Jamie, I practiced general pediatrics among low income urban kids for years. Never saw one ‘trans’ kid. Saw gay kids but not trans. A few kids posted pronouns. All were white females. All had a history of mental health issues and of trauma. One had been raped, had the baby, gave the baby up, and was in foster care. The clinic psychologist somewhat gleefully told the pediatric resident that this young teen used ‘they them’ pronouns. I made it very clear to the resident that any girl who had been thru so much related to her sex may have some issues with being female. And the residents job as a pediatrician wasn’t to get into that stuff but make sure the teen had proper treatment for her traumatic past. My word: ‘they them’ is not an identity. It’s a symptom. Treat the issue not the symptom.
Exactly. I myself grew up in Communist Romania in a household of 80 dollars per month, with illiterate grandparents. I emigrated to America in 1991 as a political refugee, but never imagined I would be called an "oppressor" by American friends who grew up in households of over a hundred thousand dollars a year and went to Ivy League universities, because I am a white heterosexual person. The people who are the most opposed to this BS are mostly lower classes. The American upper middle class keeps inventing "minorities" and identifying as them because deep down they know how privileged they are, and since they are being taught that the highest social status is that of claiming oppression, this is their only way of getting status. See my take on this in https://altaifland.substack.com/p/how-does-one-become-woke
Thanks for your post! All of this mess looks pretty obvious to people who have had at least some minimal contact with reality. It’s shocking just how insular and afraid people have become.
This hit hard for me. I'm a woman married to a woman, and I don't buy any of the gender woo. She does, as to both of our children. Our son (10) has been claiming NB status since he was 7. I called bs right from the start, and of course that means according (to my spouse) that I'm not supporting him and causing trauma to him. They all go to weekly rainbow club meetings, march in Pride parades, only read books about queer love stories, have pride flags (both rainbow and trans) all over the house, and call anyone who disagrees (like me) bigoted and transphobic. I work hard to provide a comfortable life for my family, and my kids have been homeschooled their entire lives. They are not oppressed. They have too much time on their hands and don't understand one bit what actual oppression or trauma or danger is. What a world we live in where people who are well off and could do something beneficial with their time and energy and good fortune instead want to play "victim" and call others who disagree with them bigoted and phobic.
This is one of my favorite articles on this topic. I too grew up poor. I am not poor now, thankfully, and my children have grown up between solidly middle class and upper middle class.
My daughter has the "luxury" of rejecting and abusing her healthy body, and wasting her energy pretending she is something she is not. This whole phenomenon is driven by academics, politicians, famous entertainers, large corporations (such as Big Pharma) and doctors, the latter two of whom are getting richer off vulnerable children, teens and young adults. It sucks in anyone who wants to appear kind - but either can't or doesn't want to take the time to consider what "kindness" really means.
The allegation that there is a "suspect class" (legal jargon for a vulnerable group of people with an immutable characteristic that must be protected), and that such protection must come in the form of toxic chemicals, gruesome surgeries and flagrant lies is so absurd and destructive that I want to scream out loud on a daily basis.
Thanks for writing this. It's good to know I'm not alone in my thinking.
You are most definitely not alone in your thinking, Hippiesq.
Middle- and upper-middle-class young people are reaching for these gender adventures as a substitute for navigating real, fully embodied and often difficult life experiences—experiences through which we come to discover who we are and use and develop our real-world physical and mental abilities.
The gender scene is all about words and declarations and demands and proclamations—things that resemble prerogatives of a class that disdains physical labor anyway. And of course, all of the words, much like many of the upper-middle-class positions created to bolster such ideologies, are nothing but vapor—right up until the cliff-edge of demented and violent “medicalization.”
Named it! This scourge has been treated like a "movement of the.most vulnerable" but it was initiated by the lawyering and pharmaceutical class. They weaponized the legacies of gay liberation and feminism to dress this ideology up as "social justice." Thanks for this incisive and beautiful essay.
So true. And even among the largely upper-middle-class kids in my Bay Area neighborhood, there are obvious differences in trans identification by race and immigrant status. The Asian and Latino families aren’t having any of this. It’s all white girls getting their breasts chopped off and going on T at 18. They look like strange androgynous sylphs, not men.
