Homophobia, both internalized and externalized was what lead me to wanting to be trans in the first place about five years ago.
Somehow, I was able to both adopt the ideology, tell my parents about it, and then desist all without ever telling them the real problem--that I was and AM afraid to come out as homosexual.
My parents have become more conservative over those five, turbulent years, and even though I try to tell them that homophobia is the root cause of the trans movement, they never believe me. Oh well, guess I gotta just keep my corner of the closet clean until they're ready to listen.
I saw this starting in the late 80's when I noticed that most transexuals came from cultural backgrounds that enforced strict gender stereotypes and where homophobia, including violence, was the norm. This included religious and military backgrounds as well as number of ethnic minority communities.
Regardless of the background, every transexual I met during my involvement in the gay rights movement loudly and persistently denied they were homosexual; instead insisting they were "straight".
Transition is, in most cases, an overt rejection of homosexuality.
Thank you for this beautiful essay, confirming some of my worst nightmares about the current situation with "queering". .. I'm reading "Time To Think" by Hannah Barnes, a well-researched and evidenced view of what happened at the Tavistock in England, and it confirms that the rush to medicalization and shoddy science behind this fad of transgenderism is at base, homophobia ( and misogyny) in a new cloak.
It may be that her belief is that USPATH was not following best medical practices, but that is definitely not what the majority of health care professionals believe. There are always individuals who act as contrarians for whatever reason. Jamie Reed, for instance, seems to be the only person associated with the Washington University Transgender Center who had serious concerns about the quality of care offered there. Unfortunately, her activity fed a fire of trans denial which has made it very difficult for trans people in many Red states to receive needed health care.
Most grateful for this deeply felt and well reasoned essay. It gives voice to multiple concerns which need so very much to be aired. Please continue on your journey as you have been, and continue to challenge what is being presented.
So grateful you’re sharing your story and shining a light on what’s really going on. These confused kids and families need more voices like yours. Encouragement to be their authentic selves and not made to feel they’re in the wrong bodies.
Stories = anecdotes. There are some people who have regrets and detransition, but the sizeable majority are who they say they are.
Depression can be caused by gender dysphoria. Treatment of dysphoria can improve, or even cure, depression. But you suggest we should not treat gender dysphoria unless a patient is free from depression? In what circumstances could one, then, treat for gender dysphoria?
One of the things I like about me GP is he will sometimes respond to my bloodwork with "Well, you could change your diet/exercise routine, or I could prescribe you a pill." The point being, medication is the lazy answer to the problem.
I understand that sometimes people's insides are so askew, they need medication, and no amount of dinner planning, workout regimen, or psychotherapy will help. So I understand why people with crippling gender dysphoria benefit from surgery and cross sex hormones. But unfortunately in the English speaking world, a lot of doctors are too eager to pull out the scrip pad when they encounter a complaint. And "gender affirming care" is beholden to the scrip pad from the start.
What you haven't addressed in all your comments here is what Appel calls "the authentic self." That's the unmedicated self, the easy, accepting self, no matter how it abrades against the culture surrounding it. The self that needs surgical and medical intervention to be authentic is vanishingly rare. That person should receive proper health care, for sure, but they are not at all as common as gender activists want people to believe.
In re clinical follow-up, that you brought up elsewhere: When a person says they no longer need medical treatment for their psychological distress, the clinician evaluates the truth of that and usually sends them on their way. We are more authentic in our bodies and minds without medication, so doctors don't check up on us afterwards. What is alarming is that doctors don't follow up with their trans patients after more than three to six months. If someone continues on a medical path (and trans is a lifelong medical path) the doctor should have regular check-ins. But that's not happening, and it shocks the people here who understand the issue.
Your assertions above are numerous, but in my observation, not entirely correct. Doctors do follow up with their trans patients; as you acknowledge, these treatments are lifelong, and doctors and endocrinologists are there for the duration.
I read what you said as suggesting trans people are being lazy if they get treated with medication, but it is definitely a lot easier not to get treatment than to seek it out and follow the steps to get it. People generally try talk therapy and as many other ways of dealing with dysphoria as they can before resorting to meds. Perhaps I mistook the point, and if so, I'm sorry.
Re the "authentic self," many people have found that their authenticity requires treatment of some kind. Despite what some have asserted here, most people who follow through with hormone therapies are not confused about it; it helps them feel more attuned to themselves, more mentally healthy. Why should they be denied this? We wouldn't deny treatment to smokers with lung disease, and that's something they quite likely brought upon themselves.
My biggest issue with Appel is that he seems to operate from the assumption that others' experiences of their identities must be like his if they are not like the majority (cis, hetero). But people's experiences of sex, sexuality, and gender identity are far more complex than we previously knew. Why not acknowledge this and allow people to experience the world in the ways they find the most happiness and comfort?
It is unfortunate that you are generalizing your experience to the entire universe of LGBTQ people. Just because you are gay and clutch pearls about what could have (and didn't) happen if you mistook being gay for being trans, doesn't mean that all - or even most - people experience that.
Your article is full of anecdotes, not evidence. I could give anecdotes all day long, and it wouldn't amount to evidence. Please grow beyond your mistrust of the reality that trans people exist and benefit from treatment. Real trans people will thank you for not feeding the right wing hysteria about who they are and how they should live.
Seems that one putatively LGBT group is looking to have another one shut down over disagreement. That's not an anecdote, and it proves a good deal, to me.
That is a single story, which literally makes it an anecdote.This is not scientific evidence. The preponderance of current scientific evidence indicates that trans people exist, and that many of them benefit from the treatments offered them. That people armed with stories about someone they know who desisted outweigh evidence gathered by the relevant scientific community, there is a real problem.
The burden of proof should be on the trans rights activists, not the skeptics. The TRAs are the ones advocating for dangerous medical interventions on the basis of their theories, among other radical demands.
False. Nope, not true in the slightest. The Dutch Protocol, on which North American (at least) standards of care are supposedly based, required the patient have no co-morbidities (no depression, no anxiety, no trauma, no autism, no borderline personality disorder, etc.), nothing but persistent gender identity disorder since early childhood, and a supportive family. This was obviously not followed in the UK, Canada, and the USA. The heartbreaking stories of detransitioners easily prove your statement false.
Is that why the head of USPATH, Erica Anderson (a pioneering trans woman herself), quit the organization in protest of the standards of care being hijacked by gender ideology instead of following best medical practices?
The clear suggestion of this article is that tons of trans people are actually gay and confused, and that they're being pushed to access health care options inappropriate for them. Trans people and gay people are different; trans people can be gay, gay people can be trans, but the author suggests that the medical community is treating gay people as if they were trans whether or not they are. There may be some individual instances of this (hence the anecdotes) which gain currency through lots of repetition, but by and large, the medical community has been very responsible with regard to trans folks, especially trans kids.
Before “gender affirming care,” the children seen at gender identity clinics received “watchful waiting” therapy. 80% of them desisted, and 70% of those turned out to be same-sex attracted. So yes, with kids coming into clinics and handing the staff their diagnosis--“I’m trans!”--a majority of them are homosexual or bisexual. At Tavistock, the number was 90%. LGB kids *are* being transed and yes it is conversion therapy.
Also, I’m unsure what you mean when you say “trans people can be gay.” If you mean that a trans woman attracted to men is gay, yes, you’re right. She’s homosexual. If you mean a trans man attracted to men is gay, no, you’re absolutely wrong. Appel has written clearly about his childhood as a homosexual kid, and his experience is a common one for gay men. The psychosocial development of a homosexual male is vastly different than that of a heterosexual female, which is what a “gay” trans man is. Gay men run a virtual marathon to get to adulthood, while a “gay” trans man takes a limo to within 10 feet of the finish line, walks across the tape, and says “Me too!” This is why we sometimes sneer.
The study you reference with the 80% desistance rate is long since debunked. The lead doctor in that study took no note of the reasons for desistance, and never followed up to see if the desisters resumed their transitions. Additionally, he listed people who dropped out of the study as having desisted, even when he didn't know why they had left the study. The study was deeply flawed, and has been superseded by more recent and accurate studies.
Most individuals desist because of social/family reasons: it's too difficult to go through a transition with no support network. This doesn't mean they aren't trans; it means it's too uncomfortable to continue their transition.
Trans man takes a limo to the finish line? You obviously have no idea how difficult it is to be a trans person in America today. This forum would prove it... but that would just be anecdotal evidence ;-)
A few replies ago, you were demanding scientific evidence, but now you're claiming to know what Appel is suggesting, which doesn't sound very scientific to me. I'm going to suggest you restrict your commentary to what Appel actually said, instead of what you think he means.
Please go to SEGM or Genspect stats. That is the issue...the medical procedures are based on anecdote and not evidence based medicine. Then there is the whole consent issue.
This is what keeps happening. People point out responsible organizations, scholars, and thinkers who challenge trans orthodoxy and the trans rights folks declare they aren't reputable. When they are declared not reputable by the trans rights organizations and activists themselves. Its a circular and ultimately pointless exercise.
Yes. Cannot change the minds of someone already set in their ways. I do believe that regular folk with common sense can understand if they see the facts. In time things will change. So many casualties. My heart breaks for it all.
Homophobia, both internalized and externalized was what lead me to wanting to be trans in the first place about five years ago.
Somehow, I was able to both adopt the ideology, tell my parents about it, and then desist all without ever telling them the real problem--that I was and AM afraid to come out as homosexual.
My parents have become more conservative over those five, turbulent years, and even though I try to tell them that homophobia is the root cause of the trans movement, they never believe me. Oh well, guess I gotta just keep my corner of the closet clean until they're ready to listen.
Sane and intelligent and contributing to what will hopefully be the eventual discrediting of the extreme ideology of trans propaganda.
I saw this starting in the late 80's when I noticed that most transexuals came from cultural backgrounds that enforced strict gender stereotypes and where homophobia, including violence, was the norm. This included religious and military backgrounds as well as number of ethnic minority communities.
Regardless of the background, every transexual I met during my involvement in the gay rights movement loudly and persistently denied they were homosexual; instead insisting they were "straight".
Transition is, in most cases, an overt rejection of homosexuality.
You, Sir, are BRILLIANT!!
Please keep speaking out!
I THANK YOU! 🙏❤️
Thank you for this beautiful essay, confirming some of my worst nightmares about the current situation with "queering". .. I'm reading "Time To Think" by Hannah Barnes, a well-researched and evidenced view of what happened at the Tavistock in England, and it confirms that the rush to medicalization and shoddy science behind this fad of transgenderism is at base, homophobia ( and misogyny) in a new cloak.
Good article.
Thanks.
Kep writing... we need you.
Mr W,
You are so committed to this narrative….of course any critical thinking skills must be ‘debunked’.
Creating life long medical patients and lopping off healthy body parts seems logical to you.
It may be that her belief is that USPATH was not following best medical practices, but that is definitely not what the majority of health care professionals believe. There are always individuals who act as contrarians for whatever reason. Jamie Reed, for instance, seems to be the only person associated with the Washington University Transgender Center who had serious concerns about the quality of care offered there. Unfortunately, her activity fed a fire of trans denial which has made it very difficult for trans people in many Red states to receive needed health care.
Most grateful for this deeply felt and well reasoned essay. It gives voice to multiple concerns which need so very much to be aired. Please continue on your journey as you have been, and continue to challenge what is being presented.
So grateful you’re sharing your story and shining a light on what’s really going on. These confused kids and families need more voices like yours. Encouragement to be their authentic selves and not made to feel they’re in the wrong bodies.
Stories = anecdotes. There are some people who have regrets and detransition, but the sizeable majority are who they say they are.
Depression can be caused by gender dysphoria. Treatment of dysphoria can improve, or even cure, depression. But you suggest we should not treat gender dysphoria unless a patient is free from depression? In what circumstances could one, then, treat for gender dysphoria?
One of the things I like about me GP is he will sometimes respond to my bloodwork with "Well, you could change your diet/exercise routine, or I could prescribe you a pill." The point being, medication is the lazy answer to the problem.
I understand that sometimes people's insides are so askew, they need medication, and no amount of dinner planning, workout regimen, or psychotherapy will help. So I understand why people with crippling gender dysphoria benefit from surgery and cross sex hormones. But unfortunately in the English speaking world, a lot of doctors are too eager to pull out the scrip pad when they encounter a complaint. And "gender affirming care" is beholden to the scrip pad from the start.
What you haven't addressed in all your comments here is what Appel calls "the authentic self." That's the unmedicated self, the easy, accepting self, no matter how it abrades against the culture surrounding it. The self that needs surgical and medical intervention to be authentic is vanishingly rare. That person should receive proper health care, for sure, but they are not at all as common as gender activists want people to believe.
In re clinical follow-up, that you brought up elsewhere: When a person says they no longer need medical treatment for their psychological distress, the clinician evaluates the truth of that and usually sends them on their way. We are more authentic in our bodies and minds without medication, so doctors don't check up on us afterwards. What is alarming is that doctors don't follow up with their trans patients after more than three to six months. If someone continues on a medical path (and trans is a lifelong medical path) the doctor should have regular check-ins. But that's not happening, and it shocks the people here who understand the issue.
Your assertions above are numerous, but in my observation, not entirely correct. Doctors do follow up with their trans patients; as you acknowledge, these treatments are lifelong, and doctors and endocrinologists are there for the duration.
I read what you said as suggesting trans people are being lazy if they get treated with medication, but it is definitely a lot easier not to get treatment than to seek it out and follow the steps to get it. People generally try talk therapy and as many other ways of dealing with dysphoria as they can before resorting to meds. Perhaps I mistook the point, and if so, I'm sorry.
Re the "authentic self," many people have found that their authenticity requires treatment of some kind. Despite what some have asserted here, most people who follow through with hormone therapies are not confused about it; it helps them feel more attuned to themselves, more mentally healthy. Why should they be denied this? We wouldn't deny treatment to smokers with lung disease, and that's something they quite likely brought upon themselves.
My biggest issue with Appel is that he seems to operate from the assumption that others' experiences of their identities must be like his if they are not like the majority (cis, hetero). But people's experiences of sex, sexuality, and gender identity are far more complex than we previously knew. Why not acknowledge this and allow people to experience the world in the ways they find the most happiness and comfort?
It is unfortunate that you are generalizing your experience to the entire universe of LGBTQ people. Just because you are gay and clutch pearls about what could have (and didn't) happen if you mistook being gay for being trans, doesn't mean that all - or even most - people experience that.
Your article is full of anecdotes, not evidence. I could give anecdotes all day long, and it wouldn't amount to evidence. Please grow beyond your mistrust of the reality that trans people exist and benefit from treatment. Real trans people will thank you for not feeding the right wing hysteria about who they are and how they should live.
Here's some evidence:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/06/trans-charity-mermaids-fails-to-have-charitable-status-stripped-from-lgb-alliance
Seems that one putatively LGBT group is looking to have another one shut down over disagreement. That's not an anecdote, and it proves a good deal, to me.
That is a single story, which literally makes it an anecdote.This is not scientific evidence. The preponderance of current scientific evidence indicates that trans people exist, and that many of them benefit from the treatments offered them. That people armed with stories about someone they know who desisted outweigh evidence gathered by the relevant scientific community, there is a real problem.
The burden of proof should be on the trans rights activists, not the skeptics. The TRAs are the ones advocating for dangerous medical interventions on the basis of their theories, among other radical demands.
That burden has been met. Every major medical association stands behind the standards of care for trans people. Every. One.
It is the lack of necessary medical intervention that is dangerous.
False. Nope, not true in the slightest. The Dutch Protocol, on which North American (at least) standards of care are supposedly based, required the patient have no co-morbidities (no depression, no anxiety, no trauma, no autism, no borderline personality disorder, etc.), nothing but persistent gender identity disorder since early childhood, and a supportive family. This was obviously not followed in the UK, Canada, and the USA. The heartbreaking stories of detransitioners easily prove your statement false.
Is that why the head of USPATH, Erica Anderson (a pioneering trans woman herself), quit the organization in protest of the standards of care being hijacked by gender ideology instead of following best medical practices?
https://quillette.com/2022/01/06/a-transgender-pioneer-explains-why-she-stepped-down-from-uspath-and-wpath/
Oh my, you’re scary Mr W.
Who here has said that trans people don't exist? I mean here on *this Substack*, and not in the right-wing fever swamp.
The clear suggestion of this article is that tons of trans people are actually gay and confused, and that they're being pushed to access health care options inappropriate for them. Trans people and gay people are different; trans people can be gay, gay people can be trans, but the author suggests that the medical community is treating gay people as if they were trans whether or not they are. There may be some individual instances of this (hence the anecdotes) which gain currency through lots of repetition, but by and large, the medical community has been very responsible with regard to trans folks, especially trans kids.
Before “gender affirming care,” the children seen at gender identity clinics received “watchful waiting” therapy. 80% of them desisted, and 70% of those turned out to be same-sex attracted. So yes, with kids coming into clinics and handing the staff their diagnosis--“I’m trans!”--a majority of them are homosexual or bisexual. At Tavistock, the number was 90%. LGB kids *are* being transed and yes it is conversion therapy.
Also, I’m unsure what you mean when you say “trans people can be gay.” If you mean that a trans woman attracted to men is gay, yes, you’re right. She’s homosexual. If you mean a trans man attracted to men is gay, no, you’re absolutely wrong. Appel has written clearly about his childhood as a homosexual kid, and his experience is a common one for gay men. The psychosocial development of a homosexual male is vastly different than that of a heterosexual female, which is what a “gay” trans man is. Gay men run a virtual marathon to get to adulthood, while a “gay” trans man takes a limo to within 10 feet of the finish line, walks across the tape, and says “Me too!” This is why we sometimes sneer.
The study you reference with the 80% desistance rate is long since debunked. The lead doctor in that study took no note of the reasons for desistance, and never followed up to see if the desisters resumed their transitions. Additionally, he listed people who dropped out of the study as having desisted, even when he didn't know why they had left the study. The study was deeply flawed, and has been superseded by more recent and accurate studies.
Most individuals desist because of social/family reasons: it's too difficult to go through a transition with no support network. This doesn't mean they aren't trans; it means it's too uncomfortable to continue their transition.
Trans man takes a limo to the finish line? You obviously have no idea how difficult it is to be a trans person in America today. This forum would prove it... but that would just be anecdotal evidence ;-)
A few replies ago, you were demanding scientific evidence, but now you're claiming to know what Appel is suggesting, which doesn't sound very scientific to me. I'm going to suggest you restrict your commentary to what Appel actually said, instead of what you think he means.
Please go to SEGM or Genspect stats. That is the issue...the medical procedures are based on anecdote and not evidence based medicine. Then there is the whole consent issue.
Those organizations are not reputable. Your entire understanding of this seems backwards.
This is what keeps happening. People point out responsible organizations, scholars, and thinkers who challenge trans orthodoxy and the trans rights folks declare they aren't reputable. When they are declared not reputable by the trans rights organizations and activists themselves. Its a circular and ultimately pointless exercise.
Yes. Cannot change the minds of someone already set in their ways. I do believe that regular folk with common sense can understand if they see the facts. In time things will change. So many casualties. My heart breaks for it all.
Also. The scientific community has been captured.
Captured? You must be a conspiracy theorist.