Why The Media Guys Who Obsess Over Trans Issues Won't Tell Us What They Actually Believe
Putting yesterday's post into real-life contexts.
Hello, dear readers,
Yesterday, I published a transcript of a video by Ian Danskin (a.k.a. Innuendo Studios) about one of the more frustrating debate strategies on the right: “The Card Says ‘Moops’”. If you have a moment to watch the video or read the transcript, I recommend you do so, as it’ll make understanding today’s post a bit easier.
Today’s newsletter is an article version of a Twitter thread I posted after seeing a Mother Jones article about the shadowy group of anti-trans activists who’ve been working with lawmakers and right-wing influencers to try to undercut trans people’s rights. What I noticed in reading the 2,600 pages of emails that served as the basis for the Mother Jones piece, is that the anti-trans activists floated a number of talking points that the “I’m not anti-trans! I’ve just got questions!” pundits like to repeat.
And now, the thread:
Hey, look, the reactionary centrist argument that many children who socially transition go on to medically transition later on, so it's fair to frame social transition as quasi-medical and be very skeptical about it, too... turns out to be a workshopped right-wing talking point. I am shocked (not actually shocked).
It's really amazing how obvious it is that the pundit-bros who've dominated the "trans kids!" space are all clearly working from the point of view that it is clearly better for someone to not be trans. It's why they worry about "explosions" in the number of trans teens: because they view that as a bad thing.
They sort of gesture at stories about detransitioners, without explaining what that's supposed to tell us. Has there been... an increase (percentage-wise) in the number of people who have medically transitioned and then detransitioned? What percentage of these people who detransitioned medically transitioned as a minor? And to what extent?
They never say, because there's not really data on their side to back them up. Every single study of substance is still like "Hey, yeah, it seems like the overwhelming number of people who medically transition end up being pretty okay with how things went!"
That's what they're waving around?
That's what I don't understand about the writing of Chait, Yglesias, and the rest of these guys. It's all like, "Yes, but what if there's another way!?!?" And, uh, okay?
I think what a lot of it comes down to is that these guys really just don't think that being trans is... a real thing. And because they can't just come right out and say that without showing their hand, they have to dance around it. Because, to them, trans people are confused weirdos.
(And in fairness, I'm absolutely a confused weirdo, but that's not a gender thing. buh-dum-tiss, self-deprecating humor for the win.)
If you actually talk to trans people about what issues we have with specific pieces of writing, it's far from the, "Shhhhhh! No one's allowed to talk about this subject!!!" stuff that the pundit-bros claim.
Immediately after the NYT Letter went out, these guys (many of whom signed the Harper's Letter, go figure) tried to frame the act of sending an open letter to NYT with specific criticisms about story framing, transparency, accuracy, and sense of proportion as some sort of demand that the paper not cover something.
But that's so very false.
And it makes me sick when I see guys like Kevin Drum framing pushback as being because writers aren't meeting some sort of ideological litmus test.
No, there have been well-written, well-articulated criticisms of every single one of these pieces that those writers have published.
The difficulty here is that the people who write the pieces have audiences 10s or 100s the times the size of their critics. Like, there are a whole lot of Very Smart Media People who will be like, "What has JK Rowling ever said that was transphobic? Nothing. They're so sensitive!" and "What? She simply said that sex is real!"
But... that's just not true. People can analyze her tweets or whatever, but I think one of the best, most thorough responses to Rowling's 2020 blog post that got shared all over the place was a piece at a little-read blog. Check it out. This piece from Zinnia Jones is an incredibly thorough, point-by-point breakdown of objections to the points made by Rowling.
There are 3 parts (part 1, part 2, part 3).
And, just pulling from Jones’s posts about Rowling's 2020 blog, let's break things down on a point that I saw Very Smart Media People "just asking questions" about the other day.
Check out Matt Yglesias here.
You see, he's not saying anything at all. He's just, you know, tossing it out there... not saying anything at all by this, for real, totes... that many gay men used to play with dolls and many lesbians used to play with trucks as kids.
