Because I am 73, I escaped your fate. If puberty blockers had been available when I was 10 or 12, I would have jumped at the chance to take them. Throughout my youth & early teens, I felt as if I were a boy in a girls body but when I reached my mid 20s & was able to join a lesbian political group - I became so happy to be a lesbian woman. Children and young teens are not mature enough to make such a life shattering decision.
The erasure of lesbians continues to be a problem in our culture. I came out as a lesbian in the 80s, after being a tomboy and hating the way my body changed when I hit puberty. When trans issues started becoming a thing in the 90s, I explored the idea that I might be the wrong sex, but didn't want to deal with surgery and hormones and changing my name, etc. I had some friends who did transition and then regretted it after, saying they didn't feel any more like a man than before the transition, but they definitely felt more lost and less happy in their bodies.
Interesting, and thanks for sharing your experience. As I've read about this issue, I've formed the impression that many, though not all, "true" transgenders -- people who wind up transitioning and not regretting it -- are aware of their desire to transition in childhood. I do tend to think that such children should be supported, certainly in transitioning socially, and then also medically once puberty hits, provided of course that they're still sure they want to. My impression is that such people rarely change their minds after that point.
So, while I agree that we should be more careful than we currently are about handing out puberty blockers, there's also such a thing as being too restrictive -- and we were, I think, until recent years. It's clearly tough to find a balance on such a consequential and emotional issue.
If you lived in a world where health was not a commodity, it might be a good idea. What is happening in the US is criminal, and there is an active process for gender reassignment clinics to put bodies in beds, pressure the kids to give custody to the clinic, then shoving them into gender reassignment.
A lot of these kids are on the autism spectrum and have never expressed or considered gender issues.
Until Western Civilization becomes the liberal democracy it used to tell folks it was, such choices are off the table.
Absolutely same here--I'm 74. I hated being female. Not because I had any problem with my body or because I was some how 'really' opposite sexed. But because it prevented me from getting the things I wanted and doing the things I wanted to do, forced me to do things I hated. The minor thing: dressing and grooming. The major thing: jobs. I was forced to be a clerk-typist. I hated all the jobs open to women--people work and paper work. I like working with machinery. I still think all the time about the jobs I couldn't get. When I started _Moby Dick_ (I never got out of Nantucket ;-> ) I thought: 'I couldn't ship out on a whaler'. OK I thought NOONE now could ship out on a whaler. But i couldn't do anything comparable. I couldn't work on an oil rig. I look at all the men who work around my house--electricians, plumbers, an exterminator (alas!), mobile carpet and grout cleaners, and a guy who fixed and and cleaned my venetian blinds. I couldn't get any of those jobs. It isn't that I'd prefer any of those jobs to the job I have now (being a professor) but that if I hadn't lucked out and caught that brass ring my options as a woman would be intolerable. I never go through a supermaret checkout without thinking how easily tht could have been me. When I get junk phone calls I picture the women sitting in carrels making those phone calls. Or teaching K-12, or doing secretarial work. And I'm thoroughly heterosexual. It's the jobs and the clothes. But tht would have induced me to go for sex reassignment in my teens if it had been available.
I'm glad to learn more about the person behind the debate over transitioning minors. The decision regarding the NHS has, indeed, reverberated well beyond the UK. Among the appropriately radical in the US today, it represents a triumph for institutional transphobia that must be defeated by any means necessary. There was a time when academic (and activist) feminists debated such issues and often came to different conclusions, but that time is no more. Today, "queer" has won the day, and according to queer gospel there can be no debate on the wisdom of transitioning children--and by children, I don't just mean teenagers. Any position that takes into account parental responsibilities for decision making about children is, by definition, transphobic. Any consideration of psychological co-morbidities or the unique vulnerabilities of children is transphobic. Any academic research that suggests that most gender dysphoria in children usually resolves itself, often resulting in gay, lesbian, or bisexual identity, is transphobic. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual identities are transphobic (note: to claim a bisexual identity is to signal that you believe there are two sexes, which is transphobic). Any possible research agenda that would, for example, investigate the hypothesis that sudden spikes in transgender identification among teenagers might be explained in part by peer contagion is so transphobic that academics will band together to make sure that no such project receives funding or IRB human subjects approval.
