I really appreciate your use of the word “gender-questioning.” If not for the awful weight given the idea of gender identity now, I honestly think I’d be pleased to see more gender exploration, in adolescents and adults. I remember being a young teenager and *loving* being mistaken for a boy - I’d dress like a boy, teach myself to walk like a boy, and drop my voice in the hope of fooling people. Not because I had any issues whatsoever with my girlhood, aside from the normal swings of early puberty, but because I loved knowing that I had control over other people’s perceptions of me. I got the same thrill taking on a silly nickname (I thought it was cool; I was wrong) and asking my teachers to switch to it - it was a real sense of power when they did.
And no one batted an eye. No one treated any of it as exceptional, aside from my mom finding my baggy clothes a little stupid-looking. I deeply enjoyed looking like a boy when I chose for a couple years, and then I grew out of it. I look back on that time fondly, and see no reason any kid shouldn’t get to experiment and play that way, without having to *become* something.
I think kids do better when they learn early on that there is flexibility available to them. I think gender presentation is a rich area for testing the limits of that flexibility. I think the affirmative model takes the fun of that kind of identity formation away from them.
I love this entire comment, Sarah (thank you for it!) and especially this part: “I look back on that time fondly, and see no reason any kid shouldn’t get to experiment and play that way, without having to *become* something. I think kids do better when they learn early on that there is flexibility available to them.”
I agree absolutely. Kids need to be free to experiment and try different ways of being, without the baggage of being perceived to be making some life-long commitment.
I do see some kids treating gender exploration in this relatively open way, even now. But for most - even those who identify as "nonbinary" in some sense - it's a search for a label rather than an open-ended exploration of who they might become. Of course, it's questionable how open-ended *any* identity exploration can be, given that we are all culture-bound to some degree. Still, the tweens, teens, and early twens both seem to feel a strong urge to commit to a label.
Once a label has been claimed, then everyone around them is obligated to "respect" it, with whatever pronouns and new name have been attached to it. For a long time, I saw this as just simple courtesy. Now, I see how this obligation is embedded in an us-versus-them worldview, which leaves too many young people feeling embattled and dependent on external validation. In a generation that's already plagued by record-high levels of anxiety and depression, this is a recipe for misery.
Along these same lines: I just read a new article today by Marcus Evans, and he was noting how the kids in his practice seem very rigid in their thinking -- the opposite of exploration. He also was talking about similarities in his young gender-questioning patients. It was similar to this post, in fact, except of course he did it much better. It’s nice to see more journal articles that take a more critical view of the gender stuff.
Do you have a link, or a reference? I can usually access most journal articles through my work.
There's a rigidity often combined with giftedness. If nurtured well, very bright young people can grow into flexible-minded adults. Even benign neglect can produce the same result. But oh, the Tumblr world combined with the polarization of politics, especially in the US, pushes gifted kids into rabbit holes. Many of the detransitioners who spoke on Saturday addressed this with great eloquence. Whether they'd been given a "gifted" label or not, as a group they're clearly really intelligent. I don't subscribe to the idea that intellectually "gifted" people are typically emotionally stunted. That's just ... dumb. But holy cats, the current generation of highly intelligent young people is incredibly vulnerable to both mental illness and identitarian morasses.
It's called " 'IF ONLY I WERE A BOY …’: PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC EXPLORATIONS OF TRANSGENDER IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS" -- I cut and pasted, sorry for all caps, and it looks brand new. Like, there are zeroes where the journal number and pages would be, from the British Journal of Psychotherapy. I grabbed it off Twitter and now I can't find it again. However, if you (or anyone) would like to email me for a pdf copy, you are welcome to email me at TheSalonniere@protonmail.com.
It doesn't look like it is published quite yet. I found it on twitter earlier today but can't find it again. You're welcome to email me for a pdf copy of it. Or indeed if you have a researchgate account you can probably message Marcus directly and ask him. But I'm glad to send it to you. TheSalonniere ... at .... protonmail .... dot ....com
I very much hope it all eventually smooths out into a more casual, exploratory space. I think it will - nonbinary and trans identities are almost as popular among many 30-year-olds as among teenagers, and I truly believe in my heart that nothing will kill the appeal like moms taking they/them pronouns. (Point of fact, I know several moms with they/them pronouns.)
I worry as much about the rigidity and polarization of thought that accompanies it - I think that will have staying power even as the pendulum continues to swing away from early medicalization.
Maybe I’m way behind on the times, but anyone else notice all the teen boys paint their nails now? I mean all of them - the indie-rocker types and the class clowns and the other day I saw a young man in basketball shorts and his school’s football team’s tshirt, a jock top to bottom, sporting glittery ocean-blue nails. It’s adorable.
Yes fair point about moms with they/them pronouns sapping the trendiness out of trans-ness --but on the other hand, I thought the same thing about tattoos in the 90s, and yet here we are.
I did notice the nail painting. It’s cute I guess? If it’s a real impulse toward self-decoration, good for them, but many boys really never used to seem to have much of an impulse toward self-decoration. Call me cynical but I view a lot of those behaviors as virtue signals, or cool signals: like they’re not one of the awful boring oppressive “cis” boys that everyone loves to hate. Or maybe it’s just a simple fad, like boys growing their hair long in the sixties -- and if kids enjoy fashion, good for them.
Maybe I’m really jaded by events of the last few years. If that’s the case, forgive me! But I do know boys who seemed to transition to get social justice points, and I’ve seen so much over the past few years that maybe I’m just imagining it and it’s just a sweet wholesome trend like any other.
No, I definitely get where you’re coming from. And it may be that I truly no longer understand the “reach” these trends have, for lack of a better word. I know I did a lot of cringey virtue-signaling things at my age (having liberal parents put me in a very small minority at my school and I milked that for all the rebellious social clout it was worth), but I also didn’t have an online audience. Video-sharing social media hadn’t been invented yet. The most hardcore, edgy thing you could be in my school was an atheist, and plenty of people milked *that* for all it was worth.
So I guess I can’t tell anymore what’s a cute little trend, like when the nerdy boys at my high school all wore long skirts for a few weeks just for fun, and what’s supposed to be a signal. And when it *is* a signal, I no longer know when it’s ordinary embarrassing teen politics that 99.9% of them will grow out of and when it reflects something deeper-seated. Sometimes that line is different from kid to kid, too, they’re just all expected to talk like TikTok anti-capitalists regardless of their personal feelings.
So much truth here, and great points. I remember the long skirts too!
I guess what I don't remember from being young (but maybe I've just forgotten) is the sense I get that these kids all must fall in line, as you mention (they all need to talk like TikTok anto-capitalists). Part of it is just being young and rebellious, but it does seem they all need to be rebellious in exactly the same narrow constricted way. I just don't remember that.
I promise I will post again, I have some stuff in the works. When I do, I have a post in mind that will run with a title like "Work Sucks For Everyone." The idea is so many complains I see about work are funneled through other causes: mental health, gender, race, "hustle culture", bad bosses, etc etc. But work just sucks! And I'm not even saying "capitalism sucks." Look at Star Trek, they have tons of crappy jobs too
It's an issue where we've denied all sense of universality, so everything has to be funneled through one of the corporate-approved identity boxes. You can't just be an outsider, down on your luck, etc for normal human reasons. It has to be funneled through some (usually identity based) issue. For many teens, that's trans issues. Your life can't just suck for the normal reasons that human existence sucks. It has to suck for one of the acceptable reasons.
I felt this way about the Simone Biles topic, where it seemed more like a "gymnastics is dangerous an abusive" issue than a "this one person had mental health problems" issue
That’ll be an interesting post!! I was thinking something similar-ish today. Everyone is always treated poorly by others on some dimension--no one is the untouchable, unassailable Ubermensch. Life is just hard. No one wants to be at work (mostly -- unless you have some unusually fulfilling job) or clean the house or cook every night or do the laundry or ...a lot of things. No one enjoys conflict. No one enjoys the feeling that they’ve been mistreated because of a characteristic (age, sex, race, religion, socioeconomic factors, ethnicity, politics, or their levels of intelligence, conventional attractiveness, charisma, humor, or...anything). Everyone is mistreated (even unintentionally) or misunderstood or ignored or unappreciated daily. That’s life. It doesn’t mean that people are going around trying to single you out. Chances are they’re not. And even if they are, most people aren’t, so get on with life unless the offense is so outrageous that it really materially harmed you.
I get so tired of hearing about this or that petty thing. We just need to...buck up and move on with as much grace as we can.
Simone Biles... I wish her all the best, but yeah being celebrated for burnout was a bit much. Like, fine, being an Olympic athlete is not something most of would ever want to dedicate our lives to, even if we had the skill. It’s for a very special talented+driven person who doesn’t mind giving up a personal life. I wish those special people all the best. And if they unsurprisingly get burned out and take a break, good for them. Full support. But I don’t really have sympathy for hearing how hard is it to be an Olympic athlete, like boo hoo. Yeah it’s hard. Do it or don’t do it, but don’t complain about it. You have free will.
My point about Biles is a bit different. Leaving the Olympics was the right decision. Gymnastics is dangerous, and she all ready won a bunch of golds. She made a reasonable decision, no "mental health" pontification needed.
As for the greater point, Marx said that communism was the solution to the animal problems (food, shelter, etc) not the human ones. I think the same applies for gender dysphoria/race whatever. People feel left out, people experience awful things, people abuse each other, etc. That's what it means to be a human. We can, and should, work to fix the parts that we can address. Politics can do that, but even in a world of Fully Automated Luxury Communism, we're going to have to work on ourselves.
It's similar for gender. Puberty is weird, and the social expectations made for men and women range from dumb to harmful. I think we can improve some aspects of this, but there's just some limits on what society can do.
At some point you have to put your politics aside and figure out what you're going to do.
Fully Automated Luxury Communism? That's a joke, right? Sorry but as the "outsider" in a group with more left-leaning views, I'm not always sure what to take seriously.
I use the term jokingly, but it is the title of a serious book. I don't think it's unreasonable to imagine a world where technology handles so much that our economy won't resemble the sort we have today.
That's already happened, many times over. The industrial revolution was far bigger and more important than anything that can come after. But the reason it didn't matter all that much is human psychology. Humans need to "work" to feel valuable, and so every society above subsistance level invents "work" to be done.
I agree that humans probably need to feel they are making a contribution, but in what (current) society is everything covered so thoroughly that we would need to invent “work” of the wage-slavery type?
We work for money in our current economy. Not to feel valuable.
So I am not convinced we invent work for this purpose, Mark. You’ll always have a neighbor with a broken leg or a local school that needs tutors. Those things are more rewarding than working at Taco Bell. No one needs to invent stuff to do in the outside world. It’s everywhere. Pick anything.
If I won the lottery, I’d focus my time on foster kids and animal rescue.
You've again poured out many of the thoughts swirling in my head - except you've imposed considerable order on the swirl. This is such a complex set of issues that it's really hard to think through them.
Having paid my respects to complexity, I want to focus in on one facet - what I'm increasingly seeing as the fulcrum of the blind-affirmation model when it comes to transition in young people: the suicide threat.
Why are so many liberals unable to see that thousands of kids are being harmed? They've bought the line that it's transition - stat! - or watch these kids die. And what kind of monster would take that chance? Now, I think we may be starting to see some cracks in the suicide-threat edifice; I've been closely watching the comments sections of WaPo and NYT, and increasingly self-identified liberals are starting to question why we're seeing such a massive wave of gender-dysphoric youth. Still, the threat of dead children shuts down critical thinking like nothing else. (As a mother of two young adults who's dealt with serious mental illness in my family, I get that.)
The suicide threat is also the strongest factor (imo) pushing otherwise-skeptical parents into line. Those parents either end up affirming, or they enter a desperate period of seeking help from professionals and institutions that are almost unanimously affirming the child's demand for immediate social transition and blockers or hormones. I've heard too many stories of therapists who - sometimes on a first visit, sometimes in front of both parent and child - will state out loud that it's better to have a trans child than a dead one. The skeptics are up against a system that will hide the child's trans identification because - sing it again! - that child is otherwise likely to end up dead. And if the child says their skeptical parents are transphobic (as every YouTube trans guy has proclaimed), all the more reason to worry about that child imminently trying to end their life.
