"Ruthless" sounds mild. They are bloodthirsty, mad cultists. Each one, especially of the female variety, should be forced to endure the construction of genitalia of their opposite sex. Let's see what they say ten years down the road.
There is no transgender "cult." It is worrisome that parents are not being fully informed about possible side effects of treatment, and that children are allowed to make rash determinations about gender identification without careful investigation by therapists, but there's no need to sound wacko in order to raise questions.
Obviously you haven’t spend much time in trans spaces. It is indeed a cult, right down to punishment for “wrongthink,” social isolation from loved ones, and enforced fealty to other trans people over all others, even when those trans people abuse you. The rhetoric within the culture has been violent and extremist for years.
A cult is defined as "a group or movement held together by a shared commitment to a charismatic leader or ideology," or "a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing."
I suppose you are referring to the transfolk rights movement, or, to give you the benefit of the doubt, to the extremists in the movement.
But the same could be said for the anti-trans or anti-LGBT movement, that it is a cult devoted to the persecution of LGBT people, and the stripping away of all their rights, even their right to exist.
As far as the pro-LGBT folks go, I don't see that they are hurting anyone in any substantial way, other than demanding certain changes in our society that others might see as inconveniences, or as contrary to their particular religious beliefs.
But the anti-LGBT cult seeks to truly and grievously harm LGBT people, by overturning the Supreme Court decision that gave them the right to marry, and by stripping away any protections they have been given against discrimination and hate crimes. And they do this while making the false claim that they "are just protecting the children."
All the while transmen and women are regularly assaulted murdered by people who have been convinced by anti-LGBT hate groups that gay and trans people deserve to die.
The term and category of "LGBT" is now widely accepted -- most importantly by LGBT folks. Your attempting to turn back time will most likely fail.
And your assertions that Transfolk are homophobic and are somehow responsible for supposed harm done to Lesbians, and are being murdered because they involve themselves in bar fights, is just more hating on Transfolk, but that nonsense is apparently your life now, so there is nothing anyone can say.
Campanha No Corpo Certo was not denying the LGBT term, re-read their comment. Criticism against the trans community IS NOT criticism of the LGB community. One is a community within the other. One can be pro-gay but be critical of the trans community. And there is a lot to be critical of.
The trans community has done a lot to harm their own acceptance within society. By foisting their trans-women into elite women's athletics and calling those who have concerns over fairness and safety transphobic. By pushing the allowance of self-diagnosis so that all a male convicted rapist has to do is declare he identifies as woman and he gets to go to women's prison. And then Cancel Culture.
I used to be pro-trans but after the shenanigans of the past couple of years I am rightfully weary of trans activists but I still support LGB because I AM LGB.
Last year 2 trans people were by ti a of homocide-2 too many ofc! But this movement runs on the manipulation of suicide and scaring young people into feeling rushed into transition without thorough mental health assessments - walking into Planned Parenthood and walking out with synthetic hormones that are being used off label. https://twitter.com/s_e_t_h_w_/status/1646509556455952384?s=46&t=86jBrdOffP-UbFL2BPdmlw
Thank you all for your work. Especially thank you Ms. Shrier. My daughter is now terrified of public places or changing facilities or camps away from us after being physically attacked at overnight camp this summer for rebuffing another girl’s sexual advances. All the girls were 9 years old.
The camp, a Christian one at that, basically didn’t care about the constant sexual advances she endured for a week unable to call me and they didn’t inform us either. They have taken the position that biological females also have ZERO right to like bodied cabin mates and like bodied in cabin counselors.
This generation is being tortured by a combination of hyper-sexualization at very young ages, fantasy about the things they can do to their bodies and how it will make them feel, and overt misogyny that places the desires of boys (for any reason) ahead of bodily safety and fair play for girls.
Please cover the new UK sports study.
As a mom I’m shocked at what is happening to our children in every corner of their lives. Thank you speaking up. A generation of kids is forever grateful.
Those situations are why my daughter and son in law aee taking my grandchildren out of the US to an Asian country for the next 17 years (when the youngest will graduate high school.)
They refuse to subject the kids to the sexual and racial lunacy run amok in the US.
