Within the pediatric gender medicine field, there have been conflicts over whether such state bans compromise mental health care for minors with gender-related distress.
Benjamin, do you think it's possible that in some ways the discussion of what constitutes conversion therapy and whether "exploratory therapy" is a form of conversion therapy is a red herring, because what we really need to be talking about is whether doctors and therapist are being allowed to do proper evaluation and differential diagnosis? Dr. Anderson briefly uses the language of "assessment" in her critiques of how the term conversion therapy is applied, but then goes on to keep talking about therapy. I'm wondering if we need to shift the conversation to appropriate differential diagnostic procedures. There needs to be proof from people like Florence Ashley and Jack Turban that there is literally no other cause for gender distress except for gender dysphoria and a mismatched gender identity that must be affirmed and the body changed to align to it. For example, the unstable and shifting identity issues of borderline personality disorder or the obsessive thoughts that can come with OCD or autism? It seems to me the problem is not with whether or not something is conversion therapy, but whether trans activists have proof that there is always only one cause of gender related distress and whether doctors and therapists are being allowed to do proper differential diagnosis. It seems this needs to be resolved before we're even getting into the weeds of what is and isn't conversion therapy when it comes to gender dysphoria.
Sorry. Short version: is the debate over conversion therapy a red herring and the real question is whether therapists are being allowed to do proper differential diagnosis?
Kind of think the question being asked is whether "gender-affirming" "therapy" is quack science or not.
If it is not then Colorado presumably has a right to deny other therapists rights to deny kids that treatment.
And if it is quack science -- being charitable as I think you would agree with me that it is -- then therapists offering treatments other than "gender affirming treatment" -- AKA the sterilization and castration of autistic & dysphoric children -- should be allowed to do so.
Why I've argued -- above -- that the question turns on what it takes to qualify as male and female in the first place, and whether it's possible to change from one to the other:
I would certainly go with "red herring", a whole load of them in fact, most of them still flopping about on the field a long ways from any goal posts.
Seems the bigger question is what it takes qualify as a member of the male and female sex categories, and what particular rights each are entitled to. I note, once again and according to a CNN article on the recent Skrmetti case, this bit in particular:
CNN: Justice Samuel Alito, in particular, was interested in the question of whether transgender status is “immutable.” Historically, the court has considered immutability to be a key aspect of the characteristics of a group deserving of more protection.
Moot exactly what is "immutable" about the sex categories, but I'm reminded of a pun of sorts from a famous gay man of the late 1800s, Oscar Wilde. He had been asked by a woman what he thought was the essential difference between men and women. To which he had answered, "Of that madam, I cannot conceive." Somewhat ironic that it took a homosexual to kind of nail down that difference given that they're generally not into much conceiving.
But the further question then -- based on something of a monstrous premise buried in the details -- that follows from that question of sex category membership is whether so called "gender-affirming" "doctors" -- one uses the term rather loosely -- are entitled to trick dysphoric and autistic children into thinking that they are able to change and have changed sex -- a biological and medical impossibility given even moderately scientifically accurate definitions of the terms. The further question then is whether those peddling, for fun or profit, that dogma of sex changes are then entitled to demand that everyone else play along with that delusion, with that rather egregious Big Lie -- a more monstrous one is scarcely imaginable.
I don't think they know how to do differential diagnosis to see who might be likely to benefit long term and would do better with medical intervention long term. That would require knowing long term (not possibly transient) outcomes of people treated with the model who they thought were appropriate for medical intervention (outcomes which they don't have) and better yet long term outcomes of those they thought would benefit who didn't get medical intervention.
They can probably identify a lot of comorbidities which have been identified by detransitioners as issues they thought meant they had to transition but weren't. So they might be good at estimating some who are likely not to benefit. But not all. All guesswork.
One of them most telling pieces of data (or better put lack thereof) is that Turbin and his ilk never cite ay data on how many kids they turn away from medicalization. Because they apparently don't.
This is such an important point! Go to any gender clinic and ask them how they support people for whom transitioning is not the best course of action. Ask them how they would say no. If they can't tell you how they would say no and how they would support that person or who they would refer them to, then this is not a place that is doing diagnostics. It would be like taking your child to a pediatrician and the pediatrician only knows how to tell you your child has strep throat and can't diagnose anything else or even imagine how to tell you it's not strep throat.
"So they might be good at estimating some who are likely not to benefit. But not all. All guesswork."
Certainly some of it might qualify as "guesswork", but I rather doubt all of it so qualifies. Doesn't take much effort, or any "guessing" at all, to see that what so-called "gender affirming therapy" boils down into is the sterilization and castration of autistic and dysphoric children.
Though it is maybe moot then whether that is a "good thing" or not -- maybe those kids shouldn't be allowed into the "gene pool" in the first place.
Canadian citizen here. I confirm that, even if exploratory therapy is explicitely excluded from the definition of "conversion therapy" in the Criminal Code of Canada (that bans conversion therapy), psychologists are still turning away gender-distressed youth for fear of being accused of doing "conversion" rather than "exploration". Their worst enemies? Their own transactivist colleagues, eager to rat on them to their professional board.
"[C]ompared with sexual orientation, gender identity is much more, subjective, complex, multifaceted, fluid and difficult to characterize."
Well said. Another important difference is that "affirming" someone's homosexuality (which isn't even necessary as unlike transgenderism, it doesn't depend on external validation to be real) doesn't lead to invasive medical treatments that can have devastating side-effects, and even if they go well, will turn someone into a life-long patient of the pharmaceutical industry. That alone should be enough to justify any therapy that has the goal of overcoming gender dysphoria without medical intervention, as long as it is not coercive or abusive.
The one exception would be if a gay man were put on PrEP. But with the exception of people who have kidney problems and shouldn't be taking Truvada in the first place, there should be no permanent impacts of taking the drug.
Fair enough. Those drugs, however, are not strictly necessary for someone to live as a homosexual. There are other ways of preventing HIV, such as condoms and monogamy. My brother-in-law is a married gay man, and I don't think he is or ever was on one of these drugs (he is older and his pre-marriage days were before these drugs were available). Living without them may not be realistic for everyone, and it seems like they are a very beneficial option, but my point is that you don't require a drug to maintain your sexual orientation in the way you need to stay on hormones to maintain your appearance of the opposite sex.
Right...all another example of the inaccurate and unhelpful conflation of homosexuality and transgender. We know what it means to be homosexual, and can determine through observation who is and who isn't. Gender identity...my goodness, but even Jack Turban cannot explain what that term means. If one of the high priests of the movement struggles to explain the doctrine, that's got to say something about the doctrine.
I appreciate the attempt to tell both sides of the story, Benjamin, but I think you give the T side too much credit.
Have you ever researched gender identity? Where it comes from? Who pioneered research into it? The first practitioners to treat patients using that term to describe what they were doing? What sort of people these doctors were?
I make no apology for the amount of brain bleach you're going to need once you've been down that rabbit hole.
I was told to educate myself, so I did. I went looking for the source texts, for the people who first mentioned it and who popularised it. I checked out scholarly papers, media reports, and, in some cases, court documents.
I want you to do the same.
The reason I'm responding like this is to get you to look at this stuff for yourself, unburdened by social biases.
If I give you my sources you'll dismiss them as "Wendy's sources" or even "TERF sources." If you dig around yourself, they are your sources, and therefore harder to dismiss.
I've played this game before and have fallen into every trap because I foolishly believed that people would engage in good faith. I'm wise to it now.
I tell you the truth, I cane back with links to unimpeachable sources, and got dismissed out of hand because the people who had told me to prove it didn't want proof. Don't be offended, I'm just used to people doing that to me.
So go, do what I did. Look for the first people to even mention the words "gender identity" and take it from there.
Let me know how you get on. I'd be interested to learn if you come to the same conclusions as I did.
An interesting You Tube video, "Whistleblower Dr David Bell on the NHS proposed "clinical trials" of "puberty Blockers"... Dr Bell is a psychology expert and briefly speaks of those issues that impact young children who suffer from their gender issues.
I saw this on X the other day by a person that had transitioned (mtf) as an adult and is apparentyl successful with their life
"It wasn’t about being trans. It was about finding a way to continue serving effectively, honestly, and without the symptoms of gender dysphoria. I’ve been asymptomatic since transitioning. Sure is nice doing my job without that distraction. No, transition is not a cure all. No it doesn’t give you a better life if your life already seriously sucks. Get your basics in order first."
I commented that maybe this should be the first thing that someone should go through whe first presenting to a gender affirming clinic. The response
"My therapist made sure and never pushed me towards transitioning".
Benjamin, do you think it's possible that in some ways the discussion of what constitutes conversion therapy and whether "exploratory therapy" is a form of conversion therapy is a red herring, because what we really need to be talking about is whether doctors and therapist are being allowed to do proper evaluation and differential diagnosis? Dr. Anderson briefly uses the language of "assessment" in her critiques of how the term conversion therapy is applied, but then goes on to keep talking about therapy. I'm wondering if we need to shift the conversation to appropriate differential diagnostic procedures. There needs to be proof from people like Florence Ashley and Jack Turban that there is literally no other cause for gender distress except for gender dysphoria and a mismatched gender identity that must be affirmed and the body changed to align to it. For example, the unstable and shifting identity issues of borderline personality disorder or the obsessive thoughts that can come with OCD or autism? It seems to me the problem is not with whether or not something is conversion therapy, but whether trans activists have proof that there is always only one cause of gender related distress and whether doctors and therapists are being allowed to do proper differential diagnosis. It seems this needs to be resolved before we're even getting into the weeds of what is and isn't conversion therapy when it comes to gender dysphoria.
I'm really busy and I'm afraid can't commit to reading a question this long. Maybe later today.
Sorry. Short version: is the debate over conversion therapy a red herring and the real question is whether therapists are being allowed to do proper differential diagnosis?
I think they are branches of the same argument but are distinct from one another.
Kind of think the question being asked is whether "gender-affirming" "therapy" is quack science or not.
If it is not then Colorado presumably has a right to deny other therapists rights to deny kids that treatment.
And if it is quack science -- being charitable as I think you would agree with me that it is -- then therapists offering treatments other than "gender affirming treatment" -- AKA the sterilization and castration of autistic & dysphoric children -- should be allowed to do so.
Why I've argued -- above -- that the question turns on what it takes to qualify as male and female in the first place, and whether it's possible to change from one to the other:
https://benryan.substack.com/p/supreme-court-to-hear-challenge-to/comment/99485248
I would certainly go with "red herring", a whole load of them in fact, most of them still flopping about on the field a long ways from any goal posts.
Seems the bigger question is what it takes qualify as a member of the male and female sex categories, and what particular rights each are entitled to. I note, once again and according to a CNN article on the recent Skrmetti case, this bit in particular:
CNN: Justice Samuel Alito, in particular, was interested in the question of whether transgender status is “immutable.” Historically, the court has considered immutability to be a key aspect of the characteristics of a group deserving of more protection.
Moot exactly what is "immutable" about the sex categories, but I'm reminded of a pun of sorts from a famous gay man of the late 1800s, Oscar Wilde. He had been asked by a woman what he thought was the essential difference between men and women. To which he had answered, "Of that madam, I cannot conceive." Somewhat ironic that it took a homosexual to kind of nail down that difference given that they're generally not into much conceiving.
But the further question then -- based on something of a monstrous premise buried in the details -- that follows from that question of sex category membership is whether so called "gender-affirming" "doctors" -- one uses the term rather loosely -- are entitled to trick dysphoric and autistic children into thinking that they are able to change and have changed sex -- a biological and medical impossibility given even moderately scientifically accurate definitions of the terms. The further question then is whether those peddling, for fun or profit, that dogma of sex changes are then entitled to demand that everyone else play along with that delusion, with that rather egregious Big Lie -- a more monstrous one is scarcely imaginable.
Too litigious. Too much money. Calls for benign neglect. Very sorry.
It is another affinity group. Arghh...
I don't think they know how to do differential diagnosis to see who might be likely to benefit long term and would do better with medical intervention long term. That would require knowing long term (not possibly transient) outcomes of people treated with the model who they thought were appropriate for medical intervention (outcomes which they don't have) and better yet long term outcomes of those they thought would benefit who didn't get medical intervention.
They can probably identify a lot of comorbidities which have been identified by detransitioners as issues they thought meant they had to transition but weren't. So they might be good at estimating some who are likely not to benefit. But not all. All guesswork.
One of them most telling pieces of data (or better put lack thereof) is that Turbin and his ilk never cite ay data on how many kids they turn away from medicalization. Because they apparently don't.
This is such an important point! Go to any gender clinic and ask them how they support people for whom transitioning is not the best course of action. Ask them how they would say no. If they can't tell you how they would say no and how they would support that person or who they would refer them to, then this is not a place that is doing diagnostics. It would be like taking your child to a pediatrician and the pediatrician only knows how to tell you your child has strep throat and can't diagnose anything else or even imagine how to tell you it's not strep throat.
"So they might be good at estimating some who are likely not to benefit. But not all. All guesswork."
Certainly some of it might qualify as "guesswork", but I rather doubt all of it so qualifies. Doesn't take much effort, or any "guessing" at all, to see that what so-called "gender affirming therapy" boils down into is the sterilization and castration of autistic and dysphoric children.
Though it is maybe moot then whether that is a "good thing" or not -- maybe those kids shouldn't be allowed into the "gene pool" in the first place.
Asking people who are in the gender affirming care business for proof and truth is illogical.
Andrew Sullivan, on the other hand, has repeatedly argued that the transitioning of gay kids is the "gay conversion therapy" of today... (Such as here: https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/will-big-trans-be-held-to-account-3ad)
Yes, I should've mentioned this in the piece. I was in a hurry to get it published after the news broke. (I wrote most of the piece 18 months ago.)
Canadian citizen here. I confirm that, even if exploratory therapy is explicitely excluded from the definition of "conversion therapy" in the Criminal Code of Canada (that bans conversion therapy), psychologists are still turning away gender-distressed youth for fear of being accused of doing "conversion" rather than "exploration". Their worst enemies? Their own transactivist colleagues, eager to rat on them to their professional board.
Well that is quite remarkable.
"[C]ompared with sexual orientation, gender identity is much more, subjective, complex, multifaceted, fluid and difficult to characterize."
Well said. Another important difference is that "affirming" someone's homosexuality (which isn't even necessary as unlike transgenderism, it doesn't depend on external validation to be real) doesn't lead to invasive medical treatments that can have devastating side-effects, and even if they go well, will turn someone into a life-long patient of the pharmaceutical industry. That alone should be enough to justify any therapy that has the goal of overcoming gender dysphoria without medical intervention, as long as it is not coercive or abusive.
The one exception would be if a gay man were put on PrEP. But with the exception of people who have kidney problems and shouldn't be taking Truvada in the first place, there should be no permanent impacts of taking the drug.
Fair enough. Those drugs, however, are not strictly necessary for someone to live as a homosexual. There are other ways of preventing HIV, such as condoms and monogamy. My brother-in-law is a married gay man, and I don't think he is or ever was on one of these drugs (he is older and his pre-marriage days were before these drugs were available). Living without them may not be realistic for everyone, and it seems like they are a very beneficial option, but my point is that you don't require a drug to maintain your sexual orientation in the way you need to stay on hormones to maintain your appearance of the opposite sex.
Right...all another example of the inaccurate and unhelpful conflation of homosexuality and transgender. We know what it means to be homosexual, and can determine through observation who is and who isn't. Gender identity...my goodness, but even Jack Turban cannot explain what that term means. If one of the high priests of the movement struggles to explain the doctrine, that's got to say something about the doctrine.
I appreciate the attempt to tell both sides of the story, Benjamin, but I think you give the T side too much credit.
Have you ever researched gender identity? Where it comes from? Who pioneered research into it? The first practitioners to treat patients using that term to describe what they were doing? What sort of people these doctors were?
I make no apology for the amount of brain bleach you're going to need once you've been down that rabbit hole.
Tell us more. What specifically have you Read?
I was told to educate myself, so I did. I went looking for the source texts, for the people who first mentioned it and who popularised it. I checked out scholarly papers, media reports, and, in some cases, court documents.
I want you to do the same.
The reason I'm responding like this is to get you to look at this stuff for yourself, unburdened by social biases.
If I give you my sources you'll dismiss them as "Wendy's sources" or even "TERF sources." If you dig around yourself, they are your sources, and therefore harder to dismiss.
I've played this game before and have fallen into every trap because I foolishly believed that people would engage in good faith. I'm wise to it now.
I tell you the truth, I cane back with links to unimpeachable sources, and got dismissed out of hand because the people who had told me to prove it didn't want proof. Don't be offended, I'm just used to people doing that to me.
So go, do what I did. Look for the first people to even mention the words "gender identity" and take it from there.
Let me know how you get on. I'd be interested to learn if you come to the same conclusions as I did.
An interesting You Tube video, "Whistleblower Dr David Bell on the NHS proposed "clinical trials" of "puberty Blockers"... Dr Bell is a psychology expert and briefly speaks of those issues that impact young children who suffer from their gender issues.
This is the Trump court. I think they are discredited and beyond redemption.
"Taking in to the Supreme Count": cognitive dissonance alarm sounds.
I see I've been blocked on X by someone whose Substack I subscribe to.
If you're talking about me, it's probably because you tweeted some sort of quibble about preferred pronouns. I don't have anymore patience for that.
I saw this on X the other day by a person that had transitioned (mtf) as an adult and is apparentyl successful with their life
"It wasn’t about being trans. It was about finding a way to continue serving effectively, honestly, and without the symptoms of gender dysphoria. I’ve been asymptomatic since transitioning. Sure is nice doing my job without that distraction. No, transition is not a cure all. No it doesn’t give you a better life if your life already seriously sucks. Get your basics in order first."
I commented that maybe this should be the first thing that someone should go through whe first presenting to a gender affirming clinic. The response
"My therapist made sure and never pushed me towards transitioning".
Too bad approach to kids is not this way.
Is gender dysphoria sissy boys and butch girls? Many of whom turn out to be gay or lesbian.
So who is getting transed?
wow! that is an impressive piece of work! Is there such a thing and a sociological luddite? (I'm raising my hand, self Identifying :-)
My manager got a thick document dropped on his desk. He said My desk ins't stressed for this heavy a document, and motioned to me to take it.
Are we talking counseling or drugs, surgery, etc?
Follow the money.
Consider if having cancer were unconstitutional? Or getting wantonly murdered at school.