Unfortunately, most people simply do not do their own research about medical interventions for themselves OR their children. People like the early PITT parents (pre-Cass) are the exception, not the rule. So while I agree with Cory that people should know by now that there is no good evidence for sex-modification medicalization of kids, I agree with Jamie that they still trust their docs. Most people just do go with the doctor's advice (and really should not, about anything.) I recently got cataract surgery. If I had not extensively researched on my own, I would have been guided by the process and the doctor to make the wrong choices about the surgery, which would have significantly affected the rest of my life. I booked extra appointments to go over my questions as well. This is in an area that is not controversial! And yet, the doctor told me that maybe one patient a year does this kind of research about something so consequential as her vision. Most people just do what the doctors suggest most of the time, and the doctors do not have enough information (because there is not enough time) to really counsel people wisely about their medical choices. The worst juggernaut are the medical bodies. As long as they do not change, the docs do not change, and more harm is done.
I am finishing reading Marty Makary's book published last year, Blind Spots - When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health. Pulling many pieces together in this one book is convincing that one should be paying more attention to not mindlessly taking medical advice or even organization recommendations. Figuring out what to do about your health takes more time and effort than some may want to invest, but would be well worth it in many cases.
That sounds like an interesting book! I think it is worth it, though it's a lot of time and effort and can feel stressful as it's easier to just do what the doc says. But we live in a time where we CAN get information that is helpful. While there is a lot of bogus information on the internet, there is also good information and solid sources. But as we have learned from the tragedies in gender medicine, just because the Mayo Clinic or Harvard says something is the right path does not mean it is. So I'm skeptical of everything, and also open to alternative sources of information. And I have learned to trust myself and my body more than what anybody else tells me to do. Which means really tuning into my sensations, paying attention to my dreams and intuition too. Which is a very cool process!
The belief that trans identifying men are "lowering" themselves is SO common. I remember trying to convince a former (male) friend that self-ID would make women vulnerable to predatory men (something that I myself have been a victim of, which he knew), and he refused to believe me because "No man would embarrass himself like that if he wasn't really a woman on the inside. That would be shameful." This coming from an uber-progressive self-proclaimed male feminist. Tell me what you really think of women, mate.
Yip, I had the same experience. The guy basically said "no cis man would ever pretend to be a trans woman just to gain access to women's spaces, it would be too embarrassing".
This guy wasn't a cis ally though, he was an out and out queer who sincerely believed that deep down everyone was a pervert of some kind.
While there is plenty of misogyny among trans-identified males and other pro-"womanface" types, I do not think that misogyny is the whole story at all when it comes to regular, everyday straight or gay men feeling womanface is mortifying.
One of the reasons that females dressed in male garb attract less opprobrium than the other way around is, it's true, that male garb is usually considered a "default" (as men have themselves been thought a default) and more utilitarian--and female garb more "special" and more suited to the particular beauty and charms of women. So there's a lot of understanding about how women of all stripes just might prefer utilitarian gear--but also a gut feeling that male bodies don't merit or suit feminine attire. With male transvestism there is a pretense to delicacy that just isn't present--and this jarring incongruence leads many to wonder *why* someone male is practicing sex mimicry. And here we need to understand that from an evolutionary standpoint and across the animal kingdom mimicry, including sex mimicry, is frequently associated with predation.
So there are lots of reasons folks can get the ick. Blackface is something most people would never do; it is not hard to imagine that donning either blackface or womanface would harm *one's own* reputation as worthy of respect--not because black people or women are *worse* but because the *mimicry* calls the *mimic's* honor into question.
What are the boundaries, though? Where do we draw the line? Well, we each get to get the ick whenever we feel like it, so...
Personally, I find a wide variety of sex-stereotype nonconformity to be perfectly natural and fun (effeminate males, boyish women, the 1980s etc.) But trans ideology harms women, girls and boys both by medicalization and by ENABLING PREDATION even when medicalization is not involved.
Well said. My thought was that the main reason why becoming a transwoman is seen as embarrassing by others (not just males) is not because of misogyny, but because pretending that you are something you are not and can never be is "weird", thus making others question your sanity. This applies to transmen as well, but transmen don't give people the creeps in the same way because there isn't this "wolf in sheep's clothing" aspect, i.e. the potential for predation.
Merely dressing and acting effeminately, on the other hand, without actually trying to pretend that you are a woman, doesn't have the same effect on most people, I believe, and wouldn't generally be seen as embarrassing (although there are surely conservative-minded people who find that repulsive as well).
