We can acknowledge that individuals feel better while also refusing to reorganize the world around a choice to imitate the opposite sex. The model of “affirmation” demands more than kindness. It functions as coercion: a system of escalating punishments for anyone who declines to play along. What is sold as compassion is in fact a denial of reality.

This model has warped medicine. Procedures that should be reserved for clear medical need are offered on the basis of desire and financed from the collective purse. The public pays, the patient bears the risks, and the treatment is declared “medically necessary” by fiat.

It has warped society. Pity for a troubled person has been inverted into celebration of a supposedly new category of being. “Trans” is treated as ascendant, as if human sex can be transformed. But it cannot (I know—I’ve tried).

Worst of all, it harms those who follow the path. The interventions damage healthy bodies, shorten lives, and trap people in an endless performance that brings long stretches of anxious disorientation.

The culture of “affirmation” should end. Activists and NGOs should abandon the demand for universal acceptance and settle, at best, for tolerance. Yet even tolerance may be hard to sustain after years of policy built on erasing sex.

As my Heterodorx co-host Nina Paley observed, “sex is real, people are weird.” A society can live with a few outliers. It cannot remake reality to normalize them. Queer theory tries to do just that, and the result is chaos.

We would do better to replace the term “transsexual” with the plain description “sex pretender.” Children should learn that adults who play lifelong games of make-believe deserve compassion, not admiration. Some people will persist in the game. Responsible adults should help them quit if possible, with kindness but without capitulation.

This article first appeared as an 𝕏 thread by @heterodorx on September 24, 2025

My fraternal grandparents immigrated from the Kingdom of Galicia, a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1907, near Krakow. Reuben’s eldest siblings were born in Europe, but my father was born in the United States. My father was sparing with details on why his parents moved to the United States—and I didn’t ask. My investigations into family genealogy uncovered answers as to when and where they moved, but not why.

The history of the region may hold family secrets. In the late 19th century, nationalist movements were rising. People wanted their governments to reflect their national characteristics—including the Polish people living under the auspices of Austria-Hungary, manifesting in the form of Narodowa Demokracja, a conservative political movement that employed antisemitic tactics to rally support for its vision of a Polish state. In 1898, riots in over 400 communities left homes and businesses looted, individuals injured. The Jews of Galicia had to leave for their own safety.

My father, Rube to his family and friends, was born in 1916 and grew up during the Great Depression. Two of his brothers joined the military, changing their names to avoid the widespread, informal barriers to fraternity and promotion within the armed forces. Rube, always known as a black sheep, took another path. Armed with the skills learned in his own father’s workshop, Rube specialized in locksmithing. Eventually he moved to Reno, Nevada—not exactly a diasporic oasis—where he ran his own small business and invented military-grade locks.

After two prior marriages—one an untimely death, the other a divorce—Rube married my mother in 1974. I was born a year later in 1975. Rube was a gregarious businessman, but a taciturn and private father. Although he retained a few cherished pieces of Judaica—a Hanukkah menorah, some Jewish and Yiddish books, and a few other tchotchkes—he kept his faith mostly to himself.

I understood my father was Jewish. His brothers and sisters were Jewish. When we traveled, my sister and I had to be reminded of customs while visiting a Jewish home. But I didn’t understand what it meant to be Jewish. Our family was not observant of any faith. I felt like there was no heritage to inherit.

On one hand, my mother was not Jewish, nor did she convert. From Rube’s perspective maybe this meant: why bother? However, it’s a terrible deprivation for me. Did he not realize I’d want to know my ancestry at some point? He did! Genealogy was briefly a passion project for him.

Why did he not share more of himself? More of his history? More of his faith? Was it to protect me from the bitterness of the antisemitism he faced as a young immigrant Jew in America? Did he believe that it was all in the past with the final nail driven with by the end of Nazi Germany? Or was he just not interested? Did he not think his goyishe children would care?

My father passed away in 2000. By the time I realized I had questions, it was too late to ask.

October 7, 2023, started as a promising day.

At the same time that fresh news was appearing of dead youth murdered at the Nova Music Festival, as images of bleeding women were being kidnapped and dragged back into Gaza, as videos of home security systems showed Hamas terrorists ruthlessly going from home to home murdering innocents.

While one new horror after another was becoming known, hundreds or maybe even thousands of people in America were celebrating. Within hours of the attack, Hamas-sympathizing anti-Israel activists had planned a large joint rally in celebration of the mass murder for the next day.

On October 8th, I called my sister. She wasn’t following the story. “We’re carrying Jewish last names,” I reminded her, “and there are many more people who hate Jews than we’ve realized. Please be careful.” I’m sorry to say that my warning was not an exaggeration. Since October 8th there have been anti-Israel rallies all over the United States. Worse, all over the world there has been a huge surge of violence directed at Jews outside of Israel.

On college campuses across the world—especially elite universities—students began rallying to praise the attacks. Groups like Student for Justice in Palestine, which distribute pro-Hamas propaganda, have ties to designated terrorist organizations such as Samiduon. Meanwhile, Chinese-owned TikTok allows modern blood libels to flourish in the form of viral videos, indoctrinating a generation of the gullible and bored into the world’s oldest hatred.

Not a day now passes without news of some unprovoked violence. A synagogue ransacked, its priceless Torah scrolls thrown to the floor. Jewish citizens of New York attacked by strangers. A Jewish girls’ school shot repeatedly. This is what it looks like when the demands to “globalize the intifada” are realized: attacks on innocent Jews. The frequency of these events appears to be increasing.

As we approach the two-year anniversary of the Hamas-led massacre, I see the pogroms my grandparents faced happening again in my lifetime.

My name is Cori Cohn, son of Reuben, and a descendant of those who carried the ark and lit the lamps. I did not inherit the rituals, but I feel the weight of my ancestry and the imperative to remember. I bear a Jewish name in a time when hatred of Jews is once again rising. Silence will not protect me. Nor will ignorance. I must speak. If not me, then who?

Brianna Wu, a self-described “normal trans woman” or “moderate transsexual” has recently gained attention among the heterodox left, including Bari Weiss, Triggernometry, Nancy Rommelmann, and many others who have showered attention on Wu principally because Wu has been willing to jam a screwdriver into the back of the progressive movement following Kamala Harris’s failure to win the 2024 US election. In each of these programs, Wu tries to make the case that he is a “moderate transsexual”. But his positions fall short.

Position on Sex-Trait Modification in Children

Transgender activist position: (1) Gender-affirming care is a human right. Criticisms aside, there are studies that show benefits to (2) social transition, (3) puberty blockers, and (4) other forms of medicalization including cross-sex hormones and surgeries to alter secondary sex traits.

Brianna Wu’s position: Wu in general believes boys should be medicalized in adolescence and girls should normally wait until adulthood. (1) Gender-affirming care is evidence-backed and the “best treatment” for gender dysphoria. Wu’s “highest goal” is to ensure access to this treatment, including to minors. (2) Social transition done in secret by schools is bad; social transition otherwise is up to parents. (3) Puberty blockers are necessary for boys to avoid “bodily destruction”. (4) Although there should be greater safeguarding steps before surgery, reconstructing a girl’s amputated breasts is “genuinely not a big deal”.

A moderate position: (1) Children should not be transitioned. In cases of extreme adult gender dysphoria, some limited procedures should be available. (2) Boys and girls should be encouraged to explore activities and interests without being shamed on the basis of gender stereotypes. It is abusive to tell a child they can become the opposite sex and to undertake social transition. (3) No child needs to be medicalized for gender dysphoria. Instead, they should have therapy and be encouraged to engage in exercises that help them feel comfortable in their bodies. (4) All sex-trait surgery on minors should be banned, no exceptions.

Position on Men in Women’s Sports

Transgender activist position: (1) Trans women are women, and therefore deserve to have access and accommodation to all sports that any other girls or women play. (2) Trans women have no natural advantages over women.

Brianna Wu’s position: (1) Some trans women are women. These are the trans women who assimilate and are androphilic. Wu understands that he is male, and believes the people he interacts with see him as a woman. (2) Although trans women do have biological advantages in sport, it is bigotry to have female-exclusive categories in activities like pinball and chess.