Any failure to rally around the cause of substituting gender identity for sex at any time for any reason is transphobic. Harboring any doubt that a person "assigned a sex at birth" as we all presumably are who has this second announced their membership in the other category is not, in fact, a full-fledged member of that category for any and all purposes is transphobic. I could go on. Members of the public who are not academics and who hold that this belief system has no bearing on their lives could not be more wrong. The idea that we should support civil and human rights for transgender people, a view I embrace, is the appealing virtue sitting on top of Pandora's box.
It's impossible to have a conversation about gender dysphoria anymore. Like too many other issues, you have to take a side and parrot whatever the politically correct stance is, rather than explore it. Which is damaging to civic life and tedious in the extreme.
It is wonderful that transgender people are more visible today and that the general public has a much greater awareness of the lives of transgender people. I am not sure why respecting transgender lives means we are not allowed to discuss girls who are misdiagnosed and medically mistreated and I am not sure why we are no longer allowed to acknowledge sex. But no surprise that people don't really care all that much about women unless their peer gives a thumbs up that it is okay to do so.
This is an hugely important subject and I applaud Keira for having the courage to enter this most toxic of debates. It’s past time we accepted the reality that sex is biologically determined and gender is a fluid spectrum. People should be free to present themselves as they feel appropriate and be protected against discrimination and violence but we cannot allow the truth to be a victim of intimidation and group-think in the way that it is currently becoming. People are not ‘assigned’ a sex at birth; with the exception of genuinely intersex individuals, people’s sex at birth is clear and is not bestowed by bigoted doctors. Gender identity, on the other hand, is a wide and deeply personal question and people should be free to explore it without fear or coercion. Trans extremists are attempting to deny women, lesbians and feminists their own identities with cries of transphobia on the most spurious grounds. Vulnerable people like Keira need to be respected and heard.
I don't quite agree with this. When you say "sex at birth is clear", you seem to be taking the form of the genitalia as the last word on that biology. But sex is also determined by the structure of the brain. The difference isn't biology versus something else -- it's _visible_ biology versus _invisible_ biology. I think we should speak of "apparent sex" rather than "assigned sex". As you say, it's not an arbitrary assignment by some arrogant doctor; it's based on evidence that has proven extremely reliable -- but not perfectly so.
Maybe you'll disagree with my assertion that sex, not just gender, is determined by brain structure. For my part, I'm not sure the sex/gender distinction bears the weight you're trying to put on it. Anyway, having read some autobographical material by Lynn Conway, a trans woman, I am persuaded that she really was born with a female brain in a male body. As she put it at one point, people thought she was a boy with a terrible mental problem, when actually she was a girl with a terrible physical problem. I take her at her word, as I think we all should. (Her writing is online; I recommend it.)
I don't see any reason to believe everyone has gender identity, or a male/female brain. And as a woman (according to biological sex, not brain feelings) in a very male-dominated field science, I'm wary of statements that there's a special female or male type of brain, which is often used to explain male people predominating in my field. Why does the fact that one male person feels like a female in their brain mean that all women have these same female feelings in their brain? How can this male person prove that their gender feelings are the same as that of female people? None of us can see into each others brains, and frankly I find the idea that a male person can define my own experience insulting.
I don't blame you for being wary, but if the phenomenon of transgenderism is not rooted in the brain, then I'm hard put to see where it could come from.
I'm certainly not suggesting that all women have exactly the same experience of being female. But I also don't think it's meaningless or crazy for someone in a male body to say they nonetheless experience themselves as female. How can they prove it, you ask? Well, why and to whom should they have to prove it?
The only evidence they can offer is their desire to undergo transition.
>The only evidence they can offer is their desire to undergo transition.