And God help anyone who assaults one of her kids. She learned how to protect from a pro.
Children cannot give "informed consent." This is all nothing but a political crusade by deluded wokesters. Are there children who might grow up to be legitimately trans? Almost certainly. But how many do not and are merely passing through the usual phases? Phases that politically deluded psychologists and psychiatrists are too blinded to discern. In those cases, this is most certainly child abuse of the most heinous variety.
Thank you Abigail for this piece and for all you do. I loved your tone and your journalistic integrity, keeping the focus on the truth, outside even your own opinions: this is what led these doctors to speak with you, to tell the truth and to keep the oath they made to "do no harm." So shocking that the NYT declined a piece about concerns--by a doctor who is a trans woman! One of them says something like, "medicine zigs and then it zags," which is a good reminder to keep our hope alive and to know that things can change. The good doctors pay attention, and we can only hope that more of them stand up. If possible, please keep us posted about the fallout these docs face. I am deeply grateful for their willingness to share their concerns through you.
I agree. The NYT rejected the op-Ed for the stated reason that the topic is outside their current coverage area (which is clearly not true - they run several sympathetic trans stories per month) and yet today 10/10/21, they ran an opinion piece equating abortion rights with trans rights. The media capture in the ideology is staggering to me. The NYT, self described beacon of light & truth, will not run an opinion piece by one of the top affirming trans clinicians in this country because it states areas of concern & whoever is running NYT these days (28 year olds on Twitter, maybe?) has decided that this does not fit into the narrative they want to endorse. Who pays the price for that but gender non-conforming children and their families? I’m thoroughly disgusted. NYT is not any better than Fox News anymore.
Great that they are finally admitting some important points. These points, combined with the obvious fact of sterilization, should give anyone pause before setting these young people on a course of risky medical treatments in an effort to reconcile the appearance of their bodies with some vague notion of an internal "sense" of what they should look like. I am certain my face should look like Olivia Wilde, but somehow I don't think anyone would think I was "brave" if I attempted to get plastic surgery to look more like her. As to a "gender identity," it's an absurd notion, given that each of the billions of women and men feel their femaleness or maleness in a different way, and there is no such a thing as feeling male or feeling female. If one feels more or less feminine or masculine, that does not require medical alteration of the body. It just requires being allowed to express femininity or masculinity freely despite one's biological sex. Anyway, keep up the great work. This topic sorely needs ethical journalists like you to expose the truth.
Excellent points. The real problem is that children are not taught tolerance and respect for those that are different; there is too much bullying in school and very little done about it.
it was a very inspiring article - In that, i immediately felt the need to add my two cents as to why we have such discomfort being in our bodies
"In the generations bookmarking me, this general discomfort was mostly expressed by eating dysmorphia. In the generations following it is becoming gender dysmorphia or the downright physical attack of cutting. All underlying expressions of being incredibly uncomfortable in the body. Of not belonging to your body, Of not feeling right in your body and wanting that feeling to stop. Wanting to belong. Millions of teenagers, entering into the burden of carrying our culture, feeling the utter existential dread of being present in their bodies, the claiming of their home. Unsurprising as we become more and more witness to the diseased mother that we stand on, the ongoing nightmare of mother earth slowly infected with toxins that we share within our blood. Unsurprising as we are so far away from the acceptance that the natural law is above us, greater than us, as conscious as us. Unsurprising given our complete lack of integration with wildness and all the mysteries and dangers within that we have decided that we are not part of it anymore, that we can science our way around and out of it. Unsurprising as we are now the ones “managing” mother earth with our carbon sequestration and wilderness breeding programs and borders and zones and weather seeding. Handing over the wildness of our souls to specialists to arrange, outraged when they somehow don't do it right."
Drs. Bowers' and Anderson’s public comments are unprecedented and therefore remarkable. They are literally risking their careers. So, kudos to them and, of course, to Abigail, for getting them to speak to her as candidly as they did. I understand why Abigail made the strategic decision to avoid challenging them on specifics, choosing instead to simply allow their message to disseminate through the interwebs and make a powerful impression…and it has. The vast majority of hits in my search engine report this story in a very favorable manner. One can almost hear it reverberate: IT’S ABOUT TIME!