Of course, the adolescents who've been coached through social media know that threatening suicide is their most potent weapon in getting their parents to comply. There's a fascinating moment in a talk given by Jack Halberstam where they say that *of course* children know that suicide threats will get them what they want. (Halberstam gained academic fame with the book Female Masculinity and subsequently adopted a trans self-definition in midlife after living for most of their life as a butch lesbian.) Halberstam is a more nuanced thinker than many who write about trans issues. In their 2018 book Trans*, Halberstam even raised questions about prematurely stabilizing and reifying a fixed identity in gender-nonconforming kids. But in this talk, Halberstam treats the suicide threats as an example of trans ingenuity, getting desires/needs met in a world hostile to trans people. My takeaway: some people within the trans community understand that the suicide threat is greatly inflated but choose to wink, nod, and look away.
This *is* a population with tons of mental health troubles, and I have no doubt that these kids are more likely to engage in suicidal ideation than kids without a trans identification. Whether their rates of ideation, attempts, and completed suicide outstrip those of other youth with similar levels of mental health problems is an open question. Jack T*rban has so dominated the "research" in this area that we won't get real research-based answered anytime soon. I've rarely seen such openly ideological, methodologically shoddy quantitative "research." Yet he's become the go-to guy when mainstream reporters want a source on youth transition and mental health.
As an aside, the "epidemic of trans murders" serves as a similar fulcrum for adult transitioners when it comes to shutting down dissent. (Why try to resolve conflicting rights when you can just accuse the TERFs of literally killing trans women?)
But back to the children and young adults. I think the only way to move toward the kind of long-term exploratory therapy these young folks need is to debunk the suicide threat. One path in that direction is to point out that any child who's suicidal *needs* wraparound psychological services and thorough psychotherapy before making any lifelong decisions. That child is far from competent to consent! You made this argument very cogently in this essay, Salonniere. But we also urgently need real research driven by methodological rigor and the sort of compassion that seeks truth, not clicks.
I'm very curious if others have ideas about how to address the suicide threat. I, too, was present at the detrans forum on Saturday and my heart just hurts. Of course there's so much more that needs attention, from the overall mental health crisis in Gen Z to the influence of online communities and on and on. But the path to more reasoned discussion will be blocked unless we can get beyond the belief that it's transition-or-die.
I agree, Dr Patty Catty, that the suicide issue is critical to address sensibly. Just this weekend a friend posted about her trans-identified high schooler and how it was really easy for her (my friend) to cut off even life-long friends who were not supportive. The clear implication, although she didn’t say it outright, is that this is a matter of life and death for her child, and she clearly believes it with all her heart. She loves her child, and she’s frightened.
When you are afraid your child will die unless everyone in your life gets in line and says and does exactly the right things, you cannot think and evaluate rationally.
So it’s critical that we address the suicide topic.
There’s research that the kids who present with gender dysphoria are no more likely to kill themselves than other kids seeking mental health care.
Think about that. Think of the number of kids you know who have ever struggled with a non-gender mental health issue. We don’t go around thinking every child with depression, anxiety, cutting or trauma is imminently going to kill themselves if we say or do the “wrong” things, or if we don’t do exactly as they wish.
The suicide risk in kids with mental health struggles, though not completely imaginary, is not as it’s been represented for gender-questioning kids--not by a long shot.
If you wouldn’t capitulate to a child with depression or anxiety’s every demand, afraid that they would kill themselves if you didn’t, there’s no reason to treat the child struggling with gender any differently.
Add to this: every psychologist and psychiatrist has been taught (and should absolutely know) that _telling_ someone they are likely to kill themselves _literally_ increases the risk that they will.
Explain it however you like, but everyone knows it’s true (and yes, there are data) and it’s therefore reckless to tell a kid, or a kid’s parents, or all of society, that a certain group is more likely to kill themselves, because it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
How many times have we heard about the suicide risk in trans kids? Especially from some of the most extreme ideologues-- the Jack Turb*ns of the world who purport that to passionately care about these kids, even as they do something that increases the danger of self-harm. And for what? What is Jack Turb*ns purpose when he crows about preventing kids from killing themselves? Does it make him feel very important? Or like a very good person?
It accomplishes the opposite of what he claims to want. Everyone who’s inflated this risk on the public mind is playing with kids’ lives and safety, and I think they should be professionally censured.
I absolutely have a lot to say on this topic (ha) and someday will do a post on it, with links to the evidence.
I look forward to that post. The potential for self-fulfilling prophecy is deeply disturbing. It's incredibly irresponsible for therapists, journalists, and activists to harp on the suicide risk, which is often presented as a certainty.
I see young people cutting off old friends *readily* but inside, it can't come easily. The cost is visible in further declines to mental health.
Thanks to both you and Salonniere for thorough explanations of the problem. It is heartbreaking to see children suffering this way.
As a young mother in the 1980's, it was shocking to me to see how society seemed to be "sexualizing" young girls. Instead of cute pastel outfits, black was the "in" color starting in 2nd or 3rd grade. My first grade twin stepdaughters came home from school and told me they couldn't hold hands at school because "everyone will say we are lesbians". Eighth graders wearing shorts so short that their cheeks were exposed. This has been coming for a long time-where even children are obsessed with sex.
It's not surprising that when sex and sex issues are pushed at children who are too young to handle them, confusion and mental health issues are the result. And now we want to bring drag queens into story hour? Keep this up, and more children will suffer.
Can we go back to letting children have a childhood again?
Wow, you saw sexualization of very young kids already in the 1980s? I first noticed it as a widespread phenomenon in the mid-naughties. At that point I had two young boys, but I cared about my friends' daughters and I really didn't want my boys to think that it was just normal and expected for girls their age to emulate the sexiest pop stars.
I have mixed feelings about drag queen story hour. I've known young gay men who were into drag and would maintain good boundaries. But I think if the goal is to expose kids to gender diversity, engage some sweet youngish gay men and butches. I'm aware of a couple of incidents where the drag queens in these programs weren't vetted and had ... issues. But really, even under the best of circumstances, drag queens portray femininity as cartoonish. They often are ridiculously sexualized. What should natal girls take away from these performances of gender?
I don’t think we need drag queen story hour, just as we don’t need bartender story hour, stripper story hour, or airplane pilot story hour (unless any of them are the author or the subject of the story). Let’s go back to librarians and other assorted volunteers doing story hour, WITHOUT the attention focused on the story reader.
Story time is a time for the attention to be on the kids and the books, not a time to be focused on the person reading.
And the fact that we don’t have bartender, stripper or airplane pilot story hour doesn’t mean we hate any of the people who do these jobs or the clothing they wear for work. It doesn’t mean we are “excluding” anyone.
This isn’t about the adults’ work and hobbies. It’s about reading books to kids.
Yeah, if you want kids exposed to diversity, try people in wheelchairs, burn victims, feminine men and masculine women, etc. I used to enjoy drag, but now I can't help but see it as insulting and demeaning "womanface".
"we also urgently need real research driven by methodological rigor"
I am a working research scientist with a PhD from Stanford, and I think this is wrong.
"Rigor" is the social sciences is very hard to come by. Look up "p hacking" and the "replication crisis".
Common sense arguments will be much more powerful: like, if someone is suicidal for WHATEVER reason, they need intense care compassion and therapy. NO life-altering decision can made under such duress.
THAT is a much more powerful argument than anything you find in social-science research.
I think we’re finding that p hacking and the replication crisis is not limited to the social sciences, Mark. It’s the psychologists who kindly first brought it to everyone’s attention but it’s everywhere.
Regardless, back to whether hormones or surgeries are ever medically indicated for emotional distress: No.
The onus is on the people who want to use those interventions to prove they are safe and effective.
Do we have data now to indicate those interventions are safe and effective? No.
Will we ever? I’m going to go far, far out on a limb (ha) and say no.
That’s why we need research. It can be gamed -- in medicine as well as in the dreaded despised social sciences-- but it’s the best we’ve got.
P-hacking is NOT "everywhere". In my field of particle physics, the standard for a discovery is five sigma, 99.99994% confidence:
"In the social sciences, a result may be considered "significant" if its confidence level is of the order of a two-sigma effect (95%), while in particle physics, there is a convention of a five-sigma effect (99.99994% confidence) being required to qualify as a discovery."
Yes, a lot of medicine is also bad, using poor statistical methodology among other problems. But it is absolutely false to say that the replication crisis is "everywhere", there are many areas of hard science that have not been afflicted by it.
Also my point also stands: it’s not limited to the social sciences, the sciences that “hard” science loves to hate. The social sciences, in fact, revealed it.
Particle physics is of course quite different from psychology. And yes, I'm well aware of the replication crisis and the p-hacking issue.
But have you looked at Jack T*rban's so-called studies? It's as if he's not even *trying* for rigor-lite. A 95% confidence interval would be the least of his issues. He relies heavily on an online convenience sample, cherry picks data, and completely bungles the history of puberty blockers. Yet the dude gets space in the New York Times to hold forth. If you're in a mood to wallow in despair, check out this article: https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/145/2/e20191725/68259/Pubertal-Suppression-for-Transgender-Youth-and
T*rban's employed by Stanford too, in the Med School, which lends him more gravitas than if he were in Psych. I have an undergrad degree from Stanford as well as my first master's. It's effin' embarrassing. According to his Twitter, he does have a cute dog, though.
(I'm not trying to be coy with the asterisks; I just don't know if at some point Substack comments will be trawl-able by search engines.)
Exactly. Isn’t he still a fellow though or is he finally done? I goaded him once online (on my regular Twitter) -- something to the effect of being awfully cocky for someone who hadn’t yet finished his training. 😂 I was really angry about one of his ridiculous articles!! I don’t remember if he blocked me or not.
Yeah, he's a fellow. I don't know how long such positions run. He's actually in psychiatry, not psychology - I should clarify that.
A lot of folks on Twitter think he's swayed by those sweet pharma bucks. I don't think that's his motivation; the dollar figures I've seen cited are relatively small as pharma funding goes. I regard him as a true believer, so sure of the righteousness of his cause that silly things like methodology are irrelevant. He also really enjoys the spotlight and has a talent for self-promotion.
I think he’s a true believer too. And I think he doesn’t belong at Stanford. He’s achieved household-name status for being an ideologue not for being a brilliant doctor. He’s kind of an idiot. It’s embarrassing for Stanford but they’re too woke to realize it. UCSF is just as bad. These powerhouse medical schools have lost their minds. Child fellowships in psychiatry are typically two years. Wonder where he’ll go next.
I expect him to use his fame to vault into an even higher-profile position. Maybe he'll found a new university-affiliated gender clinic somewhere? I'm sure we'll not be able to avoid hearing about it ...
What a well written article and sadly true to the core.
On a more personal note.
I've had an apprenticeship at a place for people who've been out of work for a many years and weirdly mentally ill folks too (Talking about everything from depression to aspergers). My fear was getting a downward spiral due to this negative environment - legit nobody was a "normally" functioning human being in society, when in fact I wanted to turn my life around after spending 3 years before that working through all my childhood traumas and my frail mind.
The number of trans people was incredibly high and the people would give themselves some kind of positive feedback loops and many more would join in or at least dye their hair, color nails, march/protest for lgbtq right and the like. It really is a mass soziogenic psychosis. Living in a complete bubble. And funnily everyone had access to free mental health counseling as this part of the area we folks lived and included in the apprenticeship.
Did it help? Well let's just say even the health professionals were very much in support of these drastic measures and the only one warning people of the consequences got fired by higher ups, while under tears from all the bashful comments. It was tragic to say the least.
Anyways, I fell in love with this incredibly kind and stunning girl. Knowing very well what tail of problems could be attached to her.
We talked, spend time together and the feelings became stronger, but then one day she told me "well anyways in 2 weeks I'll get my first hormone shots - I'm so excited and everyone is cheering me on"
This was a soul crushing, fear inducing some kind of worst case scenario.
Oh yeah, did I mention she had a relationship with someone from the trans community overseas, while we were starting to get together? And before that one bad relationship after another mostly with people from this community? (what a coincidence)
It was all kind of confusing, yet here I was applying everything I learned the past years and being a "better" person and supporting the "people in need" .
She wrote the person one message - they both agreed.
Now I was in a relationship with this person I was very much in love with, but still fully aware of how crazy this all is. I knew from day one, that she was heavily influenced by her bubble always getting feedback loops from the same people, same ideas, same mental illnesses etc.
One term I truly started to hate was "Oh that's so relatable - haha so funny".
It's not funny nor is it a laughing matter. I realize it's coping etc. and sometimes dark humour is helpful, but getting bombarded 24/7 with basically "you are a piece of s*it* and agreeing isn't going to help.
She loved me head over heels and I was getting what I sought for all my life and indulged in it - all of it. Too much - too soon, probably.
Now she had all the problems you listed a young person might experience in your article and on top of that sexual trauma, ptsd and which sadly she didn't get diagnosing for some kind of autism or ocd, but it wasn't the kind, which is a huge burden even on other people.
