President of American Academy of Pediatrics on Trans Kids

The American Academy of Pediatrics has gone on record for its stance on transgender children:

As I sat at the AAP Districts II and VIII joint meeting in late June listening to two families talk about their experiences with their young transgender children, I felt privileged to witness such love and acceptance — and such normal, happy children who just happened not to fit their “assigned” or birth gender. I was proud to be an AAP member and a pediatrician, just as I was proud in April, when the North Carolina Chapter and national AAP called for repeal of North Carolina’s so-called “bathroom bill,” a law that denies transgender students access to gender-segregated spaces such as restrooms and locker rooms in schools.

I’ve learned so much from these children and their families. First, gender dysphoria can start very early. Both children experienced strong opinions about their gender at the age of 4 or 5. Second, there is a continuum in gender dysphoria. Both children had natal male genders. Yet one child changed her name to reflect a female gender and insisted she was a girl, while the other child wanted to be addressed with male pronouns in spite of a preference to dress like a girl and choose play and roles traditionally engaged in by girls.

Both families stressed how important it is for home to be a safe and accepting space for the transgender child. When those children walk through the door of their homes at the end of a school day, they should be able to be themselves without any judgment. As one of the fathers passionately said, “I won’t be my child’s first bully!”

The pediatrician’s office, and the entire health care setting, should be a safe, accepting place as well. I was sad to receive an email from one of the parents telling of another family’s encounters with the health care system when they bring their 5-year-old transgender daughter in for care for her serious chronic disease. The doctors refuse to treat her as a girl until she is older, and some have even called child protective services claiming the mother is harming her child for allowing her to live as a girl.

This is done even though a study by Olson and colleagues, published in Pediatrics in March, showed socially transitioned transgender children who are supported in their gender identity have improved mental health outcomes (Olson KR, Pediatrics. 2016;137:e20153223,http://bit.ly/29jaKIK). There appears to be no harm — and possible benefit — from such parent-supported early social transitions.

The parents asked the AAP to get the word out to our members about our support for transgender children and their families. I will paraphrase the statement made by one of the fathers and suggest we pledge that as physicians, especially pediatricians, we not be our patients’ first bully.

It’s been 44 years since the release of “Free to Be …You and Me” by Marlo Thomas and Friends. When it was first published, my daughter was 5 years old, and I must have listened to every lyric in the book enough times to memorize them all. My beloved wife, Constance, made sure we had every version of the text (book, record album and video). After all, the point was to empower girls to believe they could do anything, empower boys to think outside the narrow constraints of male stereotypes and empower all children to be unique individuals. It had a major impact on my daughter who quotes it to this day.

Now I’m a grandfather with two granddaughters, so I’ve been listening to the lyrics once more. This time, however, I’ve been thinking especially of transgender children and how the words so resonate with their world.

I will end this column by speaking directly to transgender children and youth with a quote from the book: I would like “to remind you that you’re the hero of your own life adventure and that you can write your story any way that you dream it can be.” You are free to be whomever you want to be!

Please see related story “Transgender youths may struggle to find gender-affirming care.”

Copyright © 2016 American Academy of Pediatrics

Firstly, I want to acknowledge the value of accreditation bodies standing up for something like this. It is important for the president to say things like this, because it sends a message to the members of PAA to smarten the fuck up.

However, I am increasingly noticing that taking a principled stand is a bit toothless unless there are consequences imposed for violation of principles. PAA could be all hot air the next time someone complains about mistreatment from its members.

I do appreciate that folks are making their trans-affirmation stances public, but until the harm perpetrated on trans folk is acknowledged and treated appropriately (i.e. with consequences for the perpetrator), then these stands are just that–grand, theatric, and ultimately toothless.

-Shiv

So much for Harris’ racial profiling

In before someone shouts “context!”

A Canadian terrorist with idealistic sympathies to ISIS was shot by police during a confrontation where the suspect detonated a bomb that wounded himself and one other. But he’s not who you might think:

A 24-year-old man who had been under a peace bond for being an ISIS sympathizer was killed Wednesday night by police responding to what they say was “a potential terrorist threat” in the small southern Ontario town of Strathroy.

