I’ve been thinking about this lately, I kind of tend to say yes but I’d be willing to compromise if trans women stopped trying to demand entry to…
This is a fascinating thread which touches on several posts I and others have made on the subject of the medicalization of GID/gender dysphoria. Read all the comments if you have time; there is some interesting nuance. The big question that arises for me after reading all the comments is:
Given how extreme surgery and hormones are as a treatment–a lifelong, highly invasive treatment–why aren’t they seen as the very last resort?
This is where the gender thing has gone completely off the rails. Kids and teens who profess gender dysphoria aren’t encouraged to at least explore ways that are less extreme than hormones and surgery to cope. They are now celebrated for their announcement, and the trend now is to make surgery and hormones much more accessible, to younger and younger people. “Informed consent” is replacing the WPATH standards, which many trans activists now deride as “gatekeeping” because of the requirement to seek therapy, receive a letter from a therapist confirming GID, and other requirements that encourage taking the process of “transition” slowly and carefully.
Anon said: “…This all needs to be said. Keep getting the word out…I can only comment on anon, because if my pomo-third-wave-trans-gender-queer-theory friends knew I was reading this sort of blogs, it would mess up some of my irl relationships with people pretty badly.”
This is one of several comments I’ve received from people who appreciate the message and purpose of this blog, but feel that they have to keep their gender-trans-queer critical thoughts to themselves in their personal and professional lives due to the very real risk of losing friends, colleagues, or family. One earlier commenter even said they would actually lose their **home** if they criticized trans/queer dogma.
Most of us using Tumblr live in societies where free speech is supposedly valued, yet even a whisper of disagreement when it comes to the dominant identity and gender paradigm is tantamount to criticizing the government in an authoritarian society.
I have been really encouraged by the voices I’ve heard on Tumblr. I started the blog hoping to attract other gender-critical parents (and I still very much want that), but it’s the amazing young people who are going to be the next wave that will, I hope, help create a change with their strong feminism and clear-eyed criticism. Thank you. I’m learning so much from everyone I encounter in this womb gestating new ideas and determination, deep inside the Internet.
I know of a situation where a kid in foster care is identifying as trans at the age of 12-14. The problem is that finding a placement is really hard - as they are making the other children question themselves when they were happy beforehand. The other children are getting very upset at suggestions that their gender non-conforming is wrong/ they have to be trans. Hence placement is really, really hard. Do you know many resources for trans kids to understand gender better and not trans everyone?
There is something seriously wrong here. Instead of kids being supported—and supporting each other—for being who they are, the kids are being pressured by ANOTHER kid into identifying themselves as trans.
Anyone reading this have a suggestion for resources as Anon asked for? It does seem that “trans” has now become a verb, as in, “Stop trans’ing me!”
A few people who follow this blog expressed surprise that young women who are “transitioning” would choose—and readily receive from surgeons—complete hysterectomies. Making a permanent decision to not have children at such a young age seems…hasty.
While I had viewed 10 or so YouTubes from FTMs…
You are a shockingly awful parent and had I been left alone to face someone like you I would be dead. I sincerely hope that your child grows to become a wonderful man and that the pain it brings you is no less than the joy a good life brings him.
Not acquiescing to the immediate, abrupt demands of a teenage girl for hormones and major surgery may be “shockingly awful” parenting to you, but it ’s what I call love. And I wouldn’t “sincerely” wish a lifetime of pain on anyone, let alone someone’s mother I’d never met, but it takes all kinds, I guess.
Gender critical parents who care enough to inform themselves aren’t the enemy. A society and psychiatric establishment that tells girls they are actually men if they don’t conform to gender stereotypes would be a more appropriate target for your drive-by Internet ire.
Half of all Millennials believe that gender exists on a spectrum, and shouldn’t be limited to the categories of male and female, according to Fusion’s Massive Millennial Poll, which surveyed 1,000 people aged 18-34 about everything from politics to dating to race issues.
The findings suggest young people are moving away from a binary conception of gender, a major shift from previous generations. (For more poll stories, click here.)
Some subsets of Millennials are even more progressive on the issue: 57 percent of female Millennials believe that gender falls on a spectrum, according to the poll, compared with 44 percent of men. And Millennials in the Northeast were even more likely to say so, at 58 percent. (In the South, that number fell to 42 percent.)
The poll found that race created substantial differences on views of gender identity.
White Millennials were the most likely to support the concept of a non-binary gender system — 55 percent of whites said gender is on a spectrum, compared to 47 percent of Latinos and 32 percent of African Americans.
Anon said: re: hysterectomies. If a woman also gets her ovaries removed, she WILL go through menopause. It seems like young FTMs getting this extremely drastic surgery is just another manifestation of how little we are taught about our bodies. A uterus isn’t just an empty baby pouch, ovaries aren’t just egg bags, our reproductive system has a function beyond being a placeholder for a potential fetus **********************
From what I understand, testosterone treatment for FTMs is so toxic to the female reproductive system, the decision to have a hysterectomy, sometimes leaving the ovaries intact, sometimes not, is a way to do away with the problem.
It’s one of the reasons why “just trying T”–which some women wanting to transition talk about doing–is a terrible idea; testosterone sets in motion a cascade of effects, including chronic yeast infections, uterine adhesions, and a raft of other problems that I hope some of the detransitioned women (or current FTMs?) reading this blog can tell us about.
A few people who follow this blog expressed surprise that young women who are “transitioning” would choose—and readily receive from surgeons—complete hysterectomies. Making a permanent decision to have or not have children at such a young age seems…hasty.
While I had viewed 10 or so YouTubes from…
So no one explained to them the possibility of incontinence and a plethora of other issues from a hysterectomy? I mean, don’t get me wrong, if they’re going to take testosterone, then yes, it’s probably better to not have a uterus. But the uterus is not just an empty box waiting for a baby to be inserted. It’s a vital organ and part of a woman’s system. Removing it can result in organ displacement, vaginal collapse and goodness knows what else.
I guess if you have thoroughly convinced yourself that you no longer have a “woman’s system,” you just want to be rid of all that internal garbage taking up space. Dissociation from biological reality is the hallmark of “transition.” I have watched enough of these YouTube confessionals to know that, not only do they not “identify” with their female organs, they see them as an enemy that “triggers” dysphoria. Menstruation, in particular, is frequently experienced as a horrible cross to bear every month.
Oh, I get that. My question is where in the hell do they find doctors willing to remove healthy, FUNCTIONAL organs to treat a MENTAL disorder?!? Your uterus has many other purposes, and there are far less drastic ways to get rid of a menstrual cycle than by taking out your internal organs. Are they having their ovaries removed as well?
Yeah, that’s my question too, and I sure as hell am not justifying it. I place the blame far more on the medical establishment for enabling this than on the patient. I’m sorry, but how is this REALLY different from body dysmorphic disorder, where the patient wants (say) their arm cut off because they don’t “identify” with it?
I can’t help but think of lobotomy, which was practiced as a solution to a variety of psychological issues. The procedure was so well respected for a time that its inventor, Egas Moniz, won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1949. Lobotomy at least sometimes “worked.” The emotional pain and behavioral issues some patients experienced were reduced. But at what price? Society realized the price was WAY TOO HIGH and now lobotomies are considered barbaric.
There are treatment trends in medicine that wax and wane. Is it only a matter of time before surgery and hormones as treatment for gender dysphoria are also discredited?
As far as removing ovaries, it seems some are keeping them, some not. The ones who opt for removal then have to supplement their testosterone with estrogen.
A few people who follow this blog expressed surprise that young women who are “transitioning” would choose–and readily receive from surgeons–complete hysterectomies. Making a permanent decision to not have children at such a young age seems…hasty.
While I had viewed 10 or so YouTubes from FTMs reporting on their sterilization, I never actually googled “FTM hysterectomy,” but did so today after reading some of your comments. Guess how many videos came up in the search?
2720.
Most of the video titles have the words “recovery” or “post-op” in them as well.
But, as one FTM said in a post-op video, “it’s all just stagnant down there” when you’re taking testosterone.
re: your post on Blake Brockington's suicide, something that the trans community absolutely refuses to discuss is how much they themselves promote the "transition or suicide" narrative to young gender-questioning people. the blog "Transgender Reality" is documenting cases on reddit where often very young teenagers are egged on by peers and older trans people to go from "I don't really feel like a boy/girl" to "if I don't get hormones now I'll kill myself" in literal days. it's frightening.
I have read every post on “Transgender Reality,” and there is no question that some in the transgender community are heavily indoctrinating young teens who just have questions about their identity and gender. I think kids who are socially isolated are especially vulnerable to online pressure.
I agree—it is terrifying, and the most scary thing is that very few people are raising the issue as you just have. Thank you. Here is a link to the site for those who are not familiar with it:
But back on the topic of sterilizing trans kids. The trans activist community at large seems to have a very narrow and selfish viewpoint on these issues. I’ve seen too many examples of this not to conclude it’s a trend, namely that trans people want transitioning, they want it now, who are you to question it, so what if it might harm someone else. Basic medical ethics dictate that you don’t push something that might harm 95 percent of your patients when only 5 percent benefit. If most of these kids, as adults, regret being sterilized, there’s going to need to be a serious revision of guidelines for treating trans kids, and those trans people who are angry that the medical establishment “knows better” than them are going to have to learn to deal with it (or they’re going to have to self-treat illegally). Them’s the breaks.
And I really hope, actually, that all of this is going to work out wonderfully for everyone, that none of these kids are going to regret their decision, that none of them are going to come looking for a medical malpractice payout, regardless if they actually regret transitioning, but I’m also kind of naturally a pessimist.
What do we want? Sterility! When do we want it? NOW!
I was inspired to make this post because of the mass confusion on tumblr about what social constructs are and how they function. I will start with a simple example:
This is a one dollar bill. It is an excellent example of a social construct. This piece of paper represents a specific amount of spending power in the society that it exists in (the USA). An individual person could decide personally that it represents 1000$ worth of spending power, but it would not matter because like all social constructs, the collective agreement between individuals in society is what determines the meaning of the construct. There are laws on the books about currency but it doesn’t stop society from changing the meaning of a dollar; after all, in times of scarcity a dollar is a much more valuable asset than in times of plenty. The exact value of a dollar is something that fluctuates in tune with other factors, including things like consumer confidence- meaning, how consumers feel about the economy. Social constructs can change based on changes of opinion in the population.
One way to test if something is a social construct is to remove it from its native society and see if it retains the same functionality. The US dollar is accepted in some foreign countries, but in other places, it is just a piece of paper.
Another way to test if something is a social construct is to remove people from the picture entirely and see if it retains its functionality. Without people to give a dollar meaning it simply becomes paper.
Contrast the attributes of a dollar with say, biological sex.
Male humans produce sperm and much higher levels of testosterone than females. Females produce ova and offspring if their eggs are fertilized and implanted. Individuals who are sterile still have either male or female anatomy which serves sexual functions for the individual. Virtually everyone on earth qualifies as one sex or the other, with or without malfunctioning or variations. Is this binary a social construct?
Does the collective agreement of society give male and female organs their functionality? Absolutely not. Humans did not always have an understanding of how pregnancy happened, and yet it happened anyway. Individuals who don’t know about or understand reproduction can and do get pregnant via sex. No matter how many people got together and decided that females inseminate males there would be no change in the function of testes or ovaries.
The functionality of human reproductive organs is also impervious to cultural or geographical differences. All over the world people get pregnant and have babies by mixing sperm from males with ova from females. There is no exception.
Removing humans from the equation also has no effect on the biological reality of mammalian reproduction. Male mammals are male, female mammals are female, and only one of the two can give birth.
Biological sex is not and never has been a social construct.
Another example is gender. Femininity is the easiest example to discuss. Lets look at different examples of femininity from around the world:
As you can see, what it means to be feminine or girly is very different depending upon the society. None of these is the “correct” femininity, just different versions from different cultures. There is no objective way to determine what makes someone feminine in any given culture- you have to ask people.
The nature of femininity is totally subjective and relies on the collective agreement of society. If you move one of these women into a different society their defining feminine characteristics instead become physical characteristics with no gender designation at all. In fact, what would make you gender conforming in one culture would make you gender non conforming in another. Gender also changes in individual societies over time, so the meaning of being feminine in America in the 1800s would differ markedly from what it means to be feminine in America right now. How people feel about the construct changes its meaning.Thus we can easily say that gender is a social construct.
