>The Biden administration said this week that it opposed gender-affirming surgery for minors, the most explicit statement to date on the subject from a president who has been a staunch supporter of transgender rights. The White House announcement was sent to The New York Times on Wednesday in response to an article reporting that staff in the office of Adm. Rachel Levine, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, had urged an influential international transgender health organization to remove age minimums for surgery from its treatment guidelines for minors.
First of all, this "annoucement" seems to have gone only to the NYT. There's no other mention of it that I can find anywhere else in the MSM. Shouldn't this be big news? Shouldn't the transqueer NGOs be ripping their hair out over this?
Secondly, the NYT got it on "Wednesday" but did not publish the story until very late on Friday. Gee, did anything interesting happen on, say, Thursday?
I would point this out though--even though "gender dysphoria" is in the DSM, studying its origin reveals that it is, in fact, total bullshit.
All one really has to do is ask--define gender and explain how it's different from sex.
No one can really answer that clearly, not even the APA task force that recommended the change from "gender identity disorder" to "gender dysphoria."
Then all one needs to ask is "define what a man is, define what a woman is, then explain how a man can feel like a woman."
Nobody can answer that. That is because "gender dysphoria" is actually bullshit.
Everybody knows that homosexuality used to be in the DSM as a mental illness, that was removed. The DSM changes frequently because it is a political document which reflects the zeitgeist. "Gender dysphoria" can be erased too, eventually. They're trying to change it to "gender incongruence" as we speak.
Once "trans" becomes radioactive (like cigarettes or opioids) it can be removed from the DSM, no matter how much money is behind it.
I hope the lawyers who argue against this will understand that though I know there is a lot of money involved here.
True. I meant that it's hard to argue against it because then you have to explain to the judge that the DSM-5 is bullshit, and then you are just rocking his/her world too much.
This is f-ing brilliant. Wow. I’ve been following this topic (aka the biggest medical scandal ever) for a while and this is so well done. It can be super confusing to follow the legal arguments and the evidence-based medicine (or lack thereof), and you managed to articulate all of it so well. Bravo.
Thanks so much for this analysis, and also for providing the link to the Times article on the Biden Admin statement stating opposition to surgery on minors. If anyone has a link to the actual statement, I would love to see it. Also, UB, do you have a read on this statement in the article: “Adm. Levine shared her [sic] view with her [sic] staff that publishing the proposed lower ages for gender transition surgeries was not supported by science or research, and could lead to an onslaught of attacks on the transgender community,” an H.H.S. spokesman said in a statement on Friday evening.”
This looks to me like an effort to whitewash the push out of Levine’s office to eliminate the age-limits, about which the Times previously reported. I read the statement as trying to suggest that this was Levine staff going rogue, whereas Levine thought otherwise (which I don’t believe for one nanosecond, BTW—I am confident this fish rots from the head). But that is just my surmise. What do you think is going on here?
Mostly agree. As to "staff," I think the White House is trying to make it sound like the suggestion to WPATH was lower-pressure and more casual than it actually was. Levine mentioned it to a colleague, the colleague mentioned to their buddy at WPATH, no big deal.
As you point out, the NYT didn't actually quote the key part of the statement! I looked to the press secretary's response to Fox News, which I think was verbal. So weird.
Levine is a classic case of follow the money as well. (Sure medicalization of children is a form of validation) But before Biden appointed Levine, Levine was selling the notion of having a full time social worker on staff to fast track gender "treatments" because it would more than pay for itself. Plenty more hospital admins are seeing a "gender clinic" as a cash cow.
There's a doctor associated with Vanderbilt's clinic touting the profits on a video from 2018.
Not that there is something wrong with getting paid, but they're not providing a product that is evidence based, safe or even really effective
Certainly apropos in many ways -- poor old Michael fading out of existence because his parents never met being analogous to what? Accusations by transactivists that we're "denying their humanity 🙄", their very existence, by denying they can change their sexes?
Though too many on the other side of the fence get quite "offended" when one points out that the logical consequences of standard biological definitions -- not the quite unscientific claptrap peddled by Colin Wright and Alex Byrne -- is that, technically speaking, we don't ACQUIRE a sex until the onset of puberty, and that some third of us are sexless.
Gender nonconforming kids are also included under the trans label! Which is damn problematic as trans ideology also holds that gender CONFORMING adults who assert that they're trans ARE trans, regardless of any attempts to move toward the behavior or appearance of the opposite sex.
We've seen this before...in the HRC"s Human Rights Campaign's listing and analysis of trans people who experience violent deaths every year. The unsettling thing is though, in years past, the HRC did not provide a definition of a trans person, but more recently has, and even expanded its definition to included gender nonconforming (although the HRC uses the newer, "cooler" term "gender expansive") individuals, REGARDLESS OF HOW THEY IDENTIFY. So, if a sex -realist, TERF butch lesbian (human female who is same sex attracted) who thinks gender ideology is as ridiculous as it is dangerous should suffer a violent death, SHE may be included in the HRC's "violent deaths of trans people" stats...against her wishes, of course!!!
“The reality is, the plaintiffs have a buffet of distinguished psychiatrists, endocrinologists, and pediatricians testifying as experts in support of their claims. That makes a huge difference to judges.”
Why are judges so gullible? Shouldn’t someone smart enough to be a judge be smart enough to see the incoherence and circularity of these ideas and collusion to pass activism off as science going on here?
This young woman had every bit of "gender affirming care" on the market and was fully supported in her confused thinking. https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/rip-griffin-sivret Her "gender dysphoria" never resolved and her quest to be able to use a urinal killed her. She never managed to transition into anything more than a mutilated young woman.
If "transgender status" is a quasi-suspect category, surely the court will need to to lay down some kind of objective way of determining who's in the category and who's not? That will be fun to watch
>After HHS official Rachel Levine’s influence over SOC8 became public this week, the White House stated that it “does not support surgery for minors.” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/health/transgender-surgery-biden.html
That NYT story is very weird.
>The Biden administration said this week that it opposed gender-affirming surgery for minors, the most explicit statement to date on the subject from a president who has been a staunch supporter of transgender rights. The White House announcement was sent to The New York Times on Wednesday in response to an article reporting that staff in the office of Adm. Rachel Levine, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, had urged an influential international transgender health organization to remove age minimums for surgery from its treatment guidelines for minors.
First of all, this "annoucement" seems to have gone only to the NYT. There's no other mention of it that I can find anywhere else in the MSM. Shouldn't this be big news? Shouldn't the transqueer NGOs be ripping their hair out over this?
Secondly, the NYT got it on "Wednesday" but did not publish the story until very late on Friday. Gee, did anything interesting happen on, say, Thursday?
This is an excellent article.
I would point this out though--even though "gender dysphoria" is in the DSM, studying its origin reveals that it is, in fact, total bullshit.
All one really has to do is ask--define gender and explain how it's different from sex.
No one can really answer that clearly, not even the APA task force that recommended the change from "gender identity disorder" to "gender dysphoria."
Then all one needs to ask is "define what a man is, define what a woman is, then explain how a man can feel like a woman."
Nobody can answer that. That is because "gender dysphoria" is actually bullshit.
Everybody knows that homosexuality used to be in the DSM as a mental illness, that was removed. The DSM changes frequently because it is a political document which reflects the zeitgeist. "Gender dysphoria" can be erased too, eventually. They're trying to change it to "gender incongruence" as we speak.
Once "trans" becomes radioactive (like cigarettes or opioids) it can be removed from the DSM, no matter how much money is behind it.
I hope the lawyers who argue against this will understand that though I know there is a lot of money involved here.
https://kathighsmith.substack.com/p/trans-is-a-fraudand-it-always-has
True. I meant that it's hard to argue against it because then you have to explain to the judge that the DSM-5 is bullshit, and then you are just rocking his/her world too much.
Brilliant as always, UB. Your new post is usually the first one I open — and now more than ever! Keep em coming!
This is f-ing brilliant. Wow. I’ve been following this topic (aka the biggest medical scandal ever) for a while and this is so well done. It can be super confusing to follow the legal arguments and the evidence-based medicine (or lack thereof), and you managed to articulate all of it so well. Bravo.
Thank you!
Thanks so much for this analysis, and also for providing the link to the Times article on the Biden Admin statement stating opposition to surgery on minors. If anyone has a link to the actual statement, I would love to see it. Also, UB, do you have a read on this statement in the article: “Adm. Levine shared her [sic] view with her [sic] staff that publishing the proposed lower ages for gender transition surgeries was not supported by science or research, and could lead to an onslaught of attacks on the transgender community,” an H.H.S. spokesman said in a statement on Friday evening.”
This looks to me like an effort to whitewash the push out of Levine’s office to eliminate the age-limits, about which the Times previously reported. I read the statement as trying to suggest that this was Levine staff going rogue, whereas Levine thought otherwise (which I don’t believe for one nanosecond, BTW—I am confident this fish rots from the head). But that is just my surmise. What do you think is going on here?
Mostly agree. As to "staff," I think the White House is trying to make it sound like the suggestion to WPATH was lower-pressure and more casual than it actually was. Levine mentioned it to a colleague, the colleague mentioned to their buddy at WPATH, no big deal.
As you point out, the NYT didn't actually quote the key part of the statement! I looked to the press secretary's response to Fox News, which I think was verbal. So weird.
"Will no one rid me of that troublesome priest [gender ideologue]?"
"The phrase is commonly used in modern-day contexts to express that a ruler's wish may be interpreted as a command by his or her subordinates."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_turbulent_priest%3F
Levine is a classic case of follow the money as well. (Sure medicalization of children is a form of validation) But before Biden appointed Levine, Levine was selling the notion of having a full time social worker on staff to fast track gender "treatments" because it would more than pay for itself. Plenty more hospital admins are seeing a "gender clinic" as a cash cow.
There's a doctor associated with Vanderbilt's clinic touting the profits on a video from 2018.
Not that there is something wrong with getting paid, but they're not providing a product that is evidence based, safe or even really effective
I salute you for the PERFECTLY chosen lead image to accompany this article!!!!!!!!!
Michael Fox and "Back to the Future"? 🙂
Certainly apropos in many ways -- poor old Michael fading out of existence because his parents never met being analogous to what? Accusations by transactivists that we're "denying their humanity 🙄", their very existence, by denying they can change their sexes?
Though too many on the other side of the fence get quite "offended" when one points out that the logical consequences of standard biological definitions -- not the quite unscientific claptrap peddled by Colin Wright and Alex Byrne -- is that, technically speaking, we don't ACQUIRE a sex until the onset of puberty, and that some third of us are sexless.
Gender nonconforming kids are also included under the trans label! Which is damn problematic as trans ideology also holds that gender CONFORMING adults who assert that they're trans ARE trans, regardless of any attempts to move toward the behavior or appearance of the opposite sex.
We've seen this before...in the HRC"s Human Rights Campaign's listing and analysis of trans people who experience violent deaths every year. The unsettling thing is though, in years past, the HRC did not provide a definition of a trans person, but more recently has, and even expanded its definition to included gender nonconforming (although the HRC uses the newer, "cooler" term "gender expansive") individuals, REGARDLESS OF HOW THEY IDENTIFY. So, if a sex -realist, TERF butch lesbian (human female who is same sex attracted) who thinks gender ideology is as ridiculous as it is dangerous should suffer a violent death, SHE may be included in the HRC's "violent deaths of trans people" stats...against her wishes, of course!!!
“The reality is, the plaintiffs have a buffet of distinguished psychiatrists, endocrinologists, and pediatricians testifying as experts in support of their claims. That makes a huge difference to judges.”
Why are judges so gullible? Shouldn’t someone smart enough to be a judge be smart enough to see the incoherence and circularity of these ideas and collusion to pass activism off as science going on here?
Good article.
Gender Nonconforming = nonexistent
Feminine boy, masculine girl = clear
Gender Dysphoria = nonexistent
Anxious about Puberty = clear
Any other “medical” psychiatric language is demonstrably false, it’s starting to collapse now.
DSM is part of the problem.
This young woman had every bit of "gender affirming care" on the market and was fully supported in her confused thinking. https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/rip-griffin-sivret Her "gender dysphoria" never resolved and her quest to be able to use a urinal killed her. She never managed to transition into anything more than a mutilated young woman.
May I add that if you want the Justice Department to be run by a Republican next January, you have to vote accordingly in November.
Thanks for this. Helps put it together for me. It’s a lot of information.
If "transgender status" is a quasi-suspect category, surely the court will need to to lay down some kind of objective way of determining who's in the category and who's not? That will be fun to watch