邪恶化的美国 变性 不可逆转的伤害

《不可逆转的伤害：引诱我们女儿的跨性别热潮》

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_Damage

Abigail Shrier 于 2020 年出版的书，该书认可了有争议的快速发生性别焦虑症 (ROGD) 的概念。 ROGD 不被任何主要专业机构认可为医学诊断，并且没有可靠的科学证据支持。

Shrier 指出，2010 年代“青春期女孩的变性认同突然、严重激增”，指的是出生时被指定为女性的青少年。她将其归因于“高度焦虑、抑郁（主要是白人）的女孩中的社会传染，这些女孩在过去几十年中患有厌食症、贪食症或多重人格障碍”。施里尔还批评性别肯定精神支持、激素替代疗法和变性手术（通常统称为“性别肯定护理”）作为治疗年轻人性别不安的方法。

人们对这本书的反应褒贬不一。 正面评论大多支持施里尔的论文，而大部分批评则集中在该书对轶事的使用以及其证据的其他问题上。 有人针对这本书进行了多次抵制，因为这本书被描述为反跨性别者，并且使用“她”来指代那些被认为是跨男性和非二元性别的青少年，这是一种性别歧视。

概述

施里尔表示，一位没有明显童年性别不安史的年轻人的母亲联系了她，她在大学时被认定为跨性别者，因此开始调查青少年性别不安。 她描述了她认为出生时被指定为女性（她将其称为“女孩”）的青少年所面临的困难：孤立、在线社会动态、限制性的性别和性标签、不受欢迎的身体变化和性关注。 她介绍了几位在经历心理健康或个人问题时质疑自己的性别认同或出柜的青少年。 [8] 她讨论了丽莎·利特曼 (Lisa Littman) 2018 年关于快速发生的性别焦虑症的期刊文章以及随之而来的争议，并认可利特曼的研究结果。 她表示，Twitter、Tumblr 和 TikTok 等网站上的在线跨性别影响者经常鼓励质疑的年轻人认定自己是跨性别者，尝试绑胸和睾丸激素，并对不支持的家庭成员断绝关系或撒谎。

施里尔批评学校中与跨性别相关的课程和政策。  她描述了父母对孩子的跨性别认同或变性感到苦恼的情况。她批评了性别肯定的护理模式，并介绍了其批评者：Kenneth Zucker、Ray Blanchard、J. Michael Bailey、Lisa Marchiano 和 Paul R. McHugh。施里尔讨论了跨性别行动主义和相关争议，包括特定性别的隐私问题； 超车与跨车能见度； 名人在提高跨性别接受度方面的作用； 跨性别者与女同性恋者或激进女权主义者之间的冲突； 参加女子和女子运动比赛的变性女性/男变女运动员； 使用跨性别语言； 交叉性； 和身份政治。[15] 她认为青春期阻滞剂、跨性别激素和手术等医疗干预措施存在风险。 作为一个例子，她描述了一位因手术失败而致残的变性人。 她还介绍了变性的年轻女性。

背景和出版历史

Shrier 曾就读于哥伦比亚大学和牛津大学，并在耶鲁大学法学院获得法学博士学位。

不可逆转的损害认可的快速发作性别焦虑症 (ROGD) 的争议概念最初由 Lisa Littman 在 2018 年的一篇论文中提出。 ROGD 不被任何主要专业机构认可为医学诊断，并且没有可靠的科学证据支持。

《不可逆转的损害》于 2020 年 6 月由保守派出版商 Regnery Publishing 首次出版。 [20] Blackstone Audio 发行了一本由 Pamela Almand 旁白的有声读物。[21] 在英国，该书由斯威夫特出版社出版，副标题为“少女与跨性别热潮”。 [22] 在 2020 年 7 月接受《乔·罗根经历》采访时，施里尔将变性的愿望称为“传染病”，并将其与饮食失调和自残进行了比较。 [23] 她将跨性别青年与自闭症联系起来。[24] 她的言论引发了 Spotify 员工要求从平台上删除 Rogan 播客剧集的呼吁，[24][25] 但该公司拒绝了这一请求。[26]

Chase Ross 是一名跨性别 YouTuber，曾因《不可逆转的伤害》接受 Shrier 采访，他于 2021 年为自己参与这本书道歉，声称他在这本书的内容和作者的意图方面被误导了。

社会认可

接待
对这本书的反应存在分歧。 《澳大利亚观察家》的 Nick Cater、《经济学人》、《爱尔兰独立报》的 Emily Hourican、《国家评论》的 Madeleine Kearns、《星期日泰晤士报》的 Christina Patterson、《评论》的 Naomi Schaefer Riley 和 Janice 均给予了积极评价 伦敦泰晤士报的特纳。 神学家蒂娜·贝蒂 (Tina Beattie) 在《平板电脑》[22] 中和心理学家克里斯托弗·弗格森 (Christopher Ferguson) 在《今日心理学》博文中对它的评价褒贬不一。 《洛杉矶书评》的莎拉·冯塞卡 (Sarah Fonseca) 和精神病学研究员兼跨性别心理健康研究员杰克·图班 (Jack Turban) 在《今日心理学》博客文章中对这篇文章给予了负面评论。 《科学医学》撤回了医生哈里特·霍尔的正面评论，并随后发表了一系列批评该书的文章。

