If you find yourself wondering about my thoughts on supporting gender nonconforming youth, please see the Cass Review, commissioned by the United Kingdom’s National Health Service in 2020, whose recommendations I support: https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/
Really? That’s interesting, because the Cass Review isn’t about gender nonconforming youth, and makes no recommendations about them. It considers transgender young people.
It does have some seemingly more reasonable recommendations like offering puberty blockers at a developmentally appropriate age rather than an arbitrary age cut-off, or assessing mental health issues as part of gender-affirming care, which is already and recommended by international professional bodies etc. But it also recommends using an untested, unproven form of therapy to encourage trans young people that they aren’t trans. Not the kind of gender exploration that is already recommended by international organisations, and should be a part of gender-affirming care, but something that looks a lot like conversion therapy light.
Add to that the anti-scientific views and promotion of conspiracy theories (without any evidence) while dismissing most of the available evidence as poor quality, and the catastrophic effect that has had for the ‘debate’ about trans people here. Or the fact that it secretly recruited members of anti-LGBTQ hate groups to its board, or that Cass was promoting anti-trans literature before being hired to lead the review.
I know kids that have been harmed by the wider cultural fallout from the Cass Review. It has been widely critiqued for its methods, and instead of responding to or addressing these critiques (as actual science should) Cass has dismissed anyone with valid points as keyboard warriors and mere activists.
The Cass review is opposed by just about every LGBTQ charity and advocacy group here. It is hated, as is Cass, by the LGBTQ community in the UK.
To say that you support it is pretty shocking. I get that transition wasn’t for you, but since you’ve said yourself that you don’t and never had dysphoria, it comes off as a bit condescending to say you support something which doesn’t concern you, and is harming the people it does concern. What you’re effectively saying, whether you realise it or not, and whether you intend to or not, is that you support what the Cass review set out to achieve, and the harm it is causing.
You are saying a few things that give away that nothing is likely to shift your views. Hillary Cass does not hate trans people. She recommended doing studies, using kids with gender dysphoria to analyze effectiveness. That is not an anti-trans stance. Complete ban, forever, is what an anti-trans person would have been the conclusion.
The research is absolutely awful. I’ve some experience with research and want to bang my head on the wall at how terrible it is. OMG, how stupid are these people that they didn’t bother to even correctly count people. Count, they didn’t count. They did crappy follow up when they even bothered. Follow up of any population is difficult and always has subject loss. They didn’t even try, in most cases, and when they did they didn’t do a good job of explaining or trying to mitigate the loss. It took me about three minutes, literally, to frame out a study that would have lead to answers rather than more questions than what we started with so we are left with no more real research than we essentially started with when we decided to do an unproven protocol with off label meds on minors. Additionally, the dangers of Lupron were already known from use on girls with precious puberty by at least 2018 and I have seen no acknowledgment of that in anything I have read. It isn’t part of the conversation at all.
The charity and orgs need to be thoughtfully scrutinized because they involve massive amounts of money. The heads are making a big paycheck that will go away if trans are fully integrated into society. They were one the verge of losing their jobs once gay marriage was standard. The execs of GLAAD spent 500,00 on a week in Switzerland. That is awfully suspicious.
Study design, identify all clinics/doctors providing gender affirming care for minors. Create a conversation and find those agreeing to participate in study. Assign random ids to each patient to provide anonymity to them. Record agreed upon criteria, age, sex, race, socioeconomic status, general location. Create protocol for communicating with parents and patients explaining the importance of follow up, even if the child desists. (Studies are always opt-in). Decide on method and time intervals of follow up. Do analysis of results multiple times. I would start with every 6 months with no end date due to the experimental nature of the work.
The hardest part of this is the follow up, but I’ve noticed that people who complain about this on social science research don’t do a good job of explaining the importance. Example: I’m glad you are reaching out to help your child. We are going to do our absolute best to help them too. It is important for us to know the result for each child as it will help us learn and adjust our protocols, and help more children. I would like to ask you, person to person, to encourage your child to stay in contact with us, no matter if this is the right choice for them or if something happens in the future that leads them to decide it wasn’t . There can be multiple reasons that may happen and if we know what those are then we can do a better job helping children. We also ask that you, as parents, stay in contact with us as no one knows their children better than their parents. Explain method, emailed surveys, phone calls, requests for interviews, whatever.
5 years later, the data would be nearly crystal clear across all the countries offering it. Arguments for funding and ability to explain to the public would be effective and rock solid.
But no, people who went to medical school couldn’t come to that very obvious conclusion across, what, a decade? Literally took me 3 minutes and I’m not even that smart.
I’ve done my research (I also have a background in research, plus loved experience) and no, I’m not going to change my views on this, because my views are the result of looking at the evidence.
It’s interesting that you mentioned research of five years, since that research literally exists, and found good outcomes for trans patients. Also your mention of identifying all clinics in the e.g. England providing care for trans youth to conduct follow up studies? Yeah, they’ve done that - there only was one, the Tavistock. Again, the research could have been better, but it has been done. It is still being done. It has been done in multiples countries, multiple times. The results are always broadly similar - trans healthcare helps trans people, and has done for years and years. Trans healthcare isn’t new, it has been around for over a hundred years - the first trans clinic was burned down by the Nazis, look it up.
As for your allusion to randomised control trials, there are very good ethical reasons that those haven’t been done and shouldn’t be done when it comes to puberty blockers. The Council of Europe, among others, have highlighted the ethical implications of withholding treatments that have been in use for decades, as well as the practical difficulties. For example c any randomised, blinded study on puberty blockers would very quickly be un-blinded, since the effects of puberty blockers are very obvious, and those in the control group would quickly be revealed as such. Nonetheless, the NHS plans to do these, in a way that breaks multiple ethical guidelines and laws. Essentially, the only way for young trans people to access puberty blockers is to engage in a trial. That’s coerced research participation, through threat of withholding treatment. Those trials were meant to start by now, by the way, but have been delayed again and again. And again, puberty blockers have been used to treat transgender children for decades, they aren’t new treatments. Withholding them is unethical. Withholding them to force people to take part in medical research is disgusting behaviour, especially since it is being done to kids.
I’m not kidding when I say I’ve done my research. I’ve been writing about trans healthcare for years, and I have read almost every paper there is on the subject, going back decades. It doesn’t sound like you’ve done the same, your comments and suggestions bely that fact. You might have a background in research, but if you haven’t read the relevant research on this, your opinion is by definition ignorant of the facts.
