A couple of years ago, I saw a woman on Facebook who wrote on a feminist page how her child (a boy) was soon to start puberty blockers. She said he (referred to as she at that time) needed them, the dysphoria was overwhelming and this was a careful decision they'd come to with specialists in gender therapy and endocrinology.
It was one of those times I was less than impressed with some of my fellow feminists. Some replied to this woman (let's call her Maya) with studies - proper, peer reviewed studies, not opinion pieces from journalists or doctors - but a couple were ultimately offensive, telling her she would be failing her son if she did this, and thus wasa bad or inadequate mother.
One woman I remember vividly. She told Maya there are so many problems with pubertal suppression that were concealed, and she pleaded with her to read the studies. She sympathised with Maya's situation, and said she knows she will be bombarded with opinions but her job as a mother wasn't only to support her child now, but think of their future. "Of all of your responsibilities and duties, there is one that we can forget - he deserves to reach adulthood with an adult body."
That really struck me. We are reminded of the need to prepare them for adulthood - their education, their eating habits and hygiene, their ethics - even their table manners - but this salient, indisputable fact had been obscured by our social narrative that gender dysphoria was an intolerable, permanent condition that is quickly, safely remedied by a 'pause' via pubertal suppression, and without that it may be a death sentence.
I could go on about the risks of puberty blockers here, but I'm no endocrinologist or sexologist, I'm not a professional. There are many who can do it better than me. But quickly I want to run down common side effects / dangers of them:
1) Puberty may be additionally painful for dysphoric children. And puberty is painful enough already. However it resolves gender dysphoria in the vast majority of cases.
2) Bone density is stunted at the time it should be increasing, and bone development is restricted
3) Brain development
4) Sexual function - puberty blockers halt sexual development and since they almost without exception lead to cross sex hormones this leaves adults without the ability to orgasm or experience sexual pleasure. Even Marci Bowers, the renowned transwoman sex reassignment surgeon who completed Jazz Jennings' surgeries is now speaking out about this.
5) As it halts sexual development and almost always leads to cross sex hormones, many will be rendered infertile (see here over the ethical concerns of asking 12 yr old dysphoric kids to choose a sperm donor, as gamete freezing is rarely successful so it's preferable to save a zygote over an ova)
6) The halt of sexual development means natal boys will be left with the penis of a prepubescent boy. If the natal boy detransitions after long term use, he has to navigate the world with not only lingering issues of dysphoria but a micropenis. If the natal boy wants to surgically transition, they are unlikely to have the tissue to form the neo-vagina (Jazz Jennings) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26119518/
7) Suicidal ideation may actually be more prevalent in children on blockers, but the research has studiously avoided including this data.
8) left behind peers as they grow, reach sexual maturity etc - not a good outcome fpor a child already feeling out of step with their body and sex.
The situation at the Tavistock in the UK was such that multiple clinicians resigned. Concerns over the explosion in numbers of children accessing the Tavistock and declaring themselves trans has also caused huge concern https://www.transgendertrend.com/current-evidence/
But let's talk about what happened with Maya.
After seeing the less than sympathetic responses from some of the women on this thread, I private messaged her to say I hope she was doing ok. She was friendly and responsive and said that while some of the comments were uncalled for and unnecessarily harsh, she had been given information that shocked and concerned her.
We became friends on Facebook and I really admired her lack of defensiveness. She was, at the beginning, pretty sure her child would need to transition, but she was reasoned, she wasn't ideological about it. She just wanted the best for them and was remarkably resilient to personal attacks.
At the beginning, after her child's declaration they were trans, she had given her blessing to social transition. She had bought her child make up, new clothes, they changed their name. She was no less the proud mother. However, now, after what she had been told, what she then read, about puberty blockers scared her.
