site banner
PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27153 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The gender ideology movement sort of feels out of the news cycle where I live, but remains very top of mind for me.

As I see it, the whole umbrella is actually multiple, almost unrelated strands, queerying category activists, social engineering progressives, AGPs, internet cults, all underpinned by unthinking legal activism and of course corporate profiteering. Did I mention an overtly political and enabling media environment bereft of any journalistic values?

I am fascinated by all these things but mainly I want to talk about the social mania aspect. I'm very interested in how smart people, who would inevitably class themselves as above-average in rationality and morality, are able to brush off child-safeguarding concerns, discarding the previous medical ethics consensus (first do no harm, evidence based medicine) in favour of ideas that barely existed even 15-20 years ago.

I have been looking into previous social manias such as the satanic panic and the child care workers given wrongful convictions and it's shocking how difficult it is to reverse the tide of mania once it's begun. Parents, police, the justice system, and media all fall into lockstep and condemn innocent people to terrible fates they and their families bear in almost total isolation, with only a few supporters able to parse the information in front of them and figure out what is going on.

I mean this is just human behaviour - we make movies about the Salem witch trials, we are modern people and have access to perspectives of humans across evolutionary time. Is it really true that people still don't know who we are, how we behave in herds?

I understand apathy, I understand things moving out of the news cycles, but I can't understand how people can maintain a neutral view on unnecessary surgeries on minors. When institutions such as medical bodies fail in their basic safeguarding responsibilities, suppressing dissent within their ranks, it is not hard to work out what is going on. How many manias does history need to present before people learn what we are?

A failure of courage I understand in any given context but the neutral middle doesn't even seem curious in private.

Can anybody enlighten me why people aren't more curious, why they're happy for children to be groomed into lifelong medicalisation, with their life choices pre-emptively narrowed before they even understand what consent means? The true-believers I understand, it's supposedly smart, moral people that aren't engaged that I'm confused about. Are they secretly true believers but just don't want to say?

Plain old cognitive dissonance?

They don't agree with any of how you've characterized what is actually happening, basically.

I think a lot of book-smart millennials were socialized into a culture that pattern-matches anything Republican/Fox News/"homophobic" as morally bad and scientifically wrong. The big battle they witnessed was that of gay rights, where the people who not on board with gay rights in the early 2000s were, in the eyes of the culture, proven to be morally in the wrong. So the instinct is that the LGBQT/NPR team is the good guys, and the trad Christian conservatives the anti-science bad guys. This generation was also raised in a culture (epitomized Jon Stewart) where you didn't carefully examine both sides of the debate, one side was good, and the other side only deserves mocking and derision.

I agree. I sometimes wonder what Jon Stewart from this era would say about what's become, and if he still would think he's so innocent because "the show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls". Back then, the Right really did seem to be the people who didn't carefully examine both sides of the debate, and the Left were the side that did. Now both sides seem to not carefully examine anything.

Back then, the Right really did seem to be the people who didn't carefully examine both sides of the debate

Maybe the strawman of the Right that was allowed to be shown on TV. From the Right wing community I was in at the time, it was more "not this shit again" since it was seen as just the latest manifestation of age old, fundamental disagreements about humanity and human nature. "Okay but how about just a little bit of <insert horrible moral offense here>" doesn't merit much examination.

I'm not entirely certainly this post is just straight up trolling giving how far I had to read into it before it being clear whether you were pro- or anti-trans.

What are you going on about? Gender-affirming surgeries on trans minors are exceedingly rare (that data does show a small upward trend, even controlling for population). That data gives under 30/year genital surgeries and under 300/year top surgeries on a population of about 40 million children. In comparison, gender-affirming surgeries on cis minors are about 20 times more common.

I'm not sure why any children are getting cosmetic surgeries; that seems like it's probably best left age-gated to adults. But they're rare enough that it sounds to me more like there's a handful a weird special cases, not that there's an epidemic of unnecessary harmful surgeries.

I think describing breast reductions as "gender-affirming surgeries for cis minors" is a bit misleading. This procedure is sometimes medically indicated rather than elective, as in this case of a teenage girl whose breasts were so large and developed so quickly that it caused permanent deformation to her spine.

What are you going on about? Gender-affirming surgeries on trans minors are exceedingly rare (that data does show a small upward trend, even controlling for population). That data gives under 30/year genital surgeries and under 300/year top surgeries on a population of about 40 million children.

Well first it is worth pointing out, that trans activists started off by saying they don't happen at all. That all is ever done to kinors is reversible puberty blockers. As it turns out puberty blockers are not reversible, and surgeries do happen. Trans activists should not be allowed to move the goalposts to "they're rare though".

And like I said in the another comments, the numbers blow the Tuskagee experiments out of the water. Can you link to yourself making a similar argument about them, before we give this any more credence?

The original question was "why do neutral people not care?" not "is it good or bad". I think it is right to say that people do not care as it happens only to a small number of children, and also that it doesn't happen to children without their parent's consent. Which means that it may happen to children, but not to those of neutral people. That is why they don't care.

The original question was "why do neutral people not care?" not "is it good or bad.

The original question was more "how can people be neutral". Not caring was taken out of the scope of the question when he said "I can understand apathy".

In some ways trans, at least in adults, is peripheral - an increasing number of trans, or for that matter lesbian, gays, intersex people share the feeling something is awry.

Rareness doesn't exonerate wrongness. And the enabling environment and other ideas (pregnant people, pride months for LGBT though actually mainly T these days) are ubiquitous, or haven't you noticed?

What's the number of kids who are put on puberty blocking or cross-sex hormones?

In comparison, gender-affirming surgeries on cis minors are about 20 times more common.

Do these surgeries prevent the child from ever becoming a breast-feeding mother?

What's the number of kids who are put on puberty blocking or cross-sex hormones?

Those numbers were also in the article I linked: about 3.5 in 10 000 or 0.035% which is also about a tenth of the diagnoses of gender dysphoria. Looking more closely, according to that data, hormones are about four times more common than puberty blockers, which surprised me as I'd expect the relative prevalence to be reversed. Which I think shows that I'm not very familiar with medical interventions for gender dysphoria.

Do these surgeries prevent the child from ever becoming a breast-feeding mother?

A quick web search found articles like this one suggesting breast reduction very frequently (the author quoted their surgeon as giving them 50/50 odds; in my quick search I haven't found better numbers) prevents breastfeeding. The article I linked explicitly says "mastectomies" under the top surgery section although I know trans adults who have chosen breast reduction instead of mastectomy for their top surgery specifically with the goal of being able to breastfeed. (The internet also suggests breast augmentation rarely impacts breastfeeding, but usually only a short-term impact, so probably not relevant here.) In other words, around 10 times as many cis children as trans children will find themselves unable to breastfeed later in life due to gender affirming surgeries... but both numbers are pretty small.

Calling mastectomies for cancer treatment "gender-affirming surgery" so you can lump them in with cosmetic surgery goes so far beyond disingenuous that I'm actually shocked you're trying it.

None of my sources mentioned cancer. You just made that up. The only "mastectomies" mentioned were gender-affirming care for trans teenagers. They were being compared to breast reductions for cis teenagers and adults for the purpose of appearance and/or back pain.

And, @Gdanning, while I appreciate your attempt to defend me, you accepted @Tyre_Inflator's completely made-up attack on my argument as a given.

That is not remotely what @token_progressive is doing. Rather, s/he is using evidence from mastectomies for cancer treatment to cast light on the likely outcome of similar surgery performed for gender reassignment purposes.

What it is is unfortunately ambiguous punctuation…

In other words, around 10 times as many cis children as trans children will find themselves unable to breastfeed later in life due to gender affirming surgeries

pro- or anti-trans

I think framing the debate like this is unproductive. It's turning it into a meaningless argument in the Scott sense of the term.

Personally, I'm very happy it's out of the news cycle. I think the mania goes both ways and it's incredible how much both the left and right have completely blown out of proportion this private medical issue that affects a small amount of people, and I believe the ideological obsession over it (including from the left) does more harm than good.

I'll preface this by saying that I'm transgender, and I had dysphoria since I was a child myself, but I am a bit of an old-fashioned "truscum" as I don't really fully subscribe to the mainstream leftist trans views. I do know some people in the "neutral middle" - most of my more right-wing friends are opposed to the excesses of the trans movement, but otherwise either don't care or just passively go with the medical consensus.

Can anybody enlighten me why people aren't more curious, why they're happy for children to be groomed into lifelong medicalisation, with their life choices pre-emptively narrowed before they even understand what consent means? The true-believers I understand, it's supposedly smart, moral people that aren't engaged that I'm confused about.

Lifelong medicalisation happens anyway no matter when you transition, but if you do it as an adult, it's much worse. You have to pay huge sums of money (tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars) for very painful, potentially risky surgery - for MtFs, facial feminisation surgery - which is literally slicing your face open, shaving your bones with a saw, and stitching it back up - tracheal shave, voice feminisation surgery, hairline reduction, and some more. All of this you do if you want to pass as a normal member of the opposite sex instead of a freak that's the butt of jokes.

Meanwhile if you transition around the start of puberty, you don't have to do any of these surgeries - you'll go through the rest of your life as a normal-looking member of the opposite sex, and won't have to go through the trauma of watching your body turn into something that gives you psychological pain every day. There's only one surgery you might have to do and that's sex reassignment surgery, and there I don't have any issue with not allowing minors to go through it.

You know what pre-emptively narrows your life choices before you understand what consent means? Good old fashioned puberty. If given the option between a natural puberty that tortures you psychologically has you spend significant amount of effort and money trying to undo its consequences, and a different medically induced one that does not, what is the justification in going with the first one, apart from the naturalistic fallacy?

Now there is a risk of regret - catching teenagers that think they're transgender but later desist. This is where I'm against the leftist discourse glorifying the state of being transgender - you want to make it clear that it's an unpleasant, undesirable medical condition. From what I've seen, the rate of detransition is fairly low; say it was theoretically 10% (it is much lower than that from what I've read), why is preventing the regret of that 10% more important than preventing the regret of that 90% from not going through transition early?

I think that truscum, while I prefer it to transtrender (trans as a human right/existential lifestyle choice), still just begs the question of whether that is the best way to treat dysphoria. Ive noticed its being talked about less in any case these days with a preference for trans rights or existential transcendence narratives.

The low regret rates apply to a different cohort, being studies on older adults, mainly MtF and we don't know the rates for the recent so-called ROGD cohort. We know from one study that most of those with gender dysphoria who do not transition, desist from having dysphoria, with most of those turning out to be gay and in a recent study it was found that 30% of those prescribed hormones were found to have stopped them within 4 years.

Clearly we don't know enough to identify 'true trans', or 'true truscum' and given that early treatment with puberty blockers followed by hormones will result in infertility we have a high ethical bar, even for research. We know rates of mental illness are increasing rapidly in this cohort also and that there is frequently overlap with other conditions such as autism, OCD, anorexia/eating disorders, self harm, generalised anxiety etc.

I don't see why dysphoria is able to claim special status when it may only be a component of the actual condition the individual is caught in. Autism could easily involve a distorted self concept at its root, as well as a fastidious compulsiveness, and gender dysphoria be just the culture-bound manifestation of this for autistic people. Similarly we could think of the desire to be something different as resulting from some underlying OCD mechanism, with the gender content available to be the focus.

As I've said before, the rationale you raise for younger transition, indicates already that attempts to appear as the opposite sex are not necessarily effective in resolving dysphoria, especially when there are any cosmetic concerns. We don't know if some degree of persistent dysphoria, or dis-ease might be apparent in later in life, even for good-passers.

After all there is something existentially fragile about the reliance on passing in the first instance and I would speculate a fear perhaps of not being authentic could always be a risk.

As I've said before, this wish for young transition starts to fall into a transhumanism paradigm, as you acknowledge with your queering of the normative of puberty in human development. It's obviously better to treat somebody while causing the least harm. This is a normative claim we could all agree on surely. The big question beg is what's to say there won't be better treatments that don't involve risks to fertility or altering body parts? Lobotomy was also justified on their being no good alternative but then they discovered antidepressants/anti-psychotics.

The transhumanist desire for transcendence through technology along with anti-natalism is part of the broader frame of understanding the culture bound syndrome we are seeing expressed. We need to understand the cultural level if we are to remedy peoples distress in this regard as it's more and more apparent to me we are all stuck in a lack of meaning.

I'll preface this by saying that I'm transgender, and I had dysphoria since I was a child myself, but I am a bit of an old-fashioned "truscum" as I don't really fully subscribe to the mainstream leftist trans views. I do know some people in the "neutral middle" - most of my more right-wing friends are opposed to the excesses of the trans movement, but otherwise either don't care or just passively go with the medical consensus.

Do you think there is such a thing as 'non-binary'? Is there something meaningful and connected to your experience of dysphoria in neo-pronouns?

I don’t understand or see the point of neo-pronouns. If anything I’d prefer if there were no gendered pronouns at all in English, like in Hungarian or Turkish.

Non-binary can have multiple meanings. It could mean having dysphoria, but not enough to make you want to fully transition - plenty of butch lesbians are like that. It could mean preferring an androgynous presentation and not being comfortable with being/looking completely male or female. Some straight people also adopt the label to be trendy.

What about in the more literal sense of being not male gendered or female gendered?

Meanwhile if you transition around the start of puberty, you don't have to do any of these surgeries - you'll go through the rest of your life as a normal-looking member of the opposite sex

I wonder about that. I think for 'delicate' or girly-looking boys, sure, you'll come out the other end of blocked puberty and then going on to female hormones as passing very well. But for boys who are chunkier or more 'masculine' in facial bone structure?

Other way round for girls, too; tall, heavier girls will make more convincing men, while the petite types are going to look like short, not very muscular, men.

But I don't know if anybody has done studies on "appearance prior to beginning, and after completing, course of puberty blockers in minors". I suppose I'd be inclined to think that part of dysphoria around appearance could well be involved with "I don't look like I should; I'm too girly for a boy/I'm too big for a girl" and that feeds into the trans part. Whether that's right or wrong, I don't know.

