Transing ChildrenFirst mention of the Keira Bell court case in a major liberal U.S. news outlet? - New Yorker article by a transgender-identified person (FtM)

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[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 22 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 0 fun23 insightful - 1 fun -  (13 children)

edit: I should probably add, I would say this is a positive that the Keira Bell court case has finally been acknowledged by a mainstream US news source. I don't think I've seen this yet, and while the article is questionable, this is progress!

original link: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/we-need-to-change-the-terms-of-the-debate-on-trans-kids

(edited to add) LGB Alliance post about the article: https://mobile.twitter.com/ALLIANCELGB/status/1349686688797372416

This article is wild. One of the fundamental, and mistaken, assumptions that it makes:

If we hold to the premise that transness is an immutable, inborn trait, it follows that every young person who chooses to detransition will undermine the case any other young person may have for seeking trans care.

There is no scientific evidence to support the claim that being "transgender" is an immutable, inborn trait.

Full disclosure, this article was written by a transgender-identified "nonbinary" person (female) who is lesbian (edited thanks to u/winterwillow).

Other hilarious quotes below...

The gender of a fifty-year-old woman is not the same as of a five-year-old girl.

Nothing terrible happens if a person transitions again, which is how I think we should think about it.”

Right, there are no negative consequences of someone transitioning and then detransitioning. Except for all the time, stress and resources of their own and others' that have been spent on transitioning-- and the often-dangerous side effects of puberty blocker they've been given.

My favorite outright lie:

As heartbreaking as that admission is, all available data indicate that such regrets are exceedingly rare.

Such data are "rare" because they are being censored by the media and because medical practitioners are actively encouraged to not collect data, and are punished when they raise concerns about transparency.

The author argues against the value of "childhood" as a category, in order to defend child transing:

In other eras, boys would be expected to abandon toys and take up adult vocations at the age of seven; girls were historically married off as soon as they went through puberty.... Our own ideas of maturity are no less arbitrary than our ancestors’.

That last sentence is so hilarious to me, because many (though not all yet!) age-related laws in modern times are informed by empirical research evidence about child development. Which was not available to our ancestors.

To be able to talk about a range of transition options, at different times in life, we would need to change the terms of the debate. We would need to view both age and gender on a continuum, not as binary states.

That is a false assertion. We do not need to view "gender" on a continuum in order to have a discussion about the types of transitioning, or whether the medical industry pushing "transitioning" as a concept is even ethical at all. And age is already on a continuum and often is treated as such... the very court case that this writer is criticizing did not treat children the same at all ages.

[–][deleted] 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Nothing terrible happens if a person transitions again, which is how I think we should think about it.”

This is so bullshit. Surely a trans person would understand this. The detrans person will probably end up with some degree of gender dysphoria for the rest of their life because some things just can't be undid.

In other eras, boys would be expected to abandon toys and take up adult vocations at the age of seven; girls were historically married off as soon as they went through puberty.... Our own ideas of maturity are no less arbitrary than our ancestors’.

So, are they advocating for child labour and child marriage???? Jesus christ.

[–]SerpensInferna 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

I'm just going to bring this up because this is a terribly misquoted fact that drives me absolutely insane.

When we hear stories of girls being married off at a very young age - the great majority of the time these were royal or upper class women and it was to make alliances. Your average woman, even in the medieval era and before, generally married around the age of 20. Our ancestors weren't complete morons and they understood that very young girls having babies was even more dangerous than grown women having babies, and giving birth was always dangerous.

Also the person that wrote this article is a complete moron.

[–]GConly 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Your average woman, even in the medieval era and before, generally married around the age of 20.

Rome too. Child brides tended to be politically motivated there too.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Here are some facts then https://www.worldvision.com.au/global-issues/work-we-do/forced-child-marriage#:~:text=When%20it%20comes%20to%20child,of%20all%20young%20women%20globally.&text=Each%20year%2C%20another%2012%20million,of%2018%20become%20child%20brides. https://www.worldvision.org/child-protection-news-stories/10-worst-places-child-marriage

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Thank you for sharing that! Wow. Just wow. That's beyond fucked up.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yeah it definitely goes on. I cannot understand why the TRA in question would want to paint it as being appropriate though??? No, I don't think you kids should be getting married or working full time as carpenters. What on earth??

Anecdotally my grandparents left school at 13 to work, and while their lives aren't messed or horrible up for it, it wasn't a great situation and they worked hard so that their own kids would not have to have a childhood like that.

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

and they worked hard so that their own kids would not have to have a childhood like that.

EXACTLY!!! We try to better society so that we do not have to live like that, with the pointless harms and dangers that we did in the past... so why use the past as justification for doing bullshit today?? "They did something equally as harmful in the past" is not a good justification for doing something harmful in the present.

[–]Three_oneFourWanted for thought crimes in countless ideologies 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They want to challenge notions of our current understanding yet don't realize that all discrepancies between how we do things now and did them in the past was born out of challenging our understanding of things. Society only regresses when changes are made in the name of religion or a cult. When changes are made for the betterment of society, such as recognizing that the vast majority of children are stupid because, well, children are fucking stupid! then that is usually not a bad thing. We might challenge whether age is the end all measure of maturity, I know I've met some teenagers more responsible than college students and even some graduates, but age is generally a good starting point if you can't gather much qualitative information. Without meeting someone or hearing quite a bit about them, age is the only metric we can use and quantify that could lead you to a general conclusion about maturity.

And when it comes to "immutable" things, we need to wait until the body and mind have developed at least before we try to change them. Someone's bone structure is not done developing until past 18 years of age, someone's mind only really finishes developing... in the late 20s I think? Early 20s? 100% after they're a 12 year old who tried on daddy's boots or mommy's heels and pretended to be the other gender because they have no idea how any of that works or that they don't need to be a woman to like heels or a man that likes boots!

100% of child diagnoses of being trans are born of stereotypes and gender roles invented by society. Therefore transness can only be as strong as those stereotypes and roles.

[–]GConly 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

So, after many months of arguing with TRAs, I can tell you..

Desistence usually comes in at over 80%. So much for an immutable characteristic.

Their response to this fact is to post an appallingly crappy article by Temple Newhook where she cherry picks and manipulates the presentation of data to make desistence look rare.

The main leader in this research, Steensma, wrote an academic shredding of her essay, as did Zucker.

The other favourite trick is to pass off studies of post surgical adults, who went through years of counselling before, as "desistence" and regret studies relevant to children.

There have been ZERO studies in regret in this current crop of puberty and hormonal transitioned teens. Any one who says there is, is lying their tits off.

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Gotcha, thank you! I have been meaning to read up on studies related to desistance/detransition so this is helpful to hear.

[–]TransspeciesUnicornI sexually identify as a mythical sparkly equine 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Desistence usually comes in at over 80%.

Out of curiosity, what was the source for this stat? Or are there multiple sources that indicate something around that?

[–]GConly 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Look up papers by Steensma, and the doctoral thesis of Devita Singh: A follow up study of boys with gender identity disorder.

Singh's work is available as a pdf, but my idiot phone won't let me copy the link. Just plug her name and the title into Google and it should be the first thing up.

IIRC, it's like a short book with a lot of discussion of other research towards the front, with her research data at the back.

Both Steensma and Zucker wrote separate papers pointing out how Temple Newhook messed with the data when she wrote "the myth of desistence". I could possibly locate them, if you ask. But not tonight, it's too late to dig it up.

[–]ChunkeeguyTeam T*RF Fuck Yeah 20 insightful - 1 fun20 insightful - 0 fun21 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Unchallenged fucking propaganda spreading like wildfire. You begin to see how it is that a whole country can fall under the spell of the likes of Nazi propaganda.

[–]yousaythosethingsFind and Replace "gatekeeping" with "having boundaries" 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I will have to read this later, but I think any exposure is good at at this point, make more people aware. It’s been helpful with peaking people to show how LGBT orgs outside the U.K. are dead silent on Keira Bell. As in, if the case is as catastrophic and barbaric as TRAs claim it is, shouldn’t those orgs be raging to get public support? Of course they’re not because they want everything to happen in the shadows.

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I will have to read this later, but I think any exposure is good at at this point, make more people aware.

You're totally right. I meant to put something like that in my comment but I got more distracted by the bullshit in the article the further along I read, lol.

[–]GConly 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

"If we hold to the premise that transness is an immutable, inborn trait, it follows that every young person who chooses to detransition will undermine the case any other young person may have for seeking trans care. “The main debate has become whether these young people will ‘persevere,’ ” Sadjadi told me by Zoom from Montreal, where she is on the faculty at McGill University’s Department of Social Studies of Medicine. “I think this is the wrong question. Gender changes with age. The gender of a fifty-year-old woman is not the same as of a five-year-old girl. Nothing terrible happens if a person transitions again, which is how I think we should think about it.”

Except the infertility, mutilated body, inability to pass as actual sex.

There's a documentary called "the trans train" with one of these detransitioned twenty something women. Bodies quite irreversibly changed by testosterone, male voices receding hair lines, masculinised faces etc. Probably unlikely to ever have kids thanks to uterine atrophy and cystic ovaries.

It's just heartbreaking.

And this twat says "nothing terrible happens".

[–]PenseePansyBio-Sex or Bust 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

"If we hold to the premise that transness is an immutable, inborn trait, it follows that every young person who chooses to detransition will undermine the case any other young person may have for seeking trans care."

... well, what if we DON'T hold to that premise? Which we most certainly shouldn't, considering its blatant falsehood? Then this DOESN'T follow at all, does it? What half-baked reasoning, even by genderists' pathetic standards! (Also recalls the line from an old joke, "what do you mean "we", paleface?")

And speaking of what follows (or doesn't): exactly what are you saying here, Masha? That young people choosing to detransition are "undermining" others? That their exercising this choice is therefore WRONG? That they perhaps shouldn't be ALLOWED to make this choice? That we should just pretend they really didn't, because, hey, they'll probably change their mind somewhere down the line anyway! Yeah, hear that, detrans? You may THINK that you've broken up with gender-woo, but you can't LIVE without us! You'll be back! You'll see!

Need a theme song, Masha? Here ya go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYr_BdXdpaI

[–]fuck_reddit 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

These journalists need to be told that their writing is shit. Asking boy or girl and age is the shortest way to maximize your knowledge about the dog. It aint that deep...

[–]winterwillow 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

This makes me incredibly sad and disappointed. I'm very familiar with the journalist who wrote this and her experiences, she lived in Russia for a long time as an open lesbian with her wife and kids, and has written several books about the political situation in Russia, and Putin himself. She's appearently not ftm, but non-binary, and the only thing changed is her pronouns sometime during the last two years.

The whole piece she's just listing TRA talking points, that some children are more mature than others, that in the days of yore children grew up faster, that genitals aren't important for sexual pleasure, that insisting on importance of fertility is biological determinism, that de-transitioning is no big deal and above all basically never happens, blah blah spectrum spectrum why is everyone so obsessed with sex and age, we should all be above that and be non-binary everything and ask about a dog's eating habits instead of it's age. So f*cking tiresome and pretentious. And this from someone who's been a lesbian mother in a country with laws against homosexuality. Like I do understand internalized homophobia etc, but she's 53 years old! You'd think someone in her age and with the life she had would be more resiliant to the dogma, but appearently not. So disappointed.

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

And this from someone who's been a lesbian mother in a country with laws against homosexuality. Like I do understand internalized homophobia etc, but she's 53 years old! You'd think someone in her age and with the life she had would be more resiliant to the dogma, but appearently not. So disappointed.

People are capable of being foolish at any age, at any level of experience, and at any level of formal training, unfortunately. And some people wait decades before addressing their shame and personal mental health issues; maybe there's more there than she has dealt with. Thanks for sharing some context on this person.

Did not realize she describes herself as "nonbinary", will edit my comment, thanks.

[–]PassionateIntensity 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

It should be shocking The New Yorker published something this full of inaccuracies, lies, and insanities with no fact-checking, by a delusional biased advocate, but such is the standard for trans topics. And I mean that literally--new "journalist standards" say trans articles should be written by trans people because only they are experts.

https://transjournalists.org/style-guide/

edit: Interesting while searching for that link I came across this out of Canada about CBC's bashing of JKR.
https://pressprogress.ca/cbc-ombudsman-says-teenage-journalists-who-criticized-transphobia-violated-cbcs-journalistic-standards/

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It should be shocking The New Yorker published something this full of inaccuracies, lies, and insanities with no fact-checking, by a delusional biased advocate

I am not shocked because this seems on par with the quality of articles I've seen from them before. It is shocking to see this be the introduction of the Keira Bell case on a national US news outlet, particular in comparison to the much more nuanced and reasonable coverage overseas! This article is drenched in gender identity ideology.

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's a shitty and irrelevant puff piece, unsurprisingly filled with lies.