Article on Trans Surgery

Dario_M · April 6, 2023

Sometimes i question myself you know...what if i would do a trans surgery and transform into a woman. So that i'm a real woman just black on white on paper. Would the church then allow me to marry a man in the temple?? Or would that still be an issieu?? A issieu because... i whas once a man maybe?

How does the church look at those matters??

Edited April 6, 2023 by Dario_M

Tacenda · April 6, 2023

2 hours ago, Dario_M said:

Sometimes i question myself you know...whay if i would do a trans surgery and transform into a woman. So that i'm a real woman just black on white on paper. Would the church then allow me to marry a man in the temple?? Or would that still be an issieu?? A issieu because... i whas once a man maybe?

How does the church look at those matters??

From what I read the other day, the church would only allow it if you were born intersex'd. But if you are definitely born male, it's a no go, for now. Found this from the church handbook. Maybe others know more on this. But I'm sorry Dario_M that sounds so extreme. Why is it paramount that you go to the temple?

38.7.7

Individuals Whose Sex at Birth Is Not Clear

In extremely rare circumstances, a baby is born with genitals that are not clearly male or female (ambiguous genitalia, sexual ambiguity, or intersex). Parents or others may have to make decisions to determine their child’s sex with the guidance of competent medical professionals. Decisions about proceeding with medical or surgical intervention are often made in the newborn period. However, they can be delayed unless they are medically necessary.

Special compassion and wisdom are required when youth or adults who were born with sexual ambiguity experience emotional conflict regarding the gender decisions made in infancy or childhood and the gender with which they identify.

Questions about membership records, priesthood ordination, and temple ordinances for youth or adults who were born with sexual ambiguity should be directed to the Office of the First Presidency.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Tacenda

Dario_M · April 6, 2023

31 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

From what I read the other day, the church would only allow it if you were born intersex'd. But if you are definitely born male, it's a no go, for now. Found this from the church handbook. Maybe others know more on this. But I'm sorry Dario_M that sound so extreme. Why is it paramount that you go to the temple?

38.7.7

Individuals Whose Sex at Birth Is Not Clear

In extremely rare circumstances, a baby is born with genitals that are not clearly male or female (ambiguous genitalia, sexual ambiguity, or intersex). Parents or others may have to make decisions to determine their child’s sex with the guidance of competent medical professionals. Decisions about proceeding with medical or surgical intervention are often made in the newborn period. However, they can be delayed unless they are medically necessary.

Special compassion and wisdom are required when youth or adults who were born with sexual ambiguity experience emotional conflict regarding the gender decisions made in infancy or childhood and the gender with which they identify.

Questions about membership records, priesthood ordination, and temple ordinances for youth or adults who were born with sexual ambiguity should be directed to the Office of the First Presidency.

38.6.23

Transgender Individuals

Transgender individuals face complex challenges. Members and nonmembers who identify as transgender—and their family and friends—should be treated with sensitivity, kindness, compassion, and an abundance of Christlike love. All are welcome to attend sacrament meeting, other Sunday meetings, and social events of the Church (see 38.1.1).

Gender is an essential characteristic of Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness. The intended meaning of gender in the family proclamation is biological sex at birth. Some people experience feelings of incongruence between their biological sex and their gender identity. As a result, they may identify as transgender. The Church does not take a position on the causes of people identifying as transgender.

Most Church participation and some priesthood ordinances are gender neutral. Transgender persons may be baptized and confirmed as outlined in 38.2.8.10. They may also partake of the sacrament and receive priesthood blessings. However, priesthood ordination and temple ordinances are received according to biological sex at birth.

Church leaders counsel against elective medical or surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of a person’s biological sex at birth (“sex reassignment”). Leaders advise that taking these actions will be cause for Church membership restrictions.

Leaders also counsel against social transitioning. A social transition includes changing dress or grooming, or changing a name or pronouns, to present oneself as other than his or her biological sex at birth. Leaders advise that those who socially transition will experience some Church membership restrictions for the duration of this transition.

Restrictions include receiving or exercising the priesthood, receiving or using a temple recommend, and receiving some Church callings. Although some privileges of Church membership are restricted, other Church participation is welcomed.

Transgender individuals who do not pursue medical, surgical, or social transition to the opposite gender and are worthy may receive Church callings, temple recommends, and temple ordinances.

Some children, youth, and adults are prescribed hormone therapy by a licensed medical professional to ease gender dysphoria or reduce suicidal thoughts. Before a person begins such therapy, it is important that he or she (and the parents of a minor) understands the potential risks and benefits. If these members are not attempting to transition to the opposite gender and are worthy, they may receive Church callings, temple recommends, and temple ordinances.

If a member decides to change his or her preferred name or pronouns of address, the name preference may be noted in the preferred name field on the membership record. The person may be addressed by the preferred name in the ward.

Circumstances vary greatly from unit to unit and person to person. Members and leaders counsel together and with the Lord. Area Presidencies will help local leaders sensitively address individual situations. Bishops counsel with the stake president. Stake presidents and mission presidents must seek counsel from the Area Presidency (see 32.6.3 and 32.6.3.1).

For further information on understanding and supporting transgender individuals, see “Transgender” on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

It's not only the temple. Its the idea that Mormon gay guys are more reliable then normal atheist gay guys. And with that idea i would rather wanna marry a Mormon gay guy then an Atheist gay guy.

But uhm.. for now i just leave it how it is.

I'm supprised though, that even if you (as a male) later on in your life decide to transform into a female. A real female. Also on paper. That the church still see's you as a man.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Dario_M

Tacenda · April 6, 2023

Just now, Dario_M said:

It's not only the tempel. Its the idea that Mormon gay guys are more relaiable then normal athiast gay guys. And with that idea i would rather wanna marry a Mormon guy then an Atiast gay.

But uhm.. for now i just leave it how it is.

Oh there are plenty gay Mormon men out there and now, I don't believe you'd be ex'd by the church.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/policy-changes-announced-for-members-in-gay-marriages-children-of-lgbt-parents?lang=eng

Dario_M · April 6, 2023

1 minute ago, Tacenda said:

Oh there are plenty gay Mormon men out there and now, I don't believe you'd be ex'd by the church.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/policy-changes-announced-for-members-in-gay-marriages-children-of-lgbt-parents?lang=eng

I know. Most gay mormons don't wanna know about themselfs that they are gay though.

But uhm.. i'm afrait we are going a little bit offtopic with this. Oh my. 😄

Bernard Gui · April 6, 2023

On 2/9/2023 at 8:20 PM, The Nehor said:

Well, we have lots of studies on the aftereffects of transgender care. We know that detransitioning is pretty rare and in what studies I have seen the usual rationale for detransitioning is to escape social scorn and discrimination and only in a minority of cases do they think the transition was a mistake because they want back their old gender.

On the other hand we have one “whistleblower” with a lot of accusations and anecdotes. If these stories are true this needs investigation. That is not why this story has blown up though. This headline will be used to further vilify transgender people, more accusations of nebulous and undefined “grooming”, and laws that will forcefully detransition people. They won’t stop at minors either.

I know transgender people. I have friends who are transgender. This is going to lead to a lot of hurt for them. I know of families that are packing up and leaving states to protect their transgender children. As I said if this were going to lead to an investigation that would investigate bad standards of care and correct those flaws that would be great. It is not. It is being used to justify bans when the research shows a small minority regret their transition. Abortion was the first target because you had the justification of another life being involved. Now they pick on the kids because “they don’t know better”. They are already moving on to denying body autonomy to adults. The myth that rolling back abortion rights was about the life of the infant are proving hollow as bodily autonomy is being denied in more ways. They start with the most vulnerable and then move on up.