But not saying anything at all!
And when someone confronted him head-on about why he posted it, he shrugs and says that he didn't post it for any particular reason.
The point of being an opinion writer, a pundit, is to, you know... tell us your opinion. Because let's be real, that's what all of these people are (that's fine! Hell, I'm an opinion writer!): pundits.
But you'll notice that on this topic, none of these guys will ever actually tell you what they think.
They don't come out and make a clear argument. Ever. Read any of their pieces. Yglesias, Chait, the other guy, any of them. They're all kind of just... deliberate meandering.
The meaning of what they're saying is clear, though, but they know that there's a lot of money to be made in positioning yourself as an opinion writer who never actually has to stake out or defend a position.
It's why these guys love the "cancel culture" stuff.
“Cancel culture" stories are like cotton candy. Just empty calories, sticky, sugary goodness.
"What's that? A person got criticized for something they said or did? We're here to tell you that it's bad that other people have any opinions at all or agency over themselves."
When you're discussing a topic solely on the grounds of whether or not someone is allowed to talk about something, you're able to completely sidestep ever having to address the actual content. If you want to have a "discussion" about something, then discuss it.
But instead, these guys all stand around having a "discussion" about whether or not they're even allowed to have discussions, despite regularly having this content-free meta-debate in front of massive audiences that critics can't match.
It allows them to avoid ever having to actually say anything. And they know it.
Another thing these guys do is they'll insist that they're not anti-trans, but then refuse to ever actually say what they mean by that.
Like, people do realize that people who hold prejudices against other groups don't always go, "Hi, I'm racist!" or whatever, right?
Like... here's a Daily Beast story about the drama at the New York Times, that had been bubbling up for a couple of years. One of the inflection points was when Pamela Paul [the anti-trans columnist who was the editor of the books section at the time] published a review of a book by an anti-trans activist. The book was reviewed by one of the pundits who turned obsessing over trans issues into his whole career.
It was a pretty glowing review... despite the book being an error-riddled disaster that pushed anti-trans conspiracy theories.
For real, check this out: This is from that book. Unhinged and antisemitic nonsense about Jewish billionaires? But sure, give that a big ol' nice review in the paper of record. Cool.
The antisemitic and anti-trans conspiracy theory in that book is the same thing that was included in the Buffalo shooter's manifesto.
This was in her book, and it's both poorly argued and factually untrue. But that doesn't come up in the NYT review at all.
Also, see in the prior tweet how the book tried to frame the Human Rights Campaign as some sort of extremist trans organization (they've gotten better in recent years, but... uh... there's a history)? Turns out that she didn't even mean Human Rights Campaign.
Because the donation was to Human Rights Watch, a completely different human rights organization. The Human Rights Campaign is a US-based LGBTQ organization. But hey, glowing review in the Times.
So, trans people will point to stuff like that -- mistakes, lies, conspiracy theories, etc. And in return, that criticism gets turned into, "OMG, you're trying to silence anyone who writes about this!!!" But again, that's false.
Is it unreasonable to say, "Hey, that book quite inaccurately and baselessly suggests that 'the trans movement' is the result of a cabal of Jewish billionaires, and assigning the review to someone who admits that he's had dinner with the author before is maybe a tad unethical"?
Anyway, so, back to that Daily Beast article I was mentioning. In it, the Daily Beast goes through and gives some of the other high-level criticisms of the review. But I'm more interested in the parenthetical update. Check it out [emphasis mine]:
Those past efforts came to a head in September 2021 after the Times published a review of Helen Joyce’s book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality written by Jesse Singal, a journalist whose has been accused by critics of implying that children who seek gender-affirming care are harming themselves. (Singal says that is inaccurate and that he believes minors should be properly assessed before interventions such as blockers or hormones are used).
“...believes minors should be properly assessed before interventions such as blockers or hormones are used."
What does "properly assessed" mean? We don't know! He's never actually said. Ever.
