this is just outstanding: so meticulously researched! I actually had to print out a copy to read it with proper attention.
I LOVE the expression "subprime evidence", it captures exactly the problem so wittily and so well. If you bundle a bunch of dodgy things together, in theory the end result *could* be less dodgy.... but if the dodgy things start to collapse one after another, you have a very big problem on your hands if you've sold tranches of the bundle to kids, families, schools, clinics, and policy-makers around the world!
Both this and the previous post on source laundering are jaw-dropping; it’s all just built on sand. This tiny number of activists seeking to control the narrative with little to no evidence and bloody succeeding because no one’s got the time or will to check the citations. Amazing work!
An excellent and exhaustive post. I will probably take some shit for injecting US presidential politics into this discussion and yes the following has been posted before but here goes.
Joe Biden is either so stupid or so uninformed about the issue that he believes that mutilating gay children in the name of "gender affirming care" is somehow like the civil rights struggle of the 1960's. He doesn't understand or care that this is exactly the approach that our sworn enemy Iran uses in its futile attempt to stamp out homosexuality.
Donald Trump is equally stupid and uninformed but he at least is surrounded by people who would do the right thing to save the children (ban gender affirming care for those under 18) even if for the wrong reasons. It's unbelievable but a vote for Trump in this case is a vote for sanity although it’s not a vote that I will make.
This is spectacularly well done. Thank you. I wish every last one of my colleagues in Women's and Gender Studies would read it. Most of them would never touch it, afraid of being contaminated by wrongthink.
I once taught women's studies (way back) and I agree there's a need to consider the evidence and yes--take in the source, not to rule it out without consideration (without full discussion of the concept of exploratory therapy's premises, for instance) but to factor it in. It seems like they place too much in the activist category by taking the word of very prominent and powerful activists in their own camp.
Seems like a classic example of academic “idea laundering” where a small group of activist academics simple cross cite each other to give the impression of wider consensus among the field.
The word I use for trans nonsense is usually “confabulation”, as in a man discussing his period - I’m sure the practitioners believed what they were saying was true…
I think you need to coin a special word for this endless trans hall of mirrors, like “Santorum” was invented. It is quite a special level of conjoined lies this is, absolute pseudoscience. You own it!
Still a long way to go, but I don't understand this bit near the beginning:
"This paper reveals the tension between sexual orientation and the medicalisation of gender nonconformity. Taking a gay boy and making *them* appear “straight” to the world is conversion therapy - but to advocates of the affirmative model, taking a “trans girl” and cruelly denying her medical interventions while insisting on talking therapy to “convince” her she’s simply a gay boy is conversion therapy, denying a fully realised trans identity that a medical pathway would facilitate."
First of all I don't understand why a gay boy is a "them", but it took me a while to realise that the trans girl (she is a "her") was the same gay boy. However instill don't get the conclusion, as I seen to read that everything that has been listed is conversion therapy.
I've changed that "them" to a "him" for clarity, just habitual writing style nothing more nefarious.
And yes that is the point - there is a conflict because depending on your point of view, both outcomes can be portrayed as "conversion therapy".
It used to be that we thought of conversion therapy as "making a gay person conform to heterosexual norms". Transition offers an alternative route to "conforming to heterosexual norms", depending how you look at it though.
Giving a same-sex oriented gender nonconforming boy space and time to grow up to be a gay adult is not conversion therapy - unless you look at that "gender nonconforming boy" and interpret them as a "trans girl" in which case any outcome where they don't grow up to be a "straight woman" has "converted" them away from a trans identity. But if you instead "affirm" that child as a "trans girl", you prevent them growing up to be the gay adult they otherwise would have been, which is conversion therapy. This is why I say they're in tension - different adult preconceptions and language and understanding of the situation interpret both outcomes as conversion.
this is just outstanding: so meticulously researched! I actually had to print out a copy to read it with proper attention.
