Main Edition
US
FR
June 12, 2024 - 1:00pm
Over the last few years, media consumers have been treated to a run of feel-good, human-interest stories about people discovering their “true selves” during the Covid-19 pandemic — from high-profile celebrities such as Elliot Page and Dylan Mulvaney, who both came out as transgender in 2020, to ordinary adolescents and young adults.
In the United Kingdom, the Independent described the relationship between pandemic lockdowns and transgender revelations as “a mass egg-cracking event without precedent in history” — before cautioning readers not to draw the wrong conclusions about potential social contagion.
But a new report casts these stories in a rather different light. New healthcare data reveals a “surge” in mental health diagnoses, with patients seeking help for symptoms related to stress, anxiety and depression. Adolescents and young adults have been especially hard hit. Although the report did not track gender dysphoria diagnoses among adults, diagnoses rose by 133% among children and adolescents between 2019 and 2023. Other mental health conditions, such as eating disorders, spiked too. The researchers note that, “[a]lthough the peak of the pandemic is over, it seems to be having a persistent impact on people’s mental well-being, exhibited by the continued uptick in depression and anxiety.”
To what extent is the increase in gender dysphoria diagnoses detachable from these other trends? Do we blame stress, uncertainty, and isolation for the emergence of new depression, anxiety, and eating disorders, while crediting social acceptance and awareness-raising for the simultaneous spike in gender dysphoria diagnoses?
The side-by-side rise in disordered eating and gender distress is a point of particular interest and concern. What we know about the former may tell us something about the latter. Eating disorders are often rooted in an attempt to exert control over the body and may emerge when patients feel out of control in the rest of their lives, when adolescence strikes or — in this case — when the world shuts down, the future looks uncertain, and life moves online where “idealised and altered bodies” reign. Similar dynamics may be in play with the attempt to exert control over the appearance and function of one’s body through transition.
Even the positive stories and too-credulous reporting that circulated during the first year or two of the pandemic drop hints that the spike in gender dysphoria is more complicated than reporters and their subjects would like to admit. A Washington Post piece from 2021 cheerily presents one uncomfortable observation and anecdote after another. For example, there is the wife who found it “unnerving” when she discovered her spouse had “tried on most of the clothes in her closet, including her lingerie” or the 30-year-old who picked a new name “after three hours of conversation” with online strangers — a milestone followed closely by an appointment at Planned Parenthood to start oestrogen.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeBLM was another social contagion from Covid times. It reminded me of self-flagellants in the Middle Ages, ritually punishing themselves in the hope that they would be spared from the plague.
She/he in the photograph is a stupid, aggressive creature who strives to make the lives of those around it as poisonous as possible.
The problem can be solved in 5 minutes. Declare trans transitions cosmetic surgeries and the next day the number of patients will decrease hundreds of times.
“She/he in the photograph is a stupid, aggressive creature who strives to make the lives of those around it as poisonous as possible.” <– Says the child abuser.
‘The problem can be solved in 5 minutes. Declare trans transitions cosmetic surgeries and the next day the number of patients will decrease hundreds of times.” <– An excellent example of how when you bigots complain reality is being changed — it is only your delusions being revealed — you are only projecting.
For once, i agree with you. The post you’re replying to is indeed bigoted.
You, my dear, cannot understand the simplest thing known to most parents – pity corrupts.
Just recently, in one American state, the Republican governor refused to sign a law banning puberty blockers for minors, citing pity for the children who are already taking them. He somehow didn’t think about the children who would be prescribed such “treatment.”
The same story happened with migrants in Europe. Everyone, especially the women, felt sorry for them. Up to tears. Now the tears are shed for a different reason.
.
You may be proud of your tolerance, but be ready to get what you deserved
“He somehow didn’t think about the children who would be prescribed such “treatment.” <– He was exactly thinking of them.
Unlike you, he does not want to force boys to have breasts and periods and he does not want to force girls to have beards and deep voices.
He is not a child abuser, you are.
You have problems with logic, madamx, and with balance. Relax 🙂
“You have problems with logic” <– Then prove it, don’t emptily claim it — and stop advocating for child abuse to be mandatory.
You both seem to have problems with something. Anger, maybe?
With what sang froid should someone confront a delusional child abuser who wants to force boys to have breasts and periods and to force girls to have beards and deep voices?
You’ve missed a fundamental point of online debate. Your chances of converting an opponent are next to nil. The aim is to show less committed onlookers that you are rational, reasonable, appropriately polite – and that your opponent is a fool.
The onlookers are your target audience.
Of course, if you have anger to work off that’s not very satisfying.
You claim you think this is a debate. It is not. It is one person (so far) who knows what is objectively real throwing that in the teeth of child abusing bigots who do not care. No one I am replying to is rational — those lurkers reading may be.