So he gets to huff and puff and tell the Daily Beast to update the piece without actually explaining how his position differs from how it was originally presented. It's the same thing Michael Knowles did a couple weeks back with his, "I said 'transgenderism,' not 'transgender people,' and everyone needs to change their headlines" type of stuff.
“…believes minors should be properly assessed before interventions such as blockers or hormones are used" can mean anything if you don't define "properly." What does "properly assessed" mean? If it means in line with WPATH's standards of care, hey that's my position, too.
But if you never actually SAY what "properly" means here, if you never actually explain it, you can sit around doing the "How DARE YOU!? I am being attacked by the mean trans people again!" routine without ever clarifying your position.
It's a game to them. It's the same exact thing Ian Danskin describes in his “The Card Says ‘Moops’” video.
It's the same exact thing Florida did with its "Parental Rights" bill (aka "Don't Say Gay").
By writing "...in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards," its supporters were able to pretend that this was simply a bill that affected grades K-3, and no one else. They were able to point to that and go, "Why do you think that kindergarteners have to learn about drag!?!?" or whatever. It gave them rhetorical and political cover.
But the actual part there that was worth looking at was "...or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards."
Who is defining "age-appropriate?" What "state standards?" Who makes them?
And, as we all watched happen, Florida pretty much immediately decided that anything to do with LGBTQ people was not "age-appropriate" for K-12 students entirely. And now, after evading any political cost for this, some Florida Republicans are trying to expand it so it “officially” bans any discussion of LGBTQ people or topics through senior year of high school.
Not defining their position gave them power and rhetorical cover.
This is all part of the Very Serious Media Person pundit-dude strategy of keeping things vague, refusing to actually elaborate on what you're trying to say and explaining your position in detail (for real, if you're going to say that you're not anti-trans, but that you think that there need needs to be a "proper" evaluation, you really need to explain how your definition of "proper" differs from the standards of care; it's on you to explain under what circumstances you believe someone should be allowed to take hormones. Stop hiding.)
Anyway.
Let's look back at Yglesias's wink-wink nudge-nudge not-saying-anything-why-do-you-ask tweets.
You then had Andrew Sullivan pop up with this:
"A gay friend confided in me the other day: 'if I'd been born twenty years later I would have been put on puberty blockers.' Protect gay kids from the TQIA+ extremists."
This, of course, was the entire point here: to baselessly posit that there are gay kids who are being “transed.”
Sullivan has been pushing this wacky conspiracy theory about homophobic parents "transing" their kids (because hey, as we all know, people who are homophobic tend to LOVE trans people, right? lol, come on) for quite some time, but it’s come up even more frequently of late.
And a few of the usual centrist-bro dudes jumped in with this. The idea that they're pushing is that a boy says "I want to play with a doll!" and then parents go, "You're a girl now!"
And that's just... not at all true. At all. It's a lie. It's a conspiracy theory. It makes zero sense if you think about it even for a minute.
Like, you'll sometimes hear parents of trans kids trying to explain early signs that they might be trans, and sometimes that does include things like how they liked to dress or how they liked to play. But that's not by any means "all of it.”
Because look, I'll be real. It's really difficult to explain what it's like to be trans to someone who isn't. And I imagine it's even harder for parents to relay that, having not experienced it themselves necessarily, to a wider audience.
And a lot of the time, in these cases, people will try to explain what it's like to be trans in overly-simplified ways. It's how you end up with "trapped in the wrong body" narratives, which tend to be pretty 101-level, general idea kind of explanations.
Like, if someone asked me, Parker Molloy, to explain what it's like to be trans, my answer would be different than if you asked a different trans person. There might be some overlap in our answers, but a lot of the feelings are really hard to pin down and even harder to explain.
Like, I could say, "So, before I came out as trans, I pretty much constantly felt like the monster in a Cronenberg movie where my skin keeps getting tighter and tighter and the whole time I'm next to a busy highway with wind blowing in my face," but I don't know if that's helpful to most people?
