I went through puberty in the early 1980s in a rural community where the possibility of transitioning was about as likely as relocating to the moon. When I was 12, I was a trans kid who was put on medication. Not puberty blockers (I don't know if those even existed back then), but antidepressants, because puberty plunged me into a major clinical depressive episode.
I couldn't have told you I was a trans kid back then, because there was no language or concept and I also sensed it wasn't safe that I felt like a boy. The changes in my body were simply horrifying and terrifying. I didn't know how to cope, and my shame about my body put me into a deep freeze. My mind was aswirl with confusion about what was happening. But my 12-year-old body wasn't confused. It knew it wasn't a cis body, and so it put itself in a state of deep rest (depressed). It was another 35 years before I found the words and means to get the gender affirming care I needed. I'm incredibly grateful I lived long enough to get it.
I'm so glad that things have changed since I was a kid. Yet we have such a distance to go.
I long for a society where we support parents in teaching their kids to trust their intuition and the wisdom of their bodies. A society where we've normalized talking about bodies and where there is a clear and consistent understanding that one's experience of gender is subjective and personal and need not be a threat or an affront to anyone else.
Thank you, as always, for your excellent efforts to rebut and refute the rampant and harmful dis and mis information swirling about like so many dust funnels out there.
Sincerely, thank you so much for your detailed deep dives into how wrong these articles are. I don't have the capacity to read all the misinformation out there, but I get exposure to what's being pushed by you along with the perfect, well-thought, rebuttals to give to anyone who cites these talking points to me! Your work is phenomenal. Thank you for writing!
People who don’t include transgender voices (aren’t transgender themselves, or know any transgender people) in their articles are always suspect. It’s just alarmist bullshit with an obvious negative agenda. I appreciate that you always include legit sources in your articles. Off to read Erin Reed’s now
I agree with you, and I usually will skip over quite a number of these to debunk. What made this one a project I was willing to take on was the reach (4k+ subscribers) as well as the manner in which the article was written. I try to invest the depth, time, and effort where it will hopefully do the most good. This source article hit all the right notes in the right way such that debunking it would cover a lot of ground.
At least that is the idea. I love it when someone asks me to look at an article to push back on, or a user/author. So if you come across one you would love to see deconstructed or taken down a notch or two, let me know.
I would be happy to. Read Erin’s article. So sad that the NYT saw it necessary to b publish an obvious hit piece. They’ve been going down the toilet for some time now.
It sounds like blender got all their info from religious based disinformation source. Lying for Jesus doesn't qualify as an internal moral conflict many on the religious right.
![People with Inconvenient Truths about Transphobes [PITT]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_80,h_80,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F704ba0db-3e10-4112-9364-c2f224d0cfae_500x500.png)
![People with Inconvenient Truths about Transphobes [PITT]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_36,h_36,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F704ba0db-3e10-4112-9364-c2f224d0cfae_500x500.png)
I went through puberty in the early 1980s in a rural community where the possibility of transitioning was about as likely as relocating to the moon. When I was 12, I was a trans kid who was put on medication. Not puberty blockers (I don't know if those even existed back then), but antidepressants, because puberty plunged me into a major clinical depressive episode.
I couldn't have told you I was a trans kid back then, because there was no language or concept and I also sensed it wasn't safe that I felt like a boy. The changes in my body were simply horrifying and terrifying. I didn't know how to cope, and my shame about my body put me into a deep freeze. My mind was aswirl with confusion about what was happening. But my 12-year-old body wasn't confused. It knew it wasn't a cis body, and so it put itself in a state of deep rest (depressed). It was another 35 years before I found the words and means to get the gender affirming care I needed. I'm incredibly grateful I lived long enough to get it.
I'm so glad that things have changed since I was a kid. Yet we have such a distance to go.
I long for a society where we support parents in teaching their kids to trust their intuition and the wisdom of their bodies. A society where we've normalized talking about bodies and where there is a clear and consistent understanding that one's experience of gender is subjective and personal and need not be a threat or an affront to anyone else.
Thank you, as always, for your excellent efforts to rebut and refute the rampant and harmful dis and mis information swirling about like so many dust funnels out there.
Sincerely, thank you so much for your detailed deep dives into how wrong these articles are. I don't have the capacity to read all the misinformation out there, but I get exposure to what's being pushed by you along with the perfect, well-thought, rebuttals to give to anyone who cites these talking points to me! Your work is phenomenal. Thank you for writing!
Wow, thanks for this! I really appreciate such high praise! :)
People who don’t include transgender voices (aren’t transgender themselves, or know any transgender people) in their articles are always suspect. It’s just alarmist bullshit with an obvious negative agenda. I appreciate that you always include legit sources in your articles. Off to read Erin Reed’s now
I agree with you, and I usually will skip over quite a number of these to debunk. What made this one a project I was willing to take on was the reach (4k+ subscribers) as well as the manner in which the article was written. I try to invest the depth, time, and effort where it will hopefully do the most good. This source article hit all the right notes in the right way such that debunking it would cover a lot of ground.
At least that is the idea. I love it when someone asks me to look at an article to push back on, or a user/author. So if you come across one you would love to see deconstructed or taken down a notch or two, let me know.
I would be happy to. Read Erin’s article. So sad that the NYT saw it necessary to b publish an obvious hit piece. They’ve been going down the toilet for some time now.
It sounds like blender got all their info from religious based disinformation source. Lying for Jesus doesn't qualify as an internal moral conflict many on the religious right.
Yeah, it is sad, and it has been circling that drain for a while now. I read Erin's work, I am a big fan