Getting back to the trans topic.
She was all aboard it, until the first "negative" side effects started. She started growing hair all over her body, the clitoris changed (a very unique experience not only for her), voice, skin etc. you know it.
She was very very upset by some of these changes and I seriously started to question her decision making. Did she truly think this through? What was she expecting? Hormones to get rid of her problems? It's exactly how you described it and of course it is. Any person, who can approach this topic rationally and neutral should come to this conclusion, but she couldn't.
Well how could she? Her last 20 years were a huge mess. She was getting influenced all day and wasn't able to grow on her own.
Even her sister, which she sees as her mother since her real mom left, was transitioning multiple times. Her sister too has very severe mental issues (borderline, ptsd etc.)
And it broke my heart seeing that everyone in her life has a hugely negative impact on her and she can't see it, because it's all she knows and loves.
This is when I decided, I need to help and not only support her. Very bad move for a relationship, but how was I supposed to know. It was a first for me too.
I started to give her little pushes in the other direction, tell her how things really are. Use a lot of calm and rational approaches.
This often offended her, because she was a person living almost only by her emotional thoughts and not by what makes sense and helps the most.
"Why can't you just leave me with my feelings - why does everything have to make sense"
It was a very fine line between actually getting her to move in a healthy direction or pushing her to much and she taking it up in a negative way.
She never lashed out at me. She avoided confrontations almost religiously. When I used to play video games and slap my desk lightly after having a frustrating death she would instantly cry, get scared and leave the room. She was hurt this much. So I adapted my behaviour - never trying to hurt her. Also very bad choice.
After some time of talking to her about her transitioning and telling her there might be a point where I will not love her anymore due to her changes, she was devastated.
I called her by her new name, said he instead of she. I did it all to support her, but I never lost myself and the accuracy of science.
Oh, she absolutely hated her real given name and I had to ask for permission to use it. It was complicated when she first visited my parents...
So after these talks she said she wanted to stop the hormone therapy, because she wanted to keep the relationship going and wasn't a big fan of some of her changes.
To me it felt like she took this as something where she had to admit defeat.
After a while I was able to call her she again. She was getting better and the love was strong as ever. Now instead of a male name she used an abbreviation of her first name.
One thing that never stopped was her living in this bubble.
TikTok, Tumblr and Instagram. Truly a horrible combination for mentally ill people. So the arguments never really stopped and it got increasingly more difficult to get through with sense, because she actually started believing what some truly delusional people said in 30 second videos, which somehow coreccted what 20 scientific papers found.
I started getting frustrated. My future life was on the line. I saw little improvements over the months and I wanted to talk to her in a more serious note. What we are and were we are. We were in our mid twenties back then. As a female her thoughts of getting children and settling down were getting stronger and generally she was a very genetically femine person. With a very strong motherly nature and quite typical female hobbies.
And yet her she was completely denying multivariate statistics on
gender studies.
She is hard feminist and I'm a rational thinker. So also a lot of debate happened. I agreed on feminism from the pre cold war. But told her that modern feminism is the absolute worst and is splitting society left and right.
That evening didn't end well that's all I will say.
So after over a year now I couldn't get truly to her anymore. All my attempts trying to help her find counseling failed. She took up all the bubble talks and things worsened after I had a serious message to her about how I view our current relationship.
I told her what I think is necessary for a working relationship or functioning human being (cleaning up, taking care of yourself, learning finances etc.)
It was all just very basic things normally teens will start to get a hold on. And I was very patient with her. I gave her months to make changes or see her trying to improve.
The reaction?
She took it as a personal attack and that I wanted to break up.
This never was said or my intention, in fact I even told her it's not, because I know how her anxiety works.
But the fun part was she didn't act differently and I didn't event know for a couple of weeks that the relationship was over for her. I was still very lovey dovey making plans for valentines.
We didn't see each other for 4 weeks and when we met again, she was the coldest, most distant person ever to me and it broke my heart. How can someone numb themselves this quickly?
She spiraled downwards and hurt herself physically. Consuming social media 24/7, substance abuse and talking with people from the same circle.
We did talk again many weeks later, saying we can work this out if we get help - that she needs help and time. I still loved her - still to this day where I'm writing this comment.
(She hasn't improved.)
Yet somehow, I lost the love of my life (Yes this sounds very weird, but I only put in the bad points of the relationship, legit everything else was like a dream or something you would see in a movie - she was fantastic)
to modern society it feels. I got to know her very deeply and she truly is manipulated by her surroundings and online agenda to a point where she is unable to live a life or even form her own opinion. She is getting offended for everyone and everything
Tries to help everyone else, but herself
She sees no point on herself anymore.
Do I hate the trans community or all the negative social circles?
No I don't.
I truly feel sorry for all these lost souls and wish that they can find themselves and live a happier life.
This modern phenomenon needs to stop and we have to spread awareness before we will lose a generation to something so avoidable.
I just wish I wouldn't have been a part of all this mess. And I somehow feel like a failed man - not being able to save my love.
Sorry for this long post, but I thought you might value anothers person hands on experience. Of course this was by far not all that was to it.
Thanks for sharing this experience— what an ordeal for you (and for her). There’s so much to unpack.
A lot of people who get drawn into the gender stuff also struggle with other mental health issues, and that’s a very tough combination. Often people describe such relationships as wonderful, almost perfect, when things are going well — like something from a dream or fantasy — and then hellish and confusing when it doesn’t work.
People in these relationships often struggle for a long time because the good parts are very good. There is often the sense, when it doesn’t work, that you’ve lost the love of your life.
There’s a lot of black and white thinking with folks who suffer with gender issues, a lot of very high highs and low lows in their relationships. It’s very hard to deal with at the time, and it’s very hard to recover from afterward.
Many people who consider themselves trans seem to struggle with their identity a lot— their sense of self can be shaky, or can change abruptly or often: feminine women with fairly typical feminine interests can decide they’re men for no clear reason. The fact that the trans stuff is very popular and common right now (all of society supporting it, almost unthinkingly) just throws a huge wrench into the relationship and makes a hard situation harder — maybe impossible.
As the almost-retired elder at my company, the first rule I have taught my "mentees" is: If there is a problem, always first look internally. Assume it's us, not the customer or vendor. Most of the time, the problem (and therefore the solution) is internal. Only look outside if you have already eliminated the internal as the source of the problem.
I think your example of the friend who always thought another city would bring happiness shows the same thing. Almost always, the best place to start solving problems is a look in the mirror. But our society finds that idea to be lacking in sufficient compassion. And then we wonder why problems only get worse....
That’s interesting, your approach to problems at work! It’s kind of a basic rule of thumb that people who tend to look internally / blame themselves for their interpersonal problems (even when it’s unmerited/excessive) are overall mentally healthier than those who tend to blame others (even though of course sometimes others really are the cause of problems).
It’s not just about blame. It’s more about finding the source of the problem. Sometimes the source IS outside. But looking inside first can save a lot of trying “solutions” that will never work.
No I get it and I agree. I’m just saying it’s interesting that it’s an interpersonal rule of thumb (look within first) which can also be applied to the workplace even though I never thought of it in those terms.
Hey 21...way late to the party here, but just wanted to say thanks for putting this out there. In all honesty, though I've seen much written on the subject of "trans", this is the first time I've seen a piece such as this. Admittedly, I don't spend a lot of time seeking out information on this subject, but at least I've now seen a cogent and well explained perspective beyond the "automatic affirmation" scenario of which you write, and which indeed seems to be the default position of nearly all of what I have read about this subject. I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that there is a multitude of people out there just like me who've never heard of Detrans Awareness Day and have no idea of the reasons for its existence. So, props for providing me with a new perspective to bring to bear on my thinking about this subject.
Thanks so much, M. I really appreciate your thoughts and input -- and I'm so glad that you were willing to read a long piece like this, even though it's not a topic that you've spent a lot of time on before. (Neither did I until recent years, after noticing some worrisome patterns in kids of friends and acquaintances, and becoming really concerned about medical and emotional harms of this new approach, when the old approach seemed much better.) I really would like to bring this topic to wider attention, and so it makes my day when someone stops by and takes the time to leave a comment. It is impossible to be late to this party. Thanks again!
Yeah...it was a little longer than a lot of what I make the time for. I subscribe to and follow a lot of stuff and spend way more time with my backside parked on the couch with this infernal digital do-dad in my lap than I probably should. But it speaks quite well of your skill as a writer that once I started what I feared might be a bit of a slog, I found myself more drawn in and interested with each passing paragraph. Which, considering that this subject isn't particularly way up there on my list of "interests", I hope you will take as the genuine compliment I intend it to be.
I am humbled and thank you sincerely. One of my goals is to interest people in this topic, but it’s tough. Most people (naturally) are often not too engaged in issues that don’t pertain directly to them -- especially in these times when so much else is happening in the world, and we all have problems. Thank you.
Thank you so much for continuing to speak out so eloquently and persuasively on this important issue. I find your argument about happiness set-points particularly convincing because I think we all can relate. Just recently my husband changed jobs because (he thought) his job was making him miserable. He was happy for a couple of weeks, and then was back to being his regular, somewhat unhappy and dissatisfied, self. The old job wasn’t the problem and the new job isn’t the solution. (Although he will point out that at least his new job pays more!) I suspect most of us have examples like this from our own life.
The difference with trans issues for unhappy kids is that the “fix” is not a new job or a new city, which, even if it only makes us happier for a short time, has no lingering side-effects. “Fixing” unhappy kids who think they’re trans requires amputating healthy body parts and a lifetime of drugs. We--not only parents but also doctors--should be very careful before we impose such radical medical procedures on patients, especially when we have no evidence that it will work.
I had a thyroidectomy to treat thyroid cancer several years ago, and now I’m on thyroid pills for life. Thyroid meds are cheap, easily accessible, and are fairly well-tolerated. And even so it is a pain and a worry to be dependent on them. I have to get up an hour early to take my pill so it will be absorbed before I have my morning coffee. At the start of Covid I was worried that there would be supply-chain disruptions and I wouldn’t be able to get my pills. We live close enough to Ukraine that I am again worried about disrupted supply chains. All this is a fair price to pay not to have cancer, but I wouldn’t wish dependence on medication on anyone who is physically healthy. Adults have the perfect right to decide for themselves which medical procedures they will undergo. But with kids?We should think very carefully first.
Honestly ‘if people don’t have enough money to live on then give them some money to live on’ seemed to work pretty well in Australia when I was growing up, and I’m sad politicians seem to be on a quest to wind it back. Of course we weren’t doing the ‘first blame it on racism’ step so I can’t comment on that bit
Similarly I’d we house the homeless they are not homeless ( and I’m in favor of society banding together and taking care of the truly vulnerable). Possibly that’s why all the petty complaints/microaggressions (both real and imagined) ride my nerves. There are people who really need help: let’s save our compassion and resources for them.
Also, homelessness is bad! It's not that it sucks to be a ______ homeless person. It's not that a disproportionate amount of _____ are homeless. It's not that ____ people have biases against homeless people. Homelessness is bad. We should reduce bad things.
You’ve got so many interesting thoughts here! Yes we really don’t “need” a lot of categories.
Some disorders have experienced such an expanded definition as to become meaningless, such as anxiety or the autism spectrum.
Everyone’s anxious, right? If you’re never anxious, you’re probably dead. But that doesn’t mean we need to pathologize every episode of our anxiety and tell people we “have anxiety” as if it’s a disease. Anxiety, in context, is a gift.
Same with autism spectrum disorder. “Autism” used to be a much narrower spectrum indeed, ranging from nonverbal people to extreme outliers of bizarre inappropriate behavior. Now everyone who is a little quirky or struggles to read social cues is labeled “on the spectrum”— and in fact for some it’s a mark of pride not to be one of those boring “neurotypical” people. (This is reminiscent of non-binary and trans people who are glad they’re not boring “cis” people.
But realistically, we’re all socially awkward at least sometimes. All of us have occasionally missed or misread a social cue, just as all of us have been anxious at some time. But it doesn’t put us “on the spectrum.”
And I agree that race is also something we made up. “Race” has only existed as a concept for a few hundred years, but it’s just one of many ways humans can categorize themselves into ingroups and outgroups, and it’s a particularly slippery and unreliable one. It would be easier / neater to determine an arbitrary cutoff or simple category and divide the world into Talls and Shorts, or Blue-Eyes and Other-Eyes.