She went back to the endocrinologist and presented them with the studies. They admitted these were documented consequences. Before, the majority of the adverse effects and dangers hadn't even been explained to her. Those that had had been presented as far less likely, less serious and had been outweighed by argument she was now seriously beginning to doubt. She'd searched 'puberty blockers' online and found glowing reviews and angry defences of it as a treatment (until she put 'GnRH agonists' in the search bar - this brought up the more factual and less rose tinted results). She'd been bombarded with appeal to emotion. Emotional blackmail. Being the parent of a dysphoric child is extremely difficult and worrying, and a media fuelled with opinion pieces and a narrative that vilifies non-confirming parents as responsible for suicides, as well as relentlessly distorting the views of any dissenters creates a hell of a tough path for anyone who wants to use normal scepticism and caution. To be wrapped up and enveloped in a culture of brave, strong, brilliant depictions of warrior mums and dads must be intoxicating and deeply reassuring. It's the manipulative love bombing of a cult.
Maya, however, is less concerned in giving herself solace than making sure her child is ok. Having been lied to by the medical professionals she was led to believe knew far more than she ever could, who lived by a doctrine of do no harm, she started to read more. She also noticed that her child seemed to have some deep rooted homophobia, which was incomprehensible to her. She wasn't homophobic, neither her husband. Her whole family were progressive, left-wing and had a history of human rights activism. It was shocking, but, unfortunately, real.
Slowly, through many months and heart-rending conversations it became a little clearer. Her child was same sex attracted, and had been bullied for it. This homophobic harassment had been internalised, and when they came out as trans it got a lot better.
It's a familiar story. Children bullied as gay / gender non-conforming don't get much protection at school, especially when they are young enough to be perceived as entirely asexual by teachers. When children announce they are trans - and it is normally an announcement - they not only are recognised as at risk of bullying by teachers who will take special care to make sure they're ok, their peers take notice. The bullies are flooded out by more affirmative, fascinated classmates. Their social status, despite how unlikely this may seem, climbs exponentially. A gay or gender non-conforming kid gets no proclamation as such when 10, 11, 12. A 'trans' child will.
Maya had a son, not a trans daughter. Gradually they untangled this furiously constructed safety net, they saw a therapist unwilling to jump to conclusions. Throughout all of this she maintained an open and honest relationship with her child. He knew he was loved and supported to be who he is - trans daughter or young gay son included. He is now unequivocally a boy, who is probably gay, and that's absolutely fine.
It looked to me like an astounding act of parenting. She didn't tell her child he was anything, but she asked questions and reassured him he was loved no matter what. Because of this, he is not growing up on a medical pathway that never ends. His identity and body are free from attempts to manage a coping mechanism that would have had profound effect on every aspect of his life, future, his health. That's a huge success, isn't it?
According to many, no, it definitely is not. Among Maya's friends are doctors (no endocrinologists, as far as I know) and journalists, lawyers, writers and activists. Some are minor public personalities with high ambitions. It is their behaviour I'm going to focus on.
Of the many issues with puberty blockers, the resulting sexual dysfunction seemed particularly abhorrent to Maya. Because she has explained this, she has been accused of having a sinister interest in her son's sexuality. Because she has said he is likely gay she has been accused of an unhealthy obsession. Some have even said she is sexually abusing him. So, it's admirable for her to declare her child trans and use medicine and social transition to try to change his body and life to fit his mind - however impacted that young mind already is by social media, bullying, homophobia and low self esteem, because he is a girl if he has said so - but to say it appears he is struggling with shame and fear over his emerging sexuality is abuse, or indicative of her sinister desires towards him.
This has been quite a journey for Maya. In discovering the clear dishonesty in the information she was given by professionals she trusted, she's been looking further into the notion that gender overrides sex, and she has what might be called 'TERFy' opinions. That is; women's prisons should not be open to any males who identify as women. Sport is and should continue to be divided by sex, because lowering testosterone does not neutralise the disparities between our sexed bodies. She is aware that there have been many cases of supposedly trans women abusing, filming and raping women once they have accessed women's spaces. These are all arguments you won't be surprised to learn I agree with, but it's been incendiary to many of her friends, despite her making many trans friends along the way who have backed her up.
It doesn't matter, as we know, how many times we say that trans people are vulnerable in men's spaces, and deserve their own spaces - that, according to her wealthy, normally white, western friends, is segregation.