A moderate position: (1) “Trans women” are men who attempt to disguise their sex so they have social interactions and relationships in ways similar to women. (2) Because trans women are actually men, they should not participate in women’s sports or in any other competitive activity that has been established to afford women opportunities they’d otherwise struggle to achieve.

Position on Trans Women (ie, Males) in Women’s Spaces

Transgender activist position: (1) Trans women are women. Enough said.

Brianna Wu’s position: (1) Trans women who have had “bottom surgery” should be allowed in all women’s spaces. Women should not have to encounter penises in private spaces. Unless the trans woman is on estrogen.

A moderate position: (1) Males should not be in any space where women are naked and have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Third spaces should be available for those who have had significant changes to their sex traits.

Position on the Culture War

Transgender activist position: (1) There is presently an ongoing trans genocide. (2) TERFS and conservatives are trying to exterminate and oppress trans people.

Brianna Wu’s position: (1) There is a trans genocide, but Wu will not say so directly. (2) TERFS are man-hating ideologues who do not deserve to have political power.

A moderate position: (1, 2) After more than a decade of extreme trans activism, it’s time to reset to a position where women’s rights and women’s spaces are protected and respected. People who transition should be allowed to enjoy the same civil rights as anyone else, but crazy demands have got to stop.

Conclusion: Toward a Genuine Moderation

The label of "moderate transsexual" has been co-opted to defend positions that are anything but moderate. Figures like Brianna Wu, while positioning themselves as reasonable voices, fail to offer meaningful distinctions from mainstream transgender activism. This does a disservice to those of us who have long sought to protect women and children while advocating for fairness and reason in these debates.

True moderation must confront uncomfortable truths: children should not be transitioned, women’s spaces and sports must remain protected, and ideological demands must not override basic rights and biological realities. It is time to reset the conversation. The extreme demands of trans activism have pushed society to a breaking point, and only by returning to grounded, principled positions can we hope to restore balance and protect what matters most.

If the classical liberal viewpoints on the left want to continue to espouse debate and reason in public policy, the programs that bring on guests like Wu need to be prepared to push back and ask probing and difficult questions. Otherwise, they risk providing unearned credibility to the illiberal ideologies we are working to dismantle.

I need to discuss a matter that’s both personal and universal: the intersection of faith, respect for others, and workplace accommodations. Specifically, I’m seeking what I believe is a simple, non-burdensome accommodation that aligns with my religious beliefs and principles.

The Core Tenet of My Faith

My faith holds an unwavering principle: I must not dehumanize anyone. Dehumanization, in all its forms, is an affront to the inherent dignity and worth of every individual. I see this as a universal truth, though my adherence is deeply rooted in my spiritual convictions.

This principle applies to everyone—regardless of their background, beliefs, or experiences. To dehumanize is to deny someone’s humanity, which I believe is an act of profound harm. It diminishes both the individual and those who participate in the denial.

Pronouns, Identity, and Dehumanization

When someone identifies as "non-binary" and claims they are neither male nor female, I hear a deeper claim: that they are somehow outside the framework of humanity. I don’t believe this is said out of arrogance, a belief in being superhuman. Tragically, it often appears rooted in feelings of being less-than—subhuman, even. This impression is often reinforced by visible signs of self-harm or self-degradation, which are all too common in this community.

Here lies my conflict. When I am asked—or commanded—to use pronouns such as "they/them" or other self-assigned “neopronouns” that suggest a person is beyond the binary reality of male and female, I feel I am contributing to their dehumanization. To comply with this request, in my view, is to affirm the idea that their humanity is negotiable or mutable. This is something I cannot do.

The Need for a Reasonable Accommodation

Therefore, I am compelled to request an accommodation in the workplace: to use pronouns that align with an individual’s biological sex. This practice does not impose any additional burden on my employer or colleagues. It simply reflects my adherence to a principle that all of us, at our core, recognize—our humanity is tied to our nature, and that nature includes our biological sex.

This request is not an attempt to deny anyone respect or dignity. On the contrary, it is driven by a profound desire to affirm the humanity of every individual I encounter. I believe it is possible to hold space for respect while staying true to one’s principles, and that’s what I aim to do here.

Why This Matters

Workplaces thrive when people of diverse backgrounds and beliefs find ways to collaborate without compromising their core values. My hope is that employers and colleagues can understand that this accommodation is not about exclusion or division—it’s about finding a way for me to navigate a challenging cultural moment while staying true to my faith.

I understand that this position may not align with everyone’s worldview, but I ask for the same respect and understanding that I strive to extend to others. We can only build mutual respect by allowing space for sincere differences, especially on matters of conscience.

Followers of Abrahamic religions may cite the following as evidence of their faith’s teachings:

• Genesis 1:27: "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."
  This verse underscores the belief that all humans are created in the divine image, affirming their inherent dignity.

• Leviticus 19:18: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
  A foundational principle of treating others with respect and recognizing their humanity.

Around my neck hung a hand-painted poster blazoned with the colors of the transgender flag and printed with the slogan “KIDS CAN NOT CHANGE SEX.” Tens of thousands walked past me, many nodding, giving me a thumbs-up, fist-bumping, high-fiving, and thanking me for being there. Some said “That is the truth,” and I said “Thank you for saying so out loud” as I believe many people, including those attending the National Eucharistic Congress, would blanch at saying such a simple and true thing in front of friends, neighbors, and co-workers. It is right to recognize people who will speak the truth.

Some people would tell me “Adults can’t change sex either!” and I would acknowledge their correctness. However, my primary concern is with children, as they are innocent and cannot be accountable for what is done to them. In 2023 a group of progressive Indianapolis churches organized in an attempt to block a law that would have regulated sex-changing medical procedures in children. A coalition of 60 faith organizations was led by the Episcopalian Reverend Gray Lesesne of Christ Church Cathedral in Indianapolis who brought the clerics to the Indiana Statehouse to sing hymns in prayer that God would preserve the right of hospitals to medically interfere with the healthy sexual development of children. In response, I drafted the before-mentioned sign and brought it to the very next day the church held services, which happened to be Palm Sunday. This sign was created for a specific purpose but has been recycled for a broader purpose.

Throughout the day I was approached by parents and teachers who were struggling with family and work stress caused by gender identity ideology. A woman made the sign of the cross before my sign, and I intuited that she was especially affected by it. I asked if her family was suffering because of gender identity problems, and she told me her adult son in his senior year of college began identifying as a woman. I told her I hoped her son would return home soon. And then I heard another story–a niece. Then a nephew. A daughter. A granddaughter. These strangers appreciated that I was witnessing to the truth, that sex is immutable–or as they understand it, that God makes a person male or female for all time.

While I was prepared for many of these encounters, the repetitive and dismissive remark that I was 'preaching to the choir' rattled me. This made me question, doesn’t the choir attend church every week? Arrogance! How can anyone dismiss the importance of reconsidering an idea they already agree with? Just as I was pondering what might make for an effective retort a woman approached me and asked why I was at the event. I explained briefly, and she said “Aren’t you preaching to the choir?” I gave her a summary of my conundrum on how to answer that question. She became thoughtful. “My priest said once that his job is to preach to the choir, and the choir’s job is to bring the message to the rest of the world.” That was a key to turn my lock.

You might think I’m also preaching to the choir, but consider this: You may agree that kids cannot change sex and even laugh as you walk past me, muttering “everybody knows that.” However, can you confidently sit across from your child’s teacher and express that belief? And when she complains to the school’s administration about a non-supportive and transphobic parent, can you tell the principal? Can you tell your neighbors? The one who is resigned to going along with a double-mastectomy for her fifteen year-old daughter?

Do not dare to tell me that I’m preaching to the choir if you have not spoken those words out loud to someone who might not agree with you. There are children being hurt all over the country by doctors who understand that it’s their God-given right to tamper with the sexual development of children. What are you doing to protect the kids? Maybe you’re only shrugging, sighing “oh, but it’s a damn shame, isn’t it?” You may agree with me completely, but if you’ve done nothing to bring the message to the world, then you aren’t in the choir. You’re in a pew, mumbling into the hymnal, missing the notes and waiting for the song to end. You aren’t even aspiring to sing in the choir. But you could. 

“I am a woman” is something I  argued and defended with no negotiation and no retreat for most of my adult life. A self-made woman, of course, which meant that my womanhood was not happenstance, but intention. The estrogen, the surgery, the assimilation into the world being properly she’d and her’d without the need for pronoun badges or verbal badgering. Even as my views about gender identity ideology were evolving, I would have defended my position as someone who, despite my sex, was for all intents and purposes socially female.

Well. I was wrong. But can you blame me for being stubborn? As a child I prayed that I would wake up female. As a teenager my singular focus was cross-sex medicalization. By the age of 18 I was “living as a woman.” By the age of 19 I had accomplished sex reassignment surgery. For the entirety of my adult life I have been dodging masculinity. Along the way I have forged friendships, made and delivered promises, held the hands of the dying, watched children be born and grow to adulthood, all “as a woman.” Or, more honestly, as a transsexual. Or even more honestly, as a man whose commitment to impersonating a woman is so thorough and sincere that I tried every avenue possible to climb the last step from copying to doing and found the staircase had run out of stairs.

“Corinna” is the last 30-plus years of my life. The days I lived have meaning both to me and to the people I’ve loved (and who have loved me). It is the same for anyone who transitions with the goal of becoming someone (something?) else. Those of us who embark upon the doomed attempt to become the other sex are lifelong members of a fraternity. We have each had a dream about becoming something different. A few of us have awoken, but we have not forgotten the feelings of joy and relief believing we had escaped our fates. 

A friend who is still inside the dream asked me recently why I don’t write more positively of the trans experience. “Where is your trans joy? Where is your loyalty to your siblings?” My answer offers no reassurance. I have no trans joy. My loyalty is pure, but it manifests differently from obedience to the cause of “trans rights”. I don’t have a “man-self” or a “woman-self”. I don’t have a “trans-self”. I am my-self. Myself. I am integrated. My joy is joie de vivre; my joy is being me. I have not abandoned the sleepers: I am just following my path. It is impossible that the path I’m on is mine alone, but I believe you might walk this way, too. I will try to blaze a trail, if I can.

Lately I’ve been attracting more people into my orbit who have had the same epiphany that I’ve had: You’re destined to one day lose everything and so you don’t truly have it now anyway. Everything is temporary, especially your life. Does this sound frightening? It ought to be for anyone who values their attachments more than they value anything else. “Death before detransition!” is the defiant cry of those who have come to define themselves by their trans identities. And my reply is yes, you will need to lose a part of yourself to keep going forward. A pillar of identity has supported so many different aspects of you, the person, that you have neglected to strengthen the other pillars. Your trans-friends. Your affirming family members. The official state recognition of your chosen name and your gender identity markers. Let’s be honest now; your arrested growth into adulthood, your prolonged adolescence; all of this has rested on the pillar of trans identification. You are stunted. I am also. We are not alone.

Death, then? Yes. Inevitably. My father, 83, lying in a nursing home, delirious and frail, the result of organ failure from an unnecessary prescription medicine. My grandmother, 78, in intensive care for a week, kept alive by a respirator, until it fell upon me to carry out her wishes of not being on life support indefinitely. Death of myself, one far-off day–painlessly and swiftly, if I’m so lucky. But nearer, symbolic death. We’ve done it before, haven’t we? Isn’t that what the kids mean when they bury their deadnames? We have symbolically slayed ourselves as part of an act of transcendence. Didn’t we have the courage to completely remake ourselves? And did this not make us unto tiny gods? Hence our egos: huge, towering, confident, and my oh my, so powerful. Flawless. Immortal.

But you aren’t a god. I’m not a god. Which is not to say we aren’t miracles. We are. How cosmically odd that we have eyes to see and that we have imagination and cognition. What an opportunity. However, it’s hard to appreciate the miracle of our own existence when we’re born into a world full of confusion, pain, sorrow, loss, grief, longing, and loneliness. Identifying as trans is a rational reaction when the emptiness that gnaws at us is inseparable from the material fact of our own bodies. “What can I tell my son to stop him from transitioning?” Almost nothing, as your words cannot fill the void. Transitioning cannot either, but the parade of influencers have convinced him that there’s salvation in becoming this thing. A promise of a meaningful life. Empty, as he’ll learn one day. You are grieving, but I’ll callously remind you that your children are one more thing you must lose eventually.

Your trans-affirming school club. Your trans wardrobe. Your trans social media network. Your favorite trans celebrities. Your flag. Your plushie. Your TikTok videos chock-full of exuberant trans joy. Or better yet (i.e., more likes), your tearful TikTok tantrum detailing the most recent blow to your self-image. Why did another waitress call you she?! Could she not see the fuzz you’ve got above your lip? You have no breasts! And yes, there are plenty of men who are only 5’6”. How can she not see you’re just one more? The pillar leans. The body is scarred, but the identity is bleeding. I AM A MAN, the identity screams at a silent and uncaring universe, at a harried and inattentive waitress, at a mother who insists she gave birth to a daughter, at a body still swaddling a hated uterus and ovaries. The identity twists. It’s wracked with pain. Doubt. Exhaustion. Without trans-affirmation, the ego may shrivel and die, becoming fertilizer for the thing to replace it. Death before detransition.

I recently made a bad joke at a friend’s expense and instead of it coming off as teasing humor, it struck like a hammer. I was trying to be playful, but instead I caused hurt. Now, the memory keeps rising unbidden and it makes my cheeks flush with mortification. However, more profound regrets often stem from pivotal life choices, not just embarrassing moments.

Regret is harder to understand when it’s been tightly wound around deeper and more difficult life experiences, especially related to choices we make during our formative years. As teenagers we are subjected to all types of novel and exciting ideas. We explore them, we play with them, and we try them on like outfits. Some of these ideas outrage our parents, and that makes them even more appealing.

Throughout adolescence we have a belief that we’re the captains of our ships. It’s difficult for us to notice how impressionable we are and how we are moved to emulate our peers. We reject accusations that we’re conforming to a group or being influenced by peer pressure. In truth, even as adults we’re not immune from adapting views and attitudes from our friends and associates. We humans are social creatures; it’s in our nature.

Looking backwards, the choices we’ve made during this stage of our life seem surreal. Our accumulated experience and wisdom can leave us akin to strangers to our younger selves. We are bereft of explanations when called to account for our decisions. It can be difficult to summon a sense of regret for events from which you’ve been alienated, even if you played a critical, causal role. Regret requires a sense of agency and participation. If you’re a victim of a disaster you will suffer agony, but if you caused the disaster you’ll know regret.

If I could change my past, would I? Perhaps I would, but I’m not sure that it would be possible. I’d still be in a broken family home with a distant father and a co-dependent mother. I’d still be socially isolated from my peers, understanding masculinity like an outsider taking notes. I’d still be searching for affirmation and community on the early Internet, vulnerable to the influences of adults who ought to have known better. What could I practically change? Was I ever aware of a juncture that could have avoided an inevitable outcome? Did I ever make a choice, or was I swept along with the flood, paddling to keep my head above turbulent waters? It’s a blur.

Those of us who underwent gender transition during adolescence may not reach for the word “regret” to describe our feelings and experiences, yet no single alternative stands out, but the one I prefer is this: survival. Rather than obsessing over things we can no longer change (even if we could), instead we should think about how we’ll endure the burden of our history. Regret cannot be resolved by rumination. We can only accept the terms of our present reality and make deliberate choices going forward.

Some survivors are caught in an orbit of certainty of having ruined their lives. The pain is real, but upon inspection this trap is the same as what lead to gender transition in the first place: the comparison of one’s own life to others. In the second case the seed is “if only I were the other sex” and in the first case the seed is “if only I hadn’t tried.” As your friends and peers are blooming into adulthood, starting families and growing their careers, you may be falling behind, flailing. The wonders you expected to enjoy from your gender transition did not manifest. Your body aches from surgical scars. It’s no wonder if you worry that something has been lost. In fact, it has.

However, life is not about perfection. Life is about experience. We all forge these experiences in different ways. Anyone who has been through gender medicalization is changed indelibly. These changes send us on a different trajectory from our peers, and thus we can feel lost or hopeless when we compare what we have with what others have. Yet choices are still before us, and we always have opportunities to make meaningful changes in our lives. For some, that will be abandoning the narratives of gender transition. For others, it might be in the transformation of those experiences. Regardless, we must empower ourselves to freely go forward instead of dragging behind us the anchor of our regrets.

The past is immutable. We can only control our thoughts and interpretations. It’s tempting to assign blame for our present degradations, especially since we’ve been let down by our therapists, our doctors, and even our friends and family. We might even blame ourselves—isn’t that the basis of regret? Yet if we want to achieve happiness, or at the least an absence of suffering, we have to actively choose to seek it. There will always be future regrets, but do not let one of them be the time you’ve spent grieving for that which can never be repaired. Give yourself permission to move on.

We’ll be talking about free speech, gender identity, and the systematic movement to eliminate the former for the benefit of the latter. The false friends of free expression like to warn that there are “consequences” to speaking your mind, but Nina and I will make the case that the consequences of silence are worse.

We look forward to seeing you!

I personally met with Republicans and Democrats in Texas to explain the importance of this bill. I also flew to Austin to testify in favor of it. During my testimony, Democrats Anne Johnson and Julie Johnson were determined to snuff the life from this bill, seemingly as revenge for bills like SB14 which protects minors.

The whole team worked as hard as possible to ensure that this would be a bipartisan piece of legislation. Nevertheless, the Democrats cheered when it was killed in the last minutes of the 2023 Session. During the final hours of the sessions, Democrats deliberately did everything they could to stop HB3502 from having its second reading. Even though this bill does nothing except for expand insurance coverage for people whose very insurance covered their “onboarding” procedures, the Democrats sought to kill it anyway.

These politicians love humiliating their Republican colleagues more than they care about anyone who’s been subjected to gender medicalization. They should be ashamed.

This move by Democrats in Texas echoes an action by the Oregon legislature last month to kill an amendment to Oregon’s HB2002 to add a similar provision to a sweeping “reproductive rights” bill designed to make it possible for minor children to begin medical transition without parental consent. Democrats in state legislatures are doing everything they can to stop anyone who has had gender medicalization from being able to access affordable reconstructive procedures.

My love and gratitude to the team and its stalwart leader who were able to get this legislation as far as they could. I hope we’re able to get one more chance at this in 2023. It will be challenging to run this whole obstacle course again in 2024.

The European Professional Association for Transgender Health (EPATH) was held in Killarney, Ireland from April 26th to April 28th, 2023. Killarney was chosen as its meeting site in part due to support from the Transgender Equality Network of Ireland (TENI), an advocacy group that is partly funded through Ireland’s nationalized healthcare service, Health Service Executive (HSE).

I was in Killarney, Ireland on April 27th to attend the Genspect Bigger Picture conference and to encounter and have conversations with attendees to the EPATH conference. Although I was originally escorted out of the conference (a story I’ll recount later), I was later allowed to purchase entry. At the end of the second day of the conference I found myself sitting across from Susie Green of GenderGP and Tara Hewitt of TENI. Much to my shame, I have the habit of occasionally eavesdropping, and so I caught a fair bit of their conversation.

GenderGP is a private clinic specializing in cross-sex hormones run by Helen Webberley and formerly by her husband Michael Webberley. Helen Webberley has had a long history of legal problems related to medical misconduct. Last year, she had her medical license temporarily suspended, although a judge later granted her appeal to overturn the suspension. Michael Webberley is permanently unable to practice medicine following a finding that he’d improperly prescribed cross-sex hormones to children, including one who took her own life. The Webberleys have a long history of flaunting medical standards for working with the vulnerable population of gender dysphoric youth.

Susie Green is the former leader of the troubled Mermaids charity, where under her management Green brought a pedophile to serve on the board, among other lapses of judgment. Green is also detailed in Hannah Barnes’s book Time to Think where she is noted for pushing for the medicalization of children to the point of making clinicians with the NHS youth gender clinic uncomfortable.

Tara Hewitt is a transgender male and a long-time activist from the UK. Hewitt recently moved to Ireland to work for the Transgender Equality Network of Ireland. TENI was pivotal in bringing EPATH to Killarney and was rewarded by having its president Tina Kolos Orban give an opening address at the conference, in which she indulged in paranoia by describing critics of cross-sex medicine as “… a totalitarian and genocidal force that targets not just trans people but all institutions that uphold democracy and individual human rights.”

What I overheard was a conversation between Green and Hewitt about the challenges of getting GenderGP to gain access to Ireland. Green spoke about how GenderGP being a private service makes it challenging to position the group in countries with national healthcare services. Among the challenges Green detailed was the need to “whitewash” Helen Webberley’s ethics problems. Green and Hewitt discussed some tactics to “shift the HSE” by pressuring politicians within Ireland’s legislative body, the Oireachtas. Green and Hewitt mentioned severals legislators by name (TDs), but unfortunately I was not prepared to record the names as I heard them, however it’s likely that one of them was Roderic O’Gorman who advocates for teaching transgender topics to gradeschool children.

Here’s the bottom line: TENI, a group that has received millions from HSE, brought EPATH to Killarney, Ireland, where its representative Tara Hewitt plotted with Susie Green to undermine the very service that was helping to fund the event. GenderGP is infamous for bypassing all the standards that WPATH (and by extension EPATH) attempts to establish for ensuring that there are minimum guidelines for the treatment of all people seeking cross-sex medicalization.

Parents in Ireland should be paying close attention to the machinations of these groups, and they should write to their own representatives to ensure that GenderGP and TENI are not allowed to subvert the HSE.

I recount my story with Nina Paley, Lisa Selin Davis, and Alasdair Gunn on the Heterodorx podcast (May 4, 2023)

Nearly all of us are born with healthy and functioning endocrine systems. The cells in our bodies depend on both testosterone and estrogen to some degree. Of course, men's bodies depend more on the former and women's on the latter. When a child is put on to puberty blockers, also called gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRH), the child's natural endocrine system is supplanted. It is stopped. For a child about to enter puberty, this causes an indefinite delay.

According to WPATH SOC8, gender clinicians may exercise the judgment to start hormone blockers in children at Tanner Stage 2 in their development. For girls, this may be age 9. For boys, age 11. Most children who start puberty blockers then go on to be prescribed cross-sex hormones, also called gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT). This whole protocol works in contradiction to the child's natural endocrine system. At this point, irreversible changes have happened.

If hormone replacement continues, permanent changes occur. Girls masculinize. Her body will grow more hair, her voice will deepen, and she will accumulate more muscle. Boys will have their skin soften and they will begin to grow breasts. Even with hormone replacement, a body that is meant to follow a female sexual developmental pattern will not become male. And males will not become female. At this point, the body's natural endocrine system is suppressed and smothered by prescription drugs.

Let's talk about the drugs. The most common GnRH (puberty blocker) is Lupron. Lupron is not designed for children who identify as transgender—it's more commonly used to treat cancer. It costs at least hundreds of dollars a month, but I've normally heard it costing thousands. Lupon can have devastating side effects, and even the gender clinicians are aware of this, and some have talked about rushing children off puberty blockers and on to cross-sex hormones as quickly as possible.

Girls who are put on this path inject testosterone. Testosterone can act as a mild anti-depressant. Girls taking testosterone report having more energy. Testosterone is also expensive. Boys on this path take estrogen. Estrogen is sometimes used to treat sex offenders to reduce their sex drive. Estrogen is cheaper in oral form, but is associated with higher risk of stroke. From my own experience, I was not ready to handle male puberty, and estrogen acted like a governor on my sex drive. It helped me avoid learning about my body.

