"Transgenderism is mass hysteria similar to 1980's era junk science" Article in the Federalist

[Iused2BanOptimist]

An American professor of psychiatry dares to speak up.

"Historically, contagious popular delusions that deny common sense and fly in the face of reality eventually run their course. This will likely be the fate of the transgender craze. But before it collapses under its own weight, many people will suffer irreparable harm."

I'm just leaving this here for people to read as I will be out with in-laws most of the day but look forward to the discussion.

thefederalist.com/2016/11/17/psychiatry-professor-transgenderism-mass-hysteria-similar-1980s-era-junk-science/

I've been postulating exactly this for the last month ITRW and have had several friends be very cool with me as a result.
I suppose it's to be expected as I'm basically saying they have been gullible.
Nobody likes that.

Just noticed this is from two years ago. Doesn't look like anyone is listening yet then. I wonder if he still has his job?

I wonder how long it took before people started to say this about lobotomies to when they were discredited? I'd say it's accurate.

I keep wondering if social media will cause it to implode more quickly due to the "suck my lady dick" style of comments ftom TRA's or if it will prolong it for young people.

I have wondered if the self-ID and trans as a lifestyle will disappear,
all the TWAW nonsense tantrumming itself down the toilet bowl.

However, what I call the "genuine" transwomen and transmen, who have gender dysphoria, will always remain,
because imo it has been an ailment for a tiny minority (0.1% ?) for centuries

If that happens, I expect we would resume our previous friendly tolerance and "gentleman's agreement" in loos etc.

The biggest takeaway from that article for me is the scary way that LGB are being tainted in the minds of conservatives due to the association with transactivism. Sickening to read the way he was phrasing it, and yet with official LGBT organisations condoning and even pushing transactivist's bizarre demands, they are leaving themselves wide open to this critique.

He is right, though, about the huge damage done by psychologists causing/jumping on those two 80s bandwagons, which I have read quite a lot about, and the parallels with the way psychologists are facilitating transactivists' delusions.

The 2016 item puts me in mind of a piece by Thomas Szasz from 1979: Male and Female He Created Them (h/t to whoever mentioned this a while ago)

IN the old days, when I was a medical student, if a man wanted to have his penis amputated, my psychology professors said that he suffered from schizophrenia, locked him up in an asylum and threw away the key. Now that I am a professor. my colleagues in psychiatry say that he is a “transsexual,” my colleagues in urology refashion his penis into a perineal cavity they call a vagina, and Time magazine puts him on its cover and calls him “her.” Anyone who doubts that this is progress is considered to be ignorant of the discoveries of modern psychiatric sexology, and a political reactionary, a sexual bigot, or something equally unflattering.
Like much of the medical-psychiatric mendacity characteristic of our day, the official definition “transsexualism” as a disease comes down to the strategic abuse of language — epitomized by confusing and equating biological phenomena with social roles (in the present case, chromosomal sexual identity with acting as a man or a woman). Although there are connections between these concepts and facts, neither one “causes'.’ or “determines” the other.

www.nytimes.com/1979/06/10/archives/male-and-female-created-he-them-transexual.html

This just published in bmj today
https://analytics.twitter.com/mobidsynccclick?slug=v6evGVjrC1&idb=AAAAEICGIiB2OVXo3sQGg2ueg72LCNIHkaLYNVtcDDB2OQdI8f3qHH5fjCqpEfj213YziZpp8p-gy5v4Zdy7nbMZIBA7bTJuAdZ20BaDxH5grH2grv44OOY3e9zzOd8XyQ5r4WxOFfsnsIfeyuaUQImGd3wek3&adtracking=false&tailoreddads=false

I have 2 very good female friends in a relationship. They won't even call themselves lesbians anymore because that isn't inclusive (they describe themselves as queer) and they talk about trans people needing far more consideration than them because they are more oppressed. They're considerate lovely women.

One of them went on a walking holiday to Scotland this summer and she came back saying how it had been ruined because they all slept together each night in a big communal room and she was uncomfortable about sharing with men.

And that's what it comes down to. People up to now have been indulging a population they consider vulnerable. But even the kindest people value their boundaries, ultimately. And the more aggressive and ridiculous some TRA's get, the more people will turn against them.

This absolutely will run its course, but of course it's doing such damage in the meantime. And the Trump business means that in America at least some people are becoming even more entrenched in their views - that is worrying me more than anything else in this debate at the moment.

Kesstrel I agree, I was a bit concerned about some underlying homophobia there and was in two minds about posting for that reason. On the other hand he makes some good points. Also it was posted on twitter by a strongly GC gay man so I decided if he wasn't concerned to leave it!

The biggest takeaway from that article for me is the scary way that LGB are being tainted in the minds of conservatives due to the association with transactivism.

I share your concern that some sectors are willing to use actions by a small set of TRAs to walk back the civil rights gains from LGB and similar groups.

For historians of revolutionary movements, the term Thermidor has come to mean the phase in some revolutions when power slips from the hands of the original revolutionary leadership and a radical regime is replaced by a more conservative regime, sometimes to the point where the political pendulum may swing back towards something resembling a pre-revolutionary state.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermidorian_Reaction

The extreme trans agenda has shown itself to be so full of inherent inconsistencies and contradictions, that it cannot possible last. And the fact of child transitioning will, in time, become an absolute scandal. People will say they weren't aware, or "nobody said".