"This applies to transmen as well, but transmen don't give people the creeps in the same way because there isn't this 'wolf in sheep's clothing' aspect, i.e. the potential for predation."
No, you're right. Transmen don't give us the creeps in the same was as cross-dressing fetishists. They're still creepy as hell because they're so damn spunky on their testosterone high. And don't get me started on the deluded women who think they're gay men.
Also, I have met many people who have no idea there is any question about gender interventions for young people--people with teen kids. They think it is a tried and true approach to help young people. They are responding to the medical associations as Lisa says, a medical misinformation system.
Re: the Wu / Bowers catfight on YouTube… Wu came out the clear winner (if you could
have a winner in this “debate.”) Marci Bowers flat out denies all these things that are clearly happening: gender ideology indoctrination in schools, gender clinics practicing without any guardrails.
Around 1:01 Jamie says “I think Marci’s in a weird bubble.” Ben later implies that Marci doesn’t have a great relationship with the truth. That sounds more accurate than Bowers being in a bubble. Imagine you built your entire career on a medical scandal, and you come to realize you’re on a sinking Titanic. You’re going to flat out lie and deny everything that’s going on. It’s soothing to keep lying and denying, you convince yourself everything is fine.
Yeah, the lies were coming thick and fast from Bowers. I felt it wasn't just self-soothing, but quite desperate, probably trying to establish as much plausible deniability as possible as the ship takes on water, and repeating the "I'm just a surgeon" line, while apparently also being an expert on the SoC8. One bit that looked fairly genuine, but was shocking to me, was when Wu brought up the virtual meeting video of WPATH practitioners saying the quiet parts out loud (like kids and parents not really understanding enough to give consent), and Bowers was clueless. Apparently the WPATH Files passed him by.
When pushed on the lack of evidence for medical transition (of minors - both seemed to imagine it was solid for adults), Bowers turned to the Delphi methodology to save the day, having stated that WPATH is a science-driven organisation and Delphi being an ad-hoc ask-the-panel process, making it ripe for groupthink and other types of bias. Then, when pushed to admit that this wasn't based on science, he said it was, hand-waving at the studies on adult transition (which are, as we know, very poor).
It appeared that Wu was making more reasonable points, but this was only because of the focus on things he now wants to attack WPATH over, while he's still utterly away with the fairies on most of it. I'd seen Brianna Wu just once before in a debate, and did a bit more research on him, and it seems he has a history of muck-raking, attacking his peers and allies, and generally demonstrating enormous narcissism.
Yes 🙌 💯 Wu is dangerous and needs to be kept away from the Dems / left, if we ever want to see the end of pediatric gender medicine. His case for “special boys” like him needs to be buried.
Are parents of trans kids munchausen by proxy parents? I agree that it's not all of them, not even the majority and I think it is unhelpful for people on "our side" to call all parents "transhausen" or yo march out the vegan cat analogy. But there's definitely some portion that are and I suspect it's higher than we realize, especially with how social media and political rallies and testimony can be used. It's also a lot easier condition to fake/force on a child. Read Marc Feldman's book on the topic of munchausen's (now called fictitious disorder) called Dying to Be Ill. Feldman is a professor and considered *the* expert on this topic. His book has a case study of a mother doing this by trying to create a trans child. There's absolutely no politics or handwringing when describing this case. It's just one of many examples in his book.
Cori, I work with children and their families. A lot of families, even highly educated ones, will trust whatever the professional tells them. "Do your own research" is seen as a dog whistle for being right wing or a conspiracy theorist for a lot of people. They see the Cass Report (if they've ever even heard of it in their bubble) as being in the same category as the Great Barrington Declaration. There's also a reverse engineered trust among many people that if a child or teen was medicalized or affirmed, it's because they were correctly and scientifically diagnosed as trans by a doctor.
Jamie, I know at least one person for whom the extremely inappropriate behavior you're describing from the mental health clinic employee in Montana acts as more evidence for why children must be affirmed and transitioned. She sees that behavior as proof of trauma from not being affirmed as a child (or adult) and it must be tolerated and understood in that context. We prevent more people like that by affirming and transitioning people so they aren't traumatized by not being affirmed and transitioned.
Helen Joyce has said that the parents who have transitioned their kids will be TRAs for the rest of their lives, but I can't help but think that might only apply to the really smart/successful ones whose belief in their own intellectual and moral superiority is rock solid. Assuming there are a fair few cases of Munchausens by proxy lurking within the trans movement I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years a lot of those parents switched sides, especially if the bottom really falls out of the trans movement, because what they really want is attention and having a child who has been harmed by the medical system would be a good way to get it.