RCMP told Driver’s family that police shot Aaron Driver after he detonated a device that wounded himself and one other person, CBC News has learned. The identity of the other person isn’t clear.

A white, all Canadian terrorist. In a separate story on Driver’s background, CBC found he had converted from one form of nonsense to another (Christianity to Islam) during a period of intense poverty and strife. He slipped through the cracks and had limited access to the social safety net.

We are lucky his plot was foiled. Otherwise we’d all be scrambling for an explanation. I’m sure many of us will be anyways. It’s right there in the story: Poverty, desperation, class marginalization. People will concern themselves solely with Islam, and knowing how fucking dense bigots are, they’ll make the leap to racial profiling and xenophobia.

This terrorist was white. Perhaps we’ll understand this less to be a white versus brown issue or an immigrants versus patriots issue and start to understand it as a “marginalization breeds the conditions for radicalization” issue.

Somehow I doubt it.

Expel teh mooooooosleeeeems–exactly the sort of easy solution ISIS offers to fix everything (remember they target heretic Muslims sects more than anything), only more believable to ignorant, gullible Westerners because it’s an idea sold by white fascist demagogues.

-Shiv

 

Woman breaks swimming world record; result obviously the work of men

I hate sports for a lot of reasons. NBC demonstrates one of the more fantastically tone deaf sexist reasons:

Hosszu’s husband, Shane Tusup, also serves as her coach and was on the pool deck wildly celebrating his wife’s gold medal Saturday. While their relationship has been well-documented and has invited scrutiny in the swimming world in the lead up to Rio, the Twittersphere erupted after Hosszu’s performance on Saturday, with a number of Tweets blaming  NBC announcer Dan Hicks for calling Tusup “the man responsible” for the record-breaking performance.

Ah yes, the tried and true “woman achieved something, but it must secretly be the work of men anyway” routine.

When the fuck did NBC start hiring MRAs to do their sports commentary?

Fuck off, Dan Hicks.

As for Hosszu, congratulations on your win, I’m glad all your hard work paid off.

-Shiv

Western transphobes want you to know how much better they are than Arabic transphobes

People.com commentators want you to know Muslims are alright as long as they’re discriminating against trans women.

Or–wait, no, they want you to know you’d be EXECUTED in Islam! You’re lucky you can be sent to prison for peeing in America or that one of the presidential candidates is representing the most rabidly anti-LGBT platform in the party’s history!

GiGi Gorgeous was denied entry to the United Arab Emirates because she is transgender.

So, what do these Western commentators do to demonstrate how much more civilized the West is? Why, up the ante on transphobia to demonstrate how much better we have it, obviously.

CONTENT NOTICE FOR EVERYTHING

[Read more…]

Transphobes inoculated against facts

If any of you want a demonstration of willful ignorance, check out this article on transgender athletes:

But plenty of other prominent athletic leagues have instituted policies for allowing transgender athletes to compete with others have the same gender, including the NCAA and the Olympics. Both simply require that athletes have undergone at least one year of hormone replacement therapy. That’s because it’s the hormones that matter, and research has shown that trans athletes lose any competitive advantage they might have had after hormones begin to make changes to their bodies, such as to their muscle mass. A recent studyspecifically confirmed this result in transgender runners.

The author of the piece helpfully points out a number of factors that challenge the exclusion of trans folk in competing in gender segregated sports.

  1. Literally any physical attribute which contributes to fitness in sports can be possessed by both AFABs or AMABs–cited in the article is the example of a 6’7″ AFAB cis woman competing in basketball having an edge over her competitors, just as any other 6’7″ competitor would;
  2. The more malleable facets of fitness, like muscle mass/tone, are governed by sex hormones–in this respect, trans and cis athletes are nearly identical (trans women in fact have lower testosterone than cis women);
  3. Bio sex is a blurry concept when you look closely under the microscope, and setting precedents for policing trans bodies will inevitably bleed into policing uncommon phenotypes in cis bodies–even if the sex hormones are still in the typical range otherwise.