Yes, we need more research, we always do. Go and read any of the papers on trans healthcare and they say the same. Yes there are flaws, like loss to follow up, but again these are discussed at length in the literature. Trans people are a tiny population, the number of trans kids that have medical treatment is even smaller, because not all do. Using the same kinds of research methods as are used on much larger cis populations is difficult, and yet these studies have been done where possible. And you are also discounting loved experience - trans people overwhelmingly say they benefit from these treatments, and have said so for decades. If they didn’t work or help, we wouldn’t continue to engage with the treatments or seek them out. Science is important, but so is listening to the subjects - us, trans people, trans kids, our families, our loved ones, who will tell you time and time again how much gender-affirming care helps us and is life-changing for the positive.
As for Cass…
Cass recommends a psychological approach for which there is no evidence, one that borders on conversion therapy and sees being trans as the last, worst possible outcome. That is deeply transphobic.
She dismisses much of the research using a review methodology that has been repeatedly crucifixes by experts in medical research. The review method she used for the literature on gender-affirming care was different than that used to review her preferred, recommended approach, for example. That’s bad research. That’s unethical. That’s bias. Her response? She called those experts keyboard warriors. Does that sound alike an ethical, responsible scientific approach to you? To simply dismiss criticism out of hand. Literally another paper came out this week criticising the Cass Review from a medico-legal point of view. There are several well researched and well-evidenced critiques by experts globally, and Cass has ignored them all, as has the UK government.
She also introduces entirely unevidenced claims, such as the idea that porn turns kids trans, or social media turns kids trans, or being autistic or neurodivergent, or having adverse childhood experiences turns kids trans. There is no evidence for any of this, yet it is stated as if fact in her report. These ideas have been researched, and found not only to be incorrect but to be ableist and transphobic.
Furthermore, her presentation of data is done so in a way as to skew and misrepresent it, while using language that is misleading and unscientific. Again, there are multiple in-depth, peer-reviewed critiques of this. I highly recommend you read them.
It is not a coincidence that many of the claims she repeats, or recommendations she makes are identical to the demands of anti-trans groups like SEGM or Genspect. Her recommendation that trans adolescents over 16 be treated as children - unlike any other patient group in the UK - and that those up to 25 should also effectively be treated as minors who can’t make decisions a for themselves, is straight out of the mouth of Genspect - an organisation that promotes conversion therapy, and is designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate group.
So yes, there are issue with the literature - they are well-acknowledged, and there are good reasons for those issue existing that aren’t easy to overcome.
But there is no evidence for the treatment and approach that Cass has recommended, beyond better mental healthcare - something already recommended by WPATH et al, and demanded by trans people. There is plenty of evidence, existing and emerging, that preventing young people from transitioning either medically or socially, which Cass effectively does recommend (particularly the former), does hurt trans young people.
Cass doesn’t have to hate trans people to hold beliefs that are deeply transphobic, deeply cissexist, and deeply biased. She has no expertise in this area, none. Not in psychology, not in gender care, and that’s why she was hired. She has been criticised for promoting anti-trans literature prior to doing the job. She hired members of designated anti-LGBTQ hate groups to the board - secretly, because she knew it was wrong. Our previous government admitted they put her, and others, in place to achieve their political, ideological goals.
Finally, the idea that charities are pushing for trans healthcare and inclusion for money is just laughable conspiracy theory. For one, many of the most prominent trans rights groups in the UK are tiny, and partly run by volunteers - TransActual, Trans Safety Network, Trans Pride Scotland - are funded in othe part by donations from trans people. The idea that the trans population would vanish if these charities weren’t supporting us is frankly ridiculous. It is the stuff of conspiracy and utterly without evidence - which is interesting given your call for evidence above. As usually, trans people have all the demands for evidence placed on us, whereas those opposed to our healthcare and rights can just make shit up and pretend it’s a fact.
I do agree with you that you’re not that smart. Maybe start from that realisation, and educate yourself on this issue properly before commenting on it in ignorance.
Well, I was enjoying and respecting your reply up to the end but I’m not an overly sensitive person and did actually mean the I’m not as smart as doctors or real researchers. So, valid ending.
It does sound like you have done far deeper research than I have. I’ll scan the Cass Report eventually but it is nearly 400 pages and no one actually cares about my opinion and I have no sway over anyone, so not that important. One of my main concerns with the research, in general, is that I haven’t seen anything that appears to take into account the loss of participants who would have negative outcomes and not inform a clinic. I think it is logical to assume these people would be far less likely to report back that they changed their mind and realized they weren’t trans. Then add in the pressure from the trans community to keep your mouth shut if you detransition or desist and I think that is leading to a skew in the numbers of those unsatisfied with the treatment. I think it will be interesting to see the change (or lack of) over the next 5-10 years as detrans speak out.
Thank you for naming this. I don’t even need to look into how local community groups see this bc I can tell how blatantly fascist the Cass Review is just by reading it. I’m horrified that I wasted my time reading this condescendingly eugenicist take. Anyone who agrees with the author needs to do some deep reflection. This does not support queer and trans youth, and these are conservative arguments.
I support the Cass Report too. Truth is always criticized by people whose agenda is damaged by it. Who cares what the LGBTQ community says about it, even assuming they are all of one opinion.
Your academic credentials are completely undermined when you suggest that the Cass review is only relevant to UK transgender children, and that anyone else’s opinion is irrelevant.
The Cass Review is essential reading to anyone concerned with children’s health and rights.
Hey, who cares what the people being harmed by this review think! These kids and their families are screaming from the rooftops about how the policy fallout from this report is harming them, but they’re trans kids so who gives a shit, right?
Have you read the Cass Review? Or its appendices? Or the dodgy research it was based on? Or the academic critiques of it? Or the research it dismisses?
Or did you just read an NYT article written by another cis man that confirms your prejudice and now you think you’re an expert that knows best?
Are you even in a position to understand the issues with the review’s methodology or the way it introduces unfounded ideological claims? I am, I have a doctorate in sociology and social policy and spent a decade learning research methods and how to critique the kind of studies the review employs, as well as those that review dismisses. I also experience the political fallout from the report among what was already an increasingly shit time for trans people in the UK. But I’m part of the LGBTQ community, so I must be clueless right?
Plenty of non-LGBTQ people have criticised it, too, by the way. Maybe you care about their opinions more? It is it just the ones that punch down at trans kids you listen to?
Have you considered that the truth of trans people’s existence is the thing you’re rejecting because it’s damaging to your agenda, and that of wider cisnormative society?
Since you aren’t affected by the Cass Review (I’m going to assume you don’t live in the UK and you aren’t a transgender child - do correct me if I’m wrong, though), why do you think your opinion is relevant?
Why do you even have an opinion on the Cass Review? Do you just like supporting children and trans people being harmed? Or have you been convinced this is something you should suddenly care about (and by “care about” I mean punch down at trans folks) by yet another NYT article, despite trans kids existing for years without issue.
Do have a very hard think before replying. Or just keep your ignorant opinions to yourself, entirely up to you.
