60 Minutes Discusses Transgender Medical Issues

I applaud 60 Minutes for broadcasting this balanced report on trangender medical issues.

[Added May 24, 2021]

The ACLU's famously pro-censorship attorney, Chase Strangio probably liked the first half of 60 Minutes' recent discussion on transgender health care, the part discussing the fact that many states, including Arkansas, are attempting to restrict surgery and hormone injections for minors who claim to be transgender. I agree that this legislation should be critically examined and should not interfere with legitimate well-researched healthcare. Lesley Stahl indicated that "the vast majority" of people who have transitioned are satisfied. But Strangio's Tweet-rant claims that it is "dangerous" and "unaccountable" that 60 Minutes considered concerns with transgender health care.

As part of this topic, Stahl interviewed thirty teenagers and young adults who detransitioned, all of them having regrets, many of them after surgery and hormones. These young adults regretted that they got caught up in the excitement, many of them frustrated that their counselors "blindly affirmed" the transgender diagnosis and did not push back or dig deeper into what was really going on in their lives. I assume that Strangio was also outraged that 60 Minutes dared to mention the existence of a growing sub-Reddit Detrans group with more than 19,000 members.

The show also featured nationally recognized psychologist (and transgender woman) Erica Anderson, in accordance with the positions taken by many major medical organizations, criticized the new wave of state laws, characterizing them as "ominous." Anderson admitted, however, that there are no existing accreditation standards for work in this field of transgender health care. Anderson expressed concern that many health professionals in this field are not well-trained and she called treatment offered by many healthcare professionals "deplorable."

Another expert, Laura Edwards-Leeper, a psychologist at one of the first transgender clinics (in Boston), stated that she is concerned about rampant unethical behavior by many practitioners. She noted that many therapists in the field share her concerns, but are "scared to speak up" for fear of pushback from the trans community.

For Strangio of the ACLU, however, this well-balanced investigative piece is not good enough. It contains too much information. Ira Glasser and John Stuart Mill are both spinning in their graves.

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Transgender Ideology Successfully Unravels Decades of Hard-Fought Feminism

For decades, we (rightfully) fought hard so that a person who is biologically female could conceive of herself as fully a woman no matter what her interests, career aspirations, dress style, personality or hobbies were.  Then our sense-making institutions (and sexual-medical-industrial-complex, in the name of "liberty" and "freedom" started promoting the the idea that vaginas and breasts were no long compatible with a person who liked to climb trees, take charge of organizations or do mechanical work on cars. And with it comes a 4000% increase in the number of teenagers who claim they were born in the wrong body. And the consequent felt need to alter their body medically and surgically.

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We’ve Moved on from Decoder Rings in Boxes of Children’s Cereal

I hope everyone is preparing to help their children to declare their pronouns on the new boxes of children's cereal by Kellogg's. This might be more objectionable than the sugar they load into the cereal.

This is the most recent chapter of transgender insanity in my experience. A corporation peddling a product aimed at children, in which they would intrude on a sacred family space in the process of making money.

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CNN’s Puff Piece on Transgender Issues

CNN has published an article on transgender that gets one thing right: Many more young adults are claiming to be transgender compared to only a few years ago. The title: "High schoolers may be more gender-diverse than previously thought, new study says."

This is a classic one-sided puff-piece honed to fit the prevailing narrative. Apparently, we can sidestep a well-established medical term "gender dysphoria" by simply asking a CHILD if they are gender dysphoric (ignoring the effects of social media driven contagion). That number of almost 2% number corroborates with what Abigail Shrier stated, when she was excoriated for suggesting that something ELSE was going on when there is a 4000% increase in "gender dysporia" within a few short years (and see here). According to this CNN article, it's supposedly all very simple:

More awareness, more understanding, more exploration. One is that there is a greater understanding of the naturalness of gender diversity, whether that's expressed in terms we use to define ourselves, the way we dress, or how we see ourselves in relation to our culture. "Being gender-diverse is a totally normal part of human experience," [Dr. Kacie] Kidd said.

I have no problem with any adult doing anything they want with their body, sleeping with anyone they want, doing any surgery or hormones. But I am against casually expanding a known and useful medical term that only yesterday applied to only 1 out of 10,000 people, mostly males, claiming that it now applies to almost 2% of high schoolers, mostly girls, shutting off the obvious questions that should be asked about why this is happening. There are no mentions of "contagion" or "Shrier" in this article. There is no mention of the dangers of teenage use of puberty blockers and hormones (including sterility). There is no mention that therapists are being prevented from giving real counseling to teenagers who claim to be transgender based on "conversion therapy" laws. This article has been carefully pruned to make sure that serious pressing questions are not raised.

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The Many Reasons We Are Now Sex-Negative

At Quillette, Jacob Falkovich has written "The Sex Negative Society" in which he lists the many reasons we are now sex "negative." Here is an excerpt:

Capitalism knows that sex sells, but it’s not selling you on sex. You’re sold sex appeal—the trappings that make your peers (and you) see yourself as worthy of sex. Sex worthiness is sold in many ways: luxury watches, luxury dresses, luxury degrees, luxury beliefs. People can fall into narcissistic obsession with acquiring sex worthiness that entirely precludes actual intimacy. Even if that fate is avoided, the effort spent on acquiring sex worthiness isn’t spent on connecting with intimate partners. Good sex doesn’t contribute to any brand’s sales metrics or any nation’s GDP.

Perhaps it makes no sense to expect sex-positivity of any culture at all. If culture is simply the set of stories people tell themselves to get along collectively and establish order and hierarchy, it has no room for the private and disorderly affair of sex. Camille Paglia takes this further, imagining most of Western art and philosophy as a defense against the chaotic, filthy, and daemonic nature of intercourse. Civilization was always a way to control sex, not to promote it.

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