" But also, kids whose lives were so sterile, so sheltered, that they had to create their own oppression." Yes! It reminds me of the hygiene hypothesis of allergies. Like the immune system, idle and untrained by real dirt, starts attacking harmless substances, so do the idle minds untrained by real challenges make up artificial ones.
Life is too easy for our modern generations. Striving and purpose focus the mind and keep us mentally healthy, constantly learning and expanding our universe, and engaged in productive pursuits. And, this path is the only way to a truly satisfying and fulfilling life.
Agreed. There is a direct relationship between identifying as part of the trans umbrella and seeking oppression points. It is very similar, basically the same, as white kids from the suburbs listening to rap music and claiming the oppression of the “ghetto”. We laughed at them but then treat non-binary as if it required a response. It does not. There are people with gender dysphoria who deserve medical/mental health treatment. However, that population is immensely tiny.
If trans had stayed trans we wouldn’t be having any of these problems. The original trans have renamed themselves transsexual to differentiate themselves from the trans umbrella people. They are very aware of this phenomenon and hate it more than anyone else. They have been warning for years the backlash that has begun was coming.
The umbrella now includes absolutely any one who claims not to be 100% in line between their gender and sex and they way to know is if you fit the 1950s gender stereotypes or not. Boy who like pink = trans, girl who like trucks=trans. Predator who would like access to naked women and girls= just say you are trans and then walk in.
"When the transexual forces his way into the few private spaces women may enjoy and shouts down their objections, and bombards the women who will not accept him with threats and hate mail, he does as rapists have always done."
-Germaine Greer, 1998
Yeah no. I get that you mean well, but trying to rainbow-wash the stink off the "original trans" ain't gonna fly here.
But I do agree that it's gotten EVEN WORSE than it was 30 years ago when Greer and the rest of the 2nd-Wavers were fighting it.
I don’t disagree with your stance. It is too late to play nice. That ship sailed a long time ago. We could have co-existed in separate but occasionally overlapping spheres. But that is loooong gone.
Greer was projecting like IMAX! Those behaviors were historically deployed not by rapists, but by feminists—specifcally in order to infiltrate and/or eliminate male spaces. That's why, for instance, we have the YWCA for women and the YMCA for both men and women. The very concept of male spaces was made emblematic of the vilest sexism by idiots like Greer.
And it takes an idiot to believe what Greer says. Rapists don't “always” shout (or even voice) their objections to law, policy, and custom, obviously. Nor do rapists “always” launch hate-mail campaigns, smear personal or professional enemies as hatefully prejudice and regressive, or engage in any of the crybullying and cancelling behaviors the TQ+ copied directly from the toxic feminism of the tragically successful second wave.
In fact, with the exception of a brief Reagan-era bid for legitimacy by NAMBLA (who, coincidentally, pose no risk to women), I can't think of a single example of rapists engaging in the sorts of behaviors Greer mentions. Rapists aren't even particularly known for forcing their way “into the few private spaces women may enjoy,” at least assuming Greer was NOT speaking euphemistically of orifices.
Indeed, if women had “always” been subject to sexual predation in what have traditionally been women's safe spaces, we wouldn't consider them safe spaces in the first place. If rapists had, all along, “always” barged into ladies’ rooms—or convents, pilates classes, nail salons, Tupperware parties, bridge games, nursing schools, you name it—the bathroom issue wouldn't be a hugely disruptive boundary violation (or “queering”), just business as usual for patriarchal rape culture.
Every human being in our society has guaranteed human rights. Women are beyond enfranchised (peruse https://girlpowermarketing.com/statistics-purchasing-power-women). Feminism has become pointless because its target remains a patriarchy that no longer exists in any meaningful form—and which NEVER existed in the ridiculous chattel-slavery rape-fantasy form made famous by the same ahistorical crackpot “womyn” who decided to rechristen academic feminism (wait for it...) Gender Studies.
Damn son, you misquoted a quote that was directly above the post you were writing. Bad look, and nonsensical arguments there. Read the "always" sentence again, more carefully this time. You're reacting as if she said "all rapists have always done", and missing the function of the "as" there.
