Lydia Polgreen's Op-Ed for the New York Times About Medicalizing Trans-Identified Minors was Misleading, Poorly Argued, & Silly
By Justine Deterling
I sent this email to the New York Times staff and Lydia Polgreen, whom I spoke with at a Genspect conference in November. Happy to get the ear of a lesbian reporter from a major outlet, I prioritized talking to her about desistance statistics, why we should be worried they have gone down, and the severity of the sexual side effects on minors from hormone blockers. To give people an idea about her mindset, before I went into this, her first comments to me were, "Aren't you concerned some of these people are working with 'anti-LGBTQ' lawyers?" (yes but not as concerned that doctors are chemically castrating tweens), and when I told her I founded a pediatric medical watchdog website for LGB people (Gender Health Query) concerned about damage happening to LBG youth she said, "LGB, well what about trans lesbians?" I will also include a follow-up email I sent to Polgreen after the conference and before her Op-Ed. I don't make emails to me public, but I do ones I write.
Most gays and lesbians have no idea what is going on with pediatric transitions. Two things happen when they get exposed to disturbing truths. They become horrified and often can't look away from the issue, or they double down. Lydia is a double-downer.
Hello relevant NYT staff (and others aware of the GLAAD/NewsGuild of NY dust up ICYI),
I'm writing to you as an individual here, but I am a well informed board member of a medical watchdog organization (Gender Health Query) regarding the damage pediatric medical transition is doing to same-sex attracted youth. This is no surprise given prior research demonstrates that proto-gay/lesbian kids with clinical gender dysphoria would often outgrow it and not seek transition later if adults didn't reinforce the dysphoria and medicalize them. I am addressing Lydia Polgreen's journalistic sloppiness in the article “Born This Way? Born Which Way?” This is a widespread problem in articles about pediatric transition, including in news outlets that should be trustworthy.
Sterilizing minors is a serious matter. It is irresponsible to frame it this way:
Most chilling to some is a mistaken belief that medical transition routinely causes permanent sterility, foreclosing any chance at parenthood. (Some treatments, including cross-sex hormones, can hamper fertility in a patient, but the effects are often reversible — plenty of transgender people, men, women and nonbinary people become biological parents.)
Many trans-identified adults have had children or say they want them. But they transitioned as adults. This will not likely be possible with current technology under the "affirmative" protocol where medicalization begins at the first signs of puberty. If it does become possible, fertility preservation and medicalized reproductive care (for youth who voluntarily sterilize their healthy reproductive systems) will have social costs to an overburdened healthcare system. We are a 1st world country that already lacks resources for basic neonatal care for poor people with a high infant mortality rate in minority communities.
Polgreen fails to mention the evidence for negative cognitive and bone impacts. She fails to mention the fact that this process sexually lobotomizes male children who want to be girls and can cause severe clitoral and vaginal pain in females who are starting transition at age 10 in some cases. It is very convenient for her to leave out the consequential health impacts to paint gender journeys as holy rites of passage. She knows the consequences. We talked about them, and speakers presented them at the Genspect conference we attended.
Here is Marci Bowers, vaginoplasty surgeon and trans-IDed president of WPATH, admitting all Tanner 2 puberty-blocked males are likely permanently anorgasmic. These are kids put on blockers at ages 11-13, done to hundreds, maybe thousands at this point. I can make a morally and rationally strong case that this is a severe human rights crime, criminal negligence. This is not worth a mention in her rambling, long-form article.
https://x.com/DonovanCleckley/status/1521625518394773505?s=20
I find Polgreen's worldview that cognitively immature minors as young as age 11 can give consent to chemical castration and sterility as an inherent right to make a mistake morally repugnant. It is a grotesque abdication of adult responsibility to developing, impulsive young people. I find she is unable to think things through, comparing cosmetic plastic surgery on minors to gender transition, because it's an excellent argument for why we should not let the activist movement she champions force insurance companies and Medicaid programs to pay for it. I also wonder if she certainly does want to compare race to gender, opening the door for validation of trans-blackness like the case of Racheal Dolezal. She would be correct, though, that there isn't any logical difference between this and heterosexuals who wish to be lesbians and gay men, some of whom have acted in unacceptable ways towards lesbians and gays who do not comply with their worldview.
But these aren't the central points of my letter, as this is her opinion piece. It's that she is engaging in lies by omission by misleading readers about the fertility issue and not bringing up the most concerning aspects of this practice. And then she only quotes the most laughably ideological queer theorists like Grace Lavery to avoid the real issues.
While many people who transition indeed state they are happy they did and feel less depressed and dysphoric, Polgreen and liberal-leaning news outlets may wish to curb their obvious enthusiasm for transitioning minors by looking at studies based on less subjective reports using public healthcare system data such as Dhejne, the Branstrom retraction, and Riittakerttu. They indicate little more than placebo or mildly palliative benefits. In some reports, the discontinuation rates appear much higher than the reported low 1-3% commonly repeated detransition rate. I am very concerned about the long-term well-being of those youth persistent in their GD into adulthood, the rising number of heterosexual teens medicalizing, and not just LGB desisters and detransitioners.
Journalists need to break with the authoritarian ideological demands of the current millennial generation and start writing honestly about trans activism. It isn't anything like other human rights movements and is damaging to the interests of women and gay and lesbian people.