You’re so right, Carina. There is such a lot of sloppy care and it breaks my heart-- especially after hearing so many of these stories yesterday. Detransitioners are not featured all over the media the way some other groups are. They deserve love, understanding, and support, the same as any other group.
That is such an interesting question (whether the reaction to Lia will pressure boys to transition young). It’s definitely worth asking and trying to answer.
FWIW, and this is totally based on my experience and observations (not research!) the boys who are prepubertal and who really want to transition are generally not the sports-y kids. They are more often than not hanging out with girls and more likely to engage in less rough and tumble stuff.
(For girls, avoiding puberty wouldn’t affect their future sports opportunities as men--no one would say it’s unfair-- so the focus is on the natal boys/ men.)
Generally the small subset of natal males who want to compete as transwomen seem to have already gone through puberty and they seem to remain attracted to women, and that’s a different situation altogether. In that cohort it’s often their libido partly driving them to get validation as “women” which they didn’t have pre-puberty.
In other words, I suspect the cohort that will continue to wish to participate in women’s sports will be the people who (pre-transition) were post-pubertal straight men. Who knows, though? Could be wrong.
Yes. Some experiences--like puberty--are just awful for everyone, and I think it’s ok to let people go through these tough experiences, always with kindness and understanding, but not necessarily with therapy or antidepressants (and still less with puberty blockers and T) unless the distress is persistent and severe.
I read a letter once in a parenting column about an analogous issue. The letter-writer overheard a dad on the subway say to his kid, who had been whining about wanting water, “Sometimes you just have to be thirsty.” The letter-writer and the columnist both thought this dad was horrible. Why hadn’t he thought to take a water bottle for his child?! How cruel and unkind he was to just say his kid had to be thirsty!! I, otoh, thought this dad was showing fantastic parenting. The kid wasn’t going to die of thirst! He was just mildly and temporarily uncomfortable, an experience that we all have at one time or another. The dad was giving the child the opportunity to learn to manage his feelings and figure out a way to make things better for himself in the future, maybe by remembering to take a drink of water before heading out.
The impulse to rush kids into radical medical treatment when they are undergoing normal distress over the totally rotten experience of puberty is like the letter-writer’s and columnist’s judgement about this dad. The parenting philosophy nowadays is that our kids should never have to feel a moment’s distress. But that is part of life! Why not give our kids a hug, maybe share stories from our own rotten puberties or find an older cousin to talk with them? Because ultimately, sometimes you just have to be thirsty, but it isn’t forever, and that is one of the most important lessons of growing up.
Holy smokes, they thought he was poorly parenting?! Teaching your kid something like "you'll have to be temporarily uncomfortable sometimes" is a kindness. That way they'll be prepared for it in the future instead of blindsided by the "unfairness" of life.
I know! And blaming the dad because he should have brought a water bottle for his son! This is not how I was raised, or how I raised my kids.
Not to open a(nother) can of worms, but the controversy over sleep-training raises the same issues. So many of my contemporaries thought their child’s sleep was the parents’ responsibility, and they could not bear the idea that their kids would be sad, however briefly. Instead of expecting their kids to learn to go to sleep, these parents would be up literally all night with their kids (not infants but elementary-aged children), even crying with them and feeling so terrible that their kids were suffering. And of course their excessive sympathy just escalated the kids’ crying. The overall level of suffering for everyone was so much greater than it would have been, had the parents just accepted that their kids would have to endure a tiny bit of unpleasantness in the process of learning to go to bed.
I have a little bit different view on sleep training. I think infants are little animals who are hardwired to experience great distress when left alone. Infants who were content to be left alone would not survive long. You can certainly train it out of them, but I never felt good about training an infant to ignore its own hardwired feelings of distress. Seemed like there might be downstream effects of that. (If you’re familiar with the book “the gift of fear” it’s about trusting your own internal feelings of danger or not-rightness, and apparently a lot of people struggle with that.) It always seemed “right” to me that a non-mobile infant would express great alarm/fear/distress when left alone, so I wanted to honor that by not inducing that type of distress when I could avoid it, and/or responding to the distress when it happened.
Mothers in a lot of cultures keep infants with them at night and I did the same. I’m not saying anyone who did it another way made a monstrous choice. Just saying that was the right choice for our family.
Often when I was torn about what to do with a kid, I thought: what would a cave-person do? (This is also why I trusted my kids— again, because they are little animals—not to starve, so I never worried about whether they were eating or not, or how much of which foods on offer. I know we agree on that one!)
Oh, I wasn’t talking about infants--most infants aren’t developmentally ready to put themselves to sleep until 6 months at the earliest. The kids I’m thinking of were about 8 years old, and they weren’t helped by their moms staying in their rooms and sobbing with them all night!
I agree, Mari, both with your perception of this parent (sometimes in fact you do have to be thirsty! And it’s a good impromptu lesson) and with the bigger point that the rush to treat everything medically is a problem.
It really is a reflection of a consumer society that we have this expectation that if something we don’t like is happening, we go to a doctor to get something to fix it. Unhappy puberty? Doctor. Fix.
It really is like this transition-of-kids is a great new product that everyone’s clamoring for.
Feel tired? But these vitamins. Feel ugly? But these new clothes. Feel unhappy in your body? Buy a new one.
It’s not THAT simple but I do think our willingness to accept a radically life-changing set of medical interventions for emotional misery is not unrelated to our great willingness and expectation as a culture to buy solutions to our problems.
This is just my *lived experience*, not a scientific statement, but I've seen friends improve more from 1) getting a better job and/or 2) leaving bad relationships (romantic or otherwise) than I have from therapy and anti-depressants.
You are so right that it seems parents never want their kids to feel a moment's distress, and that everything should be made 100% safe.
But clearly this idea has lead into labyrinths of contradiction. This post about the dangers of following the "trans" path at any cost is one example. In the name of alleviating mental stress, much more pain is introduced.
COVID restrictions are another example. Parents willingly subjected children to 2 years of distress, and shrugged it off by saying "kids are resilient". And these are probably the same people who harshly judged a dad for telling his kid that he could wait till he got home for a drink of water.
I see the resilience thing as something else. People will justify anything they want so it agrees with them politically. If they’re in favor of covid restrictions (as I am, based on the best evolving evidence we have at the time) they say “kids are resilient!” If they’re not in favor of covid restrictions they scream “think of the children!”
That’s just motivated reasoning. Both “sides” in the culture war do it. If you’re a big safetyist but say “kids are resilient” as a talking point to get what you want, that’s wrong. If you’re someone who believes we coddle kids too much, but then say “think of the children!” when they are going through a very rough time in history, and they will just have to cope with it, same as everyone else, that’s wrong. It’s wrong whoever is doing it.
Yes, people are very capable of justifying anything they want.
But the fact is (and has been from the earliest weeks of the pandemic) that children had statistically zero risk from COVID. It was also known that they were not serious vectors for transmission.
So both sides are not simply using motivated reasoning. Only one side is doing that. It was clear, and even admitted, that the safety of children was not the consideration. People who would be aghast at the thought of a child riding a bike for a block without a helmet eagerly subjected them to 2 years of mental stress.
The "passing" argument is pushed hardest by adult transwomen who suffer every day from not being able to pass. I don't dismiss their suffering. But they don't consider that youth transition often means impaired or nonexistent sexual response and fertility. "You pervert!" they cry when this fact is brought up. But it is not sick to want young people to have the possibility to experience sexual pleasure and (biological) parenthood. Many of these adult transwomen have had access to both. Many of them would also condemn laws that require bottom surgery (and thus sterilization) in order to legally change their gender. But when it comes to kids, suddenly fertility and sexual response aren't legit concerns.
Transmen, by contrast, usually don't gain much passing-advantage through early transition. They will likely have less extensive mastectomy scars if breast development is paused early. But blocking puberty can reduce their adult height, making it harder to pass. Voice is a huge factor in allowing transmen to pass. So is a beard, however scruffy.
The advantages gained by early transition are asymmetrical, with natal females gaining the least. Considering how the sex ratio has shifted, this asymmetry deserves attention - yet it's rarely mentioned.
"But they don't consider that youth transition often means impaired or nonexistent sexual response and fertility."
Furthermore, no child can possibly make such a decision in anything like an "informed" manner.
This seems to me to be just so bleeding obvious, that I am thunderstruck that the medical community largely disagrees.
The only explanation that makes any sense to me is mania, mania throughout the medical profession.
And therefore, despite being a lifelong age-66 liberal who has never voted for a Republican, I am now totally on board with the red-state bans of child transition.
I agree with bans of child transition, and I agree transition results in medical harm, but I balk at the use of the term “child abuse”— because intentions matter, even when outcomes are horrible. It’s see a lot of loving parents make these mistakes.
I also strongly object to the way this has been co-opted as a culture war red-state issue. As long as half the country thinks “blue state good, red state bad” (and the other half thinks the opposite), we will never make progress on important issues by making them red-state or blue-state. It’s a dead end.
I wish those people in the red states showed a little interest in sharing the evidence basis for their proposed legislation, and in talking about it rationally and not in such a way to emotionally appeal to “their voters.”
The medical profession— I don’t understand what the excuse is there. I’ve talked to so many doctors who won’t touch this topic with a ten-foot pole, or assume that data exists ***which doesn’t exist*** and if I tell them it doesn’t exist, they think I’m a the ideologue or irrational one.
I disagree that intentions matter. Pedophiles often believe they do no harm to the children they abuse. Do we then give them a pass for their good intentions? No, we do not.
Child transition is child abuse, period.
I support whatever politicians want to ban it, red or blue. But sadly they're all red, as my side, the blue side, has lost its collective mind on this.
And pursuing government bans on child transition is most definitely not a dead end. The dead end is talking an issue to death when the side with all the power isn't listening.
100% agree. Results matter, not intentions. Especially when intentions seem in large part to be driven by parents wanting to be on the right "team" (to refer back to an earlier post) more than actual concern for the long-term health of the child.
I'm with you. It is child abuse.
Evidence and rational discussion? Abigail Shrier wrote a book on the topic. What happened? Outrage on the left, and Target pulled the book. Rational discussion is not possible with people who have lost their minds in pursuit of a fantasy. The fantasy is that our medical science can make men and women interchangeable by just a few surgical and pharmaceutical tweaks.
And yet don’t all of us heterodox people say (when complaining about the wokes) that intentions do matter? We can’t have it both ways, with intentions mattering only when they are our intentions.
A pedophile who believes (or claims to believe) that he’s not hurting kids when everyone in the world tells him the opposite, well no, he doesn’t get a pass. Partly that’s because it’s hard to imagine any reasonable person holding that belief, really. The entire world tells him the standard of behavior and then he transgress it; well, he should expect consequences.
But a parent— especially a parent who is outside of health care or mental health, who isn’t familiar with PubMed, who doesn’t read medical journals for fun, who isn’t particularly “science-y,” trusts that when s/he brings a child to a doctor, that child is going to receive appropriate evidence-based care. If the child doesn’t, you can’t fault the parent the same way you fault a “child abuser.” And even more so when the parent’s critical faculties have been compromised by telling him or her “do you want a live son or a dead daughter?” Terror makes it very hard to think rationally.
I look at these kids and I feel deep-down yes, they are being harmed, they are being mistreated, they are being let down by the people who love them most. That’s why I’m so passionate about this topic— because I want to preserve the health and well-being of defenseless people who are brought to doctors with the expectation of receiving help and instead are harmed. But the entire society is in on it— not just the parents. I am frustrated and angry with the parents, but I know a lot of them are good people who are doing their best. That’s part of the tragedy of it.
The sports question is easy: sports should be segregated by biological sex (about which there is no question whatsoever for the overwhelming majority of people).
I certainly agree with you, Mark. Whether or not that will be a reality again in college sports, given that the NCAA has lost its mind, remains to be seen.
I really appreciate your use of the word “gender-questioning.” If not for the awful weight given the idea of gender identity now, I honestly think I’d be pleased to see more gender exploration, in adolescents and adults. I remember being a young teenager and *loving* being mistaken for a boy - I’d dress like a boy, teach myself to walk like a boy, and drop my voice in the hope of fooling people. Not because I had any issues whatsoever with my girlhood, aside from the normal swings of early puberty, but because I loved knowing that I had control over other people’s perceptions of me. I got the same thrill taking on a silly nickname (I thought it was cool; I was wrong) and asking my teachers to switch to it - it was a real sense of power when they did.
And no one batted an eye. No one treated any of it as exceptional, aside from my mom finding my baggy clothes a little stupid-looking. I deeply enjoyed looking like a boy when I chose for a couple years, and then I grew out of it. I look back on that time fondly, and see no reason any kid shouldn’t get to experiment and play that way, without having to *become* something.
