Helen Lewis in the Atlantic - Gender medecine and the suicide lie

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/transgender-youth-skrmetti/683350/

Archive

https://archive.ph/qDisi

'Trans-rights activists like to accuse skeptics of youth gender medicine—and publications that dare to report their views—of fomenting a “<a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/qDisi/theflaw.org/articles/profiting-from-moral-panic/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">moral panic.” But the movement has spent the past decade telling gender-nonconforming children that anyone who tries to restrict access to puberty blockers and hormones is, effectively, trying to kill them. This was false, as Strangio’s answer tacitly conceded. It was also irresponsible.'

My personal brand is very much about being as Liberal a Liberal who ever Liberalled as well.

But as a (kind of) classical liberal, not a batshit crazy, anything goes, "neo-liberal" (in the political not economic sense), I am liberal to everything so long as it is not doing harm to others (or harm to the vulnerable).

One can be 100% liberal, 100% pro-people who claim to be trans, whilst being 100% anti-gender ideology

I agree with this.

There's a role for these 'fence sitters' which is to make it possible for those in the middle ground to see the harms being done. It's going to be a long, slow process, but this is a good start.

And ultimately, once one piece of the TRA pyramid falls, it all does eventually. The AGP types need the medicalisation of 'trans kid' for legitimacy.

I'd be a lot more appreciative of fence-sitters if they didn't go on podcasts and sneer at those with real principles who've got down off the fence and have risked a great deal in taking a stand.

Yes. Both Levine and Strangios backgrounds would have added clarity. I find this article is on par with her other work.

It is like what the NY Times puts out. If you know the full story, you find yourself thinking that there is quite a bit of pertinent information missing. Such as the podcast on the Dutch protocol, it failed to mention the studies that discredit the Dutch Protocol and it felt like only half the story was being told.

I think it's an excellent article, because it looks at the evidence and explains it in a thoughtful, measured way.

But I do agree with PPs who find her even-handedness irritating. When she says "Acknowledging the evidence does not mean that you also have to support banning these treatments—or reject the idea that some people will be happier if they transition", it's just silly, in my view. It's like meeting flat-earthers half-way.

I think for most of us on here it's not just about looking at evidence that these treatments are harmful, it's that we have an instinctive moral sense that pumping children full of hormones or cutting the breasts of teenage girls is wrong, full stop. And that's coupled with an intellectual belief that the whole idea of people changing sex or being born in the wrong body is completely ridiculous. Lewis doesn't seem to have that - but nonetheless appears to believe that her even-handed approach is more reasonable.

But I think Lewis does have that intellectual belief about the harm. It's just that she knows that voicing it would put her well ahead of the pack and exposed rather than slightly ahead of the pack but to a sufficient degree that when genderism is discredited, she'll be able to claim to have been in the vanguard.

Meanwhile the world will continue to revolve and legislation will be enacted.

I suppose the context is the US' phenomenally tribal and polarised political landscape.

Perhaps trying to maintain a middle ground in that climate is almost impossible. It seems immiscible with speaking directly and clearly. Everything has to go through a filter.

I wonder what effect this article and the NYT's articles from last week will have, though.

But lying by omission is still lying.

The Democrat's continued determination to remain ignorant of the contours of the debate is striking. Questioning any aspect of it is taboo - transgender medicine in children, performance differentials in sports, predatory men using trans identification to access women's spaces, efficacy of treatments, long term health risks, validity of gender identity, degree to which people and institutions are obliged to affirm claimed identities, erasure of homosexuality, erasure of women, the list goes on.

I'm convinced the trans issue alone was enough to elect Trump, and I thought that that would be the case back in 2022 if Biden didn't do an about face, it was completely obvious. One of the reasons I began to suspect that Biden was becoming senile was his inability to understand the political danger and put a stop to it. But Ds who are much younger and seemingly firmly in command of their faculties (e.g. Tim Walz) are even worse.

I'm assuming people have come across the up and coming young Democrat, Jonah Wheeler? He's very impressive, and very charismatic:

https://x.com/jonahowheeler/status/1904560117036490880

https://x.com/LGBCourage/status/1938324865444147258

Very impressive indeed.

Yes, he's excellent.

He gives me hope!

I think she means the standard civil rights like right to housing, protection from unlawful discrimination at work etc.