Very insightful comment, thank you. I just wanted to note that in a way, the Cass Report (while a different kind of document) IS in the same category as the Great Barrington Declaration, namely with regard to the way it has been falsely demonized as politically motivated (i.e. right wing), and in the way liberals have tried to "debunk" it by subjecting the author(s) to personal attacks and impugning their motives, without engaging with its propositions in good faith. One could have debated the GBD's potential shortcomings without calling the authors (from Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford no less) "fringe epidemiologists", and with hindsight, many former fans of lockdown policies now have to acknowledge the immense harms, especially for children, the GBD authors predicted and concede that the virus was never going to be eradicated or even contained, as everyone now knows but could have known back then.
While I abhor just about everything about the Trump administration, seeing Jay Bhattacharya as NIH Director is sweet poetic justice. He was not a fringe epidemiologist, but rather someone arguing to follow established pandemic response policies, as this compilation of opinions from early in the pandemic show: https://checkyourwork.kelleykga.com/p/dr-jay-was-not-a-fringe-epidemiologist
Moti Gorin, Jilles Smids, and @johnlantos discuss the need for clinicians to conduct thorough research on the risks and benefits of gender-affirming care.
I read a piece a few months ago on symbolic inversion that contained the following passage I found insightful about the way deconstruction actually tends to play out:
“I’ve mentioned how deconstruction leads to floating signifiers. In the absence of a viable replacement for dismantled conceptual structures, what then is to be done with the symbols left floating above the rubble? Turn them upside-down of course. In the simple rejection mentality of contemporary culture, reversal, subversion, and inversion are the only semiotic techniques available. Fed up with the hypocrisies of Christianity? Turn a cross upside-down. Uneasy about the character flaws and misdeeds of prominent historical figures? Turn them into villains. Ready to move beyond the patriarchy? Make the hero a girl. This is the non-solution proffered by the methods of deconstruction.
The last example has been one of the most popular reversals for a while now and is my primary subject of exploration here. It seems to me that symbolic inversions actually tend to have the opposite of the intended effect, inadvertently serving to strengthen and reinforce the structures they seek to subvert. The act of inversion provides a means to air grievances against the system while allowing it to hum along untouched, as it all the while grows larger and more powerful through lack of an effective counterforce. […] Simply shoving a female protagonist into the archetypal masculine role actually amounts to the tacit acceptance of the hegemony of the masculine. The female character is shown to be inherently bereft of her own virtues and must embody the male hero archetype in order to be worthy of our attention. In this way, the patriarchy is perpetuated.”
He goes on to propose Joan of Arc as an appropriate archetypal antidote to our societal woes. I enjoyed his ideas, but fundamentally disagree with his diagnosis, and therefore his antidote. IMO, Western culture had grown staid, but in a feminine way, not a masculine one. Think Jo Freeman’s “The Tyranny of Structurelessness.” Which got me to thinking about who the appropriate person-as-archetype replacement for Joan of Arc would be, her spiritual inverse, and immediately I was like, “Oh! Donald Trump.” 😅😅😅
I had started wondering, wait, is that comment from Marci Bowers really *the* thing everyone’s been going off when saying kids who have been puberty blocked at Tanner Stage 2 will never have an orgasm? Because it seems to be the only source I’ve ever seen referenced by people making that claim. I remember asking about that a while back, and no one popped up with any other sources. So thanks for mentioning that, Lisa; and if you’re reading this and happen to have one, please share.
I like Cori’s book suggestion; may check that out. Been thinking a lot lately about how two of the more common hindrances to understanding something seem to be 1. Not actually wanting to understand it. 2. Assuming that you already do.
If transitioning children can now be considered to be abusive, is it not the practitioners facilitating medication and surgery not those guilty of the abuse, being in possession of the full implications of doing so as professionals. Their awareness is so much greater than that of any lay person, and the distress faced by children expressing the desire to transition us a silimsrku disabling factor, thus, as I suspect is the case in the majority of cases, these procedures are enacted on the advice of, at the very least undertaken by professionals, how is it the parents, and not the medical professionals responsible for enacting the procedures, that are subject to accusations of abuse. I would counter that the abuse is institutional and the victims are not solely the children but their entire families.
Re: Cori’s comments on parents still bringing their kids to clinics - the information desert in Canada is still very real. Canadian media particularly the CBC still refuses to report on the Cass review (except to say that it is discredited). The Canadian pediatric association just renewed their commitment to affirmation-only, and talk therapy for gender distress is criminalized. There is no official source to turn to for real information. I invite you to look at the Transcare BC website
Yikes! Canadas reckoning with this movement is going to be soul destroying when it happens. I wonder if they'll be the last nation standing that practices GAC when all the others have dropped it.
