People of good will and optimism try not to see the world in black and white - binary - terms. They prefer to describe much of it in grey - and, whenever possible, in glorious colors. We disparage the pre-modern catholic penchant for dividing women into virginal saints and "fallen" women, consider cowboy movies where there are good guys in white hats and villains in black hats unsophisticated. We messed up bigtime with the one-drop definition of race we use in America, where a person is white unless they have even the smallest bit of African ancestry in them, whereupon they become black. And why we continue to operate under that fiction is beyond me.
Not that there aren't binaries. Life and death, off and on, yes and no, something and nothing are binaries. So is male and female, although people on one side of the transgender debate now getting so much attention are calling that into question. Either one insists on the traditional approach to science, which defines truth as something empirically verifiable, or one buys into the recent postmodern fad of insisting all is flux, and (at least in the sophomoric versions of postmodernism so many people go with) there is no truth, but only one person's "narrative" set against another's. One side (where I stand, at least for the moment) insists that since more than 98% of people are born clearly male or female, this is enough to make this a binary category. The other side argues that the fact that 1.7% of kids are born intersex suggests that we should see this as a spectrum instead. That means the distinction between sex and gender (once defined as a subjective social category) is lost, and one can use transsexual and transgender interchangeably. This view is now so widespread that, as I mentioned in my previous blog entry, the publication manual of the APA, the American Psychological Association, the gold standard for such things, "has determined that the term 'transsexual' is largely outdated." Read: use transgender for both transgender and transsexual, since the distinction between them is now blurred.
This blurring disturbs me, since I see acting as if there is no reason to distinguish between male and female runs counter to common sense and opens the door to all kinds of bad outcomes. If there is no distinction, what justification to we have for women's sports, for example. Or for keeping women from being thrown in jail with men. How do we keep useful track of crime statistics? Or speak of sexual and emotional maturity? Or acknowledge sexism and the power dynamic in any meaningful way?
But perhaps the biggest problem associated with the transgender debate is that there are so many unknowns and so much misinformation. I'm tempted to call this the age of misinformation, in fact, but let's stick with the importance of gathering accurate information and avoid jumping too hastily into the unknown.
So far, I've come up with ten questions that come to mind. I make no effort to prioritize or evaluate their importance), and I suspect if one tries, one can come up with many more. But here are my ten, for starters:
1. If young people are going to take puberty blockers, how safe are they? According to the Mayo Clinic, "Puberty blockers are not recommended for children who have not started puberty." At the same time, the consensus is that puberty blockers are a relatively new medical procedure, and we don't have enough information on its long-term effects. We need to consider puberty blockers experimental medicine.
2. At what age should we allow kids to make decisions that are at odds with their parents' decisions? What responsibility do schools and hospitals and other institutions have to convey information they learn from children and adolescents to their parents, and at what age?
3. There is evidence that a lot of young people suffering gender dysphoria commonly suffer co-morbidities simultaneously. A much higher percentage than normal are autistic, for example. Many have suffered physical and mental abuse. Ideally, we should learn where the line is between the gender dysphoria and these other problems, if at all possible, and make sure we are treating the dysphoria on the basis of this reliable information.
4. How seriously should we consider the possibility of "social contagion," the term used to signify the possibility young people are calling themselves trans because they are caught up in a fad. There appears to be strong evidence of this possibility. One can feel dysphoria because of external disapproval or internal disapproval. Arguably, the solution to dysphoria derived from external disapproval is likely to be found through therapy, while a strong argument can be made that dysphoria stemming from internal anxiety should elicit strong emotional and other support.
5. Until recently, many people calling themselves trans would consider themselves gay or lesbian. Bisexuals once had to endure the suspicion many gays and lesbians had that they were simply not yet ready to accept their same-sex feelings as legitimate, and took the bi- identity as a way of looking less confrontational to straight people. Nowadays there is less resistance to the claim of bisexuality. Is the same thing going on with trans people? Are they people whose claims will be increasingly accepted in time?