At the beginning of the 20th century a German clinic operated to study what we would later call the lgbt community and tried to help individuals dealing with gender dysphoria and non heteronormative sexualities. They amassed a lot of research and accounts of the lives of people of that community.

Then the Nazis showed up and knowledge was likely pushed backwards by decades and a lot of information including information on gender affirming care is forever lost.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-forgotten-history-of-the-worlds-first-trans-clinic/

“This has all happened before and it will happen again.”

On a very related note remember to punch Nazis.

Wow. Godwin’s Law right from the gitgo.

smac97 · April 6, 2023

41 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Quote

Sometimes i question myself you know...whay if i would do a trans surgery and transform into a woman. So that i'm a real woman just black on white on paper. Would the church then allow me to marry a man in the temple?? Or would that still be an issieu?? A issieu because... i whas once a man maybe?

How does the church look at those matters??

From what I read the other day, the church would only allow it if you were born intersex'd.

The Church cannot - by its own doctrine - allow or disallow any such thing. It only has as much authority over the individual as the individual chooses to give to it.

That said, here is the Church's current policy:

41 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

But if you are definitely born male, it's a no go, for now. Found this from the church handbook. Maybe others know more on this. But I'm sorry Dario_M that sounds so extreme. Why is it paramount that you go to the temple?

Two saving ordinances are only to be had in the temple.

41 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

38.7.7

Individuals Whose Sex at Birth Is Not Clear

In extremely rare circumstances, a baby is born with genitals that are not clearly male or female (ambiguous genitalia, sexual ambiguity, or intersex). Parents or others may have to make decisions to determine their child’s sex with the guidance of competent medical professionals. Decisions about proceeding with medical or surgical intervention are often made in the newborn period. However, they can be delayed unless they are medically necessary.

Special compassion and wisdom are required when youth or adults who were born with sexual ambiguity experience emotional conflict regarding the gender decisions made in infancy or childhood and the gender with which they identify.

Questions about membership records, priesthood ordination, and temple ordinances for youth or adults who were born with sexual ambiguity should be directed to the Office of the First Presidency.

This circumstance really is extraordinarily rare, and does not encompass those with Gender Dysphoria.

Thanks,

-Smac

Analytics · April 6, 2023

On 2/9/2023 at 1:39 PM, smac97 said:

"{I}t is irresponsible to meddle in important decisions that should be left to parents and their children."

I totally agree with that. It's ironic that the state of Utah wants to use the heavy hand of government to micromanage what healthcare decisions that should be made by parents and children. Utah is now a big-government state?

The only context in which I see this issue is right-wing pundits trying to drum up fear and hate against liberals, and this is done partly for political reasons, and partly for economic ones (stirring up fear and hate in the media against liberals is big business).

Even assuming that everything the fear mongers say about transgenders is true, from a public health perspective, kids eating too much sugar is a much, much, bigger issue. So why doesn't the Utah legislature flex its muscles and make it illegal for kids to eat sugar? That has terrible, long-term consequences for health, too.

The answer is obvious. This really isn't about public health. It is about the right's culture war in order to win elections. The right will always find something to be upset about, cry that the sky is falling, and pass ever-more laws limiting freedom.

Calm · April 6, 2023

59 minutes ago, Analytics said:

The right will always find something to be upset about, cry that the sky is falling, and pass ever-more laws limiting freedom.

And this is different from the left how (outside of what they get upset about)?

Edited April 6, 2023 by Calm

smac97 · April 6, 2023

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Quote

"{I}t is irresponsible to meddle in important decisions that should be left to parents and their children."

I totally agree with that.

I would expect as much. That is, after all, the line from the opponents of the bill:

Quote

The bills have drawn strong opposition from critics who say it is irresponsible to meddle in important decisions that should be left to parents and their children.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

It's ironic that the state of Utah wants to use the heavy hand of government to micromanage what healthcare decisions that should be made by parents and children.

I don't see the irony. I don't see "micromanage" as being apt, either.

I do, however, see ample issues about the sufficiency of informed consent, and about disregarding comorbidities, the apparent lack of a coherent "standard of care," the "politicization" of medical care and biological science, the very questionable efficacy of medical/surgical interventions, the lack of data regarding the long-term effects of such medical treatments, and a fair number of other reasonable grounds for concern and caution.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Utah is now a big-government state?

Regarding kids, there are some things that the State leaves to the parent, such as piercings and tattoos.

There are other matters that the State does not leave to the parent, such as a minor using tobacco or alcohol.

So Utah, as with pretty much every state, does not take an absolutist approach when dealing with the welfare of children. I think it has a pretty robust respect for parental rights, but those rights are not unlimited.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

The only context in which I see this issue is right-wing pundits trying to drum up fear and hate against liberals, and this is done partly for political reasons, and partly for economic ones (stirring up fear and hate in the media against liberals is big business).

Meh.

In the absence of a coherent argument or evidence, folks like you invariably turn to A) accusations of hate/bigotry (these have become nearly reflexive / rote from your crowd by now), B) accusations about imperiling "safety" and such, and/or C) claims that disagreement with you and your ideological position is based on purely political, rather than on reasonable philosophical/moral/empirical, grounds.

Not buying it.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Even assuming that everything the fear mongers say about transgenders is true,

Gotta love the stacked deck here.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

from a public health perspective, kids eating too much sugar is a much, much, bigger issue.

So why doesn't the Utah legislature flex its muscles and make it illegal for kids to eat sugar? That has terrible, long-term consequences for health, too.

This is a very good example of the "Fallacy of Relative Privation," a/k/a "Appeal to Worse Problems" or "Not As Bad As" fallacy, which is "dismissing an argument or complaint due to what are perceived to be more important problems." See also here:

Quote

The "not as bad as" fallacy, also known as the fallacy of relative privation, asserts that:

If something is worse than the problem currently being discussed, then

The problem currently being discussed isn't that important at all.

In order for the statement "A is not as bad as B," to suggest a fallacy there must be a fallacious conclusion such as: ignore A.

In other words: nothing matters if it's not literally the worst thing happening. It's popular with people who know perfectly well they're doing something wrong. Since they are fully aware that they're doing something wrong, they feel compelled to attempt to justify it and do so by pointing to other (usually worse) actions.

This fallacy is a form of the moral equivalence fallacy.

That the legislature might want to pay attention to "A" (gender reassignment surgery on children) is not coherently critiqued by you suggesting the legislature should focus on B (legislative attention to sugar intake).

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

The answer is obvious.

The answer is that you have committed a rather flagrant logical fallacy.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

This really isn't about public health.

This is an "Argument by Assertion" fallacy, see here:

Quote

Argument by assertion is the logical fallacy where someone tries to argue a point by merely asserting that it is true, regardless of contradiction. While this may seem stupid, it's actually an easy trap to fall into and is very common.

I think there is pretty good evidence that the legislature is focusing on the health and welfare of children in the state. See, e.g., here:

Quote

The Utah Senate has pushed through two bills affecting Utah’s transgender community. SB16 would ban gender-affirming surgery and hormone therapy for minors and SB93 would prevent issuing a gender-amended birth certificate to minors.