There's quite a lot to unpack for the Wu/Bowers shindig with host Alex Grodd on his channel, The Disagreement. The very end, where they are supposed to state the other's stance, was a total failure, as these 2 narcissists only talk over each other. Wu didn't come prepared with the evidence in the Swedish Study of Death records, (Cecilia Dhejne, et al, Karolinska Inst, 2011) but then that would "hurt adults." They claim to be covering consent and what's the best treatment for "trans youth," but Bowers takes off on all sorts of tangents, and especially seems to warm up about the eunuchs section of the SOC 8 from WPATH. He reminds me so much of my ex husband, especially the way he claims Wu is attacking WPATH. I've transcribed the first 24 minutes at my blog, uteheggen.substack.com, and will post parts of the second half when I finish. I also plan to string together several of Bowers' lengthy pontifications, which are quite revealing. In the end, their narcissism and competitiveness are a major take away.
Considering the depth of information available to parents about the iatragenic harm of a vast majority of current medical interventions for most every situation…the info is out there, it simply takes a strong willed and dedicated person to find the best information and act on it despite it being unpopular.
It’s not enough to just plead ignorance-the fact that they choose to be ignorant is a CHOICE. They have a huge
Responsibility that they are not taking on by trusting Fake authority figures.
I have been finding lots of info about this for at least 5 years now-and I do not even have a child going through this. If I-someone with only a sideways interest- can find it, then a parent making lifelong decisions about their child’s body can also be responsible for finding it. I just can’t let these parents off the hook-this is too anti reality and anti health to not raise red flags for any mentally well and reasonably sane adult
Ultimately it is the parents responsibility to not make permanent changes to their children’s bodies without due diligence. My own mother agreed to put me on hormonal birth control without asking for alternatives. Many years later I still do not have a cycle. That was a mistake on her part, and on the part of the medical “professional” (who I do believe shares more responsibility). Was it abusive? No. Neglectful? Yes. Ultimately we allow “professionals” too much leeway and it is partly because they behave as if they know all-that is a manipulative dynamic that comes from a person with god complex who believes they somehow know much more than they’ve taken the time to actually learn.
Any parent who allows removal of body parts…terrible. I believe that has crossed into abuse -any sane and healthy adults should take pause there.
Thank you for discussing this issue with such complexity and nuance.
Clinicians and medical professionals certainly have a greater responsibility to learn about and explore (and critique) growing trends in comparison to their initial training and expertise, and their experience and intuition, especially when it conflicts with new guidance from their professional organizations, AND when the “treatments” have such irreversible consequences. I believe that calling it child abuse, due to the iatrogenic harm caused, is appropriate, at least as it applies to the medical professionals treating this population with “affirming care.”
One of the factors keeping the bar low is the current state of medical and clinical practice, in which doctors are overwhelmed with growing numbers of patients per day, and have little time to respond to their patients, besides handing them a prescription.
The “exceptionalism” factor is also a huge piece of the cultural acceptance of the ideology.
Such great points. Of course the quick-fix and diagnosing/medicalizing of every-day life has been an epidemic for over 25 years, growing, and a troubling yet inevitable factor in the “gender treatment” phenomenon.
Parents have been led to accept the ideology in an effort to believe they’re learning to listen to and attune to their kids, perhaps aware of the unmet needs in their own upbringing, in which their feelings were often disregarded. For some, I believe there is an effort to become “great parents” and live a progressive life, one where doing things better than their own parents means to affirm your kids’ feelings and ideas - even though following the ideological script actually sidesteps real attunement, and healthy attachment.
Many parents are not doing the in-depth work to understand the level of parental discipline and attunement that creating a better family dynamic actually requires.
There are so many ingredients and threads to tease out and unravel re: the parents’ responsibility in affirming their kids’ ideation.
Unfortunately, most people simply do not do their own research about medical interventions for themselves OR their children. People like the early PITT parents (pre-Cass) are the exception, not the rule. So while I agree with Cory that people should know by now that there is no good evidence for sex-modification medicalization of kids, I agree with Jamie that they still trust their docs. Most people just do go with the doctor's advice (and really should not, about anything.) I recently got cataract surgery. If I had not extensively researched on my own, I would have been guided by the process and the doctor to make the wrong choices about the surgery, which would have significantly affected the rest of my life. I booked extra appointments to go over my questions as well. This is in an area that is not controversial! And yet, the doctor told me that maybe one patient a year does this kind of research about something so consequential as her vision. Most people just do what the doctors suggest most of the time, and the doctors do not have enough information (because there is not enough time) to really counsel people wisely about their medical choices. The worst juggernaut are the medical bodies. As long as they do not change, the docs do not change, and more harm is done.
