I mostly agree with this, but find this part annoying:
> "HRT, puberty blockers, and sexual reassignment surgery are not risk-free. HRT can increase the risk of blood clots, stroke, heart problems, high blood pressure, diabetes, and even infertility. Puberty blockers like Lupron can cause mood disorders, depression, and osteoporosis."
...specifically, I hate the framing "are not risk free". Consider the following three drugs:
- Drug 1 increases depression risk 60%, stroke risk 150%, and blood clot risk 200%
- Drug 2 increases cancer by 10%, liver disease 100%, and hypertension 30%
- Drug 3 increases osteoporosis by 150%
Do you have any strong opinions on which drug is better or worse?
Drug 1 is the oral contraceptive pill, Drug 2 is light to moderate healthy drinking well within the recommended guidelines, Drug 3 is puberty blockers
(I didn't include the mental health / depression side effects of puberty blockers because I couldn't find any studies that tried to quantify them - all studies I could find said the positive effects on mental health so outweighed the negative that it was impossible to get a nonanecdotal quantification of the negative - though my search was weak and might have missed something).
I think in a politically neutral world with no isolated demands for rigor, there's no way we would have settled on "anyone can take Drug 1 if they want to have consequence-free sex", "any adult can take Drug 2 if they think it's fun, and we turn a blind eye when teens use it without a prescription", and "no doctor may prescribe Drug 3, even for cases where someone is high risk of suicide without it, and state legislatures might specifically ban doctors from doing this".
Everything we do has risk, even driving cars and waking up in the morning. I have yet to find any attempt to quantify puberty blocker risks that doesn't make them look better than other things we do as a matter of course without even thinking about it, let alone better than other prescription drugs given after medical evaluation to people in serious distress.
This is a useful perspective, but I think it's important to look a little further out. 98% of those who take puberty blockers for gender dysphoria will later be prescribed cross sex hormones.
In addition to increasing risk of stroke and heart attack, testosterone at the levels prescribed for gender dysphoria causes pelvic floor dysfunction in 94% of women.
Many clinicians, even ones who identify as trans themselves such as WPATH President Dr. Marci Bowers, have concerns that there is a social contagion aspect of trans identity in the modern day, especially among young women.
It's difficult to justify a treatment that causes iatrogenic infertility (https://wpath.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Combined_Handouts.pdf), especially when it near-universally causes other life-altering health problems as well. This is especially relevant as the claimed mental health benefits of puberty blockers are not well-established and women are usually able to "pass" as men after beginning testosterone treatment at any age. Note that WPATH recommends puberty blockers to be prescribed at Tanner Stage II, which occurs typically before age eleven in girls.
I was a gender-nonconforming girl myself, and I'm worried that we are "blocking" the exact process that gets girls comfortable with puberty - puberty.
"[I]t would be wrong to pre-emptively ban an entire category of people from public facilities merely because they commit certain crimes at a higher rate." I find this statement shocking. That's the only reason we don't have mixed sex changing areas.
My mother was flashed by a man while showering with her fifth grade swim team back in the 70s. He ran in to the locker room, exposed himself, and ran out. Note that he had to sneak, and risked prosecution. In 2025, that act is now legal in parts of the United States. Those same men who still exist and still want to expose themselves to children can walk right in, undress, and stay as long as they want.
Look up Tier III Child Sex Offender Richard Cox. He looks like someone who you'd hire to play a pedophile in a movie, and has indecent exposure convictions going back to the 90s. He was able to freely enter locker rooms and flash women and girls because of trans inclusive laws. Women and girls in Virginia have more rights on the street than when undressing. Please read the letter Cox wrote, it's in the article linked below. He was within his rights to show his penis to children. His victims may lose their case against him.
Again from your article: "Voyeurism, indecent exposure, sexual harassment, and sexual assault are already illegal."
No, they aren't. In the state of California any man can legally enter a changing area, look at undressed girls and women, and expose himself. See repeat sex offender Darren Merager. Merager is also an obvious man with a long history of indecent exposure, but was only able to be charged because he had a visible erection while flashing women and girls. If he hadn't, they would have had no case.