Those who are rational will see the utter lack of any facts backing up the gender critical, and the superfluity of data and the coherence of the argument in favor of gender being an obdurate biological aspect of individuals.
There you go again
Saying what is real, yes.
I note you have yet to offer any fact based reply, or, answer even these simple questions.
Is gender biological? Is it magically always identical to the sex of a person?
I think that gender is significantly innate and biological. I think that genetic research supports that position. I also think it is possible that something genetic or hormonal could cause a sex/gender mismatch. It is also possible that something social or psychological could have a similar effect.
I have sympathy with your position because it is refutable in principle and thus scientific (if this doesn’t make sense to anyone, read Popper). Other theories are frankly not, and some are little more than rationalisations for anger (against men more than trans in my view).
I know you think your case is proven. I’d like to see more research, because the stakes are high. Bad theories wreck lives.
“I’d like to see more research, because the stakes are high.” <– You have yet to offer any excuse for your faith that current research is insufficient.
“Bad theories wreck lives” <– And you have the bad theory 99% accuracy in diagnosing who will not regret medical transition is not good enough, despite the symmetry of problems caused for individuals involved, and the asymmetry of the numbers affected, 99+ vs 1.
I love your baseless presumption I have not read Popper — and your sophists’s assertion he has relevance. He has no more here than that likelihood all the molecules of a glass of water will leap from it by Brownian motion.
“I think that gender is significantly innate and biological.” <– Not that you have any evidence it is anything other to any degree whatsoever.
“I also think it is possible that something genetic or hormonal could cause a sex/gender mismatch.” <– What you claim is possible is what there is exclusively evidence for.
“It is also possible that something social or psychological could have a similar effect.” <– An idea for which no supporting evidence has surfaced in near 80 years. So why do you pretend it is substantively possible?
Read the Cass report
I did, I know why and how what is said of it by the gender critical is horseshit.
As Cass herself agrees, as she told the Kite Trust puberty blockers should be far more widely available.
Two things. Older transsexual women, aged 70+ years and transsexual for more than 50 years, know exactly who they are. Men presenting as women even after surgery and hormones. I have several friends who are transsexual women. They have been hounded by the “trans mob” for being honest and this “mob” have taken every opportunity to shut them down. They have had problems with their prostates, only something men get.
The second thing is that pathologists presented eith the body of a transwoman or trans man, know that when the outer skin is stripped off, there is a male or female body below. No matter the cosmetic surgery or hormones, biology including DNA, will out.
Puberty blockers were researched and developed to stop precocious puberty in children below the age of 10 as their mental wellbeing is damaged when a girl of 6 starts her oeriod ir a boy of 5 starts to develop secindary sex characteristics. Their minds cannot cope with this change. They are given a short course of the blockers to delay the onset of puberty. There is no long term research into what puberty blockers do to healthy children who would go through puberty aged 13/14. Experimenting on children is domething we condemn the Nazis for and yet so many applaud doctors who will prescribe this untested and unresearched “solution” for children questioning their sexuality and personality..
More needs to be invested in mental health services for children and adolescents to help these young people explore why they think they are “in the wrong body”, rather than looking for the quick fix..
We are at the point now where women especially, are being abused for wanting to keep the safe spaces that women fought to set up after Ww2 solely fir women. The reason being, hwving worked with sex offenders and sexusl abusers, is that these men are ordinary. They dont stand out in a crowd of other men. They dont have a tsttoo on their forehead to say “im dangerous, keep away”. Decent men have slways stayed out of women’s spaces and respected our boundaries. But ee cant tell the decent men from the ones eho are dangerous. I am not saying transwomen are all dangerous but a proportion will be and we cant tell which will be and which are safe.
My transsexual friends dont use womens spaces out of respect and in solidarity with biological women and the majority of transwomen will be the same. The activists have spoiled everything for everybody by shouting that “transwomen are women” and exactly the same as natal women when they are not.
“Two things. Older … they are not.”
Not so much as one word you said expressed relevant reality.
A transgender woman is a woman for the same reason that a cisgender woman is — that is how their gender developed while in utero. No more, no less. It is why, for example, cisgender woman with CAIS is a woman.
The gender of a person is biology, you have shown nothing to to the contrary and cannot do so.
Nothing about medical transition is a quick fix, and in well over 70 years, no psychiatric “fix” has ever worked — that is because it is not a psychiatric problem in the first place. It is also the standard for over 20 years and there is nothing experimental about it.
“They have had problems with their prostates, only something men get.” <– Idiot, cancer of “Skene’s glands” is prostate cancer in women. It is even tested for by the same PSA test used for cisgender men.
“They are given a short course of the blockers to delay the onset of puberty.” <– They are given puberty blockers for as long as is required to prevent precocious puberty, including up to 10 years.
There are no such women being abused, there are factless bigots being upbraided for their misplaced misandry, which they stupidly inflict on some women.