6. When a person goes from gay to trans, they change identities. How many of them also change sexuality? If a gay man becomes trans, does he then become heterosexual in sexual orientation? Or does he also switch sexual orientations and become a lesbian? This is not a question that anybody needs to fuss over, obviously, but it would be interesting, if anybody looking for a PhD dissertation topic in LGBT studies wants to take it on. It would tell us something about sexual orientation that we don't yet understand.
7. Advocates of a postmodern insistence that "transgender women are women" have to contend with the argument that this approach is skewing the statistics on male crime. There is only one study I'm familiar with showing that transgender women, i.e., MtF trans people continue to commit crimes, including sexual crimes at the same rate as non-transgender males, and far more than cis-gender women, but it is contested. This raises the question, at what point, now or in the future, should we start taking these statistics seriously?
8. Feminist movement around the world is credited with raising the consciousness around the fact that men are socialized to think it is natural to commit violence against women - they "just can't help it." Such consciousness has led to laws to protect women as well as a change in social attitudes toward that violence. If the distinction between cisgender women and transgender women is lost, and if male-pattern violence continues, how will we keep track of violence statistics with any accuracy? Will this ever matter? If so, when?
9. In the UK, there has only been one institution devoted to dealing with transgender kids, if I understand the scene correctly. And that is the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) of North London's Tavistock Clinic. It is still in operation, but its work took a hit and it was closed down in 2021 when a suit was filed against it by a woman treated there who had a double mastectomy at age 20, and now regrets transitioning, arguing that GIDS should have taken into consideration that her gender dysphoria could be attributed to her mother's alcoholism, her social isolation as a lesbian and depression as much as to gender dysphoria. The decision to shut Tavistock down became a national scandal and the decision was reversed a year later. But the case has led to greater awareness of the risks of acting in the absence of sufficient data on treatments that must be considered experimental. [For a full history of the case, see Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.] There is at present no end of questions about whether and when treatment by puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery are indicated, and where the lines are between them, The need for clinical research is urgent.
And finally, one last question. This one is for me personally, and not one to add to the library of general knowledge:
10. Why have so many lesbians and gays and other lefties of a progressive bent climbed on the postmodern bandwagon and taken on the view that one can blur the distinction between sex and gender? It's a distinction we worked hard to make and get the general public to make. Why have they surrendered it so easily? Is it lockstep solidarity with transgender people because they believe we LGBs have to stick together with the Ts? (The Ts that want to claim "I'm a woman if I choose to claim I'm a woman.") If that's the case, shame on them, I say, for making the same cognitive error as the right-wingers, surrendering scientific rigour for political expediency. And it's all so unnecessary, since a man can live as a woman in every way that doesn't involve threatening the safe spaces I believe women have a right to. I'm with my friend Bill. Ideally, we should create three kinds of spaces: men only, women only, mixed for when separation is unnecessary. Two questions here: Is this even remotely practical? And how many LGB people does this involve, anyway? OK: three questions: Have I got this all wrong?
As I've said before, there are many approaches one might take to the transgender issue. It is an inherently divisive issue, probably because there's more we don't know about it than there are things we do know. Most of the time Bill and I can finish each other's sentences. But we've taken very different perspectives on this issue, which fact, when put together with the fact that gays and lesbians generally are sharply divided on this topic as well, is evidence that we're dealing with one of the hottest topics to come down the pike in a long time. I've taken a legalistic and policy-making approach; Bill prefers a compassionate one. I've been more head; he's been more heart. What we both agree on is that we need to avoid the extremes, such as the far-right Republican view that there should be no government support at all for transgender people. We both find that not just insincere and politically manipulative, but just plain cruel.
I tried to put this topic of how best to approach the transgender issue aside, declaring it's none of my business, and get on with other things. But it's a public policy issue and people's lives and mental health are riding on it, so I believe leaving it to the politicians is not the way to go. It calls for an informed public.
And if you are tempted to say I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill, consider the fact that since 2010 the number of girls referred to the Tavistock Clinic has increased by 5000%.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the topic.
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