what media coverage of online "transvestigators" & the Imane Khelif ordeal get wrong

Hi everyone, I just published a brand new essay: Why Does "Transvestigation" Happen? On Gendering, Ungendering, and (Mis)Perceiving Trans People! 

I have read and viewed numerous solid articles and videos about both the online "Transvestigator" communities that focus on ungendering celebrities, and the recent JK Rowling/Elon Musk/Fox News ungendering and harassment of Olympian Imane Khelif. But I worry that they set up a false dichotomy, where these groups are imagined to view gender “abnormally” or “incorrectly,” while the rest of us who are not in these groups (including the majority of cis people) supposedly perceive gender and trans people “normally” or “correctly.” 

And frankly, nothing could be further from the truth! 

So this essay is a deep-dive into how we (mis)perceive & (mis)interpret trans people and gender more generally. It draws from research I carried out and insights I forwarded in my books Whipping Girl and Sexed Up. It is a "long-read", but I believe it communicates many aspects and nuances of this story that most people are currently overlooking. You can read it at:

Medium (friend link): https://juliaserano.medium.com/why-does-transvestigation-happen-d2c19847afb9?sk=dfabc9bd0962eaab89b54d03097cee28

or Substack (no paywall): https://juliaserano.substack.com/p/why-does-transvestigation-happen

As always, please share widely and give it lots of claps and likes and such! 

my Medium Day talk on Debates About Gender-Affirming Care and Trans Youth

Happy to announce that I will be giving a virtual talk this Saturday, August 17, 2024, at 2–2:30pm Eastern time (11–11:30am Pacific) as part of Medium Day – you can register (for free) to watch it & the many other talks they have at mediumday.com.

My talk is entitled Making Sense of Debates About Gender-Affirming Care and Trans Youth. In it, I will highlight the unconscious biases, unstated presumptions, and the underlying forces and dynamics that are driving the ongoing moral panic about this issue. Hopefully, the talk will provide audiences who are relatively new to this subject with the necessary background to make sense of these debates.

Since there is far too much to say about this subject, I made the above Resource Page, which includes links to over a dozen essays I've written related to this issue over the last 8 years. You can read it (no paywall) on Medium (at the link above) or on Substack. Please share widely and give it lots of claps and likes and such! 

I'm very proud of to have finally compiled all my writings on this important subject in one place, so that I (and perhaps you) can readily share it with others who have questions or concerns!

As always, this resource page was made possible by my Patreon supporters  – if you appreciate that I make pieces like this freely available online, please consider supporting me there!

Maintenance Phase podcast on "Social Contagion" and "ROGD"

One of my favorite podcasts, Maintenance Phase, just released an episode entitled "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" (available on all major podcast platforms). In it, they draw upon my Origins of "Social Contagion" and "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" timeline, originally posted here in February 2019.

While a lot of work went into constructing the timeline, what I did was basically simple: I searched for the earliest instances of "transgender social contagion" and "ROGD" on the internet. I discovered that these ideas originated in 2016 on three websites run by, and catering to, reluctant parents of trans youth who were looking for justifications to deny them gender-affirming care (this has since grown into a full-fledged anti-trans parent movement). My timeline also shows how these ideas were quickly taken up by conservative outlets, gender-disaffirming doctors, and other groups who now form the backbone of the current anti-trans moral panic.

Any journalist could have easily carried out the same investigation and uncovered what I had, but none did. Whether this was due to a lack of curiosity or intentional bias on their parts, I cannot say. While other people have cited this work, Maintenance Phase is the first to share the full narrative with the general public, so I'm excited that it will finally reach a larger audience!

Since Michael and Aubrey were kind enough to link to my "Origins" post and my Patreon in their show notes, some of you may be new here – welcome! I mostly write about gender, sexuality, science, and social justice, with an emphasis on trans, LGBTQIA+, and feminist issues. Lately, much of this work has been focused on countering anti-trans science-denial and disinformation (since there's so much of it lately). If you enjoyed this Maintenance Phase episode, here are a few recent related essays you may also appreciate:

• Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Youth Is Neither New nor Experimental: A Timeline and Compilation of Studies
• All the Evidence Against Transgender Social Contagion (Plus Thoughts on Why People Continue to Embrace This Zombie Theory)
• Spotting Anti-Trans Media Bias on Detransition
• Why Are “Gender Critical” Activists So Fond of Gametes? (plus my new video “Trans People and Biological Sex: What the Science Says”)

No-paywall links to many many more essays can be found on my writings webpage. If you like what you read, please consider supporting me on Patreon for as little as $1 per month!