Sen. Michael Kennedy, R-Alpine, told lawmakers this week that gender-affirming procedures “lack sufficient long-term research.”

“But still, our country is witnessing a radical and dangerous push for children to enter this version of health care,” he said.

Senators heard emotional testimony from supporters and opponents in a committee hearing, including some from the transgender community.

And here:

Quote

A controversial bill that would prohibit gender-affirming health care and place a moratorium on puberty blockers for transgender children is moving quickly through the Utah Legislature.

Details: SB 16, sponsored by Sen. Michael Kennedy (R-Alpine) would also ban surgical procedures for minors "for the purpose of effectuating a sex change."

It would allow patients to sue providers for prescribing hormone therapy and puberty blockers.

Kennedy said he's proposing the bill to allow for more research on the long-term effects of gender-affirming health care.

I think Sen. Kennedy is quite right in expressing concern about the “lack sufficient long-term research” on this issue.

As it happens, I went to law school with Sen. Kennedy, who was an MD prior to seeking his law degree and is a practicing Family Practice Physician & Urgent Care Doctor in Utah. So he has some pretty good medical and legal and legislative credentials.

My thinking about this topic has also been informed by this 2001 study from Sweden: Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden. Some excerpts (endnotes omitted) (emphases added):

Quote

-Data is inconsistent with respect to psychiatric morbidity post sex reassignment. Although many studies have reported psychiatric and psychological improvement after hormonal and/or surgical treatment, other have reported on regrets, psychiatric morbidity, and suicide attempts after SRS. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis concluded that approximately 80% reported subjective improvement in terms of gender dysphoria, quality of life, and psychological symptoms, but also that there are studies reporting high psychiatric morbidity and suicide rates after sex reassignment. The authors concluded though that the evidence base for sex reassignment “is of very low quality due to the serious methodological limitations of included studies.”

-We report on the first nationwide population-based, long-term follow-up of sex-reassigned transsexual persons. We compared our cohort with randomly selected population controls matched for age and gender. The most striking result was the high mortality rate in both male-to-females and female-to males, compared to the general population. This contrasts with previous reports (with one exception) that did not find an increased mortality rate after sex reassignment, or only noted an increased risk in certain subgroups. ... The poorer outcome in the present study might also be explained by longer follow-up period (median >10 years) compared to previous studies. In support of this notion, the survival curve (Figure 1) suggests increased mortality from ten years after sex reassignment and onwards. In accordance, the overall mortality rate was only significantly increased for the group operated before 1989.

-Mortality from suicide was strikingly high among sex-reassigned persons, also after adjustment for prior psychiatric morbidity. In line with this, sex-reassigned persons were at increased risk for suicide attempts. Previous reports suggest that transsexualism is a strong risk factor for suicide, also after sex reassignment, and our long-term findings support the need for continued psychiatric follow-up for persons at risk to prevent this.

-Inpatient care for psychiatric disorders was significantly more common among sex-reassigned persons than among matched controls, both before and after sex reassignment. It is generally accepted that transsexuals have more psychiatric ill-health than the general population prior to the sex reassignment. It should therefore come as no surprise that studies have found high rates of depression, and low quality of life also after sex reassignment. Notably, however, in this study the increased risk for psychiatric hospitalisation persisted even after adjusting for psychiatric hospitalisation prior to sex reassignment. This suggests that even though sex reassignment alleviates gender dysphoria, there is a need to identify and treat co-occurring psychiatric morbidity in transsexual persons not only before but also after sex reassignment.

-Table 2 describes the risks for selected outcomes during follow-up among sex-reassigned persons, compared to same-age controls of the same birth sex. Sex-reassigned transsexual persons of both genders had approximately a three times higher risk of all-cause mortality than controls, also after adjustment for covariates. Table 2 separately lists the outcomes depending on when sex reassignment was performed: during the period 1973-1988 or 1989–2003. Even though the overall mortality was increased across both time periods, it did not reach statistical significance for the period 1989–2003. The Kaplan-Meier curve (Figure 1) suggests that survival of transsexual persons started to diverge from that of matched controls after about 10 years of follow-up. The cause-specific mortality from suicide was much higher in sex-reassigned persons, compared to matched controls.

-In this study, male-to-female individuals had a higher risk for criminal convictions compared to female controls but not compared to male controls. This suggests that the sex reassignment procedure neither increased nor decreased the risk for criminal offending in male-to-females. By contrast, female-to-males were at a higher risk for criminal convictions compared to female controls and did not differ from male controls, which suggests increased crime proneness in female-to-males after sex reassignment.

-This study found substantially higher rates of overall mortality, death from cardiovascular disease and suicide, suicide attempts, and psychiatric hospitalisations in sex-reassigned transsexual individuals compared to a healthy control population. This highlights that post surgical transsexuals are a risk group that need long-term psychiatric and somatic follow-up. Even though surgery and hormonal therapy alleviates gender dysphoria, it is apparently not sufficient to remedy the high rates of morbidity and mortality found among transsexual persons. Improved care for the transsexual group after the sex reassignment should therefore be considered.

As this article about the above study notes: "Ten to 15 years after surgical reassignment, the suicide rate of those who had undergone sex-reassignment surgery rose to 20 times that of comparable peers." That is a very troubling statistic. You may know that Sweden is among the world's leaders in being culturally supportive of transgenderism, so it may be difficult to attribute the discouraging results to social/cultural taboos or condemnation.

See also this 2004 article from The Guardian (a UK newspaper) (emphases added):

Quote

Guardian Weekend asked Birmingham University's Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility (Arif) to assess the findings of more than 100 follow-up studies of post-operative transsexuals. Arif, which conducts reviews of healthcare treatments for the NHS, concludes that none of the studies provides conclusive evidence that gender reassignment is beneficial for patients. It found that most research was poorly designed, which skewed the results in favour of physically changing sex. There was no evaluation of whether other treatments, such as long-term counselling, might help transsexuals, or whether their gender confusion might lessen over time. Arif says the findings of the few studies that have tracked significant numbers of patients over several years were flawed because the researchers lost track of at least half of the participants. The potential complications of hormones and genital surgery, which include deep vein thrombosis and incontinence respectively, have not been thoroughly investigated, either. ...

Given that each sex change operation costs the NHS at least £3,000, why has there been so little long-term research? Wylie admits more scientific evidence is needed. But he says it would be difficult to carry out: "With transsexualism being such a rare experience, it's very hard to put people through a series of procedures or trials to compare different treatments." Surgeon James Bellringer adds: "I don't think that any research that denied transsexual patients treatment would get past an ethics committee. There's no other treatment that works. You either have an operation or suffer a miserable life. A fifth of those who don't get treatment commit suicide."

Dr Andrew McCulloch, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, has asked the mental health minister, Rosie Winterton, to set up an inquiry into gender reassignment. He says: "I find it extraordinary that there's no long-term research into its outcome. It's a very drastic procedure to perform with no scientific evidence. To say you can't do research is a cop-out."

And here (also from 2004):

Quote

Chris Hyde, the director of Arif, said: "There is a huge uncertainty over whether changing someone's sex is a good or a bad thing. While no doubt great care is taken to ensure that appropriate patients undergo gender reassignment, there's still a large number of people who have the surgery but remain traumatised - often to the point of committing suicide."

Arif, which advises the NHS in the West Midlands about the evidence base of healthcare treatments, found that most of the medical research on gender reassignment was poorly designed, which skewed the results to suggest that sex change operations are beneficial.

