This is the first part of a two-parter on transgender youth. Heretic TOC’s tentative conclusions on trans kids’ rights and well-being, including the right to puberty blocking, will be deferred until part two. By all means send comments straight away, but it would not make sense to judge my opinions until you know what they are. As for the conclusions being “tentative”, I think that as an outsider parachuting myself into this difficult issue for the first time, that’s the way they should be. My view is offered with due humility and I welcome reasoned dissent, not least from one or two people here whose knowledge goes far beyond my own.
What is best for transgender youth? Noisy militants demand the “right” of even little children to adopt the gender of their choice, so that every Stephen can become a Stephanie, start wearing dresses, long-hair and makeup, use the girls’ toilets at school and require everyone to call her “she”.
And every tomboy Stephanie, it is asserted, should be free to do the opposite. Thus the path may be cleared, or so it is hoped, for a smooth transition at adolescence and beyond to a more complete reversal, if so desired, of young people’s originally assigned sex, through hormone treatments and surgery.
Heretic TOC has always keenly advocated children’s rights, so cheerleading for the right of youth with gender dysphoria to change their gender may seem an obvious choice. What is definitely a no-brainer is that we should favour policies and practices aimed at securing their dignity and well-being – aims which should include promoting both a happy childhood and long-term flourishing in adult life.
These welfare aims are not necessarily best advanced, however, simply through declaring and implementing a child’s right to transition. This is because, unlike children’s sexual expression and self-determination, gender transition involves setting out on a path that becomes increasingly harder to reverse as time passes; and irreversible changes of a profound nature, especially sex reassignment surgery (SRS), are sometimes profoundly regretted.
This is not to say there should be no early start to transition. Some children make their feelings very clear, very early. From as soon as they learn in infancy about the traditional dress codes and gender roles, they will begin telling their parents they have been assigned to the wrong gender. They just know, from as early as age two or three, that they are really a girl not a boy, or vice versa. In the mantra of therapists approved of by the trans community, if these children are “insistent, consistent and persistent” in such beliefs, then it makes sense to start treating them as belonging to their chosen gender, with a first name and clothes, etc., to match, perhaps just at home to begin with and later at school.
There is nothing irreversible about these symbolic changes, and for that reason there can be no strong reason for making a child’s life miserable by sternly ruling them out. But there are hazards, even at this stage. “Being” a girl instead of a boy, or a boy instead of a girl, may be relatively easy if your mum and dad are relaxed about it and they are the only ones to know; and so will changing back again if so desired. At this stage, there is no commitment beyond the level of any other “let’s pretend” game.
It is much more of a commitment to go to school with a new name and gender though. And a vastly bigger commitment if – as is increasingly happening now that transgender is suddenly such a fashionably high-profile phenomenon – your life as a trans child is featured on a TV reality show such as I Am Jazz, or if your photo is featured on the front cover of National Geographic magazine, as happened to nine-year-old Avery Jackson last month. Once things have reached this stage changing course could be as psychologically tough as getting to the altar with the dreadful sinking feeling that your betrothed is not going to be Mr or Mrs Right after all, but you are already caught in a trap.
The psychiatrist Richard Green, a pioneer in the field of transsexuality since the 1960s, expressed a dim view of transgender children being exposed to the full glare of the media when I heard him speak in London last month on the development of transsexual surgery for adults from its beginnings in the 1930s.
“I’m not convinced that going on TV to announce your child is dysphoric is the best way to ensure their development,” he said. “It might even be considered child abuse. Better if it’s under the radar: allow the child to go to a new school. You test the water. Being on the cover of National Geographic is not necessarily in that kid’s best interests.”
I agree. The high-profile route is a sign not of children being legitimately insistent, consistent and persistent, but rather of militant activism by adults who have shown themselves all too willing to use ruthlessly dishonest tactics. Think of the aggressive noisiness we hear all the time from “victims” of “historic child sexual abuse”: the pushiest ones tell the most sensational yarns and grab the most media and political attention. In this post-truth era, few seem to care whether their stories – with lurid “Satanic abuse” and improbable conspiracy theories based on “recovered memories”, or outright lying – have any basis in reality.
It’s the same, unfortunately, with some trans activists. On BBC’s Newsnight last month, for instance, an activist called Shon Faye made swingeing allegations against Dr Ken Zucker, one of the world’s most eminent clinicians in the transgender field. He falsely claimed that Zucker’s peers, in a review of his clinical practices, found he had a habit of taking unnecessary photos of his young patients “in various states of undress” and he was “asking them very lurid sexual questions”. Zucker’s long-time colleague Ray Blanchard, also on the programme, intervened to say the allegations were untrue. The presenter stopped Faye from going any further, but by then the damage had been done. The allegations appeared to have been an attempt to recycle an earlier one. A former client, now an adult, claimed Zucker asked him to remove his shirt in front of other clinicians present, laughed when he complied, and then referred to him as a “hairy little vermin”. The accusation was subsequently retracted by the accuser. The resurrected form of the accusation on Newsnight was potentially even more damaging; its vagueness hinted at the possibility of a sexual motive on Zucker’s part – and we need no persuading as to how destructive that can be.
What is certainly true, as H-TOC has reported previously, is that there has been a long-term campaign against Zucker, who is seen by some as a monster who practised a brutal form of “conversion therapy” in which he tried to make kids’ gender identity “normal”, otherwise known in the terminology as cisgender. All this agitation led to a highly critical external review last year of Zucker’s work at his clinic, Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), as a result of which he was sacked. Investigative journalist Jesse Singal wrote an in-depth series of articles about this, and concluded:
…the truth about Zucker and his clinic is a lot more complicated. Many of the claims activists have made about him are false or seriously overblown, and the “external review” that led to his firing… was absolutely riddled with errors and falsehoods. CAMH itself quickly decided it couldn’t stand by the review it had commissioned; after we reported that the single most damning allegation in the review was completely false, CAMH yanked the document off its website entirely, replacing it with a toned down “summary.” Zucker has since sued CAMH for releasing what he and his lawyer claim was a defamatory report, and that suit is ongoing.
Zucker had a great chance to put the record straight last month in a BBC 2 documentary called Transgender kids: Who knows best?, and to a significant degree he succeeded – despite a vigorous censorship bid in the shape of a the petition aimed at stopping the show going out, and Shon Faye’s libellous trashing of Zucker, broadcast as part of a Newsnight preview of the show. The programme as a whole was generally well-received by mainstream reviewers, who judged it “cautious”, “well worked out”, “even-handed” and “sophisticated”.