My Best Writings of 2023

I thought I’d begin the new year with a quick recap of my writings from 2023. All these essays are on Medium and have been demonetized. If you appreciate them, please consider supporting my work on Patreon!

Several of the essays were my definitive responses to major anti-trans talking points: They are thoroughly researched (citing sources all along the way), comprehensive, and well-argued—so if you only read one or a few, I encourage you to make it these:

• Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Youth Is Neither New nor Experimental: A Timeline and Compilation of Studies
• Understanding the Anti-Trans Parent Movement
• All the Evidence Against Transgender Social Contagion
• Explaining Assigned Sex Ratio Shifts in Trans Children
• Spotting Anti-Trans Media Bias on Detransition

Here are the other essays I’ve written this year. I am proud of these too, but they were less intensive research-wise (and are often shorter as a result):

• What Is a Woman? (a response)
• On “Male Socialization” and the “Trans Masc Versus Trans Fem” Discourse
• Did Lisa Marchiano Invent “Transgender Social Contagion” and “No Transition Before Age 25”?
• Masculinity, Femininity, and Meanings
• KOSA: A Nationwide Anti-Trans/LGBTQ+ Bill in All but Name (And What You Can Do to Stop It)
• History of the Word “Transgenderism” (and why “eradicating transgenderism” = eradicating transgender people)
• Anti-Trans Op-Ed & News Story Bingo

Finally, since years are an admittedly arbitrary time-frame, I will end with two essays that I wrote at the very end of 2022. Both distill some of the main take-home points of my recent book Sexed Up: How Society Sexualizes Us, and How We Can Fight Back and apply them to our current anti-trans moral panic and what drives transphobia and biphobia within queer and feminist circles:

• Penises, Privilege, and Feminist & LGBTQ+ Purity Politics
• Anti-Trans “Grooming” and “Social Contagion” Claims

I have lots of essays in the works for 2024, so stay tuned—they will all be cross-posted on both Medium and Substack, with alerts and links sent to my Patreon supporters. I am also working on a talk-length video entitled “Transgender People and Biological Sex: What the Science Says,” so subscribe to my YouTube channel if you want to be notified as soon as it comes out...

more evidence that Lisa Marchiano invented "transgender social contagion"

cover image for my recent Medium post
about Lisa Marchiano

In February 2019, on this very blog, I published Origins of “Social Contagion” and “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” which investigated the history of when these terms first appeared online and how they spread. The main finding of that piece was that the concept of “transgender social contagion” appears to have been invented by someone who went by the handle “skepticaltherapist” in a comment posted on February 20, 2016, on the anti-trans parent website 4thwavenow. I was not able to determine who exactly skepticaltherapist was, but I provided evidence that they went on to become one of the founders of the anti-trans website youthtranscriticalprofessionals.org (YTCP).

A couple days ago, I published a follow up piece on Medium entitled Did Lisa Marchiano Invent “Transgender Social Contagion” and “No Transition Before Age 25”? It was based on recent findings that Marchiano ran YTCP (which has since been confirmed; see also below) and that she possibly invented ROGD too. Based on this, I proposed that Marchiano was also likely skepticaltherapist — aka, the person who invented the notion that “social contagion” is turning kids transgender. 

In this post, I provide further evidence that this is indeed the case.

Penises, Privilege, & Purity: a new essay about LGBTQ+ intra-community debates

So my latest Medium essay just dropped! 

It's entitled Penises, Privilege, and Feminist & LGBTQ+ Purity Politics. It's a longer read, but worth it, as it explains many intra-community debates. This includes lesbian stereotypes about bisexual women (such as the myth that we are "perpetually heterosexual privileged"), how those relate to "gender critical"/TERF stereotypes of trans women, plus recent debates between trans male/masculine and trans female/feminine communities. Basically, I show how all these sentiments stem from sexual stigma and our culture's bizarre patriarchal and heteronormative beliefs about sex and penises.