It's certainly possible to call these offenses "rare," but keep in mind that most cases are not prosecutable. California legally defined male locker room voyeurism and indecent exposure out of existence.
"If the goal is to prevent voyeurism, indecent exposure, sexual harassment, and sexual assault, no additional laws specifically targeting trans people are necessary."
I agree with this, but men who say they identify as women commit sex crimes at the same rate as other men. Defining the word "woman" as "an individual who self-identifies as a woman," like California did in 2019, legalizes male voyeurism and indecent exposure in women's changing areas. It's not a law "specifically targeting trans people" to revert to the pre-2019 definition of woman, nor is it calling all trans people "perverts who creep on women in women’s spaces." It's acknowledging that all men pose the same risk to the safety of women and girls, regardless of their identity, and that trans inclusive laws facilitate serious violations of dignity.
"Given our culture’s rather strong bathroom norms, the reasonable standard to me is that people should use the bathroom of the gender they pass better as, though this should be norm rather than law."
Cool - what do we do about the people who are sexually aroused by violating norms?
How have commentators reacted to your emphasis on trans acceptance being predicated on passing? Personally, I like it, but it degrades the basic concept of being able to choose your own gender. If I and the community of women get to bar a trans woman from a locker room because she doesn't pass, we're the ones deciding her gender, here operationalized as access to the room. She has no more choice in the matter than she did at birth, when she was assigned a male gender by doctors almost certainly without hesitation.
Although that is significantly more power than cis women have, or in my experience take, at present.
I mostly agree with this, but find this part annoying:
> "HRT, puberty blockers, and sexual reassignment surgery are not risk-free. HRT can increase the risk of blood clots, stroke, heart problems, high blood pressure, diabetes, and even infertility. Puberty blockers like Lupron can cause mood disorders, depression, and osteoporosis."
...specifically, I hate the framing "are not risk free". Consider the following three drugs:
- Drug 1 increases depression risk 60%, stroke risk 150%, and blood clot risk 200%
- Drug 2 increases cancer by 10%, liver disease 100%, and hypertension 30%
- Drug 3 increases osteoporosis by 150%
Do you have any strong opinions on which drug is better or worse?
Drug 1 is the oral contraceptive pill, Drug 2 is light to moderate healthy drinking well within the recommended guidelines, Drug 3 is puberty blockers
(I didn't include the mental health / depression side effects of puberty blockers because I couldn't find any studies that tried to quantify them - all studies I could find said the positive effects on mental health so outweighed the negative that it was impossible to get a nonanecdotal quantification of the negative - though my search was weak and might have missed something).
I think in a politically neutral world with no isolated demands for rigor, there's no way we would have settled on "anyone can take Drug 1 if they want to have consequence-free sex", "any adult can take Drug 2 if they think it's fun, and we turn a blind eye when teens use it without a prescription", and "no doctor may prescribe Drug 3, even for cases where someone is high risk of suicide without it, and state legislatures might specifically ban doctors from doing this".
Everything we do has risk, even driving cars and waking up in the morning. I have yet to find any attempt to quantify puberty blocker risks that doesn't make them look better than other things we do as a matter of course without even thinking about it, let alone better than other prescription drugs given after medical evaluation to people in serious distress.
This is a useful perspective, but I think it's important to look a little further out. 98% of those who take puberty blockers for gender dysphoria will later be prescribed cross sex hormones.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0243894
In addition to increasing risk of stroke and heart attack, testosterone at the levels prescribed for gender dysphoria causes pelvic floor dysfunction in 94% of women.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38662108/
Many clinicians, even ones who identify as trans themselves such as WPATH President Dr. Marci Bowers, have concerns that there is a social contagion aspect of trans identity in the modern day, especially among young women.
https://thepostmillennial.com/president-of-leading-trans-org-admits-social-contagion-is-driving-surge-in-kids-identifying-as-transgender?
It's difficult to justify a treatment that causes iatrogenic infertility (https://wpath.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Combined_Handouts.pdf), especially when it near-universally causes other life-altering health problems as well. This is especially relevant as the claimed mental health benefits of puberty blockers are not well-established and women are usually able to "pass" as men after beginning testosterone treatment at any age. Note that WPATH recommends puberty blockers to be prescribed at Tanner Stage II, which occurs typically before age eleven in girls.
I was a gender-nonconforming girl myself, and I'm worried that we are "blocking" the exact process that gets girls comfortable with puberty - puberty.
"[I]t would be wrong to pre-emptively ban an entire category of people from public facilities merely because they commit certain crimes at a higher rate." I find this statement shocking. That's the only reason we don't have mixed sex changing areas.
My mother was flashed by a man while showering with her fifth grade swim team back in the 70s. He ran in to the locker room, exposed himself, and ran out. Note that he had to sneak, and risked prosecution. In 2025, that act is now legal in parts of the United States. Those same men who still exist and still want to expose themselves to children can walk right in, undress, and stay as long as they want.
Look up Tier III Child Sex Offender Richard Cox. He looks like someone who you'd hire to play a pedophile in a movie, and has indecent exposure convictions going back to the 90s. He was able to freely enter locker rooms and flash women and girls because of trans inclusive laws. Women and girls in Virginia have more rights on the street than when undressing. Please read the letter Cox wrote, it's in the article linked below. He was within his rights to show his penis to children. His victims may lose their case against him.
https://wjla.com/news/local/richard-cox-virginia-registered-sex-offender-transgender-women-locker-room-fairfax-county-oakmont-audrey-moore-rec-center-steve-descano-planet-fitness-parks-department-police-trespassing
Again from your article: "Voyeurism, indecent exposure, sexual harassment, and sexual assault are already illegal."
No, they aren't. In the state of California any man can legally enter a changing area, look at undressed girls and women, and expose himself. See repeat sex offender Darren Merager. Merager is also an obvious man with a long history of indecent exposure, but was only able to be charged because he had a visible erection while flashing women and girls. If he hadn't, they would have had no case.
https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-spas-981ee4ca037c6cc453fec8ce487f7b3c
It's certainly possible to call these offenses "rare," but keep in mind that most cases are not prosecutable. California legally defined male locker room voyeurism and indecent exposure out of existence.
"If the goal is to prevent voyeurism, indecent exposure, sexual harassment, and sexual assault, no additional laws specifically targeting trans people are necessary."
I agree with this, but men who say they identify as women commit sex crimes at the same rate as other men. Defining the word "woman" as "an individual who self-identifies as a woman," like California did in 2019, legalizes male voyeurism and indecent exposure in women's changing areas. It's not a law "specifically targeting trans people" to revert to the pre-2019 definition of woman, nor is it calling all trans people "perverts who creep on women in women’s spaces." It's acknowledging that all men pose the same risk to the safety of women and girls, regardless of their identity, and that trans inclusive laws facilitate serious violations of dignity.
Here's an example: this man has hundreds of victims. They have no legal recourse. Cases like this are not rare and do not make national news.
https://x.com/bourne_beth2345/status/1919587896782402015
"Given our culture’s rather strong bathroom norms, the reasonable standard to me is that people should use the bathroom of the gender they pass better as, though this should be norm rather than law."
Cool - what do we do about the people who are sexually aroused by violating norms?
whos the one trans woman she sounds hot and smart
How have commentators reacted to your emphasis on trans acceptance being predicated on passing? Personally, I like it, but it degrades the basic concept of being able to choose your own gender. If I and the community of women get to bar a trans woman from a locker room because she doesn't pass, we're the ones deciding her gender, here operationalized as access to the room. She has no more choice in the matter than she did at birth, when she was assigned a male gender by doctors almost certainly without hesitation.
Although that is significantly more power than cis women have, or in my experience take, at present.