So I’ll simply add the following food for thought: Sexual dysfunction caused by puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones is just one serious potential side effect. This is because puberty stimulates more than just sexual development. It is the biological process by which a child becomes an adult. As Wikipedia states: “In response to the [hormonal] signals, the gonads produce hormones that stimulate libido and the growth, function, and transformation of the brain, bones, muscle, blood, skin, hair, breasts, and sex organs. Physical growth—height and weight—accelerates in the first half of puberty and is completed when an adult body has been developed.”
Cross-sex hormones; i.e., testosterone for females, estrogen for males, are supposed to complete the maturation process of a child who was first put on puberty blockers. But there is evidence of cognitive decline, psychiatric disorders, changes in brain morphology, and suicidality accompanying administration of cross-sex hormones. See, for instance, https://pitt.substack.com/p/rise-of-the-trans-medical-taliban. Normal brain development is not complete until ones mid-20s, when the pre-frontal cortex matures, enabling us to use insight and reasoning in making important life decisions. The assertion that children can give informed consent to transgender medical procedures would be hilarious if it weren’t so insidious. At the very least, no one under the age of 18 should be allowed to medically transition.
Abigail reminds us that we must be compassionate enough to recognize that sometimes the suffering of a gender dysphoric child requires a more pro-active approach. However, “watchful waiting” more often than not resolves the issue at puberty. And considering the risk of irreversible damage, it's worth noting that gender dysphoria may be the result of shaming by parents and peers because of a child’s normal gender nonconformity, leading to painful dysphoria caused by social rejection.
Imagine a world where the feminine boy and the masculine girl are supported and loved exactly as they are, with no pressure to change a thing about themselves.
Thank you so much for your work! I just subscribed because I feel this issue is somewhat at the heart of the meaning crisis that our civilization is going through and so few people are willing to even think about it. We are so disconnected from community and human interaction that we accept anything that promises fast and "personal" liberation, for ourselves or for others, whether it’s numbing our minds with drugs or playing mad scientists with our bodies. Anything that does not require the long and hard work of building a genuine life in this world.
There is two issues I feel could be explored further on this matter (maybe in a future article?):
• How much money is this industry of Frankenstein laboratories worth and who is making the big bucks? (doctors, pharma, associations getting free public money for pushing propaganda?) I can’t imagine everyone in the industry is either a cultist or terrified of twitter mobs. There must be a number of people just in it for the profit, and when the class action lawsuits come it’s important to know whose wallets are going to be under attack.
• How much of this stems from a hatred of femininity in our society? I’m not talking about a hatred of women but of what was traditionally seen as female values. Tenderness, introspection, desire for peace and safety rather than desire to conquer and control. All things that are opposed to our “winner takes it all” view of the world and that women, being life givers and physically not as powerful than men, were more connected to. I wonder if that’s not what pushes so many girls to want to transform into a “stronger” version of themselves when the difference between male and female body start to become a reality in their life?
Yes! Abigail Shrier is the epitome of what a journalist should be: curious, compassionate, fearless, relentless, incorruptible, and dedicated to uncovering the truth, whatever it may be.
thanks for covering this, sadly i have already lost my child to this ruthless cult
"Ruthless" sounds mild. They are bloodthirsty, mad cultists. Each one, especially of the female variety, should be forced to endure the construction of genitalia of their opposite sex. Let's see what they say ten years down the road.
I am sorry, HG. This cult is everywhere, including my country (Brazil).
There is no transgender "cult." It is worrisome that parents are not being fully informed about possible side effects of treatment, and that children are allowed to make rash determinations about gender identification without careful investigation by therapists, but there's no need to sound wacko in order to raise questions.
Obviously you haven’t spend much time in trans spaces. It is indeed a cult, right down to punishment for “wrongthink,” social isolation from loved ones, and enforced fealty to other trans people over all others, even when those trans people abuse you. The rhetoric within the culture has been violent and extremist for years.
If you are not able to see cult patterns, I feel sorry for you. I suggest you do research about this topic.