Crucially, it considered the controversial and all-important question of what gender dysphoria actually is. There are those, including clinicians and activists, who believe it always reveals a key aspect of an individual’s innermost, stable identity, by showing there is mismatch between their gender identity and their assigned gender, as traditionally determined by their visible genitalia at birth. Thus until they transition they will never feel at ease with who they are. Arguably, they feel a bit like a gay person before liberation or a Kind one now – forced to hide and deny a fundamental aspect of themselves, and hating the idea that the medical profession wants to wish them out of existence through a “cure”.
Zucker does not deny the importance of the fundamental identity question, but as a clinician he is also aware that people are very complicated and that any particular case may actually be driven by other factors. “Taking any behaviour in isolation when thinking about gender dysphoria is not the way that I think about it,” he says. You also need to know about the child’s family and life history. He gave the example of a girl whose mother had been murdered when she was four. The child wanted to be a boy, he said, in the belief that a boy would have been better able to protect her mother and look after himself too.
It sounded very plausible, but I note that Mike Bailey, one of the top research scientists in the field, is sceptical. Addressing him on Sexnet, Bailey said:
Ken, this mantra that there are many ways to gender dysphoria is possibly true, but it is also possibly false. That your clinical team comes up with various formulations about family dynamics that make sense to the team and that the child gets better when problematic dynamics are treated are not very convincing to me as evidence. (I think a plausible alternative is that the passage of time and a shared commitment to helping the child desist are the active ingredients.) Clinical formulations of this general type (family dynamics) have virtually no evidence supporting them.
What does have strong evidence going for it, though, is a connection between gender nonconformity and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which can definitely be a profound mental health issue at the severe end of the spectrum. According to paediatric neuropsychologist John Strang, children and adolescents on the autism spectrum are seven times more likely than other young people to be gender nonconforming. And, conversely, children and adolescents at gender clinics are six to 15 times more likely than other young people to have ASD. Zucker has himself pointed out this connection; pro-trans activists play it down.
James/Jasmine, are you reading this? Our brilliant, geeky, teenage male-to-female transgender contributor here at Heretic TOC a couple of years ago also identified as autistic, but at the mild end of the spectrum, such that she felt it was not a mental health problem but a valid and positive aspect of her identity. If you see this, Jasmine, we’d love to hear your reaction!
Even more convincing evidence on Zucker’s side came in the programme from “Lou”, who was born female and had a double mastectomy as part of transitioning to a man. Now she feels “freakish” and regrets it deeply. She says it is a decision that “haunts” her and she feels her gender dysphoria should have been treated as a mental health issue. The identity that now feels truest to her is as a cisgender lesbian.
And yet when she was a girl entering puberty she was desperate to be a boy. Distressed by her unwanted periods, she attempted suicide. She was told by the trans community she really had no choice: it was transition or die. She did not think he had a mental health problem.
Also on Who Knows Best? was trans therapist Hershel Russell, who is based in Toronto, like Zucker, and was one of the people who helped get him sacked. Russell tried to talk Lou’s case away as a rare exception. But even one exception is enough to prove that matters are not as simple as the more gung-ho activists would have us believe. They also have a problem with the widely-touted claim (albeit the figures are disputed) that around 80% of children and adolescents diagnosed with gender dysphoria do not in the end go through with transition: they desist, sticking with their sex as assigned at birth.
In the Q&A session following his talk on transsexual surgery, I asked Richard Green about the reasons for this desistance. I was particularly interested to know whether he thought the persistors were mainly people with a potentially diagnosable gender-related biological condition underpinning their gender dysphoria, whereas perhaps the desistors had become transgender for socially-motivated reasons.
He favoured a biological explanation for persistence, especially when it was really insistent and consistent. As for those who desist, he said a lot of them become gay or lesbian. And nobody knows better than Green, who wrote a classic book on the subject, that gender non-conforming boys tend to be homosexual later on. It appears to me that gender dysphoria and sexual orientation probably have a connected common origin. Given the present scientific consensus that sexual orientation has pre-natal biological origins, it also seems a good bet that gender dysphoria is triggered further back in an individual’s development than any social influences.
For yet another Toronto angle on all this I can thank Peace, who has guest-blogged and commented here. Transitioning from female to male, Peace has chosen not to guest-blog about his personal journey, but responded instead to my request for general information, thoughts and resources on the subject. One such resource I found particularly helpful was Families in TRANSition: A Resource Guide for Parents of Trans Youth, published by Central Toronto Youth Services.
What struck me most from this publication was its calmly reasonable tone – a million miles, one might think, from the militant, angry activism that sees Ken Zucker libelled and branded a monster. Bizarrely, however, one of those pleasant, sensible contributors turns out to be none other than Hershel Russell, one of Zucker’s most strident critics. He confesses he worries a bit about parents who seem immediately very accepting of their child’s wish to transition. Zucker himself could have written that!
A point I feel Peace would particularly agree with is this:
Trans people often describe puberty, the point at which their bodies begin to change and visibly betray their inner experience, as traumatizing – “nature’s cruel trick” – and a time of true despair. It is a time when feelings of depression or thoughts of suicide may emerge or worsen.
But the guide makes clear that being transgender is not always about heading towards radical anatomical change:
Some youth are clear that their survival depends on fully transitioning from one gender to another. Other youth find that they only need to change one aspect of their bodies, or need no medical interventions at all but rather wish to express their unique gender identity through clothing and behaviour. Whatever the case, these needs come from inside the child and, for better or worse, are unlikely to be changed by pressure or persuasion.
The next part of this two-part blog will go deeper into the question of what being transgender really means. It will introduce the scientific basis for a striking claim: that there is such a thing as an intersex brain. It will also discuss transgender choices in relation to wider cultural issues.
a new study on commercial sex with “trans girls”:
a new study on “the continued impacts of pathologisation on trans children and families in the UK”: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/chso.12625?ref=wolmobileapp
[…] who find themselves struggling with gender dysphoria. Following my own explorations of the theme in Trans kids 1: Insistent, consistent, persistent, “A” made an insightful comment from her own perspective as a former “tomboy”. This now […]
Was looking forward to these trans blogs, but have been to busy even to have time to read them till just now.
I highly recommend the blog Trans Research, here: https://transresearch.info/ Much of the most up-to-date research is Dutch, as much of the most ‘advanced’ treatment of gender-dysphoric kids is Dutch.