I think this is the best thing I've written since... well, since my latest book Sexed Up, I suppose. In fact, it's the first piece I've written that really builds upon some of the ideas that I introduce and flesh out in the book, including the Predator/Prey mindset and how sexual stigma shapes many popular stereotypes about queer people.

Here is the no paywall link, so you can readily share it with others: https://juliaserano.medium.com/penises-privilege-and-feminist-lgbtq-purity-politics-bafd1f25fe3e?sk=5098f46767404745b65d298b79aa8066

If you're on Twitter, here's a whole thread about it.

And if you like it, please give it lots of "claps" (up to 50, I think) so that other Medium users will see it.

This essay was made possible by my Patreon supporters. If you appreciate that I make writings like this available for free online, please consider supporting me there.

new book readings, talks, interviews & debunking pseudoscience

I just published my latest email update, chock-full of new news. you can read it online here: https://mailchi.mp/64d1973d6b99/new-book-readings-talks-interviews-debunking-pseudoscience

and if you want to receive my email updates directly to your inbox, you can sign up here.

It is a fairly long update, so I won't reiterate it all here. But highlights include:

1) links to several recent interviews (in print, podcast, and YouTube forms) with me about my new book Sexed Up: How Society Sexualizes Us, and How We Can Fight Back – this includes two of the book events I did back in July. These interviews, as well as all the book excerpts, reviews, etc., can also be found on the Sexed Up webpage I just linked to.

2) On September 22nd, in honor of, Bisexual Visibility Day, I will be reading a few bi+ specific passages from Sexed Up at Fabulosa Books (489 Castro St, San Francisco, CA). The event begins at 7pm; masks are recommended but not required. Here is the Facebook invite for the event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1091569688453976 – please come out if you can!

3) Just in time for the 2022-23 academic year, I've updated my booking webpage to include a bunch of new presentations, some Sexed Up-themed, others covering trans, bisexual, LGBTQIA+, and feminist issues I often write about. If you are part of a conference or college organization that's looking for speakers, definitely check it out!

4) Debunking anti-trans pseudoscience, in two parts:

First, J. Michael Bailey and his protégé Kevin Hsu recently published a study in Archives of Sexual Behavior that attempts to refute the existence of “autogynephilia in women.” Jaimie Veale and I wrote a response that the journal just published: Autogynephilia Is a Flawed Framework for Understanding Female Embodiment Fantasies: A Response to Bailey and Hsu (2022) [PDF link]. In it, we point out numerous methodological and interpretive flaws with their study—including how their results are incompatible with Blanchard's original taxonomy—and make the case that “autogynephilia” is a flawed framework for considering both trans and cis women's sexual fantasies and desires.

Second, some of you may recall my 2019 Origins of "Social Contagion" and "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" post, which is essentially a timeline of all the major events regarding the invention and dissemination of these ideas within anti-trans activism. I just updated the timeline with a newer entries, many of which are recent studies that undermine or outright disprove the basic tenets of these theories. All those new entries can be found in the Post-Publication Note toward the beginning of that post.

So that's what's in the update – please check it out!

2 new essays on anti-trans activism & the "sexual predator" trope

A few months back, I published an essay entitled Transgender People, Bathrooms, and Sexual Predators: What the Data Say. It cited numerous research studies showing that trans people and trans-inclusion policies pose no threat to cis people in sex-segregated spaces. It also chronicled how similar campaigns to smear an entire marginalized group as supposed "sexual predators" have occurred previously, for instance, against Black people, Jewish people, and gays and lesbians. In other words, this is a standard trope that bigots and haters love to wield.

In the wake of recent events, I have two new "sequels" to that essay. The first is my formal response to being named in that anti-trans manifesto that was going around last week. (For the record, I am doing okay, all things considered.) In my response, I discuss how anti-trans activists' increasing attempts to smear trans people (and particularly trans women) en masse as "sexual predators" is directly responsible for expressions of violence such as this. You can read it here: On Being Explicitly Named in a Violent “Gender Critical” Manifesto.

The second new essay chronicles anti-trans activists' increasing promotion of "autogynephilia," a debunked psychology theory that they use to ... wait for it ... smear trans women en masse as "sexual predators." I also describe their recent attempts to wield "autogynephilia" in tandem with the fake diagnosis "ROGD" in order to undermine trans healthcare more generally. You can read that one here: Autogynephilia and Anti-Transgender Activism.

By the way, both are on Medium (these are no-paywall links), so please read & share widely & give them lots of "claps" (up to 50, I believe).

[note: If you appreciate my work and want to see more of it, please check out my Patreon page]

6 recent Medium articles!

As some of you may know, I sometimes publish articles on Medium – that link will take you to my Medium page, where you can find all the pieces I've written there. Here, I will share my six most recent Medium articles, spanning back to December of last year. All of the links below are "friend links" that bypass the site's paywall – so feel free to read them all for free! 

For Bisexual Visibility Week, I published Bomb (image to right), which is a chapter from my award-winning book 99 Erics: a Kat Cataclysm faux novel. It humorously defuses many of the assumptions people face upon coming out as bisexual. It also critiques what Kat calls the "stereotype trap," as well as authors who turn their LGBTQIA+ characters' identities into "plot twists." If you enjoy it, many more excerpts from the novel can be found on the official 99 Erics webpage.

Transgender People, Bathrooms, and Sexual Predators: What the Data Say was months in the making. The piece not only compiles numerous research studies showing that transgender people are victims (not perpetrators) in such settings, but it also places these "bathroom panics" in historical context, showing how they evolved directly from Anita-Bryant-1970s-era claims that LGB people are "child molesters" out to "recruit children." The final section debunks more recent outlandish claims that trans people are "grooming" and "sexualizing" children. I wanted to touch on all these themes, not only because they unfairly disparage trans people, but because they are all more generally used to smear marginalized groups who are perceived as "other" in some way, and thus misconstrued as a potential "threat to women and children." 

I don't usually write about TV shows and pop culture, but I did just that in Here’s why some people find the Loki-Sylvie romance unsettling. Hint: the answer (or at least one of the answers) is unconscious transphobia...

I compile many of my writings related to transmisogyny in the piece What Is Transmisogyny? It includes a downloadable link to a brand new academic review article that I wrote on the topic.

The Dregerian Narrative (or why "trans activists" vs. "scientists" framings are lazy, inaccurate, and incendiary) is a new essay describing a very old anti-trans trope.

And finally, Transgender People, “Gay Conversion,” and “Lesbian Extinction”: What the Data Show was my response to the increasingly common anti-trans memes that lesbians are supposedly going "extinct" due to people transitioning, and/or that transitioning constitutes a form of “gay conversion therapy.” As the title suggests, I show that current research data do not support these claims.

That's it for now. If you appreciate the fact that I make these articles available for free, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

lyrics to "Cisgender" (my latest trans-themed song)

As some of you may know, in addition to being an author, I also write and perform music – originally with my noise-pop band Bitesize, and currently with my solo music project *soft vowel sounds*. Quite a few of my songs are transgender-themed – back in 2014, I chronicled many of these in a blog post entitled Transgender-themed artists, bands, music, songs & anthems.

Just this last December, I debuted a brand new transgender-themed song. Actually, it's a cover of one of the catchiest classic rock hits from the 1970s, albeit with me "trans"-ing the lyrics (for reasons explained in the following live performance video of the song). I've also included the lyrics below, so feel free to sing along if you wish! 

I will be performing "Cisgender" at my next *soft vowel sounds* show on Saturday, April 6th at El Rio in San Francisco, and will likely do it at future shows as well. To keep posted about my upcoming live shows and recordings (including a new album later this year!), I encourage you to sign up for my music email list. Happy listening...

Origins of "Social Contagion" and "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria"

Preface added May 2023: This post began as a seemingly simple project: to figure out where and when the then novel notion that "transgender identities are spreading among children via social contagion" originated. In addition to accomplishing that task, this post inadvertently chronicles the origins of our current anti-trans backlash, and how seemingly disparate groups (e.g., trans-skeptical parents, "gender critical"/TERFs, social conservatives, gender-disaffirming healthcare providers) all began collaborating with one another. For those interested in this history, analogous timelines centered on "TAnon" and "gender ideology" corroborate and complement the narrative that unfolds here.

Since its initial publication in February 2019, many more entries have been added to the timeline – they are denoted by an asterisk just before the date. This includes 9 research studies that have tested the "ROGD/social contagion" hypothesis and produced results inconsistent with or contradicting it, and new evidence revealing that the trans-skeptical mother who invented the idea of "transgender social contagion" turns out to be Lisa Marchiano, a now prominent anti-trans activist.

