Analysis
Featured Image
Chloe ColeTwitter

(LifeSiteNews) – A recent New York Times article attempted to downplay the importance of “detransitioners,” or individuals who once identified as the opposite sex but now have stopped trying to portray themselves that way. The article comes after numerous LGBT groups and New York Times contributors have criticized the paper for sometimes running articles skeptical of components of transgenderism.

The article, titled “How a Few Stories of Regret Fuel The Push To Restrict Gender Transition Care,” laments how individuals such as Chloe Cole and Cat Cattinson have had their voices amplified in support of legislative efforts to protect minors from dangerous transgender drugs and surgeries.

Maggie Astor with the Times wrote:

As Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed over a dozen bills banning transition care for minors this year and have moved to restrict care for adults, Ms. Cole and fewer than 10 activists like her — people who transitioned and then changed course — have become the faces of the cause, according to a New York Times review of news coverage and legislative testimony.

She continued:

Their stories of regret and irreversible physical transformation have tapped into strong emotions about rapidly shifting gender norms — from hardened prejudice to parental worry. Lawmakers have used these accounts to override objections from all major medical associations, which oppose bans on transition care, as well as testimony from the far larger number of transgender people who say transitioning improved their mental health.

It may be true currently that among individuals who injected themselves with hormones or who had healthy body parts removed there is not currently a majority who have registered regret. But the fundamental basis of the transgender movement is flawed – it is not possible for someone to change their gender. There are two sexes, male and female, and even “intersex” does not break that binary, as LifeSiteNews’s Jeremy Williamson explains here.

Astor wrote critically that “Ms. Cole and fewer than 10 activists like her — people who transitioned and then changed course — have become the faces of the cause.”

This is nothing new in politics, though. The fact that a few people regularly testify on legislation or speak at rallies does not undermine the credibility of what they are saying. Anyone who has worked in lobbying or for a political advocacy group knows that there are usually the same people brought to testify on legislation. They have been trained on how to speak and answer questions. And they often have personal stories to share.

The Times article also criticized Republican lawmakers for using these experiences to “override objections from all major medical associations.” But it really should not be necessary to even use personal stories to protect minors and adults from chemical and surgical mutilation.

In an ideal world our political system would be grounded in logic and reasoning and the debate would go back to that great Matt Walsh question, “What is a woman?” or, “Can someone really change their gender?” But the world we live in values stories and experiences, so Republicans are simply playing the political game well when they share the stories of Cole and others. Those stories are evidence that people do regret their “transitions” sometimes.

While it is true that many major medical associations, such as the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), believe that transgender drugs and surgeries are helpful, that does not prove they actually are. In the same way LGBT groups bully the New York Times into running pro-transgender stories, there is also strong evidence that medical groups have become extremely politicized and also allowed the fringe views of a small number of individuals to be amplified over common-sense and biological reality. These medical groups also tried to get the federal government to prosecute journalists who expose hospitals and clinics that inject kids with hormones or remove healthy body parts.

The Washington Free Beacon reported in December 2022 that just a small number of individuals within the AAP set the guidelines for the group, including the unscientific claims that baby language development would not be hurt by masking.

Sibarium reported, based on insider interviews:

Though the organization’s guidelines are framed as the consensus position of the AAP’s members, only a handful of physicians had a role in shaping them. Instead, insiders say, the AAP is deferring to small, like-minded teams of specialists ensconced in children’s hospitals, research centers, and public health bureaucracies, rather than seeking the insights of pediatricians who see a wide cross-section of America’s children.

They also say a longstanding left-wing bias—over two thirds of pediatricians are registered Democrats—has accelerated, turning the organization into a more overtly political body that now pronounces on issues from climate change to immigration. As rates of gender dysphoria exploded and the Covid-19 pandemic hit, that bias seeped into the organization’s medical policy recommendations, unchecked by discussion or debate.

Put another way, the New York Times and Maggie Astor may be surprised to find out that the AAP, and presumably other establishment medical groups, do not all get together once a month with thousands of academic studies and have a freewheeling debate on whether nine-year-olds should be pumped full of testosterone or have their reproductive organs removed. Instead, pro-transgender and generally liberal individuals have a political agenda that is then painted over with a veneer of scientific and medical credibility and amplified as the Truth.

Again, in an ideal world the political debate in the United States would be based on logic, reasoning, and truth, and not need to go back and forth with each side finding a few voices to share their opinions. But the discourse is not there and probably will never reach that point, which is why it is good for conservatives to amplify the voices of those who have regretted their illogical attempts to “identify” as the opposite sex.

9 Comments

    Loading...