Do not assume the Cass Review is scientific. It has been widely discredited by every major medical association and psychological association. The data was purposely distorted and incorrectly gathered. This is a review that transphobic people hold up that actually has no scientific value.
The British Medical Association has specifically taken a neutral position on the Cass Review while it considers the issue further. The British Psychological Society commended Cass for her work on the Review. You may be thinking of US groups, but they do not represent the entirely of scientific thought on the matter, nor are they the most relevant to a review of an NHS service.
Your link basically says that the BMA acknowledges that the Cass Review wasn’t scientifically accurate and that they will have to do their own review WITH the input of lived experience from transgender people.
Is that the same British Psychological Society that recently had members of several anti-trans groups and a sociologist who was outed by his university as running an anonymous account that specifically existed to abuse and troll trans people speak at their conference in the issue of trans healthcare? That British Psychological Society?
And the same Cass who has been widely criticised for promoting anti-trans literature prior to being hired to lead the Cass Review, who met with US anti-LGBTQ groups, and secretly hired members of designated anti-LGBTQ hate groups to the board of the Cass Review? The same Cass that has contradicted the less extreme recommendations of her own report since it was published to fit the government’s narrative and ensure she got her peerage? The same Cass that had zero prior expertise in transgender healthcare, and was suspiciously the only person considered for the role, by government ministers who later admitted they did so as part of a wider recruitment of anti-trans individuals into government positions to ensure their ideological viewpoints informed the review? The same Cass that, instead of responding to methodological critique from relevant experts from around the world, as any good scientist should, dismissed them as keyboard warriors? That Cass?
Do you actually know anything about Cass or her review beyond mainstream media headlines?
Some pretty bold claims in there, but I have no desire to get into them with you. Simply pointing out that arguments from authority don't work very well when authorities disagree — clearly people are allowed to disagree with authorities, as you disagree with the BPS — or when you pick and choose which authorities matter based on how closely they agree with you.
If the authorities you do like changed their tune on this, would you change your mind? If not, don't expect others to change theirs.
Would love to hear an example of a specific thing that was wrong in the Cass review. Do you have one to give so I can get a sense of what it got so wrong?
So, you think trans people talking about a subject that they have extensive personal experience with and knowledge about is “biased” and you would rather NO transgender people talk about transgender rights? Should we just leave it to cisgender people to talk ABOUT us rather than TO us?
The person you linked supports experimental surgeries for children and medicine that results in sterility. And supports men in women’s sports. They are not a serious resource.
I'd go so far as to describe it as a propaganda piece couched in scientifically sounding language and misappropriated, googleable scientific terms - so it *looks* like science for the gullible public and politicians. Which especially easy when people already have confirmation bias.
It's scientific forgery and should be handled as a medical scandal, especially because of the damage it already has done.
I was just about to comment and ask about this. I consider myself someone who is also re-thinking a lot of the social norms and practices of the left (though I am still left ideologically!), so I’m coming to you with an open mind here… but it seems like there were some methodological problems with the Cass review (and some misrepresentation of data, discussed in a number of critiques). I’m wondering if you have seen this/have any thoughts about this, and (this isn’t meant to be a loaded question or anything btw) I’m wondering if you’re becoming more broadly skeptical of medical transition generally.
A quick glance at your profile is very telling. Why are you so obsessed with “tr@nnies” and “tr00ns”? Have you ever met one irl or are you battling a boogeyman you’ve created in your head?
Using they/them irritates many people because those pronouns already mean something different to most people. Imagine a trans couple who both use they/them. One of their friends is planning a party. Her partner asks if Gene is coming. "Yes, they are," she responds. Does she mean just Gene or Gene and Gene's partner? There's apt to be confusion. I imagine there are some people who might avoid talking to someone who uses they/them simply because they don't want to offend them by saying the wrong thing. My point is, is the practice promote inclusivity or work against it? I'm all for respecting pronoun preferences but, as you indicate, for some, it's not making life any easier. Thanks for sharing your perspective. These are important conversations to have.
I'm thankful to you for writing this. I hope other people, much younger than I, read it before they go too far down the road with hormones or other more dramatic changes to their bodies only to realize it wasn't their body that was betraying them but society. My experience growing up was very much like yours except more Robin Hood than anything with a flower on it. I do not have gendor dysphoria but I can imagine that I would have been tempted to think I had. Luckily, the only option for me was the lesbian/gay community which is indeed where I belonged and where I was accepted and where I could flourish in my distinctly non-feminine self.
Always a tomboy, athlete, I channeled John Travolta when I was in the discos in the 80's. I have a label now, gender non-conforming lesbian who uses she/her pronouns. I feel unrelated to many women who dress in tight revealing clothing and wear clothes I can't imagine are comfortable - and the makeup and hair- I don't get the appeal. But I respect that they are women too. I hope they feel perfect in their womanhood as I do in mine.
I worry that there are so many other perfect women like me (and you) doing surgeries to become something else - something that is not us. Leaving the club of "woman" which is a club I definitely love being a part of it especially if the only other option is to be a man.
Being a woman doesn't mean you have to conform to the status quo or the patriarchal definition of womanhood. You don't have to be a woman who gives a shit about the male gaze. You don't have to be straight or not-straight. We are still beautiful women without that.
I want our expanded idea of what a woman looks like and behaves like to get more broadly accepted. And if we "transition" instead of just being ourselves, we undermine that very effort.
Caveat: And like you, I want to be clear that my comments are for people like us, not for people who have gender dysphoria for real. I am an ally to those who need to transition to be themselves. But I think it is important to also speak out for people who don't need to transition, and remind them that we just need to stand proud in our version of womanhood.
Thank you for telling us your story! It's always good to have more perspectives on this topic so that more people can see that they're not wrong or letting anyone down at all.
Even though I'm still pretty sure I'm agender and I still feel dysphoric when referred to as a woman despite being pretty damn "feminine" in my preferred attire and interests and NOT really going out of my way to physically or audibly come off as anything but a cis woman (a lot of what helped me realize I'm agender is my befuddlement and annoyance at how even BODY PARTS are gendered), I DO feel very much affirmed and validated to see another person outside of alt-right | (Christo)fascist | Nazi circles also be disconcerted by how, basically, queer culture eats up our rigidly gendered expectations for men and women just like mainstream cishet culture does, only in queer culture it's to the point that gender NONconformity is often prized instead of gender conformity.
A lot of the reason why I spent literally years hanging out with Nazis, (Christo)fascists, and alt-righters in the thankfully now-LONG-dead subreddit r/RightWingLGBT was because I was so incredibly unnerved by how mainstream queer culture, at least at the time (the late 2010s), was conflating gender with gender EXPRESSION to the point that people were suggesting that other people were trans | otherwise LGBTQ+ just because they were gender-nonconforming.
