In some of his first comments since U.S. v Skrmetti came down, Mr. Strangio never acknowledged or responded to the sharp critiques in a recent Times investigation of his own rhetoric and actions.
Being relatively new to this topic (I've been taking a deep dive only since last fall), I didn't know much about Strangio. I'm shocked to see that such a deluded extremist ideologue was allowed to play such a leading role in the Biden administration's policy drives. No wonder people who cared about this issue were driven to vote for Trump (which I would still never have done).
This idea that the medicalization of gender nonconformity in children is a way to transcend, rather than reinforce, the gender binary is the most vexing part of Strangio's delusion. That they think this whole project is progressive is preposterous.
There is nothing progressive about denying biology. There is nothing progressive about sacrificing women's rights to men's desires. There is nothing progressive about subjecting children to experimental body modifications in order to make their bodies fit the gender stereotypes society, including people like Strangio, have put into their heads.
And most of all, there is nothing progressive in lambasting a newspaper for reporting facts, even if you disagree with them. The entire trans project is fundamentally authoritarian. It cannot exist without forcing everyone to pretend that 1+1=0. Calling any disagreement "insidious", i.e. morally despicable, is fundamentally illiberal, and Democrats are not going to get out of their electoral hole until they understand this and abandon this regressive, reality-denying ideology.
> "... [the entire trans project] cannot exist without forcing everyone to pretend that 1+1=0 ..."
Indeed. "trans women are women" kind of has to take the cake in Orwell's 2+2=5 look-alike contest.
As you seem new to the trans madhouse, you might have some interest in this post which features a couple of howlers, a couple of tweets, from "Mr." Strangio, though i think he has since deleted them -- thank gawd for screenshots 🙂:
Why are you shocked that most insane, delusional, evil, incompetent, anti-American, extremist administration ever had an insane, delusional, evil, incompetent, anti-American, extremist female driving policy?
“Mr.” Strangio is as strange and weird as her name! If you read her description of a penis, you’ll spit out your coffee.” A penis is not a male body part” (!) “ It’s just an unusual body part for a woman.” WOW! Can you get weirder than that?
"Mr. Strangio characterized it as bizarre that the public should spend so much energy scrutinizing the medical guidelines of pediatric gender medicine, arguing that this field had been unfairly exceptionalized with impossibly high standards that are not placed on other medical practices."
What an ignorant statement. My child was diagnosed with a serious lifelong medical condition 9 years ago. There are much higher standards of care placed on diagnostic testing, drug prescription, and follow up care for her diagnosis than anything we encountered during the time she was in an extreme mental health crisis during the pandemic lockdowns and suddenly identifying as trans (now desisted 3 years). We were living in two medical specialty worlds then: neurology and psychiatry. I can assure Strangio that the standards of care and following of evidence based practice for anything related to trans or gender dysphoria were much, much lower - truly nonexistent - than with any neurologist who treated her. Strangio is showing immense ignorance with that statement. But the whole interview sounds like Strangio was somewhere between desperately making excuses and grasping at straws and throwing a tantrum.
And then Strangio admits: “I don’t know anything about how medical guidelines are established.” At least there is some honesty, even if it's at odds with the certainty with which Strangio makes pronouncements on this very topic.
So hard. I too have been deep in the medical world getting one child accurately diagnosed with a very rare genetic condition that took over 10 years for any doctor to care or figure out. Battles with insurance to cover the actual life saving treatment. Then another child after lockdowns and severe Tik Tok syndrome who cannot get in to see a neurologist, gets T in one visit to a doctor who had never met her. Probably Planned Parenthood. Go Colorado. Strangio is psychotic, immature and delusional. She is harming kids with her activism.
Yes! I had the same thought! But I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this coming from someone who claims to be a constitutional lawyer who hates the constitution.
What's it like knowing that you're a bad parent your child is afraid to be themselves around? You're an abuser, you should reconsider your life, or kill yourself. One of the two.
He’s saying to talk to your doctor, not the NYT’s. He is also trans, this is a personal issue as it is for all trans people. He is citing actual medical studies, not the NYT investigative journalism. The supreme court cited NYT in their Affirmation.
She isn’t citing anything, at least not in the referenced quote. And believe it or not, having a mental illness doesn’t actually qualify someone to give medical advice.
utah made a list. keeley can also make a list. i can make a list. and when im done with my list i can make a crazy statement that has nothing to do with my list. like Utah did, and like gender activist "studys" often do. like when torodff said gender meds help kids but she actually found they dont. a list isnt an evaluation of evidence. thats what UK did. and sweden and finland did. they actually spent a lot time on it. they looked at the studys big biz uses to claim their products work, and they found they dont. and thats probably why ppl stop taking gender meds eventually. german insurance records found by year 4, half stop taking gender meds. US military says by year five , 30% stop taking gender meds. this tracks with by year 10 most ppl are probably off them. but no one knows. or no one will admit they know. because big biz does know. they just wont say.
That weak ad hominem is both irrelevant to the discussion and also quite obviously just a projection based on nothing either of us have actually said. You also didn’t actually respond to our points, nor is your article persuasive. Want to try again?
“Weak ad hominem” makes you sound like an out of touch elitist. I love how you like actually this super flawed study that was biased from the start as the only actual science. I could source bomb, but I prefer to actually meet people where they at. In case you live under a rock, a unapologetic trans ally won against a terf freak so 💅
Sorry you flunked school. I’ll use smaller words. But it will be hard when you imagine things I never said, such as liking the article (it’s not a study) that I called “unpersuasive.” Was that also too big of a word for you? I know your side have trouble with the basics.
