Definitely not a lifestyle choice
The Observer’s architecture critic does a little swerve into medical critic in response to the Tavistock ruling:
To be transgender is not a lifestyle choice. It is not a fad or a craze. It is not easy, but requires courage and commitment. It is a part of who you are, like being gay, and, as such, denial of it can be annihilating. Denial of the medical treatments that can help trans people can also be devastating.
Well that’s a bold first paragraph. How does he know? How does he know that to be transgender is never a lifestyle choice? How can he tell? How can he reconcile that claim with the endlessly-repeated mantra “people are who they say they are”? How can he possibly know that’s true when the rules of the game are that simple assertion is all that’s required?
The rules of the game make it possible for people to choose it as a lifestyle, so how can he know that no people are doing exactly that?
How can he know, for instance, that no male people are exploiting the assertion-only criterion to enable them to compete against women in sport? What would be different about for instance Rachel McKinnon aka Veronica Ivy if he were doing it to win competitions rather than because it is “part of who he is”? How can anyone be confident that he’s not doing exactly that?
I offer these views as the father of a trans man, which has caused me to see and reflect on these issues more than I would otherwise have done.
And yet still not enough.
If you are a trans adolescent, you may find puberty unbearable, as your body changes in ways that you don’t want.
If you are a female adolescent, you may find puberty unbearable, as your body changes in ways that you don’t want. Girls have to deal with a lot as puberty gets going. Adolescent boys are all too likely to see adolescent girls as targets, for harassment, abuse, “flirtation” that’s actually more of a veil for sexual aggression, and outright assault. Puberty can be disconcerting for boys too but they do gain a lot of strength and muscle definition and voice resonance – a lot of markers of Power and Dominance – that girls don’t. Boys get a consolation prize and girls not so much.
Then he gives a rosy and incomplete picture of the joy of puberty blockers, then he minimizes the harm.
Blockers are largely reversible, though according to the NHS, some of the the side-effects are unknown. If you later decide that transition is not for you, your body will continue to develop the characteristics of your natal sex.
Good medical advice for an architecture critic.
The high court case was brought by Keira Bell, a woman who had believed herself to be a trans boy, and at the age of 16 was prescribed puberty blockers by the Tavistock clinic in London…
Wait wait wait what? She believed herself to be a trans boy? You mean she was wrong? How is that possible? If it’s not a lifestyle choice, how can it be possible to be wrong about it? If it’s a belief, how can you tell it’s not a lifestyle choice?
[T]he court paid minimal attention to the consequences for trans people of puberty unhindered by blockers. It thought it more important to protect transgender children from blockers, which are reversible, than from the effects of unwanted puberty, which in many ways are not. Doing nothing is not a neutral option and can be harmful, a point that the court did little to acknowledge.
But blockers are not reversible. They are stoppable, but not reversible.
It’s true, in a way, that either course is doing something, and neither is neutral – “in a way” because the whole idea of fiddling with one’s sex in order to attempt a simulacrum of the other one is relatively new and, I think, tragically futile. At any rate even if we agree that there is a fork in the road at puberty and children age 12 or so can decide which kind to have, it’s still not true that they’re equally ok or safe or likely to be the best thing for the customer’s next 60 or 70 years.
It strikes nobody as odd that “part of what you are” requires major surgery to make you look like what you aren’t.
Well, nobody in the cult or an ally of the cult. The rest of us on the other hand…
Do you think that the Observer would be willing to publish this blog post as a response to that letter? I wish they would.
Oh, I know! Maybe winning physical competitions against women is part of who he is! Who are we to deprive him of that?
Comment, circa 1995:
“To be gay is not a lifestyle choice. It is not a fad or a craze. It is not easy, but requires courage and commitment. It is a part of who you are, like being left-handed, and, as such, denial of it can be annihilating.”
Rebuttal, circa 1995:
“Well that’s a bold first paragraph. How does he know? How does he know that to be gay or lesbian is never a lifestyle choice? How can he tell? How can he reconcile that claim with the endlessly-repeated mantra “people are who they say they are”? How can he possibly know that’s true when the rules of the game are that simple assertion is all that’s required?
The rules of the game make it possible for people to choose it as a lifestyle, so how can he know that no people are doing exactly that?
Comment, circa 1995:
“If you are a lesbian, you may find puberty unbearable.”
Rebuttal, circa 1995:
“If you are a lesbian adolescent, you may find puberty unbearable. Girls have to deal with a lot as puberty gets going. Adolescent boys are all too likely to see adolescent girls as targets, for harassment, abuse, “flirtation” that’s actually more of a veil for sexual aggression, and outright assault. They may claim to be lesbians just to avoid this. Puberty can be disconcerting for gay boys too but they can also get AIDS. At any rate even if we agree that there is a fork in the road at puberty and children age 12 or so can decide which kind of sexual orientation to have, it’s still not true that they’re equally ok or safe or likely to be the best thing for the person’s next 60 or 70 years – and gays aren’t likely to get those next 60 or 70 years.”
It’s the same old song.
Not as good an example as our architecture critic thinks. If Ms. Bell was mistaken in her belief, then her case would have been flagged by Tavistock’s safeguarding procedures, and she would have been given counseling and directed away from the medical intervention pathway. After all, they’re very careful about this. Right?
@Sam 240:
If claiming to be gay gave access to something desirable by people who aren’t gay, then the situations might be similar.
Ultimately, the point isn’t really whether being gay is a “lifestyle choice,” but whether people who say they are attracted to people of their own sex are truthful and can know they’re attracted that way. A man who is in fact sexually or romantically aroused by other men would be expected to feel that arousal, and outsiders could conceivably check on it by seeing who they had sex with. It’s not an extraordinary claim.
Contrast this with claiming to be a sex which doesn’t match one’s body. Could someone know this? How? It not only isn’t possible to check to see if they’re not sincere, it’s not possible to check even if they are sincere— not by them or anyone. Does the man think in a womanly way, or feel things that no man could feel? What would that be? Is it the clothes? Putting a dress on means you’re female? Obviously not.
Being trans is not like being gay. Your analogy fails.
Another big fail – accepting that someone is gay, whether that is inborn or a lifestyle choice, does not intrude on the rights of others (unless you believe it intrudes in a harmful way on people who are Christian to see a gay person). It does not force a member of an oppressed group to put their rights aside for the sake of some tenuous, non-specific, and biologically problematic arguments. Gay men did not insist on access to women’s private spaces. They did not insist that people call them by certain names or pronouns. All they asked for was the rights everyone else has.
And there is a long, historical record of gay sexual orientation, gay sex, etc. There is nothing about being gay that is out of whack with biology or reality. In short, it is not an extraordinary claim, and does not require extraordinary evidence.
Trans, on the other hand, is not in accordance with biological reality. The claims of trans persons about imperialism is not in accordance with history as we know it. There is little effort to define terms, let people know what they mean when they say “woman” (which is obviously different than what I mean, but what is it they mean? They are at best ambiguous; they dissemble). The very basis of the designation of “girl dick” or “men can have babies, too” is at odds with biology and reality. It is, in short, an extraordinary claim. It needs far more evidence than an ordinary claim, because all the evidence saying it isn’t the case has to be swept away before they can hope to make their case. And just saying “it was invented by western imperialist colonial nations” is not evidence. I could make that statement about anything: “The sun was invented by western imperialist colonial nations”. That doesn’t mean that statement is true; you still need evidence.
We present evidence of harm to women; it is brushed away with a wave of the hand and a sneer. “TERF!” We present evidence that puberty blockers are not benign; it is ignored with a sneer. “TERF!” We ask for evidence, and we get slogans, and links to a study about trans suicide that is not considered reliable enough to use for policy, even by its author.
So, yeah, not the same thing at all.
You claim that the idea of gender transition surgery is “relatively new.”
Dora Richter is the first woman known to have vaginoplasty as part of gender transition therapy, back in 1931. Here is a short list of things newer than your “idea of fiddling with one’s sex in order to attempt a simulacrum of the other one”:
*Daytime soap operas (1932)
*Goofy (1932)
*Zippo Lighters (1932)
*The Mars Bar (1932)
*King Kong (1933)
*The MLB All-Star Game (1933)
*FM Radio (1933)
*The first Three Stooges movie (1934)
*The Giant Slalom (1935)
Do I need to go on?
Tragically, the Nazis killed Richter in 1933 when they burnt the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft – the most famous of the Nazi book burnings.
—
You also write, ” even if we agree that there is a fork in the road at puberty and children age 12 or so can decide which kind to have [. . .]”
That’s why puberty blockers are advised in some cases. If they aren’t sure at age 12, we can provide them with puberty blockers to give them time to become sure. (You are confusing puberty blockers, whose effects are reversible merely by stopping them, with hormone replacement therapy, which isn’t reversible and isn’t supposed to be given until 16 at the earliest.)
