The only boy I've ever seen to be treated with testosterone is a boy born without functional testes. He had zero testosterone, other than the exogenous (prescribed) testosterone.
It's crazy to suggest that doctors give estrogen to girls and testosterone to boys to help them be more girly or boyish. That is not a thing.
According to William O. Douglas, in an autobiography I read many years ago, 90 percent of every SCOTUS opinion is the justice's gut feeling about the question at hand; the other 10 percent is the rationale used to substantiate the feeling. Paraphrasing here, but that was the general idea.
Before you get too excited about the NYT article, these comments by Nicholas Confessore (pulled from replies to readers of his piece) may give a better view into what he thinks about youth gender medicine:
"When you listen to my colleague Azeen's New York Times podcast about the origins of pediatric gender medicine -- it's called "The Protocol" and I highly recommend! -- it is clear that there are some kids and adults out there who have always felt that their physical bodies didn't align with their sense of self, in a really fundamental way that caused them great distress. For a small group of people, their experience is that medical transition -- changing their bodies -- is the only way to be themselves and be happy. The Skrmetti case is about three such young people."
"The Dutch researchers who pioneered these pediatric treatments theorized that the stigma and depression they observed in their older patients might have been avoided if they began to transition much earlier, before puberty. It would make it easier to live more completely, as adults, in the way they identified. Policies set by the Trump administration and many states do not seek to move young people into more consistent or rigorous kinds of transition care; they ban it altogether. Those kinds of policies mean that more trans people will have to wait until after adolescence to attempt medical transition, which can be much harder, and can lead to the kind of discrimination you are talking about. And older trans advocates have often experienced this personally."
Yes, he is clearly still in the trans Matrix and believes that there are "true trans" kids, even though anyone familiar with the history of the Dutch Protocol should realize that those "true trans" kids are the proto-gay kids.
Maybe there are people who will truly never be happy in their natural bodies, whose delusion or desire to be the other sex is insurmountable. The question is if they will be happier as lifelong medical patients trying to be something they can never truly become. The misery on the part of adult transsexuals that the Dutch researchers observed probably stemmed as much from "not passing" as from the difficulty of living a life as an impostor with a cosmetically altered body suffering from all sorts of iatrogenic sequelae.
I had read a number of Leor's tweets in the past but hadn't heard him. This man is a monumental asset. His conversation was crystalline, detailed, intelligent and friendly. He appears equipped to arm just about any audience with fresh and relevant information. A stellar choice for this moment.
Yes, Jamie! Agreed about the messaging instilling and perpetuating suicidality. That is probably the single aspect of this that has made me feel most insane since the years when I was a Tumblr user, because it seemed like trans rights activists *wanted children to be suicidal for political reasons.* Which is a *terrible* thing to attribute to a movement! But also, just looking it at, it was so hard not to go, “Okay, but is that not what is happening, right in front of my face?” From my perspective, it felt so blatant and egregious that I struggled to attribute it to ignorance alone.
Absolutely outstanding discussion on Skrmetti, the Confessore piece, and related issues. I particularly appreciated the finely-honed dissection of Sotomayor’s utter abandonment of any semblance of critical thinking in her dissent. Leor Sapir’s contributions were, no surprise, superb, and I look forward to seeing him included in your vibrant discussions in the future.
Agreed, tomato cages are great! Also, as an update on my basil plants, they all survived the cold snap I mentioned a few weeks ago, but I wouldn’t say they are thriving. Two of them in particular are producing much smaller leaves now. So I’ve been thinking of those two as my puberty-blocked basil.
Jamie, great way to dry herbs is to just stick them on the car dashboard for a few days. Chop off some spearmint stalks and see how they do. Otherwise , hanging them up like laundry works, and once they’re dry a paper bag keeps them!
Great conversation today. Very helpful discussion of Skrmetti and the Confessore piece. I believe it was Leor who wanted to know more about how trans activists came to overtake LGB advocacy groups so completely. I, too, am curious. Did gay rights advocates simply not realize that their interests were at odds with sex denialism?
For a satirical take, see The End of the World Is Flat by Simon Edge, in which an organization must pivot in order to stay relevant after the thing it fought for is achieved.
Hey Ben, your presentation is incorrect. Lesbians left the gay rights movement because of the sexism. Feminists are the ones who first identified the problems with queer theory. Read Janice Raymond's"The Transsexual Empire" written in 1979, and Sheila Jeffrey's "Unpacking Queer Politics". As I advise trans activists - do not rewrite history until all the eye witnesses are dead.
One of your best discussions so far. I loved hearing Leor's analysis, and I completely agree: for the vast majority of liberals, including liberal Supremes, trans is just Gay 2.0. Everything about their stance follows from that.