I was also initially unnerved by the growth of the "you don't have to be dysphoric to be trans!" train of thought in the late 2010s-2020s because, at least initially, I felt it tricked gender-nonconforming cis people into thinking they're somehow trans just because they weren't obnoxious stereotypes of their gender assigned at birth...now I've realized that it's actually not the worst thing in the world because then it allows people who ARE actually trans or otherwise dysphoric to recognize and register their gender dysphoria that basically doesn't come off as the "classic" gender dysphoria.
While I would never in a zillion years support outright restrictions on accessing HRT, etc. to the extent that both the UK and many US states have implemented them, I DO think it's highly concerting how often, back in the 2010s, permanent medical treatment was treated as lightly as it was in the queer community.
The good news for all 3 of those points I've just discussed is that I think they are WAY less prominent or popular thought in the queer community now in the mid-2020s than they once were.
Like, now it's said pretty often, and correctly so, that your gender doesn't have anything to do with your interests or gender expression (which brings me to ask what the hell even IS gender in the first place and why it's such a big deal to most people), and it's also said pretty often and correctly so that not going so far as to bind, etc. or get medical treatment doesn't make you any less trans, which gives people a lot more time to seriously think out their gender and what they're REALLY willing to put their bodies through for the sake of ridding themselves of their gender dysphoria.
I've actually also been meaning to write my own piece examining my relationship to my (lack of) gender and how it's so annoying to see how EVERYTHING is gendered to the point that so many people feel the need to bind and outright undergo medical treatment that's, unlike puberty blockers, typically pretty damn irreversible because its whole POINT is that it's irreversible in order to be taken seriously as anything besides the gender they were assigned at birth!
I love this piece so much, what a beautifully nuanced and helpful exploration. Thanks for sharing your experiences in such a refreshingly non-polarising way.
This, as with everything else I’ve read of yours, is so well-written and powerful. I really appreciate your ability to articulate subtleties about contentious topics in a way that doesn’t fan the flames, that leans into compassionate truth-seeking. It’s no surprise to me that some people here still reacted with anger, as this topic is so emotionally charged. But I feel confident in saying that that’s not your fault. You’ve done everything in your power to describe your experience and the truth as you see it in a way that embodies both kindness and diligent rationality at the same time. Well done, as always.
This is very interesting. I’m nonbinary, too, and I still remember my joy when I realized that there was a name for the gender I’d recognized in myself when I was a young girl. One of my godchildren is also nonbinary, and we’ve had some discussions around this. They’ve had top surgery, but I’m old enough that I just don’t to want to deal with surgery. I also went to a women’s college (which now accepts nonbinary students, too), and I still feel solidarity there. But I’m reaching retirement age, am married to a gay man, and one of my other godchildren is a beautiful trans woman. I’m comfortable with my life, and proud of my family. I hope other people can find a place that works as well for them.
“To be clear: I still use other people’s preferred pronouns, and I recommend that you do too. Most simply, it’s a gesture of respect.”
I’m not sure that ‘respect’ is the right word here. In this instance, to show respect and use someone’s preferred pronouns is to betray my own observations and beliefs, for which the respect seems to not be reciprocated, if reading many of the comments is anything to go by.
It is, perhaps, more helpful to say that it is a gesture of acceptance. If I choose not to use your preferred pronouns, if they don’t align with my beliefs, then that’s indicative of my belief in that sex is binary.
This comment thread is littered with delusional lost souls. Absolute poppycock everything you are writing . Stop bowing to the new religion just as you won’t bow to the old ones. Never use preferred pronouns, its allegiance to the ideology. You are male or female and lesbian gay bisexual or straight . That. Is. It!
To those who get their knickers in a knot about our clinic demographic forms requesting their preferred pronouns (out of respect for them!), I say, “If you tell me your pronouns are “asshole” and “dipshit,” I’ll honor that and refer to you as asshole and dipshit. It’s really easy, we just care to know what you prefer. It has no impact on us personally what you prefer, or any impact on you what someone else prefers.”
At first an experiment but now my routine, I’ve found it fascinating how that always defuses the situation when put in terms their philistine minds can understand.
But let us do one better with our pronouns - he, him, she, her, they, them, etc. - are 3rd person, for when we are referring to someone else, not when addressing them directly. I’m not the only one who believes this world would be a lot better when we start understanding, voting, respecting, loving, caring, etc. for “we” and “us” and “our” instead of “me” and “my.”
Consider the possibility that nothing in you is broken. Thank you for this beautiful, honest statement about your life and experience. I applaud your courage and the purity of your quest. You are the sparkly flower girl and you are Robin Hood, and the best thing is that you are being yourself and good people love you for it.
I was and am exactly like you, except that I was born in 1980 and raised in an isolated, all-Mormon town. The combination of my era and my culture of origin didn’t even allow me the vocabulary or cultural references to consider myself as queer until well into adulthood, like, in my 30s.
My personal beliefs about gender (that it’s a fake idea and just a performance one chooses to give or not give, or to perform in unexpected ways, whatever suits one’s objectives) would, I think, cause most younger people today to believe I’m nonbinary. And I’m fine with other people thinking that about me. But because of my circumstances, I grew up seeing myself as a WOMAN who nevertheless chose not conform to her own gender.
I worry that, in all the earnest and good and needed progressive push to help trans people gain acceptance in this world, we are in some ways erasing another identity—that of the gender-nonconforming woman or man. People who are willing to show the world that one can still be a woman or a man, even if one doesn’t partake of any particular gender performance. We exist, too, and we are important because our presence in society helps us all dismantle patriarchal ideas about gender and how it relates to power and control. And I would hate for younger people to feel that their options are: the gender you were assigned at birth, or trans. There is always the option of: I’m a woman (or a man) even if you don’t like the way I “do” woman or man.
Did this just randomly post on your wall??? Lmao. I tried to post it as a reply to your essay on why you stopped using they/them pronouns but Substack is on the fritz, apparently. Anyway, hi! Loved your essay.
If you find yourself wondering about my thoughts on supporting gender nonconforming youth, please see the Cass Review, commissioned by the United Kingdom’s National Health Service in 2020, whose recommendations I support: https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/
Really? That’s interesting, because the Cass Review isn’t about gender nonconforming youth, and makes no recommendations about them. It considers transgender young people.
It does have some seemingly more reasonable recommendations like offering puberty blockers at a developmentally appropriate age rather than an arbitrary age cut-off, or assessing mental health issues as part of gender-affirming care, which is already and recommended by international professional bodies etc. But it also recommends using an untested, unproven form of therapy to encourage trans young people that they aren’t trans. Not the kind of gender exploration that is already recommended by international organisations, and should be a part of gender-affirming care, but something that looks a lot like conversion therapy light.