A cult is defined as "a group or movement held together by a shared commitment to a charismatic leader or ideology," or "a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing."
I suppose you are referring to the transfolk rights movement, or, to give you the benefit of the doubt, to the extremists in the movement.
But the same could be said for the anti-trans or anti-LGBT movement, that it is a cult devoted to the persecution of LGBT people, and the stripping away of all their rights, even their right to exist.
As far as the pro-LGBT folks go, I don't see that they are hurting anyone in any substantial way, other than demanding certain changes in our society that others might see as inconveniences, or as contrary to their particular religious beliefs.
But the anti-LGBT cult seeks to truly and grievously harm LGBT people, by overturning the Supreme Court decision that gave them the right to marry, and by stripping away any protections they have been given against discrimination and hate crimes. And they do this while making the false claim that they "are just protecting the children."
All the while transmen and women are regularly assaulted murdered by people who have been convinced by anti-LGBT hate groups that gay and trans people deserve to die.
Which is really the dangerous cult?
1) There is no ´LGBT folks´. This is false teaming. LGB ppl are not ppl with mental disorders and or fetisches (T). Please stop using LGB as a token.
2) T is against LGB. T is homophobic. No different from ppl who want to ban LGB marriage. T is cutting lesbian´s bodies.
3) Murders are due to several things including prostitution, drugs, bar fights. Stop blackmailing us.
4) There are many dangerous cult. Transgenderism is one of them. Leave kids alone.
The term and category of "LGBT" is now widely accepted -- most importantly by LGBT folks. Your attempting to turn back time will most likely fail.
And your assertions that Transfolk are homophobic and are somehow responsible for supposed harm done to Lesbians, and are being murdered because they involve themselves in bar fights, is just more hating on Transfolk, but that nonsense is apparently your life now, so there is nothing anyone can say.
Campanha No Corpo Certo was not denying the LGBT term, re-read their comment. Criticism against the trans community IS NOT criticism of the LGB community. One is a community within the other. One can be pro-gay but be critical of the trans community. And there is a lot to be critical of.
The trans community has done a lot to harm their own acceptance within society. By foisting their trans-women into elite women's athletics and calling those who have concerns over fairness and safety transphobic. By pushing the allowance of self-diagnosis so that all a male convicted rapist has to do is declare he identifies as woman and he gets to go to women's prison. And then Cancel Culture.
I used to be pro-trans but after the shenanigans of the past couple of years I am rightfully weary of trans activists but I still support LGB because I AM LGB.
Last year 2 trans people were by ti a of homocide-2 too many ofc! But this movement runs on the manipulation of suicide and scaring young people into feeling rushed into transition without thorough mental health assessments - walking into Planned Parenthood and walking out with synthetic hormones that are being used off label. https://twitter.com/s_e_t_h_w_/status/1646509556455952384?s=46&t=86jBrdOffP-UbFL2BPdmlw
Thank you all for your work. Especially thank you Ms. Shrier. My daughter is now terrified of public places or changing facilities or camps away from us after being physically attacked at overnight camp this summer for rebuffing another girl’s sexual advances. All the girls were 9 years old.
The camp, a Christian one at that, basically didn’t care about the constant sexual advances she endured for a week unable to call me and they didn’t inform us either. They have taken the position that biological females also have ZERO right to like bodied cabin mates and like bodied in cabin counselors.
This generation is being tortured by a combination of hyper-sexualization at very young ages, fantasy about the things they can do to their bodies and how it will make them feel, and overt misogyny that places the desires of boys (for any reason) ahead of bodily safety and fair play for girls.
Please cover the new UK sports study.
As a mom I’m shocked at what is happening to our children in every corner of their lives. Thank you speaking up. A generation of kids is forever grateful.
Those situations are why my daughter and son in law aee taking my grandchildren out of the US to an Asian country for the next 17 years (when the youngest will graduate high school.)
They refuse to subject the kids to the sexual and racial lunacy run amok in the US.
And God help anyone who assaults one of her kids. She learned how to protect from a pro.
Your daughter was attacked by a boy? A boy who thinks he's a girl? It's not clear from the language you used.
No - a 9 year old girl!!!