One thing about Biden when he was still compos mentis was that he had little time for metro-trendy ideological fads. He understood the difference between the median Democratic voter and leftist Twitter. Whether that was good or bad depends very much on your view of a particular issue.

But on trans, he's a true believer. Sarah McBride, the new trans Congressperson from Delaware, was close to Beau Biden and bonded with Joe and Jill over Beau's death. I'm not sure he ever understood what he was supposed to be supporting - when you see his interview with Dylan Mulvaney it's obvious he doesn't know what to make of this strange person - but I think he's driven by the impulse to stand by Beau's friend, and like a lot of elderly liberals he probably thinks it's roughly the same thing as gay.

So the thing is that if Joe Biden, who's spent 50 years building this persona as the guy from Scranton, the common sense politician, your union backed candidate who wants to build railroads - if he can't be moved, I'm not sure there's much hope the Democrats in the short term. Unless we start to see evidence from Newsom or Shapiro or other 2028 candidates that they know genderwoo is a vote loser.

Isn't he impressive? And as always very telling that his fellow Democrats walked out. Anything but listen to and respect the views of others.

I think most of that was already secured in the Bostock judgment.

Yes, how shocking that 100 of them got up and walked out, and many who remained stayed just to jeer him. What is up with them. It really is like they've been brainwashed.

Gender was well embedded into the Democrats in Obama's time, though. Biden just carried it on.

Brainwashing:

Systematic effort to persuade nonbelievers to accept a certain allegiance command, or doctrine. it is more generally applied to any technique designed to manipulate human thought or action against the desire, will, or knowledge of the individual. By controlling the physical and social environment an attempt is made to destroy loyalties to any unfavourable groups or individuals, to demonstrate to the individual that his attitudes and patterns of thinking are incorrect and must be changed, and to develop loyalty and unquestioning obedience to the ruling party.

The term is most appropriately used in reference to a program of political or religious indoctrination or ideological remolding. The techniques of brainwashing typically involve isolation from former associates and sources of information; an exacting regimen requiring absolute obedience and humility; strong social pressures and rewards for cooperation; physical and psychological punishments for non-cooperation ranging from social ostracism and criticism, deprivation of food, sleep, and social contacts, to bondage and torture; and continual reinforcement.

Deprogramming, or reversing the effects of brainwashing through intensive psychotherapy and confrontation, has proved somewhat successful, particularly with religious cult members.The depth and permanence of changes in attitude and point of view depend on the personality of the individual, degree of motivation to be reformed, and the degree to which the environment supports the new frame of reference.

I think we need to welcome people onto the “golden bridge”. While it’s maybe annoying, it is more important to promote people changing their opinions to ones less harmful to women and children, than it is to hold them to account for earlier opinions. That’s my view anyway FWIW.

It's incredibly odd behaviour. I can't understand how they've become so entrenched on this topic.

And this definitely all started with Obama. I think the Pritzker influence was huge here. I know there's a journalist that has looked into it, but there's definitely more to unpack on this topic.

"For many on the Left, they had supported what they called “marriage equality,” and so they’d support what their leaders called “transgender equality” — whatever that entailed. They were in favor of gay rights, so they were in favor of trans rights. The LGBT acronym came as a total package. They had never really stopped to think what embracing “trans rights” meant for women, girls, sports, privacy — or children’s medicine.

This wasn’t a bunch of soccer moms clamoring for boys in their daughter’s bathroom. This was imposed from the top. Obergefell was decided in June of 2015. In May of 2016, the Obama Departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services all announced new regulations or policy implementations (via the infamous Dear Colleague Letter) requiring that the term “sex” in federal law now include “gender identity.” All of a sudden, so-called “gender affirming care” (i.e., attempts at the impossible, “sex change”) was required under our civil rights law. All of a sudden, students had civil rights to be treated as the sex with which they “identified.” ....

But it wasn’t just power politics. The soil was receptive to trans ideology, and for three main reasons: changes in technology that made trans ideology seem plausible, other ideological revolutions that paved the way for trans, and cultural brokenness that allowed so many young people to be seduced by the fantasies, lunacies, and lies.......

eppc.org/publication/how-trans-ideology-took-america-by-storm/

Yes, that's an excellent point. Actually the extent of the McBride connection and all that entailed was a real eye opener.