
How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired - giaour
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/02/fight-over-trans-kids-got-a-researcher-fired.html
======
SeanDav
I can't help thinking that there really is a large element of adults applying
adult values to children here.

> _"...research suggests that most gender-dysphoric kids will, in the long
> run, end up identifying as cisgender."_

If this really is true, then the approach offered by Dr Zucker makes far more
sense to me - to allow the child to make up his/her own mind over time and
provide an understanding and sympathetic environment to do it in, rather than
immediately treating the child as the opposite sex the moment they express
doubt at age 5.

~~~
makomk
Allowing the child to make up their own mind is almost exactly _not_ the
approach offered by Dr Zucker. His approach involved telling parents to
prevent their kids from playing with toys of the "wrong" gender and making
friends with other kids of the "wrong" gender in an attempt to make sure they
grow up the right gender. That's why activists call it conversion therapy.

This is what the article means when it says that: "That’s because the authors
believe that messages from family, peers, and society do a huge amount of the
work of helping form, reinforce, and solidify gender identities, and that at
young ages these identities tend to be quite malleable. There’s great
potential for confusion. A young boy might notice his new baby sister getting
more attention than he is, and start dressing like a girl in a bid to be
noticed. His parents, not knowing what to do, might go along with this,
inadvertently reinforcing the notion that he’s a girl — a notion which,
according to the GIC model, probably doesn’t come from a deep-seated kernel of
gender identity, but rather mostly from social reinforcement and family
dynamics."

His position - what he told parents coming to his clinic for help - is that if
parents don't do everything they can to dissuade young kids from acting in
gender-inappropriate ways, to make sure they wear the right clothes and play
with the right toys and socialise with the right gender of other kids, they'll
turn their kids trans. This is the point of dispute, and he's way outside of
the scientific consensus here. All the stuff about the adolescent he may or
may not have mocked is a red herring - I've followed this issue, and literally
the only place I've heard it mentioned is articles defending Zucker.

~~~
interpol_p
> All the stuff about the adolescent he may or may not have mocked is a red
> herring

Seems pretty definitive that he did not mock that person:

> _But Adam is now sure that it wasn’t Zucker who made the offensive remark to
> him, and said he was planning on sending CAMH a note letting them know he
> had erred, though he didn’t respond to a follow-up email asking him if he
> had._

(The author got in touch with the person who made the claim, and from details
provided, such as full names of the receptionist and other worker, determined
he misremembered the clinic where he was mocked. Author provided that person
with a photo of the clinician from where she suspected the abuse happened and
received a very strong confirmation.)

That said, this whole article and ambiguity about the right approach for
handling gender dysphoria is scary to read as a parent. I just try to tell my
children that whatever they want to do is appropriate for their gender. E.g.,
If they are a boy and want to wear dresses, then boys wear dresses and that's
OK.

------
koralatov
I've written and rewritten a comment for this thread several times now, but
every time I get close to posting it, I feel obliged to go back and revise it.

The simple truth is that, given how toxic and charged a lot of the activism is
around this topic, I don't feel able to make any kind of substantive comment
that won't be misinterpreted, deliberately or otherwise, and used to pillior
me.

~~~
justinpombrio
Let me try.

I frankly find it bizarre that so many things -- colors, clothes, toys,
certain behaviors -- that should have nothing to do with gender are associated
with gender. Why are toy isles even gendered? Why does everything for girls
have to be pink? The kids wouldn't care if the adults hadn't already hoisted
the distinction on them.

I feel like, if we got rid of all these false associations, the difference
between genders would be minimal, and that would make the sorts of problems
discussed in the article a lot more manageable.

Or are all of these just distractions, and am I missing the point entirely?