It doesn't matter if dozens of black people are there to call these analogies offensive - these educated, upper-middle class people know better. It doesn't matter if trans people who have been through surgical transition are there to say that her fears for women's spaces are legitimate and important - a non-binary woman decked out in make up, displaying every gendered stereotype of womanhood will be there to call them traitors, frauds, bots. Maya has committed an unconscionable crime against her 'daughter's' humanity by helping him come to terms with his sex and sexuality. This must be abuse.
There are no good faith arguments here. I've been through several posts attacking her and while there's a lot of speculation that 'cis women commit far more rapes than trans women' or 'puberty blockers are safe and reversible' or 'trans women are suffering an unprecedented level of murder' no one ever has anything but opinion pieces. To be fair, I can see how easy it is to believe this, given the incessant editorials in well known media, the shocking level of ideology crammed into supposedly scientific publications, the broad ideological capture this movement has achieved, but when you are given real data, or hundreds of cases of something that 'never happens', or are unable to explain the central crux of your own argument (trans women are women) it is truly some bigotry, delusional pride and idiocy to fly back to your flock and boast of your success in argument.
They don't think, they can't accept or even recognise when they're caught out, they refuse to read anything not explicitly endorsing their world view. How on earth is this adult debate?
I have seen supposedly left wing, anti racist 'radicals' and feminists talk about how they want to punch Maya, reject her black friends as 'uncle Toms' and consistently argue 'not all men' (as if anyone had said that it was). I have seen supposedly left wing men, concerned with the economic oppression of women just like Maya, tell how everything she has said has been screenshot and will be reported to her employer and possibly antifa groups in her area. One of them has reported her to child protection for abuse over a completely spurious accusation and another for emotional abuse. They sit upon an ivory tower, throwing rocks at a mother who, they say, must have forced her poor child into the closet. They mock her, they tell her she is a disgusting mother. They block her and continue to orchestrate dog-piles with their friends. They call her a b*tch, a c*nt, accuse her of harassment while posting about her on Facebook and Twitter, say they pray for her 'daughter'.
I have hundreds of screen shots of these comments. Many are well off, highly educated professionals, with jobs I am sure would be severely compromised if it they surfaced. This is some of the most disturbing abuse I've seen anyone I know receive; it is drenched in misogyny and overtly threatening. The deranged pretension that they are left wing and she, for believing biology also counts, is right wing, is just another farcical fantasy that shields their tiny, gilded cages from any critical glimpses of their own warped self perception. They cry for prison abolition and full access to women's spaces for self identifying trans women knowing they will never be in prison, or fleeing violence in refuges; they are fully aware that they have the status to be taken seriously by police, hire lawyers and garner publicity if ever touched upon by the realities of our normal lives. If they but an ACAB frame around their profile picture, they believe their $200 haircuts and well-nourished white faces are absolved of their own hypocrisy. When they shriek about abolishing police and prisons, they know 1) it will never happen and 2) they live in gated communities with private security anyway. This is devoid of class analysis, genuine concern and any of the political reality they (claim to) rail against. It is the epitome of frat boy / mean girl supremacy - mocking the poor kids for their bad clothes and diction and their inability to escape reality while waxing lyrical about how they fundraised for the marginalised.
I'm not going to unleash the screenshots as I fear it will only exacerbate Maya's situation. But I have them, and when the time comes and this mob hysteria breaks I will still have them. I don't believe in storing these things to destroy people's careers or relationships but I have a pretty good idea when this group-think comes to an end, when these arguments are fully trounced, people will be running a long distance in the interval, washing their hands like Lady Macbeth. I think some kind of truth and reconciliation process will be important, so I suggest that others do this - because these people will continue to live in denial about the harm they cause otherwise. The level of vitriol and abuse directed at an ordinary mother who has dared to put her child's welfare above a belief system that tolerates no salient questions or dissent has been utterly jaw-dropping to witness. Something very, very strange has happened to our society, and the purported left has become a cesspit of conformist, individualist, ideology-worshipping misogyny and anti-logic. We cannot lose our movements to this.
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