On Transgender Nonsense

Fred Litwin is a gay guy, and in fact a gay activist, so the politically correct crowd might assume he believes all the politically correct things.

No, not at all.

In an essay in a Canadian journal, he skewers the transgender movement. Some key points:

Gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder affects a very small number of people. Estimates range from 0.1-0.5 percent of the population. If you only consider transsexuals who medically transition from one sex to another, you’re at the extreme lower end of that estimate. The latest data from the U.K. suggests that 20 in 100,000 are transsexual. But the transgender population seems to be significantly larger than that, and growing. It includes an increasing number of children who are convinced, perhaps partly by the ubiquity of the phenomenon in popular culture, that they are growing up in the wrong bodies.

Referrals to gender dysphoria clinics are skyrocketing. The British Guardian newspaper recently reported that “a clinic in Nottingham reported a 28-fold increase in referrals in eight years, from 30 in 2008 to 850 in 2015. It is expected to increase to more than 1,000 referrals in 2016.” Edmonton psychiatrist Lorne Warneke, who has been helping people transition for decades, told the CBC in October that he’s seeing more and younger trans patients than ever before. The internet is awash in videos where trans adolescents tell their stories of transitioning.

Activists are pushing the medical community to offer treatment at earlier and earlier ages. It is not uncommon to start patients on hormone blockers around age 13 to delay puberty, then prescribe cross-sex hormones at age 16, so the child is ready for surgical transition at age 18.

Dr. Frankenstein as pediatrician

There is very little data on the long term effects of hormone blockers but what there is indicates that these drugs may stunt growth and affect bone density. One of the drugs, Lupron, which is manufactured by the U.S. pharmaceutical giant AbbVie, is intended for treating endometriosis and uterine fibroids. AbbVie has never tested Lupron for blocking puberty and has no plans to do so. Adverse events in clinical studies of females included “hot flashes, headaches, emotional lability (uncontrollable laughing or crying), decreased libido, acne, myalgia, reduction in breast size, and vaginal dryness.”

The American College of Pediatricians reports that “puberty-blocking hormones induce a state of disease – the absence of puberty – and inhibit growth and fertility in a previously biologically healthy child.” Dr. Lisa Brinkman, a clinical psychologist in Ireland told the Irish Examiner that “cross-sex hormones have irreversible effects on fertility. There’s no going back.”

That’s just the puberty blockers. Cross-sex hormones also have not been studied for their use in adolescents. Dr. Lisa Simons, a pediatrician at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, told the Frontline show on PBS that “we don’t really know how sex hormones impact any adolescent’s brain development,” adding that there are no “specific studies that look at the neurocognitive effects of puberty blockers.” What is known is that some of the physiological changes caused by cross-sex hormones cannot be undone if a child decides to revert back to their original sex.

. . .

The lust to overthrow convention has reached new heights of ambition – and absurdity – in the Trans movement. It has succeeded in badgering New York City to recognize 31 different genders in its civic human rights code: Bi-Gendered, Cross-Dresser, Drag King, Drag Queen, Femme Queen, Female to Male, FTM, Gender Bender, Genderqueer, Male to Female, MTF, Non-Op, Hijra, Pangender, Transsexual/Transsexual, Trans Person, Woman, Man, Butch, Two-spirit, Trans, Agender, Third Sex, Gender Fluid, Non-binary Transgender, Adrogyne, Gender Gifted, Gender Blender, Femm, Person of Transgender Experience, Androgynous.

The dating app Tinder worked with the LGBT group GLAAD to add 37 genders to its website, and they have plans to continually update their current list: Agender, Androgyne, Androgynous, Bigender, Female to Male, FTM, Gender Fluid, Gender Nonconforming, Gender Questioning, Gender Variant, Genderqueer, Male to Female, MTF, Neither, Neutrois, Non-binary, Other, Pangender, Trans, Trans Man, Trans Woman, Transfeminine, Transgender, Transgender Female, Transgender Male, Transgender Person, Transgender Woman, Transmasculine, Transsexual, Transsexual Female, Transsexual Male, Transssexual Person, Transsexual Woman, Two-Spirit.

. . .

What’s the way forward? Well, we certainly need more Jordan Petersons, people with a backbone who can firmly challenge this nonsense.

We also need more people who stand up for science. Dr. Kenneth Zucker is one such person. He used to run the Youth and Family Identity Clinic at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. But in December 2015, he was abruptly fired and the clinic was shut. Zucker had enraged trans activists by advising the parents of dysphoric children to hold off on medical intervention because most kids eventually accept their biological reality. Zucker now practices privately and offers an important alternative for parents who are looking for real answers.

Perhaps we can also use some ridicule.

Grant Strobl, a junior at the University of Michigan, decided that his preferred pronoun was “His Majesty.” He told the Washington Post that “When I realized that the university decided to live a fantasy of allowing students to insert words that aren’t actual pronouns into the university online database that updates the rosters, I decided, well, I might as well be the king of that fantasy, and I henceforth shall be referred to as His Majesty.”

Like all identity politics movements, the transgender movement tends toward the totalitarian. Tolerating people involves leaving them alone. If somebody with a penis thinks he’s a woman, he is free to think that. But when he demands that he be called “ze” he is making a demand he has no right to make. And when he insists on running around unclothed in the women’s locker room or sauna, as Adelaide Kramer did at UWM, he is showing intolerance of other people’s sensibilities.

Why should his desire to be accepted as a woman trump women’s desire for privacy in a locker room? For the politically correct, because he is a member of a “marginalized group” and is due special privileges. For sensible people, it should not.