[Note: For the love of god, people, please **be respectful** to the people we interviewed for this video. Thank you—Ben]
“Let me tell you what puberty does to your mind: I had to slowly watch myself transform into something I hated. That does damage to children.”
That’s what a transgender person told my friend and fellow reporter
on Sunday when he and I took to the streets of Manhattan to take the temperature among attendees of the LGBTQ Pride parade at this historic juncture in the transgender movement in particular.We wanted to talk to people about how they were feeling about the state of the LGBTQ movement, which has faced a number of recent setbacks, from Trump's executive order recognizing only two genders, to the Skrmetti Supreme Court decision upholding Tennessee’s ban on gender-transition treatment for minors.
Interestingly, only one person we asked about whether children should receive such treatment thought there should be any substantial guardrails around such access: a trans woman who thought it was much better for children to wait until they were 14 or 16 “to understand what they want.” Most of the others were keen to downplay or equivocate about any risks or downsides. One of them even compared such treatment to smoking in an effort to suggest that lots of things have risks and that giving cross-sex hormones to children isn’t so exceptional.
One person had a very interesting response when I asked: Why change the body to alleviate the suffering of the mind?
“Why put a prosthetic on an amputee?” the person replied.
I am an independent journalist, specializing in science and health care coverage. I contribute to The New York Times, The Guardian, NBC News and The New York Sun. I have also written for theWashington Post, The Atlantic and The Nation. Follow me on Twitter: @benryanwriter and Bluesky: @benryanwriter.bsky.social. Visit my website: benryan.net
Share this post