You may think that pedophiles aren't a threat to women, but women would disagree with you, along with pretty much everyone else, who would also likely conclude that only a pedo would say something as ridiculous as you did.
The YWCAs and YMCAs have merged in many countries on the fitness side, but the YWCA does a lot more than host fitness centers. For example, in my area the YWCA operates a supervised-visitation program for parents reuniting with their kids.
You also have lost touch with what feminism is and isn't, confusing the exercising of the rights and privileges that feminism has won for women with feminism itself.
And finally, you're conflating the feminist usage of "gender" which was coined in the 60s-70s specifically for pointing out the harmful stereotypes associated with being female, with the modern gender cult and its usage of "gender", which embraces those harmful stereotypes.
You are such a good writer and it is so important for me that you are a clear honest lesbian voice. Because as lesbians and gays , we are losing so much of what we gained.
“After I spoke out, some tried to discredit me by saying I was "just a secretary." They were trying to dismiss the intelligence of medical secretaries, as if their lower pay grade somehow correlated with lower intellect. That's bullshit. Medical secretaries run circles around doctors in insurance billing, they know the best specialists, and they often understand their division's medical care better than a general pediatrician.” I remember the “just a secretary bit.” Obnoxious, and of course totally wrong. Thank you for bringing the 🔥 and for all you do.
I grew up in a comfortable middle class home and my gut feeling is you are right, but as the idea of “gender identity” becomes more widespread, I think more working class kids will get caught up in it. I read that in the UK, Blackpool had one of the highest rates of gender dysphoria, and it’s a deprived area. Social workers may have been responsible for spreading the ideology. Any teenager who is having trouble fitting in is vulnerable because having a gender identity makes you special and can explain any problems you have. The solutions offered probably won’t work for a lot of people, but they’ll keep hanging on to the identity as it gives them hope and sense of community.
Jamie, I practiced general pediatrics among low income urban kids for years. Never saw one ‘trans’ kid. Saw gay kids but not trans. A few kids posted pronouns. All were white females. All had a history of mental health issues and of trauma. One had been raped, had the baby, gave the baby up, and was in foster care. The clinic psychologist somewhat gleefully told the pediatric resident that this young teen used ‘they them’ pronouns. I made it very clear to the resident that any girl who had been thru so much related to her sex may have some issues with being female. And the residents job as a pediatrician wasn’t to get into that stuff but make sure the teen had proper treatment for her traumatic past. My word: ‘they them’ is not an identity. It’s a symptom. Treat the issue not the symptom.
May your tribe increase, Doc! God bless you!
Exactly. I myself grew up in Communist Romania in a household of 80 dollars per month, with illiterate grandparents. I emigrated to America in 1991 as a political refugee, but never imagined I would be called an "oppressor" by American friends who grew up in households of over a hundred thousand dollars a year and went to Ivy League universities, because I am a white heterosexual person. The people who are the most opposed to this BS are mostly lower classes. The American upper middle class keeps inventing "minorities" and identifying as them because deep down they know how privileged they are, and since they are being taught that the highest social status is that of claiming oppression, this is their only way of getting status. See my take on this in https://altaifland.substack.com/p/how-does-one-become-woke
Thanks for your post! All of this mess looks pretty obvious to people who have had at least some minimal contact with reality. It’s shocking just how insular and afraid people have become.
This hit hard for me. I'm a woman married to a woman, and I don't buy any of the gender woo. She does, as to both of our children. Our son (10) has been claiming NB status since he was 7. I called bs right from the start, and of course that means according (to my spouse) that I'm not supporting him and causing trauma to him. They all go to weekly rainbow club meetings, march in Pride parades, only read books about queer love stories, have pride flags (both rainbow and trans) all over the house, and call anyone who disagrees (like me) bigoted and transphobic. I work hard to provide a comfortable life for my family, and my kids have been homeschooled their entire lives. They are not oppressed. They have too much time on their hands and don't understand one bit what actual oppression or trauma or danger is. What a world we live in where people who are well off and could do something beneficial with their time and energy and good fortune instead want to play "victim" and call others who disagree with them bigoted and phobic.
You don't deserve to have your family call you names. Why do you persist with this dynamic?
Because the Cluster B partner is always right. That poor boy.
