You don’t get nuance!!
That Malott guy praises himself for being all nuanced and shit.
To each of you who resist acknowledging nuance:
On Tuesday I shared a video with thoughts about childhood medical transition and passability, in particular the strong draw for transitioning young because biological males in particular know that they will be treated quite a bit more kindly and humanely if they ‘pass’.
I put forward that if we have concerns about childhood medical transition—which I do—then we should actually confront this draw towards passing and the benefit it offers, because that’s the strongest argument in support of childhood transitions.
Some of you have chosen to intentionally mischaracterize what I’ve said… I get it.. it’s more convenient to characterize me as having come down in support of medical transition for children, wouldn’t it?
Mischaracterizing what I said and calling me a groomer doesn’t change that I’m right. The reason we have childhood medical transition at all—for those who actually care about history—is because practitioners recognized that the world is hostile to gender dysphoric individuals who don’t ‘pass’ and that passability is more likely when transition is undertaken young.
For gender criticals, this is a matter of medical safety, female spaces, risks of regret, and in some cases just a visceral distaste for the idea of someone transitioning.
For progressives, this is about a society that is incredibly gendered, where some people find distress in their biological reality, and an understanding that ‘disappearing’ as one’s preferred sex is most likely when transitioned young.
Now—I didn’t take a position there. I stated the positions of two opposing sides. Two sides that are arguing for different outcomes on different basis. I’m empathetic to both of these positions to a certain extent: the only thing I can be accused of, if I must be accused of something, is not taking a hardline position unilaterally in support of one or the other.
I believe nuance is important. I’ve had thousands of hours of conversation with individuals devastated by policies holistically in favour of both extremes in this debate.
I don’t think I have all the answers.
But I do have an observation: individuals on both sides are so entrenched in righteous indignation that there doesn’t seem to be space to talk about this with nuance. To reflect on the complexity. And to cry together from the devastation of real lives being affected in real ways. Let’s humanize this conversation a little bit by listening to others and allowing for complex takes.
Yesterday I recorded a fantastic podcast with @JLeslieElliott and @jlmannisto that goes very in-depth on my perspectives around all of this, so if you want a more nuanced take you should definitely check that out.
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Anyway, I wasn’t going to make a video tonight because I’ve had a family crisis that will be taking my attention for—well possibly for a very long time. Wishing you each the very best.
I love that closing “Wishing you each the very best” as if he’s King Choss or the pope or the UN. He’s just some long-winded self-important guy on Twitter.
How to rationalize ruining children’s lives.
It sounds like he’s never heard of anyone who regretted “transitioning” and was left with permanent health issues or disfigurement. But I doubt it. Being able to effectively fool people requires being able to fool people into believing that being able to effectively fool people is of the utmost importance. Life enhancing in fact.
What a load of garbage.
Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? And yet:
“When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly half way between. It is possible for one side simply to be wrong.”
― Richard Dawkins & Jerry Coyne, The Guardian, September 1, 2005
There’s also his simple, un-nuanced failure to recognize that there are, in fact, at least three sides to this debate. While Gender-critical feminists and socio-religious conservatives may feel the same way about medicalized transition of minors, their reasons for those positions are vastly different, and lumping them all in one basket is an effort to play guilt by association. (Note his list of motives for “gender criticals”: “medical safety, female spaces, risks of regret, and in some cases just a visceral distaste for the idea of someone transitioning”. That last one? Yeah, that’s pretty much all in the Ron Desantis school of trans-opposition. But by slipping it in there, he sets up a conflation between those who think Ron is a peachy-keen dude, and women trying to ensure women’s safety and opportunity–a Venn diagram of which would consist of two circles that do not even touch.)
There are issues of truth in the conflict and there are issues of value. Both.
There’s the issue of whether or not it’s true that people can change sex – whether or not it makes sense to assert that as not just true but obviously true. And there’s the issue of whether men (or “trans women” if you decide it’s true that people can change sex) should or should not take women’s prizes and injure women in sports and share women’s spaces.
Only one of those sides views women’s rights, words and spaces as a commodity that should be traded to men to facilitate some distressed people easing their distress.
Conflating the “other side” of that argument with “visceral distaste for *someone* transitioning” is intellectually dishonest. There’s at least two reasons for “visceral distaste for someone transitioning”: one being that men should be men, are men, and should be manly and masculine, which is a highly conservative view. Feminists of any stripe do not require this. Then you have women, feminists and a variety of fans of reality that see that more effectively concealing any male so he may be smuggled more effectively into female spaces is a terrible idea for all involved, not least women and children.