I think kids do better when they learn early on that there is flexibility available to them. I think gender presentation is a rich area for testing the limits of that flexibility. I think the affirmative model takes the fun of that kind of identity formation away from them.
I love this entire comment, Sarah (thank you for it!) and especially this part: “I look back on that time fondly, and see no reason any kid shouldn’t get to experiment and play that way, without having to *become* something. I think kids do better when they learn early on that there is flexibility available to them.”
I agree absolutely. Kids need to be free to experiment and try different ways of being, without the baggage of being perceived to be making some life-long commitment.
💯💯💯💯💯
Thanks so much for sharing your perspective!
I do see some kids treating gender exploration in this relatively open way, even now. But for most - even those who identify as "nonbinary" in some sense - it's a search for a label rather than an open-ended exploration of who they might become. Of course, it's questionable how open-ended *any* identity exploration can be, given that we are all culture-bound to some degree. Still, the tweens, teens, and early twens both seem to feel a strong urge to commit to a label.
Once a label has been claimed, then everyone around them is obligated to "respect" it, with whatever pronouns and new name have been attached to it. For a long time, I saw this as just simple courtesy. Now, I see how this obligation is embedded in an us-versus-them worldview, which leaves too many young people feeling embattled and dependent on external validation. In a generation that's already plagued by record-high levels of anxiety and depression, this is a recipe for misery.
Along these same lines: I just read a new article today by Marcus Evans, and he was noting how the kids in his practice seem very rigid in their thinking -- the opposite of exploration. He also was talking about similarities in his young gender-questioning patients. It was similar to this post, in fact, except of course he did it much better. It’s nice to see more journal articles that take a more critical view of the gender stuff.
Do you have a link, or a reference? I can usually access most journal articles through my work.
There's a rigidity often combined with giftedness. If nurtured well, very bright young people can grow into flexible-minded adults. Even benign neglect can produce the same result. But oh, the Tumblr world combined with the polarization of politics, especially in the US, pushes gifted kids into rabbit holes. Many of the detransitioners who spoke on Saturday addressed this with great eloquence. Whether they'd been given a "gifted" label or not, as a group they're clearly really intelligent. I don't subscribe to the idea that intellectually "gifted" people are typically emotionally stunted. That's just ... dumb. But holy cats, the current generation of highly intelligent young people is incredibly vulnerable to both mental illness and identitarian morasses.
It's called " 'IF ONLY I WERE A BOY …’: PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC EXPLORATIONS OF TRANSGENDER IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS" -- I cut and pasted, sorry for all caps, and it looks brand new. Like, there are zeroes where the journal number and pages would be, from the British Journal of Psychotherapy. I grabbed it off Twitter and now I can't find it again. However, if you (or anyone) would like to email me for a pdf copy, you are welcome to email me at TheSalonniere@protonmail.com.
Where can we find the Evans article?
It doesn't look like it is published quite yet. I found it on twitter earlier today but can't find it again. You're welcome to email me for a pdf copy of it. Or indeed if you have a researchgate account you can probably message Marcus directly and ask him. But I'm glad to send it to you. TheSalonniere ... at .... protonmail .... dot ....com
I very much hope it all eventually smooths out into a more casual, exploratory space. I think it will - nonbinary and trans identities are almost as popular among many 30-year-olds as among teenagers, and I truly believe in my heart that nothing will kill the appeal like moms taking they/them pronouns. (Point of fact, I know several moms with they/them pronouns.)
I worry as much about the rigidity and polarization of thought that accompanies it - I think that will have staying power even as the pendulum continues to swing away from early medicalization.
Maybe I’m way behind on the times, but anyone else notice all the teen boys paint their nails now? I mean all of them - the indie-rocker types and the class clowns and the other day I saw a young man in basketball shorts and his school’s football team’s tshirt, a jock top to bottom, sporting glittery ocean-blue nails. It’s adorable.
Yes fair point about moms with they/them pronouns sapping the trendiness out of trans-ness --but on the other hand, I thought the same thing about tattoos in the 90s, and yet here we are.
I did notice the nail painting. It’s cute I guess? If it’s a real impulse toward self-decoration, good for them, but many boys really never used to seem to have much of an impulse toward self-decoration. Call me cynical but I view a lot of those behaviors as virtue signals, or cool signals: like they’re not one of the awful boring oppressive “cis” boys that everyone loves to hate. Or maybe it’s just a simple fad, like boys growing their hair long in the sixties -- and if kids enjoy fashion, good for them.
Maybe I’m really jaded by events of the last few years. If that’s the case, forgive me! But I do know boys who seemed to transition to get social justice points, and I’ve seen so much over the past few years that maybe I’m just imagining it and it’s just a sweet wholesome trend like any other.
No, I definitely get where you’re coming from. And it may be that I truly no longer understand the “reach” these trends have, for lack of a better word. I know I did a lot of cringey virtue-signaling things at my age (having liberal parents put me in a very small minority at my school and I milked that for all the rebellious social clout it was worth), but I also didn’t have an online audience. Video-sharing social media hadn’t been invented yet. The most hardcore, edgy thing you could be in my school was an atheist, and plenty of people milked *that* for all it was worth.
So I guess I can’t tell anymore what’s a cute little trend, like when the nerdy boys at my high school all wore long skirts for a few weeks just for fun, and what’s supposed to be a signal. And when it *is* a signal, I no longer know when it’s ordinary embarrassing teen politics that 99.9% of them will grow out of and when it reflects something deeper-seated. Sometimes that line is different from kid to kid, too, they’re just all expected to talk like TikTok anti-capitalists regardless of their personal feelings.
So much truth here, and great points. I remember the long skirts too!
I guess what I don't remember from being young (but maybe I've just forgotten) is the sense I get that these kids all must fall in line, as you mention (they all need to talk like TikTok anto-capitalists). Part of it is just being young and rebellious, but it does seem they all need to be rebellious in exactly the same narrow constricted way. I just don't remember that.
I would wholeheartedly agree there.
I promise I will post again, I have some stuff in the works. When I do, I have a post in mind that will run with a title like "Work Sucks For Everyone." The idea is so many complains I see about work are funneled through other causes: mental health, gender, race, "hustle culture", bad bosses, etc etc. But work just sucks! And I'm not even saying "capitalism sucks." Look at Star Trek, they have tons of crappy jobs too
It's an issue where we've denied all sense of universality, so everything has to be funneled through one of the corporate-approved identity boxes. You can't just be an outsider, down on your luck, etc for normal human reasons. It has to be funneled through some (usually identity based) issue. For many teens, that's trans issues. Your life can't just suck for the normal reasons that human existence sucks. It has to suck for one of the acceptable reasons.
I felt this way about the Simone Biles topic, where it seemed more like a "gymnastics is dangerous an abusive" issue than a "this one person had mental health problems" issue
That’ll be an interesting post!! I was thinking something similar-ish today. Everyone is always treated poorly by others on some dimension--no one is the untouchable, unassailable Ubermensch. Life is just hard. No one wants to be at work (mostly -- unless you have some unusually fulfilling job) or clean the house or cook every night or do the laundry or ...a lot of things. No one enjoys conflict. No one enjoys the feeling that they’ve been mistreated because of a characteristic (age, sex, race, religion, socioeconomic factors, ethnicity, politics, or their levels of intelligence, conventional attractiveness, charisma, humor, or...anything). Everyone is mistreated (even unintentionally) or misunderstood or ignored or unappreciated daily. That’s life. It doesn’t mean that people are going around trying to single you out. Chances are they’re not. And even if they are, most people aren’t, so get on with life unless the offense is so outrageous that it really materially harmed you.
I get so tired of hearing about this or that petty thing. We just need to...buck up and move on with as much grace as we can.
Simone Biles... I wish her all the best, but yeah being celebrated for burnout was a bit much. Like, fine, being an Olympic athlete is not something most of would ever want to dedicate our lives to, even if we had the skill. It’s for a very special talented+driven person who doesn’t mind giving up a personal life. I wish those special people all the best. And if they unsurprisingly get burned out and take a break, good for them. Full support. But I don’t really have sympathy for hearing how hard is it to be an Olympic athlete, like boo hoo. Yeah it’s hard. Do it or don’t do it, but don’t complain about it. You have free will.
My point about Biles is a bit different. Leaving the Olympics was the right decision. Gymnastics is dangerous, and she all ready won a bunch of golds. She made a reasonable decision, no "mental health" pontification needed.
As for the greater point, Marx said that communism was the solution to the animal problems (food, shelter, etc) not the human ones. I think the same applies for gender dysphoria/race whatever. People feel left out, people experience awful things, people abuse each other, etc. That's what it means to be a human. We can, and should, work to fix the parts that we can address. Politics can do that, but even in a world of Fully Automated Luxury Communism, we're going to have to work on ourselves.
It's similar for gender. Puberty is weird, and the social expectations made for men and women range from dumb to harmful. I think we can improve some aspects of this, but there's just some limits on what society can do.
At some point you have to put your politics aside and figure out what you're going to do.
Fully Automated Luxury Communism? That's a joke, right? Sorry but as the "outsider" in a group with more left-leaning views, I'm not always sure what to take seriously.
I use the term jokingly, but it is the title of a serious book. I don't think it's unreasonable to imagine a world where technology handles so much that our economy won't resemble the sort we have today.
That's already happened, many times over. The industrial revolution was far bigger and more important than anything that can come after. But the reason it didn't matter all that much is human psychology. Humans need to "work" to feel valuable, and so every society above subsistance level invents "work" to be done.
I agree that humans probably need to feel they are making a contribution, but in what (current) society is everything covered so thoroughly that we would need to invent “work” of the wage-slavery type?
We work for money in our current economy. Not to feel valuable.
So I am not convinced we invent work for this purpose, Mark. You’ll always have a neighbor with a broken leg or a local school that needs tutors. Those things are more rewarding than working at Taco Bell. No one needs to invent stuff to do in the outside world. It’s everywhere. Pick anything.
If I won the lottery, I’d focus my time on foster kids and animal rescue.
Oh and writing. I’d write more. Ha.
You've again poured out many of the thoughts swirling in my head - except you've imposed considerable order on the swirl. This is such a complex set of issues that it's really hard to think through them.
Having paid my respects to complexity, I want to focus in on one facet - what I'm increasingly seeing as the fulcrum of the blind-affirmation model when it comes to transition in young people: the suicide threat.
Why are so many liberals unable to see that thousands of kids are being harmed? They've bought the line that it's transition - stat! - or watch these kids die. And what kind of monster would take that chance? Now, I think we may be starting to see some cracks in the suicide-threat edifice; I've been closely watching the comments sections of WaPo and NYT, and increasingly self-identified liberals are starting to question why we're seeing such a massive wave of gender-dysphoric youth. Still, the threat of dead children shuts down critical thinking like nothing else. (As a mother of two young adults who's dealt with serious mental illness in my family, I get that.)
The suicide threat is also the strongest factor (imo) pushing otherwise-skeptical parents into line. Those parents either end up affirming, or they enter a desperate period of seeking help from professionals and institutions that are almost unanimously affirming the child's demand for immediate social transition and blockers or hormones. I've heard too many stories of therapists who - sometimes on a first visit, sometimes in front of both parent and child - will state out loud that it's better to have a trans child than a dead one. The skeptics are up against a system that will hide the child's trans identification because - sing it again! - that child is otherwise likely to end up dead. And if the child says their skeptical parents are transphobic (as every YouTube trans guy has proclaimed), all the more reason to worry about that child imminently trying to end their life.
Of course, the adolescents who've been coached through social media know that threatening suicide is their most potent weapon in getting their parents to comply. There's a fascinating moment in a talk given by Jack Halberstam where they say that *of course* children know that suicide threats will get them what they want. (Halberstam gained academic fame with the book Female Masculinity and subsequently adopted a trans self-definition in midlife after living for most of their life as a butch lesbian.) Halberstam is a more nuanced thinker than many who write about trans issues. In their 2018 book Trans*, Halberstam even raised questions about prematurely stabilizing and reifying a fixed identity in gender-nonconforming kids. But in this talk, Halberstam treats the suicide threats as an example of trans ingenuity, getting desires/needs met in a world hostile to trans people. My takeaway: some people within the trans community understand that the suicide threat is greatly inflated but choose to wink, nod, and look away.
