November 2, 2019

"They’re women who, in their teens, realized that they were actually men, socially transitioned to the other sex, and then underwent hormone therapy..."

"... to change their bodies, faces, and voices to become transgender men. After varying amounts of time, however, they all realized they had made a big mistake, stopped testosterone therapy, and 'detransitioned' back to being who they were before.... They expressed not a smidgen of transphobia, just a pressing concern that many teenage women, particularly lesbians, struggling with gender dysphoria, have been convinced too quickly that the only solution is to change their sex. They worry that any kind of therapy apart from affirmation of transgender identity is now seen as transphobic, and that teens are able to get hormones far too easily.... In 2009–2010, there were reportedly 32 girls and 40 boys referred to the center for treatment. Since 2018, there have been 624 boys and 1,740 girls, overwhelmingly in their teens. One explanation is that, as stigma declined, more transgender kids identified themselves as such. But the shift toward girls, compared with boys, suggests that something else may be going on. Why should the female share of transgender patients suddenly shift from 44 percent to 74 percent girls in a decade?... [H]ow can you tell which gender-dysphoric kid is gay and just needs to be left alone, and which one is trans and needs urgent treatment?... How much of the extraordinary surge in transgender girls is related to their discomfort with being a lesbian?... I know that gender dysphoria throughout childhood is one thing; sudden gender dysphoria among teenage girls is another."

From "The Hard Questions About Young People and Gender Transitions" by Andrew Sullivan (New York Magazine).

ADDED: Sullivan never says the word "homophobic" — though he anguishes over what is and isn't "transphobic" — but he really is talking about homophobia.

75 comments:

tim maguire said...

We can start by recognizing that there is no such thing as “urgent treatment” for gender dysphoria. They can live as the opposite sex all they want without medical intervention. It used to be standard of care (hopefully it still is) for transitioning people to live as the desired sex for a year before surgery. That seems like an eminently reasonable requirement.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Why no data on such a vital subject? Why no research? Oh...Yeah.

RK said...

stopped testosterone therapy, and 'detransitioned' back to being who they were before

Wondering what the long-term physical effects of this are. Can't immediately think of anything negative. I'm sure many of the other girls envy the muscle mass.

traditionalguy said...

Straight heterosexuals have watched the fully accepted gay men and gay women come under attack from the social constructionists denying their genetic existence and we thank God that we missed that experimental hot mess. We just settle for being men having sex with women and women having sex with men. That’s plenty exciting enough.

Kevin said...

Why should the female share of transgender patients suddenly shift from 44 percent to 74 percent girls in a decade?

What is the Althouse rule about reporting difference in the sexes? That whatever happens, it will be reported as good for women?

I think we might have found the limit of that ability.

It's hard for Andrew to make the point that what's good for women is to turn themselves into men.

So much so that he's searching for the right -phobia word to describe it.

gilbar said...

of the four married lesbians that i know (two different marriages);
Two of them (a couple) seem happy being lez;
of the other couple, i'm continuously surprised that old of them (the butch one) hasn't announced transition
When/If THAT happens, i'm anxiously awaiting what will happen next?
Will her wife accept the fact that she's now "straight"?
Will she transition TOO, just to keep things even?
People sure make things complicated.

The Good News is: WHATEVER they do, will be embraced and celebrated by Everyone;
'cause, as Women, they can do NO WRONG; even if they stop being women

Kevin said...

Come on Sullivan, we've all been trained to know the politically correct answer.

It's her body and we have no ability to comment on what she does with it.

Even if all the women in the world start marching to their doctors to turn themselves into men, it's their choice and should be celebrated.

Isn't that what you've been preaching?

Ann Althouse said...

"Wondering what the long-term physical effects of this are. Can't immediately think of anything negative."

It's in the linked article: "These women live every day with the consequences of their decision: tenacious facial hair (one has to shave every three days) and body hair, deeper voices, permanently enlarged clitorises. They also suffer from the effects of “binding,” i.e. wearing a breast corset of sorts, to flatten their chests, so they can pass more easily as men. “I have back issues, lower lung capacity, and permanent dents around my shoulders,” one told me. “Every now and again, I have to push a rib back in to breathe,” another recounts."

mockturtle said...

