We must challenge, not affirm
Some nuance, please.
This week marks five years since the fateful night in which, during a discussion with my ex-trans roommate, I exploded into panicked tears at the thought of never being accepted as a woman again.
In the week following, I started to venture out of my comfort zone for the first time. I created a Reddit account so I could participate in r/detrans (which, up to that point, I had been deriding as irredeemable). I read portions of Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier (though I couldn’t yet stomach chapters that strayed outside of the focus on medicine). I sought out everything I could find that was written by the very few “detransitioners” that were public at the time (…some of whom have recanted since). I also announced on my Facebook page that I was taking a break from social media (and I spent the following several months watching fairly inoffensive Twitch streams and TikTok videos).
Just before that epiphanic moment, I had been spending a lot of time meditating on how “cancel culture” was mostly abusive rather than restorative. It’s a system of vigilantism that does away with due process, is violent towards the accused, and privileges the accuser’s narrative over any other – often using an accuser’s marginalized identity as the reason for preferring their story. This kind of system is easily manipulated by people with malintent, who find their way into positions of authority by projecting malintent onto others.
This system is how all conflicts were resolved within “social justice” spaces – not just conflicts between individual people but conflicts that individual people had with ideology. Pointing out that a “trans woman” is biologically male could get you cancelled as transphobic. Suggesting that being obese is unhealthy could get you cancelled as fatphobic.
There was no point in which you could state your case to a neutral jury. The jury had already decided your guilt (because the ideology has already determined the truth) and you were immediately subject to punishment. You would be expected to give public atonement and a promise to educate yourself and do better – or you would be permanently exiled. Oftentimes, an apology is not considered good enough, and you’re exiled anyway.
On social media, I’d been following a few people who were deconstructing the cancellation system and discussing problems with it. One of these people explained that her yardstick for measuring truth had changed and that she now focused primarily on the material over the subjective.
This explanation of hers left an impact on me. I suppose I’m the type of person who likes a good rule for understanding. Right away, though, I thought about trans. I was identifying as non-binary at the time, and it came right to the forefront: there is no material proof that I am “non-binary,” but isn’t it still true? How could I ever prove it is true?
Everything sort of fell into place after challenging myself on this. It’s not true. It was never true. I was essentially bullied into believing that women who felt negatively about being women were actually “trans men” because I would be excommunicated if I questioned the thousands of stories I read about them. I expected that I would start to fit in after leaving school, but I still felt like I didn’t belong anywhere as a young adult, and knowing that I wasn’t a “girly-girl,” I became convinced that “transitioning” was the answer to my feeling like I was “different” from everyone else. I “educated” myself by autistically reading everything I could from the “experts.” I could recite a vast amount of information, but I wasn’t actually knowledgeable; I was just brainwashed.
I kept finding myself in places where there was one accepted method of doing things: affirmation of the marginalized. There was a clear hierarchy of who should be believed in any circumstance, and it had nothing to do with actual truth. It had to do with “social justice,” which meant prioritizing the “knowledge” of those who were historically oppressed. This framework is called standpoint epistemology – its origins found within feminist philosophy – and the idea seems to have been that the marginalized have a social position that gives them unique knowledge.
I don’t want to act like I’m an expert on the theory. What I understand are the impacts that I witnessed and personally experienced of this being implemented without challenge.
A woman accusing a man of misogyny? Affirm the woman’s narrative. A black person accusing a white person of racism? Affirm the black person’s narrative. A gay person accusing a straight person of homophobia? Affirm the gay person’s narrative. A trans-identifying person accusing a non-trans-identifying person of transphobia? Affirm the trans-identifying person’s narrative.
This way of dealing with conflicts of knowledge has infiltrated other institutions as well – including education, politics, and medicine.
When I say that leftist policies ruined my life, this is what I’m talking about. The entire field of “gender medicine” is ruled by standpoint epistemology — specifically affirming the narrative of the marginalized patient.
There has never been empirical evidence that “trans” – an immutable condition wherein one has a “gender identity” that differs from the sex they actually are – is a legitimate condition. When people claim that “trans people” have existed for thousands of years, they’re saying people who have claimed or desired to be the opposite sex have existed for thousands of years. This surprises no one.
There has never been strong evidence that altering a person’s sex traits reliably results in improved happiness, in mental stability, and a productive member of society. The weak evidence that does suggest it is “weak” specifically because it is entirely reliant on the subjective experiences of the patients themselves.
There has never been strong evidence that halting a child’s puberty is a “lifesaving” treatment. The weak evidence that does suggest it, again, is “weak” specifically because it is entirely reliant on the patient claiming that it saved their life.
Every guideline and every standard that governs how doctors treat their “trans” patients is determined by “trans” patients themselves. It wasn’t always like this. It has morphed over the past 25 years from a process that many considered to be “gatekeeping” into what is essentially a free-for-all. The change was not a result of improved evidence. It was a result of a change in who was considered to have authority at WPATH.
Throughout it all, it has been said that “trans people” know best. The social standing in which “trans people” are situated allegedly means that they have the capacity to understand things that doctors can’t, and therefore they should be taken as authority over even doctors themselves. (Never mind the fact that “trans people” are often fixated on “transition” as a means of resolving their problems to the exclusion of everything else. Contrast with doctors who are meant to have a holistic approach to medicine — this is why things like differential diagnosis exist!)
Now we have even reached the point where even children calling themselves “trans” are said to know themselves best – better than anyone else in their lives, even, to the point where refusing to affirm them has resulted in removal from their parents.
Affirmation erases all nuance from life. It might be useful in specific circumstances, but it’s no way to resolve conflicts between people, it’s no way to conduct justice, and it’s no way to practice medicine.
I don’t support any ideology that requires me to take what someone says at face value.
I don’t support any ideology that doesn’t allow me to ask questions to gain understanding.
I don’t support slogans like “Believe Women” or even “Believe Detransitioners.” Having a specific identity or experience doesn’t necessarily mean your narrative is entirely truthful.
Being able to challenge information is necessary for a pluralistic society. Without it, we lack fundamental freedom. Without it, we become ruled by authoritarianism. Without it, we commit atrocities.