I am finishing reading Marty Makary's book published last year, Blind Spots - When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health. Pulling many pieces together in this one book is convincing that one should be paying more attention to not mindlessly taking medical advice or even organization recommendations. Figuring out what to do about your health takes more time and effort than some may want to invest, but would be well worth it in many cases.
That sounds like an interesting book! I think it is worth it, though it's a lot of time and effort and can feel stressful as it's easier to just do what the doc says. But we live in a time where we CAN get information that is helpful. While there is a lot of bogus information on the internet, there is also good information and solid sources. But as we have learned from the tragedies in gender medicine, just because the Mayo Clinic or Harvard says something is the right path does not mean it is. So I'm skeptical of everything, and also open to alternative sources of information. And I have learned to trust myself and my body more than what anybody else tells me to do. Which means really tuning into my sensations, paying attention to my dreams and intuition too. Which is a very cool process!
The belief that trans identifying men are "lowering" themselves is SO common. I remember trying to convince a former (male) friend that self-ID would make women vulnerable to predatory men (something that I myself have been a victim of, which he knew), and he refused to believe me because "No man would embarrass himself like that if he wasn't really a woman on the inside. That would be shameful." This coming from an uber-progressive self-proclaimed male feminist. Tell me what you really think of women, mate.
Yip, I had the same experience. The guy basically said "no cis man would ever pretend to be a trans woman just to gain access to women's spaces, it would be too embarrassing".
This guy wasn't a cis ally though, he was an out and out queer who sincerely believed that deep down everyone was a pervert of some kind.
While there is plenty of misogyny among trans-identified males and other pro-"womanface" types, I do not think that misogyny is the whole story at all when it comes to regular, everyday straight or gay men feeling womanface is mortifying.
One of the reasons that females dressed in male garb attract less opprobrium than the other way around is, it's true, that male garb is usually considered a "default" (as men have themselves been thought a default) and more utilitarian--and female garb more "special" and more suited to the particular beauty and charms of women. So there's a lot of understanding about how women of all stripes just might prefer utilitarian gear--but also a gut feeling that male bodies don't merit or suit feminine attire. With male transvestism there is a pretense to delicacy that just isn't present--and this jarring incongruence leads many to wonder *why* someone male is practicing sex mimicry. And here we need to understand that from an evolutionary standpoint and across the animal kingdom mimicry, including sex mimicry, is frequently associated with predation.
So there are lots of reasons folks can get the ick. Blackface is something most people would never do; it is not hard to imagine that donning either blackface or womanface would harm *one's own* reputation as worthy of respect--not because black people or women are *worse* but because the *mimicry* calls the *mimic's* honor into question.
What are the boundaries, though? Where do we draw the line? Well, we each get to get the ick whenever we feel like it, so...
Personally, I find a wide variety of sex-stereotype nonconformity to be perfectly natural and fun (effeminate males, boyish women, the 1980s etc.) But trans ideology harms women, girls and boys both by medicalization and by ENABLING PREDATION even when medicalization is not involved.
Well said. My thought was that the main reason why becoming a transwoman is seen as embarrassing by others (not just males) is not because of misogyny, but because pretending that you are something you are not and can never be is "weird", thus making others question your sanity. This applies to transmen as well, but transmen don't give people the creeps in the same way because there isn't this "wolf in sheep's clothing" aspect, i.e. the potential for predation.
Merely dressing and acting effeminately, on the other hand, without actually trying to pretend that you are a woman, doesn't have the same effect on most people, I believe, and wouldn't generally be seen as embarrassing (although there are surely conservative-minded people who find that repulsive as well).
"This applies to transmen as well, but transmen don't give people the creeps in the same way because there isn't this 'wolf in sheep's clothing' aspect, i.e. the potential for predation."
No, you're right. Transmen don't give us the creeps in the same was as cross-dressing fetishists. They're still creepy as hell because they're so damn spunky on their testosterone high. And don't get me started on the deluded women who think they're gay men.
Erin Reed:
https://hsph.harvard.edu/events/engaging-the-public-on-lgbtq-health-a-conversation-with-journalist-erin-reed/ Harvard School of Public Health talk
Also, WPATH: https://x.com/LeorSapir/status/1770129637932216499
but seems reference to Reed is gone...
vs. the great article by Block on what the US is doing with the Cass Review final report:
https://www.bmj.com/content/385/bmj.q1141
Also, I have met many people who have no idea there is any question about gender interventions for young people--people with teen kids. They think it is a tried and true approach to help young people. They are responding to the medical associations as Lisa says, a medical misinformation system.
