I’ve been waffling on writing this for a while, but I kind of want to get my thoughts down, and calling this blog “public”, while technically true, really doesn’t do reality justice… My readership is small, and I’m OK with that.
I Think The Current Discourse Is Shit
There’s always been a bias towards oversimplification on trans issues. The reality is that there are more than one kind of trans person, someone who was born intersex is different from someone with Klinefelter’s or Turner’s syndrome, those people are different from people with your average XX or XY biology, but legitimately feel a sense of body dysmorphia, and while a small subset of the small subset, auto-gynephiles (AGP) are different from all of the above.
Some of that is a survival mechanism, when you’re part of a population estimated to be about 0.3% of the population as a general class, further breaking that down into smaller subsets basically guarantees that your issues will not be front and center. Part of that is that these issues are complicated, and your average person doesn’t want to spend the time and processing power figuring out the issues, particularly if they aren’t predisposed to actually care.
Having mentioned AGP is probably enough to get me in trouble because AGP is relatively taboo among trans people, they’ll generally refuse to admit that AGP exists, despite some relatively high-profile cases of people self-identifying as an auto-gynephile. I’m not saying that my experience is average, because I enjoy the cesspool of gay dating apps every now and again, but I know more people that identify as being an AGP than I know trans people, although I know some of both. They exist. But opponents have weaponized AGP, saying that trans women are just feminine gay men or men with AGP. I want to be clear: I’m not making that case. They’re different classes.
Even trans men and trans women are different classes. Society treats men and women differently. Their struggles are different. Their bodies are different. Their regiments are different. Their desires are different.
So to recap: There’s a difference between someone born intersex, someone born with a genetic issue, someone who experiences body dysmorphia, and someone who is sexually aroused by the idea of transition.
But we generally treat them all the same. I’d like to believe that doctors are treating individual patients with a little more nuance, but with the current levels of politicization, the marching order seems to be to focus on surgery and to affirm. If the patient is young enough, there is a push to get them on puberty blockers.
This, I think, Is Devastating
Sally Kohn, dubbed by Ben Shapiro as “The Dumbest Lesbian in News”, once said the following:
I have this inherent wish for my kid to be gay... like wanting my kid to be a Democrat, like wanting my kid to be Jewish.
While I understand the sentiment, in practice, this is kind of ugly. Who wants their kids to have a hard time? We should want the best for our kids, we should hope that they’ll be intelligent, healthy, and loved. We’ll still do our best if they aren’t. But why hope for something that’s so stunting?
The reality of gay life, from experience, is that it comes with baggage. Without woe-is-me-ing the experience, the fact of the matter is that some people out there would have strong opinions about me without knowing anything other than my orientation. And even if we overnight morphed into a fully embracing culture, physical realities exist: I couldn’t have kids with the men I’ve loved. I mean, didn’t stop us from trying, but… Anyway, my point is that even though adoption is a thing, even though surrogacy is a thing, even if you don’t think you want kids… There are fewer options, and the options you have are harder.
This, I think, Has A Segue To Trans Issues
Who thinks trans kids have it easy?
Whether you believe them and want to be an ally, or think that they’re just confused, or or or, almost regardless of where you come at this conversation from, I think most people could agree that their lives are harder than average. Even if we morphed into that fictional society where everyone was chill and affirming, the reality of their life is that trans people tend to be highly medicalized, they often suffer from co-occurring mental health issues, not limited to a significant suicide rate that is not controlled for by stigma.
What if I told you that for the average kid identifying as trans, the best thing for them might be to not affirm them and to hope it goes away?
I’m not actually suggesting people do that, full stop. Trans kids exist. They’ve always existed, they need help.
But there’s a large portion of pre-pubescent kids that will desist from their dysmorphia following a normal puberty. I’m not even going to try to cite that because like almost all research, there’s no real consensus… I’ve seen desistance rates as high as 90% and as low as 50%. But I Don’t see many studies under 50%, and the ones that are under 50%, and usually the ones that report a rate less than 70%, include children that are given puberty blockers and affirmed.
I find that incredibly disingenuous: The whole idea of puberty as a treatment for dysmorphia would require, y’know… puberty. If you stave off puberty until you administer a hormone cocktail, and that patient doesn’t desist, that’s not really a resounding condemnation of a normal puberty.
I’m not suggesting that every kid be forced to experience puberty before transition. I think the science on this is still out, I’m not a doctor, and I think different cases will require different treatment… But it’s amazing to me that this isn’t talked about more. If a child could be saved from the downfalls of transition and live a fairly normal life, why on Earth shouldn’t we aim for that, if possible?
I’m Already Cancelled, Let’s Go One Step Further
I also think we’re medicalizing a generation of kids that aren’t actually dysmorphic. The chart at the top of this post is a trans-activist response to rising rates of trans-identification in youth: There was a time when left handedness was stigmatized, where people were taught to use their right hands, and when left-handed implements either didn’t exist or were rare. As people were allowed to be left handed, and as better accessibility options rolled out, more people presented as left handed.
Sure.
But you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
We’re told that the reason that trans kids have a disproportionate suicide rate is because of the stigma associated with being trans. We’re also told that the current trans identification rates are what the rates always were, and the reason that more people are openly identifying as trans is because they feel confortable to do so.
These points aren’t compatible. If the stigma was worse 50 years ago than it is now, which is why people feel more comfortable to be out, then you’d expect higher suicide rates 50 years ago than we have now. Particularly among the closeted trans population. We have no reason to believe that was true. And suicide rates among kids are up 30% over the last decade.
This is a correlation, I’m not saying this scientifically, but I believe that is likely that trans identity is a higher risk factor for suicide than stigma. I mean, really… Are trans youth more or less stigmatized than Jews in the holocaust? Are they more or less stigmatized than black people during slavery? More or less than gay people during the AIDs epidemic? Trans suicide rates seem to be a special topic.
To be more clear and generous - I think that what we’re facing, particularly post-Covid, is a mental health crisis unlike anything that we’ve ever seen before. We are a social species and we isolated for months, years, hell… Some people are still playing the kabuki theatre of isolation. The economy seems bad, politics are toxic and 24/7, the war in Ukraine has some terrifying ramifications. I can’t blame people for being depressed.
And I think that different people have different coping mechanisms, and that some are healthier than others. We are seeing violent crime statistics spike, and I’m not even going to make the left/right argument, I’m just going to point out that it takes a level of hopelessness to do some of the things that are happening.
That’s not good for all of the reasons I laid out earlier about life being harder for trans kids, but I think that trans identification is one of those coping mechanisms, and it’s not the worst. Which might go some way to explain why youth suicide rates are increasing without even touching the third rail of trans issues.
Again: Trans people exist. I’ll never say otherwise. But I think that some people identifying as trans aren’t dysmorphic so much as they’re self-medicating their depression.
Think about it… The world sucks, life sucks, negative messaging is everywhere, and then… like an oasis, here’s a CoMmUnItY: People that talk about inclusion, with rainbow flags and unicorn iconography. Where you can dress however you want, with as much color as possible, and be whatever you want. If people were acting like this in other contexts, we’d look at it like the cry for help that I think some of it is. And I said that this wasn’t the worst coping mechanism, and I stand by that, despite knowing that that will ruffle feathers on it’s own… But really: If they weren’t coping using trans ideation, what are the alternatives?
I think gun violence is going to continue to tick up regardless, at least in the short term, but imagine if instead of medicating with rainbows and happy thoughts, depressed kids picked up a gun.