Making Sense of Debates About Gender-Affirming Care and Trans Youth: a Virtual Talk and Resource Page

Photo by Ron Lach at Pexels

On Saturday, August 17, 2024, at 2–2:30pm Eastern time (11–11:30am Pacific), I will be giving a virtual talk on the above topic as part of Medium Day—details on how to register (for free) can be found at that link. This resource page provides a brief introduction plus further reading on this subject.

Around 2015–16, in the wake of the so-called “Transgender Tipping Point,” the current anti-trans backlash began to coalesce. It was coordinated by a mix of social conservatives (who are anti-LGBTQ+ more generally), “Gender Critical” and “TERF” activists, and the burgeoning Anti-Trans Parent Movement. These groups often raised the usual anti-trans talking points about “biological sex” and imagined “restroom predators.” But much of their energy has been focused squarely on the seemingly new (in their eyes, at least) issue of gender-affirming care for trans and gender-diverse youth.

As a scientist who has a long history of researching and writing about trans healthcare, I have spent much of the last eight years countering the misinformation and disinformation these anti-trans activists have disseminated. With one exception, all those pieces were published on Medium (with the most recent ones also being cross-posted to Substack) and are now collected here for you to explore. They cover a variety of subtopics and taken together they address almost every question and concern that has been raised on this matter.

I was able to write these essays and make them freely available online thanks to my Patreon supporters—if you appreciate all this work, please consider supporting me there!

In the virtual talk, rather than reiterating all that information (which would take all day!), I will instead highlight the unconscious biases, unstated presumptions, and the underlying forces and dynamics that are driving this ongoing moral panic about trans youth and gender-affirming care. Hopefully, this will provide audiences who are relatively new to this subject with the necessary background to make sense of these debates.

Overviews

Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Youth Is Neither New nor Experimental: A Timeline and Compilation of Studies (2023)
If you read just one essay, make it this. It provides a brief history of how gender-affirming care came to be, debunks the most common talking points and tactics used to undermine it, and includes a reference list of over 100 research studies and reviews showing just how established this field is. A vital resource to counter the current wave of trans-skeptical and “just asking questions” media stories.

The Cass Review, WPATH Files, and the Perpetual Debate over Gender-Affirming Care (2024)
A follow up to the previous essay that discusses recurring claims by anti-trans activists that they have found some kind of “smoking gun” that completely upends the gender affirmative model. In addition to explaining why such claims are unrealistic and unscientific, I investigate the different underlying motives and rationales that lead individuals to embrace the Cass Review and other imagined “smoking guns” despite their many obvious flaws.

Detransition, Desistance, and Disinformation: A Guide for Understanding Transgender Children Debates (2016)
Written during the early days of the anti-trans backlash, this was my first attempt to walk readers through all the necessary background information needed to understand how the gender affirmative model came to be and why fearmongering articles about “cisgender children turned transgender” distort and distract from the lived experiences and needs of trans and gender-diverse youth.

Specific Gender-Disaffirming Talking Points

Spotting Anti-Trans Media Bias on Detransition (2023)
A small percentage (1-3%) of people who transition later decide to detransition. While research shows that people detransition for diverse reasons, the media almost exclusively promotes a “mistaken and regretted transition” narrative that both ignores the lived realities and needs of most detransitioners, and implies that gender-affirming care should be further restricted. In this essay, I discuss the research, nuances, and unconscious biases that get left out of most media coverage on this subject.

Reframing “Transgender Desistance” Debates (2018)
People who oppose gender-affirming approaches to trans and gender-diverse youth will often claim that 80 percent of such children will eventually “desist.” This essay highlights two new peer-reviewed research articles that thoroughly debunk this 80% desistance myth, while also chronicling the many negative outcomes experienced by children whose genders are disaffirmed by their parents.

Transgender People, “Gay Conversion,” and “Lesbian Extinction”: What the Data Show (2020)
Anti-trans activists (and sometimes gender-disaffirming researchers and healthcare providers) have claimed that allowing young people to socially transition is tantamount to “gay conversion therapy” and/or is causing a “lesbian extinction.” In this short essay, I show how these claims are rooted in an outdated theory that conflated gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation, and provide evidence that any increases in kids identifying as trans today is not coming at the expense of LGB children.

Autogynephilia, Junk Science, and Pseudoscience (2024)
Despite the overwhelming evidence against Ray Blanchard’s theory of “autogynephilia,” the concept continues to be used to deny gender-affirming care for trans youth, as well as to smear adult trans women en masse as “sexual perverts and predators.” This post compiles all of my academic articles, online essays, and explainers on the subject. Together, they delve into the scientific case against autogynephilia theory and provide alternate explanations for the phenomena the theory attempts to account for.

The Dregerian Narrative (or why “trans activists” vs. “scientists” framings are lazy, inaccurate, and incendiary) (2021)
Mainstream media accounts of trans healthcare and research often shoehorn any differences of opinion into a “trans activists” vs. “scientists” dichotomy. In this short essay, I explain where such framings originated, and why they tend to resonate with journalists and audiences despite being wildly inaccurate.

On “ROGD,” “Social Contagion,” and Shifts in the Number of Children Identifying as Trans

All the Evidence Against Transgender Social Contagion (2023)
Explaining Assigned Sex Ratio Shifts in Trans Children (2023)
This two-part series thoroughly debunks the concept of “transgender social contagion” and its more scientific-sounding doppelganger “rapid onset gender dysphoria.” The first essay compiles all the evidence against “transgender social contagion/ROGD” (including over a dozen peer-reviewed studies and critical reviews) and explains why so many people continue to embrace this zombie theory. The second essay demonstrates how related claims that there has been a sharp increase in “young girls” identifying as trans have been exaggerated in order to appeal to sexist and ableist cultural sentiments.

Origins of “Social Contagion” and “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” (2019)
This piece is more investigative journalism and a massive timeline, rather than the usual essay, as I wanted to learn where the notion of “transgender social contagion” and “rapid onset gender dysphoria” first arose. I was able to narrow down the invention of this idea to three anti-trans parent websites in February 2016. Shortly thereafter, these terms were picked up and promoted, first by social conservative outlets, then by gender-disaffirming psychologists, and eventually finding their way into the mainstream media.

Anti-Trans “Grooming” and “Social Contagion” Claims Explained (2022)
Anti-trans activists will often claim that kids today are being “turned trans” by “social contagion” and/or “grooming.” In this essay, I will show how these seemingly different imagined causes are both driven by the pervasive unconscious belief that stigma is contagious and capable of contaminating members of the dominant ingroup (in this case, cisgender people and their children). I further show how this stigma-contamination mindset helps to explain anti-trans activists’ irrational obsession with trans people, as well as far-right and fascist views of marginalized outgroups more generally.

Everything You Need to Know About Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (2018)
Published just after the now infamous Littman paper was released, this essay highlights the many flaws in the concept of “ROGD” and in the research and statistics cited in support of it.

Transgender Agendas, Social Contagion, Peer Pressure, and Prevalence (2017)
In this essay, I examine the apparent rise in transgender prevalence over the years and make the case (via an analogy with left-handedness) that it is the result of a reduction in stigma and forced suppression of a natural inclination, rather than some outside force (e.g., peer pressure, “social contagion”) “turning” people transgender.

Still Further Reading

The 3rd edition of my book Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity contains two chapters that are relevant to this topic. Chapter 7 (“Pathological Science”) delves into the flawed research and double standards inherent to the “gatekeeper system” that dominated trans healthcare throughout the twentieth century. Then, in a brand-new Afterword to the 3rd edition, I provide an overview of why trans health professionals shifted to the gender affirmative model over the last couple decades, followed by a brief history of the current backlash and my thoughts on how we might counter and eventually overcome this anti-trans moral panic.

Finally, if you are interested in other trans-related topics not covered here, no-paywall links to twenty years of my articles and essays (many of them on trans issues) can be found on my writings webpage.

This essay was made possible by my Patreon supporters — if you appreciate it, please consider supporting me there. You can also sign up for a paid or free subscription here: