Birth of a Resistance
[On May 23rd] 60 Minutes aired a segment on “transgender health”. As reported by interviewees the original intention was to do an hour long story on young people who regret altering their body in their attempt to achieve the goal of changing their sex. Trans activists objected heavily to this story about detransitioners claiming it would endanger the lives of trans people. So the program was cut to 14 minutes and more was added from the pro-trans side to give it “balance”.
Yet a story about a young person happy with their transition cannot compete with those who regret theirs. Regret being one of the most compelling human conditions especially when the stakes are so high as to involve cutting off body parts that give you biological function and sexual pleasure.
Thus the add-on scenes seem scripted and the explanations by a trans therapist do nothing to clarify what this is even about, and why so many are going down this path. The guidelines cited for transitioning are too vague and the timelines too short before medical treatment is given is the only conclusion to be had. And when a medical doctor claims that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are not an experimental treatment no studies are offered. (I have already posted the statement from the original Dutch researchers pleading for more research on puberty blockers because they themselves knew their work was experimental.)
To ignore these detransitioner cases of regret and harm is to appear heartless to the tragic turn these lives took. But an industry that has decided to affirm and escort into medical treatment anyone who decides that their problems stem from being the wrong sex cannot afford to be wrong.
Entire mental health institutions have set aside a hundred and sixty years of developmental psychology to bow down to the concept that humans have a soul that is gendered and those with body dysphoria must be rescued from their physical body. As if their whole body were one big birth defect for which, if not treated, the only outcome is suicide. To question this ideology is to be called transphobic and bigoted. Researchers and institutions unused to such accusations have stayed silenced.
Framing and cooptation of language by the trans ideology has kept the public confused. Defeat has been a master teacher as women from all manner of backgrounds bond over this issue, sharing information on how this is affecting so many. Medical students are being taught to negate biological sex through correct trans ideological language whereby they are told that there are women with penises (and men with vaginas) for instance. Never mind that men and women are biologically subjected to different medical issues and that this should never be overlooked as in the case of the transman who didn't know "he" was pregnant so no medical personnel at the ER thought to check this possibility in diagnosing "him" resulting in the loss of the baby.
To deny that detransitioners exist is foolhardy. Trans activists will hang themselves by their own rope in their attempt to cry foul on these detransitioning stories. 60 Minutes was unable to do much of an investigation given the politicizing of this issue, but even in the truncated time offered with only two of the four shown allowed to speak (30 actually interviewed) all the components of how this phenomenon arose are there in the details of these compelling stories. Along with their revelations about gender stereotyping. These young people who are seeking to give meaning to their messed up lives have nowhere to go, but out into the open with their stories.
In light of the recent four hour documentary on the opiate industry by HBO it is an easy leap to imagine that the opiate crisis was hardly the exception, but rather the ruling strategy when it comes to the pharmaceutical industry pushing a product. The microdosing of cross sex hormones is a concept now being marketed to lesbians suggesting that masculine-presenting women should want to use testosterone to erase their female bodies.
I had the pleasure of co-hosting a Zoom presentation on transgenderism recently. We had Scott Newgent as a guest. Scott had an article published in Newsweek stating her concerns about children undergoing sex reassignment treatment as a transman who has suffered serious medical complications from transsexual surgeries. She now defines herself as a lesbian transman who would detransition if the prospect didn't require more painful medical alterations.
Scott would be livid with the statements made on this 60 Minute program by the pro-trans side. She argues that, at 42 years old, she was not given all the information she needed to navigate her dysphoria which she now says was a mental health issue related to homophobia. She had to do all the medical treatments first to find out that modifying her body did not solve her issues. So, as she points out, how can anyone expect a teenager to understand all they need to know about it. (She has three children in this age range.) Scott claims that 9 out 10 trans people regret their transition. Buck Angel being the only transsexual in her circle who is happy with transition. The remaining one percent wish there were things they knew regarding side effects before committing to it. Buck now answers questions as "Transpa" giving cautionary advice on a personal YouTube channel. Scott also said that even with all that went wrong with her phalloplasty she could not find a single attorney to take her case to sue for malpractice. Every attorney explained that there is no baseline of correct procedure for such surgery because it is experimental. Buck Angel has not attempted a phalloplasty because of its terrible failure rate.