I agree. And there is a small percentage of people for whom this imperfect transition process we have (since it only approximates the other sex) is the best option out of a set of bad options. The more realistic they are about the limitations of it too, the better their outcome generally is. But I'm going to be a stickler here on whether this means they have a "female brain." I'm not convinced that's what the phenomenon is.
I don't know the science behind the brain but I'm definitely not insulted by someone saying they have the brain of a woman. I could imagine a trans child looking at the world of men and women, looking at their clothing, yes, but also beyond that, looking at their behavior, their gestures, their use of language, their emotional responses to things and identifying with one gender over the other.
Sex is not determined by the "brain" neither is it determined by a feeling or an identity. That would be gender. Sex and gender are not the same thing. We gotta get a handle on language here, this is part of the problem. Sex is determined by gametes. There are male gametes and female gametes. That's it. Usually male gametes mean a penis and XY but not always, as we see with intersex people. Female gametes usually means a vagina and XX but not always. Doctors "assign" sex at birth not because they are arrogant but bc in the great majority of people, there sexual organs point to there sex. I am not sure what makes transgender people transgender. Perhaps it is there brain. Perhaps there are cultural influences. It doesn't really matter to be. Transgender people should be respected and their gender identity should be respected. This does not mean the word "sex" becomes whatever we feel it should be. "Sex" means something that is crystal clear.
Not hard. XX = female XY = male. It isn't rocket science, nor is it even undesirable. You have to align health and medical treatment, for example with that reality. To do otherwise is unethical and barbarous, as the article should have made clear.
These are non-trivial health impacts and WC is quite primitive in their competencies around them.
It is really better to speak of chromosomal combination (XX vs XY) vs anything else. From this characteristic, all other differences descend.
The structural difference(s) in most cases, relate to the cascade of hormones for females and the increased presence of receptors to manage them. This is why the hormonal assault for transitioning FTM or MTF is so problematic. It is like putting diesel into an engine that is meant to run on regular petrol. It can only ever be partially effective -- the brains simply aren't set up to make that change.
If you are suggesting that someone with an XY chromosome pair develops a female brain, you might be suggesting that there is a defect in gene expression that interrupts normal testosterone function in such cases.
By default the brain is female, which is why you might expect to see differences in the effectiveness between hormonal treatment depending on the vector of the transition.
In any case, one common characteristic of humans is that 12-year-olds are not competent to the degree that they would have to be to ethically place irreversible, and potentially catastrophic transition decisions in their hands. The proxy for that competence has, until recently, been called "parents".
The least harm for the most people would seem to be educating the populace and then deferring to parental discretion. There is no ethical path other than this.
Not that anyone seems particularly concerned with bioethics, particularly when there is money to be made.
Some intersex people do not have XX or XY chromosomes that allign with there sex. But everyone has male or female gametes, either one or the other. It's all about the gametes.
I fully accept that part of the origin of trans identity is that a trans woman may have a ‘female’ brain - there has been some research which suggests that this is a gestational issue where receptors in the growing brain do not fully respond to the signals which cause the body to become male - I am not trans-hostile in the least and have read extensively on this subject. What concerns me are the extreme trans-activists and their false narrative. These people do not speak for all trans people by any means. Biological sex cannot be ignored or lied out of existence. It plays a vital role in who we are ,for good or ill.
I share your concern about the activists who are taking a very black-and-white view, in which anyone who is not instantaneously and unquestioningly supportive of transitioning is labeled not just as transphobic but murderously so.
But if I were talking to such an activist, "biological sex cannot be ignored" is not something I would say. I think it conceals the real issues rather than revealing them. As I've already said and you seem to agree, biological sex has multiple components, and the very essence of the transgender phenomenon is that for some people, those components are not all in alignment. To the extent that the activists are saying that the sex of the brain is the most important of those components, I agree with them. It sounds like you don't, though perhaps I misunderstand.