The list of surgeries is sobering, but unless you really, really, really want to pass as an ideal of 'the opposite sex' maybe you don't need all of them. Isn't that the caricature of the anime girl transgender female? Cis women can have big hands or strong jaws or deeper voices or sturdy builds or even thinning hairlines as they get older (especially post-menopause).

I do think that's part of the contention between cis women and trans women; that some (not all!) trans women have this idealised view of the perfect girlhood and how the 'real girl' should look, act and dress, and cis women are saying "that's not how it happens for a lot of us in real life". That the idealised perfect femininity of transgender aspiration is a collection of stereotypes that feminism has been working hard to dismantle for decades, and now we're bloody well back at "pink is for girls, blue is for boys; sugar and spice and all things nice".

If puberty blockers really are 'easily reversible, no side-effects' then maybe. Maybe. No harm to put someone on them for two to four years then they're old enough at the end to be sure that they really are trans - or not. But that's another thing I wonder about. What does that gap in development do? We mostly know puberty blockers from use in stopping premature puberty. I can't help feeling that there's a difference between "stop puberty happening at six, let it happen at eleven or twelve as it normally would have done" and "stop puberty happening at eleven or twelve, go through natal puberty or trans puberty at sixteen".

Meanwhile if you transition around the start of puberty, you don't have to do any of these surgeries - you'll go through the rest of your life as a normal-looking member of the opposite sex, and won't have to go through the trauma of watching your body turn into something that gives you psychological pain every day. There's only one surgery you might have to do and that's sex reassignment surgery, and there I don't have any issue with not allowing minors to go through it.

Jazz Jennings seems to be going through plenty of psychological pain.

This not an honest presentation of the pros and cons of early transition. You are listing out the possible pros of early transition while forgetting the massive, elephant-in-the-room con: the child will likely be sterilized, they will likely never be able to have their own biological children, and may never have any proper sexual function or ability to orgasm. Again, see Jazz Jennings. No child is prepared to make that decision, no adult should be making that decision for a child.

On the other hand, you have people like Kim Petras, Hunter Schafer, Valentina Sampaio, etc., young transitioners who seems to be mostly ignored by the right. I also know some trans women that transitioned early-ish (~14) and they have no regrets or sexual dysfunction. If you're trans, you're very unlikely to care about being sterilised or not having biological children the "natural" way anyhow.

If you're trans, you're very unlikely to care about being sterilised or not having biological children the "natural" way anyhow.

I think we have to differentiate between the normal trans people who just want to put their heads down and live their lives, and the more extreme Live My Life Online types.

The latter very much do care about having biological children, or children related to them, and the 'natural' way of raising them. A current minor scuffle over breastfeeding/chestfeeding: can trans women breast feed? Of course we can, says one side, and it's just as good as cis woman breast milk.

Then why has language had this turn towards terms like "birthing parent" and why do we have a "pregnant man" emoji? I'm not being flippant: enough people cared enough to try and change common language and/or shove a new pictograph onto everyone's touch keyboards.

Some trans men don’t get dysphoric when it comes to pregnancy, or just want a biological child badly enough that they go through it anyway. Medical professionals should be aware of the fact that a person that looks like a man could be pregnant, as it’s a medical reality.

With regards to the emoji, current standard practice is to have a non-gendered, female and male version for every emoji. Given that pregnant trans men and non-binary people exist, why not be inclusive follow the standard? Although they did deviate from the usual, which is to make the default emoji non-gendered and have the gender be a modifier, for backward compatibility reasons.

Why are you pretending all of this is apolitical? Replacing the term mother with birthing parent might be appropriate in approximately 0.001% of pregnancies, but it is not helpful in any of the others. But it's the "Current standard practice" bit that is grinding my gears, because it was a direct result of queer lobbying. The concept of gendered emoji didn't even exist prior to 2017, the spy emoji wasn't a spy guy, it was just a spy, the runner emoji was just a runner. That was the standard practice in 2015, if current standard practice was a good enough justification we shouldn't have added any emoji whatsoever. But now it's something you like, so 'it's current standard practice!' is now good enough.

The concept of gendered emoji didn't even exist prior to 2017,

Emoji used to be universal symbols, a yellow circle with two dots and a line, representing every human, no matter their sex or race. But people invested in how they look said that every emotion is actually fifteen different ones (5 races, man, woman and neutral) and that emoji should reflect that. So now instead being beacons of unity of mankind, they veing marks of petty division.

It is ironic that a people so often accused of being nationalistic and gender conformative saw all human as having the same emotions, while the alleged anti-nationalists and feminists desired specificity.

Lifelong medicalisation happens anyway no matter when you transition, but if you do it as an adult, it's much worse. You have to pay huge sums of money (tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars) for very painful, potentially risky surgery - for MtFs, facial feminisation surgery - which is literally slicing your face open, shaving your bones with a saw, and stitching it back up - tracheal shave, voice feminisation surgery, hairline reduction, and some more. All of this you do if you want to pass as a normal member of the opposite sex instead of a freak that's the butt of jokes.

My understanding, is that the state of the art research on the topic, before the mania, was that the vast majority of gender dysphoric individuals ceased being dysphoric with the completion of puberty. Upwards of 90%. Part of the diagnostic criteria in fact demanded you wait, to make sure the dysphoria persisted, before you began throwing medical interventions at it. Because "do no harm" still reigned.

The current state of the art is that the 90% that would have had their dysphoria resolved, and required no medicalization, must now be medicalized before puberty to make the transition of the 10% who's dysphoria wouldn't have resolve easier.

In other words, 90% of kids with transient gender dysphoria are being irreparably harmed for the benefit of the 10% with permanent dysphoria.

I get that if you have permanent dysphoria, this sucks. It might seem unfair. I don't care. I value the 9 other kids that would have grown up to be gender nonconforming and/or gay adults with intact bodies over you.

Even so, if that was as far as it went, I wouldn't be half as hopping mad as I am. What has me incandescently furious are the local school districts around me pushing pornography on children, and fighting tooth and nail to transition children in secret. And I'm especially livid at gender ideology being pushed as early as Kindergarten. This article, framing it as if it's a good thing:

In his kindergarten classroom, one teacher in western Massachusetts using “Rights, Respect, Responsibility” introduces the idea of gender as part of an exploration of identity. He explains that people use all sorts of pronouns: he, she, they, ze. He introduces the terms transgender and gender queer but doesn’t fully define them because that is too much for kindergartners, said the teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because his district did not authorize him to speak publicly.

He talks to students about anatomy but declines to classify various body parts as male or female. “We don’t say a penis belongs to a man,” he said. It belongs to a human, he explains.

All I see is institutions, starting as soon as kids are verbal, amplifying neurosis around puberty, nurturing them relentlessly, and then medicalizing the children that they've brainwashed behind their parents back. As such, we're not letting our kid anywhere near those institutions.

You have to pay huge sums of money (tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars) for very painful, potentially risky surgery - for MtFs, facial feminisation surgery - which is literally slicing your face open, shaving your bones with a saw, and stitching it back up - tracheal shave, voice feminisation surgery, hairline reduction, and some more. All of this you do if you want to pass as a normal member of the opposite sex instead of a freak that's the butt of jokes.

But how does anything like this make one a woman? I don't think women need to shave their bones etc to be 'women'.

Wouldn't it be easier to address the underlying psychological issues?

Allegedly, meditation and other buddhist practices aim to free one from their every desire, wouldn't such practices help liberate one from the desires of having shorter bones, higher voice, etc?

Alternatively, there are great advances in technology every day. If at the crux the issue is of self-perception, couldn't some version of virtual glasses help with that? AI software miniaturized in smart glasses + headphones could potentially overlay corrected audio-visual information in real-time. That way the patient would have the impression of a body matching their idealization of it, and in every social interaction, correct the pronouns, intonations, and speech content to avoid any misgendering distress.

One could even envision a program that gradually reduces the level of correction if the patient's condition somehow improves. Something that could be very finely-tuned.

But how does anything like this make one a woman? I don't think women need to shave their bones etc to be 'women'.

If it is successful, it makes other people perceive you like a woman, which is one of the goals.

Wouldn't it be easier to address the underlying psychological issues? Allegedly, meditation and other buddhist practices aim to free one from their every desire, wouldn't such practices help liberate one from the desires of having shorter bones, higher voice, etc?

It's not purely a psychological issue. A large number of trans people have underlying hormonal issues - in FtMs, PCOS and congenital adrenal hyperplasia are very common, and there's growing evidence that a number of mutations and physical conditions are associated with it. The controversial trans health practitioner Dr Powers found he could treat gender dysphoria in natal females by administrating them anti-androgens, if it is done early enough. Otherwise, trans people report better functioning and mental health on cross-sex hormones even if they change nothing else.

Meditation and Buddhist practice help you come to peace with what you can't change, sure. But why accept suffering when you can change it? Transition might not be able to give me all of the changes I want, but I am exceptionally grateful for all the changes it did.

Alternatively, there are great advances in technology every day. If at the crux the issue is of self-perception, couldn't some version of virtual glasses help with that? AI software miniaturized in smart glasses + headphones could potentially overlay corrected audio-visual information in real-time. That way the patient would have the impression of a body matching their idealization of it, and in every social interaction, correct the pronouns, intonations, and speech content to avoid any misgendering distress.

The audio-visual self-perception is only a small part of it. This sound similar in effect to giving amputees a headset that superimposes a CGI limb on top of their prosthesis - it can help a little, sure, but it does nothing for touch and proprioception, actual functionality. Others will still see an amputee, plus you'll be acutely aware that you're living a lie - in addition to having to occasionally take off the glasses.

If it is successful, it makes other people perceive you like a woman, which is one of the goals.

What kind of medical treatment has other people than the patient as targets?

It's not purely a psychological issue. A large number of trans people have underlying hormonal issues - in FtMs, PCOS and congenital adrenal hyperplasia are very common, and there's growing evidence that a number of mutations and physical conditions are associated with it.

You seem to believe PCOS to be a symptom of gender dysphoria while it could very well be that gender dysphoria is a symptom of PCOS, or a symptom of another underlying cause causing both dysphoria and PCOS.

Otherwise, trans people report better functioning and mental health on cross-sex hormones even if they change nothing else.

Source? They gave placebo hormones to transists and they compared results to transists with the real deal?

Meditation and Buddhist practice help you come to peace with what you can't change, sure.

No, I think there is a certain component of it that has to do with examining your own desires and then being able to interact with them, and change them.

Using these tools, the mindfulness-based therapist teaches a client to be in the here and now as well as break away from negative thought patterns that can cause a decline into a mood-disordered state; this therapy can help a person fight off a difficult frame of mind before it takes hold.

It is possible to learn how to break away from negative thought patterns (for example: this part of my body is male and I need to see a surgeon, instead of: I love how male this part of my body is!)

It seems to me that you are not your gender dysphoria. If you are a person who is bad at math, then you can study hard and get a to a certain skill level where you can be confident solving some math problems.

It appears to me that if you are a person who is bad at seeing herself in her birth sex, then this is something they can practice and grow more confident in, instead of lobbing off body parts and playing with disguises for their whole life.

This sound similar in effect to giving amputees a headset that superimposes a CGI limb on top of their prosthesis - it can help a little, sure, but it does nothing for touch and proprioception, actual functionality.

What would that even look like? How would you know what the opposite sex proprioception feels like? Even if you took cross-sex hormones and then felt that your skin feels different, how would you know that this is the same feeling that somebody of the other sex feels?

Others will still see an amputee, plus you'll be acutely aware that you're living a lie - in addition to having to occasionally take off the glasses.

I don't see in which version of 'gender-affirming therapy' you would not be aware that you had your bones shaved etc.

in addition to having to occasionally take off the glasses.

They could be surgically-implanted as well.

What kind of medical treatment has other people than the patient as targets?

I don't entirely agree with @rae but you must recognise this is a very facile argument. If someone was in a car accident which permanently changed their facial appearance, surely we'd all understand how upsetting it is for that person when children recoil from them in fear and strangers can't bring themselves to look them in the eye. Cosmetic surgery to repair their face would be strictly "elective" but who could deny the improvement to their quality of life it would bring?

that person when children recoil from them in fear and strangers can't bring themselves to look them in the eye.

Ironic to make this argument on a thread about transgenderism, the promotion of which is in my opinion increasing the number of people out there with a serious deal of uncanny valley-face. Let's promote burn victim-acceptance and perhaps road safety awareness instead of telling victims to go get their face remade by a neo-butcher.

If it happened to me I'd become a masked vigilante who executes drunk drivers in cold blood or something.

If it happened to me I'd become a masked vigilante who executes drunk drivers in cold blood or something.

If you're going to be facetious, you could at least try to be facetious in a way that's actually amusing.

What kind of medical treatment has other people than the patient as targets?

Any cosmetic surgery to correct a deformed but otherwise functional appearance?

You seem to believe PCOS to be a symptom of gender dysphoria while it could very well be that gender dysphoria is a symptom of PCOS, or a symptom of another underlying cause causing both dysphoria and PCOS.

I only said trans people often have those conditions, I didn't say anything about the causal chain. I agree that gender dysphoria could be a symptom of PCOS or another disorder. How else would treating the patient with antiandrogens work? If you read the post, the FtM patients had elevated testosterone levels, took medication to reduce those levels, and the gender dysphoria went away.

Source? They gave placebo hormones to transists and they compared results to transists with the real deal?

That's hard to do since hormones have obvious physical changes and you could tell easily you're in the placebo group. This is unfortunately only self reports from people that transition medically, but not socially (including some of the famous "detransitioners" on conservative media - a few said they detransitioned but admitted to still being on HRT).

It is possible to learn how to break away from negative thought patterns (for example: this part of my body is male and I need to see a surgeon, instead of: I love how male this part of my body is!)

It seems to me that you are not your gender dysphoria. If you are a person who is bad at math, then you can study hard and get a to a certain skill level where you can be confident solving some math problems.

It appears to me that if you are a person who is bad at seeing herself in her birth sex, then this is something they can practice and grow more confident in, instead of lobbing off body parts and playing with disguises for their whole life.