Wait until you hear about girls with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency. You have a girl, assigned female at birth, who is treated as a girl for years. Then, around the age of twelve, a penis begins to grow. Some of these girls understandably do not want to become men. What would your recommended treatment be there?
Oh, what a treat! TRAs in the comments on Butterflies and Wheels. We haven’t seen them in a while! I wonder how they found this post.
#5 Sam240
…But a different meaning. By which I mean, what is the consequence of letting a not-homosexual person pretend to be homosexual? Compare that to the consequences of letting a non-female person pretend to be female:
– competitive advantage,
– wins and team positions stolen from women,
– increased injuries in contact sports,
– Easier physical testing (and therefore easier qualifying for entry/advancement)
..Basically, anywhere where there is physicality, a male can gain advantage by being judged by the female standard.
^ Sorry for too many links!
No they aren’t. If a child about to enter puberty decides to take puberty blockers for a year, that is a year taken from their puberty, and a year that their development has been delayed. Puberty does not add a year to itself to make up for that lost time, it’s simply gone.
I see now that Sam240 has been had ‘aka Shannon’ added; did Ophelia detect a sockpuppetry attempt?
That’s an intersexed state. It is not an instance of someone deciding that they have the wrong body, it is a genetic condition.
Sam-Shannon – my assertion that fiddling with one’s sex in order to attempt a simulacrum of the other one is relatively new is not refuted by your making a list of cultural items from the 30s. It wouldn’t be refuted by your making a list of cultural items from the 800s either; it’s just a completely random thing to say. You should up your game if you really want to argue.
No, puberty blockers are not reversible. It’s a myth that they are, and a very dangerous one.
Holms, no problem about the links!
Sam-Shannon has commented a few times in the past as one or the other.
Shannon #9 wrote:
You forgot Bugs Bunny putting on a dress and pretending to be a girl bunny.
I think that, in context, Ophelia’s use of “simulacrum” was obviously focused on surgical and hormonal interventions designed to help a patient imitate primary and secondary characteristics of the opposite sex. Which is probably just as well from your point of view, since examples of people engaging in deceptive masquerades probably doesn’t help illustrate your point.
This is the crux of it. On what basis does this twit, or anyone else, for that matter, determine that trans-ness is an intrinsic quality?
On the basis of listening to the bonehead ideology for too long.
I would love to see a non-circular “trans approved” definition of “woman” that does not a) deny the reality of sex, b) rely on socially constructed stereotypes, c) conflate of “sex” with “gender” or d) use the racist and ableist examples that state that trans “women” (i.e. trans identified males) are “just” another category of women, in the same way that Black women and disabled women are.
Extra bonus points for avoiding the use of the construction “assigned ___ at birth” appropriated from people dealing with differences in sexual development, whose existence has been used by trans activists as evidence that sex is a spectrum.
I would also like an answer to these questions:
Is the defence of sex-based rights of women transphobic? If so, why?
Is women’s organizing to discus and defend their sex-based rights transphobic? If so, why?
Are women’s spaces and services permitted to exclude men who claim to be women? If not, why not?
In theory: A man could claim to be gay to gain the trust of women; he’ll tell them “I’m harmless, because I’m not attracted to women!” Then, having gained her confidence, he sexually harrasses or assaults her.
This goes on not infrequently, even with men whose generally tendency is to sleep with other men.
https://thedailyaztec.com/55282/opinion/gay-isnt-a-free-pass-to-harass/
And this is why we don’t* allow gay men into women’s sex-specific safe spaces. Because they’re still men!
*Or rather, why we shouldn’t. Now we do let them in, as long as they identify as women. (And of course we’re not allowed to ask them if they identify as women, because that would be transphobic; we just have to assume it, if we see them in the women’s toilets.)
I used to think idly at times about pretending to be a lesbian, just for the sake of joining the cool kids. I think I’ve mentioned before that when I worked as a laborer in the Parks Department I kept finding that the women I instantly became friends with were lesbians, which I found interesting. Still do. I never did pretend though. It would have felt rude at the very least.
#19 GW
I’m not sure that that is analogous to the harm of letting a man claim to be a woman; as you point out, there are already gay men that grope women intrusively on the flimsy basis of ‘I’m not interested in women so it’s okay’. If the man is truly gay or pretend gay, the woman has still been groped by a man.
I agree, it’s not very analogous. But it is an example of a case where a non-gay man might pretend to be homosexual in order to get perceived “benefits”.