This *is* a population with tons of mental health troubles, and I have no doubt that these kids are more likely to engage in suicidal ideation than kids without a trans identification. Whether their rates of ideation, attempts, and completed suicide outstrip those of other youth with similar levels of mental health problems is an open question. Jack T*rban has so dominated the "research" in this area that we won't get real research-based answered anytime soon. I've rarely seen such openly ideological, methodologically shoddy quantitative "research." Yet he's become the go-to guy when mainstream reporters want a source on youth transition and mental health.
As an aside, the "epidemic of trans murders" serves as a similar fulcrum for adult transitioners when it comes to shutting down dissent. (Why try to resolve conflicting rights when you can just accuse the TERFs of literally killing trans women?)
But back to the children and young adults. I think the only way to move toward the kind of long-term exploratory therapy these young folks need is to debunk the suicide threat. One path in that direction is to point out that any child who's suicidal *needs* wraparound psychological services and thorough psychotherapy before making any lifelong decisions. That child is far from competent to consent! You made this argument very cogently in this essay, Salonniere. But we also urgently need real research driven by methodological rigor and the sort of compassion that seeks truth, not clicks.
I'm very curious if others have ideas about how to address the suicide threat. I, too, was present at the detrans forum on Saturday and my heart just hurts. Of course there's so much more that needs attention, from the overall mental health crisis in Gen Z to the influence of online communities and on and on. But the path to more reasoned discussion will be blocked unless we can get beyond the belief that it's transition-or-die.
I agree, Dr Patty Catty, that the suicide issue is critical to address sensibly. Just this weekend a friend posted about her trans-identified high schooler and how it was really easy for her (my friend) to cut off even life-long friends who were not supportive. The clear implication, although she didn’t say it outright, is that this is a matter of life and death for her child, and she clearly believes it with all her heart. She loves her child, and she’s frightened.
When you are afraid your child will die unless everyone in your life gets in line and says and does exactly the right things, you cannot think and evaluate rationally.
So it’s critical that we address the suicide topic.
There’s research that the kids who present with gender dysphoria are no more likely to kill themselves than other kids seeking mental health care.
Think about that. Think of the number of kids you know who have ever struggled with a non-gender mental health issue. We don’t go around thinking every child with depression, anxiety, cutting or trauma is imminently going to kill themselves if we say or do the “wrong” things, or if we don’t do exactly as they wish.
The suicide risk in kids with mental health struggles, though not completely imaginary, is not as it’s been represented for gender-questioning kids--not by a long shot.
If you wouldn’t capitulate to a child with depression or anxiety’s every demand, afraid that they would kill themselves if you didn’t, there’s no reason to treat the child struggling with gender any differently.
Add to this: every psychologist and psychiatrist has been taught (and should absolutely know) that _telling_ someone they are likely to kill themselves _literally_ increases the risk that they will.
Explain it however you like, but everyone knows it’s true (and yes, there are data) and it’s therefore reckless to tell a kid, or a kid’s parents, or all of society, that a certain group is more likely to kill themselves, because it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
How many times have we heard about the suicide risk in trans kids? Especially from some of the most extreme ideologues-- the Jack Turb*ns of the world who purport that to passionately care about these kids, even as they do something that increases the danger of self-harm. And for what? What is Jack Turb*ns purpose when he crows about preventing kids from killing themselves? Does it make him feel very important? Or like a very good person?
It accomplishes the opposite of what he claims to want. Everyone who’s inflated this risk on the public mind is playing with kids’ lives and safety, and I think they should be professionally censured.
I absolutely have a lot to say on this topic (ha) and someday will do a post on it, with links to the evidence.
I look forward to that post. The potential for self-fulfilling prophecy is deeply disturbing. It's incredibly irresponsible for therapists, journalists, and activists to harp on the suicide risk, which is often presented as a certainty.
I see young people cutting off old friends *readily* but inside, it can't come easily. The cost is visible in further declines to mental health.
Thanks to both you and Salonniere for thorough explanations of the problem. It is heartbreaking to see children suffering this way.
As a young mother in the 1980's, it was shocking to me to see how society seemed to be "sexualizing" young girls. Instead of cute pastel outfits, black was the "in" color starting in 2nd or 3rd grade. My first grade twin stepdaughters came home from school and told me they couldn't hold hands at school because "everyone will say we are lesbians". Eighth graders wearing shorts so short that their cheeks were exposed. This has been coming for a long time-where even children are obsessed with sex.
It's not surprising that when sex and sex issues are pushed at children who are too young to handle them, confusion and mental health issues are the result. And now we want to bring drag queens into story hour? Keep this up, and more children will suffer.
Can we go back to letting children have a childhood again?
Wow, you saw sexualization of very young kids already in the 1980s? I first noticed it as a widespread phenomenon in the mid-naughties. At that point I had two young boys, but I cared about my friends' daughters and I really didn't want my boys to think that it was just normal and expected for girls their age to emulate the sexiest pop stars.
I have mixed feelings about drag queen story hour. I've known young gay men who were into drag and would maintain good boundaries. But I think if the goal is to expose kids to gender diversity, engage some sweet youngish gay men and butches. I'm aware of a couple of incidents where the drag queens in these programs weren't vetted and had ... issues. But really, even under the best of circumstances, drag queens portray femininity as cartoonish. They often are ridiculously sexualized. What should natal girls take away from these performances of gender?
I don’t think we need drag queen story hour, just as we don’t need bartender story hour, stripper story hour, or airplane pilot story hour (unless any of them are the author or the subject of the story). Let’s go back to librarians and other assorted volunteers doing story hour, WITHOUT the attention focused on the story reader.
Story time is a time for the attention to be on the kids and the books, not a time to be focused on the person reading.
And the fact that we don’t have bartender, stripper or airplane pilot story hour doesn’t mean we hate any of the people who do these jobs or the clothing they wear for work. It doesn’t mean we are “excluding” anyone.
This isn’t about the adults’ work and hobbies. It’s about reading books to kids.
Yeah, if you want kids exposed to diversity, try people in wheelchairs, burn victims, feminine men and masculine women, etc. I used to enjoy drag, but now I can't help but see it as insulting and demeaning "womanface".
"we also urgently need real research driven by methodological rigor"
I am a working research scientist with a PhD from Stanford, and I think this is wrong.
"Rigor" is the social sciences is very hard to come by. Look up "p hacking" and the "replication crisis".
Common sense arguments will be much more powerful: like, if someone is suicidal for WHATEVER reason, they need intense care compassion and therapy. NO life-altering decision can made under such duress.
THAT is a much more powerful argument than anything you find in social-science research.
I think we’re finding that p hacking and the replication crisis is not limited to the social sciences, Mark. It’s the psychologists who kindly first brought it to everyone’s attention but it’s everywhere.
Regardless, back to whether hormones or surgeries are ever medically indicated for emotional distress: No.
The onus is on the people who want to use those interventions to prove they are safe and effective.
Do we have data now to indicate those interventions are safe and effective? No.
Will we ever? I’m going to go far, far out on a limb (ha) and say no.
That’s why we need research. It can be gamed -- in medicine as well as in the dreaded despised social sciences-- but it’s the best we’ve got.
P-hacking is NOT "everywhere". In my field of particle physics, the standard for a discovery is five sigma, 99.99994% confidence:
"In the social sciences, a result may be considered "significant" if its confidence level is of the order of a two-sigma effect (95%), while in particle physics, there is a convention of a five-sigma effect (99.99994% confidence) being required to qualify as a discovery."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68–95–99.7_rule
Anything less than that is considered provisional, with further experiments needed to confirm or refute.
Yes. I'm not familiar with particle physics. The problem is not confined to the social sciences. It extends to clinical trials, medical research etc.
Yes, a lot of medicine is also bad, using poor statistical methodology among other problems. But it is absolutely false to say that the replication crisis is "everywhere", there are many areas of hard science that have not been afflicted by it.
Yes, not “everywhere.” You’ve won your point.
Also my point also stands: it’s not limited to the social sciences, the sciences that “hard” science loves to hate. The social sciences, in fact, revealed it.
Particle physics is of course quite different from psychology. And yes, I'm well aware of the replication crisis and the p-hacking issue.
But have you looked at Jack T*rban's so-called studies? It's as if he's not even *trying* for rigor-lite. A 95% confidence interval would be the least of his issues. He relies heavily on an online convenience sample, cherry picks data, and completely bungles the history of puberty blockers. Yet the dude gets space in the New York Times to hold forth. If you're in a mood to wallow in despair, check out this article: https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/145/2/e20191725/68259/Pubertal-Suppression-for-Transgender-Youth-and
and then this critical analysis: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341891739_Puberty_Blockers_and_Suicidality_in_Adolescents_Suffering_from_Gender_Dysphoria
T*rban's employed by Stanford too, in the Med School, which lends him more gravitas than if he were in Psych. I have an undergrad degree from Stanford as well as my first master's. It's effin' embarrassing. According to his Twitter, he does have a cute dog, though.
(I'm not trying to be coy with the asterisks; I just don't know if at some point Substack comments will be trawl-able by search engines.)
Exactly. Isn’t he still a fellow though or is he finally done? I goaded him once online (on my regular Twitter) -- something to the effect of being awfully cocky for someone who hadn’t yet finished his training. 😂 I was really angry about one of his ridiculous articles!! I don’t remember if he blocked me or not.
Yeah, he's a fellow. I don't know how long such positions run. He's actually in psychiatry, not psychology - I should clarify that.
A lot of folks on Twitter think he's swayed by those sweet pharma bucks. I don't think that's his motivation; the dollar figures I've seen cited are relatively small as pharma funding goes. I regard him as a true believer, so sure of the righteousness of his cause that silly things like methodology are irrelevant. He also really enjoys the spotlight and has a talent for self-promotion.
I think he’s a true believer too. And I think he doesn’t belong at Stanford. He’s achieved household-name status for being an ideologue not for being a brilliant doctor. He’s kind of an idiot. It’s embarrassing for Stanford but they’re too woke to realize it. UCSF is just as bad. These powerhouse medical schools have lost their minds. Child fellowships in psychiatry are typically two years. Wonder where he’ll go next.
I expect him to use his fame to vault into an even higher-profile position. Maybe he'll found a new university-affiliated gender clinic somewhere? I'm sure we'll not be able to avoid hearing about it ...
What a well written article and sadly true to the core.
On a more personal note.
I've had an apprenticeship at a place for people who've been out of work for a many years and weirdly mentally ill folks too (Talking about everything from depression to aspergers). My fear was getting a downward spiral due to this negative environment - legit nobody was a "normally" functioning human being in society, when in fact I wanted to turn my life around after spending 3 years before that working through all my childhood traumas and my frail mind.
The number of trans people was incredibly high and the people would give themselves some kind of positive feedback loops and many more would join in or at least dye their hair, color nails, march/protest for lgbtq right and the like. It really is a mass soziogenic psychosis. Living in a complete bubble. And funnily everyone had access to free mental health counseling as this part of the area we folks lived and included in the apprenticeship.
Did it help? Well let's just say even the health professionals were very much in support of these drastic measures and the only one warning people of the consequences got fired by higher ups, while under tears from all the bashful comments. It was tragic to say the least.
Anyways, I fell in love with this incredibly kind and stunning girl. Knowing very well what tail of problems could be attached to her.
We talked, spend time together and the feelings became stronger, but then one day she told me "well anyways in 2 weeks I'll get my first hormone shots - I'm so excited and everyone is cheering me on"
This was a soul crushing, fear inducing some kind of worst case scenario.
Oh yeah, did I mention she had a relationship with someone from the trans community overseas, while we were starting to get together? And before that one bad relationship after another mostly with people from this community? (what a coincidence)
It was all kind of confusing, yet here I was applying everything I learned the past years and being a "better" person and supporting the "people in need" .
She wrote the person one message - they both agreed.
Now I was in a relationship with this person I was very much in love with, but still fully aware of how crazy this all is. I knew from day one, that she was heavily influenced by her bubble always getting feedback loops from the same people, same ideas, same mental illnesses etc.
One term I truly started to hate was "Oh that's so relatable - haha so funny".
It's not funny nor is it a laughing matter. I realize it's coping etc. and sometimes dark humour is helpful, but getting bombarded 24/7 with basically "you are a piece of s*it* and agreeing isn't going to help.
She loved me head over heels and I was getting what I sought for all my life and indulged in it - all of it. Too much - too soon, probably.
Now she had all the problems you listed a young person might experience in your article and on top of that sexual trauma, ptsd and which sadly she didn't get diagnosing for some kind of autism or ocd, but it wasn't the kind, which is a huge burden even on other people.
Getting back to the trans topic.
She was all aboard it, until the first "negative" side effects started. She started growing hair all over her body, the clitoris changed (a very unique experience not only for her), voice, skin etc. you know it.