From my experience over 40 years talking with transgender people including those you would term transsexual — and mean hundreds — I know you are making up near all or even everything of what you claim to believe about them and how they live. They do not after transition use men’s facilities
I know you to be a liar.
Try to get them removed as moderator of r/lgbt?
Probly not much luck with the periods tho, luv.
No, I don’t have anger, I’m used to seeing Dr. Mengele’s followers on the Internet fighting for the right of “doctors” to sterilize children and teenagers.
Perhaps my comments seem too harsh to you, but I am used to calling a spade a spade, especially when it comes to children.
If being polite in these matters is more important to you than calling the whole teaching on gender bullshit, that’s your choice. I have a different opinion.
Your post, accusing someone you don’t know of being “stupid and aggressive” is an object lesson in bigotry.
The person may well be smarter than you; she is almost certainly less aggressive.
Think on.
This is getting interesting.
Did you notice the who I called “stupid and aggressive”?
Interesting to you, maybe…
You don’t have the wherewithal to argue your case effectively.
I honestly couldn’t make head nor tail of it.
It is not about children. So easy to pretend to be a do gooder and invoke the welfare of children. But it is newspeak. Children are not to be sexualised and children are not able to give consent to such medical intervention. It is vile ideology disguised as compassion which aims at the destruction of family life and the subjugation of the masses so that the ultra rich can have their pleasures. If your really cared about children you would not be saying these things.
It is about some children, because some children are transgender, and every transgender adult was once a transgender child.
“Sexualizing children” has nothing to do with it, neither could you do anything but make a fool of yourself trying to lie further to claim it does.
Children can not give consent to any medical care, so all medical care must be withheld from them — or — in fact that is a non-issue because a parent, guardian, or the court can give consent on their behalf. As for your “such” aspersion, this is medical care for a physical medical problem.
The only ideology involved here is the “gender critical” liars, and you are one. Your ideology is that the facts which prove people are born transgender and deserve what medical help they need for that should be denied it for the sake of your moral vanity.
Gender affirming care has nothing to do with “destroying family life”, that is your ideology, not reality. It has nothing to do with “the subjugation of the masses”, that it does is your ideology, not reality. It also has nothing to do with, “so that the ultra rich can have their pleasures”, and you will not be able to make any even colorable — only a laughable — argument that it does.
I do really care about children, you do not. If they are transgender you want them to be unhelped and miserable.
Struggling to make sense of that one. Can anyone explain.
I’ll try, although it’s very simple. You cannot satisfy the desires of any psychopath. A man with a beard may demand to be considered a woman, an ugly fat woman may be chosen as a beauty queen (Miss Alabama), but in normal society they continue to be considered for who they really are.
But if you start agreeing with idiots, you yourself very quickly and unnoticed become an idiot.
“You cannot satisfy the desires of any psychopath.” <– You are the psychopath. You want to force boys to have breasts and periods and to force girls to have beards and deep voices.
I’m curious. If I understand you correctly, you don’t think sex and gender are related, and that sex is biological, but that gender is not. But you think it is a bad thing if boys have breast and girls have beards, I think? Breast and beards are biological. Why can’t a boy just learn to live with his breasts? I.e., what do you think makes certain boys want to change their biological make-up to conform to a sex, given that sex and biology are not relevant to gender?
Totally the wrong way round. What you describe is a feminist position (social construction of gender). Talia is a biological realist and believes gender is innate and biological. But she believes that sometimes there is a mismatch as a result of genetics and/or hormones. This results in people who feel they are in the wrong body.
“But she believes that sometimes there is a mismatch as a result of genetics and/or hormones.” <– Because that is where the data points. It is not a matter of belief, but of knowing in the same way I know the acceleration of gravity at sea level — it is reliably measured.
What I have exclusively and explicitly said is that both gender and sex are equally biological. They are tissues which develop in utero and only the sex is amenable to any degree of changing its degree of masculinity or femininity thereafter.
“But you think it is a bad thing if boys have breast and girls have beards, I think?” <– It is a very bad thing to force those on them by law or policy, don’t you?
“Why can’t a boy just learn to live with his breasts?” <– Close to never has that ever been done at all, let alone with happiness. Why do you expect otherwise?
“given that sex and biology are not relevant to gender?” <– Because I have said the opposite with respect to biology and gender, it is plain you have in fact never read anything I have written at all with comprehension.
Thanks for the reply. I obviously completely misunderstood you, probably because I haven’t seen this argument before.
I had more questions, but I see you referenced an article on quora below. I’ll have a look.
“I obviously completely misunderstood you, probably because I haven’t seen this argument before.” <– It’s only the actual factual foundation on which gender affirming care has been predicated for well over twenty years.
OK – I agree in part with what you are saying. I also think there is a tendency within our culture to want reality to give way to feelings. I think it’s immature. And I get stick on here for pointing out that this, and other aspects of the trans movement, have their roots in feminism (obese women are beautiful is similar reality denial).
