Helen Joyce - why gender medicine isn’t science…

[Justme56]

https://www.thehelenjoyce.com/p/why-gender-medicine-isnt-science

“Actually that’s not quite right, because there isn’t any requirement to perform your gender, just to state it. Nothing further than the statement is required of the person making it: it’s other people who have to do the work by believing that statement — that is, by “affirming” that gender. The expression “gender self-identification” is a misnomer — it’s not something you have to do, beyond proclamation, it’s a demand that other people affirm you as being the gender you state yourself to be. Opening the door marked F or M is a way of declaring your gender identity.

There’s no place for other people’s judgment, indeed no role at all for other people except as supporting actors or appreciative audience. No room for them to say they don’t fancy joining in the performance, or to be a critic and say it’s not a very good performance. They’re not allowed to say: “OK, you say you’re a woman, that you’re living as a woman or have a female gender identity, but you don’t seem very female to me.”

And you can choose to identify as anything you wish.

What you can't do is compel others to pretend that just because you think you're a woman, or a baby, or a llama that you've really changed sex, or age, or species.

Play make believe all you want. Don't expect the rest of the world to play along with you.

💯

None of the gender expression stuff matters if you sterilize children before they can procreate. The moment your gender affirming care damages gamete production to the point of sterility evolution loses all interest in you no matter how much masculinity or femininity you perform. That's the cold hard fact of biological reality and we owe to children to make this very clear even if they don't like it.

And now I take up gaspode's advice and ignore the derailing nitwit and actually do some work.

Judith Butler actually said something that makes sense? That is actually comprehensible? That is actually applicable to the real world? I am astounded! Clearly this is one of the moments when the stopped clock is right:

Judith Butler famously said gender was an “imitation for which there is no original” – that it’s meaningful only because we do it over and over again.

Rather as religious ritual is meaningful only because believers do it over and over again.

Rather as OCD routines are meaningful to sufferers only because they feel unsafe unless they do them over and over again.

There is no minimum number of sex characteristics that you have to have to be a woman so it is pointless saying 'not all members of a sex class exhibit the same sex characteristics.'

No it's not pointless because the point you are spectacularly missing is non typical characteristics influence ambiguity in sex distinction outcomes. You are making the categorical error of conflating class with outcomes. And in the real world outcomes influence societal categorisations.

The inconvenient difference being that a "baby or a llama" don't have typical associations to women that legitimise their inclusion under the umbrella category of common characteristics.

Even if there is an actual condition, where the brain sex doesn’t match the body sex and needs to be treated- gender dysphoria- where is the reasearch backing the treatment? Why is the body treated by radical surgical and chemical invasion, when the brain is plastic and responds well to less invasive treatment?

Indeed. As HJ points out:

"When we start our criticisms with the paucity of evidence we give the gender doctors too much credit. The burden of proof lies with them, not us. They should have to start by saying what is wrong with someone who is experiencing distress to do with their gender, and why the sorts of treatments they offer might work".

This of course is why extreme transactivists spend so many pointless hours on here with their flat earth word salad trying to derail and distract from critical discussions about the harm being done.

This is important

I really think that as a society we’ve been entirely too polite to people whose jobs boil down to sterilising children

One day I hope at least some of these people have to sit in front of some bright lights and explain why they were quite so gung ho for mutilating and sterilising children

I’d go so far as to argue that gender dysphoria is caused by the brain’s malleability. Perfectly healthy little people are made ill by societal expectations of gender, leaving them to feel at odds with their body when it’s the environment that’s wrong.

It is unthinkable that those who sterilise children below the age of consent and as young adults are still allowed to continue to practise medicine. And that there are some who see them as "good guys" in the face of all the evidence.

Attractiveness/cues to the opposite sex for the purposes of reproduction.

But by having gender reassignment surgery most of these people are making themselves less attractive to the opposite sex, and completely redundant in terms of reproduction by basing their gender presentation on the sex they need to be copulating with in order to reproduce. That’s not to mention sterility or hormonal problems caused by taking cross sex hormones.

Child rearing: sensitivity/neuroticism Trait Agreeability

I don’t see many TW desperately trying to take on their share of mundane child rearing and domestic tasks. Yes some of them want to be able to chest feed a newborn baby <shudder> but that’s not the same as the drudge of being biologically responsible for birthing a child and the reduced opportunities in the rest of life due to time out of work, expectations of being the primary carer, physical and mental health impacts on women from motherhood etc.

Aggression for purposes of protection & resource procurement

We see plenty of aggression from TWs and them trying to procure OUR resources but women are trying to protect each other by campaigning against this nonsense.

Cooperation/reciprocity: Child rearing & communal building

Again, where is the evidence of TWs or TMs trying to build communities and rear children?

Please make any of this make sense?! All I see is men acting like men, being aggressive, demanding women shove over and make room, do their emotional labour for them and tiptoe around them trying not to make them angry. The only difference is they are doing it in a bad wig and party frock.

Did you mean to concede this point - that gender identity is about choice not some observable reality or urgent medical need?

I suspect you didn't mean to because you seem angry but you are almost agreeing with HJ here.

I am always interested by traits that we assume as strongly sex driven which still display huge cultural variability - aggression and cooperative / child rearing /communal being the ones that stand out here.

Propensity to violence is hugely cultural and so many things we take for granted as sex based necessities turn out to be not the case when we look over history and extremely isolated societies

which means even those things that have apparently strong biological drivers ( directly related to child bearing which is a very female thing ) still vary hugely in a population and should never be assumed unless you have limited reasoning capacity

I love Helen Joyce’s contributions in this area.

I agree with what she says about the unscientific response/ treatment of gender dysphoria but I’m less convinced that it is a diagnosable condition akin to humours being out of balance. I think it possible that there is an unusual mental illness, akin to body dysmorphic disorder, that relates to beliefs about sexed bodies. What I don’t think is right or defensible is understanding this as anything other than a psychiatric condition.

Her comments about societal expectations are spot on. Society is not expected to engage in affirming false beliefs arising from other mental health conditions. Pitching a refusal to engage as lack of respect, or similar, is ridiculous. If treating people with respect includes affirming false beliefs, this needs to be applied to all false beliefs.

People with gender dysphoria need to be supported to understand that opposing beliefs to their own about their sex does not provide reliable data on that person’s regard for them as a human being. That framing anything as ‘If you loved me you would……, if you respected me you would…….’ is manipulative / coercive.

please can one of the posters wanting to discuss the definition of sex and sex based traits start a separate thread so this one about Helen Joyce’s article is easier to follow.

Thank you!

I have been waiting for a list for such a long time. I’ve always wanted to know if I was a man or a woman on the inside!
It’s not actually very helpful though, it turns out almost everyone I know is non binary according to that list.

All that waiting for a clear categorisation and it was no help at all.

I loved Helen Joyce’s piece, very interesting.

"But by having gender reassignment surgery most of these people are making themselves less attractive to the opposite sex, and completely redundant in terms of reproduction by basing their gender presentation on the sex they need to be copulating with in order to reproduce. That’s not to mention sterility or hormonal problems caused by taking cross sex hormones."

While that might be true, that doesn't change the underlying inclination towards gender expression. Repressing a drive that's inherently part of you usually doesn't end well in terms of psychological health.

"I don’t see many TW desperately trying to take on their share of mundane child rearing and domestic tasks. Yes some of them want to be able to chest feed a newborn baby <shudder> but that’s not the same as the drudge of being biologically responsible for birthing a child and the reduced opportunities in the rest of life due to time out of work, expectations of being the primary carer, physical and mental health impacts on women from motherhood etc."

There are other ways of being nurturing other than motherhood & given trans women can't give birth they don't really have that option. In terms of trans women having the same experiences as mothers, well you could say the same about millions of women who aren't.

"We see plenty of aggression from TWs and them trying to procure OUR resources but women are trying to protect each other by campaigning against this nonsense."

You could say the same about The Suffragettes.

"Again, where is the evidence of TWs or TMs trying to build communities and rear children?"

Evolved behaviours were based on millions of years of environmental & social limitations. The point is as our environmental & social pressures have changed we have adapted these behaviours to them. Cooperation, reciprocity, nurturing, agreeability & sensitivities aren't just confined to ancient tribal living. Women in particular have been a driving force in civil rights & social cohesion that many illiberal types refer to to The Feminsation of Society. The point being typical female behavioural traits aren't limited to their traditional roles.

"Please make any of this make sense?! All I see is men acting like men, being aggressive, demanding women shove over and make room, do their emotional labour for them and tiptoe around them trying not to make them angry. The only difference is they are doing it in a bad wig and party frock."

It's amazing how aggressive shrinking violets can get when their rights are on the line. Ring any bells?

Let me spell it out for the slow ones.

Joyce claims gender affirming care isn't based on science & I am explaining the science via biological evolution. IE you need to understand the biological origins of gender dysphoria before you can discount it or its treatment.

It's also one of the perils of debating them as dishonest interlocutors - if they can trigger you into engaging them as though the burden of proof lies with you, then you've engaged in a debate that essentially can't be won.

Adding: I don't like to advocate for non-engagement, other do a better job re: warning about not feeding the trolls, but it's a definite risk.

I liked HJ’s comparison of gender dysphoria to the idea of imbalance of humours simply because they are both models inconsistent with modern understanding of medicine, one by virtue of being archaic, the other because of a deliberate rejection of current scientific understanding, knowledge and practice.

It is a cargo cult / sympathetic magic.

Fake the look of the thing / perform the rituals that mimic the thing and you have captured the essense of the thing or called it into manifesting.

Pretty much a "toads look warty so so toads must be able to cure warts" level of subconscious assumption.

This point is summed up very well:

"In fact gender medicine is purely performative – which should delight queer theorists, since they love performativity. And the theme of the performance is the hyper-liberal, or hyper-individualist, claim that each person has a true self and knows that true self, and when they give expression to that true self they by definition cannot be wrong because the true self is the declaration. The purpose of gender medicine is to give an appearance of solidity to a specific sort of declaration of one’s true self — to your gender identity. What the clinics are selling is identity validation."

What the clinics are selling is identity validation.

Have severe trauma and want your identity validated? You got it!

Have confusion about your sexual orientation and want your identity validated? You got it!

Have severe body dysmorphia and want your identity validated? You got it!

Have autogynephilia and want your identity validated? You got it!

Have a want. We will give.

Nothing else matters to gender doctors. The other things are for other people to sort out.