This is one of my favorite articles on this topic. I too grew up poor. I am not poor now, thankfully, and my children have grown up between solidly middle class and upper middle class.
My daughter has the "luxury" of rejecting and abusing her healthy body, and wasting her energy pretending she is something she is not. This whole phenomenon is driven by academics, politicians, famous entertainers, large corporations (such as Big Pharma) and doctors, the latter two of whom are getting richer off vulnerable children, teens and young adults. It sucks in anyone who wants to appear kind - but either can't or doesn't want to take the time to consider what "kindness" really means.
The allegation that there is a "suspect class" (legal jargon for a vulnerable group of people with an immutable characteristic that must be protected), and that such protection must come in the form of toxic chemicals, gruesome surgeries and flagrant lies is so absurd and destructive that I want to scream out loud on a daily basis.
Thanks for writing this. It's good to know I'm not alone in my thinking.
You are most definitely not alone in your thinking, Hippiesq.
Middle- and upper-middle-class young people are reaching for these gender adventures as a substitute for navigating real, fully embodied and often difficult life experiences—experiences through which we come to discover who we are and use and develop our real-world physical and mental abilities.
The gender scene is all about words and declarations and demands and proclamations—things that resemble prerogatives of a class that disdains physical labor anyway. And of course, all of the words, much like many of the upper-middle-class positions created to bolster such ideologies, are nothing but vapor—right up until the cliff-edge of demented and violent “medicalization.”
Named it! This scourge has been treated like a "movement of the.most vulnerable" but it was initiated by the lawyering and pharmaceutical class. They weaponized the legacies of gay liberation and feminism to dress this ideology up as "social justice." Thanks for this incisive and beautiful essay.
So true. And even among the largely upper-middle-class kids in my Bay Area neighborhood, there are obvious differences in trans identification by race and immigrant status. The Asian and Latino families aren’t having any of this. It’s all white girls getting their breasts chopped off and going on T at 18. They look like strange androgynous sylphs, not men.
Just a wild-ass guess, but I bet you have never heard the Asians and Latinos complain about patriarchal oppression under rape culture, either...
" But also, kids whose lives were so sterile, so sheltered, that they had to create their own oppression." Yes! It reminds me of the hygiene hypothesis of allergies. Like the immune system, idle and untrained by real dirt, starts attacking harmless substances, so do the idle minds untrained by real challenges make up artificial ones.
💯
Life is too easy for our modern generations. Striving and purpose focus the mind and keep us mentally healthy, constantly learning and expanding our universe, and engaged in productive pursuits. And, this path is the only way to a truly satisfying and fulfilling life.
Agreed. There is a direct relationship between identifying as part of the trans umbrella and seeking oppression points. It is very similar, basically the same, as white kids from the suburbs listening to rap music and claiming the oppression of the “ghetto”. We laughed at them but then treat non-binary as if it required a response. It does not. There are people with gender dysphoria who deserve medical/mental health treatment. However, that population is immensely tiny.
If trans had stayed trans we wouldn’t be having any of these problems. The original trans have renamed themselves transsexual to differentiate themselves from the trans umbrella people. They are very aware of this phenomenon and hate it more than anyone else. They have been warning for years the backlash that has begun was coming.
The umbrella now includes absolutely any one who claims not to be 100% in line between their gender and sex and they way to know is if you fit the 1950s gender stereotypes or not. Boy who like pink = trans, girl who like trucks=trans. Predator who would like access to naked women and girls= just say you are trans and then walk in.
"When the transexual forces his way into the few private spaces women may enjoy and shouts down their objections, and bombards the women who will not accept him with threats and hate mail, he does as rapists have always done."
-Germaine Greer, 1998
Yeah no. I get that you mean well, but trying to rainbow-wash the stink off the "original trans" ain't gonna fly here.
But I do agree that it's gotten EVEN WORSE than it was 30 years ago when Greer and the rest of the 2nd-Wavers were fighting it.
I don’t disagree with your stance. It is too late to play nice. That ship sailed a long time ago. We could have co-existed in separate but occasionally overlapping spheres. But that is loooong gone.