I tried this, I tried seeing a therapist, I tried living as a gay male. I tried everything I could not to transition because I disagreed with the leftist trans movement, for many many years. Yet a few months after I started HRT, my quality of life hugely improved, and I finally had a decent dating life. If anything, refusing to accept that I was trans and telling people I was a gay male - that was the lie.

You're telling me I should stop HRT and go back to that state of suffering - what for? I already did break away from a huge amount of the negative thought patterns, compared to before, and I have no desire to go back.

What would that even look like? How would you know what the opposite sex proprioception feels like? Even if you took cross-sex hormones and then feel that your skin feels different, how would you know that this is the same feeling that somebody of the other sex feels?

Sexual secondary characteristics are a thing - trans women have differently distributed body fat, develop breasts, softer skin (others have confirmed this), trans men get hairier, develop deeper voices, larger muscles and grow a small sort-of micropenis. Spatial and verbal abilities also change following HRT (this is where the infamous brain scan study of transwomen comes from). Proprioception in terms of those characteristics is real - I don't care that this is the same feeling that someone of the other sex has or not, it's different from the feeling I had before and externally matches the opposite sex, and that's good enough for me.

I don't see in which version of 'gender-affirming therapy' you would not be aware that you had your bones shaved etc.

The point is that other people see it too. A more interesting point would be, what if everyone wore these glasses and could alter how others saw them? Cosmetic surgery would be pointless in those circumstances, that I agree with.

They could be surgically-implanted as well.

The glasses wouldn't change how others treated me beyond the superficial - which pronouns and intonations absolutely are.

Rae: I'm glad that things worked out well for you, and I think that most people would be best served by treating transition more or less as you had: a last resort. I see it as a largely irreversible and major medical intervention that should be seen the same way we see things like spine surgery for herniated discs, or elective amputation, or other big, irreversible medical procedures. I'll also chime in as someone who's had mild to moderate gender dysphoria for a decade or more - from 9 or so till 19 - and decided against medical intervention: there's a spectrum of gender dysphoria or transness, and you're unfortunately at the far end of it. I wish medical science was better, to be honest.

Thanks!! The only thing I’d disagree with is that transition isn’t necessarily an irreversible all-or-nothing process. You can start by changing your presentation to something more feminine or masculine, transition socially, and even HRT is a very gradual process that leaves you with multiple months to decide and for MtF patients there’s one irreversible change and that’s breast growth, but they’ll rarely grow big enough that they would require double incision mastectomy should you detransition. FtM patients will get voice deepening, male pattern baldness, facial hair growth (although laser hair removal isn’t a big deal), and bottom growth, but it’s much easier for FtMs to socially transition than MtFs without hormones.

What made the gender dysphoria go away for you if I may ask? I was able to repress it for a while after adolescence, but it came back with a vengeance once the infamous “twink death” hit.

grow a small sort-of micropenis

Nope, that's the effect of testosterone on the clitoris. That's because both the clitoris and the penis develop, during gestation, from the same tissue:

The male and female human fetal external genitalia start out at the indifferent stage (8–9 weeks’ gestation) and grow differentially into a penis or clitoris, which are fully formed by 17–18 weeks gestation (wholemount ontogeny to 16-weeks gestation).

A micropenis is a different thing:

Micropenis is a medical term for a small but normally structured penis. Hormonal or genetic factors can cause this condition. Healthcare providers often note the condition during the newborn to early childhood period.

As long as no other health concerns are present, a micropenis can function normally. People with micropenis are still able to urinate (pee) and have erections.

To get a 'neo-penis' you need surgery.

Spatial and verbal abilities also change following HRT (this is where the infamous brain scan study of transwomen comes from).

There seems to be a lot of fascinating biology at work here:

In a new study published in Psychoneuroendocrinology, treatment of transgender individuals with cross-sex hormones is shown to result in changes in subcortical brain areas related to memory and emotion.

...After the treatment period, oestradiol levels were increased in MtF individuals, whereas levels of testosterone and progesterone were decreased. Conversely, in FtM individuals, levels of oestradiol and progesterone were decreased, whereas testosterone levels increased markedly. Analysis of brain structures revealed volume changes predominantly in MtF individuals, particularly in the hippocampus — a region involved in neurogenesis and neuronal plasticity. Specifically, oestradiol plus anti-androgen treatment reduced hippocampal volume in MtF individuals, which was accompanied by a global increase in ventricular structures. Moreover, reduced plasma levels of progesterone in MtF individuals correlated with reductions in grey matter structures in the right hippocampus and right caudate. Overall, the findings suggest that high doses of cross-sex hormones alter structures in the adult human brain.

That's from 2016, there's another study from 2021 which also records changes but it's murkier since both trans men and trans women had increases in certain area as contrasted with cis men and cis women:

Conclusion Long-term GHT seems to have a considerable impact on GMD and GMM in the brain of transgender individuals. Specific effects of either androgenizing or feminizing sex steroids must be taken into account in most regions, however, in selected structures both types of GHT affected GMD and GMM in the same way, pointing towards mechanisms that are induced by GHT irrespective of whether feminizing or androgenizing steroids are used. The combined approach in analyzing structural MRI data has the potential to shed light on changes of GM as reflected by both morphometric as well as microstructural analyses after GHT in a longitudinal design and in comparison to cisgender individuals. Nevertheless, larger sample sizes are needed to detect reliable associations between GM and potential MAO-A density changes induced by GHT.

A 2019 study suggests that there's a mosaic effect; male and female brains have differences, but also similarities, and you can't say that "this bit is specifically male, that bit specifically female"; brains of cis as well as trans individuals can have both male and female traits:

Cross-sectional studies One small cross-sectional study assessed the effects of at least 2 years of GAHT in 18 FTMs and 17 MTFs after gender-affirming surgery. Neuroanatomical differences in the brain were found to be region-specific between transgender individuals and their biological sex as well as their gender identity, suggesting localization of influence by sex hormones on brain structure [105]. More specifically, the mean neuroanatomical volume for the amygdala, putamen, and corpus callosum of MTFs was found to be significantly different from those of cisgender women, but not cisgender men (consistent with the natal sex of MTFs). FTMs, on the other hand, differed from cisgender women in the third ventricle and nucleus accumbens, which is consistent with their preferred gender, and differed from cisgender men in the medial temporal lobe structures and cerebellum. FTMs differed from both cismen and ciswomen in fusiform volume. These findings suggest that brain structures are not uniformly influenced by GAHT, and that while some structures become more like those of the preferred gender, others may not, or fall somewhere in the middle. This lends credence to the concept of the gender mosaic, which falls between the two rigidly defined binary gender identities.

The 2019 study is really good, a lot of details about how brains and brain structures differ in the sexes.

EDIT: Though this now makes me wonder, what if the solution is not "this child suffers dysphoria, they're trans, put them on puberty blockers" but "this child suffers dysphoria, this is a result of natal lack of/excess of hormones in utero, put them on extra doses of natal sex hormones"? That might be one reason why there are kids who go through puberty and then decide they're not trans; all they needed was for the 'proper' dosage of hormones to kick in and adjust their brain chemistry to their natal sex?

If you read the post, the FtM patients had elevated testosterone levels, took medication to reduce those levels, and the gender dysphoria went away

So women with a mental illness making them think that they are men took medication to reduce T levels (anti-androgens) and that helped them feel better about being women? Why aren't you taking anti-estrogens to cure your gender dysphoria then?

That's hard to do since hormones have obvious physical changes and you could tell easily you're in the placebo group. This is unfortunately only self reports from people that transition medically

Sounds like pretty bad science to me. They should have at least given cocaine to some of them and see who reports feeling better.

Yet a few months after I started HRT, my quality of life hugely improved, and I finally had a decent dating life.

Can you explain? The gay men that you were previously pursuing unsuccessfully finally took an interest in you after you grew your hair long and breasts? Or did you manage to attract a straight man who just can't wait to get married, 2 children and a white picket fence in the suburbs?

it's different from the feeling I had before and externally matches the opposite sex, and that's good enough for me.

Only because you have a point of reference to what the opposite sex is like. If you moved to a male-only monastery for life eventually you would have no idea what a woman behaves like. You could also get smart glasses that correct every dumb thing any woman say around you and you'd get the impression that women are rational, pragmatic people while men are the irrationally angry, ditzy sex.

The glasses wouldn't change how others treated me beyond the superficial - which pronouns and intonations absolutely are.

Well that's what the headphones are for.

I imagine they mean they are attracted to men, tried unsuccessfully to live as a gay man and did not like it for whatever reasons, then once presenting as a woman they were able to date straight men which is more satisfactory.

So women with a mental illness making them think that they are men took medication to reduce T levels (anti-androgens) and that helped them feel better about being women? Why aren't you taking anti-estrogens to cure your gender dysphoria then?

This is an incorrect view of gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria isn't thinking you're the opposite sex, it's being uncomfortable about being the sex you are and feeling more comfortable if you adopt the characteristics of the opposite sex.

Sounds like pretty bad science to me. They should have at least given cocaine to some of them and see who reports feeling better.

Cocaine doesn't last for very long and the side effects/crash are very severe, but there's other stimulants out there! Given the high proportion of trans people that have ADHD, giving them one like Adderall or Ritalin might not be a bad idea.

Can you explain? The gay men that you were previously pursuing unsuccessfully finally took an interest in you after you grew your hair long and breasts? Or did you manage to attract a straight man who just can't wait to get married, 2 children and a white picket fence in the suburbs?

I dated and hooked up with plenty of gay men prior to transitioning. Gay men are actively uninterested in femininity and lost interest after I grew my hair long and such. I receive plenty of attention from bisexual/bicurious men - sexually speaking there's a ton of seemingly straight men that are very interested in trans women. I'm now in a long-term relationship with a bisexual man and we could certainly get married, adopt children (or go through surrogacy) and buy a house in a suburb. Ironically, I'm more comfortable now with having a family and the normal monogamous life that conservatives are a fan of, than I ever was before.

Only because you have a point of reference to what the opposite sex is like. If you moved to a male-only monastery for life eventually you would have no idea what a woman behaves like. You could also get smart glasses that correct every dumb thing any woman say around you and you'd get the impression that women are rational, pragmatic people while men are the irrationally angry, ditzy sex.

Why the thinly veiled misogyny? Your post has a fairly hostile, sarcastic tone in general. Is this a response informed from bad real life experiences with women and/or trans people?

Well that's what the headphones are for.

Not sure I understand this part?

it's being uncomfortable about being the sex you are and feeling more comfortable if you adopt the characteristics of the opposite sex.

Which are pretty nebulous as far as I know. There are plenty of flat-chested short-haired females out there but you needed long-hair and neo-breasts to feel better about yourself.

Either way you provided evidence suggesting that women with dysphoria should get anti-androgens to be cured, not cross-sex hormones (androgens).

What about you, have you tried supplementing androgens instead?

I dated and hooked up with plenty of gay men prior to transitioning. Gay men are actively uninterested in femininity and lost interest after I grew my hair long and such.

So you had no issue dating before growing your hair long? Plenty of straight men go with women with short hair as well.

I'm now in a long-term relationship with a bisexual man and we could certainly get married, adopt children (or go through surrogacy) and buy a house in a suburb. Ironically, I'm more comfortable now with having a family and the normal monogamous life that conservatives are a fan of, than I ever was before.

Idk about other conservatives but when I think "normal monogamous life" I'm not thinking about your situation. Also the guy you're dating, would he care if you told him to call you 'dude' instead of 'sweetie'?

Why the thinly veiled misogyny?

No misogyny, I'm merely suggesting an hypothetical device that would simulate every single social interaction in such a way that you could attribute certain dispositions to one sex while every single individual is actually completely identical in their behavior with no sexual dimorphism whatsoever.

Not sure I understand this part? The glasses wouldn't change how others treated me beyond the superficial - which pronouns and intonations absolutely are.

All I'm saying is that the glasses and headphones would come together to create the perfect 'I am a woman'-simulation, no matter what other people are actually saying.

More comments

What kind of medical treatment has other people than the patient as targets?

Lots of cosmetic surgery, esp surgery meant to correct various types of disfigurement.

Medical surgery is just called surgery. If there is no function being restored except 'I need to change other people's perception of me' then it seems to be frivolous, vain, a waste of everybody's time really.

That might be true in a universe in which humans' happiness is not often a function of the quality and degree of interactions with others, but that is not our universe.

Say that after your face is melted in a fire.

I'd wear a mask. Plus if seeing it a little bit bothers people it's a them problem not a me problem.

More comments

you'll be acutely aware that you're living a lie

And ironic criticism of his proposal, given your preferred solution leaves you no better off in that regard.

How so? The changes from hormones and surgery are real, felt by your body, and perceived by others, instead of being an audiovisual illusion that only you can see. The parallel would be like having some sort of moderately advanced but not perfect prosthetic arm, versus superimposing a CGI limb that no-one else sees, and that you can't use for anything since it's just pixels on a screen.

Do note that I have a somewhat transmedicalist point of view, which is different from the mainstream leftist view or what conservatives call "gender ideology".

You'll never have functional genitals of the sex you desire, you'll never have children in the manner of the sex you desire. It's also difficult for me to distinguish the average trans person trying to "pass" from any other plastic surgery addict for whom nothing is ever good enough. They're always getting something done.

Can you honestly say that nothing about your current existence doesn't remind you that it's a lie?

"Never" is a strong word when it comes to technological progress, uterus transplants exist and egg cells could be made from stem cells.

How is my current existence a lie? I'm very aware that I'm not biologically female, but my male characteristics are causing me pain, and I can correct them and have a superior quality of life. After transitioning I became functional both romantically and sexually, and much less prone to anxiety, depression, and despairing over my physical appearance. People close to me know I'm trans, and I don't particularly care to correct strangers about the pronouns they use with me.

Body dysmorphia is a tragic thing and often co-morbid with gender dysphoria. But you can absolutely reach the point where you pass in your daily life to average people, and then reach diminishing returns.