Re: the Wu / Bowers catfight on YouTube… Wu came out the clear winner (if you could
have a winner in this “debate.”) Marci Bowers flat out denies all these things that are clearly happening: gender ideology indoctrination in schools, gender clinics practicing without any guardrails.
Around 1:01 Jamie says “I think Marci’s in a weird bubble.” Ben later implies that Marci doesn’t have a great relationship with the truth. That sounds more accurate than Bowers being in a bubble. Imagine you built your entire career on a medical scandal, and you come to realize you’re on a sinking Titanic. You’re going to flat out lie and deny everything that’s going on. It’s soothing to keep lying and denying, you convince yourself everything is fine.
Yeah, the lies were coming thick and fast from Bowers. I felt it wasn't just self-soothing, but quite desperate, probably trying to establish as much plausible deniability as possible as the ship takes on water, and repeating the "I'm just a surgeon" line, while apparently also being an expert on the SoC8. One bit that looked fairly genuine, but was shocking to me, was when Wu brought up the virtual meeting video of WPATH practitioners saying the quiet parts out loud (like kids and parents not really understanding enough to give consent), and Bowers was clueless. Apparently the WPATH Files passed him by.
When pushed on the lack of evidence for medical transition (of minors - both seemed to imagine it was solid for adults), Bowers turned to the Delphi methodology to save the day, having stated that WPATH is a science-driven organisation and Delphi being an ad-hoc ask-the-panel process, making it ripe for groupthink and other types of bias. Then, when pushed to admit that this wasn't based on science, he said it was, hand-waving at the studies on adult transition (which are, as we know, very poor).
It appeared that Wu was making more reasonable points, but this was only because of the focus on things he now wants to attack WPATH over, while he's still utterly away with the fairies on most of it. I'd seen Brianna Wu just once before in a debate, and did a bit more research on him, and it seems he has a history of muck-raking, attacking his peers and allies, and generally demonstrating enormous narcissism.
Yes 🙌 💯 Wu is dangerous and needs to be kept away from the Dems / left, if we ever want to see the end of pediatric gender medicine. His case for “special boys” like him needs to be buried.
Are parents of trans kids munchausen by proxy parents? I agree that it's not all of them, not even the majority and I think it is unhelpful for people on "our side" to call all parents "transhausen" or yo march out the vegan cat analogy. But there's definitely some portion that are and I suspect it's higher than we realize, especially with how social media and political rallies and testimony can be used. It's also a lot easier condition to fake/force on a child. Read Marc Feldman's book on the topic of munchausen's (now called fictitious disorder) called Dying to Be Ill. Feldman is a professor and considered *the* expert on this topic. His book has a case study of a mother doing this by trying to create a trans child. There's absolutely no politics or handwringing when describing this case. It's just one of many examples in his book.
Cori, I work with children and their families. A lot of families, even highly educated ones, will trust whatever the professional tells them. "Do your own research" is seen as a dog whistle for being right wing or a conspiracy theorist for a lot of people. They see the Cass Report (if they've ever even heard of it in their bubble) as being in the same category as the Great Barrington Declaration. There's also a reverse engineered trust among many people that if a child or teen was medicalized or affirmed, it's because they were correctly and scientifically diagnosed as trans by a doctor.
Jamie, I know at least one person for whom the extremely inappropriate behavior you're describing from the mental health clinic employee in Montana acts as more evidence for why children must be affirmed and transitioned. She sees that behavior as proof of trauma from not being affirmed as a child (or adult) and it must be tolerated and understood in that context. We prevent more people like that by affirming and transitioning people so they aren't traumatized by not being affirmed and transitioned.
Helen Joyce has said that the parents who have transitioned their kids will be TRAs for the rest of their lives, but I can't help but think that might only apply to the really smart/successful ones whose belief in their own intellectual and moral superiority is rock solid. Assuming there are a fair few cases of Munchausens by proxy lurking within the trans movement I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years a lot of those parents switched sides, especially if the bottom really falls out of the trans movement, because what they really want is attention and having a child who has been harmed by the medical system would be a good way to get it.
