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Today, Jesse Singal wrote an opinion for the New York Times where he argued that Trump defunding youth gender research was a bad thing, despite the terrible research coming out of that part of science. He thinks that reform is in order, not slash-and-burn practices. In my opinion, there is definitely enough research out there by now that you can confidently release something like a Cass Report without anything new. Certainly, funding bad actors makes no sense, but to me, reform is little gain, and even a good new study must follow around minors that have gone through the unethical transgender science grinder.
It reminds me of an (unpopular) opinion Trace shared the other day on Twitter regarding the axing of funds for museums and libraries. Even if anthropology is 99% leftist, well, the institutions belong to those who show up, so right wingers just need to get in there and fix it themselves. While I appreciated that stance as it related to conservative law organizations, and as it related to Twitter when left-wingers were leaving the site en masse, I find it pretty distasteful to give up anthropology to positive feedback loops, and let our history become a mockery when it is within one's power to just raze it.
Deus Ex took a look at this perspective. Spoilers for Deus Ex:General Carter, after the UNATCO plot is exposed, decides to stay within the organization, because institutions are only as good as the people that comprise them. Later in the game, you see him in the Vandenburg compound. He has given up on his idea of reform and joined the resistance.
I'm going to guess most of this forum disagrees with Trace and Jesse on this matter in pretty much the same way that I do. Can you name any areas in government or other organizations where you do agree with them?
It's not a wonder you don't care about reforming the science to have evidence based results on if trans healthcare for minors has positive or negative results for patients if you've already made up your mind that it's unethical off other grounds.
Science should not be
Step 1: Have a view established off something else Step 2: Only accept evidence, research, and experts that agrees with the pre-established view and not the ones that disagree. Step 3: Declare the issue done with and stop further research.
Running these experiments is itself a violation of the ethics of human experimentation because, as detransitioners would be able to tell you, it can't be opted out of.
The same argument applies for signing up for experimental heart surgery.
Do people undergo experimental heart surgery because they don't like how their heart looks?
If there was an experimental heart surgery which changed the color of a patients heart from vaguely red to bright pink, I wouldn't support people doing it. I definitely wouldn't support impressionable teenagers who read about this on the internet doing it.
Oh, then you'll love the whole question of "people who want to be amputees" piggybacking off the trans movement, which in turn piggybacked off the gay rights movement. Welcome to the transableism community, and BIID (Body Integrity Identity Disorder).
One large reason this whole topic is a giant steaming mess is the over-reaction to "it's all personal autonomy, my body my choice, medical gatekeeping" push for absolute liberty on the part of the person seeking such radical changes. "It's not mental illness, it's my life!"
Except then that becomes the rationale for the craziness to seep in as well. If it's fine to seek radical surgery to change your body to fit with your mental model of what it should be like, why not people who feel deeply distressed by having an arm or a leg they want removed?
We need to get back to a common sense model, but unhappily nobody can agree what common sense looks like at this date. The success of having homosexuality removed as mental illness from the DSM meant that now all kinds of what can be described as 'alternate sexualities/orientations' cannot be called mental illness, and so the worst fringe cases get free rein. If we had the courage to say "no, this is insanity and not simply an unconventional lifestyle choice" we might cut the Gordian knot.
Your last paragraph doesn't follow from the rest of your post - indeed, it seems at odds with it. The transableism guys are claiming they deserve accommodation because their wacky desire is a mental condition isomorphic to gender dysphoria. The problem very much isn't that we've become unwilling to call these things mental illness! I say that neither should be classified as mental illness. Gender reassignment should be classified as elective plastic surgery, not treatment for an illness. This is what a principled stance for personal autonomy should yield, and cuts through all the bullshitting about suicide risks.
The model of transsexuals is exactly that. It’s medical, social and even political accommodation to a reality that exists only in a person’s brain. There is nothing physical about being a transsexual. If no biological or social intervention happens, a trans woman will develop into a man from the baby boy he was born as. A trans abled person is in exactly that position of wanting society and especially the medical establishment to not only accept them, but work to make the vision of themselves a reality in the real world.
My question is with so many of these issues — where and how do you stop the creeping of the concept into more related concepts? If we accept transgender, and force everyone to play along and force doctors to do surgery and insurance companies to cover it, why not trans-canines who want a tail, why not the trans-abled who want the doctor to cut off their legs? Why not allow for transracial people to live as their desired race?
I think a good working model of mental illness must naturally include deviation from observed reality, and the best option for treatment shouter accepting the reality that exists. I am not a Korean in a white American body. I can have all the surgery and act as Korean as I want. I’m still not Korean. And if I persist in that delusion then the problem lies between my ears, not with the reality that made me German American.
Why not indeed? I don't think you understood my position, which is happy with neither the mainstream trans or anti-trans positions. I'm a transhumanist, I have libertarian leanings on at least this particular issue, and I do in fact consider it a grown man's right to get an artificial tail if he wants, just as much as artificial breasts or a nose piercing. Or some sort of melanin injection that changes your skin color, if it existed. Bodily autonomy means bodily autonomy. I fully bite that bullet.
However, treating all these things as personal desires should also logically mean that we stop medicalizing them. I think it's disingenuous of the trans movement that they simultaneously go for the bodily-autonomy line, which I respect, and want to keep "gender dysphoria" classified as a mental illness. You really can't have both. Wanting-sex-reassigment-surgery should not be classified as a mental illness any more than wanting-a-tattoo-really-bad. (You could certainly find biological women with self-image issues who were suicidal before getting cosmetic plastic surgery, but that doesn't make the surgery a medical intervention then, just an expense she has decided on of her own free will in pursuit of her happiness. We shouldn't treat the matter any differently if it's a biological man who elects to get the same procedure.)
There is, of course, a separate conversation about whether someone who makes himself disabled on purpose should get the same unemployment benefits etc. as someone who lost an arm by accident. But if a millionaire wants to cripple himself at his own expense, and can demonstrate that he's making that choice of his own free will after careful consideration, rather than in a fit of psychosis - then I don't see why that should be a crime. Hella weird, but it's not my business.
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