One should quote systematic reviews which assess studies for reliability, as there are a lot of terrible studies out there.
And most of the MDs are following the medical associations, which are following WPATH/Endocrine Society...which are following their deeply held beliefs. Or something. Their hopes? They aren't following the systematic reviews...didn't seem to like what the rigorous reviews found and then even said (WPATH) that one wasn't possible. The response to the NYT about that lie by WPATH was just plain silly:
"WPATH told me that Alabama had presented a misleading portrait of the group’s work. In stating that systematic reviews of adolescent treatment were “not possible,” a representative said, the adolescent chapter was intended to refer to assessment practices, not blockers and hormone therapy. The publication policy enacted in 2020 was meant only to ensure that research emerging from SOC-8 met “the highest standards of scientific integrity and is presented with appropriate clinical context.” "
Hm. They say it is not possible and then give a "narrative review"....of medical studies?..."At the time of this chapter’s writing, there were several longer-term longitudinal cohort follow-up studies reporting positive results of early (i.e., adolescent) medical treatment; "
But sure. It's about assessment. The NYT just accepted that.
I hope NYT learns soon that there is no benefit to going halfway on this, halfway right.......
Not to pile on, but unlike the other comments, I wanted to approach this differently:
If one of my kids had gender anxieties, I would NOT talk to any doctor, that's the problem. It is not a personal issue, as Mr. Ryan has reported on extensively, the medical community is captured by trans activists like Strangio. Doctors are not on the side of science.
Intentional or not the trans focus on convincing medical associations before doing any real research was a brilliant political move, albeit at the cost of untold numbers of healthy children's bodies.
Chase Strangio is a constitutional lawyer who has asserted he doesn't put much stock in the US Constitution. He's an ACLU attorney who has said that preventing the distribution of one of Abigrail Shrier's books is "a hill I will die on." He extols the value of medical consensus, then goes on to write that there's no such thing as a male body. He's convinced that youth gender treatments are life-saving care, even while admitting before the Supreme Court there's no evidence to support that belief. A worse representative for the cause can scarcely be imagined.
And yet he is uniquely suited to the cause, isn't he? Incoherent, self-contradictory, often downright weird, and thoroughly self-righteous, Chase Strangio is in some ways the perfect avatar for the gender movement.
I was going to ignore the pronoun corrections, but now that they are piling up, I'll address them.
I don't police the pronoun usage of other people, and I don't accept policing FROM other people. Those who want to call Chase Strangio "she" won't hear a word of reprimand from me, and I'd appreciate the same courtesy.
Just a little bit of teasing 😀. Come on, it’s fun.
Like, using their pronouns in this post makes you look a little bit like a left-wing reporter at a Trump rally doing a video segment pointing out all the crazy things the attendees are saying, while wearing a MAGA hat.
The elephant in the room: Someone ought to tell Strangio -- or anyone invested in being "trans" -- that the interventions don't work. Strangio does not look like a man. In her male getup, she evokes Kim Basinger's role play as a man with Mickey Rourke in Nine and a Half Weeks.
That’s what I’m saying - even when done very young, it still doesn’t quite work.
Look at Elon’s son - feminine face, yes, but strange man voice and is about 6’ tall. In fact I think these childhood interventions for boys actually make them taller. So what exactly is “life saving”?
It’s all about having surgeries and medicines that help you slide further into delusion, very few “pass"
Even if had should it have been encouraged for a minor, just to have less height? Marci Bowers, famed "trans" clinician has gone on record saying that blocking males at Tanner 2 means they will *never* have full sexual function as adults... that no patient he's ever treated has gone on as an adult to be able to orgasm. Can a minor child consent to giving up something they are too young to comprehend just so there are additional aesthetic effects? No.
Then does it not make sense to start it late in adolescence? I know Jazz passes pretty well. You’d need to start at what, 8-10? Which is incredibly young to make the decision and still isn’t a guarantee of passing.
Strangio is a confused person who needs tender care. Berating the NYTimes on trans issues is also strange. They frequently run pieces by M. Gessen whose job seems to be turning logic upside down in order to make transing children seem like a good thing to do.
This is truly excellent research, Ben. Your work will be invaluable for the rest of time. Seriously important. We disagree on pronoun use (pronouns are like Rohypnol the date rape drug : article : they encourage people to let their guard down and increase confusion ). But I still appreciate your dedication to bringing a scandal out in the open.
I used to think the ACLU was very smart. Are all the things said by Strangio actually things that Strangio believes? Or is it just that those of us listening are thought to be too ignorant to know better??
Chase seems to suggest testimonials are a more reliable source of information than careful reporting, by journalists engaged in good faith fact finding.
Testimonials (via Instagram Chase thinks this is a great source) aren’t data and have long been a serious red flag when it comes to medical claims.
Chase demonstrates a fair bit of bad faith by continually obfuscating and eliding and maybe even outright lying in this q&A. A great deal of this care is rushed. There is little medical gate keeping. Chase seems to disregard all de-transitioners while being bent on the ideological goal of breaking the “gender binary.”
The whole suicide prevention argument blows my mind as a reason for “gender affirming” treatment for kids.Suicidal ideation is disturbingly high these days for the tween/teen age group as a whole. Shouldn’t we as a society be addressing that problem as a whole rather than implementing “gender affirming care” for a subset? It’s such a drastic solution, I can’t believe it ever even became a viable one. Like what has happened to the pediatric medical community?