So far, so philosophical. But it still remains to genuinely understand trans phenomena. They are not recent, nor limited to western cultures. I think these people deserve sympathy because they have been thrown a real curved ball. They want to be something that they cannot fully be.
We need more research, caution until we have it, and then as much understanding and sympathy as we can muster.
Talia will, of course, tell us the research has been done and the matter is settled.
Talia will, of course, tell us the research has been done and the matter is settled.
In the meantime, we will continue to cut off what is “unnecessary” for children and sew on what we consider “necessary”
Hence my emphasis on caution. This is where Talia and I part ways. But I think we all have to accept that Talia might be right, or right in relation to some transsexuals but not all. What then?
There is no excuse for you to claim it is caution which justifies forcing 99+ boys and girls to respectively have breasts and periods, and, beards and deep voices — for the sake of saving 1 from the same thing!
“But I think we all have to accept that Talia might be right” <– When have even you seriously considered that, let alone when have done so these other child abuse approving, factless gender critical partisans?
And you think this is a debate ?!
What then?
.
I don’t care, because the answer to your question was given two and a half thousand years ago: primum non nocere.
As for Talia, you can visit her on Quora. There “she” fights a much more intense battle with heretics like me.
For me the issue is closed
And you child abusing imbecile, you have yet to show it is even possibly true, that what you want is not forcing boys to have breasts and periods and forcing girls to have beards and deep voices, and how that is not harm.
“For me the issue is closed” <– It is true you are in a herd bereft of relevant facts.
You don’t care what is real, you don’t care who you hurt or how, you love your lies more than not being a child abuser.
“And I get stick on here for pointing out that this, and other aspects of the trans movement, have their roots in feminism (obese women are beautiful is similar reality denial).” <- There is no “trans movement” not anymore than there was a civil rights movement. Also true it is only about biology, feminism is beside the point, easily half of all transgender people are men.
“So far, so philosophical.” <– In your delusions. It is only about biology in the first place, and only secondarily — because the abuse is customary — not abusing innocent people with merely variant biology. There are no lofty philosophical questions — to claim there are is sophistry.
“We need more research, caution until we have it, and then as much understanding and sympathy as we can muster.” <– Sticking up for what is known now to be real would be a good first step. Too much for you though not to appear to indulge “both sides”.
“Talia will, of course, tell us the research has been done and the matter is settled. <– It is, because no data exists to the contrary of gender affirming care or its predicates, and no reason to think there even may be any much to discover. There are no real unanswered questions about it, neither have you nor can you name any.
You’re ranting. With all humility, what I have just done is what reason looks like. Don’t like it, fine. Neither do many of your opponents. So carry on squabbling. You’re as bad as each other.
“You’re ranting. <– No, I am saying true things you prefer not to acknowledge. No more, no less.
“With all humility, what I have just done is what reason looks like” <– No, what you do is a wondrous display of pusillanimity.
No more than they, you do not care what is provably real. You have never called any of them out on even the most egregious lies. This is not any dry academic exercise, this is a struggle to be permitted a decent life, not to be abused by law and policy for the sake of the moral vanity of bigots.
You are as bad as they.
Deleted as duplicative of a prior post which the Herd finally disappeared showed up.
I’m in partial agreement with both of you. Genuine trans people (or people who sincerely believe that living their lives appropriating the opposite sex makes them happier/whole) have been evident in all cultures throughout history.
What has changed is that current trans ideology asserts that these individuals cannot be themselves or achieve happiness without intensive medicalisation and cosmetic surgeries. Previous cultures have accepted these individuals as a subset of the sex they are, rather than attempt to subsume them into the opposite as if there are no inherent differences.
It is a dangerous approach that not only entrenches stereotypes but risks real psychological and physical harm to those who are told they cannot be themselves unless they fundamentally change themselves. They are told there is something wrong with them. It is streets away from learning to accept and love oneself regardless of flaws, which leads me to assume it can only be driven by the commercial medical industry as a means of extracting profit from states who are expanding the definition of what healthcare is to satisfy the lobbyists who espouse this ideology.
They don’t care about outcomes, in a similar manner to the opioid addiction epidemic they created in America. The bottom line and shareholders is the driver and it doesn’t matter a damn how much damage they cause to societies. The more the better in some sense as they will have medications and surgeries to deal with the fallout too no doubt.
“What has changed is that current trans ideology asserts that these individuals cannot be themselves or achieve happiness without intensive medicalisation and cosmetic surgeries.” <– Nonsense, what has changed is such HRT and surgery is now possible. There is no trans ideology, neither apparently can you or any other gender critical zealot describe it. There is an ideology at work, it is the gender critical ideology which claims no such medical transition is ever justified.
