The trans proliferation – Part II: What’s the rationale for transgender medical treatment and surgery for minors?
[NOTE: Part I can be found here.]
In May, Florida joined over a dozen other states in banning transgender surgery for minors. But it wasn’t all that long ago that minors didn’t have access to such surgery. What was behind the push for extending it to minors in the first place?
Part of it is that the left became far more focused on trans causes because it was the next step after other causes, such as gay marriage, had been won. Social media is another big factor, because the trans movement spreads through the susceptible younger population in that way, particularly among adolescent girls dealing with the conflicts inherent in going through puberty and becoming a woman in an era in which they feel pressured to be sexually active, and are aware – many through internet porn – of some of the more violent and extreme aspects of sexuality. A great many of these young people are gay, and are in retreat from that. There’s also an element of some unknown number of older people with various sexual fetishes encouraging and “grooming” the younger ones, particularly online. And of course, there’s money for pharmaceutical companies, therapists, and doctors.
But there’s a physiological reason, too, and that has to do with the way puberty affects the body, especially the bodies of biological males. Back when most people who identified as trans were adult biological males who described themselves as having felt from early childhood that they were females, it was well known that adult transition could be especially difficult for those men because they often had trouble “passing.” Adult women on testosterone often had a somewhat easier time looking like men even if they had started taking male hormones and had their surgeries in adulthood after puberty, because the growth of facial hair, the prominent Adam’s apple, the deepening of the voice, and the gaining of muscle mass as a result of testosterone in a female is significantly easier than the taking away of those things in a male once they have already occurred post-puberty. Testosterone has a more potent masculinizing effect than estrogen has as a feminizer, especially for post-pubescent adults. And both are dangerous drugs for the opposite sex to take, although that is glossed over by most trans activists and trans activist doctors.
That latter goal – making the adult male-to-female trans person’s voice higher, getting rid of male facial hair, doing away with the heavy musculature of a man – wasn’t really convincingly accomplished by most biological males taking estrogen in adulthood. Once vocal cords have thickened, they don’t thin to female proportions. Once the jaw has grown and male facial features are set, it ordinarily takes heavy-duty plastic surgery to change things and even then it usually doesn’t quite make it (that’s why, for example, Caitlyn Jenner nee Bruce Jenner continues to have a masculine facial “look,” despite extensive facial surgery). And at the time, the vast majority of people identifying as trans were adult men who wanted to transition to female.
There also was a growing idea – although not supported by research (see this, for example) – that suicide in young people with body dysmorphia could be prevented through early medical intervention. And so the idea of having childhood medical treatment with puberty blockers and then hormones, followed in many cases by early “top” surgeries (for girls; otherwise known as double mastectomies) and sometimes (but less often) by early bottom surgeries, became more and more common, more demanded, and more accepted. They were adopted back when they applied mostly to boys wanting to be girls, but since then the vast majority of self-identified young trans people are girls wanting to be boys, a population in which delaying puberty for cosmetic reasons in order to “pass” is not as important as it would be for male-to-female transitioners. But now the social contagion, plus the fact that many websites advise teens what to say to authorities in order to be greenlit for medical transition (threatening suicide works, even if a person isn’t really suicidal), have made it very easy for both sexes to take puberty blockers and sex hormones, and undergo irreversible surgeries.
It is therefore sadly ironic that, for girls, taking testosterone is usually so very good at causing irreversible physical changes that will enable them to more easily pass as males (ordinarily better than taking estrogen works for males wanting to pass as females), because girls who change their minds and de-transition when they are a bit older can often find that, even after stopping the testosterone, they don’t go back to their previous selves and that they now sometimes have trouble “passing” as females, their actual biological sex.
It is a tragic situation, enabled by the left and the supposed health professions, and that is often true even for girls who have not had surgery. To watch de-transitioner videos and hear their deep voices and listen to them talk about permanent changes in their genitalia, their prominent Adam’s apples, their hair loss, and their wider jaws, is to see something both sad and infuriating. And the people to be infuriated with are the members of the medical and therapy professions who allowed this to happen.
The potential dangers are obvious and not always told to these young people, and certainly often not well-understood by them even if they hear them. Informed consent is not possible at those young ages. And many adolescents, especially the girls with late onset gender dysphoria, actually are suffering from other mental disorders such as what used to be known as Asperger’s syndrome and is now known as being “on the autism spectrum.”