I LOVE the expression "subprime evidence", it captures exactly the problem so wittily and so well. If you bundle a bunch of dodgy things together, in theory the end result *could* be less dodgy.... but if the dodgy things start to collapse one after another, you have a very big problem on your hands if you've sold tranches of the bundle to kids, families, schools, clinics, and policy-makers around the world!
the bundle has the appearance of solid research; whereas, it is, in reality, what I'd call citation maxing.
Both this and the previous post on source laundering are jaw-dropping; it’s all just built on sand. This tiny number of activists seeking to control the narrative with little to no evidence and bloody succeeding because no one’s got the time or will to check the citations. Amazing work!
Thank you for this deep dive Dave!
Absolutely OUTSTANDING tedious work. This is SO important. Thank you for helping us parents. I am grateful for this deep work.
An excellent and exhaustive post. I will probably take some shit for injecting US presidential politics into this discussion and yes the following has been posted before but here goes.
Joe Biden is either so stupid or so uninformed about the issue that he believes that mutilating gay children in the name of "gender affirming care" is somehow like the civil rights struggle of the 1960's. He doesn't understand or care that this is exactly the approach that our sworn enemy Iran uses in its futile attempt to stamp out homosexuality.
Donald Trump is equally stupid and uninformed but he at least is surrounded by people who would do the right thing to save the children (ban gender affirming care for those under 18) even if for the wrong reasons. It's unbelievable but a vote for Trump in this case is a vote for sanity although it’s not a vote that I will make.
This is spectacularly well done. Thank you. I wish every last one of my colleagues in Women's and Gender Studies would read it. Most of them would never touch it, afraid of being contaminated by wrongthink.
I once taught women's studies (way back) and I agree there's a need to consider the evidence and yes--take in the source, not to rule it out without consideration (without full discussion of the concept of exploratory therapy's premises, for instance) but to factor it in. It seems like they place too much in the activist category by taking the word of very prominent and powerful activists in their own camp.
Seems like a classic example of academic “idea laundering” where a small group of activist academics simple cross cite each other to give the impression of wider consensus among the field.
Ha! Hence why laundering is in the title 🤦🏼♂️!
Stupendous. Magisterial.
The word I use for trans nonsense is usually “confabulation”, as in a man discussing his period - I’m sure the practitioners believed what they were saying was true…
I think you need to coin a special word for this endless trans hall of mirrors, like “Santorum” was invented. It is quite a special level of conjoined lies this is, absolute pseudoscience. You own it!
Still a long way to go, but I don't understand this bit near the beginning:
"This paper reveals the tension between sexual orientation and the medicalisation of gender nonconformity. Taking a gay boy and making *them* appear “straight” to the world is conversion therapy - but to advocates of the affirmative model, taking a “trans girl” and cruelly denying her medical interventions while insisting on talking therapy to “convince” her she’s simply a gay boy is conversion therapy, denying a fully realised trans identity that a medical pathway would facilitate."
First of all I don't understand why a gay boy is a "them", but it took me a while to realise that the trans girl (she is a "her") was the same gay boy. However instill don't get the conclusion, as I seen to read that everything that has been listed is conversion therapy.
I've changed that "them" to a "him" for clarity, just habitual writing style nothing more nefarious.
And yes that is the point - there is a conflict because depending on your point of view, both outcomes can be portrayed as "conversion therapy".
It used to be that we thought of conversion therapy as "making a gay person conform to heterosexual norms". Transition offers an alternative route to "conforming to heterosexual norms", depending how you look at it though.
Giving a same-sex oriented gender nonconforming boy space and time to grow up to be a gay adult is not conversion therapy - unless you look at that "gender nonconforming boy" and interpret them as a "trans girl" in which case any outcome where they don't grow up to be a "straight woman" has "converted" them away from a trans identity. But if you instead "affirm" that child as a "trans girl", you prevent them growing up to be the gay adult they otherwise would have been, which is conversion therapy. This is why I say they're in tension - different adult preconceptions and language and understanding of the situation interpret both outcomes as conversion.
Another thorough teasing-apart of the incestuous world of peer review