From some of these Dutch studies come some very interesting observations and recommendations. One is that children should not be allowed to transition socially before the age of ten. This recommendation is apparently based in large part on the experiences of two natal girls who had lived as boys for some years, then during puberty wanted to ‘switch back’ to being girls. Both found it quite difficult to do so, due to teasing from other kids at school, being seen to go back on what they’d wanted, etc. One did manage to make the switch quite quickly. The other went on struggling for years.
The tomboy makeover is a major trope in our culture. “My little tomboy now wears satin and lace” go the lyrics to Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen. Tomboys who grow out of it are all over classic girls’ literature: I remember being, at age twelve, quite irked by the ending of Caddie Woodlawn (1936), in which an eleven-year-old frontier girl who does everything her brothers do finally decides to settle down a bit and learn sewing. In the film Now and Then, a less-than-entirely-successful but quite popular 1995 attempt to make a Stand By Me for girls, a sporty twelve-year-old binds her growing breasts — till she gets attention, and her first kiss, from a cute neighbour boy who likes her basketball skills.
It’s a trope for a reason, and part of that reason is that it has a lot of truth to it. When I was fourteen or fifteen and we were all changing after PE, one of the other girls commented that when she was younger she’d wanted to be a boy, and almost every girl in that room said she had, too. My experience suggests that if you stand in a crowded urban train station at rush hour, say, you’ll be in the presence of at least a couple of women who as girls were hardcore tomboys — to the point of insisting on short haircuts and gender-neutral nicknames, being delighted to be mistaken for boys, wishing all the time to be boys, becoming distressed at puberty and covering up their growing bodies with baggy clothes, etc. — but who are now happy to be women. Some are quite feminine women; others remain quite androgynous or ‘gender non-conforming’; most are heterosexual, though a disproportionately high number are lesbian or bisexual; and most, it seems, end up in long-term relationships with men and have kids of their own. And many will tell you quite forcefully that as children they would have jumped at the chance to transition, but that they now feel this would have been the wrong choice for them, and are glad they didn’t get to make it.
So what does not letting kids transition before ten look like? Maybe something like this: http://transparenthood.net/?p=561 The seven-year-old natal girl in question is allowed, as she should be, to present and act as she wishes, but she’s still known by a female name and female pronouns, and “at school, everyone knows she is a girl” though “no one has ever known her to look or act like one, so she gets treated more like a boy”. The parents are willing and ready to support whichever path she eventually takes, including social and medical transition, but are well aware that that’s not the only path. The son of blogger Bedford Hope, aka Accepting Dad, walked a similar middle path in middle childhood. He wore long hair and pink skirts and was fine with either set of pronouns as long as you weren’t making fun of him, but he was clear that he was a boy. At thirteen, the age when kids tend to be at their most ruthlessly conformist, he was already deep-voiced and well on his way to six feet tall, and he went underground with his femininity for a while, to the point of forbidding his parents to mention it. At fifteen, he was out again as a male-bodied person who likes to wear skirts and loves fashion. His parents, too, were willing and ready to support social and medical transition if it came to that, but in the meantime it was watchful waiting. It worked: partly because the parents handled it well, partly because the family lives in a socially-liberal East Coast area of the US, and partly because of the kid himself: he has great social skills and always had a lot of friends both male and female, and he responded robustly to teasing — asked on the playground why a boy would want to wear a dress, he replied “BECAUSE IT’S A FREE COUNTRY, ASSHOLE!” A shy, awkward, sensitive kid would have required more support in walking the middle road. But then, shy, awkward, sensitive kids require more support with a lot of things.
With the best will in the world, though, there are going to be at least a few kids who need to transition socially before ten, who can’t be happy any other way, and I think they should be allowed to. Yes, there’s a risk to that, but there’s also a risk to letting kids play out by themselves or have sex or even try out for the school play. I remember a blog comment from a parent who, as part of a discussion on trans kids, said that her (cis) sons, aged nine and twelve, were both about seven when they began to have significant input into decisions about their clothes and hairstyles, and that her elder son was seven when he decided he wanted to go by one nickname instead of another.
Another observation from the Dutch is that the age range ten through thirteen is often when kids end up moving towards their eventual path: ‘persisting’ in their wish to transition or ‘desisting’ from it. Before this four-year span, outcomes are very difficult to predict. After it, kids are much less likely to change their minds, whichever path they’ve picked. But I do wonder if sometimes ‘desistance’ isn’t seized upon too eagerly, if the books aren’t closed prematurely — after all, fourteen is awfully young to know you’re cis 😉 ! And there does seem, according to the Dutch, to be a group of ‘desisters-then-persisters’: young people who try in adolescence and sometimes early adulthood to make it work as cis homosexuals, but who then come back to the clinics requesting transition again. I do wonder if there isn’t also a group of ‘underground persisters’ whose desires to change sex continue, but are hidden. The blog post I linked above contains an example of what many people say to the parents of tomboys: “I had a cousin that was a tomboy. She dressed like a boy and played with the boys until she was fifteen. Then she suddenly blossomed and now she is the most beautiful, fashionable woman you’d ever meet. Don’t worry, she’ll grow out of it.” And if you scroll down, there’s a rather sad comment: “I became one of those 15 year olds who allegedly ‘blossomed’ into femininity, boyfriends, makeup, and eventually heterosexual marriage (white gown and all) and motherhood…Guess what? That strong cross-gender identification is still there, half a lifetime later…I still think about it every day. I still wonder whether I should have pushed harder to be my true self, even though in the 1960’s there was no support for such thinking and certainly no medical options.”
The person who in my view perhaps talks the most sense about this stuff is one Catherine Tuerk, a nurse, married with kids, who started a support group for gender-variant children and their parents after realising that the advice she’d been given to stamp out her son’s childhood femininity — he’s now a gay man — was wrong. Here http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/03/18/about-a-boy-2 she describes her 1950s tomboy childhood as her “glory days” and wonders, as I have myself, why some tomboys today don’t have more fun “liking to be boys”. Here https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/a-boys-life/307059/ she says what many wouldn’t dare to: “Parents have told me it’s almost easier to tell others ‘My kid was born in the wrong body’ rather than explaining that he might be gay, which is in the back of everyone’s mind. When people think about being gay, they think about sex — and thinking about sex and kids is taboo.”