Add to that the anti-scientific views and promotion of conspiracy theories (without any evidence) while dismissing most of the available evidence as poor quality, and the catastrophic effect that has had for the ‘debate’ about trans people here. Or the fact that it secretly recruited members of anti-LGBTQ hate groups to its board, or that Cass was promoting anti-trans literature before being hired to lead the review.
I know kids that have been harmed by the wider cultural fallout from the Cass Review. It has been widely critiqued for its methods, and instead of responding to or addressing these critiques (as actual science should) Cass has dismissed anyone with valid points as keyboard warriors and mere activists.
The Cass review is opposed by just about every LGBTQ charity and advocacy group here. It is hated, as is Cass, by the LGBTQ community in the UK.
To say that you support it is pretty shocking. I get that transition wasn’t for you, but since you’ve said yourself that you don’t and never had dysphoria, it comes off as a bit condescending to say you support something which doesn’t concern you, and is harming the people it does concern. What you’re effectively saying, whether you realise it or not, and whether you intend to or not, is that you support what the Cass review set out to achieve, and the harm it is causing.
You are saying a few things that give away that nothing is likely to shift your views. Hillary Cass does not hate trans people. She recommended doing studies, using kids with gender dysphoria to analyze effectiveness. That is not an anti-trans stance. Complete ban, forever, is what an anti-trans person would have been the conclusion.
The research is absolutely awful. I’ve some experience with research and want to bang my head on the wall at how terrible it is. OMG, how stupid are these people that they didn’t bother to even correctly count people. Count, they didn’t count. They did crappy follow up when they even bothered. Follow up of any population is difficult and always has subject loss. They didn’t even try, in most cases, and when they did they didn’t do a good job of explaining or trying to mitigate the loss. It took me about three minutes, literally, to frame out a study that would have lead to answers rather than more questions than what we started with so we are left with no more real research than we essentially started with when we decided to do an unproven protocol with off label meds on minors. Additionally, the dangers of Lupron were already known from use on girls with precious puberty by at least 2018 and I have seen no acknowledgment of that in anything I have read. It isn’t part of the conversation at all.
The charity and orgs need to be thoughtfully scrutinized because they involve massive amounts of money. The heads are making a big paycheck that will go away if trans are fully integrated into society. They were one the verge of losing their jobs once gay marriage was standard. The execs of GLAAD spent 500,00 on a week in Switzerland. That is awfully suspicious.
Study design, identify all clinics/doctors providing gender affirming care for minors. Create a conversation and find those agreeing to participate in study. Assign random ids to each patient to provide anonymity to them. Record agreed upon criteria, age, sex, race, socioeconomic status, general location. Create protocol for communicating with parents and patients explaining the importance of follow up, even if the child desists. (Studies are always opt-in). Decide on method and time intervals of follow up. Do analysis of results multiple times. I would start with every 6 months with no end date due to the experimental nature of the work.
The hardest part of this is the follow up, but I’ve noticed that people who complain about this on social science research don’t do a good job of explaining the importance. Example: I’m glad you are reaching out to help your child. We are going to do our absolute best to help them too. It is important for us to know the result for each child as it will help us learn and adjust our protocols, and help more children. I would like to ask you, person to person, to encourage your child to stay in contact with us, no matter if this is the right choice for them or if something happens in the future that leads them to decide it wasn’t . There can be multiple reasons that may happen and if we know what those are then we can do a better job helping children. We also ask that you, as parents, stay in contact with us as no one knows their children better than their parents. Explain method, emailed surveys, phone calls, requests for interviews, whatever.
5 years later, the data would be nearly crystal clear across all the countries offering it. Arguments for funding and ability to explain to the public would be effective and rock solid.
But no, people who went to medical school couldn’t come to that very obvious conclusion across, what, a decade? Literally took me 3 minutes and I’m not even that smart.
I’ve done my research (I also have a background in research, plus loved experience) and no, I’m not going to change my views on this, because my views are the result of looking at the evidence.
It’s interesting that you mentioned research of five years, since that research literally exists, and found good outcomes for trans patients. Also your mention of identifying all clinics in the e.g. England providing care for trans youth to conduct follow up studies? Yeah, they’ve done that - there only was one, the Tavistock. Again, the research could have been better, but it has been done. It is still being done. It has been done in multiples countries, multiple times. The results are always broadly similar - trans healthcare helps trans people, and has done for years and years. Trans healthcare isn’t new, it has been around for over a hundred years - the first trans clinic was burned down by the Nazis, look it up.
As for your allusion to randomised control trials, there are very good ethical reasons that those haven’t been done and shouldn’t be done when it comes to puberty blockers. The Council of Europe, among others, have highlighted the ethical implications of withholding treatments that have been in use for decades, as well as the practical difficulties. For example c any randomised, blinded study on puberty blockers would very quickly be un-blinded, since the effects of puberty blockers are very obvious, and those in the control group would quickly be revealed as such. Nonetheless, the NHS plans to do these, in a way that breaks multiple ethical guidelines and laws. Essentially, the only way for young trans people to access puberty blockers is to engage in a trial. That’s coerced research participation, through threat of withholding treatment. Those trials were meant to start by now, by the way, but have been delayed again and again. And again, puberty blockers have been used to treat transgender children for decades, they aren’t new treatments. Withholding them is unethical. Withholding them to force people to take part in medical research is disgusting behaviour, especially since it is being done to kids.
I’m not kidding when I say I’ve done my research. I’ve been writing about trans healthcare for years, and I have read almost every paper there is on the subject, going back decades. It doesn’t sound like you’ve done the same, your comments and suggestions bely that fact. You might have a background in research, but if you haven’t read the relevant research on this, your opinion is by definition ignorant of the facts.
Yes, we need more research, we always do. Go and read any of the papers on trans healthcare and they say the same. Yes there are flaws, like loss to follow up, but again these are discussed at length in the literature. Trans people are a tiny population, the number of trans kids that have medical treatment is even smaller, because not all do. Using the same kinds of research methods as are used on much larger cis populations is difficult, and yet these studies have been done where possible. And you are also discounting loved experience - trans people overwhelmingly say they benefit from these treatments, and have said so for decades. If they didn’t work or help, we wouldn’t continue to engage with the treatments or seek them out. Science is important, but so is listening to the subjects - us, trans people, trans kids, our families, our loved ones, who will tell you time and time again how much gender-affirming care helps us and is life-changing for the positive.
As for Cass…
Cass recommends a psychological approach for which there is no evidence, one that borders on conversion therapy and sees being trans as the last, worst possible outcome. That is deeply transphobic.
She dismisses much of the research using a review methodology that has been repeatedly crucifixes by experts in medical research. The review method she used for the literature on gender-affirming care was different than that used to review her preferred, recommended approach, for example. That’s bad research. That’s unethical. That’s bias. Her response? She called those experts keyboard warriors. Does that sound alike an ethical, responsible scientific approach to you? To simply dismiss criticism out of hand. Literally another paper came out this week criticising the Cass Review from a medico-legal point of view. There are several well researched and well-evidenced critiques by experts globally, and Cass has ignored them all, as has the UK government.