You know what pre-emptively narrows your life choices before you understand what consent means? Good old fashioned puberty. If given the option between a natural puberty that tortures you psychologically has you spend significant amount of effort and money trying to undo its consequences, and a different medically induced one that does not, what is the justification in going with the first one, apart from the naturalistic fallacy?

One justification is that the choice is itself a fallacy, a false dichotomy.

This acts as if we know with certainty that a child is a "trans child". But the entire point of debate - and what makes it a craze - is that we apparently don't.Tthere's a reason there've been rollbacks in treatment and criticism of diagnostic procedures across the West.

This is problematic given that puberty seems to resolve gender dysphoria for at least some people - and some people have comorbidities that seem to have been assumed to be caused by unaffirmed transness as opposed to the reverse.

and won't have to go through the trauma of watching your body turn into something that gives you psychological pain every day

Presumably this is exactly what detransitioners experience?

It is indeed. The question is then what's the percentage of detransitioners, and how reversible the changes are. Even if there is say, a 80% detransition rate, but it happens all in the first month of puberty blockers, that's a very different situation from it happening 10 years down the line.

Unfortunately the statistics are currently very murky and the studies are ideologically charged. I could be swayed to opposed childhood transition if it was shown that the cons outweighed the pros, but unfortunately I'm going via my personal experience and biases for now.

The serious problems in my view are the higher cancer risk associated with fucking with the hormones, and the fact that this is seriously glossed over any time the discussion of puberty blockers is raised in a public setting.

For MtF patients, estrogen and anti androgens makes you risk of prostate and testicular cancer extremely low (did you know the medications trans women take for HRT are the exact same as those for people with prostate and testicular cancer?). Also, castration in animals tend to increase lifespan - Korean eunuchs lived an average of 14-19 years longer than other male aristocrats, and castrated mental asylum patients in the mid-20th century would live longer the earlier they were castrated.

Most likely, it would mean this effect is reversed for FtMs, unfortunately. But top surgery at least drastically reduced the risk of breast cancer, and some form of bottom surgery would do the same for various cancers associated with the female reproductive anatomy.

did you know the medications trans women take for HRT are the exact same as those for people with prostate and testicular cancer?

Yes, though I was under the impression that cancer treatments are extremely potent, and dangerous, and are only prescribed when you actually have cancer, rather than given out like candy as a prophylactic?

and some form of bottom surgery would do the same for various cancers associated with the female reproductive anatomy.

Either "some form" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, or this is plain unlikely to be true? Even WPATH kept the 18+ age limit for female bottom surgery, even as they abolished limits for every other procedure.

Yes, though I was under the impression that cancer treatments are extremely potent, and dangerous, and are only prescribed when you actually have cancer, rather than given out like candy as a prophylactic?

There are many kinds of medications used as cancer treatment. Chemotherapy would probably fit the description of extremely potent and dangerous, and you don’t want to go on it unless you have cancer.

Meanwhile bicalutamide is a popular cancer treatment for malignant prostate cancer, but is also given out to cis women with androgen-dependent conditions like acne, hirsutism, hair loss; it’s also given to men who have overly long erections. It has very few side effects except rare liver interactions (so you have to get frequent blood tests).

Either "some form" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, or this is plain unlikely to be true? Even WPATH kept the 18+ age limit for female bottom surgery, even as they abolished limits for every other procedure.

I was talking about hysterectomy, which many cis women get for cancer prevention (or treatment). Removing the uterus and ovaries will obviously go a long way in preventing uterine and ovarian cancer. The 18+ limit seems sensible to me in any case.

I definitely know about the ovarian cancer thing with the FtMs but my entirely unscientific hunch is the puberty blockers thing for the MtFs will leave a trail of ugly in a few years. I might be pulling this out of my ass but I just feel like we definitely can't be monkeying with hormones and pay no price long term.

It's worth bearing in mind we know little about brain development in puberty, ergo we know little about the effects of bypassing puberty.

You might benefit from looking at previous medical manias, such as lobotomies. Though it was never entrenched to the same degree as gender surgery seems to be today, lobotomies are an irreversible surgery performed on adults as well as children that gained rapid acceptance.

Yes, I've looked into Walter Freeman and how he'd casually deliver lobotomies during an afternoon first-time visit, true evil I think and unrepentant to his dying day as far as I can tell. Obviously Monaz won a Noble prize at the time, which shows how unaware science was of what is patently a grotesque 'treatment'.

The 1949 Nobel Prize in medicine was given to the doctor who developed the lobotomy, and has never been rescinded.

Lobotomy is a legitimate therapeutic intervention and is still used daily all over the world to treat patients suffering from drug-resistant epilepsy.

I wonder if anybody has ever tried lobotomy to treat gender dysphoria. Considering the sort of procedures that medical experts seem to deem appropriate to treat it, it should not be a big deal to get it approved.

I would not be surprised if lobotomy could successfully treat gender dysphoria, the question is merely how big of a chunk of a brain you need to lob off to stop the condition.

Lobotomy is a legitimate therapeutic intervention and is still used daily all over the world to treat patients suffering from drug-resistant epilepsy.

Are you thinking of electroshock therapy?

No, the practice of surgically removing parts of the brain to treat disease.

For example It seems that now they call it lobectomy but it's essentially the same thing.

Surgery to treat psychiatric disorders is still being done but it is vastly different from a classical lobotomy. Brain surgery to treat psychological disorders is considered only after medicines given for a long time have not worked. The procedure is done by an expert neurosurgeon, often using tools like a microscope, gamma knife, and robotic surgery.

For one thing, epilepsy is NOT a psychiatric disorder, and surgery is not the first line of treatment for it. Considering seizures in themselves cause brain damage, and in the most extreme cases can be deadly, that is an extreme far cry from shoving a metal spike into your daughter's eye so you can make her tractable and retarded.

Yeah. I first learned about lobotomy when I was 12.

I decided that as far as I was concerned: if that was me, they might as well save the doctor's bill and finish the job with a 12-gauge instead.

Haven't changed my personal view on the procedure; if lobotomy instead replaced a troublesome child with a roughly-equally-capable child who was less troublesome and had an entirely different personality, my thoughts would be different.

IIRC it's done occasionally as an absolute last resort for refractory cases of schizophrenia in Europe. I don't really have a position on this; by the time you are so far gone that you're in the worst 0.1 percent of schizophrenics you're pretty far gone. You might be living on a Christmas tree farm, eating food from dumpsters and pine needles because you think they contain microchips that connect you to Lord Elon Musk. And you're covered in tick bites and you're starving. You fight anyone that tries to stop you like a wild animal, which has gotten you beat up, hospitalized, and sometimes jailed. Pretty much every psychotropic medication under the sun has been tried on you, but you're either a zombie on them or screaming to be let out and given access to pine needles almost 24/7.

There are no good solutions for this guy.

lobotomy : lobectomy :: phalloplasty : ?

Lobotomy is a legitimate therapeutic intervention and is still used daily all over the world to treat patients suffering from drug-resistant epilepsy.

No it isn't.

In most people, intelligence and rationality are unevenly distributed. One might be brilliant in some ways and a dunce in others. I think that this is typical for humans and people who are rational consistently are very rare, that is if any of them even exist to begin with. We tend to call people intelligent when they demonstrate signs of high intelligence in any area, even if in other areas they are stupid. So, for example, if there was a brilliant mathematician who knew nothing about history or literature or biology or physics or politics or any other topic of knowledge, and had extremely low social intelligence, we would usually call that person brilliant even if the average of all their mental abilities was actually no higher than that of the average person.

In light of this, it's not surprising that there are many people who seem a bit smarter than average and work in mentally demanding fields and yet have a number of nonsensical, incoherent views about political and other issues. We see it here on TheMotte all the time.

If the trans kid thing is a social contagion or social panic, though, to me it seems like a pretty minor one. The number of kids who actually might begin to transition is a tiny fraction of the overall kid population. So I am not surprised that most people don't care. If the number of transitioning kids was significant, I think society's overall attitude toward it might be very different.

I don't think the number being relatively rare is especially relevant to the ethics of it. Even under a consequentialist frame, it's better to have fewer people having unnecessary surgeries. Are you arguing that rare things should be dealt with any old how because more people die in other ways?

In 1950, the population of the United States was about 150 million. Between the late 30's and early 50's about 60,000 lobotomies were performed. So an incredibly small percentage. Even so, despite the very small number spread out over 20 years, there eventually was a moral outrage at the horrific nature of the procedure and the aftermath.

Crimes against humanity don't need to be widespread to inspire a backlash against them. In fact, it's probably the opposite relationship. If everyone had a lobotomized family member whom they were deeply invested in believing had the right and proper thing done to them, it's possible people would have had too much buy in to have effectively banned the practice.

Weren't there more pharmaceutical options for this use case available as lobotomies declined?

Among normies who are aware of the problem, I think most suffer from Jessie Singal syndrome. Jessie Singal has been covering the trans-insanity beat for a long, long time from the left. He has correctly identified much that is ethically horrifying about the current trans movement. He has correctly identified institutional problems that need to be stopped. But he's so locked into "Republicans bad, Democrats good", that when Republicans literally stop the things he has written extensively about, he is horrified that Republicans are "making the problem worse". He's convinced that if Republicans would just lay off, now, after 10 years of his side ignoring him and actively promoting all the problems he complains about, he could convince them to reverse course. But those darned evil, bigoted Republicans just won't stop making his side crazy.

The institutional sterilization and mutilation of children is a crime against humanity, the scale of which is difficult for the average normie to honestly contemplate. And especially the average normie Democrat. My extremely normie MSNBC consuming in laws just straight up disbelieve it. There side only does good things, and the way we describe it sounds like a bad thing, therefore it's not happening. It's right wing misinformation. We must have heard it from Fox News, always the boogie man, despite the fact that we don't even have cable. When we describe the things happening in our own state, they just mutter "Well I never heard about that." It doesn't help that the whole debate is shrouded in euphemisms like "trans healthcare", and lies about it being "fully reversible".

Among the true believers, charitably you have trans activist who mistakenly view every child through the lens of their own experiences growing up. Uncharitably, they've been horribly mutilated with no way back, and the only way to justify what was done to them is to perpetuate it. Otherwise they'd have to face the stark reality that their entire miserable existence was based on a lie. It's no wonder so many kill themselves.

And then you have the child castration fetishist in the medical community who write the standards of care.

Yes I remember Jesse advocating the 'in the middle' political compromise of 'let's only treat the true-trans using the Dutch protocol.' Those initial experimental studies have been shown to have serious methodological flaws and so ceased to be the centrist bargaining chip. No, it's probably apparent to even Jesse that there actually is no true-trans but that some children, for a range of contingent factors, including whether they are autistic or grew up in a foster home, are put on a medical conveyer belt.

Among the true believers, charitably you have trans activist who mistakenly view every child through the lens of their own experiences growing up.

Yes, I've seen that - I wonder if that kind of epistemological narcissism, also known as lacking humility, is related to their trans identity?

There side only does good things, and the way we describe it sounds like a bad thing, therefore it's not happening. It's right wing misinformation. We must have heard it from Fox News, always the boogie man, despite the fact that we don't even have cable. When we describe the things happening in our own state, they just mutter "Well I never heard about that."

"Epistemic closure" is a superweapon.

("Epistemic closure" meaning the political term in which one's belief system includes the tenet that any information contradicting one's belief system is wrong, not the technical term from philosophy)

Uncharitably, they've been horribly mutilated with no way back, and the only way to justify what was done to them is to perpetuate it.

Like circumcision, except they don’t stop at the tip. If you have your daughter’s genitals mutilated because of your weird-ass sexual beliefs, you’re either the worst most cruel backwards reactionary or a brave progressive fighter against that same oppression.

I am glad that you bring up circumcision because, while it probably does not cause as much damage to the individual as full-on transitioning, it also affects vastly more people. Yet I rarely see anyone here inveigh against it. Not sure why. Is it just because it has been around for so long that people are used to it?

Circumcision is an interesting example of a practice that would be viewed as horrifying by probably most of society if it came out of nowhere and suddenly started to become popular. But because it has been around for thousands of years, it gets a pass. In one way it is actually much worse than the trans kids thing. Infant circumcision is done without any consent at all from the person that it is done to, whereas kids who transition are significantly older and often the motivation to transition at least in part comes from the kids themselves, rather than entirely from the parents.

The effects from circumcision are ‘my underwear is slightly less comfortable and there may or may not be some reduction in sexual pleasure, I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure, but there’s still quite a lot of it, in exchange for hygiene being slightly easier. I can’t totally go back on my parents decision but if it bothers me enough I can regrow some of the skin’.

Notably this is massively different from transition, like not even in the same wheelhouse, even if I think it’s a bad thing(and to be clear, my sons will not be circumcised absent clear medical indications or them deciding to get it done, and paying for it, themselves. But I say that as someone who thinks that being circumcised is not worth whining about).

while it probably does not cause as much damage to the individual as full-on transitioning

This framing is kind of pants-on-head, just so you know -- source: am circumcised, and am not convinced that there's any significant ill-effects, much less within orders of magnitude of lifetime sterilization and pharma dependency. (plus whatever surgical and social side-effects)

The problem that always comes up in this debate is that very few people are actually qualified to comment on what difference it makes to sexual pleasure or whatnot, but have strong opinions on it anyways for reasons that are unclear to me.

There has actually been the odd adult-circumcisee wander into these conversations; mostly on the reddit site IIRC. My recollection is inconclusive, but what I remember was one guy who said 'pretty much no difference', another who agreed, and one who chimed in to say 'somewhat worse'.

I personally can't know how much better sex might be if I weren't circumcised -- but, like -- it's pretty great? I'm not exactly some coomer connoisseur, but I struggle to think of a situation in which I've felt like *more *sensitivity would have been helpful? BJs with a condom on are lame I guess, but I'm not sure circumcision is the main problem there.

In short, to me this is like you are comparing tonsillectomies to kidney harvesting or something -- can you say what makes you think that the two things are even in the same ballpark?