“Previous cultures have accepted these individuals as a subset of the sex they are,’ <– Not necessarily true.
“rather than attempt to subsume them into the opposite as if there are no inherent differences.” <– Your ideologically driven assumption there must always be such inherent differences.
“It is a dangerous approach that not only entrenches stereotypes” <– Bullshit, since it does not exist. It used to, and it is from that era of abusive conversion/aversive therapy that the phrase “true transexxual” dates from.
There is nothing — not one thing — of enforcing any stereotypes you will be able to find in gender affirming care.
“but risks real psychological and physical harm to those who are told they cannot be themselves unless they fundamentally change themselves.” <– Where do you get this horseshit? Do you make it all up on your own?
“They are told there is something wrong with them.” <– Have a clue idiot, we already know it — no one is convincing us of it.
“It is streets away from learning to accept and love oneself regardless of flaws*” <– Imbecile, you are presuming a man should be fine with having breasts and periods and with being seen as being a woman, and that a woman should be fine with having a beard and a period and being seen as being a man. There are such people out there, and they are far more few and far between than even quite binary transgender people are.
*”which leads me to assume it can only be driven by the commercial medical industry as a means of extracting profit from states who are expanding the definition of what healthcare is to satisfy the lobbyists who espouse this ideology.” <– There is no such ideology. Gender affirming care is no more profit driven than is any medical care.
“They don’t care about outcomes” <– Imbecile, they very much do, which is why the 99%+ non-regret rate is quite so important and prominently featured in defenses of gender affirming care, the standard approach now for over 20 years — and destroys your assumptions entirely.
“in a similar manner to the opioid addiction epidemic they created in America” <– Human nature and the unintelligent war on drugs created the opioid epidemic, not the medical industry.
“The bottom line … too no doubt.” <– Ah the fabled, long awaited “backlash”, Always coming, never arriving. Your sort of fool has been waiting for it for decades and will keep right on waiting for it, and never allow yourselves to realize the significance of it ever happening.
There are about 67 million people in the UK. That means if so few as 1% of the about 1% who medically transition regret it enough to sue over their being provided medical transition, there would be about as many lawsuits are there are.
Not much of a foundation for your claims, is it?
Society is still working through the economic and psychological trauma of lockdowns, while avoiding talking about them, and voting in large numbers of politicians who did this to us, or bayed for longer and harsher lockdowns.
The Come to Jesus moment for me during Covid was when 1500 health professionals signed a letter supporting BLM protests because systemic racism was more deadly than Covid. There was zero pushback from the political and medical establishment.
I saw it all as some kind of collective ‘death of the mind’ – millions of people who happily accepted contradictory statements simply because the alternative was too awful for them to contemplate even for a second.
Covid definitely broke a lot of people, and the people who had the most faith in big government broke the hardest in my opinion. Seeing reality meant shattering their worldview and it proved an existential threat to many, hence the unhinged reactions to anybody pointing out said reality.
The alternative being…? The possibility that race-correlated outcomes are more than contingently related to race? The possibility that COVID might kill someone they know?
No, the “alternative” that people could not accept was that it was possible that humans are deeply irrational, deeply self-centered, deeply broken creatures – what foolishness it is to trust yourself, or another human!
It would seem that the virus has run its course on infectability and is now resetting itself as a highly pathogenic virus, so sayeth Geert Vanden Bossche. He believes the kill rate will be much higher due to over vaccinated people with suboptimal immune systems. I wonder how Labour will deal with this if in Power? If this were to happen, will we go back to the economic and psychological trauma of Lockdowns and the inevitable bankruptcy of the UK?
Oh another deceit from Mondegreen, how tedious.
Did you child abusing ‘phobes get the real news?
gov.uscourts.flnd.460963.223.0.pdf
Florida’s mandatory child abuse was nullified.
Also, you are provably in league with religious freaks who tried to raise the dead with prayer alone!
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/bogus-doctors-group-pushed-by-elon
You aren’t just child abusers, you are the enemies Voltaire hoped for, you are ridiculous!
Shocker!!! The American judicial system is politicized. I’m stunned I tell ya. In other news, the DOJ has indicted a whistleblower surgeon who made public that a Texas hospital was still performing surgery on minors after it was made illegal.
It is not political to take note of facts — which you dare not do.
These are facts.
https://taliaperkinssspace.quora.com/People-are-born-transgender-they-are-not-mentally-ill-it-is-no-paraphilia-it-is-a-physical-birth-defect-no-more-a-men
“In other news, the DOJ has indicted a whistleblower surgeon who made public that a Texas hospital was still performing surgery on minors after it was made illegal.” <– No such thing is true, no such law was in place.
Just wave away thr Cass report.
Cass has herself already repudiated what you claim that report says. She said blockers should be far more available to gender dysphoric youth were safe, for example.
Why are you so obsessed with queering children? Tend to your own life.