This is a very difficult subject for me as I have family members who are transgender (in both directions) and the pain they go through is heart-breaking and I believe absolutely in their right to transition and present themselves to the world in the gender that they identify as. Having said that, is it simply not possible to ignore the impact that ones biological sex has on ones identity - there are, of course, some individuals who don't find this an issue and that's their experience and I can't deny it, but neither can, or should, trans activists try to deny the experience of millions of biological women whose sex impacts on them massively, and I do not mean that in cultural terms. Quick examples would be female athletes whose training and performance are very often adversely affected by their biology, or the real and diverse issues surrounding menstruation (not those that are culturally determined) and I could go on... These are real and affect a biological woman's experience of herself and the world. This is a thorny issue, and one of those in which the rights of different groups conflict; we need to accept that and work on how to achieve a level playing field that disadvantages no-one. Unfortunately, extremism and knee-jerk black and white thinking seems to predominate on the progressive side at the moment, with the best that can be expected being a tight-lipped acknowledgement that something is 'problematic' and then a refusal to discuss it further. The fact that Keira Bell, a vulnerable young woman who has invaluable lived experience, has been singled out and abused by trans activists makes my point.
Keira, I wish you the best. One advantage of sharing your experience in a community like Persuasion is there's less of a risk that your story will become weaponized in the hands of militant zealots and militant deniers. That's my hope, anyway. Zealots and deniers give the cliché "I love humanity but detest people" a face and a voice that quickly wear out their welcome.
Yes! I would think most people her would support both trans lives AND women and girls like Keira. It shouldn't be so hard to do both and it's shocking and sad to see that it is.
So relieved I'm not a teenager now. Gay and now in my 60s, I was an effeminate child/teenager. I fear that today peers and some adults would be saying that I was a really "trans". Never would I have thought even 5 years ago that those thought would cross my mind.
The acronym "LGBTQ+++++" pops up everywhere as if an indissoluble tectonic plate. In fact, there is tension among those identities...and I fear that much of current "trans ideology" can come across as an erasure of gay men and women.
And it's the ideology that has sprung up recently that separates....not trans people themselves.
Although her story is really tragic, her clarity is bracing. Good to read a piece that so simply and eloquently outlines the bad thinking that leads to such tragic outcomes. We have to stop sacrificing our young people on the altar of political correctness and medical curiosity.
I've heard it said that medical interns are instructed "If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras". Now the theory seems to be that if we think horses we'll end up oppressing the zebras.
One needn't subscribe to any particular theory about nature or nurture regarding sex to observe that the vast majority of adults think they're the same sex inside and outside, making it disingenuous at best to look at a child who "presents" as a girl and say "who knows?", leading to travesties like the one perpetrated on the author.
Does the intern advice disadvantage people whose inner and outer sex never line up? Yes. But wishing our observations away is not a good plan, and disadvantages *more* people, as there are more people who end up happy with their "assigned" sexes than otherwise.
This isn't an argument for fitting everyone into the same mold, merely for letting plausibility, rather than ideology, be our guide.
Are you familiar with Abigail Shrier and also Dr. Debra W. Soh? Both writers whose book you may want to get. Google both of them....btw, amazon was pressured into dropping Shrier's book.
A compelling enough story to be a Hollywood movie, which I'm quite sure will never be made. Here's hoping for a Hollywood happy ending to this story anyway.
I’m a primary teacher and can confirm the hard line Training given to all state school teachers in the UK on the issue; essentially, children who identify as the other sex will commit suicide if not supported to transition. No further questions asked about their holistic environment or mental health, no related stats or research given on the matter. To question their position you’re deemed transphobic. We need a strong lobby group to stand up to the likes of Mermaids and showcase the irreversible harm caused by medicalising children in an attempt to ‘deal’ with what is often a complex matter, requiring high quality psychotherapeutic support. Does anybody know of groups that exist ?
Thank you for your courage and emotional clarity on this complex subject. This is how discussion can take place to improve the lives of all people facing similar circumstances.