Hormone imbalances can exacerbate anxiety, depression, and even suicidal ideation. However, gender clinicians do not monitor these symptoms from medical side effects. In fact, when these symptoms arise (which is common), they are attributed to minority stress, not the medication itself.

After a period on hormone replacement therapy, boys are expected to follow a path that includes castration and the construction of a vagina-like orifice using the penis as material. Without testicles, the boy will become dependent on external hormones for the rest of his life. Girls on this path will experience vaginal atrophy from testosterone, and eventually her other sex organs will be destroyed by the testosterone. After hysterectomy, the girl will become dependent on external hormones for the rest of her life.

For boys and girls in this situation, and for people like me, our health is wholly dependent on the medical system. We must have regular blood tests (at least once a year), and we must report in to our providers to get renewals for our external hormones. These hormone treatments are not optional: we have no gonads. Without them, our bones will become frail, and we will experience other physical symptoms, including mental health problems—hormones regulate our entire bodies.

I am leashed to a medical provider. The best I can do is pick who holds the leash. The children who are being transitioned are being put on to a leash. They are typically starting the process with healthy bodies. But then our bodies are deliberately damaged. Why? For aesthetics. I'm unusual in that I'm vocal about my criticism of the system. I have heard from so many trans people that they would like to say something, but they are terrified that the people who hold their leashes will jerk on the reins.

Planned Parenthood is one of the most generous of the leash-holders. They will essentially let anyone sign up to get a leash, and they don't ask for very much from their pets. How does this sound? Maybe not so bad? What is the medical discipline that understands the endocrine system? It's endocrinology! And yet, nobody writing prescriptions at Planned Parenthood is an endocrinologist. My local gender clinic, which sees perhaps 1000 patients, has no endocrinologist on staff. Not only are we on medical leashes, but the people who hold the leashes aren't even experts in the field. They are learning about best practices and then experimenting on us. However, as someone once pointed out to me, it's not an experiment. In an experiment, someone is collecting data.

It should never be considered normal or preferable to treat problems like autism spectrum disorder, anxiety, traumas, depression, or other social disorders by placing children on puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones. It is not a treatment path. It is a collar and a chain.

Kiwi Farms is one of the websites right-thinking journalists warn you to avoid visiting. Its users include journalists, lawyers, and academics arguing cheek-to-jowl with white supremacists, fascists, and every other type of rat-eating troglodyte with access to a keyboard. Unlike the highly-regulated social media platforms to which we’ve become accustomed, Kiwi Farms allows discussion of nearly any topic, but typically users flock to forums to document, discuss, and yes, sometimes harass outlandish public figures. The typical tone of a Kiwi Farms post is schadenfreude and sarcasm, and the figures picked out for attention justifiably feel picked on and even traumatized. In August, Kiwi Farms was accused of swatting Clara Sorrenti, a transgender social media personality, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Across its decade of operation, critics of Kiwi Farms have implicated it in the suicide of three individuals (accusations that have been widely reported uncritically as fact). Tom Namako, executive editor of NBC News Digital describes it as “one of the most dire places on the internet, known as the epicenter of vicious, anti-trans harassment campaigns.”

As the story is told in the Washington Post or by NBC News, an innocent transgender video game streamer has been serially harassed by a website full of malcontents and trolls, resulting in the website being removed from the internet. The truth is more nuanced, and the action taken by Cloudflare, now no longer a content-neutral network infrastructure provider, may signal the end of free expression on the internet.

I am a lurker on Kiwi Farms, someone who reads the site on a regular basis. My habit started in early 2017 when I was contacted out of the blue by a member of the Kiwi Farms forum to alert me that my real name had been exposed and connected to my until-then anonymous Twitter account. Up to that point I’d only known about Kiwi Farms by its reputation, which in 2017 was not very different from Namako’s description. I knew that I didn’t want Kiwi Farms taking an interest in me, and I felt anxious and vulnerable having my name appear on the website.

On Twitter, I had been asking the operators of the Trans Lifeline to institute safeguarding measures for their clients. Trans Lifeline is a suicide hotline developed by and for the transgender community. It was Trans Lifeline’s policy to deliberately not conduct background checks for its hotline volunteers. Kiwi Farms had been tracking my public appeals. One of the forum users, a transgender woman, heaped my name on top of the information pile they were gathering. Another forum participant, concerned for my safety and privacy, contacted me through Twitter to warn me.

As it turns out, Kiwi Farms had been accumulating information on the Trans Lifeline, and some of its forum participants had been scrapping with the Trans Lifeline leadership. The forum revealed information about Trans Lifeline that I, even as an active critic, had not known. I learned that Trans Lifeline was not answering many of its calls, which was revealed by Trans Lifeline through its own reporting (when Kiwi Farms took notice, Trans Lifeline discontinued its public reporting). I learned that Greta Gustava Martela, one of the founders of Trans Lifeline, had actually traveled across the country to confront the operator of Kiwi Farms at his mother’s house (Kiwi Farms had screenshots of Martela bragging about owning deadly weapons). This confrontation is represented on Wikipedia as a “decision to directly confront individuals who they believe facilitate transphobia” or, as most people would describe it, an angry stranger showing up on your doorstep to threaten you.

There are plenty of elements of a news story. A suicide hotline for a vulnerable population that doesn’t answer calls, that does not have safeguarding policies, and whose leadership shows up in person to menace critics. Although this is not headline news, it merits some attention from smaller media outlets. However, two forces prevented this story from ever being reported. Kiwi Farms had built a reputation as being a hang-out for miscreants, and no reporter wanted to blemish their own standing by offering a sympathetic angle, and in a post-Trump world, transgender activism had attained an unchallengeable social privilege. 

It would be wrong to say that there was zero media attention of Trans Lifeline. The NBC News website wrote a glossy profile of its co-founder Nina Chaubal. The New York Times also dedicated a sympathetic piece to Chaubal covering her detention by US Immigration on an expired work visa.

In early 2018, the Trans Lifeline board removed Martela and Chaubal from leadership following allegations that the pair had diverted in the neighborhood of $350,000 from the charity’s funds to their own private uses. The organization filed a Form 990 reporting “unauthorized purchases” and an agreement for the terminated founders to repay the misspent funds over ten years.

In a functional media environment, the story of a suicide hotline for a vulnerable population having its funds misspent by its founders should have been a widely reported story. The charity itself should have undergone public scrutiny, and its board should have faced pressure to recover the lost money. The duty of informing the public should never fall to a seedy gossip website known for publishing “dox,” personal contact details, of its targets of interest. Kiwi Farms acted as both a repository of evidence and as a freelance company of analysts for this event.

Kiwi Farms has seen its membership and forum activity double over the past several years. Users from other internet forums come to Kiwi Farms seeking less regulated content moderation. In June of 2020, the administrators of Reddit banned a section of the site called Gender Critical. The Gender Critical forum had over 60,000 users, most of whom were women, discussing a wide variety of topics from women’s hygiene, sex trafficking, reproductive rights, and yes, the conflict between feminists and transgender-identifying people. Reddit’s administrative staff has an outsized proportion who identify as transgender, and tone of the Gender Critical forum could sometimes be hostile or offensive, despite the forum’s own moderator’s efforts to adhere to Reddit’s rules. Kiwi Farms was not the only destination for the Gender Critical exodus: some of the former members of the forum created their own website called Ovarit. Reddit’s actions are in line with other social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, that have become more aggressive about patrolling its users’ ability to freely express viewpoints.

As the major discussion forums make it impossible to discuss certain sacred cows (transgender ideology, virus vaccination, and other politicized topics), people have flocked to less moderated spaces where group think more easily sets in, growing insular communities untempered by the need to justify beliefs or opinions to interested onlookers. As Kaitlyn Tiffany noted in The Atlantic, those ejected from mainstream forums carry resentment about their treatment on more open platforms. Persecuting people by banning their speech is a potent recipe for distilling anger at the outside world.

