Gender and Sex Politics of Debatable Value

This section is sorted alphabetically by source name. Many of the writings listed here are not from "authoritative" sources; in fact, most of them are direct quotes from internet comment sections. This is because I am of the opinion that the source of wisdom is far less important than the wisdom's value, as previously described.

On the one hand,

I feel it's a form of cowardice to humor the feelings of bigots with a warning - but on the other, I know many bigots who would read the contents of this page, learn information that conflicts with their bigoty, and then become angry, all while believing that they are themselves not bigots. The reasoning for this is complex and I don't profess to know all (or even much) of it, but I digress.

Consider yourself warned that the ideas and concepts here are likely considered at least slightly radical by American social standards. If you think you'll respond poorly to that, don't read it.

A number of studies on trans youth have taken on “misinformational afterlives,” says TJ Billard, an assistant professor of communications at Northwestern University and executive director of the Center for Applied Transgender Studies. Among them are four papers published between 2008 and 2013 that have together been used to claim that most children “grow out” of gender dysphoria and opt not to transition. All have been shown to have numerous shortcomings. In some, nearly 40% of young people surveyed did not meet the criteria for the official gender dysphoria diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders edition used at the time. In two, researchers classified some subjects as having detransitioned—or reversed their transition—purely on the basis of whether a parent or third party said it happened. A 2018 study found that three of the papers labeled those who had stopped responding to researchers as detransitioners; and in one, a subject who identified as nonbinary was classified as detransitioning.

“There’s a wealth of bad science that is out there, and this science doesn’t stay in journals,” Billard says. Parents unfamiliar with trans issues, who don’t understand gender-affirming health care and don’t have the expertise to read the studies themselves, often fall under its sway.

When Littman took up the question, she decided to survey parents, who she felt would be easier to reach than trans youths themselves. In her Methods section, she writes that “to maximize the chances of finding cases meeting eligibility criteria”—meaning youths who suddenly became gender dysphoric, according to their parents—she turned to three websites: 4thwavenow.com, a “community of people who question the medicalization of gender-­atypical youth”; transgendertrend.com, which says it’s concerned about “the unprecedented number of teenage girls suddenly self-identifying as ‘trans’”; and youthtranscriticalprofessionals.org, a now-private website that was “concerned about the current trend to quickly diagnose and affirm young people as transgender.”

The results were in line with what one might expect given those sources: 76.5% of parents surveyed “believed their child was incorrect in their belief of being transgender.” More than 85% said their child had increased their internet use and/or had trans friends before identifying as trans. The youths themselves had no say in the study, and there’s no telling if they had simply kept their parents in the dark for months or years before coming out. (Littman acknowledges that “parent-child conflict may also explain some of the findings.”)

Restar noted that Littman chose to describe the “social and peer contagion” hypothesis in the consent document she shared with parents, opening the door for biases in who chose to respond to the survey and how they did so. She also highlighted that Littman asked parents to offer “diagnoses” of their child’s gender dysphoria, which they were unqualified to do without professional training. It’s even possible that Littman’s data could contain multiple responses from the same parent.

Many people who are citing Littman’s work probably haven’t even read the study or seen the correction, Billard says: “People are citing a Reddit post in which somebody invoked the idea of Littman and her research.”

Lawmakers in more than 25 states have introduced anti-trans bills during 2022 legislative sessions. Politicians writing such legislation have plenty of questionable studies, partisan doctors, and associations that lobby against transgender rights to draw on. Littman’s ROGD study is often a go-to. The Coalition for the Advancement & Application of Psychological Science wrote in 2021 that many of the “over 100 bills under consideration in legislative bodies across the country that seek to limit the rights of transgender adolescents” are “predicated on the unsupported claims advanced by ROGD.”

    -Ben Kesslen, How the idea of a "transgender contagion" went viral. (Archive).

If any given cis person were to sufficiently "get it," they wouldn't be cis anymore.