”It feels like conversion therapy for gay children, say clinicians”
It is not in the interests of these populations to put violent sex offenders in female prisons, medicalize children, destroy fair sports for girls, and ally with an activist movement likely to libel people (including those at the NYT), destroy their careers, and threaten violence against dissenters. My personal "rainbow family" has no choice but to rebuild our organizations and media that once cared about the long-term well-being of our young people rather than have such an appalling callous apathy towards them as to believe being a scarred, hirsuted, and traumatized 23-year-old lesbian with transition regret is a lesbian just like her who didn’t pursue swim team. The NYT needs to rebuild its reputation, which it is damaging with its misleading articles, mediocrity, and social justice framings that veer into intellectually lazy silliness.
Justine Deterling
Other links ICYI:
How Is Youth Gender Transition Different than Quitting the Swim Team? Let Me Count the Ways.
New York Times publishes bizarre case for youth gender transition
Dear Lydia Polgreen:
___________________________________
email sent 11/05/23 (I’ve made some minor grammatical changes for posting)
Hello Lydia,
Thank you for taking time to talk to me during the Genspect conference. I mostly wanted to write to answer a question you asked me about how I feel about the comment, "outlawing social transitions." I seriously doubt the comment meant anything like taking kids away from parents who socially transition their kids. None of these speakers are authoritarians. The comment was likely in reference to change of records at schools (and probably without parental consent).
And early social transition will track pre-gay and lesbian kids into medicalization too young. It's what the more reasonable and cautious gender clinicians predicted. The desistance rates are plummeting with the affirmative model and the regretters are largely LGB youth. Affirmative health professionals and LGBTQ orgs lie about this risk and slander people who talk about it. See, recent comments and actions by GLAAD. They all do it. There is nothing honest or trustworthy about these groups anymore. And the public sees through it and parents see it and don't want them or their agenda in schools. And neither do the homosexual and bisexual people who care about our youth (persisters too). They are culpable for much of this current backlash and have taken a hammer to decades of a gay rights movement that worked hard to build trust with society with its modest, reasonable demands regarding adults.
Here is desistance data indicating a clear association with CLINICAL childhood GD and adult homosexuality. The narrative these desisters were just boys who liked pink is a lie. This is more of a risk to the boys, as they are more likely to desist, and if they are given chemical castration drugs their genitalia will be stunted and they will be sterilized and permanently anorgasmic. They will then need a horrific and experimental vaginoplasty unless they want a child's genitals, the one Jazz Jennings had, that went pre-necrotic, split apart, and needed 3 or 4 painful revisions. Gay people would consider this a human rights atrocity if this were happening for any other reason than trans activists want it to. And even if they were persisters, do you know men who like MtFs prefer ones who are intact and haven't had bottom surgery? Legacy media is very invested in justifying all of this to honor the demands of an 11 year old child with no concept of the adult world. And the suicide narrative doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
https://www.genderhq.org/trans-children-gender-dysphoria-desistance-gay
Some updated info; note recent high desistance rates in Singh, an older cohort. Note the desistance rate in the recent Trans Youth Project study of affirmed youth, around just 8%. Note in Singh's dissertation the study was based on shows the metrics they used to measure GD weren't different for many of the desisters compared to persisters.
https://www.genderhq.org/blog/2023/2/15/ctn3ie25mkw49luoyhiw4w73j81eet
Gender clinician whistle blowers care about gay kids. LGBTQ organizations work hard to ensure no one else does (if you want examples, there are too many to list here). It is logical to call LGBTQ orgs anti-gay orgs, as it is not in the interests of gay and lesbian people to deny medical abuse among their next generation.
https://archive.ph/OzlEP
Are sexual and romantic demands by autogynephlic men a problem even if you haven't seen it? Yes. And AGPs control all lesbian spaces now, so women will be removed for complaining about this pressure, talking about how to help detransitioned lesbians, or the risk of pediatric transition to proto gay children. They censor discussion of the most important issues we face and seek to destroy the careers of women like Kathleen Stock who speak to them. The crimes these males are committing (some of the most violent and sexually depraved, male-typical assaults on women and children) are going to go down in public records as being committed by a lesbian woman. The ACLU is seeking to hide biological data from public view. So now, as an activist, when I access crime, health, and other data, I am starting to see that it is falsified in some cases. I am a rationalist and this violates my right to the truth. This is the real world result of your personal belief in the "trans lesbian woman," whether you agree with this or not. It has many other consequences as well.
A personal blog.
Lesbians and bisexual women have a lot of contentious conflicts, but don't react to this by telling other women they want to rape them and kill them. AGPs do that. And everyone knows why, whether they will say it or not. I am not trying to be personally offensive towards you. But this needs to be addressed. I hope you are more offended by the fact that lesbian teenagers online get exposed to this.
Trans activism could have had a movement based on truth and mutual respect and shared support. We got the opposite. We are disengaging and building anew. The community of same-sex attracted people who are not going to turn a blind eye to this harm is growing. I want safety and support and love for all people just trying to live their lives. I was an enthusiastic supporter of helping the trans movement. These movements are no longer compatible. And the fact far right republicans hate all of us is not enough to compensate for the trail of damage the gender craze is leaving behind. Reasonable trans-identified people must change this, and I hope they do. It is in their best interest. It's the only movement we have seen that loses support, not gain, when people learn more. Media has no right to continue what it is doing, being a propaganda arm for the concept of an "LGBTQ++++" community with an extreme agenda, with the same needs and opinions and desires to do very dangerous things to growing minors.
Thanks again. I appreciate this is long and took time and effort to look at.
Justine Deterling