The rise of these outlaw communities has been met with annoyance by some members of the mainstream media. In 2021, Washington Post technology reporter Taylor Lorenz tattled on the participants of a Clubhouse room because one of the participants used the word retarded. Lorenz mistakenly attributed the use of the word to Marc Andreesen, and was forced to backtrack when she was corrected. However, it is Lorenz appointing herself the role of arbiter of speech that should raise eyebrows. Lorenz criticized Clubhouse for allowing “unfettered conversations,” instead of imposing overbearing speech regulation. Somehow we have conceded the idea that members of the press have a role in setting the boundaries of acceptable public speech. We should not make such concessions.

Kiwi Farms is not entirely without moderation. Posts can and will be removed, especially if they distract from the purpose of the forum. The site has a “bro” culture where people frequently refer to each other as slurs. Users making their first posts often violate unspoken forum rules, and these “newfags” are corrected by the veteran members. The moderators have cooperated with law enforcement requests at times, but have on other occasions openly mocked the supplicant’s request. The biggest problem with the moderation on Kiwi Farms is that it is not synchronized with the practices of the other major content sites. If you want a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop suppressed before an election, Kiwi Farms is not going to cooperate. If you want to squelch discussion about the efficacy of COVID vaccines, or slap a CDC warning label about misinformation on every page, Kiwi Farms will not comply. And if you’re a public figure like Taylor Lorenz, and you want to have an embarrassing trove of personal criticism deleted from cyberspace, Kiwi Farms will not help you out. If you’re Taylor Lorenz, you need a strategy to get rid of the site altogether.

In March of 2022, Sorrenti, a Twitch streamer also known as “keffals,” came into public notice by feuding with yet another internet celebrity Steven Bonnell, also known as “Destiny.” Bonnell had said something critical about the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports, and Sorrenti bragged about having Bonnell’s channel banned on the premise of transphobia, thereby depriving Bonnell of his main source of income. Bonnell was already an internet celebrity tracked by Kiwi Farms, and Sorrenti’s conduct resulted in Kiwi Farms creating a dedicated forum for Sorrenti. The self-appointed investigators started compiling information about Sorrenti, uncovering an embarrassing past in pornography and some evidence that Sorrenti ran online discussion forums that included and sexualized minors.

In June of 2022, following a fundraiser Sorrenti hosted for transgender charities, Lorenz wrote a glowing and uncritical profile of Sorrenti. An interesting insight in Lorenz’s piece is a quote from Brenden Gahan, chief social officer of a creative agency: “Conflict equals growth.” It’s impossible to imagine that Sorrenti and Lorenz have not discussed their common enemy of Kiwi Farms. The elevation of Sorrenti to a Washington Post puff piece inflamed the Kiwi Farms forum and ramped up the rhetoric. On August 9th, 2022, Sorrenti was a victim of a falsified police report which lead to Sorrenti’s detainment and seizure of computers and phones. Although there is no evidence to connect this crime to Kiwi Farms, the fact that Sorrenti’s address is published on Kiwi Farms implicates the forum as an accomplice. Sorrenti was able to raise nearly $100,000 from the public to help mitigate the inconvenience of the swatting.

Sorrenti and Kiwi Farms began to play a cat-and-mouse game. Sorrenti would move to “safe” locations, but then post photos that invited Kiwi Farms members to place Sorrenti’s location. Sorrenti would then move to a new location and post new clues. Sorrenti, together with some other individuals previously targeted by Kiwi Farms, began to pressure Cloudflare, a provider of critical internet services, to drop Kiwi Farms as a customer. Although Sorrenti was clearly playing a game, the pressure on Cloudflare was severe. 

The present form of the internet is surprisingly concentrated. A combination of market forces and reactions to mitigate criminal activities have given rise to a small number of providers and services assuming responsibility for serving major parts of internet traffic. Cloudflare is one of these providers, and close to 20 percent of all websites use Cloudflare to service internet services, or use Cloudflare to defend against attacks. Many small websites, which may as well be any that are not YouTube, Netflix, Google, Microsoft, or Amazon, depend on Cloudflare to be able to operate, period. Cloudflare understands its solemn responsibility of maintaining neutrality in serving traffic, and the pressure campaign led to Cloudflare laying out its responsibility to remain neutral in an August 31st blog post.

Cloudflare’s response did not relieve any of the pressure against it. Articles began appearing in Time Magazine, Bloomberg, and NBC News pouring on extra pressure. On September 3rd, citing a an unnamed “imminent and emergency threat to life,” Cloudflare gave in to the pressure and terminated its service to Kiwi Farms. This move was celebrated by Taylor Lorenz, who praised Sorrenti’s bravery and criticized Kiwi Farms’ harm to the “trans community.” Lorenz also credited NBC’s Ben Collins as being “crucial” in the campaign to pressure Cloudflare.  Ben King also crowed about the imminent demise of Kiwi Farms, admitting that it would be impossible to continue operating the site without Cloudflare’s service.

Let’s look at the belligerents and put things in context. There is Kiwi Farms, a forum which publishes personal contact information and enables harassment, but which also collects and analyzes information ignored by the entirety of the media. There is Clara Sorrenti and friends, online drama personalities who are monetizing attention. There is Taylor Lorenz, Ben Collins, and the other representatives of the mainstream media who have repeatedly signaled the desire to control the dissemination of information online. Finally, there is Cloudflare, a critical provider of internet services. At a high level, this is a spat between an internet gossip group, an irresponsible journalist nursing a grudge, and an internet clown. At the ground level, this is potentially the end of open expression on the internet. If providers of backbone services can be moved away from neutrality once, they will be moved again. This will become a recurring tactic to drive unpopular speech off the internet.

As bad as this situation is, it gets worse. NBC News National Security Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director, made a provably false accusation that Kiwi Farms is responsible for three suicides and without any evidence claimed that Kiwi Farms could easily become an “increased threat to domestic terror.” Figliuzzi linked Kiwi Farms to Russian internet services—a move necessary only because Cloudflare was pressured to drop the website. An attempt by a major US press organization to enlist the aid of the FBI to crush an internet discussion forum is a strong signal that traditional notions of a free press are rapidly becoming outdated.

There is more going on here beyond a rogue message board having a tiff with a transgender video game streamer. Journalists are swapping out their duties from reporting news to defining what is information and what is “disinformation.” The media companies, competing for attention first and dollars second, are providing their full backing. The world should not need a website like Kiwi Farms. Instead Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Wordpress, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, and the myriad other publishing platforms should already be open forums supporting free expression and committed to viewpoint neutrality. But this is not the reality. Kiwi Farms, though it may be a hive of scum and villainy, may also be one of the last places where free expression lives online. The only way to solve a problem like Kiwi Farms is to restore the norm of free expression everywhere else.

2022-09-06 10:27am EDT: An earlier version of this story accidentally referred to Cloudflare as Cloudfront, a similar AWS service.

2022-09-06 2:51pm EDT: An earlier version of this story referred to Steve Bonner, it has been corrected to Steve Bonnell

Links:

Natasha Chart’s web site: https://natashachart.com/

Practical Politics for Bold Women: https://chartconsulting.samcart.com/products/practical-politics-for-bold-women

IRS web site: https://www.irs.gov/charities-and-nonprofits

--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/heterodorx/support

Every gender clinician has an ethical duty to ensure that any child to whom they prescribe puberty blockers, gender affirming cross-sex hormones, or gender affirming surgery only does so when they are certain the child is a transgender child.

Now if all this makes sense to you so far, please understand there are no "cisgender" children or "transgender" children. There are children who may (or may not) have gender dysphoria. These children absolutely DO require psychological support.

Because so many people have accepted the reality of "transgender children", they have stopped questioning the legitimacy of "gender affirming care", wrongly believing that children are receiving this because it's medically necessary.

Replace "transgender child" with "child who is gender non-conforming" or "traumatized child" or "child who is uncomfortable developing into a man or woman" and you'll see the problem from a whole different angle. In this light, "gender affirming" means concretizing an identity.

These children are having their endocrine systems medically destroyed and replaced. They are having healthy body parts removed. This is happening to "cisgender children" who later experience regret, many of whom will detransition. No child is born transgender. They are made.