She also introduces entirely unevidenced claims, such as the idea that porn turns kids trans, or social media turns kids trans, or being autistic or neurodivergent, or having adverse childhood experiences turns kids trans. There is no evidence for any of this, yet it is stated as if fact in her report. These ideas have been researched, and found not only to be incorrect but to be ableist and transphobic.
Furthermore, her presentation of data is done so in a way as to skew and misrepresent it, while using language that is misleading and unscientific. Again, there are multiple in-depth, peer-reviewed critiques of this. I highly recommend you read them.
It is not a coincidence that many of the claims she repeats, or recommendations she makes are identical to the demands of anti-trans groups like SEGM or Genspect. Her recommendation that trans adolescents over 16 be treated as children - unlike any other patient group in the UK - and that those up to 25 should also effectively be treated as minors who can’t make decisions a for themselves, is straight out of the mouth of Genspect - an organisation that promotes conversion therapy, and is designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate group.
So yes, there are issue with the literature - they are well-acknowledged, and there are good reasons for those issue existing that aren’t easy to overcome.
But there is no evidence for the treatment and approach that Cass has recommended, beyond better mental healthcare - something already recommended by WPATH et al, and demanded by trans people. There is plenty of evidence, existing and emerging, that preventing young people from transitioning either medically or socially, which Cass effectively does recommend (particularly the former), does hurt trans young people.
Cass doesn’t have to hate trans people to hold beliefs that are deeply transphobic, deeply cissexist, and deeply biased. She has no expertise in this area, none. Not in psychology, not in gender care, and that’s why she was hired. She has been criticised for promoting anti-trans literature prior to doing the job. She hired members of designated anti-LGBTQ hate groups to the board - secretly, because she knew it was wrong. Our previous government admitted they put her, and others, in place to achieve their political, ideological goals.
Finally, the idea that charities are pushing for trans healthcare and inclusion for money is just laughable conspiracy theory. For one, many of the most prominent trans rights groups in the UK are tiny, and partly run by volunteers - TransActual, Trans Safety Network, Trans Pride Scotland - are funded in othe part by donations from trans people. The idea that the trans population would vanish if these charities weren’t supporting us is frankly ridiculous. It is the stuff of conspiracy and utterly without evidence - which is interesting given your call for evidence above. As usually, trans people have all the demands for evidence placed on us, whereas those opposed to our healthcare and rights can just make shit up and pretend it’s a fact.
I do agree with you that you’re not that smart. Maybe start from that realisation, and educate yourself on this issue properly before commenting on it in ignorance.
Well, I was enjoying and respecting your reply up to the end but I’m not an overly sensitive person and did actually mean the I’m not as smart as doctors or real researchers. So, valid ending.
It does sound like you have done far deeper research than I have. I’ll scan the Cass Report eventually but it is nearly 400 pages and no one actually cares about my opinion and I have no sway over anyone, so not that important. One of my main concerns with the research, in general, is that I haven’t seen anything that appears to take into account the loss of participants who would have negative outcomes and not inform a clinic. I think it is logical to assume these people would be far less likely to report back that they changed their mind and realized they weren’t trans. Then add in the pressure from the trans community to keep your mouth shut if you detransition or desist and I think that is leading to a skew in the numbers of those unsatisfied with the treatment. I think it will be interesting to see the change (or lack of) over the next 5-10 years as detrans speak out.
Thank you for naming this. I don’t even need to look into how local community groups see this bc I can tell how blatantly fascist the Cass Review is just by reading it. I’m horrified that I wasted my time reading this condescendingly eugenicist take. Anyone who agrees with the author needs to do some deep reflection. This does not support queer and trans youth, and these are conservative arguments.
I support the Cass Report too. Truth is always criticized by people whose agenda is damaged by it. Who cares what the LGBTQ community says about it, even assuming they are all of one opinion.
Your academic credentials are completely undermined when you suggest that the Cass review is only relevant to UK transgender children, and that anyone else’s opinion is irrelevant.
The Cass Review is essential reading to anyone concerned with children’s health and rights.
Your bias and arrogance are front and centre.
This is what you sound like:
“Who cares what Jewish people think of Nazis?”
Hey, who cares what the people being harmed by this review think! These kids and their families are screaming from the rooftops about how the policy fallout from this report is harming them, but they’re trans kids so who gives a shit, right?
Have you read the Cass Review? Or its appendices? Or the dodgy research it was based on? Or the academic critiques of it? Or the research it dismisses?
Or did you just read an NYT article written by another cis man that confirms your prejudice and now you think you’re an expert that knows best?
Are you even in a position to understand the issues with the review’s methodology or the way it introduces unfounded ideological claims? I am, I have a doctorate in sociology and social policy and spent a decade learning research methods and how to critique the kind of studies the review employs, as well as those that review dismisses. I also experience the political fallout from the report among what was already an increasingly shit time for trans people in the UK. But I’m part of the LGBTQ community, so I must be clueless right?
Plenty of non-LGBTQ people have criticised it, too, by the way. Maybe you care about their opinions more? It is it just the ones that punch down at trans kids you listen to?
Have you considered that the truth of trans people’s existence is the thing you’re rejecting because it’s damaging to your agenda, and that of wider cisnormative society?
Since you aren’t affected by the Cass Review (I’m going to assume you don’t live in the UK and you aren’t a transgender child - do correct me if I’m wrong, though), why do you think your opinion is relevant?
Why do you even have an opinion on the Cass Review? Do you just like supporting children and trans people being harmed? Or have you been convinced this is something you should suddenly care about (and by “care about” I mean punch down at trans folks) by yet another NYT article, despite trans kids existing for years without issue.
Do have a very hard think before replying. Or just keep your ignorant opinions to yourself, entirely up to you.
Do not assume the Cass Review is scientific. It has been widely discredited by every major medical association and psychological association. The data was purposely distorted and incorrectly gathered. This is a review that transphobic people hold up that actually has no scientific value.
“It has been widely discredited by every major medical association and psychological association.”
This is an extraordinary, and incorrect statement. Please provide evidence of ‘every’. Your hyperbole undermines anything that follows.
This is not true.
Here in NZ as well I was so hoping this was a nuanced and honest conversation based on the OP but then I saw the Cass report mentioned 😔
The British Medical Association has specifically taken a neutral position on the Cass Review while it considers the issue further. The British Psychological Society commended Cass for her work on the Review. You may be thinking of US groups, but they do not represent the entirely of scientific thought on the matter, nor are they the most relevant to a review of an NHS service.
I can tell that you did not click on or read the article 🙄 So I should conclude that you are not interested in facts or science.
This is more recent than your link: https://www.bma.org.uk/bma-media-centre/bma-confirms-support-to-undertake-its-evaluation-of-the-cass-review-from-a-position-of-neutrality
Your link basically says that the BMA acknowledges that the Cass Review wasn’t scientifically accurate and that they will have to do their own review WITH the input of lived experience from transgender people.
Yeah, no it doesn't. I do hope you have a good day, though.
Is that the same British Psychological Society that recently had members of several anti-trans groups and a sociologist who was outed by his university as running an anonymous account that specifically existed to abuse and troll trans people speak at their conference in the issue of trans healthcare? That British Psychological Society?
And the same Cass who has been widely criticised for promoting anti-trans literature prior to being hired to lead the Cass Review, who met with US anti-LGBTQ groups, and secretly hired members of designated anti-LGBTQ hate groups to the board of the Cass Review? The same Cass that has contradicted the less extreme recommendations of her own report since it was published to fit the government’s narrative and ensure she got her peerage? The same Cass that had zero prior expertise in transgender healthcare, and was suspiciously the only person considered for the role, by government ministers who later admitted they did so as part of a wider recruitment of anti-trans individuals into government positions to ensure their ideological viewpoints informed the review? The same Cass that, instead of responding to methodological critique from relevant experts from around the world, as any good scientist should, dismissed them as keyboard warriors? That Cass?
Do you actually know anything about Cass or her review beyond mainstream media headlines?
Some pretty bold claims in there, but I have no desire to get into them with you. Simply pointing out that arguments from authority don't work very well when authorities disagree — clearly people are allowed to disagree with authorities, as you disagree with the BPS — or when you pick and choose which authorities matter based on how closely they agree with you.
If the authorities you do like changed their tune on this, would you change your mind? If not, don't expect others to change theirs.
Would love to hear an example of a specific thing that was wrong in the Cass review. Do you have one to give so I can get a sense of what it got so wrong?
I haven’t read the Cass Report but I have read enough of the studies they reviewed to know that is shitty science-thin and weak.
Read this and check out the citations. You will find your answers 👇
https://open.substack.com/pub/erininthemorn/p/british-medical-association-calls?r=2cgrub&utm_medium=ios
Talk about an unbiased source lmao
So, you think trans people talking about a subject that they have extensive personal experience with and knowledge about is “biased” and you would rather NO transgender people talk about transgender rights? Should we just leave it to cisgender people to talk ABOUT us rather than TO us?
The person you linked supports experimental surgeries for children and medicine that results in sterility. And supports men in women’s sports. They are not a serious resource.
I'd go so far as to describe it as a propaganda piece couched in scientifically sounding language and misappropriated, googleable scientific terms - so it *looks* like science for the gullible public and politicians. Which especially easy when people already have confirmation bias.
It's scientific forgery and should be handled as a medical scandal, especially because of the damage it already has done.
“…so it *looks* like science for the gullible public and politicians.”
No, that’s what Stonewall did in the UK, and ACON in Australia.
I was just about to comment and ask about this. I consider myself someone who is also re-thinking a lot of the social norms and practices of the left (though I am still left ideologically!), so I’m coming to you with an open mind here… but it seems like there were some methodological problems with the Cass review (and some misrepresentation of data, discussed in a number of critiques). I’m wondering if you have seen this/have any thoughts about this, and (this isn’t meant to be a loaded question or anything btw) I’m wondering if you’re becoming more broadly skeptical of medical transition generally.
Can you logically prove that you love your mother?
A quick glance at your profile is very telling. Why are you so obsessed with “tr@nnies” and “tr00ns”? Have you ever met one irl or are you battling a boogeyman you’ve created in your head?
BTW Almost EVERY teen feels or fears that they are abnormal or unacceptably different.
So absolutely real. I completely align. Thank you for your honest account. ❤️🙏
Using they/them irritates many people because those pronouns already mean something different to most people. Imagine a trans couple who both use they/them. One of their friends is planning a party. Her partner asks if Gene is coming. "Yes, they are," she responds. Does she mean just Gene or Gene and Gene's partner? There's apt to be confusion. I imagine there are some people who might avoid talking to someone who uses they/them simply because they don't want to offend them by saying the wrong thing. My point is, is the practice promote inclusivity or work against it? I'm all for respecting pronoun preferences but, as you indicate, for some, it's not making life any easier. Thanks for sharing your perspective. These are important conversations to have.
I'm thankful to you for writing this. I hope other people, much younger than I, read it before they go too far down the road with hormones or other more dramatic changes to their bodies only to realize it wasn't their body that was betraying them but society. My experience growing up was very much like yours except more Robin Hood than anything with a flower on it. I do not have gendor dysphoria but I can imagine that I would have been tempted to think I had. Luckily, the only option for me was the lesbian/gay community which is indeed where I belonged and where I was accepted and where I could flourish in my distinctly non-feminine self.
Always a tomboy, athlete, I channeled John Travolta when I was in the discos in the 80's. I have a label now, gender non-conforming lesbian who uses she/her pronouns. I feel unrelated to many women who dress in tight revealing clothing and wear clothes I can't imagine are comfortable - and the makeup and hair- I don't get the appeal. But I respect that they are women too. I hope they feel perfect in their womanhood as I do in mine.
I worry that there are so many other perfect women like me (and you) doing surgeries to become something else - something that is not us. Leaving the club of "woman" which is a club I definitely love being a part of it especially if the only other option is to be a man.
Being a woman doesn't mean you have to conform to the status quo or the patriarchal definition of womanhood. You don't have to be a woman who gives a shit about the male gaze. You don't have to be straight or not-straight. We are still beautiful women without that.
I want our expanded idea of what a woman looks like and behaves like to get more broadly accepted. And if we "transition" instead of just being ourselves, we undermine that very effort.
Caveat: And like you, I want to be clear that my comments are for people like us, not for people who have gender dysphoria for real. I am an ally to those who need to transition to be themselves. But I think it is important to also speak out for people who don't need to transition, and remind them that we just need to stand proud in our version of womanhood.
Lovely words and so real! I completely agree ❤️🌈
Thank you for telling us your story! It's always good to have more perspectives on this topic so that more people can see that they're not wrong or letting anyone down at all.
Even though I'm still pretty sure I'm agender and I still feel dysphoric when referred to as a woman despite being pretty damn "feminine" in my preferred attire and interests and NOT really going out of my way to physically or audibly come off as anything but a cis woman (a lot of what helped me realize I'm agender is my befuddlement and annoyance at how even BODY PARTS are gendered), I DO feel very much affirmed and validated to see another person outside of alt-right | (Christo)fascist | Nazi circles also be disconcerted by how, basically, queer culture eats up our rigidly gendered expectations for men and women just like mainstream cishet culture does, only in queer culture it's to the point that gender NONconformity is often prized instead of gender conformity.
A lot of the reason why I spent literally years hanging out with Nazis, (Christo)fascists, and alt-righters in the thankfully now-LONG-dead subreddit r/RightWingLGBT was because I was so incredibly unnerved by how mainstream queer culture, at least at the time (the late 2010s), was conflating gender with gender EXPRESSION to the point that people were suggesting that other people were trans | otherwise LGBTQ+ just because they were gender-nonconforming.
I was also initially unnerved by the growth of the "you don't have to be dysphoric to be trans!" train of thought in the late 2010s-2020s because, at least initially, I felt it tricked gender-nonconforming cis people into thinking they're somehow trans just because they weren't obnoxious stereotypes of their gender assigned at birth...now I've realized that it's actually not the worst thing in the world because then it allows people who ARE actually trans or otherwise dysphoric to recognize and register their gender dysphoria that basically doesn't come off as the "classic" gender dysphoria.
While I would never in a zillion years support outright restrictions on accessing HRT, etc. to the extent that both the UK and many US states have implemented them, I DO think it's highly concerting how often, back in the 2010s, permanent medical treatment was treated as lightly as it was in the queer community.
The good news for all 3 of those points I've just discussed is that I think they are WAY less prominent or popular thought in the queer community now in the mid-2020s than they once were.
Like, now it's said pretty often, and correctly so, that your gender doesn't have anything to do with your interests or gender expression (which brings me to ask what the hell even IS gender in the first place and why it's such a big deal to most people), and it's also said pretty often and correctly so that not going so far as to bind, etc. or get medical treatment doesn't make you any less trans, which gives people a lot more time to seriously think out their gender and what they're REALLY willing to put their bodies through for the sake of ridding themselves of their gender dysphoria.
I've actually also been meaning to write my own piece examining my relationship to my (lack of) gender and how it's so annoying to see how EVERYTHING is gendered to the point that so many people feel the need to bind and outright undergo medical treatment that's, unlike puberty blockers, typically pretty damn irreversible because its whole POINT is that it's irreversible in order to be taken seriously as anything besides the gender they were assigned at birth!
I love this piece so much, what a beautifully nuanced and helpful exploration. Thanks for sharing your experiences in such a refreshingly non-polarising way.
Lol pronouns
Not everyone is cut out for the vanguard and that's okay
This, as with everything else I’ve read of yours, is so well-written and powerful. I really appreciate your ability to articulate subtleties about contentious topics in a way that doesn’t fan the flames, that leans into compassionate truth-seeking. It’s no surprise to me that some people here still reacted with anger, as this topic is so emotionally charged. But I feel confident in saying that that’s not your fault. You’ve done everything in your power to describe your experience and the truth as you see it in a way that embodies both kindness and diligent rationality at the same time. Well done, as always.
This is very interesting. I’m nonbinary, too, and I still remember my joy when I realized that there was a name for the gender I’d recognized in myself when I was a young girl. One of my godchildren is also nonbinary, and we’ve had some discussions around this. They’ve had top surgery, but I’m old enough that I just don’t to want to deal with surgery. I also went to a women’s college (which now accepts nonbinary students, too), and I still feel solidarity there. But I’m reaching retirement age, am married to a gay man, and one of my other godchildren is a beautiful trans woman. I’m comfortable with my life, and proud of my family. I hope other people can find a place that works as well for them.
“To be clear: I still use other people’s preferred pronouns, and I recommend that you do too. Most simply, it’s a gesture of respect.”
I’m not sure that ‘respect’ is the right word here. In this instance, to show respect and use someone’s preferred pronouns is to betray my own observations and beliefs, for which the respect seems to not be reciprocated, if reading many of the comments is anything to go by.
It is, perhaps, more helpful to say that it is a gesture of acceptance. If I choose not to use your preferred pronouns, if they don’t align with my beliefs, then that’s indicative of my belief in that sex is binary.
I retain the right to view the world as I see it.
This comment thread is littered with delusional lost souls. Absolute poppycock everything you are writing . Stop bowing to the new religion just as you won’t bow to the old ones. Never use preferred pronouns, its allegiance to the ideology. You are male or female and lesbian gay bisexual or straight . That. Is. It!
Thank you for this Kier.
To those who get their knickers in a knot about our clinic demographic forms requesting their preferred pronouns (out of respect for them!), I say, “If you tell me your pronouns are “asshole” and “dipshit,” I’ll honor that and refer to you as asshole and dipshit. It’s really easy, we just care to know what you prefer. It has no impact on us personally what you prefer, or any impact on you what someone else prefers.”
At first an experiment but now my routine, I’ve found it fascinating how that always defuses the situation when put in terms their philistine minds can understand.
But let us do one better with our pronouns - he, him, she, her, they, them, etc. - are 3rd person, for when we are referring to someone else, not when addressing them directly. I’m not the only one who believes this world would be a lot better when we start understanding, voting, respecting, loving, caring, etc. for “we” and “us” and “our” instead of “me” and “my.”
If you doubt that, consider/reconsider John Lennon’s 1971 Imagine…https://youtu.be/_AMIlq5nzmE?si=uVE4cdxhbVYBDFg9
Consider the possibility that nothing in you is broken. Thank you for this beautiful, honest statement about your life and experience. I applaud your courage and the purity of your quest. You are the sparkly flower girl and you are Robin Hood, and the best thing is that you are being yourself and good people love you for it.
What a great essay. Thank you for sharing it.
I was and am exactly like you, except that I was born in 1980 and raised in an isolated, all-Mormon town. The combination of my era and my culture of origin didn’t even allow me the vocabulary or cultural references to consider myself as queer until well into adulthood, like, in my 30s.
My personal beliefs about gender (that it’s a fake idea and just a performance one chooses to give or not give, or to perform in unexpected ways, whatever suits one’s objectives) would, I think, cause most younger people today to believe I’m nonbinary. And I’m fine with other people thinking that about me. But because of my circumstances, I grew up seeing myself as a WOMAN who nevertheless chose not conform to her own gender.
I worry that, in all the earnest and good and needed progressive push to help trans people gain acceptance in this world, we are in some ways erasing another identity—that of the gender-nonconforming woman or man. People who are willing to show the world that one can still be a woman or a man, even if one doesn’t partake of any particular gender performance. We exist, too, and we are important because our presence in society helps us all dismantle patriarchal ideas about gender and how it relates to power and control. And I would hate for younger people to feel that their options are: the gender you were assigned at birth, or trans. There is always the option of: I’m a woman (or a man) even if you don’t like the way I “do” woman or man.
Did this just randomly post on your wall??? Lmao. I tried to post it as a reply to your essay on why you stopped using they/them pronouns but Substack is on the fritz, apparently. Anyway, hi! Loved your essay.