~~~
whitegrape
In the nicest possible way I'd say you're missing the point. To what degree
gender is a social construct vs actually having non-minimal differences in the
brain depending on your chromosomes is largely settled (IMO), the real
question is just what is going on with gender dysphoria. Is it (and do we
treat it as) a mental illness? (The DSM-V calls it a disorder.) What are the
causes? Is it just attention-seeking? Or is it just an aspect of personality
like preferring the color blue over red, only with much more important social
implications? Is it changeable? Does it go away? Is the "gender-affirmative"
approach the right one, where we apparently need to up-heave societal norms to
make these people "comfortable", whatever that entails? Should such up-heaving
be funded by the tax payer? Can we make them "comfortable" while not making
other people "uncomfortable"? These and many others are the questions that
matter. I don't have a strong opinion in the matter other than I know non-
passable trans people creep me out on a sub-rational level (so I just avoid
them, like spiders). I'd like to ignore the problem and let the scientists and
doctors solve it. But when scientists and doctors are busy purging other
scientists and doctors instead of doing science and medicine I guess I'd
rather have a decree from the Supreme Court that settles things (at least
temporarily) one way or another for society as a whole. If they pick wrong,
the scientists that believe so better start coming up with good evidence,
since apparently what's presently available is either not good enough to
actually be convincing one way or another or it's possible to become a
practitioner in the field without a firm grasp of the current state of
evidence.

Most commenters here won't read the submitted article. I admit I only skimmed
it, for it is long, but what I did read was also good. It addresses some of
these questions and more. This sort of reporting on purges rarely happens.

~~~
toothbrush
> To what degree gender is a social construct vs actually having non-minimal
> differences in the brain depending on your chromosomes is largely settled
> (IMO)

I don't actually think this is true. Disclaimer: a close friend of mine
studies this academically, so i'm probably incorrectly passing along a vague
version of what i've been told, plus i have a certain level of personal
investment in the issue. Anyhow, there's rather a difference of opinion in the
schools of thought of queer theory (roughly: it's all a social construct)
versus sexual difference theory (roughly: no, the physical body is important
in the equation) -- if i understand correctly, this is far from a settled
question.

I don't want to attack you personally, because i believe you are commenting in
good faith (as am i), but this sentence:

> I don't have a strong opinion in the matter other than I know non-passable
> trans people creep me out on a sub-rational level (so I just avoid them,
> like spiders).

Comes across as rather hurtful. I hope that sometime in the near future (like,
10–20 years? one can dream), this sentence will be seen as equally dubious as
someone saying something like "black people creep me out, i don't know why but
i try to avoid them".

I really don't mean to be mean about it, i'm just pointing out that this
attitude won't help any early-stage transpeople feel welcome or comfortable.
We as the grass-roots society should probably do our bit to make everyone feel
accepted and welcome, especially if they do not conform to our (gender
expression, as well as other) expectations. I mention the bottom-up point-of-
view in contrast to your "Supreme Court" / institutional answer to the issue.

Respectfully.

~~~
whitegrape
I figured that sentence might be an issue, but I left it in anyway as an
honest relay of my thinking. It may be dubious, and may one day be as dubious
as the similar sentence applied to black people, but I think it's an entirely
natural reaction (just as girls avoiding the boy with terrible acne in school)
given our evolutionary history and unlikely to vanish due to social pressure
-- it will just become better hidden (few admit to being a racist), but still
in plain sight by way of revealed preferences ("white flight"). Being natural
doesn't make it good, but it does mean policies and expectations should be
realistic. Singapore has achieved racial integration by very authoritarian
measures like deciding where you can live and who your neighbors are, which
was and is a realistic policy given the alternative outcome of just about
everywhere else of racial groups bunching together against the outer culture
which ends up causing various problems for the local government. In the
absence of negative reinforcement like demonizing people who don't at least
appear welcoming to transpeople in the same way racists are demonized (this is
the way I predict things going, sadly), and in the absence of well-enforced
top-down measures, expectations should be for a long slog towards grudging
acceptance of the state of the world.

I dream of a more grand future where I can just rewrite my personality(ies) to
feel differently about various things, even to rewrite my brain and form a new
body to experience what it's truly like to be female, or Hutu. The natural way
of things is evil, but it must be considered and dealt with honestly.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
You may be interested in this blog post, by Eric Raymond:

"Preventing visceral racism"
[http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5001](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5001)

In it he reports a similar "natural" reaction to some racial group that he'd
never met before. But his theory is that simple exposure is enough for people
to move past this, as long as they don't construct rationalizations for their
initial feeling of "something isn't right here".