《经济学人》将《不可逆转的损害》列入 2020 年度最佳图书。《经济学人》称这本书是“第一批对这一主题进行平易近人的论述，引起了广泛的关注”，但也表示主流报纸上对此书的评论并不多。 它称赞施里尔“非常仔细地讲述了她采访的那些人的故事”，但也暗示她可能夸大了青少年接受医疗干预的程度。 马德琳·卡恩斯 (Madeleine Kearns) 与黛布拉·W·苏 (Debra W. Soh) 的《性别的终结》一起评论了《不可逆转的损害》。 她表示，施里尔的书提供了“个人的、好奇的、常常感人的叙述”。 内奥米·谢弗·莱利 (Naomi Schaefer Riley) 写道，施里尔询问似乎突然开始认定自己是跨性别者的青少年“出了什么问题”是正确的。 她赞同施里尔对跨性别医疗保健和在线跨性别活动的批评。 珍妮丝·特纳称这本书“无所畏惧”，评论了围绕它的争议并认可其结论。 [46]

蒂娜·比蒂称这本书是“一项令人不安、令人愤怒且引人注目的研究”。 她批评施里尔使用父母或专业人士的轶事，而这些轶事显然是受试者自己不知道的。 她写道，虽然“施里尔的许多说法可能会受到质疑”，但据报道，青少年发作的烦躁不安病例的增加“应该比目前的情况更加谨慎和不安”。 [22] 克里斯托弗·弗格森写道，施里尔有“一些有效的想法”，他“不愿意完全驳回她的论文”，但她也没有“仔细遵循”科学，并且“高质量、预先注册、开放科学、科学的”。 该领域需要做出努力”。

莎拉·丰塞卡（Sarah Fonseca）谴责这本书的表述、内容和来源。[48] 精神病学家杰克·图尔班 (Jack Turban) 指责施里尔提倡拒绝向跨性别青年提供性别肯定的医疗服务，他称这是几个专业协会拒绝接受的边缘立场。 他还指责施里尔曲解和遗漏了支持她书中主张的科学证据，并批评她根据对父母的采访来描绘跨性别青年，并批评她使用“粗鲁和冒犯性的语言”。

怀疑论者兼医生哈里特·霍尔 (Harriet Hall) 于 2021 年 6 月在《科学医学》网站上发表了对该书的积极评论，指出施里尔“提出了一些迫切需要调查的令人震惊的事实”，以性别肯定为中心的护理“是一种 错误和失职”，并且当前的政治气候使得对这些问题进行科学研究几乎不可能。 该网站的另外两位编辑 Steven Novella 和 David Gorski 采取了史无前例的举措，撤回了这篇评论，该评论在 Skeptic 杂志上重新发表。 [49] 中篇小说和戈尔斯基后来解释了撤回的原因，得出的结论是霍尔和施里尔的主张“没有任何证据支持，并且是对科学证据的严重误读”，并且基于“轶事、异常值、政治讨论、 和精心挑选的科学”。 在接下来的几周内，该网站发表了客座作者兼医生 Rose Lovell 和 AJ Eckert 撰写的一系列关于这本书的文章，其中还批评了这本书的科学错误、精心挑选的数据和错误信息。
历史学家本·米勒将封面设计“白人小女孩的生殖器官被黑洞消灭”与纳粹宣传海报的设计进行了比较。

糟糕的治疗为什么孩子长不大

https://www.abigailshrier.com/

阿比盖尔·施里尔 (Abigail Shrier)， 2024 年 2 月 27 日

几乎从所有可以衡量的方面来看，Z 世代的心理健康状况都比前几代人更差。 青少年自杀率不断攀升，儿童抗抑郁处方很常见，心理健康诊断的激增并没有帮助数量惊人的孤独、迷失、悲伤和害怕成长的孩子……

Bad Therapy Why The Kids Aren't Growing Up

Abigail Shrier ,  Author  February 27, 2024

In virtually every way that can be measured, Gen Z’s mental health is worse than that of previous generations. Youth suicide rates are climbing, antidepressant prescriptions for children are common, and the proliferation of mental health diagnoses has not helped the staggering number of kids who are lonely, lost, sad and fearful of growing…

不可逆转的伤害：变性热潮引诱我们的女儿

Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters 

https://www.amazon.ca/Irreversible-Damage-Transgender-Seducing-Daughters/dp/1684510317

作者：阿比盖尔·施里尔（Abigail Shrier）（作者）2020 年 6 月 30 日

“不可逆转的损害……引发了一场风暴。《华尔街日报》撰稿人阿比盖尔·施里尔做了一件简单却具有毁灭性的事情：她严格地阐述了事实。”

              —贾尼丝·特纳，《伦敦泰晤士报》

直到几年前，性别不安——对一个人的生理性别的严重不适——还极其罕见。 这种疾病通常发生在不到 0.01% 的人口中，出现在幼儿时期，几乎全部是男性。

但如今，全国各地大学、高中、甚至中学的一大群女性朋友都以“跨性别者”身份出柜。 这些女孩在她们的生理性别上从未经历过任何不适，直到她们在学校集会上听到演讲者的出柜故事或发现跨性别“影响者”的互联网社区。