All of these have citations in the author’s article. You can fact-check the claims.

Despite this, transphobic commentators make the exact same arguments that were just refuted in the article.

How do you get through to someone like this? I can’t even.

“I can prove gravity is an attractive force by dropping this pencil. See? It falls to the Earth.”

“No it doesn’t! It clearly just floated into the sky!”

Sure makes you rethink that painfully stubborn “activists against science” trope, no? Who, exactly, is denying science here?

-Shiv

Texas needs a reminder on the definition of insanity

Apparently not convinced from their many defeats in the many levels of court, Texas lawmakers have vowed to pull a North Carolina come their next session in January, further demonstrating my belief that authoritarians must receive vaccines to immunize them against irony:

GOP state Rep. Matt Shaheen told The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, for a story published Sunday, that he plans to introduce a bill that would prohibit cities, counties and school districts from allowing transgender people to use restrooms based on their gender identity.

“We’re taking that ability away,” Shaheen said. “We should leave that power where it should reside, at the state and federal level. I think this is such a silly topic. At the end of the day, this is about common sense and decency.”

No it’s fucking not, Shaheen. Common sense and decency would be actually doing something useful with your time, and instead you are perpetuating a violent lobby that makes it impossible to exist while trans. It’s a cultural genocide. To say it is “indecent” would be putting it lightly.

Shaheen is joined by another witless cocksplat, Bill Zedler

GOP Rep. Bill Zedler, who once tried to ban LGBT resource centers on state university campuses, told the Star-Telegramthat the issue of trans restroom use “raises concerns mainly because anytime you want to make it where someone who self-identifies as a man … can now go into the woman’s restroom, I believe it puts small children at risk as well as … inconveniencing 99, 98 percent of the population so a very small percent of the population can supposedly feel comfortable.”

They’re not even fucking trying to understand at this point.

Jesus fucking christ. I inconvenience you by existing? Fuck off, you predatory sacks of shit.

-Shiv

Jason Kenney’s next endorsement (in which Shiv loses a bet)

When I last guessed on who would endorse Jason Kenney next, I wagered it would be a Holocaust denier.

Well, Kenney has received his next endorsement, and I was wrong:

As Kenney leads a crusade against Alberta’s policies tackling climate change, it turns out the man running Kenney’s leadership campaign was once described as a “global warming critic” by the Globe and Mail.

Oh good. Just a climate change denier. Much better than a Holocaust denier.

He’s suggested those who agree with the scientists are participating in “wacky mass-behaviour,” dismissing climate change concerns as nothing more than a “sociological phenomenon,” a “popular delusion” and yes, even as a form of “collective psychosis.”

That’s John Weissenberger, Stephen Harper’s closest friend and most trusted adviser, who now serves as Kenney’s campaign manager as he seeks the leadership of Alberta’s Progressive Conservatives

Laughing? Crying? With Jason Kenney, who knows.

I can’t even parody this shit.

-Shiv, Fashionable Communist, Annihilator of Man

Jason Kenney: Exploiting taxpayers a feature, and not a bug, of Conservative work ethic

An administrator of a Facebook group called “Government for all Canadians, not just the wealthy” has the tragic circumstance of being represented by Jason “I Don’t Get Caught Up in the Details” Kenney in the federal government. He had some issues he wanted to raise with his Member of Parliament–invoking the whole “meet with your constituency in order to represent their concerns in government” idea.

However, Jason Kenney’s office said it was too busy to meet with the administrator, because he is preparing to campaign for provincial conservative leadership in Alberta.

While still being paid by the federal government to be an MP.

Must all be part of that Conservative work ethic, right? All Canadians are currently financing Kenney’s leadership bid in Alberta. I’m sure the Quebec sovereigntists and liberal Newfies are thrilled.

Source: Government for all Canadians, not just the wealthy

Source: Government for all Canadians, not just the wealthy

Parliament is not in session right now, which is precisely why now is the time to meet with your constituency.