Nothing 'hard' about the question. Teenagers should never, ever undergo hormone treatment due to 'gender dysphoria'. It's that simple. It's child abuse to even suggest it. If they want to fiddle around with their hormones when they are adults and find some idiot psychologist who wants to enable them, then let them. Before that, off limits.

BTW, I'm curious: Why so much interest in this transgender thing? Is one of your children transgender?

gilbar said...

Kevin pointed out...
It's her body and we have no ability to comment on what she does with it.

Unless she becomes a cutter; then we HAVE TO step in
or
Unless she becomes anorexic; then we HAVE TO step in
or
Unless she becomes bulimic; then we HAVE TO step in
or
Unless she wants to become a conservative mom; then we HAVE step in

Nancy said...

I knew a FTM transgender person who died under age 40 of a virulent brain cancer. Those hormones are powerful.

n.n said...

Trans/homo and trans/neo phobias are "=" and complementary. I wonder where trans/bi individuals fit in, other than selected through purity preferences.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Why would we assume that someone with a mental disorder hurts themselves through a rational response to cultural expectations? If you are a woman who thinks that she is man, that is irrational. Giving in to that irrational belief by taking hormones and using prosthetics is not a rational response to culture expectations abut what a man looks like; it is an irrational response to believing you are a man when you are a woman.
In other words, it is not society's fault when people disfigure themselves to fit into their idea of what society demands from them.

Shouting Thomas said...

People, especially the young, are remarkably subject to fashion and fads.

I witnessed this over decades in Woodstock, where wave after wave of young people indoctrinated in one or the other sexual fashion or fad twisted themselves into contortions, and wrecked their lives, to be sexually hip.

What’s happening, I suspect, is the same thing on a larger scale. Kids are indoctrinated ceaselessly in the media and schools that switching sexes is hip and fashionable. So, they try like hell to twist themselves into the latest hip sexual fashion.

The solution to this is to cease the propaganda and lies. Fat chance, huh?

dgstock said...

Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, explained by a Brown researcher in a since disavowed paper, may have roots in webgroups with aspects of cis-hetero shaming, enabling false identifications, and providing emotional support for confused/questioning teens. Sounds like a sociogenic illness.

h said...

I had not seen the figures showing that gender disphoria was so much more prevalent among (born) Girls than among (born) Boys. I have two possible explanations. One is that I believe that (born) GIrls and women are much more susceptible to social pressure, so are more likely to jump on the trans-is-cool bandwagon. The second is that girls' (especially teen girls') senses of self-worth are more tied up with their looks, (or lack of good looks). So a teen girl who is overweight and plain featured can logically imagine that she would look like a not handsome, but kind of normal, or not much worse than normal, teen-boy if she transitioned. A plain looking (born) boy who transitions to girl becomes a plain looking (or worse) girl. And while I realize it is ridiculous to argue from specific examples, you can do a websearch for Chastity Bono before and after and Chelsea manning before and after and get an Idea of what I talking about.

gilbar said...

tim maguire asked...
It used to be standard of care (hopefully it still is) for transitioning people to live as the desired sex for a year before surgery.


In the Immortal Words, of S. E. Hinton; That was Then,This is Now
from the article...
We are regularly told that no child or teen is encouraged to take puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones unless they have shown “consistent, insistent and persistent” identification with the opposite sex. And yet all these women became trans quite suddenly after puberty, found affirmation immediately, and got testosterone easily. One says she told her mom one evening that she was having a sleepover with friends, but instead drove hundreds of miles to a Planned Parenthood through the night in search for help with transitioning. Within a couple of hours, after telling her life story, she says she was diagnosed as trans by a social worker, who was impressed by her tenacity in driving so far, and was started on testosterone therapy before even getting any results from blood work.

Lucid-Ideas said...

Does this mean they joined the patriarchy?
And what if they use 'it' during sex? Isn't PIV rape?
No no, they're in touch with their feminine side...
They're going to fuck her gently.
10x better cuddles then dudes without the size or body warmth
But it's not all that easy
A dog can do the same thing and they do for a lot of girls...
Oh do they ever.

Btw DO NOT look up pics of what 'it' is post-surgery. DO NOT. I'm a combat vet but that doesn't mean i have a cast iron stomach.

The medical and pharmaceutical industry have damaged and destroyed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of boys and girls, in this nightmarish farce.

gilbar said...

from the article...
“I was the student trying to get a professor fired because he wouldn’t allow they and them to be used for a singular person in my papers …
I threatened my parents and friends with suicide. It became part of my identity to be suicidal.
One went by the pronouns xe and xer and flew into a rage if she was misgendered.
Once they had transitioned, and felt miserable nonetheless, they felt that this too was just part of being transgender. One talked of “the hunger to suffer.”
Another spoke of “using your pain to validate your own destruction.”


But, it's Important to remember!
They're not like Cutters, or Anorexics; those people are sick; Trannies are just oppressed!
</sarc

Narayanan said...

Even if all the women in the world start marching to their doctors to turn themselves into men,
_____"
Maybe Andrew is worries about accidentally fucking (man who was) woman

effinayright said...

Whenever I hear of a formerly-female tranny being outraged that cis-fems won't date "him"... just because he doesn't have a real "package" I am reminded of how sick these people are.

They are utterly lost in their narcissism and fantasies.

There's no such thing as mental illness any more, ladies and gents.

Bay Area Guy said...

It's best to keep it simple. If you have a dick, you're a male. If a pussy, then female. Also, focus on your natural attractions to members of the opposite sex. Not to be mean, but that's a big part of how Darwininan evolution has worked these past several million years.

Narayanan said...

permanently enlarged clitoris
_______&&&
So the guy says wow that's sooo!! big!!
________

There is a scene where girl fuck guy in glans with her clitoris.

https://www.amazon.com/Smillas-Sense-Snow-Peter-Hoeg/dp/0385315147#immersive-view_1572732666853

Shouting Thomas said...

Remember when the professor said that gay marriage wouldn’t have negative outcomes, and would result in more freedom for everybody?

Jesus, that was bullshit, wasn’t it? Talk about your slippery slopes!

This bullshit can be traced back to 60s feminism. The fantasy world propaganda that American women were “oppressed” and “second class citizens” is where this mental illness began. Play acting by drama queen rich white women who wanted in on the fun of “being just like blacks under Jim Crow.”

Then we moved on to pretending that gays were “oppressed” and “second class citizens,” just “like blacks under Jim Crow!”

Marxist feminism is the root cause here. It was never about freedom. It’s always been about self-induced mental illness.

Fernandinande said...

So a guy with an enlarged clitoris walks into a bar and says, "Say, my good man, why is it so dark in here?" and the bartender says, "The owner has homophonic photophobia."

gilbar said...

again, from the article...
citing parents’ reports on their transgender kids. She discovered a pattern:
Most (83 percent) were girls in their teens with no previous history of gender dysphoria
who spent a lot of time online, and “more than one-third [of whom] had friendship groups in which 50 percent or more of the youths began to identify as transgender in a similar time frame
.”
Littman was not the first person to use this term, but she described this phenomenon as “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” and worried that it could be caused by social contagion...
Earlier this year, a governor of the Tavistock Centre resigned after submitting a report that argued that teens were being fast-tracked

Shouting Thomas said...

Concrete steps to slow down or halt the sexual maiming of our kids.

1. Shut down the Marxist feminist, homosexual and black indoctrination centers on campuses. Stop allowing these Democratic Party indoctrination centers to operate on the taxpayers’ dime.

2. Drive the same indoctrination programs, and the Democratic Party apparatchiks who run them, out of the public elementary and high schools.

When will taxpayers revolt against this insane use of our tax dollars?

Sebastian said...

"Why should the female share of transgender patients suddenly shift from 44 percent to 74 percent girls in a decade?"

Well, it shouldn't, unless we are dealing will BS claims aided and abetted by progs.

"[H]ow can you tell which gender-dysphoric kid is gay and just needs to be left alone, and which one is trans and needs urgent treatment?"

You can't, if you assume there is such a thing as "urgent" "treatment" for would-be trannies.

"sudden gender dysphoria among teenage girls is another."

But it is also part of the same thing: the prog attempt to tear down the bourgeois sexual order.

bagoh20 said...

A few years ago in California, in a once famous case, a couple was murdered by being tied to an anchor and pushed off their boat into the 3000 ft deep Pacific. A truely horrible way to die. The guy who did it, did it for their money. He also killed another man for his money by cutting his throat about a year before this. The killer had zero remorse, and was convicted of the murders and sent to death row. He killed the couple for money to pay for surgery to transition to a woman, and when in prison was obsessed with it, so that he even attempted to cut off his own penis. He was rewarded for his murdering just as he intended, because California decided to give him his sex change in prison paid for by the taxpayers. The reasoning for this was that not giving it to him would be depriving him of his rights.

So let me get this straight. As punishment we take away most of his basic rights in prison, (he had a wife and 2 kids), but this uncommon and, until recently, non-existent right is more important than all the other things we deprive criminals of becuase they viciously murder innocent people. Where did this sudden new and supreme right come from? It wasn't even a thing a few years ago, and now it's a right of the highest order, and I mean the highest. He's on death row. We have decided he does not deserve life itself, but he deserves sex change surgery on our dime before we kill him? Our society has lost it's freaking mind.

You can watch the story of this on YouTube. Search "couple disappears yacht murder"

bagoh20 said...

Has anyone seen the movie "Tusk"? A strange experience of being deeply disturbed while laughing. Available on Netflix.

A sick fuck captures, and through drugs and surgery, transforms an unwilling young man into a walrus out of some strange fetish.

I'm not sure that such a fetish would not be a protected right soon. I mean how common would it need to be to qualify?

Mountain Maven said...

Read Sullivan? Not.

Jaq said...

Joe Biden: "In prison, the determination should be that your sexual identity is defined by what you say it is not what in fact the prison says it is"

Does that mean if you kill your wife, you can get sent to a women’s prison?

Incentives matter Joe!

Sarthurk said...

Phobia
This term is a subliminal attempt to make folks think they have a "phobia" and it means hatred. And you what that leads to. The term is a leftist propaganda ploy to imply, you, the phobic one, is a hater. Simple as that. and everybody of course, hates haters.
Oh, the irony.
and all the more the reason to be very wary of these leftist goons.
Cheers,
Sarthurk

Ken B said...

When I was 8 I felt I was a tall person trapped in a short body. My parents told me to wait.

We live in more enlightened times now. My son said the other day he wished he could reach the top shelf in his room. He also liked the movie Walking Tall. Clearly, he has Elevation Dysphoria.

Treatment begins Tuesday: HGH injections daily, and an hour on the rack three times a week. I won’t be as insensitive as my parents!

Phil 314 said...

“It's in the linked article: "These women live every day with the consequences of their decision: tenacious facial hair (one has to shave every three days) and body hair, deeper voices, permanently enlarged clitorises. They also suffer from the effects of “binding,” i.e. wearing a breast corset of sorts, to flatten their chests, so they can pass more easily as men. “I have back issues, lower lung capacity, and permanent dents around my shoulders,” one told me. “Every now and again, I have to push a rib back in to breathe,” another recounts."

Now they have a reason to have body dysmorphia

Ken B said...

Skylark
In the UK an intact male rapist is housed in a women’s prison. He has since assaulted two female inmates.

bagoh20 said...

What else does the prisoner get to determine solely at his own discretion?

Answer: Nothing. Gender self-determination is the supreme right of the land. It is so self-evident that the framers didn't even think it necessary to mention.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

not that we tried that hard, but wtf??

that whole sequence read like some kind of "gender disphoria Who's-on-First'


West Texas Intermediate Crude said...

I once thought I was a man trapped in a woman's body.
Then I was born.

n.n said...

The progress of transgender/neo conversion physical therapy, social purity and conformance, is why trans/homos are seeking separate but "=" status with other classes in the transgender spectrum ("rainbow"). Fetal-Americans, first. Feminists, second. Trans/homos, too.

Josephbleau said...

My Daughter was really good in soccer. Today she would be head butted by a 200 lb girl with a dick.

mockturtle said...

As a youngster I wanted to be a lot of things I wasn't: Japanese, Chinese, Jewish, Catholic. Anything but boring WASPishness. I got over it when I grew up.

iowan2 said...

What is missing is the research over the last 25 years detailing the healthy, happy lives, lived by medically trans gendered individuals.

iowan2 said...

What is missing is the research over the last 25 years detailing the healthy, happy lives, lived by medically trans gendered individuals.

Hey Skipper said...

But the shift toward girls, compared with boys, suggests that something else may be going on. Why should the female share of transgender patients suddenly shift from 44 percent to 74 percent girls in a decade?

It is, or at least should be, a well known fact that mass hysteria is predominantly female.

Birkel said...

I guess if all you hear/read is how the patriarchy is keeping girls down,
These girls just figure if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Yancey Ward said...

History isn't going to be kind to us for what we are doing to children today.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

From the article:

No one, including trans people, wants to transition kids who might turn out to be cis (and often gay and lesbian).

Then how is any of this a problem, Andy?

What an oblivious schmuck!

Kirk Parker said...

bagoH2o @ 5;38pm,

I cannot answer your question here because it would make me sound like Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn.

Kirk Parker said...

Yancey,


Not to worry: history is a totally cishet white European male thing.... In the future, there will be no such thing.

effinayright said...

iowan2 said...
What is missing is the research over the last 25 years detailing the healthy, happy lives, lived by medically trans gendered individuals.
***********

It's worse than that: Harvard Magazine's December 2019 issue has an article arguing that "science" should go back to FIND the evidence, because the author "questions scholarly "assumptions" about sex and gender, based on "epigenetics' holistic view of human development."

Has she done the research herself? No. Instead she argues for an idea called "sex contextualism".

What bullshit.

heyboom said...

I tend to think of the effect as a perverted form of the power of suggestion. When my youngest was in fifth grade, her class was given a presentation on the dangers of cutting and immediately began cutting with a couple of her friends out of curiosity. Thankfully, it turned out to be very mild and stopped almost immediately. For some personality types, however, it starts out just as innocuously and then spirals out of control.

The worst thing we do now is to accommodate these dysphoric impulses without a smidgen of skepticism.

Automatic_Wing said...

It's a self-harm fad, similar to bulimia and cutting. Teen girls are particularly vulnerable to this sort of thing.

Quaestor said...

Sullivan never says the word "homophobic" — though he anguishes over what is and isn't "transphobic" — but he really is talking about homophobia.

Anguishing about homophobia when you're talking about transphobia is like anguishing over Big Foot when you're talking about the Loch Ness Monster.

n.n said...

History isn't going to be kind to us for what we are doing to children today.

Diversity, selective-child, clinical cannibalism, medical and psychological corruption... probably not. Progress.

wild chicken said...

"What role does homophobia play in enabling transition?"

He does say it...did add that later?

Swede said...

Let's take young, confused as fuck people and then give them the opportunity, even encouragement, to act on that confusion.

What could possibly go wrong?

It's like adults have forgotten how to point at something that's wrong and say "that's wrong".

Ken B said...

Quaestor
I think you are missing Ann's implication. Sullivan is hinting at what he dare not say openly, that the enthusiasm for “transition” is a result of homophobia.

mockturtle said...

How many will cry years later, "Mom, why did you let me do this?!"

Quaestor said...

@Ken B
On the contrary, you've completely missed my point.

n.n said...

Trans is a state and process. What is in progress, and has been since the partial normalization of trans/homosexual orientations, is a separate and "=" status of classes in the transgender spectrum, including bisexuals, but especially trans/neo-genders. They opted for Pro-Choice and are now facing the awkward task of reconciling.

n.n said...

Then how is any of this a problem, Andy?

Blemished "rainbow" (transgender spectrum), political congruence ("="), and other sociopolitical constructs.

Theranter said...

https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/the-newest-war-on-women/?fbclid=IwAR2Wi-jYrxWfiEQgj1RJ2wUvdSM5zgLMeio2DJ3ercv2PNSEKsbzyTDTnW8#.XbtnmFkRW7c.facebook

https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2019/10/a-physician-is-worried-about-gender-transition-in-pediatrics.html

Two related articles worth a read, IMHO.

