Trans rights

A really comprehensive roundup:

In 2018, a physician and researcher named Lisa Littman published a paper in the journal PLOS One describing what she termed “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD). She hypothesized that some young people—particularly those assigned female at birth—might claim a transgender identity after increasing their social media use or befriending trans peers. According to this perspective, online platforms supposedly “infect” teenagers with the idea that they are trans, creating clusters of youth who suddenly identify in new ways.

From the moment Littman’s paper appeared, researchers and advocacy groups criticized its methodology. Littman’s survey collected responses solely from parents recruited on three websites openly skeptical or critical of medical care for trans youth. These anti-trans or “trans-skeptical” forums—4thWaveNow, Transgender Trend, and Youth Trans Critical Professionals—advertised Littman’s survey to parents who already believed their child’s trans identity was misguided. Unsurprisingly, 76.5% of respondents felt their child was “incorrect” in identifying as transgender.

Critics also pointed out that the youth themselves were never surveyed. Parents who participated were asked to diagnose their children with gender dysphoria (a clinical term referring to distress due to a mismatch between one’s internal sense of gender and assigned sex at birth), even though most parents do not have training in psychology or medicine.

[…]

Although Littman’s original 2018 article used the term ROGD, many discussions in conservative blogs and online groups substituted or conflated it with “transgender social contagion.” This idea claims that trans identity spreads from teen to teen like a virus—an online trend rather than a real expression of self.

While the ROGD paper didn’t use the “social contagion” phrase outright, it alluded to the concept through references to “peer influence” and social media immersion. Almost immediately, these concepts were embraced by anti-trans activists, policymakers, and media personalities. The theory gave them a sort of “scientific” veneer to argue that trans kids are just “confused.” As a result, many now simply refer to both ROGD and “transgender social contagion” interchangeably, even though they are (at least in Littman’s framing) slightly different.

For activist Raquel Willis, co-founder of the Gender Liberation Movement alongside Eliel Cruz, the fight for trans rights and universal bodily autonomy has to move past the visibility era to be truly impactful.

“This idea of simply using visibility as a means to bring about the kind of culture and society that’s going to receive trans folks with the respects that we deserve is over,” she told PinkNews, “and so we have to be thinking in new ways about how to protect ourselves, our voices, our histories and our brilliance without relying on a lot of the institutions that have really pushed the visibility vehicle.”

[…]

For many, access to abortion and gender affirming care might be thought of as different social issues impacting distinctly different groups of people; things to campaign for separately but not together. This line of thinking is similar to how trans rights and women’s rights more widely are often framed by the right-wing press as in direct contrast with one another when instead they are not opposites sides of a coin but rather intricately intertwined.

New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez noted this in response to Mace’s bathroom ban, telling reporters in November that such restrictions endanger “all women and girls” because “people are going to want to check their private parts in suspecting who is trans and who is cis”.

“The idea that Nancy Mace wants little girls and women to drop trou in front of, who, an investigator, because she wants to suspect and point fingers at who she thinks is trans is disgusting. It is disgusting. And frankly, all it does is allow these Republicans to go around and bully any woman who isn’t wearing a skirt because they think she might not look woman enough,” AOC added.

The intersectionality between the two issues hence sits at the very core of the GLM’s mission because “many of the same forces and entities that are targeting access to abortion are also targeting access to gender affirming care”, Willis said.

Cruz explained: “In the United States, legal precedents are being used to try to pass one another. So these connections are already there in terms […] of those who are making these attacks and for us it was important to marry the different groups of people that people may not necessarily talk about in the same ways.

“Really bringing those connections together in a very intentional way.” 

I emphatically reject the author's opinion that "it’s not ridiculous to suggest, for example, that a randomized trial of puberty blockers would be a good idea." (Why not a randomised trial of ambulances? We'll send half of emergency callers an Uber instead.) But he's certainly thorough, and excepts like this are astounding.

The Cass review was an interesting juxtaposition. Some of the scientific arguments were very reasonable, and the York team generally did a decent job with the systematic reviews that informed the document. However, the review itself often positioned bizarre theories about gender dysphoria alongside data and evidence. I’ve recounted quite a few examples of this during my pieces, but I thought I’d share one more that I found recently:

“Research commentators recommend more investigation into consumption of online pornography and gender dysphoria is needed. Some researchers (Nadrowski, 2023) suggest that exploration with gender-questioning youth should include consideration of their engagement with pornographic content.” (Cass review, page 110)

This paragraph suggests that porn can potentially turn children trans. If you look up the reference, it is to this opinion piece from a psychiatrist. The paper itself contains no data connecting gender dysphoria to pornography, but basically argues that teen girls may view porn and become so disgusted with being women that they choose to instead become men. The paper also notes that “Girls affected by autism might be at higher risk because of their reduced mentalization capacities.”, although it does not provide any evidence that this is true.

The author of this opinion piece is a psychiatric trainee who lists their affiliation as Therapy First. Therapy First is an explicitly anti-medication group which campaigns to prevent children from being given hormones or puberty blockers for gender dysphoria - instead, they recommend psychotherapy as the first and in many cases only option. This is not evidence. It’s barely even an opinion. There is no reasonable excuse for the Cass review having included such a completely bizarre and unsubstantiated theory, especially without noting that it is entirely unsupported by even the most vague of evidence.

Seriously: would you test the effectiveness of chemotherapy by giving a control group of cancer sufferers saline water? I mean, assuming you're not a raving lunatic who insists that cancer is a fashionable lifestyle choice spread by social contagion on TikTok?

The absence of RCTs studying the impact of gender-affirming care on the mental health and well-being of transgender adolescents does not imply that these interventions are insufficiently supported by evidence. Although RCTs are considered high-quality evidence because of their ability to control for unmeasured confounders, the impossibility of masking which participants receive gender-affirming interventions and the differential impact of unmasking on adherence, withdrawal, response bias, and generalizability compromises the value of RCTs for adolescent gender-affirming care. RCTs are methodologically inappropriate for studying the relationship between gender-affirming interventions and mental health. These methodological considerations compound the serious ethical concerns raised by RCTs in adolescent transgender healthcare. Given the limitations of RCTs, complementary and well-designed observational studies offer more reliable scientific evidence than RCTs and should be considered of sufficient quality to guide clinical practice and policymaking. Adolescent trans healthcare is on solid footing.

a periodic reminder that these places exist:

• https://genderdysphoria.fyi/
• https://diyhrt.wiki/
• https://diyhrt.info/
• https://hrtcafe.net/
• https://transharmreduction.org/
• https://transfemscience.org/
• https://gtrr.artemislena.eu/
• https://diyhrt.market/transfem-hrt-guide
• https://www.reddit.com/r/estrogel/wiki/

and places like these:

• https://diyhrt.market/
• https://www.unitedpharmacies-uk.md

and some country specific things (please recommend more):

• https://genderkit.org.uk/

feel free to boost, and reply with other useful links for #trans people

NCAA President Charlie Baker told a Senate panel there are fewer than 10 transgender athletes he is aware of who currently compete in college sports, pouring cold water on an issue Republicans have said is a nationwide problem and one that is increasingly fraught territory for Democrats.

“How many athletes are there in the U.S. in NCAA schools?” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked Baker during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday on federal regulations around sports gambling.

“Five hundred and ten thousand,” said Baker, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts who has served since 2023 as president of the NCAA, which governs intercollegiate athletics at more than 1,000 colleges and universities across the country.

“How many transgender athletes are you aware of?” Durbin asked.

“Less than 10,” Baker said. He did not say whether that number includes transgender men. 

[…]

A recent cross-sectional study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that transgender women who completed more than one year of hormone replacement therapy performed worse than cisgender women in tests measuring lower-body strength and lung functioning.

Trans women’s bone density, which is linked to muscle strength, was found to be equivalent to that of cisgender women, and there were no meaningful differences in levels of hemoglobin, which facilitates oxygen delivery to muscles and is related to greater aerobic performance.

An earlier study, also published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that transgender women who went through male puberty retained an athletic edge after one year of hormone therapy. The study’s lead author has cautioned against using the results to categorically ban transgender athletes from competitive sports. 

I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked!

The researchers found that respondents who viewed female athletes as less deserving of attention, support, and media coverage were more likely to oppose transgender inclusion in sports. For example, individuals who disagreed with statements like “Women’s sports deserve the same amount of media coverage as men’s sports” were significantly less likely to support transgender athletes’ rights.

The researchers also found that adherence to traditional standards of femininity—such as prioritizing thinness and attractiveness—was a strong predictor of opposition to transgender athlete inclusion. For instance, respondents who endorsed the idea that women should be thin or that women’s muscles were less attractive were less supportive of transgender athletes competing in alignment with their gender identity.

Similarly, those who agreed with statements like “Female athletes will never be as good as male athletes” were more likely to oppose allowing transgender athletes to compete according to their gender identity and to support sex testing.

Negative attitudes toward homosexuality were another powerful predictor of opposition to transgender athletes’ rights. Participants who expressed homophobic views, such as agreeing with statements like “I would be disappointed if I found out my child was homosexual,” were significantly more likely to support sex testing and oppose transgender inclusion.

According to the researchers, the findings suggest that opposition to transgender inclusion often reflects efforts to uphold traditional gender norms and maintain the existing gender order rather than a genuine commitment to advancing women’s sports.

In May 2023, Newsweek interviewed researcher and medical physicist Joanna Harper, and asked her to estimate the number of transgender athletes competing in US sports.

“While we don’t know the exact number of trans women competing in NCAA sports, I would be very surprised if there were more than 100 of them in the women’s category,” Harper replied.

That number is even smaller when it comes to middle school and high school athletes. Newsweek also spoke to Gillian Branstetter, a spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who told Newsweek that Save Women’s Sports, a leading voice in the bid to ban transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports, identified only five transgender athletes competing on girls’ teams in school sports for grades K through 12.

Yes, that’s right. Not 5000, not 500, not even 50 – just five trans student-athletes. All of this legislation, work, lobbying and anger – is aimed at preventing a tiny handful of young people from playing school sports. 

This is a tough read.

Judge Allen Winsor, a Trump appointee, justified his preliminary ruling in Keohane v. Dixon under highly questionable legal and scientific grounds. He repeatedly misgendered the plaintiff while citing nonsensical claims about the medical treatment for trans people that go against WPATH guidelines and all known medical science on gender-affirming care, such as labeling gender dysphoria a “short-term delusion.”

Winsor also professed support for “psychotherapy” practices that are much more akin to “conversion therapy,” a long-debunked practice which doubles the risk of suicide of trans people forced to take part.

[…]

Under the new FDC policy, women face having “their heads forcibly shaved and receive disciplinary action for possessing any female undergarments and makeup.” According to a legal declaration filed on behalf of Michelle Ward, a trans woman in a Florida prison:

   The loss of my hair, along with female undergarments and makeup, has been earth-shattering for me…I stay awake crying many nights.

Forced head shaving beckons back to the dark history of Native American residential schools in the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which mandated Native American boys have their hair cut to conform their appearances with Western gender standards.

The purpose of this policy was to humiliate Native American children and rob them of their basic humanity and connection to their culture and tribal identities. The stories of the women described in this article show that the intentions behind the FDC policy are no less cruel or dehumanizing in their nature. 

The executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global challenges his readers:

The transgender community accounts for less than 1% of the U.S. population, which makes them an easy and “safe” target for persecution. But these are real people from real families.

Taking away their rights, taking away their health care, shaming them, scapegoating them — this is truly a death sentence. And if you gave a damn, you would speak up for them.

Whatever you think you know about transgender people is probably wrong if you don’t actually know any transgender people. If you heard their stories, you would know they are sincere. They do not seek attention; it’s only the people attacking them who seek attention.

Here’s the main thing I want to impart for now: Transgender identity is real. It is authentic. You do not have to understand it to accept it. And even if you won’t accept it, what harm is there in letting other people live peacefully and in good health? How does the existence of transgender people threaten you other than challenging your too-small view of the world?