Telling kids they are at risk of suicide if a certain action isn't taken in fact violates suicide reporting guidelines. They are encouraging kids thinking of suicide as an appropriate response to the situation, a suicide "script."
The first time I read/heard the argument “do you want a dead son or living daughter” as a legitimate practice my jaw hit the floor. This is the zenith of emotional manipulation and for it to come out of providers mouths to parent’s ears absolutely disgusted me.
I’m surprised this made it all the way to the Supreme court. It’s so flimsy. I’m also surprised it was a split decision.
I’ve read trans activists claim children who identify as transgender are being discriminated against in receiving the same medical care as children who receive puberty blockers to treat precocious puberty. Children with precocious puberty symptoms are estimated to be less,than 1% - in addition I’m unaware of any parents or children in that camp attempting to obtain special rights and/or compel others to make special exceptions for them.
It’s not the same thing at all. This has never been nor will it ever be a civil rights issue. It’s a fight for special rights based on an ideology that’s indefensible.
Exhaustive review, kudos. This serves to support my hypothesis that the trans delusion is quite strong, and always bends all reality to itself.
As with all delusions, particularly paranoid delusion (this is an example), all activity which contradicts the delusions (NYT reporting here, by example) is evidence of the conspiracy, not of reality.
Likewise the deluded always have special knowledge not accessible by others.
Finally, this as with all “gender” and trans discussions, always is a vast universe of nonsense and prevarication.
It’s literally impossible for such a woman to articulate facts about trans. They are completely incapable of saying anything which contradicts the delusion, and since it is relative to sex, they also cannot say anything which can be taken as factual about sex.
The ACLU has gone to war with reality....it's not clear whether Chase understands this or not.
The evidence doesn't show that these interventions are helping people who identify as trans. The evidence doesn't support these interventions as being medical care (an experimental trial, rather than current practice, would inform patients and their families about what is and isn't known, including risks).
Ineffective treatments are not ok to give out if they are harmful--an MD cannot prescribe mercury anymore.
And bringing up abortion? (Hello-that was a call for everyone to say--oh! It's the GOP, let's disagree with them?!?!) There is a solid medical evidence base behind abortion, patients can be told the risks, for instance. They've been reliably measured and can be reliably estimated.
How did an organization that used to have some of the most brilliant minds in the world working for it end up arguing against reality, arguing for interventions which haven't even been shown to meet medical standards and that have been causing enormous harm? Maybe Chase should learn about how these guidelines are made, there's a great SEGM YouTube lecture by one expert in guideline development, by Ivan Flores. Only 20 min!
How did the ACLU not check against reality before trying to make their case? The US claims about these interventions (under Biden) were simply false and got called out in the legal arguments!
It isn't all Chase's fault, you can't do this on your own, the ACLU made a terrible mistake in ignoring the evidence. It could have checked, itself, as anyone could, that its witnesses were saying incorrect things in these trials, as well. You defend your client but you are not supposed to lie, last I checked.
The ACLU should have been there defending the people who were canceled for pointing out problems. I can't believe I agree with Thomas and Alito more than with the ACLU, in this case, but it's because I am sticking with reality. The ACLU should have, also.
Hey, maybe they would have even helped these kids and their families get accurate information about what is known about gd! (No, that isn't "hate"--that's being ethical.)
Oh no the Times is appealing to “both sides” journalism? The horror. I actually don’t think the Times does that enough but Strangio reveals what a moron she is with this comment.
Thanks for quite a thorough, and quite damning bill of particulars of the usual suspects, "Mr." Strangio in particular.
Though somewhat amused by "his" efforts to tear a strip off the NY Times, particularly since some people substantially to the right of him -- Peter Boghossian and Mia, WPATH Files, Hughes -- reach pretty much the same, if a bit hyperbolic, conclusion:
"The New York Times and Trans; An Ideological Cesspool"
Kinda think the Times is starting to read the writing on the walls these days, and are becoming less biased -- whence the same conclusion from opposite ends of the political spectrum.
Though a recent article there, by Kellen Browning, still betrays or manifests some ideological capture or pigheaded cluelessness about the difference between sex and gender:
KB: "... nearly 80 percent of Americans — including 67 percent of Democrats — believed that transgender female athletes ..."
Barking mad -- "transgender female athletes" are, in manifestly "brute fact", males -- guys in drag if they still have their nuts attached, and sexless eunuchs if they don't. "exercised" me enough to write a "sternly-worded" missive last night to the author of it 🙂:
Letter; QUOTE: "transgender female athletes" are, in fact, males. Rather depressing is the degree of scientific illiteracy, if not outright cluelessness, particularly so in "the newspaper of record", in that phrase. You may wish to consider exactly what are the biological definitions that are more or less the de facto standards, and which have largely been replicated by President Trump's EO order "restoring biological truth in government. From the Glossary of an article in the well regarded Oxford Journal of Molecular Human Reproduction:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
To a first approximation, to be a female is to have ovaries, and to be a male is to have testicles; those are the "necessary and sufficient conditions" to qualify as members of those categories. Those "transgender female athletes" haven't replaced their testicles with ovaries, and by those definitions, they're still males. All they have is some feminine traits or a desire to be treated as if they were actual females, as if they had changed sex. If wishes were horses then beggars would ride ..."
"transgender female athletes" are, in fact, males. Rather depressing is the degree of scientific illiteracy, if not outright cluelessness, particularly so in "the newspaper of record"
Alternative explanation: they know exactly what they're doing with their language games and that's even worse.
Once I read a UK poll showing 1/3 of Brits didn't know "transwomen" are male, and even less understood it in London where there are more people for whom English is a second language... I became committed to fighting for plain language, for an end to wrong-sex pronouns that muddle the truth. (Mr. Ryan here has blocked me on X for refusing to use wrong-sex pronouns. He'll likely block me here, too.) The media is just as culpable in this social engineering project as their activists... they're often the same people.
"language games" is certainly a possible explanation, though I think your "1/3 Brits don't" may be a better bet -- simple ignorance, or total cluelessness as to the "essential" difference between males and females. I have yet to receive a response from the author to that NY Times piece, Kellen Browning, so you may wish to rattle his, and the Times', cage on that score. 🙂
But that ignorance seems to be a very large part of the problem. Too many people don't seem to have progressed much past the Kindergarten Cop [KC] definitions for the sexes -- "boys have penises, and girls have vaginas". Which is largely why the "judge" in the Tickle vs. Giggle case in Australia ruled that a transwoman -- "Ms." Tickle -- with her brand-spanking new neovagina had changed sex from male to female, and thereby had a right to access a social media app intended only for women (AKA "adult human females"):
But those KC definitions are nowhere close to the bedrock reproductive differences -- a reasonable change to which might be, "boys have testicles, and girls have ovaries". No way in gawd's green earth that any testicle-haver is ever going to replace them with ovaries of "her" own.
Though the fly in the ointment of those definitions is that the standard biological definitions -- more or less endorsed by Trump's EO on "restoring biological truth to government" -- are even closer to the bedrock, largely because they have to encompass millions of other species in which neither ovaries, testicles, penises, nor ovaries are recognizable parts of members of those other species. I've periodically argued that those different definitions are like different levels in a series of Russian dolls.
But quite agree with you on the "wrong-sex pronouns", though there's a fly or two in that ointment too. You probably know of Deuteronomy 22:5: "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God." Moot exactly the "social engineering" reasons for that principle, but some reason to argue Strangio and company are perpetrating a fraud -- on themselves and society in general -- by wearing "garments" -- opposite sex genitalia and "secondary sex traits" -- that they weren't born with.
Why I'd argue that "Rachel Levine" should be preceded by "transwoman", compound word like "crayfish" which ain't. And why Strangio is a "transman" and not a "trans man" as Ben insists on calling "him".
But thanks for the Telegraph article archive -- few people seem to know how to do that. 🙂
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I'm glad you appreciated the Telegraph archive (so many things are paywalled and it's just easier to send things that way).
Yes, I recently reread Deuteronomy 22:5, and it's interesting to see. Though I myself am Christian I never see the need to cite scripture in my online discourse. So many people aren't religious, and they turn off if they see it. Gender ideology is so incoherent it's easier and more effective to go at it from that direction. :)
👍🙂 Share the wealth; praise the lord and pass the ammunition 😉🙂.
Though, as indicated above, I have a NYTimes subscription and will provide share links instead of archives where possible. But I'm not sure how long the links are valid.
As for Deuteronomy, I think there's some merit and social utility in clothing distinctive to each sex -- something in the way of a fraud, a bait-and-switch to be sailing under false colours. "abomination" may be a bit extreme ... 😉🙂
And as for your "Gender ideology is so incoherent" -- understatement of the year. 🙂 Though there's some merit in the concept -- the fact of the matter is that there are significant personality and behavioural differences, on average, between the sexes that are captured in the terms masculine and feminine genders. "Men are from Mars, Women Are From Venus" 🙂
Apropos of which, something of a brilliant and quite illuminating analogy from the late great US Justice Anton Scalia:
AS: "The word 'gender' has acquired the new and useful connotation of cultural or attitudinal characteristics (as opposed to physical characteristics) distinctive to the
sexes. That is to say, gender is to sex as feminine is to female and masculine to male."
It's difficult to convey tone and intent just on words hence the words'no disrespect'. I don't know why he used those words and I'm offering a gentle reminder. Everyone can choose their tone and I prefer to keep Zen if I can
Being relatively new to this topic (I've been taking a deep dive only since last fall), I didn't know much about Strangio. I'm shocked to see that such a deluded extremist ideologue was allowed to play such a leading role in the Biden administration's policy drives. No wonder people who cared about this issue were driven to vote for Trump (which I would still never have done).
This idea that the medicalization of gender nonconformity in children is a way to transcend, rather than reinforce, the gender binary is the most vexing part of Strangio's delusion. That they think this whole project is progressive is preposterous.
There is nothing progressive about denying biology. There is nothing progressive about sacrificing women's rights to men's desires. There is nothing progressive about subjecting children to experimental body modifications in order to make their bodies fit the gender stereotypes society, including people like Strangio, have put into their heads.
And most of all, there is nothing progressive in lambasting a newspaper for reporting facts, even if you disagree with them. The entire trans project is fundamentally authoritarian. It cannot exist without forcing everyone to pretend that 1+1=0. Calling any disagreement "insidious", i.e. morally despicable, is fundamentally illiberal, and Democrats are not going to get out of their electoral hole until they understand this and abandon this regressive, reality-denying ideology.
> "... [the entire trans project] cannot exist without forcing everyone to pretend that 1+1=0 ..."
Indeed. "trans women are women" kind of has to take the cake in Orwell's 2+2=5 look-alike contest.
As you seem new to the trans madhouse, you might have some interest in this post which features a couple of howlers, a couple of tweets, from "Mr." Strangio, though i think he has since deleted them -- thank gawd for screenshots 🙂:
https://speakingplainly.substack.com/p/is-it-really-true-that-no-ones-denying?triedRedirect=true
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!w53G!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F38445208-8b1c-400f-825e-c11ee53ad2a1_647x250.png
Thanks for the link to the Speaking Plainly Substack piece about how all the major TRAs claim transwomen are biologically female.
It was one such tweet by Strangio that peaked me. Wait, wait, I said to myself, I thought trans was about passing, about presentation, not this!
Yes, it’s an unhinged cult—it’s not gay liberation 2.0.
Why are you shocked that most insane, delusional, evil, incompetent, anti-American, extremist administration ever had an insane, delusional, evil, incompetent, anti-American, extremist female driving policy?
“Mr.” Strangio is as strange and weird as her name! If you read her description of a penis, you’ll spit out your coffee.” A penis is not a male body part” (!) “ It’s just an unusual body part for a woman.” WOW! Can you get weirder than that?
"Mr. Strangio characterized it as bizarre that the public should spend so much energy scrutinizing the medical guidelines of pediatric gender medicine, arguing that this field had been unfairly exceptionalized with impossibly high standards that are not placed on other medical practices."
What an ignorant statement. My child was diagnosed with a serious lifelong medical condition 9 years ago. There are much higher standards of care placed on diagnostic testing, drug prescription, and follow up care for her diagnosis than anything we encountered during the time she was in an extreme mental health crisis during the pandemic lockdowns and suddenly identifying as trans (now desisted 3 years). We were living in two medical specialty worlds then: neurology and psychiatry. I can assure Strangio that the standards of care and following of evidence based practice for anything related to trans or gender dysphoria were much, much lower - truly nonexistent - than with any neurologist who treated her. Strangio is showing immense ignorance with that statement. But the whole interview sounds like Strangio was somewhere between desperately making excuses and grasping at straws and throwing a tantrum.
And then Strangio admits: “I don’t know anything about how medical guidelines are established.” At least there is some honesty, even if it's at odds with the certainty with which Strangio makes pronouncements on this very topic.
So hard. I too have been deep in the medical world getting one child accurately diagnosed with a very rare genetic condition that took over 10 years for any doctor to care or figure out. Battles with insurance to cover the actual life saving treatment. Then another child after lockdowns and severe Tik Tok syndrome who cannot get in to see a neurologist, gets T in one visit to a doctor who had never met her. Probably Planned Parenthood. Go Colorado. Strangio is psychotic, immature and delusional. She is harming kids with her activism.
I am so sorry you are experiencing this I agree with everything you wrote
Yes! I had the same thought! But I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this coming from someone who claims to be a constitutional lawyer who hates the constitution.
What's it like knowing that you're a bad parent your child is afraid to be themselves around? You're an abuser, you should reconsider your life, or kill yourself. One of the two.
He’s saying to talk to your doctor, not the NYT’s. He is also trans, this is a personal issue as it is for all trans people. He is citing actual medical studies, not the NYT investigative journalism. The supreme court cited NYT in their Affirmation.
The only study he cited in the Q&A was the one by Media Matters about Fox running 400 stories about trans women in sports.
She isn’t citing anything, at least not in the referenced quote. And believe it or not, having a mental illness doesn’t actually qualify someone to give medical advice.
You all are such hacks, just going based on vibes and public opinion polls… https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2025/05/22/utah-lawmakers-own-study-found/
utah made a list. keeley can also make a list. i can make a list. and when im done with my list i can make a crazy statement that has nothing to do with my list. like Utah did, and like gender activist "studys" often do. like when torodff said gender meds help kids but she actually found they dont. a list isnt an evaluation of evidence. thats what UK did. and sweden and finland did. they actually spent a lot time on it. they looked at the studys big biz uses to claim their products work, and they found they dont. and thats probably why ppl stop taking gender meds eventually. german insurance records found by year 4, half stop taking gender meds. US military says by year five , 30% stop taking gender meds. this tracks with by year 10 most ppl are probably off them. but no one knows. or no one will admit they know. because big biz does know. they just wont say.
That weak ad hominem is both irrelevant to the discussion and also quite obviously just a projection based on nothing either of us have actually said. You also didn’t actually respond to our points, nor is your article persuasive. Want to try again?
“Weak ad hominem” makes you sound like an out of touch elitist. I love how you like actually this super flawed study that was biased from the start as the only actual science. I could source bomb, but I prefer to actually meet people where they at. In case you live under a rock, a unapologetic trans ally won against a terf freak so 💅
Sorry you flunked school. I’ll use smaller words. But it will be hard when you imagine things I never said, such as liking the article (it’s not a study) that I called “unpersuasive.” Was that also too big of a word for you? I know your side have trouble with the basics.
One should quote systematic reviews which assess studies for reliability, as there are a lot of terrible studies out there.
And most of the MDs are following the medical associations, which are following WPATH/Endocrine Society...which are following their deeply held beliefs. Or something. Their hopes? They aren't following the systematic reviews...didn't seem to like what the rigorous reviews found and then even said (WPATH) that one wasn't possible. The response to the NYT about that lie by WPATH was just plain silly:
"WPATH told me that Alabama had presented a misleading portrait of the group’s work. In stating that systematic reviews of adolescent treatment were “not possible,” a representative said, the adolescent chapter was intended to refer to assessment practices, not blockers and hormone therapy. The publication policy enacted in 2020 was meant only to ensure that research emerging from SOC-8 met “the highest standards of scientific integrity and is presented with appropriate clinical context.” "
Hm. They say it is not possible and then give a "narrative review"....of medical studies?..."At the time of this chapter’s writing, there were several longer-term longitudinal cohort follow-up studies reporting positive results of early (i.e., adolescent) medical treatment; "
But sure. It's about assessment. The NYT just accepted that.
I hope NYT learns soon that there is no benefit to going halfway on this, halfway right.......
Not to pile on, but unlike the other comments, I wanted to approach this differently:
If one of my kids had gender anxieties, I would NOT talk to any doctor, that's the problem. It is not a personal issue, as Mr. Ryan has reported on extensively, the medical community is captured by trans activists like Strangio. Doctors are not on the side of science.
Intentional or not the trans focus on convincing medical associations before doing any real research was a brilliant political move, albeit at the cost of untold numbers of healthy children's bodies.
““two-genders-only” is not science, it’s an ideological bumper sticker.”
Chase Strangio is a constitutional lawyer who has asserted he doesn't put much stock in the US Constitution. He's an ACLU attorney who has said that preventing the distribution of one of Abigrail Shrier's books is "a hill I will die on." He extols the value of medical consensus, then goes on to write that there's no such thing as a male body. He's convinced that youth gender treatments are life-saving care, even while admitting before the Supreme Court there's no evidence to support that belief. A worse representative for the cause can scarcely be imagined.
And yet he is uniquely suited to the cause, isn't he? Incoherent, self-contradictory, often downright weird, and thoroughly self-righteous, Chase Strangio is in some ways the perfect avatar for the gender movement.
I was going to ignore the pronoun corrections, but now that they are piling up, I'll address them.
I don't police the pronoun usage of other people, and I don't accept policing FROM other people. Those who want to call Chase Strangio "she" won't hear a word of reprimand from me, and I'd appreciate the same courtesy.
Just a little bit of teasing 😀. Come on, it’s fun.
Like, using their pronouns in this post makes you look a little bit like a left-wing reporter at a Trump rally doing a video segment pointing out all the crazy things the attendees are saying, while wearing a MAGA hat.
She.
So true—The perfect Avatar.
*She
The elephant in the room: Someone ought to tell Strangio -- or anyone invested in being "trans" -- that the interventions don't work. Strangio does not look like a man. In her male getup, she evokes Kim Basinger's role play as a man with Mickey Rourke in Nine and a Half Weeks.
What a waste of time and money.
So there's THAT.
That’s what I’m saying - even when done very young, it still doesn’t quite work.
Look at Elon’s son - feminine face, yes, but strange man voice and is about 6’ tall. In fact I think these childhood interventions for boys actually make them taller. So what exactly is “life saving”?
It’s all about having surgeries and medicines that help you slide further into delusion, very few “pass"
I don’t think Elon’s child got on blockers until fairly late in adolescence.
Even if had should it have been encouraged for a minor, just to have less height? Marci Bowers, famed "trans" clinician has gone on record saying that blocking males at Tanner 2 means they will *never* have full sexual function as adults... that no patient he's ever treated has gone on as an adult to be able to orgasm. Can a minor child consent to giving up something they are too young to comprehend just so there are additional aesthetic effects? No.
Less damage done, then. Escaped the micro penis that causes excruciating pain when aroused.
Then does it not make sense to start it late in adolescence? I know Jazz passes pretty well. You’d need to start at what, 8-10? Which is incredibly young to make the decision and still isn’t a guarantee of passing.
Strangio is a confused person who needs tender care. Berating the NYTimes on trans issues is also strange. They frequently run pieces by M. Gessen whose job seems to be turning logic upside down in order to make transing children seem like a good thing to do.
It's always funny to me when TRAs lambast the NYT or the BBC, which have absolutely gone out of their way to cater to trans ideology, as transphobic.
shut up you dumb cunt.
Don't think I will, but thanks
This is truly excellent research, Ben. Your work will be invaluable for the rest of time. Seriously important. We disagree on pronoun use (pronouns are like Rohypnol the date rape drug : article : they encourage people to let their guard down and increase confusion ). But I still appreciate your dedication to bringing a scandal out in the open.
Thanks, Caroline!
Just wow.
I used to think the ACLU was very smart. Are all the things said by Strangio actually things that Strangio believes? Or is it just that those of us listening are thought to be too ignorant to know better??
Also, I think Strangio pushed for housing trans-identified men with women? https://badfacts.substack.com/p/americas-most-unflappable-womens
And really, the outcomes are good??? Really? Why can't the studies find that the outcomes are good, then?
Oh she absolutely believes the insane things she says and advocates
Chase seems to suggest testimonials are a more reliable source of information than careful reporting, by journalists engaged in good faith fact finding.
Testimonials (via Instagram Chase thinks this is a great source) aren’t data and have long been a serious red flag when it comes to medical claims.
Chase demonstrates a fair bit of bad faith by continually obfuscating and eliding and maybe even outright lying in this q&A. A great deal of this care is rushed. There is little medical gate keeping. Chase seems to disregard all de-transitioners while being bent on the ideological goal of breaking the “gender binary.”
The whole suicide prevention argument blows my mind as a reason for “gender affirming” treatment for kids.Suicidal ideation is disturbingly high these days for the tween/teen age group as a whole. Shouldn’t we as a society be addressing that problem as a whole rather than implementing “gender affirming care” for a subset? It’s such a drastic solution, I can’t believe it ever even became a viable one. Like what has happened to the pediatric medical community?