Of course, but if a person is truly a woman, and not a TIM, and she gropes another woman, the woman has still been groped.
Of course, being gay is a lifestyle choice, a choice I choose not to make.
Actually, no. No matter how hard I try to be gay I just cannot contemplate having sex with a man. Is it like the Jesus thing where I just have to believe harder, or is it really true that homosexuality is innate? I prefer the latter.
A number of gay activists have criticized the “born this way” narrative. It really doesn’t matter why someone has same-sex relationships. There are many people who have heterosexual relationships before deciding they are gay, or who have same-sex relationships before settling on heterosexual monogamy. It simply doesn’t matter. Maybe lots of people are bisexual and don’t realize it, maybe people can learn to have sex with anyone (happens all the time in porn and prisons), but it doesn’t matter. Rights for people to marry who they love should only be based on things like consent and maturity, not based on whether the attraction is innate. To do otherwise legitimizes any characteristic claimed to be innate and hurts those who do choose to live a certain way.
I can’t imagine being a biker, but surely that’s a lifestyle choice. There are any number of lifestyle choices I could not possibly make.
Shannon aka Sam, #9:
That’s true if the only effect of puberty blockers is what the name suggests, because yes, puberty does tend to occur once blockers are no longer taken. Unfortunately, there are other, rather serious effects being reported which correlate with the use of blockers and which are not reversed when the use of blockers ends. An article in the BMJ from Sep. 2019 reported on studies showing a definite link between use of blockers and loss of bone mineral density (osteoporosis), a severely debilitating, incurable illness.
https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l5647/rr-0
So while advocates of the use of blockers in children with gender issues claim that the effects are reversible, they are talking only about the onset of puberty and studiously ignoring the long-term damage they can and do cause, because to do so would completely negate the claims. It beggars belief that these people will completely ignore the risks to children in order to push their agenda but they clearly do, and when presented with the facts they simply deny them and accuse those who bring the evidence of transphobia and, as I have mentioned and linked to in the comments to an earlier post on the subject, claim that those who voice concerns over the use of blockers do so because they are sadists who actively want children to commit suicide.
If the subject were anything but blockers, which is a topic in which you are at the very least emotionally invested in, and the case for it is presented in hyperbolic and emotive terms, and the case against comes from properly conducted, peer reviewed scientific studies, which side of the argument would you come down on?
Addendum to the above: regarding the claim about opponents of the use of blockers in children with gender issues, see comment #1 here, containing a link to the original remark about wanting children to commit suicide –
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2021/eminent-doctor-yes-stonewall-no/
It’s not quite right that “puberty does tend to occur once blockers are no longer taken.” The delay makes a difference. I’ve posted about some research findings on that, specifically the impact on brain development.
I can’t find that post though. Dagnabbit.
Here’s what Transgender Trend has to say on it:
https://www.transgendertrend.com/puberty-blockers/
Thank you.
Transgender Trend says there’s not a lot of research yet, but there is some.
My fault, I was too vague when saying that puberty usually happens when use of blockers ceases. I was really only referring to the aspects of puberty that the advocates of blockers focus on: breast growth, descent of testes, body and facial hair growth, etc. As far as I can tell these are the aspects of puberty that do tend to re-start (though not always) when no longer taking blockers, and it’s these that blocker advocates are talking about when they make their claims of reversability.
I remember the discussion here about brain development. I’m not sure that it was a specific post about the brain but rather came up in the comments, possibly to one of your posts about either the Tavistock or Maugham when the problems with the Tavistock first hit the news.
Adding to AoS’s excellent #27, the term “hormone replacement therapy” is also incorrect. Hormones are being added. “Cross-sex hormone therapy” might be clearer, or at least “hormone therapy”, but no “replacement”.
How about
‘Wrong-sex hormone therapy”?
Wrong-sex Hormone Addition Therapy. WHAT.
Heh.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who remembers that discussion.
AoS @ 33 – aha, you’re right, and it was your comment:
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2019/a-condition/#comment-2726522
I think there’s also a more recent conversation, prompted by a recent study, but anyway.
Funny, I didn’t think I was first to mention it….and I wasn’t. I got the information by following the links in the letter that you posted here: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2019/a-fate-worse-than/
Anyhow, back to the OP. Is it any wonder that an architecture critic thinks that changing sex is such a simple matter? He’s used to the nuts and bolts world of buildings where it’s no big deal if something needs changing: just state what changes are needed, draw up a plan and send in the experts. What works for buildings works for bodies, right?