毫无戒心的父母开始觉醒，发现自己的女儿被 YouTube 上的跨性别明星、“性别肯定”教育工作者和治疗师所束缚，他们向年轻女孩推行改变生活的干预措施，包括医学上不必要的双乳切除术和可能导致永久性不孕的青春期阻滞剂。

《华尔街日报》的撰稿人阿比盖尔·施里尔 (Abigail Shrier) 深入研究了跨性别流行病，与这些女孩、她们痛苦的父母、促成性别转变的咨询师和医生，以及“变性者”——那些苦苦挣扎的年轻女性——进行了交谈。 后悔他们对自己所做的事情。

施里尔发现，出柜成为变性人会立即提升这些女孩的社会地位，但一旦她们迈出了变性的第一步，就很难再回头了。 她就父母如何保护女儿提供了急需的建议。

一代女孩正处于危险之中。 阿比盖尔·施里尔（Abigail Shrier）的这本重要著作将帮助您了解跨性别热潮是什么，以及如何让您的孩子免受这种热潮，或者如何将她从这条危险的道路上救出来。
Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters 

https://www.amazon.ca/Irreversible-Damage-Transgender-Seducing-Daughters/dp/1684510317
by Abigail Shrier (Author) June 30 2020

"Irreversible Damage . . . has caused a storm. Abigail Shrier, a Wall Street Journal writer, does something simple yet devastating: she rigorously lays out the facts." —Janice Turner, The Times of London

Until just a few years ago, gender dysphoria—severe discomfort in one’s biological sex—was vanishingly rare. It was typically found in less than .01 percent of the population, emerged in early childhood, and afflicted males almost exclusively.

But today whole groups of female friends in colleges, high schools, and even middle schools across the country are coming out as “transgender.” These are girls who had never experienced any discomfort in their biological sex until they heard a coming-out story from a speaker at a school assembly or discovered the internet community of trans “influencers.”

Unsuspecting parents are awakening to find their daughters in thrall to hip trans YouTube stars and “gender-affirming” educators and therapists who push life-changing interventions on young girls—including medically unnecessary double mastectomies and puberty blockers that can cause permanent infertility.

Abigail Shrier, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, has dug deep into the trans epidemic, talking to the girls, their agonized parents, and the counselors and doctors who enable gender transitions, as well as to “detransitioners”—young women who bitterly regret what they have done to themselves.

Coming out as transgender immediately boosts these girls’ social status, Shrier finds, but once they take the first steps of transition, it is not easy to walk back. She offers urgently needed advice about how parents can protect their daughters.

A generation of girls is at risk. Abigail Shrier’s essential book will help you understand what the trans craze is and how you can inoculate your child against it—or how to retrieve her from this dangerous path.

2021 年 6 月/7 月 | 第 50 卷，第 6/7 期

性别意识形态横行

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/gender-ideology-run-amok/

阿比盖尔·施里尔
作者， Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters《不可逆转的伤害：引诱我们女儿的跨性别热潮》

以下内容改编自 2021 年 4 月 27 日在田纳西州富兰克林举行的希尔斯代尔学院全国领导力研讨会上发表的演讲。

2007年，美国拥有一所儿科性别诊所； 今天有数百个。 来自 Planned Parenthood 和 Kaiser 等机构的青少年很容易获得睾酮，通常是在第一次就诊时，甚至没有治疗师的证明。

我们是如何走到这一步的？ 为什么我们都要假装你知道我是女人的唯一方法就是我告诉你我的代词？ 在美国，华盛顿州的一名 13 岁女孩可以在未经父母同意的情况下开始“性别肯定”治疗，这是如何实现的？ 在美国，俄勒冈州的一名 15 岁女孩可以在未经父母许可的情况下接受“顶级手术”——选择性双乳切除术，这是如何实现的？ 我们能做些什么呢？

***

为了理解我们是如何走到这一步的，首先考虑性别不安是有用的，即对一个人的生物性别感到严重不适的感觉。 性别不安确实是真实存在的。 这也是极其罕见的。 它影响着大约 0.01% 的人口，其中大多数是男性。

在近 100 年的诊断历史中，性别不安通常始于儿童早期，即两岁到四岁之间，并且通常涉及一个坚持认为自己不是男孩而是女孩的男孩。 患有此病的儿童会持续、持续地感觉到自己处于错误的身体中。 无论如何，这都是令人痛苦的——我和许多跨性别成年人交谈过，其中大多数是生理上的男性，他们描述了感觉完全不对劲的身体带来的无情的摩擦。

从历史上看，这一直是性别不安的典型表现。 当这些孩子被单独留下时——没有人进行医疗干预或鼓励我们今天所说的“社会转型”——超过 70% 的孩子会自然而然地摆脱性别焦虑。 大多数长大后不再受这种影响的人都成为了同性恋者。 那些没有长大的人就成为了过去所谓的变性人。 她们不相信自己是女性，但她们觉得以女性的身份出现是最舒服的。

