Do "LGBTQ+" orgs even care about gay people anymore?

Their responses to a recent HHS report say they don't.

It’s been a over week since the HHS published its “Review of Evidence and Best Practices” for treating pediatric gender dysphoria, which means that mainstream news outlets have had plenty of time to smear it as “right-wing propaganda” and to reassure us, in cult-like unison: ALL MAJOR MEDICAL ASSOCIATIONS AGREE THAT GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE IS LIFE-SAVING!

Most of them have done just that, except, to my astonishment, for the Washington Post. On Sunday, its editorial board published an article that recognized the HHS report for what it is:

[A] careful, thorough and definitely skeptical tour through the subject, including the history of gender medicine, the evolution of pediatric interventions, the evidence for pediatric medical transition, and the ethical conundrums that researchers and practitioners face.”

The report, the board wrote, “makes a legitimate case for caution that policymakers need to wrestle with.” The existing research is “marred by various methodological flaws,” and researchers have failed to measure the long-term outcomes of these treatments.

“More concerning,” the board added, “is the possibility that some researchers have not published all their results—including findings that turn out not to support the hypothesis.” It mentioned WPATH’s suppression of the publication of Johns Hopkins’ evidence reviews, as well as gender clinic director Johanna Olson-Kennedy’s decision not to publish the damning results of an NIH-funded study because of their potential to be “weaponized” by critics.

Over all, it’s a fair and accurate appraisal of the report—with one glaring omission. While it mentioned the report’s summary of the history of “sex changes,” it didn’t say a word about what that history reveals: Trans medicine is fundamentally antigay.

Some examples from the report:

1. As a young boy, George Jorgensen “was teased for his ‘girlish qualities,’ and was greatly conflicted by his homosexuality,” the report says. Jorgensen “had learned at church and from his school friends that homosexual relationships were considered sinful and immoral. . . . Among his neighbors, ‘homos’ and ‘queers’ were thought to be unacceptable, even dangerous people. Hence, a series of romantic attractions to other young men became his greatest teenage conflict.” Desperate for a solution, Jorgensen traveled to Denmark in 1950, where he underwent “sex reassignment” surgery, which produced “unsatisfactory” results. Henceforth known as “Christine,” Jorgensen died of cancer at age 62.

2. After the story of Jorgensen’s “sex change” made national headlines, his endocrinologist Christian Hamburger started receiving hundreds of letters from people who desired to change their sex. “Homosexuality predominated among the men and was universal among the women,” the report says. It quotes a 16-year-old American girl, who wrote to Hamburger: “I’ve always acted like a boy and did the things they did. When I was smaller I used to wear my brothers [sic] clothes and I even do now sometimes when no one is home. This isn’t the worst of it though, ever since I’ve been in High School I’ve been in love with a girl!”

3. By 1979, the high demand for “sex change” prompted clinicians to form the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA), named after the famous endocrinologist and author of the 1966 book The Transsexual Phenomenon. (HBIGDA is now WPATH.) Regarding Jorgensen’s homosexuality, Benjamin once stated: “since the psychological status of a transsexual male is that of a female, it is natural that sex attraction centers on a male.” In other words, since a man being attracted to men is unnatural, it’s reasonable to think he’s really a woman on the inside.

4. A 1988 Dutch study found that male and female transexuals who had undergone medical transition were not faring well. Many had attempted suicide. The males attempting to live as women, in particular, were doing poorly. One explanation for this, the researchers speculated, was because they often had trouble “passing” as women. A plausible explanation the the researchers ignored, however, “was the related possibility that transition may appeal to young gay men and lesbians suffering from social disapproval of their homosexuality,” the report says.

5. The Dutch study’s lead researcher was Peggy Cohen-Kettenis, who decided that transexuals would have better outcomes if they began treatment before adulthood. In 1987, she moved to the Department of Child and Youth Psychiatry at the Academic Hospital Utrecht. That same year, the Dutch pediatric endocrinologist Henriette Delemarre-van de Waal treated the first patient with puberty blockers: a 13-year-old lesbian whose father disapproved of her masculinity. The girl remained on the blockers for five years before undergoing mastectomy and hysterectomy.

6. Together, Cohen-Kettenis and Delemarre-van de Waal developed the “Dutch Protocol” for youth transition: puberty blockers at 12, cross-sex hormones at 16, and surgeries at 18. Cohen-Kettenis called the undertaking an “adventure.” She stated, “No one knew what the long-term effects of administering puberty blockers would be. Yes, I was nervous: suppose you’ve got it wrong with an adolescent like that and you had to reverse it!”

7. In 2011, Cohen-Kettenis published a follow-up study of 70 adolescents who had received puberty blockers in the Netherlands between 2000 and 2008. In 2014, a second follow-up study of the same patient cohort was published, this time after they had undergone “sex reassignment” surgery. Despite their methodological flaws, “these two studies form the foundational evidence base of the Dutch Protocol, and are widely cited to support it,” the HHS report says. Of the 70 adolescents who were “transitioned” in those original studies, 62 were homosexual, six were bisexual, one was heterosexual, and one didn’t know yet.

8. One male in the cohort died after an attempted vaginoplasty. Since his puberty was blocked, his genitals didn’t grow, so there wasn’t enough tissue to construct the canal that’s meant to resemble a vagina. In place of genital tissue, the surgeons used a piece of the boy’s intestine, which became infected.

Pretty dark stuff, right?

I get that the Washington Post’s editorial board only had so much space in the article. But come on, this is newsworthy stuff! Gay people being maimed and sterilized! Gender-nonconforming, same-sex attracted youth being medically engineered into imitations of “normal” straight adults!

OK, so forget the Washington Post. What about the LGBTQ+ activist orgs? Did they have anything to say about the report’s revelations?

Of course not.

Shannon Minter, the legal director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said the report’s emphasis on exploratory therapy for gender-distressed youth is the same as endorsing “gay conversation therapy.” This is rich coming from Minter, considering that she was rejected by her family at 17 for being a lesbian and has since “transitioned” into a man.

GLAAD, HRC, and the Trevor Project all had the same response as Minter, even though it’s obvious to any thinking person that trans medicine, not exploratory therapy, is the real conversion therapy. And exploratory therapy is what protects gay people who may be struggling with their sexuality from making irreversible decisions about their bodies.

The other day, I attempted to discuss, via email, the Washington Post’s editorial with two gay people (“Alex” and “Sam,” I’ll call them) who are still involved in LGBTQ+ organizations. God only knows why I thought this conversation could be a productive one.

“Alex” accused the Washington Post of “cowardice,” called the HHS report an “ideological screed,” and lambasted the report for not only misgendering Jorgensen but for even suggesting that his distress about his sexuality might have influenced his decision to transition.

I responded by asking whether they could acknowledge that at least some gay people have been harmed by gender medicine, or if they had anything to say about the fact that nine out of 10 of the adolescents in the original Dutch study were homosexual.

“Sam” took this one. Totally ignoring both of my questions, they said it was preposterous for me to think the HHS report was accurate, especially when ALL MAJOR MEDICAL ASSOCIATIONS AGREE THAT GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE IS LIFE-SAVING!

I should’ve seen that coming.

Trans activists constantly warn gay people, “The Republicans are coming for you next!” And maybe they’re right. Maybe the GOP is coming for us. But it’s the “LGBTQ+ community” that abandoned us.

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My book is now available for preorder! —> Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic. Publishes Nov. 4.