Its review warns that the results of many gender reassignment studies are unsound because researchers lost track of more than half of the participants. For example, in a five-year study of 727 post-operative transsexuals published last year, 495 people dropped out for unknown reasons. Dr Hyde said the high drop out rate could reflect high levels of dissatisfaction or even suicide among post-operative transsexuals. He called for the causes of their deaths to be tracked to provide more evidence.

Dr Hyde said: "The bottom line is that although it's clear that some people do well with gender reassignment surgery, the available research does little to reassure about how many patients do badly and, if so, how badly."

...

Research from the US and Holland suggests that up to a fifth of patients regret changing sex. A 1998 review by the Research and Development Directorate of the NHS Executive found attempted suicide rates of up to 18% noted in some medical studies of gender reassignment.

Things apparently have not improved much since 2004. See here:

Quote

In 2014, a new review of the scientific literature was done by Hayes, Inc., a research and consulting firm that evaluates the safety and health outcomes of medical technologies. Hayes found that the evidence on long-term results of sex reassignment was too sparse to support meaningful conclusions and gave these studies its lowest rating for quality:

Statistically significant improvements have not been consistently demonstrated by multiple studies for most outcomes. … Evidence regarding quality of life and function in male-to-female adults was very sparse. Evidence for less comprehensive measures of well-being in adult recipients of cross-sex hormone therapy was directly applicable to [gender dysphoric] patients but was sparse and/or conflicting. The study designs do not permit conclusions of causality and studies generally had weaknesses associated with study execution as well. There are potentially long-term safety risks associated with hormone therapy but none have been proven or conclusively ruled out.

The Obama administration came to similar conclusions. In 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services revisited the question of whether sex reassignment surgery would have to be covered by Medicare plans. Despite receiving a request that its coverage be mandated, it refused, on the ground that we lack evidence that it benefits patients.

Here’s how the June 2016 “Proposed Decision Memo for Gender Dysphoria and Gender Reassignment Surgery” put it:

Based on a thorough review of the clinical evidence available at this time, there is not enough evidence to determine whether gender reassignment surgery improves health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries with gender dysphoria. There were conflicting (inconsistent) study results—of the best designed studies, some reported benefits while others reported harms. The quality and strength of evidence were low due to the mostly observational study designs with no comparison groups, potential confounding, and small sample sizes. Many studies that reported positive outcomes were exploratory type studies (case-series and case-control) with no confirmatory follow-up.

The final August 2016 memo was even more blunt. It pointed out:

Overall, the quality and strength of evidence were low due to mostly observational study designs with no comparison groups, subjective endpoints, potential confounding (a situation where the association between the intervention and outcome is influenced by another factor such as a co-intervention), small sample sizes, lack of validated assessment tools, and considerable lost to follow-up.

That “lost to follow-up,” remember, could be pointing to people who committed suicide.

And when it comes to the best studies, there is no evidence of “clinically significant changes” after sex reassignment:

The majority of studies were non-longitudinal, exploratory type studies (i.e., in a preliminary state of investigation or hypothesis generating), or did not include concurrent controls or testing prior to and after surgery. Several reported positive results but the potential issues noted above reduced strength and confidence. After careful assessment, we identified six studies that could provide useful information. Of these, the four best designed and conducted studies that assessed quality of life before and after surgery using validated (albeit non-specific) psychometric studies did not demonstrate clinically significant changes or differences in psychometric test results after [gender reassignment surgery].

In a discussion of the largest and most robust study—the study from Sweden that McHugh mentioned in the quote above—the Obama Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services pointed out the 19-times-greater likelihood for death by suicide, and a host of other poor outcomes:

The study identified increased mortality and psychiatric hospitalization compared to the matched controls. The mortality was primarily due to completed suicides (19.1-fold greater than in control Swedes), but death due to neoplasm and cardiovascular disease was increased 2 to 2.5 times as well. We note, mortality from this patient population did not become apparent until after 10 years. The risk for psychiatric hospitalization was 2.8 times greater than in controls even after adjustment for prior psychiatric disease (18 percent). The risk for attempted suicide was greater in male-to-female patients regardless of the gender of the control. Further, we cannot exclude therapeutic interventions as a cause of the observed excess morbidity and mortality. The study, however, was not constructed to assess the impact of gender reassignment surgery per se.

These results are tragic. And they directly contradict the most popular media narratives, as well as many of the snapshot studies that do not track people over time. As the Obama Centers for Medicare and Medicaid pointed out, “mortality from this patient population did not become apparent until after 10 years.”

So when the media tout studies that only track outcomes for a few years, and claim that reassignment is a stunning success, there are good grounds for skepticism.

See also this 2016 study: Suicide and Suicidal Behavior among Transgender Persons (emphases added):

Quote

The suicidal behavior and suicide attempt rates are reported to be significantly high among transgender persons compared to general population across the countries. Thirty-one percent of transgender persons in India end their life by committing suicide, and 50% of them have attempted for suicide at least once before their 20th birthday;[6] however, the exact prevalence of completed suicide among transgender persons in the country remain undocumented.[6] Forty-one percent of the transgender persons in the United States attempt for suicide at least once in their life.[8] In San Francisco, the prevalence of attempted suicide among transgender persons is 32%, among young age (<25 years) it is 50%.[9] Suicidality and self-harm behavior are serious problems among sexual minorities in Japan.[10] Transgender persons are at higher risk for suicidal ideation and suicide attempts at Virginia.[11] Fifty percent of transgender persons in Australia have attempted suicide at least once in their lives.[12] In England, 48% of the transgender young people had attempted suicide at least once in their lives.[13] The prevalence of suicide remains high among transgender persons irrespective of disclosing their transgender status to others and undergoing sex reassignment surgery.[8]

I think we need to take a lot more time and effort to sort out the real and long-term effects of sex reassignment surgery before we advocate for it. I don't think this is happening, and in fact I think it is being discouraged. I encourage you to read this article: I Thought I Was Saving Trans Kids. Now I’m Blowing the Whistle. It is written by a self-described "queer woman" who is "politically to the left of Bernie Sanders" (so your "I see this issue is right-wing pundits trying to drum up fear and hate against liberals" schtick doesn't really work).

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

It is about the right's culture war in order to win elections. The right will always find something to be upset about, cry that the sky is falling, and pass ever-more laws limiting freedom.

This coming from the guy who favors and defends laws criminalizing speech he doesn't like and other laws that compel speech he does like.

You'll understand why I view your pronounced concerns about "laws limiting freedom" with a wee bit of skepticism.

Meanwhile, here is a list of articles and resources I have found informative and useful regarding this topic:

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited April 6, 2023 by smac97

Hamilton Porter · April 6, 2023

Hey no politics, stupid idiots.

Amulek · April 6, 2023

On 4/5/2023 at 12:56 PM, smac97 said:

It seems like equivocations (such as "trans women are women") and accusations of bigotry/transphobia [...] have been essential components of arguments in favor of trans women (that is, biological males) in women's sports. I think these arguments, innately flawed as they already were, will only be further weakened by the course being taken by World Athletics, World Aquatics, UK Athletics and Swim England. I suspect more and more governing bodies will adopt this approach.

Thoughts?

Advocates for transgender and intersex athletes like to say that sex doesn’t divide neatly. This may be true in gender studies departments, but for competitive sports purposes they are simply wrong. Sex in this context is easy to define and the lines are cleanly drawn: you either have testes and functional androgen receptors, or you don't. Full stop.

And an increasing amount of research suggests that having had access to male T levels during puberty provides advantages that do not magically dissipate with hormone therapy administered later in life.

It seems to me that the express point of having separate women's categories in sport is to provide a space free of competition from athletes with male bodies. If you're going to start allowing male bodies into women's sports then you might as well get rid of the category all together.

That being said, I think there are other spaces which have been carved out or set-aside for women where I think an identity based approach might be perfectly acceptable. For me, those would include spaces like women's public bathrooms, locker rooms, dormitories, and gyms. I used to think prisons fit into this category too, but that's something I have tapped the brakes on somewhat recently.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Amulek

smac97 · April 6, 2023

7 minutes ago, Amulek said:

Quote

It seems like equivocations (such as "trans women are women") and accusations of bigotry/transphobia [...] have been essential components of arguments in favor of trans women (that is, biological males) in women's sports. I think these arguments, innately flawed as they already were, will only be further weakened by the course being taken by World Athletics, World Aquatics, UK Athletics and Swim England. I suspect more and more governing bodies will adopt this approach.

Advocates for transgender and intersex athletes like to say that sex doesn’t divide neatly. This may be true in gender studies departments, but for competitive sports purposes they are simply wrong. Sex in this context is easy to define and the lines are cleanly drawn: you either have testes and functional androgen receptors, or you don't. Full stop.

I think they are wrong in pretty much every context associated with mammalian biology. See, e.g., here:

Quote

Intersex is a colloquialism for what is more formally titled Disorders of Sex Development (DSD). Per psychiatrist Karl Benzio in an article published in Today’s Christian Doctor in 2015: “Intersex – People who have anatomy that is not considered typically male or female or have anatomy not matching their genetic sex of XX or XY. Most come to medical attention because healthcare professionals or parents notice something unusual about their bodies or puberty or fertility isn’t normal, but some are not known until death/autopsy.”

The term intersex leans to the ideological, and clarity is needed here. A DSD consistently means a definable, objective underlying medical problem. We should not conflate a condition with an identity. California’s 2019 Assembly Bill 201 makes precisely that type of error in section 2295(a)(2): “Intersex people are a part of the fabric of our state’s diversity to be celebrated, rather than an aberration to be corrected.” That is both a straw argument and misdirection because a medical condition is something one has, not who one is. Celebrate the person, yes, and recognize that person’s disorder of sex development, which may or may not need correcting.

Sex is objective, identifiable and immutable biology, thus within the realm of science. Biological sex is established at conception, declared in utero, and recognized or not at birth. Every nucleated cell in our bodies has a sex. There are only two gametes, sperm and egg, that participate in the generation of new life. There is no third gamete active in that process.
...
Gender is an engineered term that reportedly debuted in the academic literature in 1955 in an article addressing “hermaphroditism” (as it was then known) by psychiatrist Dr. John Money of John Hopkins University. (Dr. Money would go down in ignominy with time, but I digress.) Gender identity refers to self-perception and feelings that are subjective and prone to change. Gender is most often used as a sex stereotype. My point is this: nouns have gender; people have a sex.

The nomenclature “intersex” acknowledges something between two sexes and not a third sex. The term is intersex and not “extrasex,” therefore acknowledging the binary nature of human sex. Biological sex rarely may be phenotypically unclear in a given individual, but this does not represent a third one.

Evolutionary biologist Colin Wright rejects the “sex is a spectrum” mantra with clear reasoning: “a spectrum implies a continuous distribution, and maybe even an amodal one (one in which no specific outcome is more likely than others). Biological sex in humans, however, is clear-cut over 99.98 percent of the time.” Dr. Wright continues, “any method exhibiting a predictive accuracy of over 99.98 percent would place it among the most precise methods in all the life sciences. We revise medical care practices and change world economic plans on far lower confidence than that.”

Intersex/DSD is Not Gender Dysphoria or Trans-identification
Intersex is not a subjective ideation. There is always an objective underlying medical origin. The DSM-5 Gender Dysphoria criteria states: “Specify if: With a disorder of sex development (e.g., a congenital adrenogenital disorder such as 255.2 [E25.0] congenital adrenal hyperplasia or 259.50 [E34.50] androgen insensitivity syndrome).” Intersex is what they mean, and it is different than gender dysphoria.

Intersex/DSD is Rare
Wildly inflated claims of the prevalence of DSD are common, but untrue. Dr. Leonard Sax exposed the source of some of this in his article, “How common is intersex.” Dr. Sax writes that Anne Fausto-Sterling asserted in her 2000 book Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality that intersex totaled 1.7 percent of human births. However, Sax shows that she included in her calculations common conditions having nothing to do with DSD. Dr. Sax notes that congenital adrenal hyperplasia and complete androgen insensitivity syndrome are the most common DSDs, which is in keeping with the previously stated DSM-5 Gender Dysphoria specification. Dr. Sax concludes that DSD/Intersex, “far from being ‘a fairly common phenomenon,’ is actually a rare event, occurring in fewer than two out of every 10,000 births.”

Similarly, a 1992 Danish study found their rate of “testicular feminization syndrome” to be 1:20,400. A 2001 Dutch study stated their rate of androgen insensitivity syndrome “with molecular proof of the diagnosis is 1:99,000.”

And a 2016 Danish study examining all their known 46XY karyotype females (androgen insensitivity syndrome) born since 1960 found the prevalence at 6.4 per 100,000 live born females. Intersex/DSD is rare.

Conclusion
A disorder of sex development/intersex uniformly signifies the presence of a definable, objective underlying medical problem. Intersex is a condition—something someone has—and neither an identity nor a third sex. DSD/intersex represent rare conditions requiring highly individualized therapeutic approaches and timelines, not a blanket one-size-fits-all prescription.

It has been an interesting thing to watch folks like Analytics, who styles himself as an ardent devotee of "science," nevertheless capitulate and bend the knee to ideologically-driven, and biologically/scientifically incoherent, assertions about "gender identity," "gender assigned at birth," and so on.

Last year I came across an interesting article published in the British Medical Journal (one of the most influential medical periodicals in the world): Rethinking sex-assigned-at-birth questions. In this article the authors were critical of people in medical fields making inquiries about a person's biological sex (“What sex were you assigned at birth, on your original birth certificate?”) and differentiating that from their "gender identity" (“What is your gender identity?”). The authors seemed to hint that these questions were transphobic:

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These questions have the potential to harm patients when they are used as a proxy for the more specific questions about anatomy and hormonal levels required to determine someone’s health needs. Furthermore, they do not inform clinicians about patients’ identities, names, or pronouns, all of which are important for truly inclusive clinical encounters. Instead, they may worsen rapport since sex assigned at birth is a construct that often clashes with the identity of transgender, intersex, and other people.
...
In both clinical and research settings, questions that allow patients to self-identify as transgender are critically important to identify and quantify health disparities and to develop effective interventions to reduce them. Questions about transgender identity should be developed by transgender people and vary according to setting, such as research, clinical practice, and census records. Questions regarding gender, transgender, and other relevant identities should be asked in research settings; in clinical settings, questions about pronouns and anatomy may be more relevant. These questions should be rigorously evaluated in the setting for which they were developed.

Recognising and respecting the gender of another person provides an opportunity to connect in a non-hierarchical manner. More broadly, recognising gender without reference to flawed constructs around sex assigned at birth allows us all greater personal autonomy and is key to eliminating transphobia in medicine and beyond.

The "Letter to the Editor" responses to the above article mostly from medical professionals were . . . pretty frank. Here's an example (emphases added):

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Dear editor,

We are writing on behalf of the Gender Dysphoria Alliance leadership board and membership. We are an education and advocacy organization for those with gender dysphoria – those who have medically transitioned and those who haven’t.

We acknowledge that there is disagreement among transpeople about political and clinical matters. We disagree with the erasure of accurate biological language and realities, for several reasons.

...

We believe it’s highly important for people with GD such as ourselves, whether we medicalize or not, to retain awareness of our biological sex. Because it’s not truly possible to change sex, accepting our full reality as trans people is important for both our psychological and physical well-being.

...

There are healthcare implications and safety concerns if our biological sex isn’t clearly recorded on our medical records to orient care providers to our medical needs.

Finally, we believe that the alteration of language and the falsified understanding of biological sex, applied to all people, is the result of extreme activism which is increasing societal hostility towards trans people. We do not wish to participate in that, and we don’t think it’s necessary in order for us to have rights and be integrated into society.

Another (emphasis added):

Quote

Dear Editor

Alpert and colleagues report in a BMJ Editorial 5th June 2021 that characteristics of external genitalia at birth are 98% accurate in defining sex at birth. They go on to say that these are ‘flawed constructs’ around sex assigned at birth. Never before have I heard of a test with 98% sensitivity being regarded as a ‘fl[aw]ed construct’. Would the authors please explain the reasoning which lead them to this conclusion.

Dr Peter Phillips FRCP

Consultant Geriatrician

East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust

Another (emphases added):

Quote

Dear Editor

Sex assigned at birth: the difference between the biological fact and its social interpretation

It is good news to find articles like the one by Alpert et al.1 in which, from a multidisciplinary perspective, he studies scientific aspects with a humanistic approach. Thus, the aforementioned work shows great sensitivity to issues, beyond scientific ones, that affect a particularly vulnerable sector of the population.

However, there is one aspect of the article that I would like to draw attention to, and on which I would like to contribute another view. I am referring to the risk of confusing biological or physiological data with its meaning or social interpretation. Specifically, I find it worrying that, from a scientific point of view, the fact of sex assigned to a human being at birth is relativized, considering it an irrelevant fact and without any consequence.

It is true that different authors, mainly related to the ideology of gender postfeminism and from philosophical dialectics, have been affirming for years that biological sex is an artificial construction that must be discarded. Nonetheless, it is a serious danger that, on a clinical and healthcare level, a piece of data that is biological is relativized. This means being left at the expense of the meaning attributed to sex based on certain interests or feelings.

It is false that the sex assigned to a human being at birth is an invention or social construction, devoid of reality. On the contrary, we are facing a verifiable fact, not only by the physiognomy of some genitalia, but also by genetic evidence provided by analytics, etc.

This same type of verification is the one carried out with the rest of the animals and is the one that, for example, allows detecting a sex-linked hereditary disease, or indicating to a mother in the delivery room if she has had a son or a daughter. Are we really in reality when we think that a mother can be told that the sex of her newborn is not known and that we will have to wait for the newborn to state it?

The sex assigned at birth (derived from the consideration of the genitalia, the proportion of circulating hormones, etc.) is a fact that may have different meanings for different people or for different currents of thought. And that is where, in my opinion, the research and debate on the interpretation of what sex and gender means in society should be based.

The work referred to, by Alpert et al., ends up stating that “recognizing gender without reference to flawed constructs around sex assigned at birth allows us all greater personal autonomy and key to eliminating transphobia in medicine and beyond”. I believe that the previous statement, in accordance with what is indicated in the previous paragraphs, can be disputed, since, among other things, it can have effects contrary to those that the author seeks. Precisely, considering the sex assigned at birth as a social construction contradicts the autonomy of the person (based on complete and real information), and also the normalization of trans people. In reality, denying that transgender people have a biological sex at birth is stripping their own requests for gender reassignment of foundations.

José López-Guzmán

Professor of Pharmaceutical Humanities

Pharmacy Faculty, University of Navarra

Research Building. University of Navarra. 31000 Pamplona (Spain)

Another (emphases added):

Quote

Dear Editor,

Like some of your other correspondents, I am baffled by the idea of referring to "sex assigned at birth". Sex is an inbuilt biological characteristic, like eye colour, blood group or the number of fingers one has - it is discovered at birth (or, in some cases, prenatally), not "assigned". Its foundation is the individual's chromosome content which, in the overwhelming majority of cases, leads to predictable processes of development in the genitalia and in other bodily areas. The authors seem to be arguing that because biological sex does not tell a doctor everything about a person's health or disease risk, it is of no value - an obvious non sequitur.

To take the example given by the authors in reply to an earlier rapid response: the possibility of pregnancy exists for most biological females (including some of those who have transitioned to a male gender role) but is impossible for all biological males, whatever gender role they adopt. Other respondents have already commented on the need to be aware of disease risk relating to cervical or prostate screening and one must also include cardiovascular risk which, though complicated, shows certain clear differences between men and women.

Transgender people, like everyone else, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but this in no way means that downgrading or ignoring sex as a cardinal feature of someone's biology makes any sense.

Roger Fisken

Retired consultant physician and endocrinologist

Another:

Quote

Dear Editor

I am truly baffled that such an esteemed medical journal could publish an article about sex being assigned at birth. Since forever sex has been observed at birth if not already known. The only time it may be considered to be assigned is in the very small percentage of cases of those with a DSD where there is ambiguity.

The notion of someone being assigned a sex implies that it may not be correct, but we know no one changes sex, that there are only 2 sexes. Why are you peddling this nonsense? It is making a mockery of the medical profession.

Helen Bailey
Client services coordinator
Hampshire

Another:

Quote

Dear Editor

There is no such thing as "sex-assigned-at-birth". Sex is not assigned at birth. Publishing this nonsense diminishes the reputation of your journal.

Prof David Curtis MD PhD FRCPsych
Honorary Professor
UCL Genetics Institute

Another (emphases added):

Quote

Dear Editor

This editorial appears to argue against the use of clear language to describe biological sex in medicine. The authors seem to take a rather myopic view of this issue, framing it as one rooted in transgender rights and who holds power in “assigning sex,” instead of basic principles.

Human beings, of course, reproduced sexually long before modern medicine, birth certificates, or the word “transgender” first came to be. The truth of the sex binary is anchored in the mechanism that brings every human into existence.[1] Humans have two different types of gametes, two types of reproductive systems, two discrete reproductive roles: two sexes. As a result, we have given these two sexes different names: female and male. These will exist whether or not the clinician writes them down, or asks a transgender patient “what is your sex?” The fact that 0.02% of babies[2] have differences in sex development that cause the usually easy identification of sex to become a more complex affair, does not invalidate sex as one of the most clinically useful categorisations in medicine. To suggest that it does, and therefore sex should not be recorded, is absurd. If the accuracy of observable sex is claimed not to be good enough for doctors to record or rely on in medical practice, this would logically put doctors in a position where any data they have would need to reach an accuracy threshold far exceeding most tests. Even by the authors’ own statistic of 98%, it sets an impossibly high bar.

...