Because I am 73, I escaped your fate. If puberty blockers had been available when I was 10 or 12, I would have jumped at the chance to take them. Throughout my youth & early teens, I felt as if I were a boy in a girls body but when I reached my mid 20s & was able to join a lesbian political group - I became so happy to be a lesbian woman. Children and young teens are not mature enough to make such a life shattering decision.
The erasure of lesbians continues to be a problem in our culture. I came out as a lesbian in the 80s, after being a tomboy and hating the way my body changed when I hit puberty. When trans issues started becoming a thing in the 90s, I explored the idea that I might be the wrong sex, but didn't want to deal with surgery and hormones and changing my name, etc. I had some friends who did transition and then regretted it after, saying they didn't feel any more like a man than before the transition, but they definitely felt more lost and less happy in their bodies.
Hi Noreen Harnik: this is also my story and the story of many women I've known.
Interesting, and thanks for sharing your experience. As I've read about this issue, I've formed the impression that many, though not all, "true" transgenders -- people who wind up transitioning and not regretting it -- are aware of their desire to transition in childhood. I do tend to think that such children should be supported, certainly in transitioning socially, and then also medically once puberty hits, provided of course that they're still sure they want to. My impression is that such people rarely change their minds after that point.
So, while I agree that we should be more careful than we currently are about handing out puberty blockers, there's also such a thing as being too restrictive -- and we were, I think, until recent years. It's clearly tough to find a balance on such a consequential and emotional issue.
If you lived in a world where health was not a commodity, it might be a good idea. What is happening in the US is criminal, and there is an active process for gender reassignment clinics to put bodies in beds, pressure the kids to give custody to the clinic, then shoving them into gender reassignment.
A lot of these kids are on the autism spectrum and have never expressed or considered gender issues.
Until Western Civilization becomes the liberal democracy it used to tell folks it was, such choices are off the table.
Absolutely same here--I'm 74. I hated being female. Not because I had any problem with my body or because I was some how 'really' opposite sexed. But because it prevented me from getting the things I wanted and doing the things I wanted to do, forced me to do things I hated. The minor thing: dressing and grooming. The major thing: jobs. I was forced to be a clerk-typist. I hated all the jobs open to women--people work and paper work. I like working with machinery. I still think all the time about the jobs I couldn't get. When I started _Moby Dick_ (I never got out of Nantucket ;-> ) I thought: 'I couldn't ship out on a whaler'. OK I thought NOONE now could ship out on a whaler. But i couldn't do anything comparable. I couldn't work on an oil rig. I look at all the men who work around my house--electricians, plumbers, an exterminator (alas!), mobile carpet and grout cleaners, and a guy who fixed and and cleaned my venetian blinds. I couldn't get any of those jobs. It isn't that I'd prefer any of those jobs to the job I have now (being a professor) but that if I hadn't lucked out and caught that brass ring my options as a woman would be intolerable. I never go through a supermaret checkout without thinking how easily tht could have been me. When I get junk phone calls I picture the women sitting in carrels making those phone calls. Or teaching K-12, or doing secretarial work. And I'm thoroughly heterosexual. It's the jobs and the clothes. But tht would have induced me to go for sex reassignment in my teens if it had been available.
Respect to your courage, Keira. May people listen to your lived experience.
I'm glad to learn more about the person behind the debate over transitioning minors. The decision regarding the NHS has, indeed, reverberated well beyond the UK. Among the appropriately radical in the US today, it represents a triumph for institutional transphobia that must be defeated by any means necessary. There was a time when academic (and activist) feminists debated such issues and often came to different conclusions, but that time is no more. Today, "queer" has won the day, and according to queer gospel there can be no debate on the wisdom of transitioning children--and by children, I don't just mean teenagers. Any position that takes into account parental responsibilities for decision making about children is, by definition, transphobic. Any consideration of psychological co-morbidities or the unique vulnerabilities of children is transphobic. Any academic research that suggests that most gender dysphoria in children usually resolves itself, often resulting in gay, lesbian, or bisexual identity, is transphobic. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual identities are transphobic (note: to claim a bisexual identity is to signal that you believe there are two sexes, which is transphobic). Any possible research agenda that would, for example, investigate the hypothesis that sudden spikes in transgender identification among teenagers might be explained in part by peer contagion is so transphobic that academics will band together to make sure that no such project receives funding or IRB human subjects approval.
Any failure to rally around the cause of substituting gender identity for sex at any time for any reason is transphobic. Harboring any doubt that a person "assigned a sex at birth" as we all presumably are who has this second announced their membership in the other category is not, in fact, a full-fledged member of that category for any and all purposes is transphobic. I could go on. Members of the public who are not academics and who hold that this belief system has no bearing on their lives could not be more wrong. The idea that we should support civil and human rights for transgender people, a view I embrace, is the appealing virtue sitting on top of Pandora's box.
It's impossible to have a conversation about gender dysphoria anymore. Like too many other issues, you have to take a side and parrot whatever the politically correct stance is, rather than explore it. Which is damaging to civic life and tedious in the extreme.
It is wonderful that transgender people are more visible today and that the general public has a much greater awareness of the lives of transgender people. I am not sure why respecting transgender lives means we are not allowed to discuss girls who are misdiagnosed and medically mistreated and I am not sure why we are no longer allowed to acknowledge sex. But no surprise that people don't really care all that much about women unless their peer gives a thumbs up that it is okay to do so.
Well said.
This is an hugely important subject and I applaud Keira for having the courage to enter this most toxic of debates. It’s past time we accepted the reality that sex is biologically determined and gender is a fluid spectrum. People should be free to present themselves as they feel appropriate and be protected against discrimination and violence but we cannot allow the truth to be a victim of intimidation and group-think in the way that it is currently becoming. People are not ‘assigned’ a sex at birth; with the exception of genuinely intersex individuals, people’s sex at birth is clear and is not bestowed by bigoted doctors. Gender identity, on the other hand, is a wide and deeply personal question and people should be free to explore it without fear or coercion. Trans extremists are attempting to deny women, lesbians and feminists their own identities with cries of transphobia on the most spurious grounds. Vulnerable people like Keira need to be respected and heard.
I don't quite agree with this. When you say "sex at birth is clear", you seem to be taking the form of the genitalia as the last word on that biology. But sex is also determined by the structure of the brain. The difference isn't biology versus something else -- it's _visible_ biology versus _invisible_ biology. I think we should speak of "apparent sex" rather than "assigned sex". As you say, it's not an arbitrary assignment by some arrogant doctor; it's based on evidence that has proven extremely reliable -- but not perfectly so.
Maybe you'll disagree with my assertion that sex, not just gender, is determined by brain structure. For my part, I'm not sure the sex/gender distinction bears the weight you're trying to put on it. Anyway, having read some autobographical material by Lynn Conway, a trans woman, I am persuaded that she really was born with a female brain in a male body. As she put it at one point, people thought she was a boy with a terrible mental problem, when actually she was a girl with a terrible physical problem. I take her at her word, as I think we all should. (Her writing is online; I recommend it.)
I don't see any reason to believe everyone has gender identity, or a male/female brain. And as a woman (according to biological sex, not brain feelings) in a very male-dominated field science, I'm wary of statements that there's a special female or male type of brain, which is often used to explain male people predominating in my field. Why does the fact that one male person feels like a female in their brain mean that all women have these same female feelings in their brain? How can this male person prove that their gender feelings are the same as that of female people? None of us can see into each others brains, and frankly I find the idea that a male person can define my own experience insulting.
I don't blame you for being wary, but if the phenomenon of transgenderism is not rooted in the brain, then I'm hard put to see where it could come from.
I'm certainly not suggesting that all women have exactly the same experience of being female. But I also don't think it's meaningless or crazy for someone in a male body to say they nonetheless experience themselves as female. How can they prove it, you ask? Well, why and to whom should they have to prove it?
The only evidence they can offer is their desire to undergo transition.
>The only evidence they can offer is their desire to undergo transition.
I agree. And there is a small percentage of people for whom this imperfect transition process we have (since it only approximates the other sex) is the best option out of a set of bad options. The more realistic they are about the limitations of it too, the better their outcome generally is. But I'm going to be a stickler here on whether this means they have a "female brain." I'm not convinced that's what the phenomenon is.
I don't know the science behind the brain but I'm definitely not insulted by someone saying they have the brain of a woman. I could imagine a trans child looking at the world of men and women, looking at their clothing, yes, but also beyond that, looking at their behavior, their gestures, their use of language, their emotional responses to things and identifying with one gender over the other.
Sex is not determined by the "brain" neither is it determined by a feeling or an identity. That would be gender. Sex and gender are not the same thing. We gotta get a handle on language here, this is part of the problem. Sex is determined by gametes. There are male gametes and female gametes. That's it. Usually male gametes mean a penis and XY but not always, as we see with intersex people. Female gametes usually means a vagina and XX but not always. Doctors "assign" sex at birth not because they are arrogant but bc in the great majority of people, there sexual organs point to there sex. I am not sure what makes transgender people transgender. Perhaps it is there brain. Perhaps there are cultural influences. It doesn't really matter to be. Transgender people should be respected and their gender identity should be respected. This does not mean the word "sex" becomes whatever we feel it should be. "Sex" means something that is crystal clear.
Not hard. XX = female XY = male. It isn't rocket science, nor is it even undesirable. You have to align health and medical treatment, for example with that reality. To do otherwise is unethical and barbarous, as the article should have made clear.
These are non-trivial health impacts and WC is quite primitive in their competencies around them.
It is really better to speak of chromosomal combination (XX vs XY) vs anything else. From this characteristic, all other differences descend.
The structural difference(s) in most cases, relate to the cascade of hormones for females and the increased presence of receptors to manage them. This is why the hormonal assault for transitioning FTM or MTF is so problematic. It is like putting diesel into an engine that is meant to run on regular petrol. It can only ever be partially effective -- the brains simply aren't set up to make that change.
If you are suggesting that someone with an XY chromosome pair develops a female brain, you might be suggesting that there is a defect in gene expression that interrupts normal testosterone function in such cases.
By default the brain is female, which is why you might expect to see differences in the effectiveness between hormonal treatment depending on the vector of the transition.
In any case, one common characteristic of humans is that 12-year-olds are not competent to the degree that they would have to be to ethically place irreversible, and potentially catastrophic transition decisions in their hands. The proxy for that competence has, until recently, been called "parents".
The least harm for the most people would seem to be educating the populace and then deferring to parental discretion. There is no ethical path other than this.
Not that anyone seems particularly concerned with bioethics, particularly when there is money to be made.
Some intersex people do not have XX or XY chromosomes that allign with there sex. But everyone has male or female gametes, either one or the other. It's all about the gametes.
I fully accept that part of the origin of trans identity is that a trans woman may have a ‘female’ brain - there has been some research which suggests that this is a gestational issue where receptors in the growing brain do not fully respond to the signals which cause the body to become male - I am not trans-hostile in the least and have read extensively on this subject. What concerns me are the extreme trans-activists and their false narrative. These people do not speak for all trans people by any means. Biological sex cannot be ignored or lied out of existence. It plays a vital role in who we are ,for good or ill.
I share your concern about the activists who are taking a very black-and-white view, in which anyone who is not instantaneously and unquestioningly supportive of transitioning is labeled not just as transphobic but murderously so.
But if I were talking to such an activist, "biological sex cannot be ignored" is not something I would say. I think it conceals the real issues rather than revealing them. As I've already said and you seem to agree, biological sex has multiple components, and the very essence of the transgender phenomenon is that for some people, those components are not all in alignment. To the extent that the activists are saying that the sex of the brain is the most important of those components, I agree with them. It sounds like you don't, though perhaps I misunderstand.
This is a very difficult subject for me as I have family members who are transgender (in both directions) and the pain they go through is heart-breaking and I believe absolutely in their right to transition and present themselves to the world in the gender that they identify as. Having said that, is it simply not possible to ignore the impact that ones biological sex has on ones identity - there are, of course, some individuals who don't find this an issue and that's their experience and I can't deny it, but neither can, or should, trans activists try to deny the experience of millions of biological women whose sex impacts on them massively, and I do not mean that in cultural terms. Quick examples would be female athletes whose training and performance are very often adversely affected by their biology, or the real and diverse issues surrounding menstruation (not those that are culturally determined) and I could go on... These are real and affect a biological woman's experience of herself and the world. This is a thorny issue, and one of those in which the rights of different groups conflict; we need to accept that and work on how to achieve a level playing field that disadvantages no-one. Unfortunately, extremism and knee-jerk black and white thinking seems to predominate on the progressive side at the moment, with the best that can be expected being a tight-lipped acknowledgement that something is 'problematic' and then a refusal to discuss it further. The fact that Keira Bell, a vulnerable young woman who has invaluable lived experience, has been singled out and abused by trans activists makes my point.
Keira, I wish you the best. One advantage of sharing your experience in a community like Persuasion is there's less of a risk that your story will become weaponized in the hands of militant zealots and militant deniers. That's my hope, anyway. Zealots and deniers give the cliché "I love humanity but detest people" a face and a voice that quickly wear out their welcome.
Yes! I would think most people her would support both trans lives AND women and girls like Keira. It shouldn't be so hard to do both and it's shocking and sad to see that it is.
So relieved I'm not a teenager now. Gay and now in my 60s, I was an effeminate child/teenager. I fear that today peers and some adults would be saying that I was a really "trans". Never would I have thought even 5 years ago that those thought would cross my mind.
The acronym "LGBTQ+++++" pops up everywhere as if an indissoluble tectonic plate. In fact, there is tension among those identities...and I fear that much of current "trans ideology" can come across as an erasure of gay men and women.
And it's the ideology that has sprung up recently that separates....not trans people themselves.
Although her story is really tragic, her clarity is bracing. Good to read a piece that so simply and eloquently outlines the bad thinking that leads to such tragic outcomes. We have to stop sacrificing our young people on the altar of political correctness and medical curiosity.
Your courage at sharing your story is a gift to all. Thank you.
I've heard it said that medical interns are instructed "If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras". Now the theory seems to be that if we think horses we'll end up oppressing the zebras.
One needn't subscribe to any particular theory about nature or nurture regarding sex to observe that the vast majority of adults think they're the same sex inside and outside, making it disingenuous at best to look at a child who "presents" as a girl and say "who knows?", leading to travesties like the one perpetrated on the author.
Does the intern advice disadvantage people whose inner and outer sex never line up? Yes. But wishing our observations away is not a good plan, and disadvantages *more* people, as there are more people who end up happy with their "assigned" sexes than otherwise.
This isn't an argument for fitting everyone into the same mold, merely for letting plausibility, rather than ideology, be our guide.
We know someone, 15, whom we fear is in this exact situation. Is there a national group in the U.S. who can offer advice to worried observers?
Are you familiar with Abigail Shrier and also Dr. Debra W. Soh? Both writers whose book you may want to get. Google both of them....btw, amazon was pressured into dropping Shrier's book.
A compelling enough story to be a Hollywood movie, which I'm quite sure will never be made. Here's hoping for a Hollywood happy ending to this story anyway.
I’m a primary teacher and can confirm the hard line Training given to all state school teachers in the UK on the issue; essentially, children who identify as the other sex will commit suicide if not supported to transition. No further questions asked about their holistic environment or mental health, no related stats or research given on the matter. To question their position you’re deemed transphobic. We need a strong lobby group to stand up to the likes of Mermaids and showcase the irreversible harm caused by medicalising children in an attempt to ‘deal’ with what is often a complex matter, requiring high quality psychotherapeutic support. Does anybody know of groups that exist ?
Thank you for your courage and emotional clarity on this complex subject. This is how discussion can take place to improve the lives of all people facing similar circumstances.