Kind of ironic, as he says a lot of things that many, myself included, would
consider racist, but you never know, he may be onto something.

~~~
Chris2048
Doesn't this argument potentially defeat itself as a positive thing?

If I spent enough time with racists, I might not find racism as repulsive.
Describing losing a reaction as "moving past it" suggests to me he had a
suspicion of that reaction for other reasons; Had he not, he might have
considered himself 'desensitised'.

What I mean by saying this is, flip it around, and people can tolerate a lot
of things that are bad. that feeling of "something isn't right here" isn't
always wrong.

------
bruceb
"In 2016, there’s fairly solid agreement about the proper course of treatment
for otherwise healthy, stable young people who have persistent gender
dysphoria, and who are either approaching puberty or older than that: You help
them transition to their true gender. The process is different from person to
person, but for an 11-year-old, it might include a round of puberty-blocking
hormones to prevent the development of secondary sex characteristics and buy
time to figure out the best course of transition, followed by the
administration of male or female hormones, and, later on, possibly sex-
reassignment surgery or surgeries."

Giving an 11 year-old hormones...

~~~
vidarh
Your point being? In this case it is hormone blockers that delay the onset of
puberty, to essentially "buy time" until the patient can competently make a
decision on more invasive transitioning.

This is reversible (just stop taking the drugs), and for young people with
gender dysphoria, the onset of puberty can be extremely traumatic and often
triggers a range of sometimes severely self-destructive behaviour, and so
delaying puberty is for many seen as by far the safest and best option.

~~~
personjerry
I feel like "reversible" is a generous term for hormone therapies.

And additionally, I suspect that puberty and its associated natural hormones
is a big part of what allows a teen to feel comfortable.

~~~
vidarh
You can feel like that all you want, but the facts are that puberty delaying
hormone blockers have a well known safety profile, and that the benefits in
reducing emotional and behavioural problems and reducing onset of depression
as a result of onset of puberty, amongst others, is well established.

------
throwaway-09876
I'm a regular poster on HN. I have decided not to use my usual account,
because this topic is toxic and breeds hatred.

I am now in my forties, married with children. I am now coming slowly to
accept that I am trans. It is a hard and troubling realisation. It is (without
doubt) a curse in today's (western) society.

I'm also starting to realise that there are different kinds of transgendered
people [1]. I have also come to realise that gender is not necessarily fixed,
and it spans a range.

It is not a surprise that our society struggles to accept this, since people
only outwardly see two fixed biological sexes from birth. Deviations from the
norm are always the subject of derision in society.

Brain gender and physical sex do not always match. Gender and sexuality are
also different. Many people confuse these two.

I like the existing methods for dealing with gender-dysphoric children. Delay
puberty because it is extremely traumatic (from personal experience). Then
wait and see which gender starts to settle. We don't want our children to make
mistakes they regret, nor end up forced into a gender that ends up damaging
their entire lives.

However, it is incredibly important that children are not forced to be
cisgender when they are not, no more than cisgendered children who have a
fleeting period of trans-esque feelings be forced into being trans for the
rest of their lives.

We need to get it right, otherwise you end up with secretly trans people in
their forties with children and a partners who have their lives turned upside
down, because something that should have been dealt with 25 years ago was
brushed under the carpet.

My gut feeling is that there are a lot more transgendered people out there
than we realise. Many of them sit in their "assigned at birth genders", having
their souls ripped in two, because they are forced to live with a shameful
secret.

[1]
[http://www.avitale.com/developmentalreview.htm](http://www.avitale.com/developmentalreview.htm)

------
xupybd
There is a huge problem when activists care more about their cause than the
truth.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Yes, the hard part is figuring out which side are the "activists".

I know nothing of this particular field, but I do know I can go out on the
internet and find well-meaning people writing a very similar story about a
scientist commited to the truth being hounded by ill-informed activists on the
topic of, for example, climate change. And, to my point, I can find that story
written from both sides of the debate.

Who would have thought the temperature of the earth would become a political
football? On the other hand, people have been freaking out for literally
decades about the mildest of gender controversies, like men not cutting their
hair short, or women wanting to wear trousers, so there's a whole backlog of
drama that this current issue builds on.

~~~
xupybd
Exactly, it's a problem much greater than this issue. People need to be free
to have dissenting views. That will drive research in that direction, the
outcome of that will either prove or disprove the position and we'll all be
the better of for it having been tested. But now I'm going down the road of an
idealist. TLDR; politics suck.