    -tumblr user, bowserwife. (Archive).

when an intersex baby is born and they have what’s called “ambiguous genitalia” aka they have an intersex condition which causes them to develop a mix of traits from both male and female genitals, doctors will just pick which one it’s closest to and without consent from the parents and obviously without consent from this living human person that just got born, perform a permanently scarring cosmetic surgery to force the baby’s genitals to align with societies perspective of either male or female genitals. these surgeries cause lifetime medical issues and sexual dysfunction and are only performed because our medical understanding of intersex people was written by a bunch of bigoted genicidal monsters. And yes it’s genocide they are removing our ability to conceive children in almost all cases of these surgeries, on top of generally erasing us from public view by hiding our own existence from everyone Including us from birth. these surgeries aren’t well known about because parents literally aren’t told (my mom only managed to figure it out cuz she overheard the doctor talking to a nurse about it when she came down off her painkillers) and scientific literature on it is not only hard to read it sounds like fucking nazi shit so obviously most medical establishments don’t want it in public view. I had one of these surgeries performed on me, I literally don’t even know exactly what it was cuz it’s not on my medical records anymore but I have the scarring and still have uterine tissue so in compensation for our current human society systematically mutilating my body and genociding people like me I think I deserve some banger bazhoingas i think that’s fair

    -tumblr user, dreamyintersexpuppy. (Archive).

I think a lot of people who get into discourse about it/itself pronouns or other niche queer expressions of the self like neopronouns miss that these things are supposed to be subversive. They see someone saying to call them pup and think that person must not see the absurdity. They see someone going by it and think they are unaware that that sounds derogatory. Like these actions would not have meaning if they were normal and not absurd or unsettling. The person using its doesn't need you to insist that that pronoun is never derogatory in its defense... I'd be shocked if it wasn't choosing that pronoun because it sympathizes and loves and lives in the space of the derogatory. Some of us are maligned and strange and freakish. Some of us are unable to escape being identified as other. We all find our way of navigating that life, some people are not going to choose to do it in your way. When they choose those pronouns they're asking you to participate in humanizing the derided. I think that's a great thing to be invited into

    -tumblr user, giritina. (Archive).

I know it feels like an understatement but you sometimes make more progress by pointing out that conservatives are fucking rude. going out of your way to call someone the wrong name because you don't like them? rude. childish. this isn't fucking kindergarten, Carl. she said her name is Jennifer. Everybody knows her as Jennifer. You are the one making things confusing. Grow up.

"misgendering is violence": invites discourse over the TraNs DeBatE, puts people on the defensive, opens you up to accusations of liberal snowflakery, comes off as a hypothetical thought exercise

"Who the fuck is Jason? I don't know a Jason. Oh her? You mean Jen? You mean fucking Jen? That's Jen, dipshit." : crystal clear. you're making shit more difficult for everyone because you're a rude manchild.

    -tumblr user, hollowboobtheory. (Archive).

At the heart of most jokes about polyamory is the fact that the critic is appalled that people they find unfuckable get sex and physical affection from multiple other people instead of sequestering themselves in a bell tower

    -tumblr user, gracklesong. (Archive).

Me taking my hypothetical children to pride:

See that man in the dog mask? He's playing a game of make believe with his friends to have fun, just like we do! See how his tail is wagging?

See that man with a gun? He's part of a violent institution that serves the ruling elite and upholds white supremacy. Fifty years ago he would have been raiding all these bars and arresting us all. He could shoot you in the face right now and probably not even lose his job. If he tries to talk to you, remember to say, "I won't speak with you unless I have an attorney present."

    -tumblr user, homojewqueerhobbit. (Archive).

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

    -tumblr user, inkskinned. (Archive).

The regret rate for having children in the US has been estimated at 7%.[(Archive).] A survey in the UK found the regret rate to be at 8%.[(Archive).]

The reported regret rate for total knee replacement varies. I have linked to two studies, one finding 17.1% of patients reported moderate or severe decision regret, the other finding a dissatisfaction rate of 8%.

• Source[(Archive).]: ‘TKA patients reported moderate or severe (Mod/Sev) DR [17.1% (56/328)]’
• Source[(Archive).]: ‘In an analysis of dissatisfaction after primary total knee replacement, 8% of the sample were dissatisfied at a mean follow-up of 37 months.’

The regret rate for surgery in general is 14.4%

• Source[(Archive).]: ‘Self-reported patient regret was relatively uncommon with an average prevalence across studies of 14.4%’

The regret rate of trans related surgery is found to be around 1%. The most common reason for regret was lack of social acceptance.

• Source[(Archive).]: ‘A total of 27 studies, pooling 7928 transgender patients who underwent any type of GAS, were included. The pooled prevalence of regret after GAS was 1%

[…] Overall, the most common reason for regret was psychosocial circumstances, particularly due to difficulties generated by return to society with the new gender in both social and family enviroments. In fact, some patients opted to reverse their gender role to achieve social acceptance, receive better salaries, and preserve relatives and friends relationships.’