Telling kids they are at risk of suicide if a certain action isn't taken in fact violates suicide reporting guidelines. They are encouraging kids thinking of suicide as an appropriate response to the situation, a suicide "script."
Suicide is suggestible and kids do respond.
The first time I read/heard the argument “do you want a dead son or living daughter” as a legitimate practice my jaw hit the floor. This is the zenith of emotional manipulation and for it to come out of providers mouths to parent’s ears absolutely disgusted me.
Exactly!
I've noticed they now deny that anyone ever said this.
Good grief
I’m surprised this made it all the way to the Supreme court. It’s so flimsy. I’m also surprised it was a split decision.
I’ve read trans activists claim children who identify as transgender are being discriminated against in receiving the same medical care as children who receive puberty blockers to treat precocious puberty. Children with precocious puberty symptoms are estimated to be less,than 1% - in addition I’m unaware of any parents or children in that camp attempting to obtain special rights and/or compel others to make special exceptions for them.
It’s not the same thing at all. This has never been nor will it ever be a civil rights issue. It’s a fight for special rights based on an ideology that’s indefensible.
Exhaustive review, kudos. This serves to support my hypothesis that the trans delusion is quite strong, and always bends all reality to itself.
As with all delusions, particularly paranoid delusion (this is an example), all activity which contradicts the delusions (NYT reporting here, by example) is evidence of the conspiracy, not of reality.
Likewise the deluded always have special knowledge not accessible by others.
Finally, this as with all “gender” and trans discussions, always is a vast universe of nonsense and prevarication.
It’s literally impossible for such a woman to articulate facts about trans. They are completely incapable of saying anything which contradicts the delusion, and since it is relative to sex, they also cannot say anything which can be taken as factual about sex.
“Mr. Strangio” can go pound sand.
Trans adults can and should go and do as they please (so long as they don’t infringe on the rights of others).
But keep their sick twisted hands off of kids.
18 year olds, do what they want? They're so mature they aren't even allowed to decide whether to smoke....
The ACLU has gone to war with reality....it's not clear whether Chase understands this or not.
The evidence doesn't show that these interventions are helping people who identify as trans. The evidence doesn't support these interventions as being medical care (an experimental trial, rather than current practice, would inform patients and their families about what is and isn't known, including risks).
Ineffective treatments are not ok to give out if they are harmful--an MD cannot prescribe mercury anymore.
And bringing up abortion? (Hello-that was a call for everyone to say--oh! It's the GOP, let's disagree with them?!?!) There is a solid medical evidence base behind abortion, patients can be told the risks, for instance. They've been reliably measured and can be reliably estimated.
How did an organization that used to have some of the most brilliant minds in the world working for it end up arguing against reality, arguing for interventions which haven't even been shown to meet medical standards and that have been causing enormous harm? Maybe Chase should learn about how these guidelines are made, there's a great SEGM YouTube lecture by one expert in guideline development, by Ivan Flores. Only 20 min!
How did the ACLU not check against reality before trying to make their case? The US claims about these interventions (under Biden) were simply false and got called out in the legal arguments!
It isn't all Chase's fault, you can't do this on your own, the ACLU made a terrible mistake in ignoring the evidence. It could have checked, itself, as anyone could, that its witnesses were saying incorrect things in these trials, as well. You defend your client but you are not supposed to lie, last I checked.
The ACLU should have been there defending the people who were canceled for pointing out problems. I can't believe I agree with Thomas and Alito more than with the ACLU, in this case, but it's because I am sticking with reality. The ACLU should have, also.
Hey, maybe they would have even helped these kids and their families get accurate information about what is known about gd! (No, that isn't "hate"--that's being ethical.)
The ACLU's funding direct its mission. Kara Dansky has written on this.
Oh no the Times is appealing to “both sides” journalism? The horror. I actually don’t think the Times does that enough but Strangio reveals what a moron she is with this comment.
Thanks for quite a thorough, and quite damning bill of particulars of the usual suspects, "Mr." Strangio in particular.
Though somewhat amused by "his" efforts to tear a strip off the NY Times, particularly since some people substantially to the right of him -- Peter Boghossian and Mia, WPATH Files, Hughes -- reach pretty much the same, if a bit hyperbolic, conclusion:
"The New York Times and Trans; An Ideological Cesspool"
https://boghossian.substack.com/p/the-new-york-times-and-trans?triedRedirect=true
Kinda think the Times is starting to read the writing on the walls these days, and are becoming less biased -- whence the same conclusion from opposite ends of the political spectrum.
Though a recent article there, by Kellen Browning, still betrays or manifests some ideological capture or pigheaded cluelessness about the difference between sex and gender:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/us/politics/democrats-supreme-court-transgender-ruling.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Qk8.Pv30.G1kUSzIPvDtC&smid=url-share
As I put it in a comment on Boghossian's post:
KB: "... nearly 80 percent of Americans — including 67 percent of Democrats — believed that transgender female athletes ..."
Barking mad -- "transgender female athletes" are, in manifestly "brute fact", males -- guys in drag if they still have their nuts attached, and sexless eunuchs if they don't. "exercised" me enough to write a "sternly-worded" missive last night to the author of it 🙂:
Letter; QUOTE: "transgender female athletes" are, in fact, males. Rather depressing is the degree of scientific illiteracy, if not outright cluelessness, particularly so in "the newspaper of record", in that phrase. You may wish to consider exactly what are the biological definitions that are more or less the de facto standards, and which have largely been replicated by President Trump's EO order "restoring biological truth in government. From the Glossary of an article in the well regarded Oxford Journal of Molecular Human Reproduction:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
https://web.archive.org/web/20221214064356/https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990?login=false
To a first approximation, to be a female is to have ovaries, and to be a male is to have testicles; those are the "necessary and sufficient conditions" to qualify as members of those categories. Those "transgender female athletes" haven't replaced their testicles with ovaries, and by those definitions, they're still males. All they have is some feminine traits or a desire to be treated as if they were actual females, as if they had changed sex. If wishes were horses then beggars would ride ..."
UNQUOTE
https://boghossian.substack.com/p/the-new-york-times-and-trans/comment/128797099
"transgender female athletes" are, in fact, males. Rather depressing is the degree of scientific illiteracy, if not outright cluelessness, particularly so in "the newspaper of record"
Alternative explanation: they know exactly what they're doing with their language games and that's even worse.
Once I read a UK poll showing 1/3 of Brits didn't know "transwomen" are male, and even less understood it in London where there are more people for whom English is a second language... I became committed to fighting for plain language, for an end to wrong-sex pronouns that muddle the truth. (Mr. Ryan here has blocked me on X for refusing to use wrong-sex pronouns. He'll likely block me here, too.) The media is just as culpable in this social engineering project as their activists... they're often the same people.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/06/third-of-britons-dont-know-trans-women-born-male/
Archive: https://archive.ph/kg6QU
"language games" is certainly a possible explanation, though I think your "1/3 Brits don't" may be a better bet -- simple ignorance, or total cluelessness as to the "essential" difference between males and females. I have yet to receive a response from the author to that NY Times piece, Kellen Browning, so you may wish to rattle his, and the Times', cage on that score. 🙂
But that ignorance seems to be a very large part of the problem. Too many people don't seem to have progressed much past the Kindergarten Cop [KC] definitions for the sexes -- "boys have penises, and girls have vaginas". Which is largely why the "judge" in the Tickle vs. Giggle case in Australia ruled that a transwoman -- "Ms." Tickle -- with her brand-spanking new neovagina had changed sex from male to female, and thereby had a right to access a social media app intended only for women (AKA "adult human females"):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tickle_v_Giggle
But those KC definitions are nowhere close to the bedrock reproductive differences -- a reasonable change to which might be, "boys have testicles, and girls have ovaries". No way in gawd's green earth that any testicle-haver is ever going to replace them with ovaries of "her" own.
Though the fly in the ointment of those definitions is that the standard biological definitions -- more or less endorsed by Trump's EO on "restoring biological truth to government" -- are even closer to the bedrock, largely because they have to encompass millions of other species in which neither ovaries, testicles, penises, nor ovaries are recognizable parts of members of those other species. I've periodically argued that those different definitions are like different levels in a series of Russian dolls.
But quite agree with you on the "wrong-sex pronouns", though there's a fly or two in that ointment too. You probably know of Deuteronomy 22:5: "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God." Moot exactly the "social engineering" reasons for that principle, but some reason to argue Strangio and company are perpetrating a fraud -- on themselves and society in general -- by wearing "garments" -- opposite sex genitalia and "secondary sex traits" -- that they weren't born with.
Why I'd argue that "Rachel Levine" should be preceded by "transwoman", compound word like "crayfish" which ain't. And why Strangio is a "transman" and not a "trans man" as Ben insists on calling "him".
But thanks for the Telegraph article archive -- few people seem to know how to do that. 🙂
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I'm glad you appreciated the Telegraph archive (so many things are paywalled and it's just easier to send things that way).
Yes, I recently reread Deuteronomy 22:5, and it's interesting to see. Though I myself am Christian I never see the need to cite scripture in my online discourse. So many people aren't religious, and they turn off if they see it. Gender ideology is so incoherent it's easier and more effective to go at it from that direction. :)
👍🙂 Share the wealth; praise the lord and pass the ammunition 😉🙂.
Though, as indicated above, I have a NYTimes subscription and will provide share links instead of archives where possible. But I'm not sure how long the links are valid.
As for Deuteronomy, I think there's some merit and social utility in clothing distinctive to each sex -- something in the way of a fraud, a bait-and-switch to be sailing under false colours. "abomination" may be a bit extreme ... 😉🙂
And as for your "Gender ideology is so incoherent" -- understatement of the year. 🙂 Though there's some merit in the concept -- the fact of the matter is that there are significant personality and behavioural differences, on average, between the sexes that are captured in the terms masculine and feminine genders. "Men are from Mars, Women Are From Venus" 🙂
Apropos of which, something of a brilliant and quite illuminating analogy from the late great US Justice Anton Scalia:
AS: "The word 'gender' has acquired the new and useful connotation of cultural or attitudinal characteristics (as opposed to physical characteristics) distinctive to the sexes. That is to say, gender is to sex as feminine is to female and masculine to male."
https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep511/usrep511127/usrep511127.pdf
Just a quick one and no disrespect, not a he not a Mr. Reality in words avoids confusion.
Why no disrespect? Benjamin disrespects us, the readers, and common sense by playing along with this nonsense.
It's difficult to convey tone and intent just on words hence the words'no disrespect'. I don't know why he used those words and I'm offering a gentle reminder. Everyone can choose their tone and I prefer to keep Zen if I can