Well, I figure that the people who deeply regret having transitioned as teenagers are balanced out by the people who are happy with it. On the other hand, almost no-one is actually made happy by having been circumcised, most people just feel neutral about it and a significant though small minority is unhappy about it.

My statistics could be off, though.

Something to consider I guess is that this is an irreversible procedure taking place in and around puberty -- a time when many people are unhappy regardless. So the set one should be interested in is not 'people who are happy with their trans interventions' rather 'people who would have been happy anyways, and without the burdens associated with the interventions'.

Yet I rarely see anyone here inveigh against it. Not sure why. Is it just because it has been around for so long that people are used to it?

You just might not be paying enough attention. Whenever circumcision is brought up here, I see a fair share of people speaking out against it. It's just that it's almost never brought up due to not being a CW issue, since, as you allude to, one side of the "war" has had complete victory for as long as anyone can remember.

There’s enough mra-adjacent types like me here that circumcision is sometimes denounced, but it is true that it is also often defended under the aegis of ‘religious freedom’ , the ‘value of tradition’, and what I view as a more legitimate justification, parental authority (though even granting total parental authority rights, it does not excuse their moral fault). That’s why I brought it up, two birds one stone.

And there’s an extra problem for trans supporters: They deny parental authority, so that justification collapses. It’s bad enough if your neighbours mutilate their children, but here the trans claim the right to mutilate yours (for their own good, of course).

As to the consent justification, children are somehow incapable of consenting to using their genitals once, but capable of consenting to destroying them for their whole life?

You know, when my wife and I were expecting our first kid, we had a conversation about this. I basically didn't want it done if we had a boy, for a host of reasons. She, at the time, had a more normie perspective, but no strong feelings one way or the other.

I think it is slowly falling out of favor in the US? I haven't checked rates or anything, but anecdotally I see more people questioning it and saying they won't do it to their children.

But it doesn't come up here because there is no culture war flashpoint over it. Weirdo's who control institutions aren't trying to get it done behind parent's backs. In so far as it's a "problem", it follows the usual pluralistic principles of it being nobody else's business what someone does with their kids.

We decided against it when we had our son. I couldn't come up with a good reason to remove part of a perfectly healthy baby. Circumcision rates may be falling, but some of that could simply be due to demographic shifts.

An underrated reason it’s probably falling is cost-savings in government provided care- the number of states covering it under Medicare seems to be dropping slowly over time.

So, caveat, this was told to me in a Global Ethics class circa 2004. But supposedly the biggest proponents of female genital mutilation in the middle east are the older women who had it done to them. They are deeply invested in continuing the practice, because their entire identities are subtly intertwined in valorizing how it was done to them. To walk that back undermines everything they understand about themselves.

Uncharitably, they've been horribly mutilated with no way back, and the only way to justify what was done to them is to perpetuate it. Otherwise they'd have to face the stark reality that their entire miserable existence was based on a lie.

It's not only that, they also know their community will turn on them and rip them to shreds. Sure, they might be welcomed on the conservative side, or on /r/detrans, but you'd be uprooting your entire identity.

It's no wonder so many kill themselves.

Well, you know what they say - death before detransition!

but I can't understand how people can maintain a neutral view on unnecessary surgeries on minors.

The people who advocate for those practices believe that those surgeries very much are necessary. That is not a view that I share, but then I am not transgender and don't have kids who are transgender. So, I might be wrong. I also don't know how much harm is caused by gender reassignment surgery, though I have no doubt that opponents thereof exaggerate the downsides as much as proponents exaggerate the upsides.

though I have no doubt that opponents thereof exaggerate the downsides as much as proponents exaggerate the upsides.

Is your lack of doubt based on any evidence? What things have you heard that sound like exaggerations? Do you think realizing that removing your genitals or breasts was a mistake, is a harm that requires exaggeration to make a point?

People don't change. Despite every generation thinking they're the first ones to ever apply intelligence and morality to the problems of the world, they are not. The people who live today are the exact moral equivalents of Salem, or Mao's China, or interwar Germany. They're just pushing their bigotries, hatreds and moral panics along different channels. It has always been this way and always will be. We cannot predict which issues will rise to salience, but we can predict with absolute certainty the psychology and behavior of the people in aggregate.

I believe the current mishmash is a religious void being filled by various cults, one of which will eventually rise to prominence and challenge "traditional" (whatever that means) christianity for the default belief system of western civilization. The "In this house, we believe...." posters are the early adherents.

Re-read your Hoffer if you want to know how it's going to play out.

Thanks for Hoffer tip.

I agree with the religious void idea, still not heeding Nietzsche's warning.

I think honestly it’s down to psychology. Humans are by nature tribal and because evolutionary history tends to favor those who have a strong fear response, it’s easy to manipulate people through lurid fears. The person swept up in those kinds of movements tend to see their involvement as virtuous and protecting the tribe. And because of the fear basis of the belief system and the way opposing views are often stated as “causing or allowing the bad thing to happen,” nobody wants to be either on that side or allow themselves to be associated with those on that side. And thus institutions fall into line — after all, being against medical transition is being essentially pro-suicide of trans-kids, and who wants that? Who wants doctors on staff who are pro-suicide?

Once the institutions fall in line, you have plain old ordinary economics helping the cause. Being anti medicalization if you’re in the medical field is often career ending. You have kids, a mortgage, you need to eat, so you decide not to say anything to jeopardize your employment. You don’t want to rock the boat lest your friends leave you for self-preservation. You don’t want to be kicked out of school for being a bigot, you need that scholarship and eventually that degree to get a job. Plus being on record as a wrong thinker means less opportunities after graduating. Head down, grade grub, do the internships and shut up.

Who wants doctors on staff who are pro-suicide?

The smart-alec rejoinder to that is the Canadian Medical Assistance In Dying programme which seems to be such a resounding success that they're extending it out to more and more categories of people (sorry, crazy Canadians, you'll have to wait until St Patrick's Day next year before you can apply to kill yourself, but we're getting there!)

I have no clue how governments and 'healthcare' agencies can expand these programs. I know it's a boomer Republican talking point, but the more self-mutilation and suicide medical programs I see getting pushed into the public consciousness the more I feel like the medical zeitgeist of a death cult has taken control of our society and its terrifying. Eugenics never went away, they just call it humanitarianism and focus it on the most productive culture the world has ever seen.

Eugenics never went away

I'm reminded here of a quote I recently encountered elsewhere online:

"Even though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable."

-Sir Julian Huxley, first Director of UNESCO, in "UNESCO: its purpose and its philosophy," pg. 21, 1946.

I have been looking into previous social manias such as the satanic panic and the child care workers given wrongful convictions and it's shocking how difficult it is to reverse the tide of mania once it's begun. Parents, police, the justice system, and media all fall into lockstep and condemn innocent people to terrible fates they and their families bear in almost total isolation, with only a few supporters able to parse the information in front of them and figure out what is going on.

This book which I read some time ago seemed quite convincing in arguing that the most notable daycare abuse convictions were based far more on actual physical signs of abuse than lurid stories about ritual abuse and that the narrative of innocent adults just being hounded by witch-hunting media for no reason at all was in itself created by media on thin grounds.

You should look into the individual cases. The three I looked at via podcasts, docos all had the same characteristics: no real evidence beyond child's testimony, leading and irresponsible questioning techniques (now considered disreputable), widespread parental panic -eg active and suggestive questioning of them now considered a process of suggestion and false-memory creation, shonky experts, escalating numbers of children reporting over the period with outrageous child testimony (drinking blood, murders enacted, ritualistic abuse, macabre acts that would have entailed serious physical injury where none was present, large groups of people involved, impossible sequences of events etc.). These events were all supposed to have gone on repeatedly with multiple children over long periods of time in a public daycare with staff, parents oblivious and no reports of any concern prior to the initial satanic panic event that blew up. Sometimes unrelated people were caught up in it, in one case a policeman who happened to be there.

The police and prosecution for their part formed their view from day one and bought entirely into the thinking of the times (believe the child) in the US McMartin case completely relying on one untrained, unlicensed counselor who with puppets and leading questions would forcefully get testimony from the children.

For all the cases I looked at the defendants were ultimately exonerated, though after lengthy battles. Often children involved have recanted their evidence.

This doesn't rule out that some children were abused in a more typical sense - the Canadian CBC documentary points to one likely case. But there's little doubt that the vast majority of charges are created from a condition of social mania.

The interesting thing is that many of these children do believe they were abused even when it's most likely they weren't. It is actually possible to implant memories through suggestion. And so in a very real way these children were abused by a failed system.

Looked up the author of that book and he is not a disinterested party:

Himself a victim of child sexual abuse, Cheit is interested in the issue of repressed memory vis-a-vis childhood sexual abuse in cases like McMartin and the Catholic Church sexual abuse cases and put out his theories in the book The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children.

Recovered memories are a morass; the issue has gone from "it's Science, we must believe it" to "a tangle of fake and implanted" and all points in between. You've read the book so you're better informed on it than I am, but if he's relying recovered memories as evidence that "it's all, or in the majority, true" then it's very shaky.

And as pointed out, the Satanic Panic as distinct from sexual and physical abuse was extremely elaborate and became fantastical, yet the authorities were convinced of its truth because of the 'expert witnesses' promoting it. If you look at the cases in Britain, for instance: there's at least a few where the social worker/instigator of the investigation was moved on to another area and started the same thing up again. Some set themselves up as specialists in ritual abuse and advised local councils, police forces and the likes about how to recognise cases of Satanic Ritual Abuse.

The Rochdale case:

In November 1989, teachers at a school on the Langley estate in Middleton drew the attention of social workers to the disturbed, withdrawn and strange behaviour of a six-year-old boy. He talked to teachers about ghosts and a ghost family who were part of his life. The social workers to whom the case was referred were so concerned about the boy's behaviour and the strange stories that further investigation was made of the family background. That revealed that the boy's father had spoken of ghosts in his previous home. The social workers therefore took the boy, his 11-year-old sister and two other boys into care and made them wards of court. The parents were denied access to the children.

Altogether, a total of 20 children on the estate were taken into care because of their association with the original family. They were taken after dawn swoops by police and social workers. The social workers were convinced that they had unearthed a ritual abuse group on the estate. On 14 September 1990, a special meeting of the social services committee in Rochdale supported the action of the director of social services and invited the Secretary of State for Social Services to ask the social services inspectorate to confirm that all the council's policies and procedures on child abuse were in accordance with Government guidance.

When the case was heard in court earlier this year by Mr. Justice Douglas Brown, he enabled the public to learn the facts of the case. By working carefully through the facts he gave a clear, sober account of an extraordinary chain of events.

Mr. Justice Douglas Brown found that the accusations of ritual abuse were unproven, that there was no evidence of drugs connected with any abuse and no evidence that anyone was missing, mutilated or murdered. He emphasised that the staff of the Rochdale social services department were decent people, not heartless or ruthless, who had acted throughout with the children's best interests at heart. However, they had made mistakes, and criticisms were justified.

The judge said that the social workers were obsessive and mistaken in their belief that a six-year-old boy's ghostly fantasies were real. He accused the social workers of serious errors of judgment because they based their decision almost entirely on the evidence of a disturbed boy who had been fed on a rich diet of utterly frightening and unsuitable videos, such as "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "The Evil Dead".

The Orkney case:

The Orkney child abuse scandal began on 27 February 1991, when social workers and police removed children—five boys and four girls, aged eight to fifteen and all from the families of English "incomers"—from their homes on the island of South Ronaldsay in Orkney, Scotland, because of allegations of child abuse. The children denied that any abuse had occurred, and medical examinations did not reveal any evidence of abuse.

The controversy resulted in an official inquiry established in August 1991, chaired by Lord Clyde. The inquiry published its report in October 1992. It described the successful appeal against the first judgement as "most unfortunate" and criticised all those involved, including the social workers, the police, and the Orkney Islands Council. Social workers' training, methods, and judgement were given special condemnation, and the report stated that the concept of "ritual abuse" was "not only unwarrantable at present but may affect the objectivity of practitioners and parents".

Liz McLean, the social worker who led the interviews with the children, had also been involved in the 1990 Rochdale "Satanic Abuse" case. She was later sharply criticised by Lord Clyde in the official inquiry into the South Ronaldsay case, and in another investigation into similar allegations in Ayrshire.

And a list of other such cases here.

In the same way that the Salem Witch Trials kicked off because of allegations by children and young women about persecution by witches, which we now take to be untrue, allegations by children were taken as evidence of witchcraft and Satanism. Human nature hasn't really changed over the centuries.

Though there are real sexual abusers out there, who use the trappings of cults in order to coerce and entrap their victims. Speaking of the "should a dying 13 year old be able to hire a prostitutes for sex before their death?" poll, here is why sex with adults isn't generally a good idea, and the whole notion of "child prostitutes" (even for the dying 13 year old) isn't feasible with regard to consent or free decision to sell sex:

In March 2011, four adults who lived in a cul-de-sac in the Welsh town of Kidwelly were convicted of multiple sex offences against children and young adults. The group led by Colin Batley was described by the media as a "Satanic sex cult", a "quasi-religious sex cult" and a "paedophile cult" however the group members were not followers of Satanism. ...Members of the cult were initiated in a ceremony involving sex with an adult, and they were threatened with being killed if they did not take part in the ceremony. Some of the victims were forced into prostitution.

The cult targeted troubled, impressionable minors, forcing them to undergo an initiation ceremony that ended with sex with an adult. Children were intimidated into participating with threats of murder. One girl testified that after this ceremony (which started with Batley preaching about the occult and finished with sex), she was regularly coerced into having sex with Colin Batley at his house, and with strangers at satanic orgies.

...Five victims testified in court that they were lured or brought to cult members' homes where they were sexually abused, and that there were more victims who had not reported any of their abuse.

One 15-year-old girl who gave evidence described being shared like a "sex toy" between cult members. A second girl was raped by Batley when she was only 11 years old, and testified, "Sex with him was a test, and if I did not pass, I would go to The Abyss." A third girl also testified to being raped by Batley when she was 11 or 12, and being coerced into having sex on camera when she was 16."