~~~
xupybd
I think I missed the point, but was spot on with the summary.

------
threatofrain
I have difficulty seeing why gender is such a solid and psychologically
important concept, as opposed to sex. Gender is the social layer of meaning
attached to sex, while sex is a biological construct.

Do males really need a sex change just to play with barbie dolls? Do females
need really need to think about sex change just do play with "action figures"?
That's an extreme change to make just so you can fit into social roles.

Why not just create your own personal identity that involves being female and
doing male-typical activities, or vice versa? Hollywood plays with gender
expectations all the time, and while there are certainly still gender norms,
the lines aren't so clear anymore, and society has adopted the appetite to
continually challenge gender norms.

And there are barriers that far surpass gender, like the barrier of money.
Most men and women don't travel much because of money. Because of your racial
identity, you can't easily penetrate any social circle you wish; it's hard to
be an anthropological spy.

~~~
kbenson
> Do males really need a sex change just to play with barbie dolls? Do females
> need really need to think about sex change just do play with "action
> figures"? That's an extreme change to make just so you can fit into social
> roles.

I doubt we would be having this discussion if it was just about playing with
culturally acceptable gender relative toys. I suspect, because of what I've
heard and read, that feeling like your body does not match your mind, is
traumatic and troubling. Additionally I suspect that without having
experienced this feeling, it can be hard for those of us to understand quite
what it feels like. As such, this is probably a good time to error on the side
of caution, and accept that some people may have vastly different experiences
from the norm, and we should support them where possible.

> And there are barriers that far surpass gender, like the barrier of money.

Do you have anything to back up that it's a bigger barrier? Keep in mind, we
aren't talking just about gender, but whether you feel comfortable in your
current gender. I can imagine not feeling comfortable with my own body being
quite an issue, and overwhelming a lot of other problems I might have.

------
jkot
This is just disgusting child abuse. Way too many children after this
'treatment' commit suicide.

~~~
fidget
Way too many children with gender dysphoria commit suicide

------
mcv
Sad to see how many comments here completely miss the complex nuance of this
issue, and just project their own prejudices and preferences on this. Just
like the activists in the story, apparently.

------
apta
I would postulate that this is because of the decline of family values and
traditional roles in Western countries. With problems due to what is known as
feminism, SWJs and the like, everything is being watered down and wishy washy.

Leonard Sax has talked about some important social topics in today's Western
society. The media now influences how kids are raised, and how they see their
parents. The influence of parents over their kids is gone in the name of
liberalism and open-mindedness. The family unit is being broken down, and we
are already seeing the consequences of that.

~~~
glass55
> the decline of family values and traditional roles in Western countries

> With problems due to what is known as feminism, SWJs and the like,
> everything is being watered down and wishy washy.

Rad-fems are loud but they don't run the show. Corporations, Brands do.
Corporation and Brands want to make more money. In order to do that, they need
to find new segments of the population they will sell stuff to (stuff that are
less and less useful).

Yesterday the "traditional christian white family" got that new fridge or car
like in the ad, today gays get this or that product from brand X. Tomorrow
Brands will target Trans, Muslims or whatever but in order to do that and not
piss off old customers they need to control the narrative thus social
influence. Is that bad? that's just how things are. Rad-fems, SJW and co are a
fad and a tool,they are working for corporations for free. Proof is they don't
question the foundations of modern western societies. They are narcissistic.
Brands and corporations need them in order to sell more stuff, period.

Basically changes in modern western society are directly related to capitalism
and the consumer society. They are not really driven by ideology anymore.
Ideologues are just puppets. Watch that whole "islamophobia" finger pointing
thing for instance. I bet a few years from now most brands will sell hijabs.
They can't today because they'd risk a consumer backlash.

edit: sorry for my broken english.

~~~
apta
Yeah, capitalism plays a big role as well. The focus on money without caring
about morals or responsibilities seems to also play a role in the breaking up
of the family unit, which in turn is producing more "liberal/open minded"
likes.

I wonder if anybody stopped to think about how much "gender dysphoria" was an
issue in previous societies. It seems to be purely a modern mental illness.
I'm not talking about actual hormonal and physical issues such as
hermaphroditism, that's something else.