然而今天，我们不会让这些孩子独自一人。 相反，当孩子们看起来不完全女性化或完全男性化时，我们就会给他们贴上“跨性别孩子”的标签。 老师鼓励他们用新名字和新代词重新向课堂介绍自己。 我们带他们去看治疗师或医生，几乎所有人都实行所谓的平权护理——这意味着他们认为自己的工作是确认性别不安的诊断并帮助孩子们实现医学上的过渡。

对这些孩子进行治疗的典型第一步是青春期阻滞剂，它会关闭脑垂体中负责释放催化青春期激素的部分。 这些药物中最常见的是亮丙瑞林，其最初目的是对性犯罪者进行化学阉割。 迄今为止，FDA 从未批准该药物用于阻止健康青春期。

人们不得不想知道为什么父母或医生会采取措施阻止孩子的青春期，因为即使是一个真正患有性别不安的孩子，如果不去管，长大后也很可能会摆脱这种情况。 一些人认为，让孩子经历他们不希望属于的性别的青春期是一种创伤。 但在许多情况下，青春期似乎帮助孩子们克服了性别焦虑。 事实是，鉴于科学家无法预测哪些孩子会自行摆脱烦躁不安，哪些孩子不会，因此没有令人满意的答案。

“平权关怀”的支持者还认为，允许青春期发生是危险的，因为跨性别青少年和跨性别成年人的自杀率非常高。 因此，他们说，我们需要尽快开始治疗患有性别不安的儿童。

然而，没有良好的长期研究表明青春期阻滞剂可以治愈自杀倾向，甚至改善心理健康。 也没有研究表明青春期阻滞剂以这种方式使用是安全的或可逆的。

我们所知道的是，青春期阻滞剂会阻碍第二性征、性成熟和骨密度的发育。 事实上，由于骨密度的抑制和其他风险，医生不喜欢让孩子服用青春期阻滞剂超过两年。

我们还知道，几乎在所有情况下，当孩子的健康青春期在医学上被阻止，使孩子与同龄人格格不入时，孩子就会开始使用跨性别激素。 当女孩服用青春期阻滞剂和跨性别激素时，她就会变得不孕。 鉴于她的性器官从未达到成年成熟度，她也可能患有永久性性功能障碍。

鉴于此，今天许多医生和性别活动人士声称这些针对儿童的医疗过渡措施是安全且可逆的——它们是一个“暂停按钮”，没有严重的缺点——不仅不诚实，而且具有破坏性。 我们不会接受任何其他医学领域的这种油嘴滑舌的推销术。

少女中的跨性别认同

正如我所提到的，在性别不安科学研究近 100 年的历史中，几乎所有的诊断对象都是幼儿，而且大多数是男孩。 但在过去十年中，大量少女开始声称她们患有性别焦虑症。

事实上，在 2012 年之前，还没有关于少女性别不安的科学文献。 时任布朗大学公共卫生研究员的丽莎·利特曼博士使用“快速发生的性别不安”一词来指随后没有性别不安童年史的少女中跨性别认同的突然激增。

这种激增并非美国独有——我们在整个西方世界都看到了这种情况。 仅提供一项统计数据，十年间到英国国家性别诊所寻求治疗的少女人数增加了 4,400% 以上。 在整个西方，少女现在是声称患有性别不安的主要人群。

这背后的原因是社会传染——思想、情感和行为通过同伴影响传播，这是少女分享和传播痛苦的又一个例子。 这一群体的社会传染由来已久——厌食症和贪食症也是通过这种方式传播的。 我们知道，今天的少女正处于有记录以来最严重的心理健康危机之中，焦虑、自残和临床抑郁症的发生率最高。

容易受到这种社会传染的少女同样是高度焦虑、抑郁的女孩，她们在青春期在社交方面挣扎，并且往往讨厌自己的身体。 除此之外，还有一个学校环境，您可以通过声明跨性别身份来获得地位和受欢迎程度。 再加上青少年想要把它粘在妈妈身上的诱惑。 此外，社交媒体也带来了令人陶醉的影响，跨性别活动人士在社交媒体上宣扬这样的观点：认定自己是跨性别者并开始服用睾丸激素可以治愈女孩的问题。 把这些放在一起，你就会看到一种快速传播的社会现象。

我曾与顶尖女子学校的家庭交谈过，他们证明，他们女儿七年级班级中有 15%、20%，甚至在某个案例中 30% 的女孩认为自己是跨性别者。 当你看到这样的数字时，你正在见证一场社会蔓延。 没有其他合理的解释。

这些十几岁的女孩承受着巨大的痛苦。 几乎所有人都曾在某个时候患有饮食失调症、有过割伤行为，或者被诊断出患有其他心理健康合并症。 现在，一家医疗机构允许他们自我诊断性别焦虑症，该机构已决定其工作是肯定并同意跨性别青少年的观点。

视而不见

你可能不知道凯拉·贝尔这个名字。 她是一位英国的年轻女性，在青春期遇到了很多麻烦，在十几岁的时候就急于转型，后来后悔了。 她接受了双乳切除术，并花了数年时间服用睾酮，却发现她的问题从来都不是性别不安。 她起诉了英国国家性别诊所，去年 12 月，高等法院审查了她的案件以及处境类似的原告的诉讼请求后，她胜诉了。

法院审查了适用于凯拉·贝尔的医疗方案（与我们在美国的方案相同），并对一名年轻女孩被允许同意开始消除其未来生育能力和性功能的过程感到震惊。 15 岁，当时她不可能估量这种损失。

贝尔的胜利被《伦敦泰晤士报》、《经济学人》甚至《卫报》誉为“里程碑式的案件”，人们普遍认为贝尔的胜利是对加速少女性别转变的努力的严重谴责。 法院指出的令人震惊的事情之一是，国家性别诊所无法在接受过渡激素治疗的青少年中显示出任何心理改善。

正如我怀疑的那样，如果您还没有读过或听说过凯拉·贝尔案，那是因为美国的传统媒体决定假装该案没有发生。 同样，他们继续忽视或忽视数以千计的“变性者”的故事，这些年轻女性经历了医学变性，后来后悔了，并试图扭转局面。 这些女孩接受的许多治疗都是永久性的，但她们尽其所能试图扭转一些影响。

因此，在美国，这场少女危机被视为政治问题——保守派问题——而不是医学问题。

因此，也许我们这个时代最大的医疗丑闻被视为保守派的关注而被忽视。

对女性运动和安全空间的攻击

任何关于性别意识形态的讨论都不能忽视正在进行的消除女童和妇女体育运动和保护空间的运动。 许多或大多数推动这一趋势的人本身并不是跨性别者。 但他们是积极分子，他们充满活力，而且他们似乎正在取得胜利。

这场运动提倡危险的法案，例如《平等法案》，该法案将使区分生理上的男性和女性成为非法，从而将生理上的男性排除在女子运动队或女性保护空间之外，无论是洗手间、储物柜 房间，或者监狱。 我们现在在加利福尼亚州和华盛顿州都制定了这些法律，正如您可能想象的那样，结果之一是数百名亲生男性囚犯（其中许多是暴力重罪犯）申请转移到女性监狱。

对于推动这一目标的活动人士来说，仅仅为跨性别运动员设立男女通用的浴室、为跨性别运动员设立一个单独的类别，或者在监狱中为跨性别生物学男性设立单独的安全区是不够的。 不，他们正在努力废除所有女性专用空间，而且他们现在就想废除它们。

***

这些主题的共同点是真相被性别意识形态所掩盖。 关于对幼儿进行过渡治疗的风险，人们撒了谎，既是为了淡化这些治疗的危险，也是为了夸大这些治疗已知的帮助程度。 研究人员和记者试图报道接受过渡治疗的少女所面临的社会传染危机，但他们却撒了谎。 关于消除妇女保护空间的运动也存在谎言。

这些谎言背后的性别意识形态是批判种族理论的兄弟。 虽然批评种族活动人士告诉孩子们，他们很大程度上是由肤色来定义的，但性别活动人士却告诉孩子们，性别有很多种，而且只有他们知道自己的真实性别。 正如反对学校种族灌输的家庭被告知，他们对种族主义的否认就是种族主义的证据一样，反对亲生男性参加女子体育运动的年轻女性也被告知，她们的反对是跨性别恐惧症偏执的证据。

这些虚假的教条已经腐蚀了我们的 K-12 学校、我们的大学、我们的传统媒体、我们的科学期刊和我们的医学认证组织——美国儿科学会、美国医学会、美国精神病学协会等。 让你知道事情已经发展到什么程度了，去年年底，美国科学作家协会（一个由具有科学背景的记者组成的协会）的一名成员告诉我，该协会的在线论坛的一名成员因提及我的文章而被开除。 关于少女中跨性别社会传染的书。 他甚至没有读过我的书。 他只是提到这听起来很有趣，因此他因跨性别恐惧症而被禁止。

同样，关注性别干预风险的内分泌学家、精神病学家、儿科医生和研究人员报告说，他们今天很难发表自己的研究成果。 公共和私人的研究资助几乎完全仅限于促进性别转变并淡化风险的研究人员。

现在有一大批年轻医生，其中许多人从事儿科或儿童精神病学工作，他们公开表示自己的主要工作是“社会正义”。 他们毫无保留地庆祝年轻人过渡治疗的增加，并对这些治疗的风险感到不可原谅的自满。 《华盛顿邮报》最近引用了其中一些医生的话，大意是青春期阻滞剂是完全可逆的——这不是任何诚实的医生都可以声称知道的事情。 我们根本没有数据知道青春期阻滞剂在用于阻止健康的青春期时是否在物理上是完全可逆的，而且它们在心理上当然也是不可逆的。 我们看到医学和科学出现了惊人的政治化，这是美国社会更大范围的觉醒腐败的症状。

***

现在，我每次讲话时都会强调一件事，我这么说的原因很简单，那就是这是真的：跨性别成年人是我在记者工作中遇到的最清醒、最善良的人。 他们中的许多人似乎都得到了转型的帮助，他们过着令人钦佩且富有成效的生活。 他们无意伤害妇女或推动儿童转型。 性别意识形态活动家并不代表他们。