    -tumblr user, is-the-post-reliable. (Archive).

i hate when ppl (trans or cis) say like ‘theres SO many more trans people these days!’ like i should have some reaction to that besides jumping in the air and yelling ‘Yipee!! Hooray!!’

honestly. i dont care WHY the reason more people seem to be coming out these days is. What i care about is the fact that more people are finally finding words to describe really tough experiences and are searching for community, and i am literally never ever ever going to deny that to them. more out trans people is a good fucking thing. it means that people who were struggling are able to get help and change their lives for the better, what a fucking gift. if your main concern in a world that is trying to eradicate our community is trying to weed it down to who you feel are the worthiest of transitioning you are a peice of shit and i hope you live in misery. wanting acess to transition is wanting everyone ever who needs to transition to be able to do it easily, safely and cheaply. what a fucking gift that more people that would be trans anyway are able to say it, i hope the number of out trans people who can transition in whatever way they want skyrockets.

    -tumblr user, pansyfem. (Archive).

When straight society invented the sissy, the faggot, the equivalent in almost every language, to intimidate men and trans women into compliance, they unwittingly created a new gender. It's a lesser, or at least separate class of man, or in many cases not a man at all. Created as an nebulous threat, the possibilities of what it means to be one became endless. Either weak or brutishly strong to the point of unfair advantage, neutered or hypersexual, ignorant bimbo or cosmopolitan intellectual, starving underclass or ostentatious elite, victim or villain, powerless but powerful enough to be a threat to society just by existing. People who would never admit to seeing gender on nonbinary terms still intuitively recognize and treat this class as a distinct, socially recognized gender with its own signifiers. Despite the cruelty behind this category, its defiance of convention makes it alluring even to people who hate it. Those who embrace their faggotry are not putting themselves into a box but tapping into their limitless potential.

    -tumblr user, rthko. (Archive).

fun ballet fact: part of the reason you’re supposed to start ballet young is so you stretch and hold your joint in certain ways regularly enough that your body grows different. You know how men who do ballet look only sort of muscular but then like lift a whole ass person? Their muscles are trained to lie flat like that for flexibility, they don’t bulk up. Girl in your class who always stands in turnout? It’s likely not just habit, her joints probably sit like that now.

I started ballet when I was six and stopped after three years. I then took a break for three years, and came back and did jazz ballet (which has most of the same body mods but without turnout) and tap for another couple of years. And every physio who works on my body looks at my feet, hips and calves and goes “oh you danced”. I was never even flexible enough to do the splits, but you best believe I stand in turnout. I never went en pointe, but I’m 95% sure tap is the reason my feet have random spasms if I don’t take to them with a tennis ball once a week.

When I said I wanted to be a dancer at six years old, adults took that to mean I’d want certain permanent alterations to my body. Unlike with young trans kids, no one was looking to make sure I fully understood what I was getting into. And unlike with young trans kids, these changes were not reversible when I changed my mind. There wasn’t even a way to delay things to buy time (like puberty blockers), it was all or nothing. If I wanted to be a professional dancer, my normal ass joints were a ticking timebomb.

So like cis opinion, but I really don’t have a lot of time for people getting feral about trans kids socially transitioning or going on blockers or even (when they’re old enough for it be relevant) hrt. Me “identifying” as a dancer at six years old was more physically impactful and less informed than if a six year old changed their name and grew their hair, but you don’t see any of the adults in my life getting accused of child abuse.

    -tumblr user, thatgirlwhokeepsreading. (Archive).

• "Intersex" does not mean "non-binary." Non-binary is a gender. "Intersex" means "my sexual characteristics are not as easily slotted into male and female as you'd think."
• Some intersex people are non-binary. Some use "intersex" as their gender label. Some are cis. Some are binary trans. Intersex people can have any gender you can think of frankly they're people just like you.
• Intersex people are not "assigned non-binary at birth." They're assigned a binary sex like everyone else. Hence why there can be cis or trans intersex people.
• While I'm certain the human experience is vast enough that there must be someone out there with a working dick and pussy at once, the large majority of intersex people do not have that sort of body.

    -tumblr user, versegm. (Archive). This post was deleted before it could be properly archived. A reblogged version has been archived instead.