The madness of it all is in how our media, institutions and academia have gone along with it. This is something I just cannot get my head around.

current thread re BMJ article:
(extract)
"Regulated medical practitioners should follow a framework of evidence, not simply respond to client expectations. Creating that evidence to inform quality standards is an ethical imperative. We need research to explore the interplays between gender identity, mental health and neurodevelopmental problems, sexual orientation, autogynephilia, and unpalatable gender roles"

open access link: www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k4490.full?ijkey=6lX93kQA0lz5YoB&keytype=ref

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3410257-BMJ-article-We-need-research-to-explore-the-interplays-between-gender-identity-mental-health-and-neurodevelopmental-problems-sexual-orientation-autogynephilia-and-unpalatable-gender-roles

When women wake up to the fact that their boundaries are being forcefully breached, then serious questions will start to be asked. But that could take some time. Women and girls will probably have to go through the experience of excluding themselves, first, from their own spaces and services. Feminism will have to be re-invented, and brought into sharp mental focus for a whole new generation.

see article The Strange, Contagious History of Bulimia
By Lee Daniel Kravetz
www.thecut.com/article/how-bulimia-became-a-medical-diagnosis.html

also, 'STRANGE CONTAGION'
(extract)
"A recent transplant to the community and a new father himself, Lee Daniel Kravetz’s experience as a science journalist kicked in: what was causing this tragedy? More importantly, how was it possible that a suicide cluster could develop in a community of concerned, aware, hyper-vigilant adults?

The answer? Social contagion. We all know that ideas, emotions, and actions are communicable—from mirroring someone’s posture to mimicking their speech patterns, we are all driven by unconscious motivations triggered by our environment. But when just the right physiological, psychological, and social factors come together in a perfect storm, we get what Kravetz calls a “strange contagion:” a perfect storm of highly common social viruses that, combined, form a highly volatile condition.

Strange Contagion is simultaneously a moving account of one community’s tragedy and a rigorous investigation of social phenomenon, as Kravetz draws on research and insights from experts worldwide to unlock the mystery of how ideas spread, why they take hold, and offer thoughts on our responsibility to one another as citizens of a globally and perpetually connected world."
leedanielkravetz.com/what-we-do/

It seems to me there is a big difference in this compared to previous scandals such as the Satanic abuse and Recovered memory hysteria's that he references. Correct me if I'm wrong as I haven't done due diligence and am relying on my shaky memory but it's my understanding that those all started with a small handful of people in psychiatry and or paediatrics looking for a cause to make their names on. And was enthusiastically taken up by others in the professions. However ultimately restricted to relatively small numbers of affected people.

Here the tail is wagging the dog with the medical and psychiatric profession following the demands of the people claiming their identity. Aided and abetted by big money from interested parties, enthusiastic support from politicians and the full backing of the law. What this means in the long run I'm not sure. I think it will take longer to implode and leave a much wider trail of damage.

The damage being done to LGB charities and communities is shocking. The fact that they are now centering all of their efforts on mainly heterosexual males pushing an agenda is ridiculous.

😨Sorry. Autocorrect apostrophe horror.

Skimmed the federalist article, but its opening did throw up for me the stark difference between my feelings on this as a left/liberal person, and the right wing response.

The Federalist opens with claims about transgenderism being unnatural and immoral.

For me on the other hand, I'm all for pluralism - "dress" and "present" how you want. What's at issue is a clash of rights. Does person A's desire to present in what they see as a "feminine" way override person B's desire for female (in the biological sense) spaces for things like changing for gym club, prisons, health care professionals carrying out medical exams of genitals? My view is it's the good old "positive versus negative liberties" issue - "no" trumps "yes" when it comes to bodily autonomy. My desire to defend my personal boundaries overrides someone else's desire to trespass on those boundaries. But so long as they don't trespass on my (or other women's) boundaries, I don't give a fuck. People can dress, present, name themselves however they want, and they should be able to do so free from discrimination or the threat of violence (with it clearly understood that "wrong pronouns" are not violence).

Thanks Roman

*Rowan

The term ‘hysteria’ is interesting in itself in that ‘hysteria’ was attributed to ‘wandering wombs’.

Therapists once went through a craze for cliterodectomies too.

Under psychoanalysis ‘clitoral orgasms’ were thought of as immature because the orgasm should transfer to the vagina as the woman matured. If that transference ‘failed’ then removing the clitoris was thought to be a cure.

What he had to say about ways adolescents shield themselves from the shock of puberty was really interesting, however, and rang true for me. The fact that teenage idols are often rather androgynous, for example. Or deciding to be 'asexual' until you've managed to make that identity adjustment. I think his perspective on the fragility of the process of identity formation during adolescence, and the relationship of fragile identities with some personality disorders are also important, and ought to be more widely understood, in the context of allowing teenagers to transition too early.

kesstrel wrote: I think his perspective on the fragility of the process of identity formation during adolescence...ought to be more widely understood, in the context of allowing teenagers to transition too early.

I think of this classic Thoreau (from Walden )

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes

and I sometimes wonder if we need a version which is:

Beware of all elective enterprises that require new forms involving extensive, largely irreversible, inadequately-researched medical intervention.