Joyce Fetteroll's March 3, 2018 response to a Quora question on a situation at Bristol University,
The question was:
Joyce's response was the fourth there.
She wrote:
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Bear with me for a moment.
Back in the 50s, Joseph McCarthy was on a witch hunt for Communist spies in the US. At that time, calling anyone a Communist would get the government to swoop in on them. You didn’t call someone a Commie without good reason.
Except people did. Accusing someone of being a Commie was a way to shut them up.
TERF is now like that. Slap the TERF label on someone and then any question they ask, any position they take becomes hate speech. It’s an effective way to silence people who question transactivists’ statements.
So if someone is labeled a TERF, does that mean what they say is hate speech?
Why would transactivists label someone a TERF if they weren’t speaking hate?
The question doesn’t make sense. And yet … as the number of questions that are shut down grow, it’s a question that should be asked.
When we picture trans people, we picture Laverne Cox and a little 3-year-old boy who insists he’s a girl that wants to wear princess outfits. They’re real. They deserve the respect due to fellow people.
But scratch beneath that layer and things get less clean and neat. That’s also when the TERF labels get whipped out. When transactivists’ point out that the Christian right, transphobes and TERFs manufacture the dirt to harm transgender people, people accept it. They back off from digging further.
See how effective that label is?
It’s even more effective when trans gets equated with gay. People know it’s rude to question whether a gay person is really gay. If trans is like gay, then it’s also rude to question a trans person’s certainty about their gender.
That seems fair. A mature adult doesn’t need to justify their certainty about their gender. Little boys who want to be called Sarah deserve to be treated with respect. Who are they hurting?
But is that the whole picture? If that question gets labeled hate speech, we can’t know. If we let the transactivists control the answer, we can’t know.
Trans Women, Lesbians + Clits On Sticks! was written by a perfectly fine trans woman I wouldn’t bat an eye at sharing a bathroom with. She spent 3 years looking for a trans community and this is what she found. Do you want your daughter or sister sharing a restroom with these trans women? Do you think Feminists should unconditionally advocate for their rights?
Am I a TERF for posting that link? Is it my attempt to imply all people who identify as transgender are cross dressing men with a thing for lesbians?
Or is it asking whether there might be more to transactivism than Laverne Cox wanting a safe place to pee? Why would it be transphobic to want to know? The gay and heterosexual worlds have dirt beneath the public layer too. But it’s not homophobic or heterophobic to look into it. Why is revealing a dirty trans layer transphobic?
Are transactivists afraid that a little bit of dirt will set back their social progress? That is a reasonable fear.
But is that the reason? When the curious are labeled haters for wanting to peel back the layers to see for themselves, we can’t find out if it’s a little bit of dirt or a mile-hile pile of manure.
Did you know that 10-year-old girls and 11-year-old boys are being given puberty blockers? These kids stay on monthly injections until age 16 which is when they can start taking cross sex hormones. This is advocated by Dr Norman Spack, co-founder of the first and still leading program to medically treat youth who identify as transgender. It’s affiliated with Boston Children's Hospital.
Did you know that there are no long-term studies on the effects of completely blocking natural puberty then putting a 16 year old on cross sex hormones? We don’t know what the outcome will be in twenty, thirty, forty years. There are doctors way too eager to insist this treatment will save children’s lives when there is no objective data to back up what they say.
“But we’re saving these kids lives! Look at the suicide statistics!” the transactivists cry.
Suicide! Be afraid!! Time is running out!!! Fear is the enemy of clarity.
Did you know that Lupron Depot-PED is being used off label on children? These questioning kids are guinea pigs. The puberty blocker being used was approved by the FDA only for a very rare condition called precocious puberty. (In adults it can be used in the treatment of breast and prostate cancer.) It was never tested to block natural puberty for 6 years. What is the effect on a body that never goes through the puberty it’s genetically programmed to do? We don’t know.
I wonder who might benefit from an off label use? Hmmm … The Lupron Money Trail- Hormones Matter. Funny how the manufacturer AbbVie has a sordid history of large payments to doctors who prescribe their drugs.
Did you know that 75–90% of prepubescent kids who express a desire to be the other gender don’t stick with that into adulthood? Most of them turn out to be gay or bisexual. This statistic, based on several studies, is listed right in the The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care (page 11).
“But those kids in the studies were never really trans!” the transactivists insist.
That’s possible. The studies are older. Perhaps therapists can now pick out the oranges from the apples better than when those studies were done.
Do you know what the current “test” is for being trans? A child being insistent, persistent and consistent in stating their gender doesn’t match their body’s sex. This is from Dr Diane Ehrensaft, director at one of the other big gender clinics. This one is affiliated with the University of California San Francisco.
Do you know what parents find happens in real life? The more accepted transgender becomes in the professional treatment of children, the lower that bar drops. If a child says they’re the opposite gender, they are. Then they’re supported in socially transitioning. (Note in the linked article above that Ehrensaft has 3 year olds she has declared transgender. Not children who feel certain they’re the other gender. No suggestion that the child may later feel different as a teen — as 90% will. The child is transgender at 3.)
Did you know that gay adults who experienced early gender dysphoria say they too were positive they were the opposite gender? Some realized they were gay at puberty. For others, they didn’t realize until they were teens. But little kids are being socially transitioned, put on hormone blockers then encouraged to start hormone therapy before they reach the age when gay people say they finally understood they were gay.
Do you know that girls who were socially transitioned but then changed their minds said they felt uncomfortable switching back? They feared being teased if they went back to being a girl. They waited to return to their natal sex until they changed schools in high school. Yet, social transition is treated as if it were benign play acting that a child can just drop if they change their mind.
Do you know that when a child turns 18 they can sign a form at an informed consent clinic and get hormone replacements without therapy? The clinic may recommend therapy, but an 18 year old can turn it down and still get hormones.
Do you know that one of the effects of stress, anxiety and depression can be various forms of dysphoria including gender dysphoria? Did you know that there’s a depression and an anxiety crisis among teens? Interesting how there’s also a big upswing in kids who identify as transgender. Do you know that most adolescents who identify as transgender present concurrent mental health issues? Do you know that when the massive survey of adults who identify as transgenderwas redone in 2015 that not one single question asked about mental health?
Do you know that teen girls, in particular, gather online to share their “oppression identities” and “victim labels” and “beautiful suffering”? In the past the trends were magical beings, furries, and emo. Now it’s trans, autistic, schizophrenic and PTSD. Apparently no one wants to be gay. Gay isn’t cool. And while trans is hardly cool in the larger society, in these private groups where teens share their angst, it is. ‘“No one uses the word ‘lesbian’ any more,” she says. “It’s so uncool. It has really negative connotations.” Rather, these short-haired androgynous girls, many of whom had previously self-harmed, started to identify as boys.’
Despite this, do you know transactivists push to divorce transgender from being a mental health issue? They insist that, like gay people, they don’t need gatekeepers. They know what they feel and it’s transphobic to question them. So, for that reason I won’t bring up Ryan Terry, the autogynephilic trans woman who is so jealous of natal women that she wants to both be them and to destroy them. That would be too TERFy to bring up.
Do you know that people who detransition or desist from being trans get hounded, silenced and ostracized? Transactivists fear that desisters’ voices are dangerous to those who “need” to transition.
“Clearly detransitioners ‘didn’t put enough thought into their identity in the first place,’” say trans allies.
You would think, surely, that therapists now can better identify kids who are not trans. Yet, do you know that affirmation therapy — that is, affirming the child is their stated gender — has taken over care of children who feel their gender is different from their body’s sex? Despite the claim to “NOT push them in any particular direction,” what parents find happens in actual practice is when a child says they’re the opposite gender they’re accepted at their word. Children are supported in socially transitioning. Instead of therapy expanding so the child can explore their changing mind, feelings and body as they grow, therapy has narrowed to support the child’s own belief.
“But if children aren’t affirmed, they’ll commit suicide!” say transactivists.
Do you know that the oft-quoted suicide statistic is based on one question in an online survey? This is a well reasoned analysis of it. The figure is way shakier than the dozen studies of children who desist that the transactivists reject. And yet it’s quoted as if etched in a stone tablet.
Do you know that studies show that rejection — eg, verbal abuse, physical abuse, shaming, throwing a kid out of the house — is the primary factor in questioning kids trying to harm themselves? Of course rejected people are more likely to hurt themselves. Oddly, the advice to not reject children has morphed into don’t disagree. Everyone in the world of a socially transitioned child is reminded firmly to not question the child’s identity.
“So you’d use conversion therapy on them? Are you a member of the Christian right? Or a TERF?”
Conversion therapy is another word like TERF used to shut people up. It implies that saying anything other than, “You’re right!” means you’re saying, “You’re wrong!” There is a whole middle ground between those two. It’s actually possible to support a child’s feelings without agreeing that they’ve come to the right conclusion.
Since it’s likely 90% are gay or bi, treating questioning children as if they were trans is akin to gay conversion therapy. In fact, some are calling it gay eugenics.
There’s something not right going on beneath the support for the Caitlyn Jenners of the world. No one thing is damning. Each seems easily dismissed. But the more one digs, the more dismissals pile up, the louder the silencing cries of TERF!, the more suspicion grows that there’s something hiding behind the support for these kids, teens and adults.
Is it money? There’s definitely money. Hundreds of millions of dollars. In drugs, surgery, the expansion of clinics to serve the (mysteriously?) growing population who identify as transgender.
Is it power? Funny how the previously most-respected therapy approach by Dr Zucker in Canada was steamrollered by the approach promoted by Dr Norman Spack. “Today, clinics for transgender kids in British Columbia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, New York, Hartford, Providence, and Washington, DC, have either been created or expanded. And in almost all of these places is a doctor that Spack has trained, mentored, or guided.”
Is it sex? At the forefront of transactivism are the respectable trans people we have sympathy for. The now Wachowski sisters. Chaz Bono. Andreja Pejić. But back behind them, lurking in the shadows are an awful lot of penises way too insistent that they deserve the right to be in the space set aside for vaginas. And once again, when the vaginas say, “This makes us uncomfortable,” the penises blame the vaginas for not accommodating them.
Are some people trans the way we assume gay is? Do they have a biological difference that causes gender to not match their body’s sex?
We don’t know. It’s respectful to assume Laverne Cox knows what she feels. But without objective studies, we can’t know.
If we were only dealing with mature adults who wanted to be a gender different from their natal sex, it wouldn’t be society’s business. When gay is the issue, society doesn’t have a compelling need to know why two people of the same sex want to get into bed with each other. It’s a private matter.
The same would be true of trans if trans were only mature adults. But when decisions affect 3 year olds who are likely gay but are socially transitioned to the other sex, when it means injecting 10 year olds with hormone blockers and 16 year olds with cross sex hormones, then society does have a compelling need to know more. A lot more.
So are the TERFs promoting hate speech? Or is the cry of TERF! silencing uncomfortable questions?
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Joyce's Response on Quora (if it's still there)
Transgender index page
Public facebook group
(if it's still there)