我对自由的理解包括这样一种信念，即社会应该允许成年人对自己的生活做出重大决定，其中包括选择接受变性手术。

每当跨性别成年人问我时，我都会使用他或她选择的名字和代词。 在我看来，这是有礼貌且正确的做法。 但是——这是一个很大的但是——我从不撒谎。 这意味着我从来没有说过，也永远不会说，跨性别女性就是女性。 我认为，正如我们所看到的，背诵这个谎言会给妇女和女孩带来不公正和危险的后果。 人云亦云地重复这些谎言既不礼貌也不正确。 这是妇女福利向觉醒的众神怯懦的投降。 这是错误的。

我也经常被问到为什么性别意识形态活动家正在做他们正在做的事情。 例如，告诉小男孩他们可能是女孩，告诉小女孩他们可能是男孩，这有什么可能的理由呢？ 我对答案的最佳猜测是在与去转变者交谈时想到的。 我多次从这些年轻女性那里听到，她们在转型过程中感到愤怒且政治激进。 在性别活动人士的网上指导下，她们经常断绝与家人的关系。 与此相关的是，如果你仔细观察，你会发现在波特兰等城市的 Antifa 队伍中，性别困惑者的数量不成比例。

换句话说，混乱才是重点，这些陷入困境的女孩成为那些寻求招募革命者的人的猎物。 正如批判种族理论的破坏性目标是在种族上分裂美国人一样，性别意识形态的破坏性目标是破坏稳定家庭的形成，而家庭是美国生活的基石。

那么我们该怎么办呢？ 我们如何反击？ 首先，我们要反对对儿童进行性别意识形态灌输。 这样做没有充分的理由，而且确实有害。 我们绝对可以坚持所有的孩子都应该善待彼此，而不是向整整一代人灌输性别混乱的观念。

其次，我们必须克服娇气，在公共场合说真话。 无论我们身在何处，我们都必须拒绝背诵谎言。 我们必须始终清楚地区分变性美国人（通常是优秀的人）和意识形态变性运动，后者旨在扭曲儿童和削弱家庭。

这是一场会让我们的孩子们反对自己的运动，因为它的倡导者知道，没有什么比让我们的孩子对自己造成不可逆转的伤害更大的伤害了，没有比让美国屈服更快的方法了。 推行这种意识形态的人们可能比我们领先了十年。 但现在我认为他们唤醒了沉睡的巨人。 我的书的成功就是一个迹象。 目前正在辩论这些问题的许多州立法机构是另一个问题。

这些是我们的孩子和孙子。 我们的未来取决于我们能否赢得这场战斗。

 

JUNE/JULY 2021 | VOLUME 50, ISSUE 6/7

Gender Ideology Run Amok

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/gender-ideology-run-amok/

Abigail Shrier

Author, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on April 27, 2021, in Franklin, Tennessee, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar.

In 2007, America had one pediatric gender clinic; today there are hundreds. Testosterone is readily available to adolescents from places like Planned Parenthood and Kaiser, often on a first visit—without even a therapist’s note. 

How did we get to this point? How is it that we are all supposed to pretend that the only way you can know I’m a woman is if I tell you my pronouns? How did we get to an America in which a 13-year-old in the State of Washington can begin “gender affirming” therapy without her parents’ consent? How did we get to an America in which a 15-year-old in Oregon can undergo “top surgery”—elective double mastectomy—without her parents’ permission? And what can we do about it?

*** 

To understand how we got to this point, it is useful to begin by considering gender dysphoria—the feeling of severe discomfort in a person’s biological sex. Gender dysphoria is certainly real. It is also exceedingly rare. It afflicts about 0.01 percent of the population, most of whom are male.

For nearly 100 years of diagnostic history, gender dysphoria typically began in early childhood, between the ages of two and four, and usually involved a boy who insisted that he was not a boy but a girl. Children afflicted are insistent, consistent, and persistent in the feeling that they are in the wrong body. It is by all accounts excruciating—I’ve talked to many transgender adults, most of them biological males, who describe the relentless chafe of a body that feels all wrong. 

Historically, this has been the classic presentation of gender dysphoria. When these children were left alone—when no one intervened medically or encouraged what we today call “social transition”—over 70 percent of them naturally outgrew their gender dysphoria. Most of those who outgrew it became gay men. Those who did not outgrow it became what used to be known as transsexuals. They did not believe they were women, but they felt most comfortable presenting themselves as females. 

Today, however, we don’t leave these children alone. Instead, the moment children seem not to be perfectly feminine or perfectly masculine, we label them as “trans kids.” Teachers encourage them to reintroduce themselves to their classes with new names and new pronouns. We take them to therapists or doctors, nearly all of whom practice so-called affirmative care—meaning they think it is their job to affirm the diagnosis of gender dysphoria and help the children medically transition. 

The typical first step in treatment administered to these kids is puberty blockers, which shut down the part of the pituitary gland that directs the release of hormones catalyzing puberty. The most common of these drugs is Lupron, whose original purpose was the chemical castration of sex offenders. To this day, the FDA has never approved this drug for halting healthy puberty. 

One has to wonder why a parent or a doctor would take measures to stop a child’s puberty, given that even a child with genuine gender dysphoria would most likely outgrow that condition if left alone. Some argue that it is traumatizing to let children go through the puberty of the sex to which they do not wish to belong. But in many cases, puberty seems to have helped children overcome gender dysphoria. The truth is that there is no satisfying answer, given that scientists have no way of predicting which children will outgrow the dysphoria on their own and which won’t. 

Proponents of “affirmative care” also argue that allowing puberty to occur is dangerous, because suicide rates for trans-identified youth and trans adults are very high. Therefore, they say, we need to start treating children with gender dysphoria as soon and as dramatically as possible. 

Yet there are no good long-term studies indicating that puberty blockers cure suicidality or even improve mental health. Nor are there studies that show puberty blockers are safe or reversible when used in this manner.

What we do know is that puberty blockers prevent the development of secondary sex characteristics, sexual maturation, and bone density. Indeed, because of the inhibition of bone density and other risks, doctors don’t like to keep children on puberty blockers for more than two years.

We also know that in almost every case when a child’s healthy puberty is medically arrested, placing the child out of step with his or her peers, that child proceeds to cross-sex hormones. And when puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are administered to a girl, she becomes infertile. She may also have permanent sexual dysfunction given that her sex organs never reach adult maturity.

Given this, the claims made by so many doctors and gender activists today that these medical transition measures for children are safe and reversible—that they are a “pause button,” without serious downsides—are not only dishonest, but destructive. We would not accept this sort of glib salesmanship in any other area of medicine. 

Trans Identification among Teenage Girls

As I mentioned, for the nearly 100-year history of scientific study of gender dysphoria, it has been diagnosed almost exclusively in young children, and mostly in boys. But over the last decade, large numbers of teenage girls have begun to claim they have gender dysphoria. 

Prior to 2012, in fact, there was no scientific literature on gender dysphoria arising in teenage girls. Dr. Lisa Littman, then a Brown University public health researcher, used the phrase “rapid onset gender dysphoria” to refer to the subsequent sudden spike in transgender identification among teenage girls with no childhood history of gender dysphoria.

This spike is not unique to America—we see it across the Western world. To offer just one statistic, there has been a decade-to-decade increase of over 4,400 percent in the number of teenage girls seeking treatment at the United Kingdom’s national gender clinic. Across the West, teen girls are now the leading demographic claiming to have gender dysphoria. 

What is behind this is social contagion—the spread of ideas, emotions, and behaviors through peer influence, one more instance of teenage girls sharing and spreading their pain. There is a long history of social contagion with this demographic—anorexia and bulimia are also spread this way. And we know that teen girls today are in the midst of the worst mental health crisis on record, with the highest rates of anxiety, self-harm, and clinical depression. 

The teen girls susceptible to this social contagion are the same high-anxiety, depressive girls who struggle socially in adolescence and tend to hate their bodies. Add to that a school environment where you can achieve status and popularity by declaring a trans identity. Add to that the teenage temptation to stick it to mom. Also add the intoxicating influence of social media, where trans activists push the idea that identifying as trans and starting a course of testosterone will cure a girl’s problems. Put those together, and you have a fast-spreading social phenomenon. 

I’ve spoken to families at top girls’ schools who attest that 15, 20, or in one case 30 percent of the girls in their daughter’s seventh grade class identify as trans. When you see figures like that, you’re witnessing a social contagion in action. There is no other reasonable explanation. 

These teen girls are in a great deal of pain. Almost all of them have at some point dealt with an eating disorder, engaged in cutting, or been diagnosed with other mental health comorbidities. And now they’re being allowed to self-diagnose gender dysphoria by a medical establishment that has decided that its job is to affirm and agree with trans-identified adolescents.

Turning a Blind Eye

You may not know the name Keira Bell. She is a young woman in the U.K., very troubled in adolescence, who was rushed to transition in her teen years and came to regret it. She underwent double mastectomy and spent years on testosterone, only to realize that her problem had never been gender dysphoria. She sued the U.K.’s national gender clinic, and last December, after the High Court of Justice examined her case and the claims of similarly situated plaintiffs, she won. 

The Court examined the medical protocols applied to Keira Bell—protocols identical to the ones we have in the United States—and was horrified that a young girl had been allowed to consent to begin a process of eliminating her future fertility and sexual function at an age, 15, when she could not possibly have gauged that loss.

Hailed as a “landmark case” by The Times of London, The Economist, and even The Guardian, Bell’s victory was widely viewed as a serious condemnation of the effort to fast-track teen girls to gender transition. One of the appalling things the Court noted was that the national gender clinic had been unable to show any psychological improvement in the adolescents it had treated with transitioning hormones. 

If, as I suspect, you haven’t read or heard about the Keira Bell case, that’s because America’s legacy media decided to pretend the case didn’t happen. Similarly, they continue to ignore or dismiss the stories of the thousands of “detransitioners”—young women who underwent medical transition, later regretted it, and attempt to reverse course. A lot of the treatments these girls have undergone are permanent, but they do what they can to try to reverse some of the effects. 

Thus it is that in the United States, this crisis among teenage girls gets treated as a political issue—a conservative issue—rather than a medical one. And so perhaps the greatest medical scandal of our time is dismissed as a conservative preoccupation.

The Assault on Women’s Sports and Safe Spaces

No discussion of gender ideology can ignore the ongoing movement to eradicate girls’ and women’s sports and protective spaces. Many or most of the people pushing this are not transgender themselves. But they are activists, they are energized, and they seem to be winning. 

This movement promotes dangerous bills like the Equality Act, which would make it illegal ever to distinguish between biological men and women—and thus to exclude a biological male from a girls’ sports team or a women’s protective space, whether it be a restroom, locker room, or prison. We have these laws now in California and in the State of Washington—and as you might imagine, one result is that hundreds of biological male prisoners, many of them violent felons, have applied to transfer to women’s units. 

For activists pushing this, it is not enough to create unisex bathrooms, a separate category for trans-identified athletes, or separate safe zones in prisons for trans-identified biological men. No, they are working to abolish all women’s-only spaces and they want to abolish them now. 

***

The common thread running through these topics is that the truth is being obscured by gender ideology. Lies are told about the risks of the transition treatments administered to young children, both to play down the dangers of those treatments and to exaggerate the degree to which those treatments are known to be helpful. Lies are told about the researchers and journalists who attempt to report on the crisis of social contagion among teenage girls undergoing transition treatments. And lies are told about the movement to eradicate women’s protective spaces. 

The gender ideology behind these lies is a sibling of critical race theory. While critical race activists are teaching kids that they are largely defined by their skin color, gender activists are teaching kids that there are a great many genders, and that only they know their true gender. And just as families who object to racial indoctrination in schools are told that their denials of racism are proof of racism, young women who object to biological males participating in girls’ sports are told that their objections are proof of transphobic bigotry. 

These mendacious dogmas have corrupted our K-12 schools, our universities, and our legacy media, as well as our scientific journals and our medical accrediting organizations—the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, etc. To give you a sense of how far things have gone, I was informed late last year by a member of the National Association of Science Writers—an association of journalists with scientific backgrounds—that a member of the association’s online forum had been expelled for mentioning my book on the transgender social contagion among teenage girls. He hadn’t even read my book. He just mentioned that it sounded interesting, and for that he was banned as transphobic. 

Similarly, endocrinologists, psychiatrists, pediatricians, and researchers who are concerned about the risks of gender interventions report that they struggle today to get their research published. And public and private funding of research is almost entirely restricted to researchers who promote gender transition and downplay the risks. 

There are phalanxes of young doctors now, many of them in pediatrics or child psychiatry, who are open about their belief that their primary job is “social justice.” They unreservedly celebrate the increase in transitioning treatment of young people and are inexcusably complacent about the risks of those treatments. The Washington Post recently quoted some of these doctors to the effect that puberty blockers are fully reversible—which is not something that any honest doctor can claim to know. We simply don’t have the data to know whether puberty blockers are fully physically reversible when applied to halt healthy puberty—and they are certainly not psychologically reversible. We’re seeing a startling politicization of medicine and science, which is symptomatic of a larger woke corruption of American society.

***

Now, there’s something I make a point of saying whenever I speak, and I say it for the simple reason that it is true: transgender adults are some of the soberest and kindest people I have met in my work as a journalist. Many of them seem to have been helped by transition, and they are leading admirable and productive lives. They have no desire to harm women or to push transition on children. The gender ideology activists do not represent them. 

My understanding of freedom includes a belief that society should allow adults to make consequential decisions about their lives, which includes choosing to undergo sex reassignment surgery. And whenever I am asked by a transgender adult, I use his or her chosen name and pronouns. This seems to me the courteous and the right thing to do. But—and this is a big but—I never lie. This means I never say, and I will never say, that trans women are women. I think reciting this lie leads, as we are seeing, to unjust and dangerous consequences for women and girls. It is not courteous or right to parrot these lies. It is the cowardly surrender of women’s welfare to the woke gods. And it is wrong.

I’m also often asked why it is that the gender ideology activists are doing what they are doing. What possible justification could there be, for instance, for telling small boys that they might be girls and small girls that they might be boys? My best guess at an answer occurred to me while talking to detransitioners. I heard repeatedly from these young women that while they were transitioning, they were angry and politically radical. They often cut off relations with their families, having been coached to do so online by gender activists. Related to this, if you look, you’ll notice a disproportionate number of gender-confused people among the ranks of Antifa in cities like Portland. 

In other words, chaos is the point, and these troubled girls become prey for those who seek to recruit revolutionaries. Just as the destructive objective of critical race theory is to divide Americans racially, that of gender ideology is to disrupt the formation of stable families, the building blocks of American life.

So what do we do about it? How do we push back? First and foremost, we must oppose the indoctrination of children in gender ideology. There is no good reason for it, and it does real harm. We can absolutely insist that all children treat each other kindly without indoctrinating an entire generation in gender confusion. 

Second, we must overcome our squeamishness and speak the truth in public. Wherever we find ourselves, we must refuse to recite lies. And we must always clearly distinguish between transgender Americans, generally wonderful people, and the ideological transgender movement, which seeks to warp children and weaken families. 

This is a movement that would turn our children against themselves because its advocates know there is no greater harm—no quicker way to bring America to its knees—than by driving our children to do themselves irreversible damage. The people pushing this ideology have gotten a head start on us by perhaps a decade. But now I think they have awakened a sleeping giant. The success of my book is one indication. The many state legislatures that are now debating these issues is another. 

These are our kids and grandkids. Our future depends on our winning this fight.