I've also written more about the ongoing evolution of the Anti-Trans Parent Movement (and its similarities to the anti-vaccination parent movement) first described here.

Finally, I have subsequently published multiple follow up essays on the myth of "transgender social contagion" that you can check out if you're interested:

• All the Evidence Against Transgender Social Contagion
• Explaining Assigned Sex Ratio Shifts in Trans Children
• Anti-Trans “Grooming” and “Social Contagion” Claims Explained
• It's time to rethink “born this way,” a phrase that's been key to LGBTQ acceptance

ORIGINAL POST:

This post inadvertently grew out of research that I've been doing for another essay, which I will link to once it is published. Basically, while the concept of "social contagion" is quite old, the notion that it somehow causes children and teenagers to adopt transgender identities is rather recent. So I was curious to know where this assertion first arose. To this end, I carried out a series of internet searches, and was surprised (although perhaps I shouldn't have been) to find out that it seems to have originated on the same three websites (4thwavenow.com, transgendertrend.com, and youthtranscriticalprofessionals.org) that Lisa Littman surveyed for her study on the (scientifically unsubstantiated) concept of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD). I was also rather stunned to learn that virtually all of this – the founding of two of those three websites, the first ever claims that social contagion causes kids to become transgender, the coining of "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria," and Littman's recruiting parents for her survey – happened within an extremely short period of time (roughly half a year).

After doing a little more detective work, I put together the following timeline detailing the recent history of these concepts and the websites that gave rise to them. This is a lengthy post (for the sake of thoroughness), but there are two main take-home points: First, the notion that "transgender is caused by social contagion" seems to have been invented by a reluctant parent of a trans child in February 2016. It was then reiterated by other parents and posters on these websites, and then was subsequently picked up and parroted by conservative media outlets and gender-disaffirming practitioners as though it were an actual condition rather than mere hearsay. Second, there was a lot of overlap and coordination between these three websites, and eventually with gender-disaffirming practitioners as well, in creating, popularizing, and disseminating these ideas – in other words, this was an activist campaign. There is nothing inherently wrong with activism, as we are all activists to some degree. But what I chronicle here challenges the typical framing (favored by mainstream journalists and pundits) that pits "concerned parents" and "objective scientists" against "biased out-of-control transgender activists." The reality is that both sides have agendas, in that we are both fighting for what we think is best for trans & gender non-conforming (GNC) children. (Although I believe that the existing evidence better supports the gender-affirmative model.)

The timeline is below. But first, two brief preliminary sections (which can be skipped over if you are already intimately familiar with these matters). There will be a brief summary at the end.
[& if you are looking for a "TL;DR" version, some of the major highlights from the timeline are covered in this Twitter thread.]

new updates about writings, upcoming shows & talks, etc!

In a previous post, I described my two different email lists: The julia update comes out about 4–6 times a year, and shares all of my latest writings, shows, and creative endeavors. Then I have a music-only update (for my two music projects *soft vowel sounds* & Bitesize) that comes out more frequently, anytime I have a new music show or release. You can sign up for them via those links, if you wish.

I'm telling you this because I just released two new updates: a music one, and a more general julia update — I encourage you to check them out! Here are a few highlights:

• I recently published a new Medium piece: The Superstition that LGBTQ+ People Are “Contagious” — please share and give it lots of "claps"!
• follow up pieces and interviews (plus a meme!) related to last month's Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria essay.
• my first college speaking events of the 2018-19 year are coming up in early October! If you want me to visit your school, please check out my booking webpage.
• two new San Francisco *soft vowel sounds* shows: a free one this Thursday (Sept. 20th) and a Halloween show on October 17th!