I posted the above as a Twitter thread that got a little bit of traction. Some people understood what I was doing, but others sought to correct my use of cisgender without making it past the first tweet in my series.

Any of us who’ve argued with a transgender activist or one of their allies has run into the thought-terminating cliche trans women are women (TWAW). As some conservative content creators have learned, transgender activists and clinicians are loathe to define womanhood in any relatable terms, often resorting to circular definitions or completely avoiding the discussion at all. Those employing TWAW never need to defend it (see, no debate) and never need to understand it. Any critical challenge to transgender etiology is slammed closed by the utterance TWAW.

We can point our fingers and say, “observe, this person is in an echo chamber.” However, isn’t it the case that we are in our own echo chamber also? When my critics saw the word cisgender in my tweet thread, rather than process my thread to understand my point, they immediately responded to tell me things like:

• “Cis” is a slur

• There is no such thing as “cisgender children”

• Don’t refer to children as “cis”

• Stop saying “cis”

And so forth. It’s apparent that some portion of the 2,300 people who engaged with my tweet determined that there was nothing useful in it for them to understand. Instead, something triggered in their brains—a thought terminating cliche—that the language I was using was some type of wrongspeak that needed to be addressed.

We are all human. If you aren’t worried about being in an echo chamber, that’s a good sign that you are in an echo chamber. None of us are immune from this effect. You should never feel wholly comfortable with your beliefs, and people who challenge your thinking are offering you the gift of evaluating your own ideas.

As for me, I’m trying to reach other people within an echo chamber. These people are already comfortable with the word cisgender. These people already believe in such a thing as transgender children. If I want to reach past their defenses, I can’t start off by demanding they adopt my preferred vocabulary.

The gender ideology has spread widely and deeply. If I’m going to convince the mildly indoctrinated—which, for most people, is something they don’t understand themselves to be—I need to use language and concepts that are already inside of their model of the problem. Their ears are already primed to accept some words and reject others. Like yours are. Like mine are.

In the gender wars, Billboard Chris is a warrior, dropping truth bombs with military precision and engaging in mouth-to-ear combat on the ground. After placing informative billboards in major cities, he takes to the streets wearing a sandwich board stating “CHILDREN CANNOT CONSENT TO PUBERTY BLOCKERS”. Questions elicit blazes of fact-fire that may provoke shock, awe, or, in our case, nodding agreement. Nina struggles to find something – anything – to disagree about, while Corinna meekly suggests that Chris might burn out at some point. No chance of that! The fight goes on until gender surrenders.

https://www.billboardchris.com/

https://www.statsforgender.org/

Corinna’s Notes

It’s normal for us to have a brief conversation with our guests after we finish recording. Sometimes it’s because we thought of something too late, other times it’s because we were delicately holding back from throwing fuel on a current bit of drama. After we finished recording with Chris, I asked him whether men should be doing more to make detransitioned men feel more included, or whether there should be a “masculinist” movement similar to mirror the support structures feminism provides to female detransitioners. Chris seemed a bit surprised by my question. He said that men already accept other men as they are and that there was no need for what I was suggesting.

A few days later I was killing some time by having a pint in a local brewpub. There was small group of men gathered watching some soccer game on TV. I observed them as I sipped my beer and thought about was Chris had said. I’m not sure.

https://www.billboardchris.com/

https://www.statsforgender.org/

--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/heterodorx/support

Activism in news reporting

The Indianapolis Star’s coverage of House Bill 1041 has consistently adopted a viewpoint sympathetic to gender ideology. To the Star, HB 1041 is not pro-woman, but anti-transgender. Those affected are not boys, nor are they transgender persons, but “trans girls”. The supporters of HB 1041 have no motives or principles beyond the culture war. Of course, all of this is wrong.

HB 1041 was authored by Rep. Michelle Davis, who is an Indiana women’s basketball hall of fame athlete. Davis used to play against boys in order to have challenging enough competition to improve her skills. Even though she was one of the best on the girls’ team, she could barely keep up with the boys. Davis explained her motivation as wanting to protect the rights of girls to continue to have the same opportunities that she did—to be able to work hard, gain recognition, and have a chance to earn an athletic scholarship.

Here is how Indianapolis Star reporter Arika Herron framed the issue:

The bill’s author, Rep. Michelle Davis, R-Whiteland, said the bill is about protecting girls athletics from the threat posed by transgender girls, who could have a biological advantage that will cause cisgender girls to lose out of the opportunity to play or compete on a even playing field. 

I reached out to Davis’ staff to ask whether this was accurate. They told me that Herron was taking liberties with how they’d chosen to paraphrase Davis. Specifically, Davis never used the phrase “transgender girls”, nor did she ever use the word “cisgender”. Davis accurately framed the issue in terms of boys playing on girls’ teams. Herron chose to insert words into the mouth of an elected official in order to reframe the bill as anti-transgender.

Arika Herron was also reported live from the House Committee on Education hearing. Her coverage was unbalanced. Her coverage of Rep. Davis’ introduction was mostly critical. Herron nearly omitted all coverage of proponent testimony, including mine.

Herron’s coverage of the opposition was much more sympathetic. Herron quoted both Indiana ACLU representatives Kit Malone and Katie Blair, Chris Paulsen from the queer-oriented Indiana Youth Group, and multiple parents of youth who identify as transgender. At the end of the marathon sessions, Herron posted a short clip of the opponents of HB 1041, outfitted in pink and blue regalia, shouting profanities at the lawmakers.

I criticized Herron on Twitter for her slanted reporting, and she insisted that she was “covering both sides”. She did cover both sides, but unevenly, and without impartiality. Herron never mentioned the mothers of girls who participate in competitive sport. She omitted my testimony as well, which made headlines in the conservative media. The only coverage I received locally was a five second excerpt on a single television news broadcast.

The Indianapolis Star’s continuing coverage of HB 1041 was often helmed by Herron and maintained its activist viewpoint. Some examples follow:

How Indiana Republican lawmakers changed their sights from gay rights to trans issues (Feb 8, 2022) by Arika Herron and Kaitlin Lang. This story is presented as a straightforward divisive right-wing attack on transgender rights. Among more than 10 persons interviewed, only Davis is shows as taking the issue of girls’ rights seriously:

Sooner or later, Davis said, “biological females” won’t be able to make their school teams and won’t have the same opportunities to play or get scholarships like she did. Her bill, she said, is to protect the integrity of girls sports and “maintain fair competition in girls’ sports, now and in the future.”

Opponents say this narrative is harmful, inaccurate fear-mongering and trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Transgender girls simply aren't taking over girls school sports in Indiana. Even Davis said she's aware of only one case of a cisgender girl being impacted by the participation of a transgender girl, out of more than 60,000 girls playing school sports.

Herron and Lange use context quotes when Davis says “biological females” but then present the term “transgender girls” as though it’s quite natural. And while I’ll concede this problem doesn’t exist yet in Indiana, if it did then nobody would seriously believe that the opponents of HB 1041 would concede their positions.

Among those interviewed in this piece are transgender activists Emma Vosicky (Gender Nexus), Kit Malone (Indiana ACLU), and queer youth activist Chris Paulsen, each who gave opposition testimony for HB 1041.

Indiana Republicans push social issues in legislature as heavily contested primary nears (Feb 23, 2022) by Arika Herron and Kaitlin Lange:

In many ways, the legislative session has been hijacked by social and culture issues, from transgender rights to vaccine mandates to bills inspired by the debate over whether critical race theory is being taught. 

The legislature cannot “hijack” its own agenda. House Bill 1041 is pointedly about women’s and girls’ rights, and it is a defensive move that is only necessary because of the zero-sum pursuit by transgender rights activists to dismantle sex-based rights.

Despite Indiana governor's veto of banning transgender girls in school sports, it will be law (May 24) by Arika Herron

Supporters want to protect girls' sports

Finally, after the dust had settled, an IndyStar article conceded that maybe the supporters of HB 1041 had something other than nefarious motives.