You've read the book so you're better informed on it than I am, but if he's relying recovered memories as evidence that "it's all, or in the majority, true" then it's very shaky.

It's not. If I remember correctly, recovered memory doesn't feature in the actual book at all, and at least a quick search on "recovered" prompted no hits. Satanic ritual abuse doesn't really feature either, other than Chait stating that most notable cases actually don't involve ritual abuse or actual allegations of ritual abuse at all, though in some cases there were allegations that media represented as ritual abuse allegations even though they were about something else. The book is about American cases, I don't know how the British examples relate to that.

He also doesn't claim, of course, that all the claimed day care abuse cases were valid and doesn't make final claims even to the ones that he investigates. Like I said, it's been some time since I read the book, but the argument is that the most notable American cases had at least some concrete evidence that abuse had happened (ie. physical evidence and non-coaxed, non-fantastical child testimonies that were consistent with physical evidence) and that even in the most controversial one, McMartin case, even though most defendants were almost certainly not guilty and the case got out of hand with the tunnel allegations etc., the specific case against Ray Buckey was much stronger than commonly now understood and thus the entire case cannot be simply be seen as a "witch-hunt", ie. the implication being that everything was concoted out of thin air and resulting solely from a moral panic.

Cheit's specific point is that he's of course not claiming guilt on parties that are currently innocent in the eyes of the law (ie. like the McMartin defendants) but rather stating that there were credible reasons why jurors might have considered them guilty, and that particularly many of the "lesser" cases outside of McMartin, where the courts issued guilty verdicts and have upheld them, are based on very solid evidence but have still been mentioned in books like Satan's Silence as examples of a national witch-hunt based on nothing.

I still get the strong impression that Cheit was trying to defend the reality of sex abuse cases, because of course they do happen, but was strongly motivated by "I am a survivor of child sex abuse and now with the backlash against the Satanic Panic a lot of people are doubting all allegations of child sex abuse, and I'm going to go to the other side of 'well some of the Satanic Panic cases were true!' in order to make sure allegations are taken seriously".

This seems to be focused strictly on sexual abuse rather than satanic ritual abuse. Even if the cases overlap, and the children were abused, it's valid to call the Satanic Panic a mania, if there's no evidence for satanic ritual abuse.

The one thing that unites everyone I know, ranging from the most hardcore SJWs to alt-right RETVRN types, is that nobody cares about children at all, especially not more than our respective political convictions, and especially not the abstract children of others. If you come from a genuinely more old-fashioned or natalist bubble, you may underestimate just how insignificant children have become in younger elite circles; on a gut-feeling level it is genuinely difficult for me to imagine how someone would pretend to care about children for any reason other than as a mysterious ancestral ritual that may score points against the outgroup.

(It may not be surprising that birthrates in my mid-30s cohort are very low, and the few people who did reproduce have largely dropped out socially - not, as far as I can tell, to socialise with other people, but to be alone.)

alt-right RETVRN types, is that nobody cares about children at all

Can you expand on that? Most of my formerly-alt-right acquaintances have children or want to have them. How do they even rationalize it?

on a gut-feeling level it is genuinely difficult for me to imagine how someone would pretend to care about children for any reason other than as a mysterious ancestral ritual that may score points against the outgroup.

That's still caring tho, isn't it?

This is only true if you’re a tech twink in the laptop class. The majority of 30-somethings I know have started families. Many have children already in their teens.

The decision not to have children is a symptom of extended adolescence. Men and women who remain in education through their early 20s and don’t enter the workforce until their mid-20s or later rarely have children at the optimal age (<25). This compounds as they decide their 20s are meant to be spent in a hedonistic reverie rather than thinking or planning for their future.

In other words, you’ve fallen victim to an echo chamber within your bubble. Normal people still have and care about children.

It may well be that this is a feature of what you describe as "tech twinks in the laptop class", but then the crux is that opinions and trends (that OP is exposed to) are largely set by what you would describe as such because most culture nowadays is produced by twinks teching on their laptops. (On that matter, the circumstance that you associate it with tech and laptops may be suggestive of you underestimating the size and reach of the bubble that is not yours in other ways: my parents had me in their mid-30s too, as did most of their circle of Soviet academics that had children at all, and I recall the kids of their Western European peers also being in my age bracket.)

Well that's sad to me but I sense it, and it becomes reinforcing- as less people are having children society seems to have also become less accommodating of having children. I have to say it's a stressful business in the current age.

How much is fear of global catastrophe? I wonder if all the environmentalism has curbed the instinct, or is it that we've become more online and less physically connected.

as less people are having children society seems to have also become less accommodating of having children

American society is 50/50 on things like "12 year olds shouldn't be permitted outside the home unsupervised". 100 years ago, they'd be walking home from their jobs; clearly, modern children are defective and deserve how we treat them.

So that's the room temperature. It is not a surprise any adult would refuse to make themselves vulnerable- to subject themselves and their kids to an increasingly insane society, one where one's neighbors (and their collective corporate arm, called "government and bureaucracy") have basically totalitarian control should they deign to exercise it.

Just like a mass shooting, when you get the news of one kid arrested off their front lawn for the crime of existing in a place they had a right to be, you impose an utterly massive outsized chilling effect on everyone else.

Same thing with the Satanic Panic, which I'd argue should be more properly seen as a coup d'etat, where the matriarchy bureaucracy would proceed to depose and replace the patriarchy meritocracy that came before. Anyone having children after that time does not know peace from the mostly-invisible civil war; any child does not know what came before nor are they encouraged, nay, permitted to develop into a proper adult until the time for development has long passed (and their growth and standards permanently stunted as a result).

I haven't encountered an authentic version of the "I don't want children because they will have to suffer through the warming apocalypse" sentiment in the wild, but then for myself a certain general feeling that I can't imagine a life on earth 50 years hence that will be worth living (though my blackpill of choice is more about AI and/or technologically fueled turbo-authoritarianism) certainly has been tipping the scales further against having children, so perhaps the general sentiment is not so rare. I think that the most pervasive cause is still that none of us have any mental conception of a (capital-g,l?) good life that features children. A parental generation that was never shy to resort to guilt-tripping over all the sacrifices they made to raise us certainly isn't helping there, but the understanding that millennials value experiences (which children get in the way of) over things (which children don't get in the way of as much) has been around for a while too.

What could be more an experience than raising a being you helped create? Is it jet setting? No. Is it rich in experience? Absolutely.

I guess for many people of my generation and younger, sure it's an experience, but it's one you can't interrupt and that locks you out of other experiences to some extent. That kind of committment is scary.

They don't know if they want it or not because they haven't experienced the light version of it of taking care of younger siblings / extended family that used to be the norm, and by the time they realize they aren't really going to live out their jet-setting/big city sitcom fantasy anyway they are late, sometimes too late, to pivot to parenthood.

I think that the most pervasive cause is still that none of us have any mental conception of a (capital-g,l?) good life that features children.

I agree that this is a big reason, but imo it's so much more than that. Our society strongly incentives childlessness through multiple channels: Companies actively try to punish you for having children as far as the legal system allows, the government itself guarantees a pension for childless people that we barely can afford, both the culture and the government work hand-in-hand see it as their prerogative to judge parents as they see fit and take away parental rights if need be and finally, possibly most of all, the culture strongly pushes teens and young adults to delay pregnancy and in fact most contact with younger children until both their biological fitness has atrophied so much that a decent percentage of people struggle to have kids despite wanting to, while another part has, as you point out, no conception whatsoever what a life with children actually looks like. It doesn't help that media very consistently pushes an image of children as just getting in the way of the adventure that is usually central to the plot.

And I think another big issue is that society pushes exceptionalism in general - everyone is supposed to find their one true calling, be it an amazing career, true love, personal self-realisation (which conveniently always ends up to be some kind of hedonism) etc. Children are not only too mundane to fit the bill, they also make many of those things very difficult to achieve, especially with the limitations modern life heaps on parents.

Imo doomerism has always seemed much to convenient to me. Most people, especially women, know that not having kids is a thoroughly antisocial choice in general (there are exceptions of course, such as having serious genetic disorders), so doomerism allows them to reclaim the moral high ground. They get to continue their life of short-sighted hedonism while also feeling morally superior. Of course, there are people whom I believe their doomerism to be sincere, but it's quite rare. Much more common is partying all the time, except the parties are totally for a cause and not just for fun. Perfect example is fridays for future, which consisted of 99% getting to skip school and 1% thinly-veiled excuses how that's the moral thing to do.

experiences (which children get in the way of) over things (which children don't get in the way of as much)

Ironically this is a great example of your earlier point. As a parent, I'd actually say it's the opposite: With kids, you get a ton of amazing experiences entirely for free, so much that experiences you used to enjoy such as travelling start to become boring & pointless in comparison. On the other hand, kids are genuinely expensive, so you can afford a lot less things.

Imo doomerism has always seemed much to convenient to me. Most people, especially women, know that not having kids is a thoroughly antisocial choice in general (there are exceptions of course, such as having serious genetic disorders), so doomerism allows them to reclaim the moral high ground. They get to continue their life of short-sighted hedonism while also feeling morally superior. Of course, there are people whom I believe their doomerism to be sincere, but it's quite rare. Much more common is partying all the time, except the parties are totally for a cause and not just for fun. Perfect example is fridays for future, which consisted of 99% getting to skip school and 1% thinly-veiled excuses how that's the moral thing to do.

Protests themselves are a fun group activity, when they're not outright parties/festivals.

I have plenty of generalised anxiety of the future myself though now that I'm in deep with kids of my own, the immediacy of their care reduces that background. I do feel a bit bad for them sometimes with the uncertainty in the world but of course other generations had their thing and the characteristics I hope to instill are removed from time. Resilience will always be useful.

While I have probably always wanted kids or thought I'd have them eventually it was my partners ticking biological clock that got me over the line :) Are biological clocks no longer ticking?

My parents had us young and warned us against doing the same with some of their thwarted ambitions. But then I've gone the other way and wish I'd started earlier.

Just to add that the payoff for children for me has been meaning, I get connection to meaning.

Are biological clocks no longer ticking?

You're told that you can put it off until you're ready (with no firm definition as to what constitutes readiness). Medical technology is amazing! If you have trouble conceiving, you can always go the IVF route, and if that doesn't work then there is surrogacy. Apple caused some comment a few years back by proposing to pay for female staff to have their eggs frozen - can't have mere kids and family interfering with the precious and sacred bond of career and your employer extracting maximum value from you, so put off your own life until you're old and used-up and they can't squeeze any more benefit out of you - and now I see that this is deemed a perk that employers should offer, what circle of Hell are we in now?

While I don't think you should start having babies the second you turn 20 years old, the notion that "I have to wait till I'm 50 and my employer is ready to scrap-heap me before I can even think of having children" is even more obnoxious.

IVF

One element I feel gets ignored and/or glossed over is the cost. IVF procedures in America cost anywhere from 10k to 30k - there seems to be a wide gap involved, and IIRC, the cost a friend of mine paid was much, much more.

There's also no guarantee the procedure will take, and the longer a woman puts it off, the longer possible existing complications can remain undiscovered(again, this is what happened to the same friend.)

Thankfully, they were able to go oversees to have the procedure done again, but staying a month in Turkey is abit beyond the means of most people.

I wish people were taught better about this, but I worry we've moved to the point where the majority just assumes medical science is basically a magic wand that automatically fixes everything.

There are fertility clinics that say "you can do it here in the USA oh but also we have clinics in Mexico/overseas which are way cheaper".

If you have fertility problems, it's expensive procedures. There are European countries which pay for it on the national health system (now including my own) but they may only pay for one round and if that doesn't take, too bad.

People have indeed been given expectations that they can control their fertility, and that means not getting pregnant until they want to get pregnant (and if they do, then abortion is healthcare and a human right to fix that little problem) and once they want to get pregnant, regardless of age, they should be able to do so and it's the job of the medical system to fix it if they can't.

We're still not totally in control of our own biology, but nobody really wants to face that, because all of us have been sold the promise of Science, Technology, Progress unending and forever and solving all problems.

The other thing that gets ignored is the chance that it doesn't work:

Two eggs failed to survive the thawing process. Three more failed to fertilize. That left six embryos, of which five appeared to be abnormal. The last one was implanted in her uterus. On the morning of March 7, she got the devastating news that it, too, had failed.

Adams was not pregnant, and her chances of carrying her genetic child had just dropped to near zero. She remembers screaming like "a wild animal," throwing books, papers, her laptop – and collapsing to the ground.

"It was one of the worst days of my life. There were so many emotions. I was sad. I was angry. I was ashamed," she said. "I questioned, 'Why me?' 'What did I do wrong?' "

While I don't think you should start having babies the second you turn 20 years old

You are right; better to get started as teenagers.

I think mid-twenties is the sensible compromise; you should be able to be treated as an adult by then and marry and have a couple of kids between then and your thirties. Old enough to have sense, young enough to be able to cope with babies and small children.

The notion of "career first" is pushing a lot of people, men and women, to put off marriage and children further and further down the line, and of course the longer this goes on, the less interest you may have in changing your established life with the disruption of having kids (unless one or both of the spouses hears the ticking of the biological clock and very much wants kids). "We'll start our family when we're thirty. When we're thirty-five. When we're forty..." but then time is not on your side and trying for a baby gets harder and more expensive as you may need medical intervention.

Men, of course, can father children at almost any age (unless they have fertility issues) but while Bill may be able to wait until he's seventy to have a kid, Susie hasn't that luxury.

The big lie is that the clock isn’t ticking as fast as it used to tick.

"Not caring" generally is one thing, turning a blind eye to an ongoing social and medical experiment that involves them is another.

Many more people starve or die violent deaths. By "not care", I mean that children cease registering as an either morally privileged or familiar category; in a way the adult Palestinian civilian feels more relatable and his hardships therefore like more of a concern, because he's a fellow adult and I also think I've interacted more with Palestinians than children in the last 5 years.