No rational argument appears to be made as to why doctors should avoid admitting that the patients who had hysterectomies are biologically female, and those who had orchiectomies male. Surgery on reproductive organs does not render sex obsolete. A lobectomy does not make the respiratory system redundant. While the authors dismiss information gained from knowledge of biological sex as “shorthand,” knowledge of the two types of reproductive systems, and being able to name them, is important. This holds true for gender clinicians, too. The patient referral form for the Gender Identity Clinic in London asks for “sex assigned at birth.”[8] It seems strange to suggest medicine should have no names for the distinctions between the people at risk of testicular torsion versus cervical cancer. Communication skills usually advise against reducing people to their organs, to avoid saying “the pancreas in room 7,” but even if some form of organ-inventory system were proposed, it seems likely the basic template would come in two distinct types.

Gender identity information can be valuable to help guide the clinical encounter, respect the transgender patient’s sense of self and gain a fuller picture as to healthcare needs. But gender identity should be recorded in addition to, not act as a replacement for, biological sex. If an unknown patient comes in to A&E, unaccompanied and unconscious, their gender identity would not be ascertainable. However, their sex would remain observable, and would make a difference to that patient’s care.

Healthcare cannot collectively discard words for the two biological sexes. Awareness of the importance of clinical research into sex differences in medicine, especially for the female sex[9], has just been highlighted by the pandemic. How would such work be done if the sexes cannot be named?

Clear language on sex is vital in medicine, science, and public health education.

It is surprising these words should need to be typed in a Rapid Response to the BMJ.

Sara Dahlen

MSc Student, Bioethics and Society

King's College London

London

I think it is important to address these things. We can be respectful and kind to trans people without denying reality and scientific/biological fact. And we ought to be able to have discussions about these matters without accusations or acrimony.

7 minutes ago, Amulek said:

And an increasing amount of research suggests that having had access to male T levels during puberty provides advantages that do not magically dissipate with hormone therapy administered later in life.

Yep. Competitive sports seems to be one of those "where the rubber meets the road" kind of environments that help us see past the sex-related ideological assertions coming out of Western colleges/universities and other sources. As noted above, healthcare workers also need to be realistic about such things. One of the above letters put it well: "We believe it’s highly important for people with GD such as ourselves, whether we medicalize or not, to retain awareness of our biological sex. Because it’s not truly possible to change sex, accepting our full reality as trans people is important for both our psychological and physical well-being."

Quite right. It is troubling to see so many people, who no doubt have kind intentions, are nevertheless indulging factual and biological falsehoods about sex.

7 minutes ago, Amulek said:

It seems to me that the express point of having separate women's categories in sport is to provide a space free of competition from athletes with male bodies. If you're going to start allowing male bodies into women's sports then you might as well get rid of the category all together.

Or we could just say "free of competition from male athletes" and "allowing men into women's sports"

Far less clunky.

7 minutes ago, Amulek said:

That being said, I think there are other spaces which have been carved out or set-aside for women where I think an identity based approach might be perfectly acceptable. For me, those would include spaces like women's public bathrooms, locker rooms, dormitories, and gyms. I used to think prisons fit into this category too, but that's something I have tapped the brakes on somewhat recently.

I think there is too much of a "thin edge of the wedge" aspect to these carve-outs. I think a bright line rule is more appropriate.

Thanks,

-Smac

The Nehor · April 6, 2023

6 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

Wow. Godwin’s Law right from the gitgo.

You’re about two months late on that and it is not Godwin’s law when it is a story about literal Nazis.

The Nehor · April 6, 2023

2 hours ago, Calm said:

And this is different from the left how (outside of what they get upset about)?

On one hand we have people who want to persecute, restrict, and discriminate against marginalized groups and paint them as a threat to the nation as a whole. On the other hand we have people who say we shouldn’t do that.

So who can say who is right?

Bernard Gui · April 6, 2023

On 2/10/2023 at 3:46 PM, The Nehor said:

But enough about our weird widely accepted practice of infant genital mutilation. Circumcision probably deserves its own thread.

Whatever one thinks of circumcision, comparing it with the emasculation of boys or young men is like equating Taco Bell Hot Sauce with Hellfire Fear The Reaper Chili Sauce. 😱

Shrugging off bottom surgery by appealing to the long-ago criminalized castration of boy singers is a losing proposition. In some ways, however, the results are the same.

It did make for good harem guards, though.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Bernard Gui

Bernard Gui · April 6, 2023

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

You’re about two months late on that and it is not Godwin’s law when it is a story about literal Nazis.

Better late than never; nevertheless, it's still a textbook example of Godwin's Law (which does not specify literal Nazis), just a comparison with Nazis. In other words, trying to score points by calling those with whom you disagree Nazis.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Bernard Gui

The Nehor · April 7, 2023

1 hour ago, Bernard Gui said:

Better late than never; nevertheless, it's still a textbook example of Godwin's Law (which does not specify literal Nazis), just a comparison with Nazis. In other words, trying to score points by calling those with whom you disagree Nazis.

The inventor of Godwin’s Law disagrees when you are comparing fascists to Nazis. He said go ahead. So I will.

The Nehor · April 7, 2023

Here is a good article on transgender reporting:

https://www.theonion.com/it-is-journalism-s-sacred-duty-to-endanger-the-lives-of-1850126997

Quote

The task of reporting is not a simple one. Each and every day, reporters and editors at publications like The Onion make difficult decisions about which issues should receive attention, knowing that our coverage will influence not only how people think, but also how they act. This responsibility is at the core of an ongoing debate over whether news coverage of transgender, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming people is unduly biased. As the world’s leading news publication with a daily readership of 4.3 trillion, The Onion is compelled to weigh in.

We firmly believe that it is journalism’s sacred duty to endanger the lives of as many trans people as possible.

“Quentin” is a 14-year-old assigned female at birth who now identifies as male against the wishes of his parents. His transition was supported by one of his unmarried teachers, who is not a virgin. He stole his parents’ car and drove to the hospital, where a doctor immediately began performing top surgery on him. Afterward, driving home drunk from the hospital, Quentin became suicidally depressed, and he wonders now, homeless and ridden with gonorrhea, if transitioning was a mistake.

We just made Quentin up, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean stories like his aren’t potentially happening everywhere, constantly. Good journalism is about finding those stories, even when they don’t exist. It’s about asking the tough questions and ignoring the answers you don’t like, then offering misleading evidence in service of preordained editorial conclusions. In our case, endangering trans people is the lodestar that shapes our coverage. Frankly, if our work isn’t putting trans people further at risk of trauma and violence, we consider it a failure.

We stand behind our recent obsessed-seeming torrent of articles and essays on trans people, which we believe faithfully depicts their lived experiences as weird and gross. We remain dedicated to finding the angles that best frame the basic rights of the gender-nonconforming as up for debate, and we will use these same angles over and over again in hopes that this repetition makes them suffer. As journalists, it is our obligation to entertain any and all pseudoscience that gives bigotry an intellectual veneer. We must be diligent in laundering our vitriol through the posture of journalistic inquiry, and we must be allowed to fixate on the genitals.

It is against free speech to stop us from fixating on the genitals.

Much of the recent debate concerns medical procedures, particularly in children, and whether things like hormone replacement therapy or gender-affirming surgeries are safe and appropriate. Indeed, there are critical questions to be asked about the social complexities of gender, as well as medical ethics in a profit-driven healthcare system. We are simply not interested in any of that. Instead, we will use flawed data and spurious logic to repeatedly write the same hand-wringing arguments asking whether there are suddenly too many trans people around. Journalistic integrity demands nothing less.

Naturally, courageous reporting like ours has its detractors. Our critics accuse us of transphobia and are trying to murder us online, with their online mobs. They want to destroy our right to free speech and have us arrested by all the police. What gives? Why would you arrest us, when it’s those deviant trans people you ought to be arresting instead? Do you know what the science says about trans people getting arrested, huh? What if we could find data saying trans people should be more likely to get arrested? What will our detractors say then? They’ll be silent, as well they should be, and free speech will survive one more day.

For more evidence of our time-honored journalistic commitment to endangering lives, please see our previous coverage of gay people, immigrants, Black people, and women.

Institutions with massive platforms like ours must be open to different ways of endangering the trans community. That might mean using the framework of medical care as a bogeyman to imply that trans people are engaged in something sinister. That might mean turning isolated instances of detransitioning into sweeping generalizations about children being groomed. That might mean identifying the worst prejudices that transgender people face—and encouraging our readers to adopt them.

Did you forget yet about how we wrote that there might be data showing that trans people should be more likely to get arrested? What if that were true? Or what if non-binary people are ten times more likely to traffic infants? What if puberty blockers are a kind of sex crime? What if doctors are climbing through windows to suture penises to sleeping cheerleaders? The next time you see a trans person, you ought to ask yourself these questions.

All great journalists, and even those lesser journalists who don’t work for The Onion, eventually ponder why we do what we do. Is the point of reporting to illuminate the world around us, so that we may make meaning of it? Or is it to cause people in minority groups to question their humanity and persuade others to demonize them? We know where we stand, proudly dreaming of genitals.

Research shows that trans people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to be the victim of a violent crime. We salute our colleagues across the media who are working tirelessly to make that number even higher.

—The Onion Editorial Board

rodheadlee · April 7, 2023

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

On one hand we have people who want to persecute, restrict, and discriminate against marginalized groups and paint them as a threat to the nation as a whole. On the other hand we have people who say we shouldn’t do that.

So who can say who is right?

Come on bro the left claims that's what they want to do but they're the one categorizing everybody.

The Nehor · April 7, 2023

19 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

Come on bro the left claims that's what they want to do but they're the one categorizing everybody.

What kind of categorization and according to whom are they doing this?

Hamilton Porter · April 7, 2023

Hey low-IQ people who don't know how to read, no politics.

Bernard Gui · April 7, 2023

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

The inventor of Godwin’s Law disagrees when you are comparing fascists to Nazis. He said go ahead. So I will.

That makes no sense, but carry on.

Quote

Isn’t it lazy to go there?
Of course it is. If you want to say something more powerful than the last person who disagreed with you said, people volunteer the rhetorical comparisons because they haven’t thought hard about history and what’s different between now and Germany in the 1930s or Cambodia in the 1970s.

When do you believe it’s a fair shake?
I urge people to develop enough perspective to do it thoughtfully. If you think the comparison is valid, and you’ve given it some thought, do it. All I ask you to do is think about the human beings capable of acting very badly. We have to keep the magnitude of those events in mind, and not be glib. Our society needs to be more humane, more civilized and to grow up.

smac97 · April 7, 2023

On 4/5/2023 at 11:56 AM, smac97 said:

Just saw this item about World Athletics ("the international governing body for the sport of athletics, covering track and field, cross country running, road running, race walking, mountain running, and ultra running") : Trans-Women Banned from Woman's Division in Olympics (YouTube video). More here:

This development follows last year's announcement by World Aquatics / FINA, the international governing body for aquatic sports, to effectively restrict women's sports to biological women. From June 2022:

The announcement by World Athletics was also followed by this announcement by Swim England, the national governing body for swimming, diving, water polo, open water swimming, and synchronised swimming in England:

Similarly, UK Athletics, the governing body for the sport of athletics in the United Kingdom, has also recently "announced a ban on transgender athletes competing in the female category."

Reactions to these developments have been, unsurprisingly, mixed.

See, e.g., here: "World is finally waking up" - Martina Navratilova endorses World Athletics' decision to bar transgender women from female competitions

Here (by "International Family News") : World Athletics heads back to normalcy: No males in female sport

Here (by "VCY America," apparently a Christian group) : World Athletics Council Bans Transgender Athletes

Here (by "PopSugar.com") : Transgender Women Are Women — So Why Has World Athletics Banned Them From Competing?

Here (by "TransgenderFeed.com") : World Athletics Council bans trans women athletes competing in female events

I think these developments are a good resolution. It looks like we are headed toward having competitive sports involving A) an "open" category (open to everyone, including women and biological males who "identify" as women) and B) a "women's only" category (limited to actual, biological women).

I would like to hear thoughts and assessments on these developments, as they have an effect on the trans movement, and speak to some of its ideology. For example, the video quotes Lia Thomas (f/k/a William Thomas) responding to the World Athletics announcement as follows:

It seems like equivocations (such as "trans women are women") and accusations of bigotry/transphobia (see SeekingUnderstanding's comment above) have been essential components of arguments in favor of trans women (that is, biological males) in women's sports. I think these arguments, innately flawed as they already were, will only be further weakened by the course being taken by World Athletics, World Aquatics, UK Athletics and Swim England. I suspect more and more governing bodies will adopt this approach.

Another development (on trans athletes) :

Quote

The Biden administration on Thursday proposed new regulations that would allow schools to bar transgender athletes from participating in competitive high school and college sports, but disallow blanket bans on the athletes that have been approved across the country.

The rules would narrow when discrimination of trans athletes would be permitted. But they also would offer guidelines for when schools could bar their participation.

Under the proposal, schools would need to consider a range of factors before imposing a ban on trans athletes and would need to justify it based on educational grounds, such as the need for fairness. So, for instance, a school district could justify a ban on transgender athletes on their competitive high school track and field team, whereas a district would have a harder time making that case for an intramural middle school kickball squad.

Read details of the administration's proposed regulation

The long-awaited proposal, which is subject to public comment, puts forth a framework for how schools can comply with Title IX, the 50-year-old federal law that bars schools from discriminating on the basis of sex. It would apply to all public K-12 schools, as well as colleges and universities that receive federal funding.

Reaction was mixed. Transgender rights activists said the proposal provided a welcome set of protections for trans students but also worried the regulations could offer a road map for those who want to discriminate.

“The proposed rule helps clarify that these blanket bans on transgender athletes are in violation of Title IX and is a really positive development,” said Scott Skinner-Thompson, a supporter of transgender rights and associate professor at the University of Colorado Law School. But he said the provisions allowing for discrimination were “deeply troubling.”

“When it comes to the hard cases, this is saying that trans kids can be discriminated against,” he said.

Conservatives were opposed, objecting to a proposal that would, in effect, wipe out blanket bans on transgender athletes passed in recent months by 20 states.

“Under this rule, equal rights for female athletes are history,” said Penny Nance, chief executive and president of Concerned Women for America, a conservative advocacy group. “Those 50 years of women’s achievements can now go to men pretending to be women.”

Thanks,

-Smac

Vanguard · April 7, 2023

29 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Another development (on trans athletes) :

Thanks,

-Smac

Just like the 'separate but equal' stance for traditional mens' and womens' sports, the trans community should have their own competitive category. What would be wrong with that?

Article on Trans Surgery

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