ACLU and the Indianapolis Star

On January 24, the ACLU ran a full, back page advertisement in the Indianapolis Star. Even though the Gannet-owned Star is an anemic husk of its pre-digital heyday, a full back page ad is a hefty buy for any advertiser.

The ACLU was the major force behind opposition to HB 1041. The ACLU held multiple rallies at the statehouse, and each of them were covered by the Indianapolis Star. ACLU advocacy strategist Kit Malone is repeatedly cited and is practically the face of the opposition to HB 1041.

On May 22, the ACLU once again purchased a full back page, full color advertisement from the Indianapolis Star. Had the order for this already been placed when I’d submitted my op-ed which advocated for the other side?

Is the Indianapolis Star doing anything untoward or against journalistic ethics? The ACLU is definitely a large part of this story. However, the ACLU has also had so much positive coverage that I honestly wonder whether the Indianapolis Star’s news and editorial departments have been given reminders of how deep the ACLU’s pockets go.

Activism on the opinion page

I directly contacted the Indianapolis Star editor Bro Krift on April 30, 2022 to submit my op-ed, and then again via a different email address on May 3, 2022. Krift declined the piece late in the evening on May 3rd. Four days after my original submission, the Indianapolis Star published an op-ed by HB 1041 opponent and transgender activist Emma Vosicky, who the Star had previously quoted in its coverage of HB 1041. Vosicky’s story is largely autobiographical. The only mention of HB 1041 on Vosicky’s op-ed is within a photo caption of protestors sitting at the January 24th committee hearing. The timing could be coincidental, but given the rambling nature of the op-ed and four days between my submission and the publication of a pro-transgender piece written by someone who directly opposes my viewpoint, I really do wonder.

The Indiana legislature overrode Gov. Eric Holcomb’s veto on May 24, 2022. Since then, the Indianapolis Star has produced four stories and two op-ed pieces in reaction. One op-ed is by Star regular opinion writer James Briggs, who, to his credit, handles the matter with some judgment.

Actually, there is good reason to think that, if a trans-female athlete has gone through puberty, they might perform at a higher level. Progressives lose credibility when they refuse to acknowledge well-founded concerns people might have.

These issues, including questions of support and affirmation for transgender youth, warrant serious and honest discussion. That didn’t happen in Indiana, where Republicans intentionally punted on real-world matters in order to score cheap points on hypothetical scenarios that fire up conservatives.

What Briggs ignores is that there was an attempt at serious and honest discussion. The ACLU was not interested in it, nor were any of the reporters at the Indianapolis Star. My testimony and my attempted op-ed both spoke to the issue sensitively and from the perspective of someone who transitioned as a teenager. Brigg’s own institution is part of the problem. As Brigg’s has owned up to his mistakes in the past, it’s my hope he’ll read this one day and agree that the Indianapolis Star dropped the ball.

The second op-ed is by Drew Anderson, who identifies as LGBTQ and is the communications director for the Indiana Democratic Party. Anderson’s appeal is “trust LGBTQ adults like me”. In his op-ed, Anderson speaks about his experience being bullied in high school, culminating in this horrifying anecdote:

But the most horrifying moment I’ll never forget: Someone shouting “Drew’s a queen” when I was recognized as my school’s homecoming king.

It is hard to imagine the horror of one’s shining moment being acknowledged as the most popular boy in class ruined by having someone shout out (what turns out to be a true) an accusation of one’s sexual orientation. I have a lot of sympathy. This must have been ruinous to Anderson’s reign as king.

Ignorant of Briggs’ call for serious and honest discussion, Anderson offers his take on why anyone supported HB 1041:

It must be said: The legislation they are passing is out of hate  Overriding Holcomb’s veto makes the Indiana lawmakers look more like persecutors and less like public servants. 

I’d like to see Briggs square his newspaper’s editorial practices in the opinion pages with his own advice.

In this already-dated, 2-week-old recording, the Dorx once again express compassion for all medical transitioners, and discuss young male detransitioners in particular. Nina shares Too Much Information about her hysterectomy, and Corinna admits the benefits of neutering cats and humans. After arguing about who is responsible for the failures of men (Nina: it’s men, Corinna: could be women), Nina mentions Female Dating Strategy, which could be the answer to both. Corinna wants more money, and Nina says it’s tough being a canceled artist. Somehow we both thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts while saying humans suck and everyone should do better. That goes double for us!

Links:

Trans Journalists Association: 

https://transjournalists.org/

Female Dating Strategy: 

https://www.thefemaledatingstrategy.com/

Apocalypse Animated: 

https://apocalypseanimated.com/

Hundred Dollar Drawings (now $150): https://blog.ninapaley.com/hundred-dollar-drawing/

Links:

Trans Journalists Association: https://transjournalists.org/

Female Dating Strategy: https://www.thefemaledatingstrategy.com/

Apocalypse Animated: https://apocalypseanimated.com/

Hundred Dollar Drawings (now $150): https://blog.ninapaley.com/hundred-dollar-drawing/

--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/heterodorx/support

It’s tempting to characterize this issue as Republican legislators waging a culture war against a marginalized group. But the ways in which women and girls are affected by the intrusion of biological males (however they identify) into what was previously protected as a single-sex activity is fundamentally about equity and fairness. With a clearer understanding of the language and intent of these kinds of bills, most Americans regardless of party would support protecting women’s and girls’ sports.

The ACLU has weighed in, representing the alleged right of biologically male children who identify as girls to participate in girls’ sports and compete against biologically female children. Their arguments rely on twisted logic, a denial of science, and a variety of distortions and falsehoods. The three most egregious are that bills that protect girls’ sports as single-sex competitions by banning male children who identify as girls have the effect of banning those biologically male children from playing sports at all; that there should be no distinction made between children who are biologically male and children who are biologically female––that male children who identify as girls should be classified as girls; and that it is compassionate for society to support this reclassification.

First, it is entirely untrue that sports bills prohibit male children who identify as girls from participating in school sports. Male children who identify as girls are still able to participate in boys’ competitive school sports and non-competitive mixed-sex sports. Instead of requiring girls’ sports to accommodate male children, we should have higher expectations of inclusion in boys’ sports.

The second falsehood is that male children who identify as girls are not male. While it is true that in many sports a prepubescent male child’s biology provides little to no advantage over a prepubescent girl’s, they are nonetheless not female. And boys who have gone through their natural puberty experience a very different kind of physical development from that of girls. This opens a wide gap in athletic performance between the sexes.

No matter how they identify, biologically male athletes do not compete at the female-typical level. In some sports, top male high school athletes even outperform Olympic-level female athletes. It is becoming increasingly evident that women are at a clear disadvantage when competing against biological males who identify as women.

The third distortion is perhaps the most barbaric: the pervasive and at times coercive reclassification of boys who struggle with gender identity issues as "female." This is not “progressive.” I can personally attest to the angst and alienation associated with gender dysphoria. Rather than reclassifying the sex of so many feminine boys and masculine girls, surely progressive change means accepting a wider range of masculinity and femininity in the gender expression of boys and men and girls and women.

Collectively participating in the gender dysphoria-induced illusion that these boys are actually girls –– and no different from their biologically female peers –– is not compassionate. It is cruel. True “gender affirming care” would be to help these children address their gender dysphoria with sensitivity, empathy, and compassion so they can come to accept the fact that they are biologically male, regardless of whether they are undergoing social or medical gender transition.

When the dust finally settles on the question of male inclusion in female sports, it will be apparent that the only reliable mechanism to protect fairness for girls and women is classification by sex –– not gender identification. This is an issue that reaches past partisan politics and into the foundations of fairness. It would be irresponsible for state legislatures to stand back while males replace females on winner’s podiums in girls’ sports. And when these females –– these girls –– grow up, they will remember who stood up for their rights and who did not.

The Indiana legislature must follow the lead of Kansas, Utah, and Idaho by overriding the governor’s veto to decisively protect girls’ rights. And every other state must enact similar bills to protect girls and women from being unable to compete in single-sex sports. If not, female athletes must be taught to smile bravely as they cede their victories to their male peers and accept that it is girls and women who must pay the price for inclusion.