JamesB.BKK said...

What's this? Some of the teens I know sign up for this app call Saraha where they (or some of them) create an account and then other teens that know them or claim to know them come anonymously and post critical and also mean shit about them while some others come in and defend them and they defend themselves and the account holder can call for direct messaging to ID the commenter and have it out if desired. It's probably not for everyone. But consider the strength building. Surely, it's not for the herding fad follower girls.

JamesB.BKK said...

Is it still a thing in the US for people in their thirties to complain that their parents let them down and produced at least one failure child? Instead of Dr. Spock, the moms and dads can say they took their cues from ol' Mr. Reliable Andrew Sullivan.

JamesB.BKK said...

Anguishing about homophobia when you're talking about transphobia is like anguishing over Big Foot when you're talking about the Loch Ness Monster.

One does not want to be seen to be incorrect with the top-down-narrative-driven mood of the day in analyzing the now myriad ways to sign off on ancestry-ending life choices (er, I mean genetically encoded and fixed unalterable conditions of the mind/body that produce sterility except in the case of President Duterte of the Republic of the Philippines (who "used to be gayer than anybody but I cured myself.")). Is it wrong to mourn the losses of people now dead that while living struggled so hard to survive and reproduce only to have their progeny (condoned by many of their parents and teachers through social conditioning) reject themselves, their ancestors, and their civilizational responsibilities?

hoyden said...

iowan2 said...
What is missing is the research over the last 25 years detailing the healthy, happy lives, lived by medically trans gendered individuals.


Like the news, if it bleeds it leads. Nobody researches folks living healthy, happy lives. Who cares?

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

"All the women I spoke with who detransitioned now date women or don’t date at all. Their transition was based entirely on how they felt at the moment, which they now regard as a false signal about their long-term identity. Which prompts the question: How much of the extraordinary surge in transgender girls is related to their discomfort with being a lesbian? What role does homophobia play in enabling transition?"

Sullivan does address homophobia.

Craig Howard said...

Then we moved on to pretending that gays were “oppressed” and “second class citizens,” just “like blacks under Jim Crow!”

Being discharged from the military, arrested for merely being present in a so-called gay bar, or going to jail for engaging in sex in your own home do indicate that gays were, at one time, seriously oppressed.

n.n said...

Then we moved on to pretending that gays were “oppressed” and “second class citizens,” just “like blacks under Jim Crow!”

They're "=" but not equal situations, just as women suffered discrimination in exceptional cases, as men suffered discrimination, but based on behavior not color attributes. Even diversity under "Jim Crow" was not universal. It never was. Today, however, there is a progressive discrimination, exclusion, an insidious realization, processed under sociopolitical constructs. Very Pro-Choice.

n.n said...

Anguishing about homophobia when you're talking about transphobia

Transphobia is inclusive. Homophobia is exclusive.

mockturtle said...

Being discharged from the military, arrested for merely being present in a so-called gay bar, or going to jail for engaging in sex in your own home do indicate that gays were, at one time, seriously oppressed.

They've since more than made up for it, Craig.

Jeff Brokaw said...

“Hard questions”? What hard questions?

Nobody under 21 should ever get any kind of surgery or hormones related to gender dysphasia, especially because all the evidence points to mass hysteria as the primary driver.

We are living in a giant social, medical, and mental health experiment conducted without our consent, in real time, against our children.

The only “hard question” is how in the hell did we get here?



JamesB.BKK said...

Being discharged from the military, arrested for merely being present in a so-called gay bar, or going to jail for engaging in sex in your own home do indicate that gays were, at one time, seriously oppressed.

Now: "I have an offer you cannot refuse. Bake me a cake or I'll ruin your life and the lives of your family. Should you refuse, I will seek to destroy your business using artifices of the state and hound you to the end of time. Unless you are a Muslim."

Also, the word "sex" in your phrasing needs a modifier, no?

PM said...

Thanks to elected officials like Calif's Scott Weiner, it no longer matters what a newborn's obvious sex is - the parents can designated the baby as gender neutral. Anything that happens after this should not be surprising.