Very insightful comment, thank you. I just wanted to note that in a way, the Cass Report (while a different kind of document) IS in the same category as the Great Barrington Declaration, namely with regard to the way it has been falsely demonized as politically motivated (i.e. right wing), and in the way liberals have tried to "debunk" it by subjecting the author(s) to personal attacks and impugning their motives, without engaging with its propositions in good faith. One could have debated the GBD's potential shortcomings without calling the authors (from Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford no less) "fringe epidemiologists", and with hindsight, many former fans of lockdown policies now have to acknowledge the immense harms, especially for children, the GBD authors predicted and concede that the virus was never going to be eradicated or even contained, as everyone now knows but could have known back then.
While I abhor just about everything about the Trump administration, seeing Jay Bhattacharya as NIH Director is sweet poetic justice. He was not a fringe epidemiologist, but rather someone arguing to follow established pandemic response policies, as this compilation of opinions from early in the pandemic show: https://checkyourwork.kelleykga.com/p/dr-jay-was-not-a-fringe-epidemiologist
Give them the recent JAMA article....
Twitter link (sharing link) from JAMA: https://x.com/JAMA_current/status/1878846981252022588
Moti Gorin, Jilles Smids, and @johnlantos discuss the need for clinicians to conduct thorough research on the risks and benefits of gender-affirming care.
https://ja.ma/4fVEx5o
I read a piece a few months ago on symbolic inversion that contained the following passage I found insightful about the way deconstruction actually tends to play out:
“I’ve mentioned how deconstruction leads to floating signifiers. In the absence of a viable replacement for dismantled conceptual structures, what then is to be done with the symbols left floating above the rubble? Turn them upside-down of course. In the simple rejection mentality of contemporary culture, reversal, subversion, and inversion are the only semiotic techniques available. Fed up with the hypocrisies of Christianity? Turn a cross upside-down. Uneasy about the character flaws and misdeeds of prominent historical figures? Turn them into villains. Ready to move beyond the patriarchy? Make the hero a girl. This is the non-solution proffered by the methods of deconstruction.
The last example has been one of the most popular reversals for a while now and is my primary subject of exploration here. It seems to me that symbolic inversions actually tend to have the opposite of the intended effect, inadvertently serving to strengthen and reinforce the structures they seek to subvert. The act of inversion provides a means to air grievances against the system while allowing it to hum along untouched, as it all the while grows larger and more powerful through lack of an effective counterforce. […] Simply shoving a female protagonist into the archetypal masculine role actually amounts to the tacit acceptance of the hegemony of the masculine. The female character is shown to be inherently bereft of her own virtues and must embody the male hero archetype in order to be worthy of our attention. In this way, the patriarchy is perpetuated.”
He goes on to propose Joan of Arc as an appropriate archetypal antidote to our societal woes. I enjoyed his ideas, but fundamentally disagree with his diagnosis, and therefore his antidote. IMO, Western culture had grown staid, but in a feminine way, not a masculine one. Think Jo Freeman’s “The Tyranny of Structurelessness.” Which got me to thinking about who the appropriate person-as-archetype replacement for Joan of Arc would be, her spiritual inverse, and immediately I was like, “Oh! Donald Trump.” 😅😅😅
References:
“Joan of Arc: Antidote to Symbolic Inversion” https://www.thesymbolicworld.com/content/joan-of-arc-antidote-to-symbolic-inversion
“The Tyranny of Structurelessness” https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
I had started wondering, wait, is that comment from Marci Bowers really *the* thing everyone’s been going off when saying kids who have been puberty blocked at Tanner Stage 2 will never have an orgasm? Because it seems to be the only source I’ve ever seen referenced by people making that claim. I remember asking about that a while back, and no one popped up with any other sources. So thanks for mentioning that, Lisa; and if you’re reading this and happen to have one, please share.
I like Cori’s book suggestion; may check that out. Been thinking a lot lately about how two of the more common hindrances to understanding something seem to be 1. Not actually wanting to understand it. 2. Assuming that you already do.
Always a sob story with every Wu talk, which in some ways becomes a different kind of woo talk
If transitioning children can now be considered to be abusive, is it not the practitioners facilitating medication and surgery not those guilty of the abuse, being in possession of the full implications of doing so as professionals. Their awareness is so much greater than that of any lay person, and the distress faced by children expressing the desire to transition us a silimsrku disabling factor, thus, as I suspect is the case in the majority of cases, these procedures are enacted on the advice of, at the very least undertaken by professionals, how is it the parents, and not the medical professionals responsible for enacting the procedures, that are subject to accusations of abuse. I would counter that the abuse is institutional and the victims are not solely the children but their entire families.
Re: Cori’s comments on parents still bringing their kids to clinics - the information desert in Canada is still very real. Canadian media particularly the CBC still refuses to report on the Cass review (except to say that it is discredited). The Canadian pediatric association just renewed their commitment to affirmation-only, and talk therapy for gender distress is criminalized. There is no official source to turn to for real information. I invite you to look at the Transcare BC website
https://www.transcarebc.ca
Yikes! Canadas reckoning with this movement is going to be soul destroying when it happens. I wonder if they'll be the last nation standing that practices GAC when all the others have dropped it.
There's quite a lot to unpack for the Wu/Bowers shindig with host Alex Grodd on his channel, The Disagreement. The very end, where they are supposed to state the other's stance, was a total failure, as these 2 narcissists only talk over each other. Wu didn't come prepared with the evidence in the Swedish Study of Death records, (Cecilia Dhejne, et al, Karolinska Inst, 2011) but then that would "hurt adults." They claim to be covering consent and what's the best treatment for "trans youth," but Bowers takes off on all sorts of tangents, and especially seems to warm up about the eunuchs section of the SOC 8 from WPATH. He reminds me so much of my ex husband, especially the way he claims Wu is attacking WPATH. I've transcribed the first 24 minutes at my blog, uteheggen.substack.com, and will post parts of the second half when I finish. I also plan to string together several of Bowers' lengthy pontifications, which are quite revealing. In the end, their narcissism and competitiveness are a major take away.
Here's my 6 minute recap of the first section.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gn8OHqbkRw
I’ve really been enjoying the podcast!
Thanks for your insight and bravery all.
Considering the depth of information available to parents about the iatragenic harm of a vast majority of current medical interventions for most every situation…the info is out there, it simply takes a strong willed and dedicated person to find the best information and act on it despite it being unpopular.
It’s not enough to just plead ignorance-the fact that they choose to be ignorant is a CHOICE. They have a huge
Responsibility that they are not taking on by trusting Fake authority figures.
True, at this point, and perhaps for at least the last couple of years…
I have been finding lots of info about this for at least 5 years now-and I do not even have a child going through this. If I-someone with only a sideways interest- can find it, then a parent making lifelong decisions about their child’s body can also be responsible for finding it. I just can’t let these parents off the hook-this is too anti reality and anti health to not raise red flags for any mentally well and reasonably sane adult
Ultimately it is the parents responsibility to not make permanent changes to their children’s bodies without due diligence. My own mother agreed to put me on hormonal birth control without asking for alternatives. Many years later I still do not have a cycle. That was a mistake on her part, and on the part of the medical “professional” (who I do believe shares more responsibility). Was it abusive? No. Neglectful? Yes. Ultimately we allow “professionals” too much leeway and it is partly because they behave as if they know all-that is a manipulative dynamic that comes from a person with god complex who believes they somehow know much more than they’ve taken the time to actually learn.
Any parent who allows removal of body parts…terrible. I believe that has crossed into abuse -any sane and healthy adults should take pause there.
Thank you for discussing this issue with such complexity and nuance.
Clinicians and medical professionals certainly have a greater responsibility to learn about and explore (and critique) growing trends in comparison to their initial training and expertise, and their experience and intuition, especially when it conflicts with new guidance from their professional organizations, AND when the “treatments” have such irreversible consequences. I believe that calling it child abuse, due to the iatrogenic harm caused, is appropriate, at least as it applies to the medical professionals treating this population with “affirming care.”
One of the factors keeping the bar low is the current state of medical and clinical practice, in which doctors are overwhelmed with growing numbers of patients per day, and have little time to respond to their patients, besides handing them a prescription.
The “exceptionalism” factor is also a huge piece of the cultural acceptance of the ideology.
Such great points. Of course the quick-fix and diagnosing/medicalizing of every-day life has been an epidemic for over 25 years, growing, and a troubling yet inevitable factor in the “gender treatment” phenomenon.
Parents have been led to accept the ideology in an effort to believe they’re learning to listen to and attune to their kids, perhaps aware of the unmet needs in their own upbringing, in which their feelings were often disregarded. For some, I believe there is an effort to become “great parents” and live a progressive life, one where doing things better than their own parents means to affirm your kids’ feelings and ideas - even though following the ideological script actually sidesteps real attunement, and healthy attachment.
Many parents are not doing the in-depth work to understand the level of parental discipline and attunement that creating a better family dynamic actually requires.
There are so many ingredients and threads to tease out and unravel re: the parents’ responsibility in affirming their kids’ ideation.
Thank you for addressing so many of them.
one explanation for the mechanism of spreading bullshit - https://meltingasphalt.com/crony-beliefs/