(Have you ever used vi, the text editor? Did the "Help poor children in Uganda!" line on the startup screen make it past your mental spam filter? I would guess that for most people, it got filtered well before the current situation I am talking about set in. It's just that for us, all children might as well be poor children in Uganda.)

(Have you ever used vi

Constantly, god I love (neo)vi(m). Unintentional buttmoji possibly related...

Never made it past my filter, no. I didn't look into it, let alone donate. I thought it was a bit crass, but at least it was static text, pretty unobtrusive really.

I use it all the time too, and this is the first time I even saw it. Not because it didn't make past the filter, I just don't start it with no file to open.

You, your friends, and / or the people OP is criticizing, aren't being criticized for not doing anything about the issue, that's par for the course. As you noted, I haven't done anything to help starving African children, but when someone does bring them up, I don't think I ever said anything like "ho hum, it's complicated", or "starvation good, actually", and this is what is happening with the trans issue. "Not caring" does not explain those dynamics.

Are they secretly true believers but just don't want to say?

I don't talk about trans surgery issues not because I'm a true believer, but because I enjoy not being fired, being able to talk to my extended family and not having unhinged weirdos stalk me and people close to me while trying to get me fired and censured. You can absolutely motherfucking bet that a lot of these people are going to make sure their kids don't end up as trans, but for many of these people trying to speak up in public is nothing more than an invitation for a bunch of fringe weirdos to get involved with your life in ways that reflect terribly on you even if you're doing the right thing. Who the fuck is going to blow up their entire social life, inflict huge amounts of annoyance on their family and potentially jeopardise their ability to keep their own children fed in order to take a stance on a political issue that affects a vanishing minority of people?

Trust me, I'm in the same boat professionally speaking. But in private with friends I'm happy to share. But perhaps that's they're reservation and just more cautious?

But in private with friends I'm happy to share.

This really depends on the kind of friends we're talking about. My best friend since childhood, my brother from another mother who is with me for life? Yeah, he gets my real opinion. But my broader social circle absolutely does not, because I can't trust that all the people in my broader social circle will remain good friends with me forever and nobody will ever change their opinion on this topic.

You can’t complain that society turns against your ideas if you never bother to express them. You don’t get any points for secret thoughts, the purity of your internal morality. For other people and politicians, you are indistinguishable from a supporter, and bear the same responsibility.

You can’t complain that society turns against your ideas if you never bother to express them.

Where am I complaining? I don't think I've actually argued against trans surgeries on here at all, and if I have it definitely wasn't in a particularly rigorous way. I do actually loudly talk about and advocate for the political issues that matter to me in person - but the trans issue is one that I don't particularly care about, and has an outsized share of vindictive weirdos devoted to it. If I want a chance to actually achieve my own goals, picking a stupid fight over something like this is the worst way to go about doing so.

For other people and politicians, you are indistinguishable from a supporter, and bear the same responsibility.

The politicians I actually vote for usually don't care about trans issues at all, and preference voting in my country means that I am actually distinguishable from a supporter in a real way. Furthermore, there's a big difference between being an active supporter of certain ideas and simply remaining silent - and collapsing that distinction really doesn't do you any favours when it comes to engaging with the rest of the world who hasn't already been sold on your position.

Makes sense, I too am more circumspect in wider circles

Can anybody enlighten me why people aren't more curious, why they're happy for children to be groomed into lifelong medicalisation, with their life choices pre-emptively narrowed before they even understand what consent means?

People in the West are generally conditioned to be rule followers who defer to authority. This indoctrination starts as soon as children go to school where they are punished for minor infractions in their behaviour. Squabbles with other students that reach the stage of bullying are meant to be resolved by the authority figure (which of course often ends up in just punishing both parties). In many cases, socialisation is a foundation of western civilization, and in many cases allows for the development of behaviours that will lead to higher education, being a good citizen and having good life outcomes for the recipient. The same pathways however, can be programmed too deeply leading to oversocialisation, a lack of independent thought and even a lack of agency.

There is a significant amount of deprogramming needed for oversocialised people before they can undertake truly independent thought and action in the face of the current zeitgeist. To stand against the tide of the government, experts, friends and family requires a certain mental framework that takes time to cultivate unless you were resistant to the socialisation process.

I remember in my early 20's being fairly progressive and it actually being emotionally painful to hold beliefs that weren't in line with social expectations. I didn't really have a guide, but started trying to grapple with what I believed were 'difficult and unpleasant truths' in a difficult and painful process that eventually allowed me to vomit up a lot of progressive beliefs that weren't in line with reality. I lost deep friendships because of this change even though I was actually doing most of the process by stealth, and pragmatically just masking up to 'hide my power level'.

After seeing how much pain I went through to get to where I am, I can completely understand why many people would have aversion to challenging their socially acceptable beliefs. To be more specific, complete acceptance and encouragement of the self-identification of their children and trust in the 'experts' advice (child psychologists encouraging transition) is currently the socially acceptable belief among 'educated' progressives.

I can't really think of a good counter-body to all this except mentor/guardianship which encourages critical thinking and independent thought during a child's formative years. Don't allow oversocialisation to take root in your kids.

Edit: Added a couple of links.

Yes, this feels right. My focus has always been on what is true, or what can I learn and I've always been willing to entertain, if not actively share, ideas that are taboo.

The adaptation of knowing which way the wind blows and avoiding going against the ruling elite makes a lot of sense of course. Perhaps I have just been fooled by the 'end of history', of modern liberalism founded on enlightenment values.

I have a friend who literally never shares his political persuasion even when prompted. I assume this must be some hidden trauma in his genes that makes good sense over long timescales.

Of course it's frustrating because all it takes for the counter ideas to be made normal is the mass of people in the middle expressing them, as they used to only a blink of an eye prior.

I can't understand how people can maintain a neutral view on unnecessary surgeries on minors

If you think that minors are basically small people, and that people should largely be allowed to do things that they personally expect will make them fulfilled, it's pretty easy to keep a neutral view. Something like "I have no desire to do this to myself, but neither to I have a moral claim to prevent them from doing it to themselves". To be honest, this is pretty much where I fall on the issue. I am somewhat uncomfortable with the speed with which this went from rare to common, as it leaves people without solid information on how well it's likely to go in the marginal case rather than the average-as-of-decades ago. Still, I can't think of any interventions where the benefit of that intervention is worth the costs and the precedents it sets.

How many manias does history need to present before people learn what we are?

Empirically, people do not learn from history, only from things that they personally have seen, and so every group in every generation has to learn that lesson for themselves.

That would seem to somewhere marginalise the concept of child development, which we have consistently taken into account in applying other restrictions on choice as a society, alcohol, driving, joining the army.

But I can see the framing as being sufficient at a first, say libertarian, brush.

The problem of course, as you point to, is that the systems of trust advising on these matters are captured and are being grossly negligent in providing accurate information.

I kind of see myself at a privileged place in history, in that it's actually really easy to get information. 10 hours of reading on substack will get you all you need to know to have a visceral experience of concern. In the past, the systems of trust were limited. Also we understand biases and self deception much better than previous generations.

I met the parent of a three year old who told me their child gets to decide every day if she is a boy or a girl. Schools are responding to this Manchausens by proxy parental abuse by... obliging them... Surely an average person would look at this and say, hmmmm, that's not right? Are three year olds now masters of their own destiny?

That’s one thing that always got me with this issue. Any attempt to talk about trans-kids as kids, of comparing this desire of kids (which must never be questioned) with other things kids believe about themselves, or are capable of understanding about how things work is notably absent. Kids can, one one hand, be coerced into participating in things for peer pressure, family pressure, as a cope for other problems, or simply because the culture says it’s cool, and everyone understands that the adults need to be there as a backstop to keep them from going nuts. A six year old who wants to be a baseball player when he grows up is assumed to be going through a phase and chided for skipping homework to play ball in the sandlot. A six year old who wants to be a Klingon is told to not watch so much TV.

And adults likewise understand much better than kids that some decisions simply cannot be undone. Often this sort of thing is protected by law. Children are not allowed tattoos because we know that kids can’t understand that some decisions are unchangeable and therefore we don’t let them make them. We don’t allow kids to request an amputation and peg leg or eye removal. We don’t allow kids to do dangerous things that can result in life-changing injury. We limit work and other activities and force kids to go to school because those decisions are too important to be decided by a small child.

Yes exactly - I think it's a sure sign of a mania when we abandon long-established understandings about child development without any reason. If anything neuroscience has shown development (particularly frontal cortex, critical for being able to make judgements with long term consequences) goes on much longer than we had though.

This new thinking goes against known understandings and norms in child development psychology, medical ethics, education and culture broadly. Its a huge clue we're in a mania.

There is also a ship of Theseus problem when it comes to human beings. It seems especially acute in kids. Actions a twelve year old takes can seriously impact a 30 year old being that is functionally a different being. Should we permit a 12 year old to do that? We’ve answered no in most things because we understand 12 year olds don’t have the wherewithal to make those kind of decisions. I don’t see why trans issues should go against the default; if anything it is an issue that should be more definite.

I mean there’s a good deal of scientific research on how the human brain develops from infancy to adulthood, while it’s not perfect as it could be because of individual differences in development, we can roughly understand just how much freedom a twelve year old can actually handle on his own.

Still, I can't think of any interventions where the benefit of that intervention is worth the costs and the precedents it sets.

Sorry for the spam, but here's another one if you don't like bans. This actually got implemented in some states: insurance that covers transition, has to cover costs of detransition. Another one is that doctors that diagnose you with dysphoria can be held liable if the diagnosis turns out to be wrong.

insurance that covers transition, has to cover costs of transition

Did you mean to say “detransition” the second time there?

Yes, thanks!

Still, I can't think of any interventions where the benefit of that intervention is worth the costs and the precedents it sets.

What's wrong with "ban until they're 18"? What precedent is it setting? It's not like we're living in an ancap utopia, the establishment even cracked down on the use of prescribed ivermectin.

I would prefer that we live in an Ancap Utopia actually, with no arbitrary age gating at all.

In principle, I see nothing wrong with anybody of any age changing their sex, it's just that medical science today is unable to cash the cheques that trans activitists write in that regard. No amount of modern surgery or hormones will make you more than a pale facsimile of of the opposite sex, but I don't expect that to last indefinitely, and I dislike age gating anyway.

No amount of modern surgery or hormones will make you more than a pale facsimile of of the opposite sex (...), and I dislike age gating anyway.

Well, there's the rub. If you talk to the pioneers of gender medicine they were pretty explicit that this is just for people feeling massive amounts of distress, that no matter what you do, it will only be a facsimile, that it has serious health consequences, but overall it might be worth it if the distress is so great.

The whole point of age gating is that with kids, all this goes out the window. They don't understand the facsimile thing, and you try explaining the side effects to them, they shrug them off as it all blurs into these quickly-spoken disclaimers at the end of medicine ads.

but I don't expect that to last indefinitely

Yes, I also wish that we were honest about this not ending with transgenderism, so people screaming at me for opposing it can know what they're signing up for. Right now anyone pointing out the transhumanism connection gets treated as a conspiracy theorist.

You're dealing with exceptionally stupid kids if they can't look at existing examples of MTF or even FTM trans people and thinking "oh shit I don't want to turn out like that". They do so despite the evidence to the contrary, because of social indoctrination, but in that regard they're not qualitatively different from adults who transition, who usually end up even more fucked at least in terms of ability to pass if not further health issues.

Yes, I also wish that we were honest about this not ending with transgenderism, so people screaming at me for opposing it can know what they're signing up for. Right now anyone pointing out the transhumanism connection gets treated as a conspiracy theorist.

I wish. Despite surface similarities, the modal transgender activist has little in common with transhumanists, especially in terms of ontology and goals. You might as well lump us in with body builders because we want to improve on the body we were born with, or say Communists and Ancaps are the same because they both seek the dissolution of a capitalist state. I don't even see them as allies of convenience, they're already fucking inconvenient to say the least..

You're dealing with exceptionally stupid kids if they can't look at existing examples of MTF or even FTM trans people and thinking "oh shit I don't want to turn out like that".

If they even manage to advance enough to consider that question, the quick 'n easy answer is "oh no sweetie, that's just the toupee fallacy -- actually there's lots 'n lots of trans people out there that you don't even notice because they pass so well. OBTW that means you need to do this as early as possible!"

You're dealing with exceptionally stupid kids if they can't look at existing examples of MTF or even FTM trans people and thinking "oh shit I don't want to turn out like that".

That's not what they're seeing, though. They're being given the rainbows and unicorns farting sparkles version of it. And drag queens coming in to school to read to them since they're blinkin' two years old, being told by Teacher that this is lovely and wonderful and you! must! approve! Oh, and they're having books like this read to them:

The Pronoun Book

Best for ages 0-3 A board book for our youngest kiddos with gorgeous illustrations of all types of people. There’s no way to know someone’s pronouns unless you ask them, so go ahead!

What we love: This book is simple and has no narrative. It’s perfect for letting young kids discover and notice things for themselv

Things to know: This book is a joyous introduction to people and their pronouns, and how gender expression doesn’t always match someone’s gender identity.

If you got a solid ten years of conditioning like that, and you were any way feeling like you weren't popular enough, smart enough, sociable enough, and what the hell is this puberty changing my body like a Japanese body-horror movie, of course you're going to fall for "if I'm trans, that's the reason why I don't feel comfortable in my own skin and that's the solution to making everything better".

The "my kid was trans and knew it age two" set of parents, in my view, are mostly the ones who are doing the Stage Mother bit (such as Rose Hovick who put her infant daughter on stage to earn a living):

After Hovick and Brennerman divorced, June supported the family by appearing in vaudeville, being billed "Tiniest Toe Dancer in the World" when she was only 2 1⁄2.

Yeah, you've convinced me your 10 year old kid walking the runways knew they were trans when they were 2 (not):

To anyone who asks how a child knows they are transgender at just 10, Dee said she has an answer ready.

“At 2 years old, she started telling us she wasn’t a boy. At 4.5, she socially transitioned and at 7 she legally transitioned.”

