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I said two months ago I would reply to a comment about this study on the mental health effects of gender transition. I have only now managed to find the time, so I'm going to post my reply as a top-level comment lest it get buried. You can find the previous discussion here.
To be honest, some of the statistical manipulation seems dubious, but that's above my pay grade, so I'm going to assume the study was conducted in good faith with no shenanigans.
In short, the study finds that, contrary to assumptions that transitioning should improve mental health, the share of people needing mental health treatment rises drastically after transition. Anti-trans people conclude that this means transition actually worsens mental health, and, hence, people should not be allowed to transition.
There's some nitpicking to be done here, for example, maybe the patients already needed mental health treatment and just found out they needed it at the same time as they found out they're transgender, or that just seeing a mental health professional regularly doesn't necessarily mean that your mental health is worse than it used to be.
But my fundamental objection is to the conclusion that no one should be allowed to transition. Suppose the anti-trans side is completely correct on the facts, that transitioning did, in fact, directly worsen the mental health of many or even most patients. There are still some patients who are better off. There are countless anecdotal reports online of people who are happier after transitioning. The most you can conclude is that the criteria for who should transition need to be changed. (If I'm interpreting the data right, the likelihood of needing mental health treatment after transitioning was higher in those born later, consistent with the rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD)/social contagion hypothesis.) But if you care about people's happiness, some people should still be supported in transitioning.
Obviously if you believe all trans people are delusional and object to transition and treating people as their stated gender regardless of the effect on their mental health, this does not apply to you. But in that case the study isn't an argument you can use.
Speaking of ROGD, its rhetorical use by anti-trans people is a peculiar example of a self-contradictory motte-and-bailey: usually the bailey is a stronger version of the motte, and thus necessarily consistent with it, but here the bailey ("all trans people are delusional and none of them are their stated gender") contradicts the motte ("some trans people with a specific presentation – primarily adolescent girls – are not actually their stated gender") because the latter presupposes that some trans people are, in fact, their stated gender. If you believe all trans people are delusional, why do you care about the specific etiology of the transness of a specific subgroup of trans people? The treatment, whichever you prefer, should be the same.
I consider myself pro-trans, but I believe ROGD/social contagion may well be a real thing. If you agree about the possibility of social contagion, you should try to minimize the attention trans people receive, yet anti-trans activists have been the main publicists of transness for about a decade now – trans people really entered the mainstream with the North Carolina "bathroom bill". It used to be that you would only find information about transness if you went looking for it because you were questioning your gender, but now that trans people are everywhere (thanks to anti-trans activists), you get impressionable young people who were not predisposed to questioning their gender hearing about it and joining in for the standard reasons impressionable young people join trends. (Cf. media coverage of school shootings encouraging more school shootings – a common argument among anti-gun-control people.)
I highly doubt you're arguing in good faith here.
Not sure who you're talking to, but that isn't the modal "anti-trans" view, and I doubt anyone has that strawman view on this forum. Sure, many trans people are delusional (the ones who merely declare they want to be treated as the other sex aren't, but the modern line that they are and always have been another sex is just obviously false). But adults are free to pursue happiness in their own way, including transitioning, and it's no big deal for me to be polite and play along with their preferences most of the time.
I suspect you know that most people's main objection is to forcing the rest of society to play along. That includes:
This is a hilariously absurd take. You're just shit-stirring.
Where does that happen? Let's look at Wikipedia specifically. The articles for Caitlyn Jenner and Elliot Page have their former names right there in the first sentence. I think a lower-profile trans person who wasn't notable before transitioning might have their name excluded, maybe because there are no reliable sources available stating their former name, maybe as a courtesy, since it is of no interest to the public anyway. The same courtesy was unfortunately not extended to Scott Alexander, but it is extended to, for example, the streamer Jerma985 whose real name you won't find anywhere in his article. It formerly contained a fake real name, which he presents as his real name, presumably to protect his privacy, but even that has now been removed.
Has anyone ever lost their job because they didn't use the right pronouns? If they did this consistently, especially if they did it to customers, it could be seen as disrespectful, akin to calling their coworkers or customers names, which is a valid reason to lose a job.
Has anyone ever gone to jail because of pronouns? As far as I can tell, that is just a fantasy of Jordan Peterson's.
Has that ever happened?
If you look carefully, you'll notice that all they've done is change the terms to "AMAB" and "AFAB", respectively. Having these categories is, in fact, necessary, and even trans activists can't get away from them. All they can do is be politically correct.
If that's your concern, talk about that instead of claiming that all trans people are perverts, rapists, misogynists, etc., and none of them should be treated as their preferred gender. FWIW, I agree these concerns are valid.
So, I hate to do this because (unlike @rae) I just think you're just being disingenuous, but this should be a place where people admit fault. This is a simple, verifiable fact, and you're right and I was wrong. I overreached when talking about "deadnaming". The leftist spaces I'm in still treat it as akin to putting people in ovens, but it looks like Wikipedia does actually acknowledge that a person called Ellen Page existed once. It's very very VERY grudging - if you visit the pages for any movies Ellen Page was in, her credit is buried at the literal bottom of each one in a tiny note. (It's almost comedic, frankly.) For Juno, her breakout film, the note literally just reads "credited as Ellen Page", as if the producers typoed her name. But the text does exist. And describing reality, however shoddily and unwillingly, is still better than I gave them credit for. Mea culpa.
Where the hell did THAT come from?
Mainstream anti-trans rhetoric. Not you specifically.
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