I leave Irreparable Damage in little lending libraries frequently. It warms my XX heart every time.Thank you for writing such an important work.
Ooo what a good idea. I think I’ll do the same.
Ms. Shrier, Please consider writing a column about what Dr. Bower and Dr. Anderson are experiencing due to their having spoken up.
Such an important story, such a HUGE omission and such a devastating loss for these kids who go on puberty blockers and have surgery.
Lunacy du jour.
Children cannot give "informed consent." This is all nothing but a political crusade by deluded wokesters. Are there children who might grow up to be legitimately trans? Almost certainly. But how many do not and are merely passing through the usual phases? Phases that politically deluded psychologists and psychiatrists are too blinded to discern. In those cases, this is most certainly child abuse of the most heinous variety.
Not able to orgasm? That's not a minor side effect.
And sterilization of course.
Stick with it. Nice job.
Thank you Abigail for this piece and for all you do. I loved your tone and your journalistic integrity, keeping the focus on the truth, outside even your own opinions: this is what led these doctors to speak with you, to tell the truth and to keep the oath they made to "do no harm." So shocking that the NYT declined a piece about concerns--by a doctor who is a trans woman! One of them says something like, "medicine zigs and then it zags," which is a good reminder to keep our hope alive and to know that things can change. The good doctors pay attention, and we can only hope that more of them stand up. If possible, please keep us posted about the fallout these docs face. I am deeply grateful for their willingness to share their concerns through you.
I agree. The NYT rejected the op-Ed for the stated reason that the topic is outside their current coverage area (which is clearly not true - they run several sympathetic trans stories per month) and yet today 10/10/21, they ran an opinion piece equating abortion rights with trans rights. The media capture in the ideology is staggering to me. The NYT, self described beacon of light & truth, will not run an opinion piece by one of the top affirming trans clinicians in this country because it states areas of concern & whoever is running NYT these days (28 year olds on Twitter, maybe?) has decided that this does not fit into the narrative they want to endorse. Who pays the price for that but gender non-conforming children and their families? I’m thoroughly disgusted. NYT is not any better than Fox News anymore.
Thank you so much for what you are doing, against the tide of No Debate.
Great that they are finally admitting some important points. These points, combined with the obvious fact of sterilization, should give anyone pause before setting these young people on a course of risky medical treatments in an effort to reconcile the appearance of their bodies with some vague notion of an internal "sense" of what they should look like. I am certain my face should look like Olivia Wilde, but somehow I don't think anyone would think I was "brave" if I attempted to get plastic surgery to look more like her. As to a "gender identity," it's an absurd notion, given that each of the billions of women and men feel their femaleness or maleness in a different way, and there is no such a thing as feeling male or feeling female. If one feels more or less feminine or masculine, that does not require medical alteration of the body. It just requires being allowed to express femininity or masculinity freely despite one's biological sex. Anyway, keep up the great work. This topic sorely needs ethical journalists like you to expose the truth.
Excellent points. The real problem is that children are not taught tolerance and respect for those that are different; there is too much bullying in school and very little done about it.
it was a very inspiring article - In that, i immediately felt the need to add my two cents as to why we have such discomfort being in our bodies
"In the generations bookmarking me, this general discomfort was mostly expressed by eating dysmorphia. In the generations following it is becoming gender dysmorphia or the downright physical attack of cutting. All underlying expressions of being incredibly uncomfortable in the body. Of not belonging to your body, Of not feeling right in your body and wanting that feeling to stop. Wanting to belong. Millions of teenagers, entering into the burden of carrying our culture, feeling the utter existential dread of being present in their bodies, the claiming of their home. Unsurprising as we become more and more witness to the diseased mother that we stand on, the ongoing nightmare of mother earth slowly infected with toxins that we share within our blood. Unsurprising as we are so far away from the acceptance that the natural law is above us, greater than us, as conscious as us. Unsurprising given our complete lack of integration with wildness and all the mysteries and dangers within that we have decided that we are not part of it anymore, that we can science our way around and out of it. Unsurprising as we are now the ones “managing” mother earth with our carbon sequestration and wilderness breeding programs and borders and zones and weather seeding. Handing over the wildness of our souls to specialists to arrange, outraged when they somehow don't do it right."
for the full read https://mavenworks.substack.com/p/how-to-parent-in-the-managed-violence
and thank you
Boys also. Boys are 20% of the skyrocketing rise (number from UK clinic). All bad.