And mostly, I find it irrelevant. Because I'm just trying to live my life. So much of the punditry certainly seems to be based on this idea that trans people are just confused weirdos (a bit of a callback), they don't seem to view this as an issue of human rights, but as a debate around the legitimacy of transitioning as an outcome.
These guys have never once articulated what they think the actual problem being discussed is. That's why people frame their writing as "just asking questions."
I want to talk about Rowling for a second.
Hey! That's something that sounds familiar in Rowling's 2020 blog [emphasis, again, mine]:
The writings of young trans men reveal a group of notably sensitive and clever people. The more of their accounts of gender dysphoria I’ve read, with their insightful descriptions of anxiety, dissociation, eating disorders, self-harm and self-hatred, the more I’ve wondered whether, if I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. I struggled with severe OCD as a teenager. If I’d found community and sympathy online that I couldn’t find in my immediate environment, I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he’d have preferred.
When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. I remember Colette’s description of herself as a ‘mental hermaphrodite’ and Simone de Beauvoir’s words: ‘It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.’
As I didn’t have a realistic possibility of becoming a man back in the 1980s, it had to be books and music that got me through both my mental health issues and the sexualised scrutiny and judgement that sets so many girls to war against their bodies in their teens. Fortunately for me, I found my own sense of otherness, and my ambivalence about being a woman, reflected in the work of female writers and musicians who reassured me that, in spite of everything a sexist world tries to throw at the female-bodied, it’s fine not to feel pink, frilly and compliant inside your own head; it’s OK to feel confused, dark, both sexual and non-sexual, unsure of what or who you are.
"If I'd been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition."
It's the Andrew Sullivan point again!
See how these things keep coming up? And see how they're based on people's understanding of how the screening process (which, as much as people want you to believe doesn't exist, very much does) works and not... how it actually works?
All the while, people would go, "I don't see what Rowling said that has upset people?"
But what she said that upset people was illustrated (in great detail) in Jones’s three articles.
At another point, Rowling baselessly suggests that maybe kids are saying they're trans because they're actually just gay but think that life will (lololol) somehow (lolllll) be easier (lmao) if they come out as trans, instead.
See, Rowling never actually cites any sources. None of the pundit class tends to (sure, they’ll cherry-pick data, often data that doesn’t even make the point they think they’re making [see: Yglesias’ tweet]), and instead working off of anecdotes and vibes.
Do you know who did cite her sources? Zinnia Jones did.
Looking more narrowly at transition treatments for youth, Brik et al. (2020) studied 143 youth receiving puberty-blocking medication in the Netherlands, and found that 3.5% chose to discontinue puberty blockers without seeking any further transition treatment. These would be the cases where their bodies were not altered irrevocably, such as by treatment with cross-sex hormone therapy or gender-affirming surgeries. None of this reflects a “huge explosion” or “increasing numbers” of cases of regret. If Rowling believes that similar studies in the years to come will eventually reveal such a phenomenon, that too is a testable prediction, but the evidence to date certainly does not support her claims.
We can similarly evaluate the plausibility of her claim that large numbers of trans people “decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families”. Does personal and societal homophobia actually serve to make being trans seem more appealing in comparison to being cisgender and gay? Everything that is known about the prevalence of and relationship between homophobic and transphobic attitudes suggests that this is not the case at all, and that transitioning as an escape from homophobia is a notion that simply makes no sense. Norton & Herek (2013), surveying the attitudes of adults in the United States, found that prejudice against lesbians, gays, and bisexuals was tightly correlated with negative views toward trans people, and attitudes toward trans people were broadly even more negative than views of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. This sample did not express a pattern of belief that being trans is a more appealing alternative to being gay; instead, there was “evidence of a strong psychological linkage between the two attitude domains” of anti-trans prejudice and anti-LGB prejudice. Rye, Merritt, & Straatsma (2019) also compared these attitudes among college students, and found a stronger correlation between anti-trans sentiment and anti-LGB sentiment than there was between anti-trans sentiment and any other variable studied, concluding that “homophobia is likely to always be the ‘best’ predictor of transphobia and these two constructs probably share a common foundation”.