She was very very upset by some of these changes and I seriously started to question her decision making. Did she truly think this through? What was she expecting? Hormones to get rid of her problems? It's exactly how you described it and of course it is. Any person, who can approach this topic rationally and neutral should come to this conclusion, but she couldn't.
Well how could she? Her last 20 years were a huge mess. She was getting influenced all day and wasn't able to grow on her own.
Even her sister, which she sees as her mother since her real mom left, was transitioning multiple times. Her sister too has very severe mental issues (borderline, ptsd etc.)
And it broke my heart seeing that everyone in her life has a hugely negative impact on her and she can't see it, because it's all she knows and loves.
This is when I decided, I need to help and not only support her. Very bad move for a relationship, but how was I supposed to know. It was a first for me too.
I started to give her little pushes in the other direction, tell her how things really are. Use a lot of calm and rational approaches.
This often offended her, because she was a person living almost only by her emotional thoughts and not by what makes sense and helps the most.
"Why can't you just leave me with my feelings - why does everything have to make sense"
It was a very fine line between actually getting her to move in a healthy direction or pushing her to much and she taking it up in a negative way.
She never lashed out at me. She avoided confrontations almost religiously. When I used to play video games and slap my desk lightly after having a frustrating death she would instantly cry, get scared and leave the room. She was hurt this much. So I adapted my behaviour - never trying to hurt her. Also very bad choice.
After some time of talking to her about her transitioning and telling her there might be a point where I will not love her anymore due to her changes, she was devastated.
I called her by her new name, said he instead of she. I did it all to support her, but I never lost myself and the accuracy of science.
Oh, she absolutely hated her real given name and I had to ask for permission to use it. It was complicated when she first visited my parents...
So after these talks she said she wanted to stop the hormone therapy, because she wanted to keep the relationship going and wasn't a big fan of some of her changes.
To me it felt like she took this as something where she had to admit defeat.
After a while I was able to call her she again. She was getting better and the love was strong as ever. Now instead of a male name she used an abbreviation of her first name.
One thing that never stopped was her living in this bubble.
TikTok, Tumblr and Instagram. Truly a horrible combination for mentally ill people. So the arguments never really stopped and it got increasingly more difficult to get through with sense, because she actually started believing what some truly delusional people said in 30 second videos, which somehow coreccted what 20 scientific papers found.
I started getting frustrated. My future life was on the line. I saw little improvements over the months and I wanted to talk to her in a more serious note. What we are and were we are. We were in our mid twenties back then. As a female her thoughts of getting children and settling down were getting stronger and generally she was a very genetically femine person. With a very strong motherly nature and quite typical female hobbies.
And yet her she was completely denying multivariate statistics on
gender studies.
She is hard feminist and I'm a rational thinker. So also a lot of debate happened. I agreed on feminism from the pre cold war. But told her that modern feminism is the absolute worst and is splitting society left and right.
That evening didn't end well that's all I will say.
So after over a year now I couldn't get truly to her anymore. All my attempts trying to help her find counseling failed. She took up all the bubble talks and things worsened after I had a serious message to her about how I view our current relationship.
I told her what I think is necessary for a working relationship or functioning human being (cleaning up, taking care of yourself, learning finances etc.)
It was all just very basic things normally teens will start to get a hold on. And I was very patient with her. I gave her months to make changes or see her trying to improve.
The reaction?
She took it as a personal attack and that I wanted to break up.
This never was said or my intention, in fact I even told her it's not, because I know how her anxiety works.
But the fun part was she didn't act differently and I didn't event know for a couple of weeks that the relationship was over for her. I was still very lovey dovey making plans for valentines.
We didn't see each other for 4 weeks and when we met again, she was the coldest, most distant person ever to me and it broke my heart. How can someone numb themselves this quickly?
She spiraled downwards and hurt herself physically. Consuming social media 24/7, substance abuse and talking with people from the same circle.
We did talk again many weeks later, saying we can work this out if we get help - that she needs help and time. I still loved her - still to this day where I'm writing this comment.
(She hasn't improved.)
Yet somehow, I lost the love of my life (Yes this sounds very weird, but I only put in the bad points of the relationship, legit everything else was like a dream or something you would see in a movie - she was fantastic)
to modern society it feels. I got to know her very deeply and she truly is manipulated by her surroundings and online agenda to a point where she is unable to live a life or even form her own opinion. She is getting offended for everyone and everything
Tries to help everyone else, but herself
She sees no point on herself anymore.
Do I hate the trans community or all the negative social circles?
No I don't.
I truly feel sorry for all these lost souls and wish that they can find themselves and live a happier life.
This modern phenomenon needs to stop and we have to spread awareness before we will lose a generation to something so avoidable.
I just wish I wouldn't have been a part of all this mess. And I somehow feel like a failed man - not being able to save my love.
Sorry for this long post, but I thought you might value anothers person hands on experience. Of course this was by far not all that was to it.
Thanks for sharing this experience— what an ordeal for you (and for her). There’s so much to unpack.
A lot of people who get drawn into the gender stuff also struggle with other mental health issues, and that’s a very tough combination. Often people describe such relationships as wonderful, almost perfect, when things are going well — like something from a dream or fantasy — and then hellish and confusing when it doesn’t work.
People in these relationships often struggle for a long time because the good parts are very good. There is often the sense, when it doesn’t work, that you’ve lost the love of your life.
There’s a lot of black and white thinking with folks who suffer with gender issues, a lot of very high highs and low lows in their relationships. It’s very hard to deal with at the time, and it’s very hard to recover from afterward.
Many people who consider themselves trans seem to struggle with their identity a lot— their sense of self can be shaky, or can change abruptly or often: feminine women with fairly typical feminine interests can decide they’re men for no clear reason. The fact that the trans stuff is very popular and common right now (all of society supporting it, almost unthinkingly) just throws a huge wrench into the relationship and makes a hard situation harder — maybe impossible.
In wish you all the best.
As the almost-retired elder at my company, the first rule I have taught my "mentees" is: If there is a problem, always first look internally. Assume it's us, not the customer or vendor. Most of the time, the problem (and therefore the solution) is internal. Only look outside if you have already eliminated the internal as the source of the problem.
I think your example of the friend who always thought another city would bring happiness shows the same thing. Almost always, the best place to start solving problems is a look in the mirror. But our society finds that idea to be lacking in sufficient compassion. And then we wonder why problems only get worse....
That’s interesting, your approach to problems at work! It’s kind of a basic rule of thumb that people who tend to look internally / blame themselves for their interpersonal problems (even when it’s unmerited/excessive) are overall mentally healthier than those who tend to blame others (even though of course sometimes others really are the cause of problems).
It’s not just about blame. It’s more about finding the source of the problem. Sometimes the source IS outside. But looking inside first can save a lot of trying “solutions” that will never work.
No I get it and I agree. I’m just saying it’s interesting that it’s an interpersonal rule of thumb (look within first) which can also be applied to the workplace even though I never thought of it in those terms.
Hey 21...way late to the party here, but just wanted to say thanks for putting this out there. In all honesty, though I've seen much written on the subject of "trans", this is the first time I've seen a piece such as this. Admittedly, I don't spend a lot of time seeking out information on this subject, but at least I've now seen a cogent and well explained perspective beyond the "automatic affirmation" scenario of which you write, and which indeed seems to be the default position of nearly all of what I have read about this subject. I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that there is a multitude of people out there just like me who've never heard of Detrans Awareness Day and have no idea of the reasons for its existence. So, props for providing me with a new perspective to bring to bear on my thinking about this subject.
Thanks so much, M. I really appreciate your thoughts and input -- and I'm so glad that you were willing to read a long piece like this, even though it's not a topic that you've spent a lot of time on before. (Neither did I until recent years, after noticing some worrisome patterns in kids of friends and acquaintances, and becoming really concerned about medical and emotional harms of this new approach, when the old approach seemed much better.) I really would like to bring this topic to wider attention, and so it makes my day when someone stops by and takes the time to leave a comment. It is impossible to be late to this party. Thanks again!
Yeah...it was a little longer than a lot of what I make the time for. I subscribe to and follow a lot of stuff and spend way more time with my backside parked on the couch with this infernal digital do-dad in my lap than I probably should. But it speaks quite well of your skill as a writer that once I started what I feared might be a bit of a slog, I found myself more drawn in and interested with each passing paragraph. Which, considering that this subject isn't particularly way up there on my list of "interests", I hope you will take as the genuine compliment I intend it to be.
I am humbled and thank you sincerely. One of my goals is to interest people in this topic, but it’s tough. Most people (naturally) are often not too engaged in issues that don’t pertain directly to them -- especially in these times when so much else is happening in the world, and we all have problems. Thank you.
Thank you so much for continuing to speak out so eloquently and persuasively on this important issue. I find your argument about happiness set-points particularly convincing because I think we all can relate. Just recently my husband changed jobs because (he thought) his job was making him miserable. He was happy for a couple of weeks, and then was back to being his regular, somewhat unhappy and dissatisfied, self. The old job wasn’t the problem and the new job isn’t the solution. (Although he will point out that at least his new job pays more!) I suspect most of us have examples like this from our own life.
The difference with trans issues for unhappy kids is that the “fix” is not a new job or a new city, which, even if it only makes us happier for a short time, has no lingering side-effects. “Fixing” unhappy kids who think they’re trans requires amputating healthy body parts and a lifetime of drugs. We--not only parents but also doctors--should be very careful before we impose such radical medical procedures on patients, especially when we have no evidence that it will work.
I had a thyroidectomy to treat thyroid cancer several years ago, and now I’m on thyroid pills for life. Thyroid meds are cheap, easily accessible, and are fairly well-tolerated. And even so it is a pain and a worry to be dependent on them. I have to get up an hour early to take my pill so it will be absorbed before I have my morning coffee. At the start of Covid I was worried that there would be supply-chain disruptions and I wouldn’t be able to get my pills. We live close enough to Ukraine that I am again worried about disrupted supply chains. All this is a fair price to pay not to have cancer, but I wouldn’t wish dependence on medication on anyone who is physically healthy. Adults have the perfect right to decide for themselves which medical procedures they will undergo. But with kids?We should think very carefully first.
Beware simple solutions to complex problems. Perfect description of what has gone wrong in our society.
Now apply that to other problems. First up- to cure poverty, blame it all on racism and give people money.
Simple solutions are pretty much never a good idea.
Honestly ‘if people don’t have enough money to live on then give them some money to live on’ seemed to work pretty well in Australia when I was growing up, and I’m sad politicians seem to be on a quest to wind it back. Of course we weren’t doing the ‘first blame it on racism’ step so I can’t comment on that bit
Similarly I’d we house the homeless they are not homeless ( and I’m in favor of society banding together and taking care of the truly vulnerable). Possibly that’s why all the petty complaints/microaggressions (both real and imagined) ride my nerves. There are people who really need help: let’s save our compassion and resources for them.
Also, homelessness is bad! It's not that it sucks to be a ______ homeless person. It's not that a disproportionate amount of _____ are homeless. It's not that ____ people have biases against homeless people. Homelessness is bad. We should reduce bad things.
Yup
You’ve got so many interesting thoughts here! Yes we really don’t “need” a lot of categories.
Some disorders have experienced such an expanded definition as to become meaningless, such as anxiety or the autism spectrum.
Everyone’s anxious, right? If you’re never anxious, you’re probably dead. But that doesn’t mean we need to pathologize every episode of our anxiety and tell people we “have anxiety” as if it’s a disease. Anxiety, in context, is a gift.
Same with autism spectrum disorder. “Autism” used to be a much narrower spectrum indeed, ranging from nonverbal people to extreme outliers of bizarre inappropriate behavior. Now everyone who is a little quirky or struggles to read social cues is labeled “on the spectrum”— and in fact for some it’s a mark of pride not to be one of those boring “neurotypical” people. (This is reminiscent of non-binary and trans people who are glad they’re not boring “cis” people.
But realistically, we’re all socially awkward at least sometimes. All of us have occasionally missed or misread a social cue, just as all of us have been anxious at some time. But it doesn’t put us “on the spectrum.”
And I agree that race is also something we made up. “Race” has only existed as a concept for a few hundred years, but it’s just one of many ways humans can categorize themselves into ingroups and outgroups, and it’s a particularly slippery and unreliable one. It would be easier / neater to determine an arbitrary cutoff or simple category and divide the world into Talls and Shorts, or Blue-Eyes and Other-Eyes.
You’re so right, Carina. There is such a lot of sloppy care and it breaks my heart-- especially after hearing so many of these stories yesterday. Detransitioners are not featured all over the media the way some other groups are. They deserve love, understanding, and support, the same as any other group.