Greer was projecting like IMAX! Those behaviors were historically deployed not by rapists, but by feminists—specifcally in order to infiltrate and/or eliminate male spaces. That's why, for instance, we have the YWCA for women and the YMCA for both men and women. The very concept of male spaces was made emblematic of the vilest sexism by idiots like Greer.
And it takes an idiot to believe what Greer says. Rapists don't “always” shout (or even voice) their objections to law, policy, and custom, obviously. Nor do rapists “always” launch hate-mail campaigns, smear personal or professional enemies as hatefully prejudice and regressive, or engage in any of the crybullying and cancelling behaviors the TQ+ copied directly from the toxic feminism of the tragically successful second wave.
In fact, with the exception of a brief Reagan-era bid for legitimacy by NAMBLA (who, coincidentally, pose no risk to women), I can't think of a single example of rapists engaging in the sorts of behaviors Greer mentions. Rapists aren't even particularly known for forcing their way “into the few private spaces women may enjoy,” at least assuming Greer was NOT speaking euphemistically of orifices.
Indeed, if women had “always” been subject to sexual predation in what have traditionally been women's safe spaces, we wouldn't consider them safe spaces in the first place. If rapists had, all along, “always” barged into ladies’ rooms—or convents, pilates classes, nail salons, Tupperware parties, bridge games, nursing schools, you name it—the bathroom issue wouldn't be a hugely disruptive boundary violation (or “queering”), just business as usual for patriarchal rape culture.
Every human being in our society has guaranteed human rights. Women are beyond enfranchised (peruse https://girlpowermarketing.com/statistics-purchasing-power-women). Feminism has become pointless because its target remains a patriarchy that no longer exists in any meaningful form—and which NEVER existed in the ridiculous chattel-slavery rape-fantasy form made famous by the same ahistorical crackpot “womyn” who decided to rechristen academic feminism (wait for it...) Gender Studies.
Do better.
Damn son, you misquoted a quote that was directly above the post you were writing. Bad look, and nonsensical arguments there. Read the "always" sentence again, more carefully this time. You're reacting as if she said "all rapists have always done", and missing the function of the "as" there.
You may think that pedophiles aren't a threat to women, but women would disagree with you, along with pretty much everyone else, who would also likely conclude that only a pedo would say something as ridiculous as you did.
The YWCAs and YMCAs have merged in many countries on the fitness side, but the YWCA does a lot more than host fitness centers. For example, in my area the YWCA operates a supervised-visitation program for parents reuniting with their kids.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YWCA
You also have lost touch with what feminism is and isn't, confusing the exercising of the rights and privileges that feminism has won for women with feminism itself.
And finally, you're conflating the feminist usage of "gender" which was coined in the 60s-70s specifically for pointing out the harmful stereotypes associated with being female, with the modern gender cult and its usage of "gender", which embraces those harmful stereotypes.
Excellent perspective. I particularly like your ending:
Pronoun rituals are bougie.
Having your thinking challenged is a necessity.
And no child is trans.
The end.
You are such a good writer and it is so important for me that you are a clear honest lesbian voice. Because as lesbians and gays , we are losing so much of what we gained.
"And no child is trans."
This cannot be said too many times.
“After I spoke out, some tried to discredit me by saying I was "just a secretary." They were trying to dismiss the intelligence of medical secretaries, as if their lower pay grade somehow correlated with lower intellect. That's bullshit. Medical secretaries run circles around doctors in insurance billing, they know the best specialists, and they often understand their division's medical care better than a general pediatrician.” I remember the “just a secretary bit.” Obnoxious, and of course totally wrong. Thank you for bringing the 🔥 and for all you do.
Brilliant.
I grew up in a comfortable middle class home and my gut feeling is you are right, but as the idea of “gender identity” becomes more widespread, I think more working class kids will get caught up in it. I read that in the UK, Blackpool had one of the highest rates of gender dysphoria, and it’s a deprived area. Social workers may have been responsible for spreading the ideology. Any teenager who is having trouble fitting in is vulnerable because having a gender identity makes you special and can explain any problems you have. The solutions offered probably won’t work for a lot of people, but they’ll keep hanging on to the identity as it gives them hope and sense of community.
Whoa, Jamie--that's it, straight up! Thank you.
Reading this, I feel less alone. Someone else sees the same things I see. Thank you, Jamie!