A family or society that hates you for being gay is very likely to continue hating you for being trans, and Rowling has proposed an incentive that does not appear to exist in reality. As Ashley (2019) points out, many parents and clinicians of gender-diverse youth have openly expressed that they would actually find it more desirable to have a cisgender gay child than a trans child. Moreover, trans people’s transitions broadly do not map to a pathway that proceeds from apparently cisgender and gay, to transgender and straight; Ashley finds that when combining several surveys of trans youth, only 8.7% reported being straight, a rate similar to that found among trans adults. By and large, transitioning isn’t a way to become not gay.
Rowling also rails against "self-ID" ID changes, but has never actually explained under what circumstances trans women should be allowed to use women's restrooms. Because if the issue was simply "self-ID" and not a general stance against trans women using women's restrooms, she'd be able to stake out a specific position. It would be the starting point for dialogue. We may not agree, but we'd at least be able to have good-faith discussions. Instead, she pretends it's about "self-ID," when there's no reason to believe this is the case.
For real, had she said something like "hey, anyone who's had bottom surgery should be allowed to use the restroom of their identified gender," that would at least be a position that makes clear that the creation of a sub-class of citizens wasn't on the table.
At various times, she'd say things like, "I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people" (immediately before citing an incorrect statistic she doesn't provide a link to), but never actually says how she envisions trans people existing within society.
Another bit from Rowling's blog: she acknowledged that trans women are at risk of being assaulted by men and says she wants "trans women to be safe," but staked out a position that would... require trans women to use men's restrooms, etc. (emphasis mine):
I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.
So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.
And it’s worth noting as I have in the past, that there is nothing to suggest that “self-ID” or non-discrimination laws that protect trans people’s ability to use public restrooms have led to an increase in restroom-related assaults.
Her entire piece was arguing that people had been horrible to her online, that letting people update their ID documents will lead to an uptick in violence in public restrooms, and argues against nondiscrimination protections for trans people are going too far without saying what they should be. And trans people have, over many years, tried to ask this. Trans people have written about this in great detail.
But instead of elevating that, of looking at what her "I'm not transphobic!" stuff means in terms of policy, Very Smart Media People will say, "See? Trans people are crazy and you can't ask any questions these days!" Like, hey, why is it that none of the people who just "have questions" they want to ask actually seem to ask trans people about them when they're writing their articles?
Like, Jonathan Chait will sit there scouring Will Stancil’s and Michael Hobbes’s timelines for blog content and acting befuddled about what trans people think (he tends to only quote tweet trans people talking about him or respond specifically to insults lobbed his way, while ignoring people who are trying to engage with him in good faith. Their work is powered by motivated reasoning and, for some of them, what seems to be a general aversion to trans people.
And that's because all of these stories "just asking questions" aren't about trying to figure out a world where we can all exist, but what society should do about us and to us. We are not included in this discussion, and our efforts to participate in it at our smaller blogs and newsletters, etc. never gain traction. Instead, it's, "Hey, look, a trans person tweeted an insult at me, see how unreasonable they are?"
We have a right to be a part of this conversation, and when we push back on things like publishing a glowing review of a book written by an anti-trans activist that's filled with straight-up false information that demonstrates that the book hasn't been fact-checked properly (see? there's that word again, properly) and is written by someone who is friendly with the author, it's not us saying, "OMG, you're not allowed to write about this! OMG! Stoppppppp!" it's us saying, "You're not upholding even the tiniest, most minimal standards. You are letting your biases run wild and you are failing at the very concept of journalism."
Not to mention that a year later, the author of that book (that got the glowing NYT review) would call trans people "a huge problem to a sane world," "damaged," and then say she wanted "reducing or keeping down the number of people who transition."
So, if I'm being completely honest, I am sick of it. I am sick of the pundit class, the guys who get New York Magazine or the New York Times to publish whatever they happen to have on their mind on a given day, whining about criticism.
Because while these writers and institutions run around elevating people who have outright said that they believe trans people are a "huge problem to a sane world," people who spread false transphobic and antisemitic conspiracy theories about "the trans movement" being the product of a secretive cabal of Jewish billionaires, as they continue to write their "just asking questions" pieces where they’re not actually telling us anything new, just sort of sharing a few anecdotes and going, "the science isn't settled!" while not actually doing anything to clarify anything...
The rest of us are just trying to chill out, exist, to move through the world. Our voices get suppressed. If this was actually about trying to understand this issue, then good faith efforts to interact would be recognized and addressed head-on. But that is never, ever, ever it.
And the way some of these guys talk about this stuff is just really weird. "The whipping of..." People criticized factual and ethical errors in the writing, Ben. "But the tide has turned" is especially creepy and menacing. Like, wtf, man?
To the extent that these guys see trans people as human beings at all, they see us as lessers who should never object to things that we disagree with, with what's said about us, with the narratives that are spread about us, all without our inclusion.
Because no matter how thorough we are (again, Zinnia Jones put out a 3-part series that seriously goes point-by-point through Rowling's blog post, if anyone still can't figure out the problem trans people had with it) or how polite we are, we get locked out and looked down upon.
So it shouldn't exactly be a shock that after years of elitist snobs "debating 'the transgender question,'" and ignoring anything we have to say about anything, ignoring the corrections, the analysis, etc., a bunch of trans people do spend their days telling the reactionary centrist pundit groups to f-off, calling them transphobes, and telling them off. For instance, trans people have been trying to correct a factual error in one of Chait's recent "JAQ" articles about how "bathroom bills" have supposedly died out.
It's untrue. States are getting more aggressive than ever before about it, too. But did Chait update his piece? No. Did he respond to people pointing this out? No. Did he correct other factual errors, like when he falsely claimed that the standards of care for trans kids had undergone a massive shift in recent years to fast-track minors into medical transitions? No, he didn't. That was, again, factually untrue.
How are we supposed to fight for our rights if the people who shape public perception and policy won't hear us?
And how are we supposed to take any of them seriously when they brush off data that doesn't fit their narrative, when they refuse to define things like "properly," and when they show a complete and total lack of curiosity on the topic?
So, maybe now those of you who've been hanging out in the "left-leaning" listservs where they complain about trans people being outrageous while praising articles littered with factual errors, leaps of logic, and without a clear point, can start to either engage with thoughtful feedback or you can expect that trans people will keep calling you transphobes for your one-sided, conspiracy theory-riddled nonsense where you go around being like, "I'm sick of not being allowed to have this conversation!" They don't want a conversation. They've proven it.
"Like, I could say, "So, before I came out as trans, I pretty much constantly felt like the monster in a Cronenberg movie where my skin keeps getting tighter and tighter and the whole time I'm next to a busy highway with wind blowing in my face," but I don't know if that's helpful to most people?"
This is incredibly meaningful and helpful to me. Thank you.
“…believes minors should be properly assessed before interventions such as blockers or hormones are used" can mean anything if you don't define "properly." What does "properly assessed" mean?”
It means “assessed in a way that I personally believe is proper, even though I know literally nothing about the subject and I run completely on vibes and therefore will never believe any assessment is proper. After all, I write regularly for the NYT! And do you see how many subscribers I have? Why should I learn anything?”
As for “joining in the opprobrium” if Jesse Singal were found to be a mass murderer, lol right—they wouldn’t approve of the mass murder, but there would never be a moment of “hey maybe this guy is a sadistic crackpot.” More like “nobody’s perfect.”
Lastly, OMG I’d never heard the notion of “homophobia is driving parents to transition their kids because a homophobe thinks being trans is fine.” More proof that none of these guys have ever met any actual people.