You tend your own life, and stop abusing children by trying to force some of them to be boys with breasts and periods and some of them to be girls with beards and deep voices. It is not even possible to “queer” anyone, people are born straight, bi, or gay, and born cisgender or transgender — no one is made so.
“It is not even possible to ‘queer’ anyone” – another “fact” that Science has settled, no doubt!
What I find most fascinating is how our society’s use of terms (like science and evidence and so forth) has become so remarkably flexible in these politically-fraught times.
Just like “literally” now means literally *or* figuratively-but-seriously, so words like “science” now mean science *or* carefully-reasoned. So words can mean what they’ve always meant, or the opposite.
More and more we see that the only thing Orwell got wrong was the timeline. If only he’d named it “2024”.
” another “fact” that Science has settled, no doubt!” <– Then find and present your data to the contrary. I’ve been waiting for such for decades, yet there is none.
“What I find .. named it “2024”.” <– Why no, you have nothing relevant to say whatsoever.
No worries! I thrive on personal insults. “Does the world hate you? It hated me first.”
As for data… they are overwhelming – in both directions! And each side says, your data doesn’t count.
My suggestion is that you take your facts and move to a like-minded polity of your choice, and I take my facts and move to a like-minded polity of my choice, and we can see which polity is happy and healthy and thriving in a few decades. We will wager with our lives.
Actually, that’s not a suggestion. We are all wagering with our lives daily, whether we like it or not.
“As for data… they are overwhelming – in both directions!” <– Not, it is not. There is no data on the gender critical side.
That is why you will not cite any.
“My suggestion is … it or not.” <– Child abusing imbecile, your request for an echo chamber where you can tell the lies you love without truth being thrown into you teeth is denied.
But thank you for confirming — as other imbeciles here the UnHerd already have with their claims the US “out of step” — that you are only a herd of willfully ignorant child abusers.
She did.
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/dr-cass-backpedals-from-review-hrt?utm_source=publication-search
She’d like her reputation to be better than Andrew Wakefields’s.
If transgenderism is so “normal”, why does it need such an extensive and invasive array of medical interventions including cancelling natural puberty (necessary for the healthy development of bones and brain), pumping hormones to force the body to go through a developmental path it was not designed for in the first place, followed by surgeries that include the ablation of healthy, functional organs? That sounds way more child-phobe than preventing such medicalization.
“If transgenderism is … preventing such medicalization.” <– It is normal for people to have medical problems. Your “question” is as stupid and evil as you proposing that some women should be happy enough as suits you to be forced to have beards and deep voices, and look and be perceived as men — and — that some men should be happy enough as suits you to be forced to have breasts and periods, and look to be and be perceived to be women.
With respect to youth, you are claiming it would be a fine thing for some boys to be forced by law and policy to have breasts and periods, and that some girls should be forced to have beards and deep voices.
That is what is really at stake here. Complaints about “medicalization” in this are as stupid as saying the same thing about chemotherapy for cancer.
I have been waiting for anyone who is of the “gender critical” ideology to scrape up any actual facts which excuse their enthusiasm for monstrous child abuse, waiting for years. I am still waiting for any from those in this Herd here.
I really don’t understand why you continue to prowl around here calling people imbeciles for disagreeing with you and looking with blinkered view at any evidence people have spent any time putting to you. Quite dishonest to say that nobody has refuted you, as I have seen quite the opposite over and over… so while this is going to be yet again a pointless exercise, I have some time to spare:
Fact: Humans are ordered to produce either of two gametes: sperm or egg. While the ability to do so/reproduce does not always work out (infertility, intersex, etc) it does not the change the fact the body is genetically coded towards one or the other. This results in certain sexual characteristics and pathways developing in accordance with having egg or sperm gametes.
Fact: While adolescent puberty is seen as the stage where male and female really start to differentiate because it is when sexual characteristics most notably change, and thus why it is the target of medical intervention, this is actually only the final piece of sex specific development. There are two earlier “puberties” which occur, one prior to birth, and the other finishing in the first few weeks months after birth (depending on if it is male or female and known as mini puberty). These earlier phases have similar rises in the key hormones of testosterone and estrogen as well as other signifiant hormones and are ordered based on if the person is supposed to produce egg or sperm. These are significant points of development because not only do they set male and female along a particular development pathway such as for things like muscle mass, it sets ups specific pathways and neuronal circuitry which will come into play during adolescent puberty. I have yet to see any research on this component relating to people with gender dysphoria, in part because we still only partially understand the full processes.
Fact: Sex specific development is much more than estrogen and testosterone. While these are key drivers, in particular with secondary characteristics, they are not the full story of development/forming the sex specific body and mind. I don’t believe or have at least not seen any studies which look at the underlying pathways to show just flooding the body with either of the hormones completely changes these physiological processes, particularly given the previous point.