It's not just teen girls, sadly. Bowers is happy to speak up about the girls but is likely operating on Rogd boys. Jazz wasn't rogd but many are.
Drs. Bowers' and Anderson’s public comments are unprecedented and therefore remarkable. They are literally risking their careers. So, kudos to them and, of course, to Abigail, for getting them to speak to her as candidly as they did. I understand why Abigail made the strategic decision to avoid challenging them on specifics, choosing instead to simply allow their message to disseminate through the interwebs and make a powerful impression…and it has. The vast majority of hits in my search engine report this story in a very favorable manner. One can almost hear it reverberate: IT’S ABOUT TIME!
So I’ll simply add the following food for thought: Sexual dysfunction caused by puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones is just one serious potential side effect. This is because puberty stimulates more than just sexual development. It is the biological process by which a child becomes an adult. As Wikipedia states: “In response to the [hormonal] signals, the gonads produce hormones that stimulate libido and the growth, function, and transformation of the brain, bones, muscle, blood, skin, hair, breasts, and sex organs. Physical growth—height and weight—accelerates in the first half of puberty and is completed when an adult body has been developed.”
Cross-sex hormones; i.e., testosterone for females, estrogen for males, are supposed to complete the maturation process of a child who was first put on puberty blockers. But there is evidence of cognitive decline, psychiatric disorders, changes in brain morphology, and suicidality accompanying administration of cross-sex hormones. See, for instance, https://pitt.substack.com/p/rise-of-the-trans-medical-taliban. Normal brain development is not complete until ones mid-20s, when the pre-frontal cortex matures, enabling us to use insight and reasoning in making important life decisions. The assertion that children can give informed consent to transgender medical procedures would be hilarious if it weren’t so insidious. At the very least, no one under the age of 18 should be allowed to medically transition.
Abigail reminds us that we must be compassionate enough to recognize that sometimes the suffering of a gender dysphoric child requires a more pro-active approach. However, “watchful waiting” more often than not resolves the issue at puberty. And considering the risk of irreversible damage, it's worth noting that gender dysphoria may be the result of shaming by parents and peers because of a child’s normal gender nonconformity, leading to painful dysphoria caused by social rejection.
Imagine a world where the feminine boy and the masculine girl are supported and loved exactly as they are, with no pressure to change a thing about themselves.
Thank you so much for your work! I just subscribed because I feel this issue is somewhat at the heart of the meaning crisis that our civilization is going through and so few people are willing to even think about it. We are so disconnected from community and human interaction that we accept anything that promises fast and "personal" liberation, for ourselves or for others, whether it’s numbing our minds with drugs or playing mad scientists with our bodies. Anything that does not require the long and hard work of building a genuine life in this world.
There is two issues I feel could be explored further on this matter (maybe in a future article?):
• How much money is this industry of Frankenstein laboratories worth and who is making the big bucks? (doctors, pharma, associations getting free public money for pushing propaganda?) I can’t imagine everyone in the industry is either a cultist or terrified of twitter mobs. There must be a number of people just in it for the profit, and when the class action lawsuits come it’s important to know whose wallets are going to be under attack.
• How much of this stems from a hatred of femininity in our society? I’m not talking about a hatred of women but of what was traditionally seen as female values. Tenderness, introspection, desire for peace and safety rather than desire to conquer and control. All things that are opposed to our “winner takes it all” view of the world and that women, being life givers and physically not as powerful than men, were more connected to. I wonder if that’s not what pushes so many girls to want to transform into a “stronger” version of themselves when the difference between male and female body start to become a reality in their life?
We appreciate you, Abigail. You are thoughtful and courageous and a light in this darkness.
Yes! Abigail Shrier is the epitome of what a journalist should be: curious, compassionate, fearless, relentless, incorruptible, and dedicated to uncovering the truth, whatever it may be.