Then completely coincidentally, at 7 'she' was put out to work:

“Noella’s first show was Chicago Fashion Week at 7 years old,” her parent, Dee, told Forbes earlier this year. “An out trans teen told her about open auditions, and she watched YouTube videos to prepare. She booked two designers at her very first audition. Since then she has been in two Chicago Fashion Weeks and a handful of smaller shows.

The parents who aren't Stage Mothers and living by proxy through their kids are being steered into it by the 'experts' telling them that if their toddler pulls the hairclips out of their hair, that means they're trans, and if they don't support them to transition, then they'll end up with a dead child because of the trans suicide rate.

You're dealing with exceptionally stupid kids if they can't look at existing examples of MTF or even FTM trans people and thinking "oh shit I don't want to turn out like that".

No, because their information environment is largely controlled by adults who will be feeding them the opposite. Sure, nowadays, it's likely they can break out to some degree, but what would you call a child who believed stuff from randos on the Internet over their teachers?

Depends on what kind of randos. I might potentially call him a promising young man. If the kid is spending his time online absorbing "aliens built the pyramids"-type stuff then maybe a teacher would be better. But if the kid is reading a variety of sources, even if he's just reading Wikipedia, then I'd say that has a high chance of being better for his education than the average teacher.

You're dealing with exceptionally stupid kids if they can't look at existing examples of MTF or even FTM trans people and thinking "oh shit I don't want to turn out like that".

No, you're dealing with completely average kids, but it just so happens that in many ways kids are exceptionally stupid, hence age gating (which also includes things like driving, drinking, ability to sign contracts, etc., etc., etc.)

Looking up existing examples of MTFs or FTMs is easy, but the thought has to occur to you to search for it, and it does not occur even to an average adult (and this is a common behavior on all issues, not just this one). All the kids see is TikToks glamorizing the whole thing, parents don't know what the fuck is even going on, and even if they figure it out, and they'll show it to the kids, they'll be promptly ignored because "you just don't get it mooom", and medical professionals are either ideologically captured, or see the whole situation through green-colored glasses with $$$ signs on them, so they'll also undermine the parents who manage to figure things out.

but in that regard they're not qualitatively different from adults who transition, who usually end up even more fucked at least in terms of ability to pass if not further health issues.

But if it's a social contagion and/or discomfort with puberty and/or with atypical sexuality, they'll get over it, and will not want to transition as adults. Before ideological capture, something like 80% dysphoric kids were desisters.

Also, if you end up changing your mind, your prior ability to pass fucks you up too, to say nothing of the body parts you hacked off. As for health issues, you're the doctor, but the idea that being exposed to puberty blockers and hormone treatment earlier rather later, results in better health outcomes, strikes me as a bit counter-intuitive.

I wish. Despite surface similarities, the modal transgender activist has little in common with transhumanists, especially in terms of ontology and goals.

Where would you say you part ways with them?

Where would you say you part ways with them?

They have an ontology where "gender" exists as an ethereal entity entirely divorced from one's physical form, for one. Or that you can simply claim to be the opposite gender without passing as it, and then have everyone treat you as such. While I endorse the hypothetical of people switching sexes, that's only when they succeed, points for effort are minimal.

hence age gating (which also includes things like driving, drinking, ability to sign contracts, etc., etc., etc.)

You will note that in most of those examples, parents are allowed to either grant them liberty to do so, or sign them on their behalf. I believe that the argument upstream was all about kids, parents and trusted authorities all colluding to make teen transitions feasible.

They have an ontology where "gender" exists as an ethereal entity entirely divorced from one's physical form, for one. Or that you can simply claim to be the opposite gender without passing as it, and then have everyone treat you as such. While I endorse the hypothetical of people switching sexes, that's only when they succeed, points for effort are minimal.

Meh. That seems orthogonal to transhumanism, not in contradiction to it.

You will note that in most of those examples, parents are allowed to either grant them liberty to do so, or sign them on their behalf. I believe that the argument upstream was all about kids, parents and trusted authorities all colluding to make teen transitions feasible.

Letting your kids drink or drive will get you in trouble in most countries, so society is perfectly happy to limit that liberty

But I'm callous enough to let progressive parents fuck up their kids, if that's what they want to do. My issue is with normie parents who sign off on it under duress. "Would you rather have a happy daughter, or a dead son", this is shit "gender experts" actually tell parents. Even doctors bow out of responsibility for the decision. So I'm saying the scenario as outlined is not representative of what's going on.

If a ban is too much for you, I gave another suggestion to simply add liability.

What's wrong with "ban until they're 18"?

The canonical answer is "it works worse with age". I don't know how accurate that is, though it certainly seems plausible to me that delays will result in worse patient outcomes among those who do transition.

What precedent is it setting?

I'm not aware of any medical interventions that are banned even when the patient wants them, and their guardian approves it, and a doctor recommends it, but which are allowed once the patient reaches the age of majority.

It's not like we're living in an ancap utopia, the establishment even cracked down on the use of prescribed ivermectin.

Yes, and that was bad. I would prefer fewer things like that, not more things like that.

The canonical answer is "it works worse with age". I don't know how accurate that is, though it certainly seems plausible to me that delays will result in worse patient outcomes among those who do transition.

How is it plausible that a mastectomy works better when you're 14 than when you're 18?

If you're referring to puberty blockers only, other than accuracy of "works worse with age" (which is indeed under question), there's also the issue with diagnosis. Even if the treatment worked as advertised, there's a fundamental question of whether we can actually tell "trans kids" apart from "non-trans kids".

Yes, and that was bad. I would prefer fewer things like that, not more things like that.

But it happened, the precedent is already set.

patient wants them, and their guardian approves it, and a doctor recommends it

There's a massive question mark under each of these components. The patients in question are minors, respectfully, they don't know what the hell they want. Some guardians approve it, but many have their arm twisted into it by dishonest statistics about risk of suicide. Doctors also mostly wash their hands of the responsibility, your family doctor, endocrinologist, even a run-of-the-mill psychologist and psychiatrist will say "I don't know anything about this gender stuff, go to a gender specialist", and the "gender specialist" ends up being a crank who believes in "gender angles".

Why is it beyond the pale to regulate an industry that functions this way?

What on earth are “gender angles”??

It comes from Dr. Dianne Ehrensaft, one of my favorite characters in this entire saga. She first came to prominence during the Satanic Panic that OP mentioned, not satisfied of only having it on her track record, she decided to jump on the gender bandwagon. I originally heard the term without further explanation, in a video from some trans-care conference, so I had to look it up. Luckily it is now used in academic literature:

Chapter 1, “From Gender Identity Creativity to Gender Identity Creativity: The Liberation of Gender-Nonconforming Children and Youth,” written by clinical and developmental psychologist Diane Ehrensaft, presents the story of the still ongoing liberation of gendernonconforming children from the realms of pathologization and provides glimpses into a new gender-creative world, where gender ghosts (i.e., “internalized thoughts, attitudes, feelings, beliefs, experiences that draw us toward culturally arbitrated binary gender boxes and make us anxious when we or anyone else strays from those boxes,” p. 22) can be and will be replaced by gender angels (“internalized thoughts, attitudes, feelings, beliefs, experiences that allow us to be gender creative and live or accept others living outside of culturally defined binary gender boxes,”

You might also be interested in other terms she promoted like "gender minotaur", "gender Prius", "gender Tesla", "gender smoothie", or "gender Tootsie Roll Pop".

The patients in question are minors, respectfully, they don't know what the hell they want.

And then when they turn 18 they become legal adults, famous for making good decisions that align with their long-term interests.

Some guardians approve it, but many have their arm twisted into it by dishonest statistics about risk of suicide. Doctors also mostly wash their hands of the responsibility...

Yeah this is pretty terrible, and the "the statistics on how things actually tend to go in practice are shit to begin with and then further obscured by biased parties on all sides" bit means that it's very hard to make a well-informed decision here. Such is life in an environment of imperfect and sometimes hostile information, but it still sucks.

Why is it beyond the pale to regulate an industry that functions this way?

I don't think it's beyond the pale, I just expect that the costs of regulation here, as it is likely to be implemented in practice, exceed the benefits. I don't actually think it's a good thing that a bunch of teenagers feel like they're trapped in the wrong body and that their best shot at happiness is major medical interventions, I just expect that any attempts by our current regulatory apparatus to curb the problem will cause horrible "unanticipated" problems.

If you have some statistics that show that, actually, regulation here is likely to prevent X0,000 unnecessary surgeries per year, which in turn will prevent Y,000 specific negative aftereffects, I might change my mind on that. But my impression as of now is that this is a small enough problem, and regulation a large and inexact enough hammer, that it's not worth it.

And then when they turn 18 they become legal adults, famous for making good decisions that align with their long-term interests.

You're not wrong, adult detransitioners are quite bitter about people going "you made your decision when you were 18+? Well, fuck you then, I guess!". I'd be happy with banning the practice from mainstream medicine entirely, if this is what you're offering, but what I offer is a compromise.

Such is life in an environment of imperfect and sometimes hostile information, but it still sucks.

No, it's not, actually. An environment of imperfect information is one where everybody gets to make their case, and everybody gets to make their decision, not one where one side gets to pretend they're The Science, and hound all skeptics and dissidents.

If you have some statistics that show that, actually, regulation here is likely to prevent X0,000 unnecessary surgeries per year, which in turn will prevent Y,000 specific negative aftereffects, I might change my mind on that.

Yeah, there are statistics that show the dstience rate was above 80%, before activists took over the field. Do you have any statistics to show any of these surgeries are necessary to begin with?

But my impression as of now is that this is a small enough problem

Tuskagee was a spit in the bucket compared to what's happening, not to mention George Floyd, or MeToo. If you can link to making that s sort of argument about these cases, I'll believe that you actually made this argument in good faith.

Tuskagee was a spit in the bucket compared to what's happening, not to mention George Floyd, or MeToo. If you can link to making that s sort of argument about these cases, I'll believe that you actually made this argument in good faith.

Huh, apparently reddit is more of a tire fire than I thought, because I definitely made the "what exactly do you hope to accomplish, how does what's currently going on accomplish that, and are there any downsides to normalizing looting unrelated businesses and homes in response to injustice" point during the 2020 riots. But apparently it's been memory-holed. IIRC it was my second most downvoted comment ever.

I've got quite a lot of "measures to contain covid have costs as well as benefits, and I've seen no evidence that the benefits exceed the costs and quite a bit of evidence of the reverse" of you're interested in that.

Honestly though, you will probably not have much success modeling me as "on your side" or "against your side" - I would like to grill, and I object to moral busibodies who get between me and my grill with their schemes to make society better. And I especially object when those schemes aim to solve tiny problems that affect a few thousand people in a country of hundreds of millions, or when those schemes obviously won't help with the problem they're supposedly trying to solve, or when the cure is clearly worse than the disease.

Honestly though, you will probably not have much success modeling me as "on your side" or "against your side"

That's no fun, how am I supposed to dunk on you then?

I would like to grill, and I object to moral busibodies who get between me and my grill with their schemes to make society better.

I can sympathize. I still have a libertarian temperament, even I don't think modelling people as free-floating atoms is either accurate, or something to aim for.

And I especially object when those schemes aim to solve tiny problems that affect a few thousand people in a country of hundreds of millions

I think this is the part I object to the most. While your response to BLM was laudable, it doesn't exactly touch on what I was trying to get from you. BLM was objectionable regardless of whether the way the police treated black people was a big problem or not. It's exactly the idea that things that don't affect a large enough proportion of the population shouldn't be talked about, or have any action taken to stop them, that I have a problem with. You could probably justify several genocides on the grounds that the targeted ethnicity was tiny compared to the global population.

or when those schemes obviously won't help with the problem they're supposedly trying to solve, or when the cure is clearly worse than the disease.

These are fine arguments to bring up, but obviously I disagree they apply in this case.

How is it plausible that a mastectomy works better when you're 14 than when you're 18?

The idea is that it’s far easier for a person who transitions at 14 to pass as the gender of their choice than it is for a person who transitions at 18, especially for MTFs. I don’t think they’re actually wrong about this. At 14, most boys and girls are still fairly androgynous; by 18, most boys are clearly young men: tall, prominent jaw line, Adam’s apple, facial hair, muscular structure, etc. If a gender dysphoric boy wants to transition and pass as a girl, puberty blockers at as young an age as possible are his best shot. The same holds true for girls but in reverse.

Cool, but how is it plausible that a mastectomy works better when you're 14 than when you're 18? You are aware this is a thing that is actually being done?

The same holds true for girls but in reverse.

Not really. You can take testosterone when you're a full-grown adult, and you'll pass pretty well. And like I said in the other comment, to the extent this helps trans people, it hurts people who decide to detransition.

A mastectomy specifically? I assume there’s no medical benefit to doing it earlier (though maybe it heals better the younger you do it?). I imagine the proponents of that procedure are solely focused on the psychological benefits—reducing the “trauma” of seeing your body change in ways you don’t want it to. They probably also don’t consider detransitioning to be a real future concern, so why not just get it over with?

That’s the best I can come up with; I’m not actually in favor of such things myself.

You think that's bad? How about when the very same people who go after social manias for a hobby, and who have a history of blasting the use of puberty blockers on autistic children, end up defending puberty blockers as reversible, when the autistic children believe they're the opposite sex.

There's a lot of reasons I can come up with for why people would act this way: fear of people in power, wanting to be on the Right Side Of History... but at the end of the day it's rank speculatiion.

Will read in detail but that looks like a particularly craven reversal. I think maintaining status is probably a big motivator for such people, who are already in the public eye and don't want to lose what they have. It's why you'll never see an episode on the gender cult, or gender gurus on Conspirituality or DTG.

But the people who I am interested in are people like my friend or brother in law. People who when you explain some of the concern, end up with 'its complicated' and don't want to go further even in their own minds. I mean I get blue tribe v red tribe tribalism, but shouldn't there be some curiosity of the issue at hand?

I know it's all speculation but I really want to know, are people actually not concerned with fidelity to actual reality? Is my mind one of say 20% and there's like another 50-60% that appear like me but actually have a fundamentally different mind?

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats