Transgenderism: A Pathogenic Meme | Public Discourse

Transgenderism: A Pathogenic Meme | Public Discourse

"Transgendered men do not become women, nor do transgendered women become men. All... become feminized men or masculinized women, counterfeits or impersonators of the sex with which they 'identify.' In that lies their problematic future.

"When 'the tumult and shouting dies,' it proves not easy nor wise to live in a counterfeit sexual garb. The most thorough follow-up of sex-reassigned people--extending over thirty years and conducted in Sweden, where the culture is strongly supportive of the transgendered--documents their lifelong mental unrest. Ten to fifteen years after surgical reassignment, the suicide rate of those who had undergone sex-reassignment surgery rose to twenty times that of comparable peers....

"Most young boys and girls who come seeking sex-reassignment... come with psychosocial issues--conflicts over the prospects, expectations, and roles that they sense are attached to their given sex--and presume that sex-reassignment will ease or resolve them.

"The grim fact is that most of these youngsters do not find therapists willing to assess and guide them in ways that permit them to work out their conflicts and correct their assumptions. Rather, they and their families find only 'gender counselors' who encourage them in their sexual misassumptions....

"What is needed now is public clamor for coherent science--biological and therapeutic science--examining the real effects of these efforts to 'support' transgendering. Although much is made of a rare "intersex" individual, no evidence supports the claim that people such as Bruce Jenner have a biological source for their transgender assumptions. Plenty of evidence demonstrates that with him and most others, transgendering is a psychological rather than a biological matter.

"In fact, gender dysphoria--the official psychiatric term for feeling oneself to be of the opposite sex--belongs in the family of similarly disordered assumptions about the body, such as anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder. Its treatment should not be directed at the body as with surgery and hormones any more than one treats obesity-fearing anorexic patients with liposuction. The treatment should strive to correct the false, problematic nature of the assumption and to resolve the psychosocial conflicts provoking it. With youngsters, this is best done in family therapy.

"The larger issue is the meme itself. The idea that one's sex is fluid and a matter open to choice runs unquestioned through our culture and is reflected everywhere in the media, the theater, the classroom, and in many medical clinics. It has taken on cult-like features: its own special lingo, internet chat rooms providing slick answers to new recruits, and clubs for easy access to dresses and styles supporting the sex change. It is doing much damage to families, adolescents, and children and should be confronted as an opinion without biological foundation wherever it emerges."