprised if there was some similarity between the GD and anorexics and them all.
Yeah about the surgeon. But, really? $70K a pop? If so, phew!
But even people who aren't making any money aren't gonna be able to express any notion of post-surgical dissatisfaction, right? Or few, if any. Who's gonna wanna admit they made *that* big a permanent mistake?
I did see an opinion piece (in WaPo of all places) where a black woman was saying there was a *significant* downside to they way they are medicalized for life. And some-a the side-effects she had to suffer from. Very revealing. But she never came right out and said it was a mistake. And You couldn't tell from the article how she felt about it, in the end.
I know it's not funny. But I chuckled at Your last three paragraphs. Because it's sad, but true.
And that last! Yeah, "helpfully nearby." I apologize if I already quoted this, but I "heard" each one was worth $1M a pop to the Big Pharms. TY again, Sir.
One more note about this surgeon.
Walsh also brought up that other dysphoria where people want healthy limbs amputated because they feel mismatched with their bodies, just like young girls who want mastectomies.
She feigned to see no relationship between the two.
I would not have been able to stand it. No, I would not have struck her (never give as asshole a legitimate grievance) but I would have at that point sneered, "thanks for your time" and walked out.
jt, there are a bunch and they are right here on Substack. BARpod & Singal-minded, Lisa Selin Davis' Broadview, it is Wesley Yang's current and very deep obsession on Year Zero, Colin Wright of course, Andrew Sullivan has weighed in at least a couple times, Abigail Shrier's The Truth Fairy, and Graham Linehan's infamous The Glinner Update. This is the topic du jour and there are a ton of folks weighing in on it from all sides. So much so that the topic might have even reached a tipping point. Everyone I listed above is more or less coming from a perspective that is critical of current trans ideology (to varying degrees of intensity). It's on Medium where we get the rah-rah/must automatically support zombie-crowd. Quite the opposite here on Substack.
There are a number of trans writers who are also critical of trans ideology. I'd recommend TaraElla Project for a very balanced perspective. She is perhaps the only trans writer I'm familiar with who is openly critical of trans ideologues (as well as other woke models like postmodernism & CRT) while still remaining a progressive liberal. A highly intellectual writer (and quite dry). Another trans progressive, Contra Points, has also had her moments of being critical (mainly towards non-binaries and cancel culture though), but she's a YouTube personality. Of course there is also YouTuber Blaire White, who is very enjoyable, but she's full-on red pill/alt-right, so of course she's against modern trans ideology, despite being trans herself.
Personally, I would love it if Steve could tackle other topics, just as I'm very appreciative when BARpod & Singal-minded do the same. His style is straightforward, personable, and resonant, he does the research, and he is a very clear thinker. It would be interesting to see his thoughts on topics other than gender & race & cancel culture. (Not saying I don't appreciate his writings on those topics! His writing on those topics is why I'm here in the first place.)
If you read the history of "trans" affirmation you will see that studies are limited to teens who have been formally diagnosed as dysphoric. The rate of regret for those who undergo hormones and surgery is very low.
What has changed with the advent of the "cisnormativity" screamers is the removal of the dysphoria requirement; they call this "medicalizing" a condition which they insist as regarding as a choice that should be unconditionally respected.
This does harm.
One of the ugliest claims of the far right has been that being gay is a choice, by their definition an immoral one, and that any gay person can as easily choose to be straight.
With "trans" the activists take the opposite tact; that "trans" can be chosen, and that's OK.
Except that ... to accept this requires turning an indifferent eye to elective mutilation of people who will outgrow their "trans" beliefs in a few years, albeit missing pieces they were born with.
There is a condition called Body Identity Integrity Disorder in which people convince themselves that one or more of their limbs are cumbersome and unwieldy and seek to have healthy arms or legs amputated. People have even lain a leg across a railroad track (they bled to death in seconds). Some of them manage to find surgeons who will take their money and amputate (sound familiar?). In fact the two disorders are both called dysphorias and are regarded as related.
I don't see a lot of BIID activists screaming about the tyranny of fourlimbnormativity. But the "trans" shit is not far from that.
A quarter century ago there were three hospitals in the entire USA that would perform gender reassignment surgery and qualification was extremely strict: two years living as the other gender, exhaustive psychiatric screening. The great majority was rejected.
Now there are over sixty "gender clinics" and qualification is all but wide open. "I think I might be trans." Get on the table, count down from ten. Activists have manipulated every initially sober medical debate with screams of bigotry (always expressed in some idiotic words that didn't exist a few months ago) and demands that pharmaceutical and surgical intervention begin at ever younger ages.
Steve has written enough about the activists and it is amazing he hasn't gotten that email from Roger (he/him); I got it for saying that a transwoman is biologically male, which is about as controversial as saying the earth orbits the sun. Most of the articles written by "trans" are roiling with rage, these are clearly unbalanced people and by any metric, the gerat majority of those claiming "trans" are solely in it for attention.
TY for Your reply, M Monday.
I'm familiar with all but the TaraElla Project. I'll read her directly. But here's the thing: The folks You mentioned are doing good work but, on balance, they're a drop in the ocean.
I didn't mean to "say" that Steve should *only* write on trans issues. Just that it's important that he adds a drop in the ocean of insanity.
One thing has give me genuine hope recently: the hyper-woke NYT has now run at least 2-3 articles in the past few months that are clearly questioning some of that ocean of insanity that is concerning to many of us here. I do think the tide is turning and the fringe perspectives are increasingly being seen as exactly that, fringe. Right now the shift appears focused on questioning the medicalization of minors (thank God, that is the place where I'd start too), but I can see it going in other directions eventually, like sports.
Or maybe I'm just a glass-half-full kinda guy LOL.
Yeah, glass half-full. :-)
And, yeah, saw a couple of those articles in NYT. Light at end of trans tunnel?