I’m not sure what Dirt hopes to accomplish by combing through Maria Catt’s/Carrie Callahan’s social media presence over the past several years looking for “discrepancies” in her story. When you transition and then stop, a big part of that is a profound series of changes in how you understand yourself and your life. It shouldn’t be a big shock that there are conflicting narratives in a detransitioned woman’s account of how she understands herself and where she understands herself belonging over a period of years. That’s kinda the whole point.

Anyway, I know Carrie offline, IRL, and she’s the real deal. She definitely, really, truly, without a doubt started medically transitioning and then stopped. I am grateful and honored to have witnessed, face to face and heart to heart, parts of her life when she was in deep self-discovery and in the throes of those changes. She’s been pretty clear and open that some of the ways transition changed her are painful and difficult. And I’m not sure why someone would choose to poke at those places for sport. Likewise, I’m not sure why anyone thinks violence and love can’t coexist in the same family. I’m really not getting what the “gotcha” is supposed to consist of here–or what the significance is supposed to be.

Regardless, I know Carrie to be a woman of integrity and mega ovaries in terms of laying bare some vulnerable truths about her life–which is a whole, full, messy, rich life, not reducible to soundbites or easily contained in fundamentalist frameworks of any kind. I am proud to call her a friend and she’s well loved and supported by many other lesbian feminists and separatists, too–she doesn’t have to be a lesbian herself to belong among us in her own right. She’s a force of nature who does so much for other women–an amazon. She’s one of us, she’s with us, and we’re all right behind her.

Thanks for this post. Attempting to character assassinate a fine woman who has the courage to put her personal life at risk to help other women and young people is a terrible “hobby.”

I get requests all the time for evidence that most trans-identified kids grow out of it, the vast majority of them going on to be gay or lesbian adults. Here you go. Plenty of studies, helpfully compiled by Dr. James Cantor at this link:

http://www.sexologytoday.org/2016/01/do-trans-kids-stay-trans-when-they-grow_99.html?spref=tw

Of course, nowadays, we’re influencing kids to STAY trans by “socially transitioning” them, using “preferred pronouns,” and puberty blockers. Wouldn’t it be interesting to just leave them alone instead of reassuring them that they really ARE the opposite sex, given how high the medical stakes are?

Parents urging and/or assisting minor children to transition is a form of conversion therapy. It is a way for their gender non-confirming child to grow up “normal”, i.e. not gay or lesbian. It’s a form of social control. It’s a form of gay and lesbian erasure.

A couple of decades ago the talk was of genetics or pre-natal hormones, i.e. finding some way to identify gay and lesbian fetuses in the womb (with the implied possibility of parents terminating such an unwanted and/or defective offspring).

Now parents can just wait until a gay or lesbian child goes through a typical (for the gender non-confirming gay or lesbian) gay or lesbian toddlerhood or childhood before they consider exercising their “parental option” of socially changing their gender and even medically altering their child’s body.

This is a form of child abuse.

Please note that I’ve made it clear that not all gay and lesbian children are gender non-conforming and for a time may wish to be the opposite sex. Some and only some are gender non-conforming.

I was one of those gender non-conforming girls. A tomboy always being mistaken for a real boy. That is until puberty…when with the rush of hormones and a sudden influx of new 7th grade girls to my K -12 all girls school I began to understand that I might be a lesbian. I forgot all about wanting to be a boy. I just wanted to be with my best girlfriend all the time. Two years later it was handholding, back rubs, and my secret fantasies of kissing her. My lifelong obsession with Greta Garbo, Kate Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Barbrara Stanwyck, and Marilyn Monroe movies grew exponentially. A not a-typical lesbian adolescence in the 1970s which developed from a not a-typical gender non-conforming lesbian childhood of the 1950s and 1960s.

What if my parents had “assisted” me in socially, or even worse, medically transitioning with puberty blockers? What would have happened to the “me” of me? What would ever have given my parents the right to sign away myself and my future body on a doctor’s Consent Form?

Where are the medical ethicists?

Please note that this has nothing to do with Intersexed individuals. And please note the long history of parents making the wrong decisions in those cases when children are born or well into childhood. This disastrous history should give us pause as we deal with parents making decisions for gender non-confirming children that most likely will have long-term if not life-time negative physical and emotional consequences.

Yes--where are the medical ethicists?

“What if my parents had “assisted” me in socially, or even worse, medically transitioning with puberty blockers? What would have happened to the “me” of me? What would ever have given my parents the right to sign away myself and my future body on a doctor’s Consent Form?”

Female detransition and reidentification: Survey results and interpretation

This survey was created for anyone female/AFAB who formerly self-described as transgender. This includes women who transitioned, whether socially and/or medically, and subsequently detransitioned, as well as individuals who still identify as nonbinary or genderfluid, but have desisted from medical or social transition.

The survey ran from August 16 to August 30, 2016 and was shared through Tumblr, Facebook groups, and on the Wordpress blog 4thWaveNow. After removing several obviously fake responses and responses from individuals who had not stopped transition, the total response count was 203. Leaving aside all the other data this provides, the sheer number of responses is pretty amazing. Given that the survey was open for 2 weeks and was shared through a couple of Facebook groups, most of which were private, and Tumblr, I think we can safely say that detransitioners are not quite as rare as some would like to have us think. Other than that, there are a couple of points I’d like to elaborate on along with presenting the data.

Keep reading

Until gender specialists/researchers decide to actually study what’s happening with young detransitioned women, the incredible work Cari has done with this survey will have to **continue** to be done by unpaid bloggers. Ditto for reporting on the troubling aspects of pediatric transition: that work is also left to unpaid bloggers, given the refusal of mainstream media to raise any questions about the increasing number of children, teenagers, and young adults being swept up in the transition trend.

There has been a media blackout on the phenomenon of pre-teens and teens suddenly deciding they are the opposite sex–typically, after binging on trans-related social media.

For the first time, a professional researcher is going to take a look at the issue of social contagion and “rapid-onset” gender dysphoria.

Please spread the word.

Remember when kids started coming out as gay when they had just been “experimenting” or “going through a phase” before, and all the good christian parents started searching for things that were to blame for their precious children choosing the wrong lifestyle? Yeah, this is worded like that, except about trans kids.

A few minor differences:

1. Most of those “trans kids” would grow up to be LGB (those are the statistics) if left alone instead of being carted off to gender clinics.

2 LGB kids/teens weren’t asking to be pumped full of cross-sex hormones or to have their breasts or penises removed in order to be accepted by their families.

3. LGB wasn’t being pushed by some of the richest people on the planet (google “transgender billionaires”), endocrinologists, and plastic surgeons–not to mention the US government, UK government, and the media..

4. There was no Tumblr, YouTube, or Reddit pushing the idea to adolescents having trouble with puberty that “transition” would make everything all better.

5. Plenty of adult lesbians and gay men talk and write about their gender nonconforming childhoods and how glad they are that “transgender children” wasn’t a thing when they were young–or they’d have been swept up in the transition trend, to be turned into lifelong medical patients.

So your analogy is exactly backwards: The pediatric transition trend is about as anti-gay as it can get, despite the activist rhetoric.

I didn’t say they were the same, I said they were worded similarly. Since you’ve decided to bring the argument further, though, it’s only proper that I do the same.

1. In the heteronormative society that was dominant over the last three to four hundred years, the majority of LGB kids would grow up to be straight (Those are the statistics) if left alone rather than being allowed to love who they wanted to love. The only real exceptions were powerful authority figures and those that could keep it a secret. 2. I was going to refute this sarcastically like the first point, but the problem with this one reaches deeper. Your argument here, or at the very least the way that it’s worded, is that kids who think they’re trans are only undergoing treatments so their families will accept them. I don’t have exact data to offer in counterpoint, but it’s very, very clear that you’ve bought into an exaggerated idea of trans culture foisted about by anti-trans groups. Trans kids are not a fad. Many are still disowned by their families for being different, not pressured into surgery. 3. So I googled “transgender Billionaires” and found an official list of the ten richest LGBT billionaires. The only trans billionaire listed was Jennifer Pritzker. The rest were LGB. I think this point has been properly refuted. Let me know if it hasn’t been and I need to disprove it some more.

4. “In my day we didn’t HAVE the Internet.” No, but there were still prominent influences on the poor vulnerable kids like Socialists and The Village People and Novelists and all other sorts of amoral fiends. This is like saying that Trump’s campaign isn’t similar to Hitler’s just because one of them had the internet. Next.

5. “I’m glad that this ‘gay’ thing wasn’t around back in the 40′s because I know now that I was just going through a phase.” Parents meddling in their kids’ sexualities and genders are completely in the wrong, yes. That sounds like it supports my analogy. Thank you. Now are we going to stop here or do I have to bring out the discourse blog?

Good--you found Pritzker. Follow that money. You might be surprised.

If you want to share your “discourse blog” with your supporters, go ahead.  I’ve done my homework, thanks, so no need to do it on my behalf.

As far as continuing this exchange, get back to me only after you’ve spent some time looking into the phenomenon of detransitioned lesbians who realize later their internalized homophobia was a major driver in their desire to transition.  There are quite a few blogging on Tumblr. And given that coming out as LGB typically happens **after** the age when so many girls start medical transition, I’d say there’s a good argument that gender specialists are engaging in proactive anti-gay conversion therapy--even if not on purpose. If you’re really interested in the truth, you’ll do some digging before bothering to reply again or purporting to speak on behalf of LGB people who have been harmed by the trans trend. Take care.

https://4thwavenow.com/2016/01/25/the-surgical-suite-modern-day-closet-for-todays-teen-lesbian/

There has been a media blackout on the phenomenon of pre-teens and teens suddenly deciding they are the opposite sex–typically, after binging on trans-related social media.

For the first time, a professional researcher is going to take a look at the issue of social contagion and “rapid-onset” gender dysphoria.

Please spread the word.

Remember when kids started coming out as gay when they had just been “experimenting” or “going through a phase” before, and all the good christian parents started searching for things that were to blame for their precious children choosing the wrong lifestyle? Yeah, this is worded like that, except about trans kids.

A few minor differences:

1. Most of those “trans kids” would grow up to be LGB (those are the statistics) if left alone instead of being carted off to gender clinics.

2 LGB kids/teens weren’t asking to be pumped full of cross-sex hormones or to have their breasts or penises removed in order to be accepted by their families.

3. LGB wasn’t being pushed by some of the richest people on the planet (google “transgender billionaires”), endocrinologists, and plastic surgeons--not to mention the US government, UK government, and the media..

4. There was no Tumblr, YouTube, or Reddit pushing the idea to adolescents having trouble with puberty that “transition” would make everything all better.

5. Plenty of adult lesbians and gay men talk and write about their gender nonconforming childhoods and how glad they are that “transgender children” wasn’t a thing when they were young--or they’d have been swept up in the transition trend, to be turned into lifelong medical patients.

So your analogy is exactly backwards: The pediatric transition trend is about as anti-gay as it can get, despite the activist rhetoric.

There has been a media blackout on the phenomenon of pre-teens and teens suddenly deciding they are the opposite sex–typically, after binging on trans-related social media.

For the first time, a professional researcher is going to take a look at the issue of social contagion and “rapid-onset” gender dysphoria.

Please spread the word.

I respect the trans community and understand why they need validation but I can’t help but shake off this trend mentality that I see within younger generations pertaining to gender & distorted sense of identities. The furries, the plantkins, 11yr old children with neon hair who probably haven’t had sex & whom assume identities that will affect their development.. I’m glad it’s being taken seriously, we really need professionals to address these social changes. We need legitimate awareness not just empty activism & bandwagoning

Amen.