That is such an interesting question (whether the reaction to Lia will pressure boys to transition young). It’s definitely worth asking and trying to answer.
FWIW, and this is totally based on my experience and observations (not research!) the boys who are prepubertal and who really want to transition are generally not the sports-y kids. They are more often than not hanging out with girls and more likely to engage in less rough and tumble stuff.
(For girls, avoiding puberty wouldn’t affect their future sports opportunities as men--no one would say it’s unfair-- so the focus is on the natal boys/ men.)
Generally the small subset of natal males who want to compete as transwomen seem to have already gone through puberty and they seem to remain attracted to women, and that’s a different situation altogether. In that cohort it’s often their libido partly driving them to get validation as “women” which they didn’t have pre-puberty.
In other words, I suspect the cohort that will continue to wish to participate in women’s sports will be the people who (pre-transition) were post-pubertal straight men. Who knows, though? Could be wrong.
That's really disturbing. You know that tucking underwear is not a 6-year-old child's idea.
Puberty sucks for everyone. Probably not great to “treat” the puberty itself rather than the distress about it as a first step.
Agreed. If a kid isn’t distressed about their body during puberty that’s probably ....highly unusual!
And after puberty. There's no end of history, we're never in the "right" body (except maybe Tom Brady). It's always something we have to work on
Yes. Some experiences--like puberty--are just awful for everyone, and I think it’s ok to let people go through these tough experiences, always with kindness and understanding, but not necessarily with therapy or antidepressants (and still less with puberty blockers and T) unless the distress is persistent and severe.
I read a letter once in a parenting column about an analogous issue. The letter-writer overheard a dad on the subway say to his kid, who had been whining about wanting water, “Sometimes you just have to be thirsty.” The letter-writer and the columnist both thought this dad was horrible. Why hadn’t he thought to take a water bottle for his child?! How cruel and unkind he was to just say his kid had to be thirsty!! I, otoh, thought this dad was showing fantastic parenting. The kid wasn’t going to die of thirst! He was just mildly and temporarily uncomfortable, an experience that we all have at one time or another. The dad was giving the child the opportunity to learn to manage his feelings and figure out a way to make things better for himself in the future, maybe by remembering to take a drink of water before heading out.
The impulse to rush kids into radical medical treatment when they are undergoing normal distress over the totally rotten experience of puberty is like the letter-writer’s and columnist’s judgement about this dad. The parenting philosophy nowadays is that our kids should never have to feel a moment’s distress. But that is part of life! Why not give our kids a hug, maybe share stories from our own rotten puberties or find an older cousin to talk with them? Because ultimately, sometimes you just have to be thirsty, but it isn’t forever, and that is one of the most important lessons of growing up.
Holy smokes, they thought he was poorly parenting?! Teaching your kid something like "you'll have to be temporarily uncomfortable sometimes" is a kindness. That way they'll be prepared for it in the future instead of blindsided by the "unfairness" of life.
I know! And blaming the dad because he should have brought a water bottle for his son! This is not how I was raised, or how I raised my kids.
Not to open a(nother) can of worms, but the controversy over sleep-training raises the same issues. So many of my contemporaries thought their child’s sleep was the parents’ responsibility, and they could not bear the idea that their kids would be sad, however briefly. Instead of expecting their kids to learn to go to sleep, these parents would be up literally all night with their kids (not infants but elementary-aged children), even crying with them and feeling so terrible that their kids were suffering. And of course their excessive sympathy just escalated the kids’ crying. The overall level of suffering for everyone was so much greater than it would have been, had the parents just accepted that their kids would have to endure a tiny bit of unpleasantness in the process of learning to go to bed.
I have a little bit different view on sleep training. I think infants are little animals who are hardwired to experience great distress when left alone. Infants who were content to be left alone would not survive long. You can certainly train it out of them, but I never felt good about training an infant to ignore its own hardwired feelings of distress. Seemed like there might be downstream effects of that. (If you’re familiar with the book “the gift of fear” it’s about trusting your own internal feelings of danger or not-rightness, and apparently a lot of people struggle with that.) It always seemed “right” to me that a non-mobile infant would express great alarm/fear/distress when left alone, so I wanted to honor that by not inducing that type of distress when I could avoid it, and/or responding to the distress when it happened.
Mothers in a lot of cultures keep infants with them at night and I did the same. I’m not saying anyone who did it another way made a monstrous choice. Just saying that was the right choice for our family.
Often when I was torn about what to do with a kid, I thought: what would a cave-person do? (This is also why I trusted my kids— again, because they are little animals—not to starve, so I never worried about whether they were eating or not, or how much of which foods on offer. I know we agree on that one!)
Oh, I wasn’t talking about infants--most infants aren’t developmentally ready to put themselves to sleep until 6 months at the earliest. The kids I’m thinking of were about 8 years old, and they weren’t helped by their moms staying in their rooms and sobbing with them all night!
I agree, Mari, both with your perception of this parent (sometimes in fact you do have to be thirsty! And it’s a good impromptu lesson) and with the bigger point that the rush to treat everything medically is a problem.
It really is a reflection of a consumer society that we have this expectation that if something we don’t like is happening, we go to a doctor to get something to fix it. Unhappy puberty? Doctor. Fix.
It really is like this transition-of-kids is a great new product that everyone’s clamoring for.
Feel tired? But these vitamins. Feel ugly? But these new clothes. Feel unhappy in your body? Buy a new one.
It’s not THAT simple but I do think our willingness to accept a radically life-changing set of medical interventions for emotional misery is not unrelated to our great willingness and expectation as a culture to buy solutions to our problems.
This is just my *lived experience*, not a scientific statement, but I've seen friends improve more from 1) getting a better job and/or 2) leaving bad relationships (romantic or otherwise) than I have from therapy and anti-depressants.
I would believe it. Improved life circumstances can be very healing.
Same for physical health. Diet + exercise will do a lot more for people than they realize.
Especially when one has actually done something to bring about the improved circumstances.
You are so right that it seems parents never want their kids to feel a moment's distress, and that everything should be made 100% safe.
But clearly this idea has lead into labyrinths of contradiction. This post about the dangers of following the "trans" path at any cost is one example. In the name of alleviating mental stress, much more pain is introduced.
COVID restrictions are another example. Parents willingly subjected children to 2 years of distress, and shrugged it off by saying "kids are resilient". And these are probably the same people who harshly judged a dad for telling his kid that he could wait till he got home for a drink of water.
I see the resilience thing as something else. People will justify anything they want so it agrees with them politically. If they’re in favor of covid restrictions (as I am, based on the best evolving evidence we have at the time) they say “kids are resilient!” If they’re not in favor of covid restrictions they scream “think of the children!”
That’s just motivated reasoning. Both “sides” in the culture war do it. If you’re a big safetyist but say “kids are resilient” as a talking point to get what you want, that’s wrong. If you’re someone who believes we coddle kids too much, but then say “think of the children!” when they are going through a very rough time in history, and they will just have to cope with it, same as everyone else, that’s wrong. It’s wrong whoever is doing it.
Yes, people are very capable of justifying anything they want.
But the fact is (and has been from the earliest weeks of the pandemic) that children had statistically zero risk from COVID. It was also known that they were not serious vectors for transmission.
So both sides are not simply using motivated reasoning. Only one side is doing that. It was clear, and even admitted, that the safety of children was not the consideration. People who would be aghast at the thought of a child riding a bike for a block without a helmet eagerly subjected them to 2 years of mental stress.
You’re simply incorrect about kids and covid, but it’s not the topic at hand so I’ll leave it at that. ;)
The "passing" argument is pushed hardest by adult transwomen who suffer every day from not being able to pass. I don't dismiss their suffering. But they don't consider that youth transition often means impaired or nonexistent sexual response and fertility. "You pervert!" they cry when this fact is brought up. But it is not sick to want young people to have the possibility to experience sexual pleasure and (biological) parenthood. Many of these adult transwomen have had access to both. Many of them would also condemn laws that require bottom surgery (and thus sterilization) in order to legally change their gender. But when it comes to kids, suddenly fertility and sexual response aren't legit concerns.
Transmen, by contrast, usually don't gain much passing-advantage through early transition. They will likely have less extensive mastectomy scars if breast development is paused early. But blocking puberty can reduce their adult height, making it harder to pass. Voice is a huge factor in allowing transmen to pass. So is a beard, however scruffy.
The advantages gained by early transition are asymmetrical, with natal females gaining the least. Considering how the sex ratio has shifted, this asymmetry deserves attention - yet it's rarely mentioned.
All excellent points. There are a million good reasons not to have minors transition, and these are some of the big ones.
"But they don't consider that youth transition often means impaired or nonexistent sexual response and fertility."
Furthermore, no child can possibly make such a decision in anything like an "informed" manner.
This seems to me to be just so bleeding obvious, that I am thunderstruck that the medical community largely disagrees.
The only explanation that makes any sense to me is mania, mania throughout the medical profession.
And therefore, despite being a lifelong age-66 liberal who has never voted for a Republican, I am now totally on board with the red-state bans of child transition.
Child transition is child abuse.
I agree with bans of child transition, and I agree transition results in medical harm, but I balk at the use of the term “child abuse”— because intentions matter, even when outcomes are horrible. It’s see a lot of loving parents make these mistakes.
I also strongly object to the way this has been co-opted as a culture war red-state issue. As long as half the country thinks “blue state good, red state bad” (and the other half thinks the opposite), we will never make progress on important issues by making them red-state or blue-state. It’s a dead end.
I wish those people in the red states showed a little interest in sharing the evidence basis for their proposed legislation, and in talking about it rationally and not in such a way to emotionally appeal to “their voters.”
The medical profession— I don’t understand what the excuse is there. I’ve talked to so many doctors who won’t touch this topic with a ten-foot pole, or assume that data exists ***which doesn’t exist*** and if I tell them it doesn’t exist, they think I’m a the ideologue or irrational one.
I disagree that intentions matter. Pedophiles often believe they do no harm to the children they abuse. Do we then give them a pass for their good intentions? No, we do not.
Child transition is child abuse, period.
I support whatever politicians want to ban it, red or blue. But sadly they're all red, as my side, the blue side, has lost its collective mind on this.
And pursuing government bans on child transition is most definitely not a dead end. The dead end is talking an issue to death when the side with all the power isn't listening.
100% agree. Results matter, not intentions. Especially when intentions seem in large part to be driven by parents wanting to be on the right "team" (to refer back to an earlier post) more than actual concern for the long-term health of the child.
I'm with you. It is child abuse.
Evidence and rational discussion? Abigail Shrier wrote a book on the topic. What happened? Outrage on the left, and Target pulled the book. Rational discussion is not possible with people who have lost their minds in pursuit of a fantasy. The fantasy is that our medical science can make men and women interchangeable by just a few surgical and pharmaceutical tweaks.
And yet don’t all of us heterodox people say (when complaining about the wokes) that intentions do matter? We can’t have it both ways, with intentions mattering only when they are our intentions.
A pedophile who believes (or claims to believe) that he’s not hurting kids when everyone in the world tells him the opposite, well no, he doesn’t get a pass. Partly that’s because it’s hard to imagine any reasonable person holding that belief, really. The entire world tells him the standard of behavior and then he transgress it; well, he should expect consequences.
But a parent— especially a parent who is outside of health care or mental health, who isn’t familiar with PubMed, who doesn’t read medical journals for fun, who isn’t particularly “science-y,” trusts that when s/he brings a child to a doctor, that child is going to receive appropriate evidence-based care. If the child doesn’t, you can’t fault the parent the same way you fault a “child abuser.” And even more so when the parent’s critical faculties have been compromised by telling him or her “do you want a live son or a dead daughter?” Terror makes it very hard to think rationally.
I look at these kids and I feel deep-down yes, they are being harmed, they are being mistreated, they are being let down by the people who love them most. That’s why I’m so passionate about this topic— because I want to preserve the health and well-being of defenseless people who are brought to doctors with the expectation of receiving help and instead are harmed. But the entire society is in on it— not just the parents. I am frustrated and angry with the parents, but I know a lot of them are good people who are doing their best. That’s part of the tragedy of it.
The sports question is easy: sports should be segregated by biological sex (about which there is no question whatsoever for the overwhelming majority of people).
Period, end of story.
I certainly agree with you, Mark. Whether or not that will be a reality again in college sports, given that the NCAA has lost its mind, remains to be seen.
Many have lost their minds. Those of us who have not must keep ours. We must stick to our principles, to keep the Overton window open to the truth.