The surgeries themselves – difficult and problematic at best – have special problems when done early, after puberty blockers have been given. Apparently, it turns out that going through normal puberty is usually vital for psychosexual development. To be blunt, with the taking of puberty blockers, many of these young people never develop normally to the point of having orgasms and later cannot do so even when taken off the blockers. Even with “just” hormones, there can be fertility problems and bone density problems, and even cardiovascular problems. To be blunt again, biological boys who have been medically blocked from going through puberty tend to not have enough penile material to accomplish bottom surgery (the creation of a fake vagina) in the usual way it’s done for adults. I could go on, but I think you get the idea without my getting even more graphic.
At least adults can be assumed to have informed consent, but that simply isn’t true for teenagers. And their parents are often counseled by health professionals who say that, if they don’t consent, their children are likely to kill themselves. Even the most reluctant sometimes consent when they are told that.
Now we have the backlash of states banning the surgical procedures for minors. Some also ban hormone therapy for minors, as well. These laws have predictably met with fierce resistance from the left and trans activists, for obvious reasons. Leftist “progress” is not supposed to be rolled back in this way.
One interesting wrinkle in all of this is that I have yet to meet a therapist who approves of the medicalization of the treatment of children who say they are transgender, and that includes all the therapists I know who are liberal Democrats or on the left, and I know plenty of them. The ones I know tend to be older or even retired, and they were trained under a very different system long before medical treatment and “gender affirmation” for minors were ever contemplated. But despite their current disapproval of these methods, they still vote reliably Democrat, and for the most part – actually, in every case so far – they were unaware of the devastation these treatments can wreak until I told them. And these developments are not nearly enough to change their minds and convince them to vote for anyone on the dread right. I plan to work on that a bit by talking to them more; should be interesting.
NOTE: I plan to write a Part III.
This article should be required reading in every middle school/junior high school.
You’ve done your homework. Keep going. Your articles may save some from a train wreck.
Chris Rufo has a good article on the U of Oregon ‘Gender surgeon” in City Journal.
The program is led by Blair Peters, a self-described “queer surgeon” who sports neon-pink hair, uses “he/they” pronouns, and specializes in vaginoplasty (the creation of an artificial vagina), phalloplasty (the creation of an artificial penis), and “non-binary” surgeries, which nullify the genitals altogether. Peters and his colleagues have pioneered the use of a vaginoplasty robot, which helps efficiently castrate male patients and turn their flesh into a “neo-vagina.”
The OHSU used to be a highly respected institution. Al Starr began heart valve replacement surgery there. The last chairman I knew was Don Trunkey who had a lot to do with getting trauma care going. Here’s an obituary on Trunkey.
Al Starr is still with us at 97.
What a disgrace to see this after those great men.
Very important topic, Neo; and IMHO you’ve covered it well. Call me old-fashioned but I think much of the underage trans stuff is nothing short of evil. Inexcusably so; as you say, informed consent is not possible, and without it we are talking about gratuitous, irreversible and futile mutilation. The med mal litigation that flows from these atrocities is going to be epic, well-deserved, but far too late.
Once it became verboten to classify mental health problems as mental health problems, it was impossible to exercise logic.
Very informative, thank you. Good for you for making your acquaintances aware of the dangers of medical transition. Good luck helping them understand the political implications.
Another booming surgical subspecialty is penile enlargement, also called male augmentation. While it has nothing to do with transgender issues, as men seeking penile enlargement accept their birth sex, it is another case of surgery held out as therapy for a mental obsession. Most of the following article deals with a specific surgical implant called the Penuma and the miseries of patients who had it implanted, but it also discusses other methods of penile enlargement and the relationships among the surgeons who like to be known as “dick docs.” The article was co-published by Pro Publica and the New Yorker, so consider the source(s), but it’s an eye-opener about an apparently common male obsession: https://www.propublica.org/article/penis-enlargement-enhancement-procedures-implants
If Mike K is still on this thread, I’d be interested in his reaction to both the issue of male augmentation and the linked article.
There’s the IQ (Intelligence Quotient).
Then there’s the PQ (Perversity Quotient).
And then there’ the SQ (Subversion Quotient).
Lots of very “intense” people out there with stupefyingly high SQs (which, truth to tell, overlap quite significantly with high PQs).
On occasion, subversion can be useful…but when subversion becomes the norm (and IF God has been given a pink slip), then kiss society good-bye.
+Bonus:
An important article from a transperson with eyes wide open…an operating conscience…and a head screwed on right (all things considered)….