There is no excuse for the liberal justices dissent to this decision. They have a job to do and they chose not to do it. Of course, they knew the majority would do their job, so they are just pandering to the Progressive/woke extremists. And it's unethical because under no scrutiny and no analysis does the decision turn out any other way than how it did.
The treating of conditions of hormone imbalance with exogenous hormones is the medical proof that HRT for trans people is unhealthy. The goal in treating PCOS or hypoandro conditions is not to manage the external physical traits that are caused by these conditions, it is to minimize the likelyhood of these patients developing physiological conditions that come as a result of these endocrine conditions. They are the proof that high testosterone in females and low testosterone in males comes with serious health complications that are significant enough to require treatment, sometimes for life. HRT for trans people is actively causing the secondary conditions that people with endocrine imbalances are trying to avoid. It's surprising that they would use this as an argument and fail to see how it completely destroys their point of view.
Cori! I’m SO excited to hear your deep dive into early Christianity and thinking in these topics. I’ve been wondering the same thing.
After despairing that all modern “liberal” churches seem to have been beguiled by the Gender Woo, I was pleasantly surprised to have stumbled across this Catholic news radio show about the Tennessee case posted yesterday. (Link posted after relevant summary). Interesting perspective. I would also suggest Pope Francis’s proclamation on the dignity of the human body as a theological reasoning about the rejection of gendered souls.
“Father Mitch Pacwa S.J. joins for his Cultural Connections segment and discusses the recent Supreme Court decision regarding Tennessee's ban on medical procedures on transgender-identifying youth. …. T's Two Sense looks back on Chloe Cole's warning to Congress with her perspective as a de-transitioning person.”
It's not even the gender doctors and activists necesssarily encouraging kids to think of their distress in terms of a transgender identity--it's peers and influencers, too:
The only boy I've ever seen to be treated with testosterone is a boy born without functional testes. He had zero testosterone, other than the exogenous (prescribed) testosterone.
It's crazy to suggest that doctors give estrogen to girls and testosterone to boys to help them be more girly or boyish. That is not a thing.
That is one of my common refrains when non clinical people make statements like Sotomayor's "that is just not a thing"
Yeah, Sotomayor started with an emotion-based conclusion and went in search of an argument. She had to go to some wild places to find one.
According to William O. Douglas, in an autobiography I read many years ago, 90 percent of every SCOTUS opinion is the justice's gut feeling about the question at hand; the other 10 percent is the rationale used to substantiate the feeling. Paraphrasing here, but that was the general idea.
Opinions are downstream of feelings. People who are Supreme Court Justice-smart just tend to be better at rationalizing them.
Before you get too excited about the NYT article, these comments by Nicholas Confessore (pulled from replies to readers of his piece) may give a better view into what he thinks about youth gender medicine:
"When you listen to my colleague Azeen's New York Times podcast about the origins of pediatric gender medicine -- it's called "The Protocol" and I highly recommend! -- it is clear that there are some kids and adults out there who have always felt that their physical bodies didn't align with their sense of self, in a really fundamental way that caused them great distress. For a small group of people, their experience is that medical transition -- changing their bodies -- is the only way to be themselves and be happy. The Skrmetti case is about three such young people."
"The Dutch researchers who pioneered these pediatric treatments theorized that the stigma and depression they observed in their older patients might have been avoided if they began to transition much earlier, before puberty. It would make it easier to live more completely, as adults, in the way they identified. Policies set by the Trump administration and many states do not seek to move young people into more consistent or rigorous kinds of transition care; they ban it altogether. Those kinds of policies mean that more trans people will have to wait until after adolescence to attempt medical transition, which can be much harder, and can lead to the kind of discrimination you are talking about. And older trans advocates have often experienced this personally."
Yes, he is clearly still in the trans Matrix and believes that there are "true trans" kids, even though anyone familiar with the history of the Dutch Protocol should realize that those "true trans" kids are the proto-gay kids.
Maybe there are people who will truly never be happy in their natural bodies, whose delusion or desire to be the other sex is insurmountable. The question is if they will be happier as lifelong medical patients trying to be something they can never truly become. The misery on the part of adult transsexuals that the Dutch researchers observed probably stemmed as much from "not passing" as from the difficulty of living a life as an impostor with a cosmetically altered body suffering from all sorts of iatrogenic sequelae.
Yes, I think he understood his article as a post mortem of something that should not have failed.
To us, of course, his article makes clear why it had to fail.
I had read a number of Leor's tweets in the past but hadn't heard him. This man is a monumental asset. His conversation was crystalline, detailed, intelligent and friendly. He appears equipped to arm just about any audience with fresh and relevant information. A stellar choice for this moment.
Yes, Jamie! Agreed about the messaging instilling and perpetuating suicidality. That is probably the single aspect of this that has made me feel most insane since the years when I was a Tumblr user, because it seemed like trans rights activists *wanted children to be suicidal for political reasons.* Which is a *terrible* thing to attribute to a movement! But also, just looking it at, it was so hard not to go, “Okay, but is that not what is happening, right in front of my face?” From my perspective, it felt so blatant and egregious that I struggled to attribute it to ignorance alone.
Absolutely outstanding discussion on Skrmetti, the Confessore piece, and related issues. I particularly appreciated the finely-honed dissection of Sotomayor’s utter abandonment of any semblance of critical thinking in her dissent. Leor Sapir’s contributions were, no surprise, superb, and I look forward to seeing him included in your vibrant discussions in the future.
So thankful to hear Leor in conversation with you all on this long awaited decision by the Supremes.
Agreed, tomato cages are great! Also, as an update on my basil plants, they all survived the cold snap I mentioned a few weeks ago, but I wouldn’t say they are thriving. Two of them in particular are producing much smaller leaves now. So I’ve been thinking of those two as my puberty-blocked basil.
Jamie, great way to dry herbs is to just stick them on the car dashboard for a few days. Chop off some spearmint stalks and see how they do. Otherwise , hanging them up like laundry works, and once they’re dry a paper bag keeps them!
Great conversation today. Very helpful discussion of Skrmetti and the Confessore piece. I believe it was Leor who wanted to know more about how trans activists came to overtake LGB advocacy groups so completely. I, too, am curious. Did gay rights advocates simply not realize that their interests were at odds with sex denialism?
There's a lot of history by Glenna Goldis on badfacts.substack.com....
For a satirical take, see The End of the World Is Flat by Simon Edge, in which an organization must pivot in order to stay relevant after the thing it fought for is achieved.
Will read. Thx, Glenna.
Hey Ben, your presentation is incorrect. Lesbians left the gay rights movement because of the sexism. Feminists are the ones who first identified the problems with queer theory. Read Janice Raymond's"The Transsexual Empire" written in 1979, and Sheila Jeffrey's "Unpacking Queer Politics". As I advise trans activists - do not rewrite history until all the eye witnesses are dead.
Thank you for bringing Leor on--such clear cogent analysis!! Great discussion, as always.
Glenna Goldis might be able to address (in detail) how "gay rights" got hijacked by "trans rights"--her Substack has some in depth history.
She would be an excellent guest. She has delved into the deep history of trans.
One of your best discussions so far. I loved hearing Leor's analysis, and I completely agree: for the vast majority of liberals, including liberal Supremes, trans is just Gay 2.0. Everything about their stance follows from that.
There is no excuse for the liberal justices dissent to this decision. They have a job to do and they chose not to do it. Of course, they knew the majority would do their job, so they are just pandering to the Progressive/woke extremists. And it's unethical because under no scrutiny and no analysis does the decision turn out any other way than how it did.
The treating of conditions of hormone imbalance with exogenous hormones is the medical proof that HRT for trans people is unhealthy. The goal in treating PCOS or hypoandro conditions is not to manage the external physical traits that are caused by these conditions, it is to minimize the likelyhood of these patients developing physiological conditions that come as a result of these endocrine conditions. They are the proof that high testosterone in females and low testosterone in males comes with serious health complications that are significant enough to require treatment, sometimes for life. HRT for trans people is actively causing the secondary conditions that people with endocrine imbalances are trying to avoid. It's surprising that they would use this as an argument and fail to see how it completely destroys their point of view.
Cori! I’m SO excited to hear your deep dive into early Christianity and thinking in these topics. I’ve been wondering the same thing.
After despairing that all modern “liberal” churches seem to have been beguiled by the Gender Woo, I was pleasantly surprised to have stumbled across this Catholic news radio show about the Tennessee case posted yesterday. (Link posted after relevant summary). Interesting perspective. I would also suggest Pope Francis’s proclamation on the dignity of the human body as a theological reasoning about the rejection of gendered souls.
“Father Mitch Pacwa S.J. joins for his Cultural Connections segment and discusses the recent Supreme Court decision regarding Tennessee's ban on medical procedures on transgender-identifying youth. …. T's Two Sense looks back on Chloe Cole's warning to Congress with her perspective as a de-transitioning person.”
https://ondemand.ewtn.com/Home/Play/en/~CB20250619
It's not even the gender doctors and activists necesssarily encouraging kids to think of their distress in terms of a transgender identity--it's peers and influencers, too:
https://www.pittparents.com/p/dr-google-does-not-know-if-youre