Opinion: Lying to people that they can change sex is abusive and false. While we can change some things so people on the surface appear a certain way, it is highly unethical to make them lifelong medical patients just based on predominantly psychological studies which are difficult to replicate and experience bias. If an adult wants to take these risks, that is their choice (though I push back on including the in sexed spaces like sports), however putting children in this position who cannot understand what it means and who are told by the adults around them that they can magically change a fundamental and undeniable biological fact about themselves is irresponsible and again, unethical, particularly given how much children are battered by the winds of change and discovery while growing up. While you may rely on the emotional argument that it is cruel to make “a boy grow breasts or a girl have a deep voice”, I say it is even more cruel to lie to them (much like how we push back against eating disorders even though it can result in more distress), and to medicalise otherwise perfectly healthy bodies and indeed minds (as the long term impact on this is also still lacking study). We as a society and culture must find another way to care for children experiencing distress besides building a fantasy world around them which will inevitably crumble.
“I really don’t understand why you continue to prowl around here calling people imbeciles for disagreeing with you’ <– Becaues the best of them merely are deliberately ignorant, as opposed to also malignantly intending to abuse adults and children they mindlessly loathe and hate.
“Fact: Humans are ordered … or sperm gametes.” <– Reality, you have no right to force onto people what you claim is an order.
“Fact: While adolescent puberty … the full processes.” <– Amazing the degree to which you can produce word salad of no relevance whatsoever you can relate, even where you accidentally say something not relevant but true. For example, puberty is very well understood, nothing relevant about it is any mystery.
“Fact: Sex specific development … the previous point.” <– There again, nothing there is true and relevant.
“Opinion: Lying to people … will inevitably crumble.” <– Deliberate stupidity, ignorance, and malignance, overall a fine example of deceit and Dunning-Kruger effect from you.
The sex of a person can be changed just exactly as is on the label. It does not matter if it doesn’t suit you — you and your opinions are rightfully immaterial to the issue. You have yet to explain why you should have any say.
It is not unethical to treat a medical problem with medical technology. It is not unethical to treat a medical problem with medical treatment which is of trivial intrusion into anyone’s life lifelong compared to the misery alleviated — and they are the sole rightful judge of it.
You simply lie to claim any lies are told to children*, or that there is any evidence those children are unable to comprehend what is involved (stretching as you do the definition of children to 17yo’s.). The fundamental, undeniable relevant fact of transgender children is their sex has not developed congruently to their gender. You may well lie and claim otherwise — so what? Your loving a lie still leaves it a lie. You will cite no objective facts you are correct.
*Well, there’s that lie that it is as simple as XX and XY, and that is a lie.
It is a factual argument that prohibiting gender affirming care forces girls to have beards and deep voices and forces boys to habve breasts and periods. I don’t really wonder why you feel the need to lie about that. Your bigotry is deliberately ignorant hatred and loathing, in this case of some children.
Again, you have yet to mention any lie told to children as a part of gender affirming care. If you were honest, you could nail that part down.
You have the only fantasy here of the two of us. You pretend gender is not real and as physical as the sex of a person is, and you pretend their sex is a reason to condemn people even children to misery unhelped — and you pretend there is any other help to had, you can’t name any.
You wishcast, and no better.
Btw, since no more than 1% of people who choose gender affirming care who are approved for it by WPATH standards of care do regret it, apparently what crumbles are your dreams of having anything true and relevant to say.
Should you reply without any actual objective relevant facts backing you, you will deserve only derision and contempt for being the hopeless child abuser you are.
Snowflakery at it’s finest.
Correlation isn’t causation. It’s a hypothesis worth testing though.
I’m losing track of the possible explanations for the trans phenomena: political, social, psychological and biological: from pervy men, through challenge to the patriarchy, to man in woman’s body. With ideologues picking their pet theory to suit.
We need some authoritative research to test these ideas.
You have no excuse for pretending authoritative research has not already been recorded.
What sample size would you require?
Can we get someone on Unherd to explain, in rational terms the opposing views. It’s getting boring all this stuff running in one direction. Or someone who can give a reasonable overview of the different theories. It’s supposed to be Unherd not Herd.
Failing that, can we skip to “trans mystery solved” please.
“Can we get someone on Unherd to explain, in rational terms the opposing views.” <– Of course not, it is only really a panicky, uninformed, unthinking, emotion driven Herd.
Can we blame Trump?
In 1949 Dr. Antonio Moniz was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for a treatment he developed based upon research done earlier in the century on primates at Yale University. His treatment was hailed as miraculous and rapidly adopted across the entire spectrum of medical institutions including premier psychiatric facilities of the Ivy League. The treatment was frontal lobotomy, now considered a grotesque violation of a patient’s humanity and a shameful chapter in the history of psychiatry. The mania for gender reassignment in the manner it is being implemented today will also one day be looked upon as a grotesque misapplication of medical and surgical intervention.
Except unlike lobotomy, gender affirming care has an over 40 year history of working well well, and being based on facts and data which are well understood — unlike lobotomy.
That psychiatry once thought being gay, or bi, or transgender was a mental illness is what is shameful.
That and that you are a proud child abuser, a person wanting to force boys to have breasts and periods and to force girls to have beards and deep voices.
You offer no references for your bold assertions, which are by the way incorrect. I doubt you have the qualifications to judge efficacy of any medical treatments. Your nasty shriek of “child abuser” demonstrates that you are not a person of reason but merely another screamer who thinks that, if you say something nasty and loud enough, it will carry the day.
Yes, I have always offered here a link to a list of links to what is true and representative of transgender people.
It will take days probably for UnHerd to let the link see the light of day (or it will come and go) I will post it again here with the phrase “here it is”.
You, like every other “gender critical” cultist here will dismiss the data without any objectively justified reason to do so.
It is merely true that the consequence of you getting what you say you want is that some boys will be forced to have breasts and periods and that some girls will be forced to have beards and deep voices. You never consider the consequences of your being wrong, or, what if you were right the world would look like.
Which it does not.
It seems to be you who “never considers the consequences of being wrong”. I do so often as a matter of intellectual discipline and occupational habit. Your “source” is merely part of an unsubstantiated manufactured polemic which has not stood the test of reproducible scientific inquiry. In short, it is crap generated for political purposes. You know nothing about me and yet feel certain in calling me names like “cultist”, which demonstrates your proclivity to speak without the benefit of accurate information. Your “assessment” of gender issues is no different than your assessment of me: made by someone governed by their emotions rather than reason. Rave on!!
Here it is.
https://taliaperkinssspace.quora.com/People-are-born-transgender-they-are-not-mentally-ill-it-is-no-paraphilia-it-is-a-physical-birth-defect-no-more-a-men
> In the DSM-5, published in 2013, the term “Gender Identity Disorder” was replaced with “Gender Dysphoria.” This change aimed to better describe the experiences of those whose gender identity differs from their assigned sex at birth without pathologizing their identity. The focus shifted from the identity itself being considered a disorder to the distress and impairment that might arise from the incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender.
If the APA hadn’t allowed itself to be pressured to this change by the trans lobby, we wouldn’t even be discussing whether this is a mental health issue or not.
“If the APA hadn’t allowed itself to be pressured to this change by the trans lobby, we wouldn’t even be discussing whether this is a mental health issue or not.” <– A falsehood, because there never was any evidence it was a mental illness — it was only presumed so in ignorance.
With the evidence now accumulated that it is not, demands it be classified as being not a mentall illness would be far more “loud”. A lie you love is still a lie.
You will still now be unable to show any evidence that being transgender is anything but a physical variance and not any mental illness.
People lament that the internet is segregating people into conversations with like-minded people, and preventing people from engaging in conversations ‘across’ viewpoint perspectives. This thread shows why: “you’re an idiot” and “the science is settled” and on and on it goes.
It is not just that people disagree about what to do, they also disagree about how to figure out what to do. When one person thinks all the evidence points one way, and another person thinks *the exact same evidence* points another way, we discover the scariest kind of anarchy. Imagine if a court case could proceed like that! (Oh, wait…)
“When one person thinks all the evidence points one way, and another person thinks *the exact same evidence* points another way,” <– That is not what is going on. There is no overlap to the evidence agreed on. The gender critical here dismiss measured reality and cite frauds.
This is a link to a set of links to measured reality.
https://taliaperkinssspace.quora.com/People-are-born-transgender-they-are-not-mentally-ill-it-is-no-paraphilia-it-is-a-physical-birth-defect-no-more-a-men
The gender critical here dismiss those without finding objective cause to, and cite outright lies like ~80% of transgender children desist~ , they are deliberately ignorant liars. They are happy to abuse transgeden children, and even have here said no such people actually exist even to be abused by the denial of their proper medicla care.
And this is how the court cases generally go.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flnd.460963/gov.uscourts.flnd.460963.223.0.pdf
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/landmark-ruling-montana-judge-blocks?utm_source=publication-search
While not cited there, I particularly like the judge who referred to the gender critical as “obvious charlatans”.
Now for the interminable wait for the Herders here to actually let their skittish, panicky animals see truth, which might trouble them.
Nobody is “born in the wrong body”. You are what you are.
And the measured physical facts and results of their practical, medical application both prove some people are born with a sex not typically or even at all corresponding to the gender they develop between their ears while in utero. If anything, that is more “born in the wrong body” as is someone born with a harelip or a clubbed foot.
Why should transgender people alone not receive medical care for that physical they have, in a time in their lives when it is most advantageous?
Was it the pandemic itself, or the governmental and MSM response that painted a doom and gloom scenario?