“The Hidden Side Of ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ Driving Transgender Mental Health Problems And Suicide”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/hidden-side-gender-affirming-care-driving-transgender-mental-health-problems-and-suicide
Opening grafs:
“Wearing a black cowboy hat, a red “America First” T-shirt, and a silver cross, you would never know Matt Rey was born female.
“At 24, Rey transitioned from female-to-male (FTM). Now 32, Rey is experiencing serious health complications resulting from an overprescription of testosterone and a mastectomy.
Oops. Forgot to include this important part:
“…Rey is part of a growing number of “detransitioners” returning to the gender of their birth—now warning youth considering “gender-affirming care” not to do it….”
What’s the rationale for any ‘treatment’ of soi-disant ‘transgenders’?
If Mike K is still on this thread, I’d be interested in his reaction to both the issue of male augmentation and the linked article.
I had some experience, when still in practice, with penile implants for impotence, otherwise known as “Erectile Dysfunction.” A urologist friend started doing the inflatable type and I assisted on a few. This was well before the days of Viagra and the other nitric oxide related drugs. Since then I have been retired from surgery and have no experience with the present issues.
But Neo, you should know by now that all your rational arguments have no effect on your standard Democrat. It’s all about feeling virtuous and being part of the group.
physicsguy:
Most Democrats I know are not in favor of child abuse.
Neo, I’m glad you’re writing about this topic. I get so angry thinking about adults doing these Mengele procedures on their kids that I really have trouble discussing it rationally.
Neo, then like you said, why do they keep voting for the party that promotes such child abuse and mutilation??????
physicsguy:
They either don’t believe it’s a partisan party thing, and/or they believe it’s the exception to the basic rrule that in general Democrats are good and Republicans are bad.
I still have trouble wrapping my mind around this issue.
I see Caitlyn Jenner on TV and it leaves me stupefied and horrified. How can he/she, a star athlete, a father of children, and a celebrity success; decide that he’s always wanted to be a woman? It just doesn’t compute.
There have always been these mental aberrations among humans, but the numbers have always been small. Gays have generally migrated to cities where there were other gays they could associate with and have sex with. The gay marriage issue was mostly about insurance issues for gays afflicted with AIDS. I understand that Obama put trans medical care in Obamacare. That seems to be where a lot of the money for this is coming from.
Our daughter is a therapist who will no longer take child trans cases because the medical community here in Washington is onboard with the treatments and there’s a lot of pressure on therapists to rubber stamp the patients as suicidal unless they get the medical treatments. She’s afraid the next step will be to cancel her license unless she “does the right thing.” Is it any wonder people are leaving blue sates in large numbers?
It appears that the red states are going to be the bulwarks against this unless there’s a conservative tidal wave in 2024. Chances of that – not great.
Neo-Beautiful, thoughtful essay. Especially about the irreversibility of testosterone effects.
stan is very precise, ” Once it became verboten to classify mental health problems as mental health problems, it was impossible to exercise logic.”
To an old MD,sex-change surgery of the young is as awful as Dr. Mengele was. It is grotesque and obscene. The pink-haired freako docs who do the trans stuff are as mentally ill as the kids they destroy. They should be arrested and imprisoned.
Our Dem governor just vetoed the bill to outlaw sex-change medications and surgery for minors, but the legislature will override next week.
I simply cannot understand how people can promote these medications and procedures. It wasn’t too long ago that all the right people were agitating against the genital mutilation of little Muslim girls, which is done to them to prevent them from ever experiencing sexual satisfaction. And now so many people are promoting medical and surgical procedures to render both girls and boys infertile and unable to experience normal sexual relations, making these decisions for them when the children are far too young to understand the consequences.
One need not be a conservative Christian to call this evil.
I’ve followed Blaire White since initial transitioning and so have been aware of all this for years. Does nothing to dim the horror though.
Blaire, Buck Angel (not the porn star), Ella Grant have always led the charge against child manipulation in all forms. (especially the first two).
The evil behind this movement cannot be overstated.
Cicero: No, the kids are confused and ignorant, the “doctors” are consciously mutilating children. FAR more mentally ill.
Neo:
Your treatment of sex change surgeries and hormone replacement therapies has been refreshingly clear and objective. Regrettably, I’m afraid it’s preaching to the choir. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. If enough people in the choir wake up, more conservative states might pass legislation banning such procedures for minors. Can you hear a “but … ” coming?
Even though I count myself among the choir, in your minor dispute with physicsguy, I tend to sympathize with his perspective. Most of my work life has been spent at colleges and universities, as has his. We’ve both seen, with issue after issue, no matter how illogical or immoral, the Stalinist technique of thought control. Specific thoughts don’t matter much; it’s the control that they care about. Those who don’t comply are targeted, and their careers and lives are first threatened, and then ruined. On this issue, I don’t think that either the faculty or the administrative staff really care too much about the poor young souls truly stricken with gender dysphoria–likely a tiny number of people. University leftists have played an instrumental role in spreading the social contagion of transgender identification among young people. In doing so, they whip up a righteous mob to attack any objectors. Those who don’t have a rainbow sticker on their office doors are the first targets. Believe me, if you were a university professor or administrative staff, your career would not survive what you’ve written here today.
Am I saying that this is a partisan issue for the Left? Yes, that’s what I’ve seen, and it’s what I’ve heard from the few people I know who will talk about it. I’m happy to hear that your friends, in the Democrat Party, don’t see it as partisan, but that’s not my experience. Also, if it weren’t partisan, would this have become the most divisive political issue of our time?
As I look over my comment for typos, I have to wonder whether it’s worth posting. My disagreement with what you’ve written is trivial, but I’m afraid most people have no idea how bad the universities have become, and I’m using today’s post as an opportunity to vent. Apologies to your readers.
Cornflour:
Your disagreement with me seems based on a misunderstanding of what I’m saying.
You are writing about leftist activists, who are an entirely different kettle of fish from the people I know and am speaking about, who are Democrats but not especially active in politics or any of these causes. The people I know (for the most part, anyway), are not especially politically oriented, are not informed of the details, and are merely living their lives and thinking that, generally, Democrats are the good guys. For the most part they are entirely unaware of the motives and beliefs of the leftist activists who now control so much of the Party.
I see Caitlyn Jenner on TV and it leaves me stupefied and horrified. How can he/she, a star athlete, a father of children, and a celebrity success; decide that he’s always wanted to be a woman? It just doesn’t compute.
==
Here’s a hypothesis: the whole business would go away if the professional organs of the medical guild said no, backed up by state law. This is a case of supply generating demand.
}}} heavy musculature of a man
Also bone structure. Men typically have heavier and thicker bones, as well. Their hands are larger, with thicker digits, and their feet are larger as well.
While there are women built like fullbacks, they generally are not considered particularly feminine.
Trans has been around for a while, for sure. I recall, back in the early-mid 80s, walking from a friend’s house to a nearby convenience store (prob half a mile through a semi-urban/commercial area), at about midnight. We passed a black… ummm… man with shoulder-length or better hair wearing a frilly blouse and (it was dark, so presuming) female slacks. The face, however, was very obviously mannish. I smiled after we’d passed him.
After we’d gotten far enough away to be out of earshot, my friend, who was about 4y younger than me, about 20yo, said, “Was that what I think it was?” I smiled and concurred with his query. It wasn’t anything negative or anything derogatory, we were just both amused, it wasn’t a typical sight to see in that area.
Neo comments on the difficulty of biological males “passing” as women following hormone therapy and surgery: “Once the jaw has grown and male facial features are set, it ordinarily takes heavy-duty plastic surgery to change things and even then it usually doesn’t quite make it (that’s why, for example, Caitlyn Jenner nee Bruce Jenner continues to have a masculine facial “look,” despite extensive facial surgery).”
I mentioned James/Jan Morris’s book Conundrum in one of Neo’s posts some while back. Morris (1926–2020) transitioned in 1964 at the age of 38– after he had served in a cavalry regiment of the British Army toward the end of WWII, accompanied the 1953 Mount Everest expedition as a journalist, and married and fathered five children. I have seen old photos of Morris in his military uniform as well as the photo that appears on his Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Morris), and while “Jan” “passes” as a woman rather better than Rachel Levine or Jennifer Pritzker, you can still see James’ face in Jan’s facial features.
The only MtF person I can think of who passed readily as a woman is Christine Jorgensen, who said that she had been frail as a child, was only 5′ tall, weighed less than 100 pounds at high school graduation, and was sexually underdeveloped. It was this last factor that made her wonder whether she was meant to be a woman, and so she sought hormone therapy and surgery. I’m thinking that only underdeveloped biological males with a slender body build can transition successfully, if “successfully” means passing as female to casual observers.
To be blunt, with the taking of puberty blockers, many of these young people never develop normally to the point of having orgasms and later cannot do so even when taken off the blockers.
–neo
That’s my understanding.
What I don’t understand is why that’s not immediately “Game Over.”
Maybe I’m being TMI here. But aren’t orgasms one of the top benefits of being human?
How does one trade-off the ability for a full orgasm against (maybe) being (somewhat) more comfortable (someday) with one’s gender presentation?
huxley:
I think that, if they’ve never had an orgasm, they wouldn’t know what they’re missing. But they DO know they felt sad and miserable about their bodies before. They also wouldn’t know that they would have been likely to grow out of that had they just waited.
In the above comment, autocorrect had immediately changed the word “orgasm” to “organization. “
I think that, if they’ve never had an orgasm, they wouldn’t know what they’re missing.
neo:
I was thinking of the authorities, medical and otherwise, who presumably have experienced orgasms and would miss them.
Yet they seem to have no compunctions about crippling children with orgasm-less futures.
I find that horrifying.
I don’t know if there’s anything to this. But men have become afraid of telling women how much they admire them. Maybe women don’t hear often enough from men how beautiful they are.
No. Just because I want to compliment a woman doesn’t mean I want to rape her.
“Yet they seem to have no compunctions about crippling children with orgasm-less futures.
I find that horrifying.” huxley
Yep. So mind-blowingly horrifying that only Cornflour’s explanation of the overriding motivation behind it makes any sense. It’s about power and mind control.
I never understood how the Communists could control populations. I never believed America would be falling under their spell. Yet here we are.
huxley–
Sadly, there are a lot of psychopaths out there who crave wielding life-altering power over other people. Some go into politics for that reason; others go into medicine because they think it will give them power over life and death itself. I have a psychiatrist friend from church who refers to the “M.Deity” syndrome, i.e., the desire to play God with patients’ lives. And what could be more godlike to some of these creeps than to alter children’s bodies and deprive them forever of normal sexual experiences? Yes, it is truly diabolical, and it horrifies me as much as it does you.
I served in the Navy before women could be assigned to warships. Yes, I’ve heard all the jokes, thank you. But they could occasionally ride ships temporarily. I remember one time I left my workshop and took 2 steps. It hit me like a ton of bricks. There are women here. I followed my nose and sure enough. No man can replace a woman
When one remembers what SS doctors did, and the demonicaly evil thing the doctors of the Imperial Japanese Army’s Unit 731 did along similar lines of surgical experimentation, one tends to see very little difference in what these surgeons are doing to their child victims.
What these gender swapping surgeons are doing would have been treated as war crimes against humanity.
We should also remember how we dealt with those German and Japanese surgeons.
It wasn’t exactly a scent or fragrance. I could just detect girl. It was a beautiful thing.
huxley; PA Cat; SCOTTtheBADGER:
I think some are power-drunk and just don’t care. But some truly believe they are saving these children from suicide and helping them fulfill their desired destinies as best as can be achieved. Or they think that sexual pleasure will come in time (and that may be true for some). One more thing is that, because the practice of administering puberty blockers and then hormones and then surgery, in an unbroken stream on fairly young kids, is a relatively new practice, and the doctors started it out without a lot of controls, and some of these bad effects have only emerged and become clear over time as more children become the “experiments,” the numbers of damaged kids and the extent of the damage hasn’t been so apparent until recently, when the de-transitioners have come “out of the closet” in fairly large numbers.
I am NOT making excuses for the doctors, whom I think acted with reckless disregard for the effects of their interventions. But I don’t think they knew the full horror, and their patients often didn’t tell them.
And…
https://redstate.com/streiff/2023/07/06/shocker-transgender-military-members-are-exempt-from-fitness-and-weight-standards-n771988
Scott, I latgely try to avoid the Nazi comparisons. But the Mengele comparison has frequently struck me. Maybe I shouldn’t admit this but of I were on a jury and someone who had been butchered as a child…
I’ll just shut up.
And…
https://www.city-journal.org/article/oregon-health-science-universitys-castration-machine
I’d of course follow the law.
I am NOT making excuses for the doctors…
neo:
I think you’ve been great.
It’s just the sort of discussion where if one always qualified all the possibilities, it would become interminable.
Neo @ 11:19: “…some are power-drunk and just don’t care. But some truly believe they are saving these children…”
“Noble cause corruption” is a thing. And IMHO it is a particularly evil thing, because not only do you get to do whatever you want, whether or not others find it utterly illegal and immoral; you also get that incredible buzz of being DEEPLY RIGHT. You are doing God’s work. You are a shining instrument of Cosmic Truth.
IMHO it’s a distinct pathology, foreclosing any effort to challenge one’s actions or motives. There is not, can’t be, any check or correction. In fact, the more powerful the objections you face, the more confirmed you are in your course. Full steam ahead; and that child on the operating table is part of your sacrament.
Evil.
I did not mean to imply that you were making excuses. You are reporting, rather well, the facts of what is being done to some rather mixed up kids, by some very evil people on the Left.
Just found a new article over at Quillette titled “A State of Parental Dysphoria”– It’s written by a Canadian mother of a child on the autism spectrum who is trying to protect her child from irreversible decisions when others (referred to as “the village”) think they know better: “Parental dysphoria involves the extended state of having to stay silent about something that you know will lead to tragedy, because you don’t want to lose your child, your friends, your extended family, and your marriage—everything you’ve worked to build. You do this to preserve some small chance of having an impact, to keep your child close enough to eventually help them find their way out of this delusion. It’s living with fear—fear of loss, fear of estrangement, fear of losing your own mind, fear of losing your integrity by denying your own instincts. Those who suffer from this condition, myself included, know this to be the most awful feeling you’ve ever experienced in your life.”
She is speaking from the standpoint of a liberal progressive who now feels betrayed by the values she taught her children: “It’s the horror of being told by your other child, the one who serves as the pronoun police in your home, that you are the one who isn’t loving and supportive. It’s the shame of realizing that you’ve lost your ability to be the adult in the room. It’s feeling that the liberal, progressive values you instilled in your children are being used against you in a way you could never have seen coming. It’s disheartening, destabilizing, and destructive.”
The entire article is well worth reading: https://quillette.com/2023/07/06/a-state-of-parental-dysphoria/
She is speaking from the standpoint of a liberal progressive who now feels betrayed by the values she taught her children:
–PA+Cat
_________________________
We are tribal. If you leave the tribe or you are expelled, you might die.
That’s less true today, but it’s in our DNA.
Gang it seems to me the glaring omission here is the nature of evil.
There is no “rationale” for it.
“The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy…” – John 10:10 in part.
Evil is by nature only corruptive. The father of lies can only lie.
Humans have motives. Evil is its own motivation.
“Testosterone has a more potent masculinizing effect than estrogen has as a feminizer.”
I never considered that thoughtful assertion.
“that suicide in young people with body dysmorphia could be prevented through early medical intervention”
I have never believed the claim that gender-confused minors are more susceptible to suicide than their cohort.
Any attempt to convince parents that their minor child might commit suicide if they do not ‘affirm’ their child’s confusion is engaging in a form of extortion and should be rejected outright.
“because girls who change their minds and de-transition when they are a bit older can often find that, even after stopping the testosterone, they don’t go back to their previous selves”
I watched a video in which a pubescent girl had started taking testosterone through puberty, and then de-transitioned after puberty. Perhaps I saw that video here on Neo’s site. Her voice was still deep and clearly male, and was unlikely to return to a female tenor. Such sorrow.
“Informed consent is not possible at those young ages”
In most jurisdictions, tattoo artists are not allowed to provide their services to minors without express parental consent.
Suggested text of bill for all state legislatures: “Any parent, guardian, or Doctor, who takes any action that results in the sterilization of a minor, shall be imprisoned for the rest of their life.” – Erronius
Huxley, regarding the denial of the ability to have an orgasm:
What I don’t understand is why that’s not immediately “Game Over.”
Such a succinct and undeniable phrasing that I intend to steal it, without attribution. Cheers Huxley!
Great post Neo!
Erronius
They are teaching people how to hate.
And they are extremely successful.
I have no doubt that the Covid-19 scam plays a large part of this…together with the ubiquity, and instantaneity, of Social Media (which should be retagged as Asocial Media, actually)
And, yes, they are also teaching kids how to hate…
…once again with great success, in fact kids learn/absorb/imbibe these things even faster…so that kids may, in fact, be their primary target.
And with all the “special” medication being doled out hand over fist (not to mention the Fentanyl/Tranq crisis, generally) and the “victimization” that’s being indoctrinated indiscriminately, they are making a significant number of these transitioners walking timebombs.
Which, I believe is the point…or a large part of it.
Let in as many illegal immigrants as possible…and ensure that as many people who are already citizens feel as alienated as possible from their country.
In other words, a two-pronged attack—make it three when you add the inflation rate and hyper-financial insecurity.
In fact, they have been trying to pry open the Gates of Hell.
Alienation and hatred being the name of the game…
(Didn’t someone already mention “evil”?)
THIS IS A CONFRONTATION WITH EVIL, more than even abortion. Instead of centering debate on the point of original person hood, were asked to abide by an ontology based on lies and promoting mutilation as the cure!
We mat as well bring back the castrato male tenors aping females and call is good.
HOW IS THIS TIME ANY DIFFERENT THAN THAT?
Only that in those ag and animal husbandry times, castration had useful services of neutering a beast under management, rendering them more docile and subservient.
Today’s “animal-human husbandry” is too similar.
Surely there are parallel arguments in the “Animal Rights” literature that will be deployed and deepened here — and more compellingly.
And now so many people are promoting medical and surgical procedures to render both girls and boys infertile and unable to experience normal sexual relations
Convenient for their future sexual “partners,” innit? No pregnancy risk, no need to – what’s a good euphemism here? – “take care of” your “partner”‘s pleasure, and you have a young, insecure (obviously) person who doesn’t know what an actual relationship with a partner can be, who is now taking your word for it that what you two have together is “beautiful” and “special.”
Many years ago I read Lolita. From time to time, scenes come back to me, like traumatic flashbacks – damn you, Nabakov! I’ll never be free of the low-level, grinding horror of that book. These days, the flashback I’ve been experiencing most often is one in which Humbert makes some kind of advance at the by-now-“experienced” Lo, and she sighs and murmurs, “Not again…” This is what I see as the motivation of the adults who turn young people into sex toys. They, like Humbert, tell themselves it’s for the kid’s good, the kid will be happier, but in fact they’re out for their own pleasure, physical or psychic. The kid is just… a… toy.
..relatively new practice, and the doctors started it out without a lot of controls, and some of these bad effects have only emerged and become clear over time…
ISTR a time when the Precautionary Principle was the progressives method of shutting down pretty much anything. Whatever happened to it?
My experience with left-leaning acquaintences is much different than neo’s. I suspect my left-leaning acquaintenances may be younger, 30’s and 40’s. Whatever the reason, they are completely on-board with childhood “transitioning” and utterly convinced that anyone who would oppose that is a knuckle-dragging bigot. As pathetic as it sounds, I believe that, for many of them, this issue is one of the deepest sources of meaning in their lives. A crusade against backward bigots who oppose “The Science” is a thrill. If those “bigots” are Christian, it is all the easier to hate them.
I think it is inevitable that the current childhood “transition” craze is going to be exposed for the horror show debacle that it is, most likely when the dollars available to plaintiff’s lawyers get big enough to overcome the social stigma of crossing the LGBTQ+ brigade. There are some very deep pockets that are going to end up on the right hand side of the “v.”
But I worry about my acquaintences. This hits on neo’s “changer” topic. How does one face evidence that an issue that quite literally brought meaning to one’s life is actually a lie that did horrific damage to children? I think the clearest answer is, one doesn’t. One ingores the evidence and continues on in fantasy land as long as possible. That’s what scares me the most
It started with “the war on boys;” ADHD, medication to tranquilize them for the benefit of the teachers; their disruptive behavior, is harming the education of the girls and their own learning.
Now they are after both sexes of children; groomers gonna groom. They are assisted by media, psychiatry, physicians, and predominantly leftist Democrats. The teachers are all in, it seems. They are, after all, those most coveotus of the children. Parents are the problem.
we come back to the Eternal truths spoken by paul of Tarsus, man knows the truth, and he denies it, god lets him to his delusion, the Supreme Court starting with Evenson in 1947 by KLan Justice Hugo Black, perhaps the third worst Justice after Taney and Brown who shepherded Plessy denied that truth to now three generations of school children, and so the Old Gods have returned (in Jonathan Cahns words) the latest is the Chimera phenomenon, men and women who have been twisted like shelley’s creation are those who accept it,
Masterful work by Neo–as usual. For those with the stomach to finish it.
Good piece in American Greatness via Instyhttps://amgreatness.com/2023/07/06/can-rfk-overcome-the-confirmation-bias-of-american-roulette-survivors/
Starts out about RFK, jr and his jousting with the Medical Industrial Complex. Then gets to the corruption of same.
Refers to an “explosion” of autism. Is there an explosion of autism or do we have differing diagnostic standards or more public concern instead?
Neo’s friends put me in mind of what I think I saw during the Covid thing. There’s French word starting with “soup” and meaning a bit added for flavor. But I’m having trouble with autowhosits.
Four governors put the infected into nursing homes and killed hundreds of the vulnerable, if not thousands. But who’s the villain of the whole thing? Desantis, because he didn’t make people do obviously stopid stuff.
You could cast “Springtime for Hitler” more easily from Americans than I had hoped.
What makes it stupid. A German meta-analysis demonstrates that lockdowns did no good–with immeasurable harm.
A Lancet piece says vaccine and mask mandates made no difference, which means either the items were useless or the mandated compliance and the voluntary compliance were about the same.
So obviously, both in real time and in retrospect, stupid stuff
But who’s the villain?
The connection with doing the Mengele thing to kids is…does it horrify normal people? Check. Are republicans against it? Check. Do celebrities, many of whom we never knew existed, promote it? Check.
Does it make people do–which is to helplessly accept they cannot do anything about it and better not even say anything about it?–stupid stuff? Check. Does it make one feel powerful and virtuous to insist on it? Check.
It is not, as it was not with Covid, necessary to know the least little thing about it to insist on stupid, counteintuitive actions as darn near mandatory.
My point is that the reality or realities, the science, the history, the actual results as we go, and even common sense are, for a distressingly large number of people, unnecessary as long as the preceding graf’s checks are checked. And the subject–global warming included–can be torqued to include the checks.
“.. it was the next step after other causes…”
Exactly right. Progressives, by definition, believe in Progress, which (also by definition) requires change. They can never choose to support the status quo on any issue because that would make them Conservatives.
And IMHO it is a particularly evil thing, because not only do you get to do whatever you want, whether or not others find it utterly illegal and immoral; you also get that incredible buzz of being DEEPLY RIGHT. You are doing God’s work. You are a shining instrument of Cosmic Truth.
I think you hit the mark there.
“If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.”
Christine Jorgensen might have been successful in “passing as a woman” but “she” died of prostate cancer. You can’t fool mother nature.
Barbie knows… or doesn’t
https://gellerreport.com/2023/07/erasing-women-live-action-barbie-movie-to-showcase-trans-biological-male-as-barbie.html/
Mike K, I think there are health risks for both sexes from taking cross-sex hormones.
“’M.Deity’ syndrome”
That’s good!
I recently heard an interview* with a man who sometimes lectures on Christianity on college campuses. He said during the question section he often has atheists approach the microphone acting hostile, so he’ll ask them one question: “If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?” He says they steadfastly state, “No.”
I think this is that same, human trait. I saw it most personally during the COVID pandemic. For many it wasn’t about reasoned debate, calmly looking at data and statistics. It was a uniform to wear. Governor Cuomo was correct. Ron DeSantis was wrong. Or vice versa. Team Democrat, team Republican, team cynic, team patriot…
* at the 36:50 mark, here: https://youtu.be/1ggnhLrnyPI
Neo:
Congratulations on an excellent post, and on writing it like it is. I think too often people avoid writing something they fear might offend. Then how do readers learn. I learned a lot from this essay. And from many comments, thanks to all.
One would be hard pressed to find a subject that comes with so many taboos and so much rolling of the eyes than human sexuality. Add to that Americans’ dissatisfaction with their looks and our conviction that science, working through the medical profession, can fix human flaws, and you have a recipe for enormous failure at huge human cost. That is clearly where we’re headed.
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Rufus
Four governors put infected people into nursing homes, knowing the inevitable results.
The villain? Ron DeSantis because he didn’t make people do stupid stuff.
Stupid? As was obvious from the get-go and confirmed by a German meta-analysis, lockdowns did no good and immeasurable harm. Thus, we need more lockdowns.
Lancet tells us mask and vaccine mandates made no difference. Could be because masks and vaccines made no difference, or that voluntary compliance was about the same as mandated compliance, or both. Hence, we need more mandates.
I am not sure that is completely related to the hostile atheists you describe. Could be because when terrified of some looming catastrophe–see global warming–nobody’s satisfied with a take-two-aspirin-and-call-me-in-the-morning solution. Only severe to the extent of being counterintuitive ranging out to obviously stupid can satisfy the fear.
So we need more fear.
Where am I going with this….? Huh.