Unless you’re Jason Kenney, campaigning on “pull up your bootstraps” rhetoric while employing the rest of Canada to pull up your bootstraps.

“Hard work” indeed.

-Shiv, Fashionable Communist, Annihilator of Man

Signal boosting: A Guide for Understanding Transgender Children Debates

A brief preamble before I give you today’s recommended reading material.

Julia Serano–yes, that Julia Serano–penned a piece on Medium called Detransition, Desistance, and Disinformation: A Guide for Understanding Transgender Children Debates. Before I give an endorsement of her piece, I’ll reiterate a few important points for you to consider as a presumably trans ally:

The first is that because Serano is discussing transphobic “debate” tropes in the media, she is using the same rhetorical technique that I frequently use–she is accepting the premise of her opponent’s argument in order to demonstrate that the reasoning itself is flawed. The premise that she argues from is rather unsettling, and it has been pointed out to me by self-identifying cisgender gender non conformists (whew, that’s a mouthful) that classifying gender nonconformity per se as trans has unsettling applications for Othering children with uncommon gendered interests. In addition, she accepts another premise–that it’s necessary to separate those who seek medical intervention in their transition from those who don’t–only for the sake of argument. She tears that premise apart later on in the article, but it could be distressing to see someone try to argue by accepting that point, even if it’s to demonstrate why it’s problematic to believe.

The second is that Serano does take time to point out why it’s a superbly bad idea to conflate GNC with trans, but that comes after she tries using the premise in an argument. So please don’t panic–a highly influential trans feminist hasn’t gone full TERF, she’s just demonstrating how misinformed these debate tropes are and how they’re not even internally consistent.

The third is that I have a largely semantic disagreement with Serano on her use of the word transphobia. She recognizes that deliberate actions manifesting an anti-trans bias could easily be called transphobia, but then uses the same word to describe things like “the assumption that cis identities are valid while trans are not.” I preferably delineate this with the term cissexism to differentiate it from actions. “Cissexist beliefs inform transphobic actions. All people are cissexist, however we can interrogate that prejudice and reduce the likelihood we manifest transphobia.” Serano does not subscribe to this model. Cissexist is a word that shows up at no point, despite describing multiple instances where the word popped in my brain.

C’est la vie. This does not take away from Serano’s fantastic work.

Anyways, the intro to her post:

But lately, as transgender people have become more visible and have garnered increasing media scrutiny, trans-unaware politicians, pundits, and journalists have suddenly swooped in to weigh in on these important issues — issues that (conveniently) they themselves are not personally invested in. Some of these people have very clear anti-trans agendas. Others are (perhaps well-meaning) interlopers who believe that by simply reading a few research papers and interviewing a few people here and there, they can acquire an “objective understanding” about this complex subject that spans a half-century of history. And sadly, they often center their op-eds and think-pieces on an especially vulnerable segment of our community: transgender children.

You’ve probably seen some of these articles. They raise concerns about “80% desistance,” and offer examples of trans people who have since “detransitioned,” and they will leave you with the impression that trans health practitioners are engaging in some kind of reckless sociological experiment. Whenever transgender people object to these misrepresentations or the old gatekeeper ideologies, these pundits and journalists will decry “transgender activists are attacking science!” without ever acknowledging the countless trans advocates, researchers, and health providers who actually agree with us on many of these matters.

Rather than write a short pithy critique or rebuttal of the latest “children are at risk!” or “activists are out of hand!” article-du-jour, I decided to write this lengthy nuanced piece. It is intended to be a step-by-step guide for anyone interested, one that fills in all the holes, reads between the lines, and unpacks the many assumptions that riddle the typical op-ed or think-piece about transgender children.

Many of the aforementioned problems begin with an over-simplification of either trans terminology and/or the breadth of transgender experiences, so that is where this guide will begin. I will also provide necessary background regarding gender transition in adults before addressing the more controversial topic of transgender children.

Go check it out. (Don’t read the comments).

-Shiv