Indeed: it’s almost an article of faith among many socially-liberal cis people that the little natal boy who loves to dress up as a princess or mermaid isn’t expressing anything to do with a sexual orientation, because prepubescent kids aren’t sexual: (s)he’s expressing his (or her) gender identity, which is entirely separate from sexual orientation and which flows simply and purely from the innocence of children’s unsullied, unsexual hearts. “Why are you thinking about what’s in my six-year-old’s underwear?” is the devastating, unanswerable rejoinder to those who object to trans children using the ‘wrong’ toilets. Some true believers in gender identity as separate from sexual orientation wonder in all sincerity where the trans girl tomboys and feminine trans boys are. Well, there are never going to be many of them, but there may be a few. The blog post I linked above, about the seven-year-old natal girl, is about a child who may be a trans boy but isn’t hyper-masculine, and this post https://gendermom.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/tom-boy-trans-girl/ describes a “tom boy trans girl” — though it does make me wonder where we have ended up when a child who wears dresses every single day but likes to play ninjas can be described as a tomboy, or a child who likes romantic comedies, small dogs and elaborate hairstyles, who prefers hip-hop dancing to sports and who has female friends is deemed, at the tender age of seven, unmasculine. Gender roles for kids are in a lot of ways more restrictive than they were when I was coming up. Lego, as many have remarked, isn’t for everyone anymore: there’s boy Lego and girl Lego (Lego Friends).
I’ve watched some video footage of Avery Jackson. I am not in the least qualified to diagnose Asperger’s, and even people who are cannot of course do so on the basis of a few minutes of video, but the way she talks does remind me of some of the ‘Aspies’ I know. The documentary Kids on the Edge: The Gender Clinic, about trans kids being treated at the Tavistock Clinic in London (it’s on YouTube) mentions that about half of the kids seen at the clinic show “autistic traits”. That can, of course, mean many things. It can mean “this child is somewhat socially awkward and quite obsessive but is within the normal range of personality and behaviour and doing fine”. It can mean “this child is really struggling and becoming increasingly unhappy and it’s obvious to everyone that they are on the autism spectrum and desperately in need of the help a diagnosis would bring, but the money-starved public services are dragging their feet on diagnosis, so we have to say ‘traits’ for now”. Then again, it can mean “this child has a lot of symptoms of different conditions that tend, as these neurodevelopmental things do, to co-occur and overlap, and they might get an ASD diagnosis or they might not, but right now we’re focusing on the dyslexia and dyscalculia/the Tourette’s/the whateveritis, because that’s what’s causing the worst problems”. Incidentally, I don’t think that statement about half the kids showing autistic traits would go down too well in many quarters in the US, especially not now, with everyone doubling down on their socially-liberal convictions now Trump is in office, and blue states falling back on federalism to protect their residents.
The 1997 book FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society by Canadian researcher Holly, now Aaron, Devor contains some interesting information on child sexuality. Several of the men interviewed recalled the sexual things they’d done as girls: one started masturbating as a girl of three or four; one’s first sexual experience occurred when he, then she*, was twelve, and involved ‘heavy petting’ with another twelve-year-old girl; a third was having penis-in-vagina sex with adult men beginning when he, then she, was a girl of fourteen. Heartwarmingly, one met his soul mate at school when they were girls of twelve. They were inseparable at once, and at the time of the interview they’d been together ever since — over two decades.
An acquaintance working on a neuroscience PhD recommended to me Lise Eliot’s book Pink Brain, Blue Brain and Rebecca Jordan-Young’s book Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences, both of which I recommend in turn. But here there is, no doubt for a complicated mixture of sociocultural and biological reasons, a clear sex difference. Most tomboys grow up to be straight women. Most very feminine boys grow up to be gay men. We need to acknowledge that and take it into account.
For a look at how other cultures deal with this stuff, one could do worse than The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, a 2005 Filipino film about a twelve-year-old ‘bakla’ — as far as I can tell, something between ‘feminine gay male’ and ‘trans female’ — who falls for a hunky young policeman in his Manila slum.
Finally (!), two more articles I like:
http://nymag.com/nymag/features/transgender-children-2012-6/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/magazine/whats-so-bad-about-a-boy-who-wants-to-wear-a-dress.html
*Sorry about all this he-then-she stuff, trans readers. I know it isn’t the most up-to-date or respectful terminology but it’s what Devor uses.
Fabulous post, “A”, and good to hear from you again.
Actually, this wonderful contribution, with so much interesting information and many significant links, is really too substantial to be left as just a comment. Would you mind if I re-post it soon as a guest blog here? It is the right sort of length and is worthy of greater prominence.
You wrote:
>it’s almost an article of faith among many socially-liberal cis people that the little natal boy who loves to dress up as a princess or mermaid isn’t expressing anything to do with a sexual orientation, because prepubescent kids aren’t sexual
An astute observation, I feel!
Sure, go right ahead! But let me correct something first. I’ve misremembered one of the studies slightly. My third para. would be better if it read:
From some of these Dutch studies come some very interesting observations and recommendations. One, from this study http://dare.ubvu.vu.nl/bitstream/handle/1871/40250/hoofdstuk_05.pdf?sequence=6 is that children should probably not be allowed to transition socially before the age of ten. This recommendation is based largely on the experiences of five natal girls who had effectively lived as boys for some years, then during puberty wanted to ‘switch back’ to being girls. All had “significant feelings of shame for their earlier boyish appearance”. Two are quoted about their difficulties with this. While it seems that the girls did in the main manage to switch over to more feminine appearance and behaviour quite smoothly, one struggled for years, first fearing that she’d be teased if she wore earrings and bracelets like the other girls, and then actually being teased after the move to high school, which she’d hoped would help her “make a fresh start”. The gender-dysphoric boys, however, had not dressed as girls full-time during elementary school and had been perceived by the other children as boys, just different boys. Perhaps if they’d been effectively living as girls, rather than feminine boys, some of them too would have struggled with switching back.
(But if you don’t get this in time to correct it, no worries.)
Thanks, “A”.
>(But if you don’t get this in time to correct it, no worries.)
No problem. I have been totally focused on a tricky, very time-consuming, writing project of a fairly urgent nature, so even small other tasks have been neglected. There’s no rush anyway. In the meantime, it would be helpful if you could email me (tomocarr66@yahoo.co.uk) with a paragraph or so of non-identifying biog. info I could use to introduce your guest blog, as I do for all guest bloggers. Thanks!
Time to try and sort out my throwaway emails again 🙂 OK, will do.
Thanks!
Have emailed :).
Much respect for Hardeep Singh Kohci, for having a balanced view on the subject of CP, on The Wright Stuff today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_YunyAr5fo
I agree that for any irreversible change, such as SRS, one should wait until some form of “adulthood”; I cannot give a precise age, In Scotland you are adult at 16, and in pre-industrial cultures it was even earlier.
Yes, it is not a good thing for adults to exhibit “special kids” as a kind of attraction, like circus animals, whether because of their early gender change, or any other form of precocity (like the child poetess Minou Drouet, about whom I am writing at the moment). Our repressed society confuses exhibitionism with liberation.
Another factor is the constant rise of identity politics: instead of proposing changes for the whole society, many people prefer to display their difference. Note for instance that I do not hear about people who want to claim that they have no gender, or that they have both genders, it is always either one or the other.
Identity politics plus vindictive politics leads to radical trans militancy, which mimics radical feminism. You mention the case of Ken Zucker. I also read the article by Dreger (Arch Sex Behav (2008) 37:366–421, DOI 10.1007/s10508-007-9301-1) about a similar campaign against J. Michael Bailey. I disagree with conservatives such as Bailey, Zucker and Blanchard, but in science you must defend yourself with rational arguments.
Actually, non-gendered and both-gendered people exist – they’re called agender and bigender respectively. They fall under the genderqueer label, which also includes genderfluid and third gender people. Many countries have legal recognition of these genders, with a large amount in Asia while the US and UK are only recently catching up.
Ok, some news from the Skeptiko front – keeping you informed about this intellectual battle of mine. Here is a truly mind-bending response to one of my posts:
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/mind-boggled-satanist-us-army-mind-control-et-al.3493/page-3#post-107194
Now I’m busy writing another long post about my general position on child liberty in a social context – what does it mean, how it corresponds with familial / communal demands etc. As for this rant from Doppelganger, it is so convoulted in its illogic that I’m a bit lost. I don’t know whether it merits a separate reply.
Your ideas?
Your respondent seems unaware of the social construction of childhood, which is a pity. Especially s/he seems unaware that children are held back from independent experience which would actually give them the ability to make meaningful decisions.
Unfortunately this continues into adulthood more often than not. Two people I know are independent, full time employed, finished school, but one had his phone and bank account locked by his parents, simply because he didn’t think to get his own when he left school; the other had her car locked and keys removed from her. In both instances because they went out and didn’t do what the parents wanted.
This removal of children from their own desires and independence is the primary reason that claims of innocence can succeed—they are “innocent” because they have never had the opportunity to experience beyond their parent’s strictures.
If you are not aware of it, a very (very) good book on this is:
The importance of being innocent: why we worry about children by Joanne Faulkner (CUP 2011)
It is from the “Australian encounter” series, but applies to all western societies as far as I can tell.
Just been reading some of that exchange myself….”Yet, people from other cultures, or indoctrination-resistant types from own one, do not share our artificial, societally enforced anti-sexual vicissitudes”…..Absolutely true.
[IN RESPONSE TO EXPLORER’S SKEPTICO EXCHANGE ABOVE.]
Time and time again, and this has been stated by others too, a large number of the people vehemently opposed to adult-child sexual interactions cannot imagine it being something that happens on the child’s level.
Since adults are much bigger than children, and move with much greater apparent force, they cannot imagine intimate sexual interaction between adults and children not involving these (to them) automatically unbalancing factors. They cannot, or most of all never want to, imagine paedophilic love having, for example, the gentleness and intimacy displayed in mother-baby interaction.
So the biggest problem is themselves- the true “elephant in the room”.
I commend you for engaging these people in these exchanges.
Turning this ship around will take some time!
A new candidate for a blogroll inclusion: “Love and Liberation”:
http://www.loveandliberation.info/index.html
A website with articles and papers about intergenrational sexuality. Not much here for now, and most publications can be found elsewhere, yet, as it claimed, “we’re new here and just getting started…”
Tom, what do you think?
Yes, looks promising.
That’s amazing. I put that site up there a long time ago, and have practically forgotten it. Haven’t done a thing with it in years. Made it from scratch, using html and css. You can make beautiful sites that way, but it’s hard to add material. So I switched to Joomla. It’s not as nice aesthetically, but it’s much easier to develop. I guess everything is a trade off. I think that I moved anything that is there to uryourstory.org. Actually I am surprised it is still up there. I haven’t paid the fee for the domain name in ages. Small world.
Wow, Jay – this site is also your creation? How many have you produced? With “You are Your Story” and new “Unthinkable Thoughts”, we have at least three! Your site-making ability is as notable as my ability to search and find information, even mostly unknown and buried in the depths of the Web, which may be interesting for myself and others…
How in God’s name did you happen onto that site. It really was an early version of what is now uryourstory. That and unthinkable thoughts are the only ones I am doing anything with now. loveandliberation will probably be coming down soon. Not only have I not kept up with payments for the domain name, but I am not keeping the site that is hosting it. Unless it continues to float around in cyberspace like satellites that are no longer in operation do, it will soon be no more.
I’m finding myself feeling a few things…
…One is that this “movement”…”trend”…whatever we are to call it, is a more extreme form of gender conformity.
To my mind, there has never been anything wrong with the effeminate boy, or the “butch” girl…Indeed…the diversity is great. But we seem to have this need, to make people fit one sex or the other…as though it’s all about gender roles and anatomy.
…And going through costly, painful procedures to change your anatomy…that just seems horrifying to me.
…I ask the simple question…What is so wrong, with just accepting that you wont always be drawn to typical things associated with your biological sex?
It seems the most practical thing to do.
Second…I’m far less than comfortable, with the enthusiasm and gusto that some people are embracing and championing this…
I mean…Who knows…If children can win this right…who’s to say they cannot win other rights…including that of their own sexual autonomy?…After all, forced physical changes to the body, and living [dressing, etc.] like the other physical sex comes off a lot more extreme, than having a happy relationship with a pedophile…or randy playmate…
That being said…I don’t think such a thing is a good justification, for major [and potentially dangerous] body modification.
I just think this is an awful heavy thing to “recognize” in your five year old…for example.
This is the kind of thing you talk about with your kid…but you also take it extremely slow, and let it mellow for as much of a couple of decades, as you can…What’s the rush in “chopping off” a perfectly good willy, after all?…or, whatever it is they do with the alternate biological sex?…
The hard part about this…is that I appreciate the human dignity, of the people directly experiencing the phenomena…But I also think that people getting carried away with this, like it’s the new fad, is potentially quite dangerous.
…It just feels like one of those social non-issues, that’s been “recognized” and blown out of all sensible proportion, by people with too much time on their hands.
For the record…I see no problems with, for example, boys who want to wear female intended clothing…I just think making biological changes is extreme…And from what I understand, many people who have the sex change procedure, are ultimately not happy with it…and some want it reversed.
…That’s not a good road to be traveling down.
I think the problem here is a fundamental misunderstanding of what transgenderism is. If transgenderism was simply a tendency towards wanting to dress as and associate with hobbies and interests of the opposite sex, then transgenderism would be a lot more common. Transgenderism is a mismatch of a person’s body and their gender identity, which more often than not causes a large amount of anguish which can be subverted by the process of social transition (changing dress, going by a masculine or feminine name, etc.) as well as hormone replacement therapy and, for some, SRS. I dislike using the overly simplistic and not always exact sentence “person born in the wrong body,” but it’s a simple 101 explanation that begins to cover what transgenderism is.
In addition, actual physical changes for trans children are not extreme and do not include surgery. The only time a doctor will operate on a child’s genitals are due to disease or disfigurement, circumcision or FGM, or genital “correction” surgery that may be performed on intersex infants. The WPATH’s Standards of Care state that any sort of intervention or change, even fully reversible ones, must be done only after “extensive exploration of psychological, family, and social issues” and that “physical interventions should be addressed in the context of adolescent development.” Puberty suppressors are recommended to be used only after the child has reached Tanner Stage 2 of puberty. HRT can only be begun with either parental consent or when the adolescent has reached the legal age to make medical decisions by themselves (usually something like 16), and surgery cannot be performed until they have reached the legal age of majority in their country and have lived continuously for at least a year as their desired gender. The idea that these procedures are done all willy-nilly is incorrect.
Also, “letting it mellow for as much of a couple of decades” is often not a solution or just doesn’t work. Many trans people transition later in life, after years of trying to “let it mellow” – for example, you can see this with the recently transitioned Caitlyn Jenner. This later-life transitioning brings with it many problems, such as the fact that work, professional, and often romantic relationships have already been firmly established as the biological sex and as such the social transition is more difficult than with somebody who transitions earlier in life. In addition, age can bring about physical and health problems that can make physical transitioning more difficult or potentially dangerous.
So, “trans regret” is a BIG thing that people like to trot out to invalidate transgenderism and SRS. The thing to realize is that basically every surgery or other big change in someone’s life can lead to regret. People regret marrying, buying houses, getting non-SRS plastic surgery, etc., but none of this invalidates other people’s choice to make these decisions. Another big thing that may not be mentioned is that such regret often occurs not due to the surgery itself but due to other factors such as “lack of support from the patient’s family, poor social support, late-life transitions, severe psychopathology, unfavorable physical appearance, and poor surgical result.” As surgery techniques improve, so does the rate of people who do not regret surgery. You can check out a collection of around 70 (peer-reviewed) studies done here: http://www.cakeworld.info/transsexualism/what-helps/srs.
Wow! As always, you have really unleashed the insightfulness, Peace!
I’m not going to comment on the whole trans issue, if only because I have read little about it (though I was once fascinated by androgeny, which is a closely related issue, I suspect), but, you say
Transgenderism is a mismatch of a person’s body and their gender identity
The difficulty I have with this is that “gender” is an entirely modern (over the past 70 to 100 years) social and cultural construction.
Thank you, Peace.
Of course, I know and understand, they wont reconstruct the genitals of children for this…I was speaking of the process, at any age it can get done…and being a bit humorous, in my choice of tone.
I also get that a lot of people don’t feel like they have the right gendered body…I just question where this overwhelming need comes from, to put ones self through such a procedure…And whether people are not better served, in changing the way we think about body identity and gender norms…And yes, I realize some people can take even that way too far.
Indeed…and it is irreversible, That in itself is good enough reason to delay as long as possible. Someone on Spiked thinks all transgender people are mentally ill; This is the tip of a large and complex iceberg — In the end, maybe he’ll be correct!
Clearly there is a psychological [and social] component to this.
I have a hard time understanding how one can even know, they are in the wrong body…or what factors go into leading them to that conclusion.
Yes. It would seem that psychological and social factors must be involved. I didn’t know that girls did not have penises until Kayetta and I sneaked out to the woods to check it out. Henry Darger (famous outsider artist), who I am sure wanted to be a girl, painted naked girls with penises. I think he just didn’t know they didn’t have them. It seems unlikely that knowledge of the anatomy of the other sex is inborn. I speculate that some boys are born with a temperament that seems incompatible with the role expectations they see in people around them, and that their desire to be a girl has to do with wanting to be seen as pretty, being able to hang out with girls, and being able to do girl things. Retroactively, so to speak, this gets associated with having or not having a penis.
I still think that thinking of trans individuals as being those who exhibit the want to engage in traditionally gendered activities and clothing of the opposite sex is reductive. In fact, for many years doctors would deny services to trans woman who weren’t “womanly” enough or trans men who weren’t “manly” enough, as if they weren’t “performing gender” correctly. There was even a case awhile back where a Miss Transgender pageant winner was stripped of her title simply because there was footage of her in boxer shorts and so people claimed she was a drag queen who wasn’t living full-time – despite the fact that cis women wear male clothing all the time because it’s comfier than female clothing.
Here’s the thing: transgenderism is not the want to do traditionally gendered things, but to be seen as and accepted as the gender they are. A trans woman would not simply want to be able to talk with girls, but to be seen by these girls as a female in their group. It’s not about hobbies or interests, it’s about how people perceive them and how they feel about themselves. In a world that’s becoming increasingly tolerant and accepting of gender nonconformity, there’s still trans people and there will likely always be trans people.
it’s about how people perceive them and how they feel about themselves
If so, what sets them apart from Otherkin or Clovergendered?
First off, Clovergender was a hoax created by 4chan in an attempt to mock genderqueer people. Even if it wasn’t a hoax, I would still say that people should feel free to feel like that and to seek surgery to help them.
Now, I’ve heard the otherkin argument before, and I want to first off say that I don’t wish to have it again. Yes, you can call me selfish or tell me that I don’t have an argument, but I don’t think this is an avenue that is worth pursuing.
First, there is no possible for somebody to ever be born as an animal – nope, nada, zilch. However, both sex and gender are a spectrum and so it is possible for somebody be born male, female, or intersex. Therefore it’s very possible to be “born into the wrong body” in the case of transgenderism. Transgenderism has a biological basis behind it that transspeciesism does not. Studies have been made into species dysphoria, but nothing conclusive has been found and most likely will not be found. I can believe people saying things like “I feel like I have a tail” ’cause stuff like phantom limbs exist, but trans people are not defined by their dysphoria and so having any kind of “species dysphoria” does not automatically point to an identity.
Second, society is extremely gendered, though many people may not notice it. The way people treat others often relies heavily on what they believe that person’s gender to be, and people are expected to “act” like their gender. This is especially alienating and unsettling to trans people who deal with it on an everyday basis. I very much doubt somebody that identifies as a animal has these types of experiences.
Would I respect somebody who came up to me and said they truly identify as something like a pixie or fox? Sure. But they do not have the same kinds of experiences and hardships that trans people do. They do not get murdered, assaulted, denied basic human rights or healthcare, or otherwise discriminated against due to their feelings of otherness, so it’s unfair to compare the two.
I think you’re right, about the not knowing…We actually have to discover, that the opposite sex is different…
Like you…I remember the first time I saw a vagina…I was expecting to see a penis…I was five or six years old…and even thought my own mother had a penis, too.
I would suggest humans are weird that way…but, if other animal species were forced to wear clothes [and refrain from sex] all the time, while in the company of their own species…I wonder how it would alter their awareness.
I lean in the same direction as you, eqfoundation, on the business of surgery. It fits in with the whole “transhumanism” ideology which I have a lot of trouble accepting. Still, one has to make a distinction between what a person should have a “right” to do and what is a good idea to do. It turns out to be a complex issue.
Exactly…Just because it can be done, doesn’t make it the best idea to do it.
Given as long as our species has been around, and how recently the phenomena of substantial sex change has come along…how many humans have come and gone, who felt they belonged to “the other” sex?…And what did they do about it, given their limited options, and the fact that physical sex change wasn’t even a credible concept?
Maybe some of them lived as the other sex, or androgynous…But the whole idea that sexual transformation is attainable, and the discussion surrounding it…specifically that it should be pursued…It’s clearly a modern social creation…
I question how much the sense of need has been amplified, because it’s possible, and increasingly looked upon as necessary…
But then…I’m talking as a MAP, who’s only options have been to adapt and personally limit myself…After so many decades of seeing the world for what it is…when I encounter others who “just cant live like this, anymore”, I’m more inclined to think…”You may not like your circumstances, but a lot of times in life, there are things we cannot change…and of those things we can change, they don’t always make us happy”…
A lot of humans chase after things, thinking it’s the answer to their liberation…I’ve even wrestled with this, as a BoyLover…Not that I think life will be all rainbows and ice cream, if human sexuality were truthfully liberated…But it has dawned on me, as someone who’s never had a taste of the genuine experience [in the sexual sense]…that I mostly fight for an idea on sexual morality…not really even for any right to act upon it…Truth be told, if I ever had the freedom suddenly available to me, having an actual boy as my lover, and all the relationship commitments that would entail, would turn my life upside down, inside out…and spin it round and round…
…Maybe, that would be pleasing, like a carnival ride…But I’m a bit too old and set in my ways, to honestly be able to deal with that sort of a life shock.
I am an appreciator, from a distance…And given my circumstances, that is what is working out best for me.
> I’m a bit too old and set in my ways, to honestly be able to deal with that sort of a life shock.
Or you might be surprised to discover there is more life in you than you think! It could be rejuvenating. 🙂 I definitely agree with you though that it would turn your life “upside down, inside out…and spin it round and round…” in ways that could take you well out of your comfort zone. A lot of first-time parents feel that way too! Anyway, I like the honesty of you reflections.
🙂
I appreciate that, Tom.
Often times, it’s first nature not to admit to things like this, because of whomever might latch onto it and use it against you [I’m thinking antis].
…But I tend to think about what sort of things I would have wanted passed down to me, as a young BoyLover…and an honest, human assessment ranks right up there.
I find the struggles of this existence, and sharing the wisdom garnered from them, to be every bit as vital as anything we do with each other.
It’s an important commonality…and one we are made stronger by, when we acknowledge it as a group.
I’m just thinking out loud. I wonder to what extent the issue is “being” as opposed to “doing,” or whether that is a valid distinction. When I was in junior high school I liked to bake, cook, make jewellery and babysit – things that most boys did not do. But I also liked to rough house with boys – wrestle, play football, etc. Also on occasion I liked to dress up as a girl. As long as I could DO either boy or girl things, whether I had a penis or not did not seem like a central issue. I would certainly not have wanted someone to cut it off. On the other hand if the Tooth Fairy (or whoever it is that is responsible for such things) had suddenly and painlessly turned me into a girl, I think that would have been OK. There is a character in Rushie’s Midnight’s Children who is able to change his sex at will. That seems optimal. My question is, is the ore-occupation with being either male or female a matter primarily a matter of what one can DO with one gender or the other, or is it a pre-occupation with identity – with how one is seen by others?
Every trans person is different, but the main thing tends to be how you’re seen by others – whether people are aware of it or not, your perceived gender affects a large amount of your life beyond hobbies and interests. Tomboys and girly boys do not have to be trans, and even though preoccupation with the opposite gender’s stereotypical interests and hobbies may signal gender nonconformity which could turn out to be transgenderism, it’s not required – a feminine trans woman is no less a woman than a more masculine trans woman. Even if suddenly everybody didn’t care what hobbies and interests that men and women had, there would still be trans people. In addition, for many people what causes their dysphoria is not simply their genitals but other and more obvious parts of their bodies – for example, a trans woman may be self-conscious about her broad shoulders while a trans man may be bothered by his wide hips.
Since you mentioned autism, I thought it might be interesting to you to read about neurodiversity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurodiversity
Some people see autism as a normal phenomenon like left-handedness/right-handedness or heterosexuality/homosexuality.
I don’t know much about it but as far as I know recently in some countries like Denmark or France being transgender has been seen as a normal phenomenon, too, instead of an illness.
I think from this perspective, being transgender or being autistic wouldn’t influence a person’s well-being in a “perfect” society; and maybe there’ve been societies in which this has been the case?
So just like “pedophilic disorder” nowadays or “ego-dystonic homosexuality” in the past, “gender dysphoria” and “autism spectrum disorder” would only be caused by discrimination. Because discrimination is an exterior factor, being autistic or being transgender would therefore not be a disorder/an illness/pathological which would require something that causes inherent distress.
I like this point of view a lot but haven’t found the time yet to read much about what the other side(s) say about it.
PS: Off-topic, but have you ever written about the Communist Party of Great Britain? Their programme states under 3.14. Youth and education “Abolish age-of-consent laws. We recognise the right of individuals to enter into the sexual relations they choose, provided this does not conflict with the rights of others.” http://cpgb.org.uk/pages/programme/3-immediate-demands/
They also wrote in their newspaper in 2001 “Communists call for the abolition of the age of consent – alternative legislation is needed which does not stigmatise and criminalise consenting sexual activity.” http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/410/media-monster/
I don’t know about any other party worldwide that still exists and calls for the abolition of age-of-consent laws. If you haven’t yet, maybe you could try to contact them and ask them if they still think this way, when they created this chapter of their programme, etc.?
I think the German Greens did at one point call to abolish the AOC laws. But now, One of the former members was criticised for advocating such positions; A sign of our censorious times. He now distances himself from those positions probably if he wants to stay favourable to the populace.
>…being autistic wouldn’t influence a person’s well-being in a “perfect” society… “autism spectrum disorder” would only be caused by discrimination
We were introduced to the concept of “neurodiversity” here at H-TOC by James/Jasmine. Describing him/herself as autistic, he/she used the word “neurotypical” rather than “normal” to describe the rest of us.
It’s an interesting way of looking at things although I think it’s a stretch to suppose that extreme autism is just another perfectly acceptable, non-pathological way of being. I say this for two reasons:
(1) At the low-functioning end of autism, disability is severe. It means the autistic person cannot live independently, or thrive in any obvious way.
(2) The condition is also a terrible burden for parents and others who find themselves looking after an autistic child or adult.
See below for Sue Rubin and Jonathan Mitchell, both of them autistic, who do not accept the “no-cure-needed” approach.
You also asked about the Communist Party of Great Britain, pointing out their very radical age-of-consent policy.
This is certainly interesting and remarkable but I suspect it is merely a relic in a party which is itself a relic. The party never did have much support and I get the impression it is now more or less moribund.
As it happens, an old friend of mine, now in his mid-seventies, was a member until recently. He was kicked out of the party when he got into trouble with the law. I think the charge was downloading child porn. In his own defence, he brought up the party’s age-of-consent policy but it didn’t do him any good. The members of his local branch had no idea there was such a policy and were shocked to hear about it!
Sue Rubin and Jonathan Mitchell:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_rights_movement#Criticisms_and_counter-movements
Sue Rubin, the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary Autism Is A World, is an example of an autistic adult who is aligned with the cure group. In her opinion, people with Asperger syndrome can communicate well and “pass for normal”, while “low-functioning” people have a severe disability; “low functioning people are just trying to get through the day without hurting, tapping, flailing, biting, screaming, etc. The thought of a gold pot of a potion with a cure really would be wonderful.”
Jonathan Mitchell, an autistic author and blogger who advocates for a cure for autism, has described autism as having “prevented me from making a living or ever having a girlfriend. It’s given me bad fine motor coordination problems where I can hardly write. I have an impaired ability to relate to people. I can’t concentrate or get things done.” He describes neurodiversity as a “tempting escape valve”.
The CPGB is not the only party calling for the abolition of the age of consent. See http://childwiki.org/wiki/Communism for other examples; it seems that Socialist Alternative also holds this view (see the link http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/gayleft/socalt.rtf).
A political tendency known for its consistent rejection of the age of consent, denunciation of all forms of repression of youth sexuality, and defence of NAMBLA and Michael Jackson, is the International Communist League, the so-called “Spartacists”: http://icl-fi.org/
I have become a Tom’s blog addict. It’s terrible. I wake up every morning with the best of intentions. I make a list of things that I am going to accomplish. But then I think, I’ll just go take a quick glance at Tom’s blog. It won’t hurt anything. I can at least read the latest comments. That’ll only take a few minutes. Ah! This post doesn’t quite have that right. I just have to make a comment. One little comment won’t hurt anything. Two hours later my day is destroyed. Where did my good intentions to get so many worthwhile things done go? Tom writes well, and selects fascinating topics. It’s a deadly combination. The healing process begins with admitting that you have a problem. I do. I love Tom’s blog. But I can kick this habit. It’s not a sign of weakness to admit you need help. If there are others that are struggling with the same addiction, I suggest we start a support group.
>But I can kick this habit.
LOL! No way! You’re doomed! 🙂 Just like me: I’m spending far too much time on this blog as well!
My name is Stephen and I too am a Heretic TOC addict. 🙂
Born into the wrong prison cell?
http://www.insidetime.org/born-into-the-wrong-sex-6/
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Here is a great little video “Edwin” in case you have missed it. My trans friend Julian gets a kick out of it every time she sees it and that has been often: https://vimeo.com/7014091 Here is another one she likes right up there with “Edwin”: Alone with Mr Carter 2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS0AyzcFrXM
Hope you enjoy.
Lukas
Thanks, Lukas. While I was checking out those links, I found this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyKto9IRJl8
which I think is rather sweet and not entirely unconnected to the subject of this thread.
Yes. No one should be fooled by the rather conventional start: it takes a decidedly unusual turn!
A child themself (grammar cringe) might want to go public as a service to others, even if they recognize it could be a sacrifice for them personally.
It’s worth saying something explicitly that others rarely do. If in fact we had medical technology that could make someone a 100% natural and fertile woman one day, and then for a reasonable price make them a 100% natural and fertile man the next, this whole issue would be far less contentious. Having the options for partial physical transformation is a relatively recent development.
There’s a lot to be said for recognizing there are lot of ways to be female and lots of ways to be male while leaving yourself with a 100% natural body of whatever type you’re born with. I feel 100% male, but I imagine if I had been given a female body I would have found some way to deal with it — been a lesbian, borne children — but personally would think it more important to fit in and be inconspicuous than to transition. And those who do place a value on being inconspicuous will be notably silent in this debate instead of loudly proclaiming their desistance.
I guess what it all boils down to is that people are complicated. There are very few black and white answers. Nature and nurture both play their parts as do life experiences and friends. If we all just didn’t give a crap and just let other people live as they wanted, we’d all be better off, but unfortunately, there are way, too, many out there who have to get involved and politicians that need to prove something to their base.
The good news is that with younger folk being exposed to these things at earlier ages,they are far more accepting of alternative lifestyle choices. That could make those in the margins able to live a bit more out in the open, a decade or two down the road.
I basically agree with Green when he says, ““I’m not convinced that going on TV to announce your child is dysphoric is the best way to ensure their development,” . . . “It might even be considered child abuse.” That is to say, I think it is not a good idea. Being in the public lime-light is a powerful reinforcer which could lead to commitments that are not in the long-term interest of the child. That said, what is the point of calling it “child abuse”? The heavy moral condemnation implicit in that term can only muddy the waters. Why not just say, it seems like a bad idea?