------
kyrre
lets pump your 10 year old full of hormones so you can signal how liberal and
tolerant you are on facebook.

this all makes me incredibly sad.

~~~
vidarh
Noone are pumping 10 year olds full of hormones for the parents sake. Children
that have undergone _lenghty_ consultations and therapy are sometimes given
puberty-delaying hormone-blockers because the _medical evidence_ is that it
substantially reduces emotional and behavioural problems and depression to
delay onset until the child matures further mentally and emotionally and is in
a better place to decide whether to transition or not.

------
Cyph0n
This is silly. Young children are essentially genderless. If they express
gender issues, work on it using therapy to find what the cause is. I don't see
the need to make them crossdress etc. at such a young age.

~~~
viraptor
The cause may be though that they just feel that way. I remember that since
the beginning of the primary school there was a boy who pretty much perfectly
integrated with girls. The clothes were the only difference from the outside.
He explicitly identified himself as a girl. And that was from the age of 9
until 16 (if I count the years correctly...).

He was very far from genderless. Actually now that I remember it, it was so
plain / obvious / natural that (as far as I'm aware) none of the kids picked
on him about that - and kids picked on almost anyone for any reason.

~~~
Cyph0n
Did he have any brothers? I also recall people I studied with behaving like
that because they only had sisters to play with.

~~~
viraptor
I believe he was a single child, but that was a long time ago...

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Zucker is not the victim of misguided activism. He was fired because, simply,
he wasn't doing his job, which is to provide (evidence-based) medical
treatment for trans people, not peddle pseudo-scientific conversion therapy.
If he'd done to adults what he did to kids, maybe he'd have been gone sooner.

~~~
xupybd
From that article it did not seem to be the case? Is there any evidence that
he was not practicing evidence-based medical treatments?

~~~
mcv
That's certainly my impression too. The article sounded like he had evidence
on his side, and the activists distorted some of the events. Then again, this
is only one article. Maybe the article itself is biased. There's really no
good way for us to be sure. Though to me, the story sounds reasonable, and the
actions of everybody involved sound understandable from their viewpoint (even
when it is misguided).

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
The article is indeed biased. A good example:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11064927](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11064927)

It claims there is "strong evidence", but doesn't point to it, and dismisses
most of the evidence against Zucker.

------
maxblackwood
ITT: No one who understands or even cares to research gender dysphoria.

------
ousta
frankly. This is sick. this sickens me like nothing before. it is a new form
of circumcision, sicks parents butchering the minds and the bodies of their
children. drugs? making them wear clothes of girls while they are boys? JUST
like for Religion we should leave the kids being kids and deal with the
sexuality and "gender" issues when they will be able to articulate a self
thought after their adolescence and when they have enough awareness of the
world to rebel against their sick parents.

------
jlebrech
You can't give children counselling, you just have to give them the meds and
convert them into the gender they want to be.

There's no balance, in some cases it could be psychological and a hormone
imbalance (of the childs current gender)

In a few years they'll flip flop in the other direction, when children will be
denied reassignment, and it'll start all over again.

Also this could be dangerous to some in adult life, like telling a partner you
used to be a boy as a child.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
There was a story on the BBC podcast Analysis, about a UK politician who while
helping a transgendered teen, tried to get reassignment treatment funded
through NHS.

The LGBT group protested. Apparently according to their research the majority
of children who feel they are transgender realise they are actually gay.

~~~
vidarh
This sounds odd to me. The NHS has an extensive programme of treatments,
including full reassignment:

[http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Gender-
dysphoria/Pages/Treatmen...](http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Gender-
dysphoria/Pages/Treatment.aspx)

What they certainly would have refused would be to start reassignment if said
teen was not yet 18 and/or had not yet undergone the full evaluation and
started socially transitioning, and this is in part for medical reasons, in
part because it certainly is true that many children with gender dysphoria
eventually come to decide they don't want to transition, either because the
gender dyphoria resolves or because they don't feel they need to change
physically.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
I scrolled through the podcast episodes and can't find it.

I stand by the 2nd paragraph though.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria_in_children](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria_in_children)

 _Gender identity disorder in children is more heavily linked with adult
homosexuality than adult transsexualism. According to limited studies, the
majority of children diagnosed with GID cease to desire to be the other sex by
puberty, with most growing up to identify as gay or lesbian with or without
therapeutic intervention.[5][6]_