Given the relentless overreach of transgender ideology especially in schools ever more information is being launched blog-by-blog in classic grassroots fashion. Transgender Trend in the UK was one of the first to aid parents with science-based information devoid of gender identity ideology. Individuals (some with their identities carefully hidden for fear of being called transphobic and losing their jobs) are posting compelling information they have researched. One reveals the educational material used in schools where children are being taught gender ideology. The story books for children are so creepy I could hardly watch more than a few minutes at a time. So much did the narrative suggest that children should view their body as a disassociated entity as though it could be traded in like an appliance if it didn't satisfy them. Not to mention changing one's sex as a journey of self realization as described in fairy tale fashion in the book I Am Jazz (about YouTube child star Jazz Jennings).
Recently I reviewed a parenting book focused on advising blindsided parents faced with the harrowing journey of a child suddenly announcing they are trans. The title Desist, Detrans, & Detox: Getting Your Child Out Of The Gender Cult caught my attention. It was such a statement of resistance. The author and her team also have a website offering information challenging gender ideology in the context of developmental psychology. They kindly published my review.
The collaboration gave me a chance to talk to the author about the section in the book that she called "the God part". She explained that she and her team did not want the book to be perceived as solely a Christian book, but did feel it was important to include the section challenging the idea that a child can be born "wrong" because so many Christian parents want to be pro-trans in order to atone for the sins of Right-wing Christians.
I have heard the same said by a psychologist (a gender specialist who recently resigned from the Tavistock gender clinic in the UK). He commented on the eagerness of psychotherapists to be trans affirming in order to atone for the damage done to gay people by their profession in the past. I would say that the profession has been recalibrating their assessment of gay people since 1972 when homosexuality was delisted as a disorder from the diagnostic manual of mental disorders (the DSM). They were still listing gender non-conforming presentations as a disorder, but that too was being gradually reassessed as “gender dysphoria”.
To throw away all methodology in favor of deferring to what those afflicted with body dysphoria declare is true would be to throw the baby out with the bathwater. When it comes to mental health it is still wise to have an objective person challenge your thought processes as to why you have come to a certain self-diagnostic conclusion. To allow teenagers to self diagnose and then give them body altering drugs without any attempt to question further is rash don’t you think? Yet that is what is happening with these quickie one hour assessments at Planned Parenthood which is now the leading dispenser of cross sex hormones for those 18 and over.
This is my first public collaboration with the resistance against transgender ideology. I am one of the few contributors to show my picture and name as other contributors are parents wishing to protect the privacy of their trans identifying child. Luckily I do not have to navigate this territory alone. I have a friend (an adult human female) with whom to debrief, share information and construct clarifying analyses. We message each other daily with the latest discoveries and triumphs as legislation kicks in state by state in the US and in the UK where the discussion is further along. We are also in a study group with two men who are concerned about the implications of all this thought control on free speech and discussion vital to a healthy democracy. We have presented information to others hoping to encourage critical thinking rather than just going along with whatever the trans coopted LGBTQ organizations dictates must be so. Lesbians have long been protesting the presence of heterosexual men identifying as lesbians in our dating pool and commandeering lesbian only space. Gay men were late to the party, but are taking notice and contributing to the conversation now. One talented man with the handle Mr Menno creates witty song videos that offer in three and a half minutes what would take me lengthy carefully worded articles to parse out the same issues. Over the last year I have been fascinated to watch women learn that outrage must be replaced by carefully thought-out language on such a meta level that it feels like feminism and womanhood are being freshly discovered. The farther this ideology reaches and the closer it gets to thought control the more people will be drawn to question it. Discussions of psychology, philosophy, what knowledge-based learning means and what women’s experience consists of are becoming so basic that the collective discussions become a mass educational process as if the world were just being born. Movements like this become a review of the entire society. A much needed cultural audit it may be too carrying with it a great deal of energy and excitement as we realize what is at stake.
Guest author Amanda Kovattana is a writer, speaker and professional organizer specializing in ADHD, hoarding and chronic disorganization. Contact Ms Kovattana via support@partnersforethicalcare.com.