Finally, a reminder that I am giving away a free mp3 of one of my songs with each music update – another reason to consider signing up! This month's free song is the Bitesize classic "Yellow Belt" – check out the update if you wanna download it!

a personal statement regarding the ROGD controversy and why you probably won't be hearing from me for the next few days

This summer, in the wake of The Atlantic cover story, plus other similar recent pieces, I made the decision to dedicate most of my writing time over the rest of 2018 to challenging the current backlash against transgender children and the gender-affirming healthcare model. This has meant putting a book that I have been writing about activism (more generally) on hold, which sucks, but I feel the former is a more immediate and pressing matter at this moment in time. Behind the scenes, I have been working on a series of essays along these lines that I hope to roll out over the next 5-to-6 months, so stay tuned. And as always, if you appreciate this work, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

Anyway, one of the essays that I have been working on was about the Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria movement. Last week, when I learned the Littman paper had just been formally published (and I was already familiar with this work from the poster-version that appeared last year in the Journal of Adolescent Health), I decided to make it my top priority. And I ended it up publishing it on Medium on August 22nd (you can read it via the previous link).

My purpose in writing the essay was not to "suppress research I disagree with" or to "drag Littman's name in the mud," as some are now accusing. I was simply countering disinformation (i.e., promoted by ROGD advocates online and in recent op-eds) and a skewed research study that has potential far-reaching healthcare and social ramifications (i.e., the Littman paper). I never once resorted to ad hominem attacks in my essay, nor did I call for the paper to be investigated or retracted. I have written about other transgender-related studies and theories in the past - if you were to comb through them all, you would find lots of arguments and criticisms, but not a single instance where I have called for a paper to be investigated or retracted. I have simply participated in these debates. And they are not truly debates if you don't allow people like me to participate in them.

understanding TERF talking points on transition

1. When an insistent, persistent, consistent trans child socially transitions (no medical interventions, completely reversible). TERF response: No, you can't do that! Because 80% desistance!

2. When a trans child goes on puberty blockers (which are safe & the effects completely reversible). TERF response: No, you can't do that! Because children need to experience "natural puberty" in order to fully identify with their "biological sex."

3. When older trans teenagers finally go on hormones and contemplate surgery. TERF response: No, you can't do that! Because that's irreversible. And mutilation!

4. When a trans adult transitions. TERF response: No, you can't do that! Because we don't want any "men" with "penises" in women's spaces. Plus, you haven't been socialized as female, so therefore you can never be a woman! 

There is only one way to square this circle: TERFs don't want trans people to exist, in any capacity. Period. That is the only logic at work here. Any concern that they express toward transgender and trans-questioning children is insincere, as their one and only goal is to make us disappear.

on Jesse Singal, slut-shaming, and calling women "hysterical"

the Twitter poll I took regarding to this matter

I already told this story once before, in this piece, along with instances where Jesse Singal has purposefully lied about me, whipped up an online mob against me, and treated several other trans women with similar disrespect. I honestly want nothing more than for him to leave me the fuck alone—or at the very least, for him to only discuss my writings and positions, rather than resorting to ad hominem attacks. But he continues to harp about this, and spread lies about me. So here is a brief summary.

1) I regularly write about serious matters regarding transgender health and psychology. Jesse Singal disagrees with me on these matters, particularly with regards to the "80% desistance" statistic.

2) On July 25, 2016, Singal wrote a pro-"80% desistance" article, during which, in the midst of discussing my stance on this matter, he tossed in "as an aside, you should read her Daily Beast article about navigating the dating scene as a trans woman in San Francisco." That article had nothing to do with the topic at hand. And as I detail here, I know for a fact that Singal has read my work on sexualization and how it is an especially effective tool for invalidating trans women (the specific essay he read can be found here[PDF link]). So I presumed that he cited that dating piece in an attempt to purposefully slut-shame me.

Transgender is a Pan-Cultural and Trans-Historical Phenomenon

In my writings, I will often say that gender diversity and transgender identities are a “pan-cultural and trans-historical phenomenon.” What I mean by this is that if you consider other cultures, or look back through history, you will find examples of people who we would now (in this time and place) describe as falling under the transgender umbrella. This includes (but is not limited to) people who identified and lived as members of a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth, people who belonged to “third gender” categories—an umbrella term sometimes used to describe established gender categories that fall outside of the man/woman binary, which are fairly common in non-Western cultures), plus people who are gender non-conforming in all sorts of other ways.

At the end of this post, I will provide a list of books that describe such examples of gender diversity across cultures and throughout history. Or you could check out the Wikipedia page on this topic.

This evidence strongly suggests that gender diversity occurs naturally, rather than being a product of culture or modernity. To be clear, I am not suggesting that the phenomenon occurs entirely independent of culture—after all, our self-understandings and the labels we use to describe ourselves are most certainly influenced by cultural norms and the language and concepts we have at our disposal. But what I am saying is that there has to be some natural (likely biological) component to this gender diversity. The alternative hypothesis—i.e., that within each of these cultures, there is an entirely unique socially-based “cause” that accounts for this gender diversity—seems utterly preposterous, and is in dire need of being lopped off with Occam’s razor.

Trans health professionals consider gender-reparative therapies to be unethical

This is not a post so much as it is a citation to be referenced in my (and perhaps other people's) future writings on this topic. 

Gender-reparative therapies (sometimes called gender-conversion therapies) typically involve the use of positive and negative reinforcement strategies—e.g., having parents discourage or withhold gender non-conforming expression, toys, play partners, etc., while encouraging gender-normative behaviors—in an attempt to convert transgender or gender non-conforming children into cisgender and gender-normative ones. 

While the practice used to be more common, and while a few researchers (such as Ken Zucker) still advocate for such approaches, the field of trans health as a whole now considers such practices to be both unsuccessful (as it merely coerces children to temporarily hide or repress their gender identities and expressions, which they may assert again at a later age) and unethical (as it often results in a host of negative psychological outcomes, as reviewed in Temple Newhook et al., 2018).

my Jesse Singal story

Note added March 16, 2021:

Back in late 2017, I wrote “my Jesse Singal story,” which was a 4,000-ish word essay about my experiences with him up to that point – that post remains intact below. Since then, there have been numerous developments that support and/or dovetail with points I made in my original piece. And since Singal recently dragged my name through the mud again, I thought it best to begin by briefly summarizing everything that has happened up to this point.

For those who don’t know me, I am an author and scientist who has written extensively about transgender people and issues, including trans healthcare and children. In 2016, for reasons unbeknownst to me, Singal took an interest in these latter topics, penning a series of articles – starting with How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired through 2018’s When Children Say They’re Trans – that most of us familiar with these matters felt were heavily slanted, if not intentionally biased. Those links will take you to my immediate responses to those two pieces; even more critiques of these and his other trans-related articles can be found here.

There are lots of people who disagree with me about trans issues, but I don’t go around writing “stories” about them. Singal is the sole exception to this, the reason being, he is the only journalist I’ve ever encountered who has attacked me on a personal level. Specifically, after I penned a civil blogpost critiquing his first trans-related piece, he began publicly smearing me, as documented throughout this post. For those looking for a TL;DR, the main incidents (all described in more detail below) are:

Lies about Transgender People and the Vagina Monologues

This is one in a series of essays exposing falsehoods forwarded by feminists who are suspicious of or antagonistic toward transgender people. This series includes Debunking “Trans Women Are Not Women” Arguments and my forthcoming essay Transgender People and “Biological Sex” Myths. If you appreciate this work, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

These days, almost every anti-transgender hit-piece written from a feminist perspective will mention an incident that occurred in 2015, in which Mount Holyoke College canceled a scheduled performance of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues for not being inclusive of transgender people. By citing this instance out of context, these writers attempt to assert or imply that:

1) all trans people must want to censor The Vagina Monologues.
2) more sinisterly, trans people are trying to stop women from talking about their vaginas.
3) this is yet another example of why feminism and trans activism are inherently incompatible.

However, this framing purposefully ignores two crucial factors.

why my piece won’t be appearing in The Stranger

On Wednesday, June 28th, the Seattle news outlet The Stranger published an article called The Detransitioners: They Were Transgender, Until They Weren't. Amongst its numerous flaws, it gave credence to the notion that there is a “social contagion” to become transgender, and that this is a cause behind why some people eventually decide to detransition.

Back in 2016, I detailed both the biased thinking behind, and the potential harm caused by, this notion, in my lengthy and nuanced essay Detransition, Desistance, and Disinformation: A Guide for Understanding Transgender Children Debates (and in this follow up). Herzog reached out to interview me for her The Stranger article, saying she had read my essay. I was open to it at first, until it became clear to me that she was planning to legitimize that “social contagion” theory in her piece. When Herzog's article came out last week, I penned a blogpost called Stop pitting detransitioners against happily transitioned people, in which I pointed out the skewed framing and several (albeit not all) of the misconceptions that Herzog's article forwarded.