Humans often want to fix things about ourselves that aren’t broken. From foot-binding to plain old circumcision, our species has historically been obsessed with altering our bodies — which I can’t help but think about today as it’s Intersex Awareness Day. The observance commemorates the first protest by intersex people — those of us born with atypical sex characteristics — against the practice of subjecting intersex infants and minors to cosmetic, sex trait-altering medical procedures, on October 26, 1996.
The impetus for fixing is so prevalent regarding the intersex population that it’s often come to define us, via statements such as “Intersex? You mean those people who are operated on as babies?” that I’ve heard countless times as a longtime advocate for the intersex community. While I’m thrilled that awareness about these nonconsensual medical procedures is growing, it’s notable that we don’t define other populations this way. For example, although circumcision is the most common surgery performed on males, imagine how weird it would sound to hear males defined as “people whose penises are operated on in infancy.”
Humans often want to fix things about ourselves that aren’t broken. From foot-binding to plain old circumcision, our species has historically been obsessed with altering our bodies — which I can’t help but think about today as it’s Intersex Awareness Day. The observance commemorates the first protest by intersex people — those of us born with atypical sex characteristics — against the practice of subjecting intersex infants and minors to cosmetic, sex trait-altering medical procedures, on October 26, 1996.
The impetus for fixing is so prevalent regarding the intersex population that it’s often come to define us, via statements such as “Intersex? You mean those people who are operated on as babies?” that I’ve heard countless times as a longtime advocate for the intersex community. While I’m thrilled that awareness about these nonconsensual medical procedures is growing, it’s notable that we don’t define other populations this way. For example, although circumcision is the most common surgery performed on males, imagine how weird it would sound to hear males defined as “people whose penises are operated on in infancy.”
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Given said weirdness, today I’d like to highlight the fact that intersex people are much more than just the medical procedures that we are often subjected to — and that we’ve been around way before they even existed. Take, for example, Gen. Casimir Pulaski, born in Poland in 1745 and known as the “Father of the American Cavalry.” As the Smithsonian documentary The General Was Female? details, when the monument marking Pulaski’s grave was temporarily removed, his remains were discovered to have certain female characteristics. After years spent analyzing his skeleton and DNA, a team of researchers concluded that Pulaski was probably born intersex, with XX chromosomes.
Despite his XX chromosomes, Pulaski appeared male at birth because of his intersex variation, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH), which often masculinizes genitalia, Pulaski was able to serve in the military, becoming an American Revolutionary War hero after relocating from Europe. He is believed to have saved George Washington’s life in the Battle of Brandywine and is one of only eight people to be awarded honorary American citizenship, along with notables such as Winston Churchill and Mother Teresa.
Pulaski’s story illustrates that intersex people have been thriving for centuries before the surgeries used to change us existed, and it’s also a stark reminder of the harms and limitations of our current “fix it” approach. For today, in situations like Pulaski’s — where an individual has XX chromosomes and a variation known as congenital adrenal hyperplasia — medical experts routinely recommend surgical reduction of the phallic structure and estrogen hormone therapy to feminize the child’s body and assign them female. The assumption is that, due to their XX chromosomes, these individuals are “really” girls and should thus be made to look it. Yet there’s Pulaski, a man more successful than most of his counterparts.
We can only speculate about the countless other intersex people throughout history because, as with other LGBTQI+ folks, most of our history has been lost due to the fact that we’ve only recently been able to live openly as who we are. For example, when the news broke that Hollywood film legend Rock Hudson was gay, my mother, like many, had a hard time believing it. Had it not been verified after Hudson became the first major celebrity to die of AIDS-related causes, in 1985, he would have lived and died being misperceived as heterosexual. Similarly, had Pulaski’s remains not been uncovered, we would have never known that the prominent military hero was intersex.
Today, the vast majority of intersex people are still living this way — with their intersex status publicly unknown. It’s easy for me to understand why because until I was 28 I’d been living the same way. Although I’d been “out” as a lesbian for a decade, since college, everyone but my lovers and a handful of friends believed I was a non-intersex female. I knew I was different because my physical differences are very visible, but coming out as intersex in a world that only acknowledged males and females just didn’t seem like an option in the 1980s and early 1990s.
I came out precisely when and because I was asked, in 1996, to do so by a survivor of childhood surgeries, sometimes referred to as intersex genital mutilation. She had learned that I like my intersex body and feel blessed that I wasn’t subjected to IGM, and she thought it would be useful for people to hear this perspective. Having learned about the lifelong physical and psychological harms that often result from IGM — which can involve involuntary sterilization or the loss of sexual sensation, I agreed. I wanted the world to know that doctors’ claims that intersex children need to be altered in order to be happy are, in my experience, false.
Those who’ve watched me explore my intersex-ness since my 20s have, like me, viewed it as a positive aspect of who I am — one friend just recently called it my “superpower.” While I reminded her that millions of intersex people have not been afforded these experiences due to IGM and that even for me it wasn’t always easy due to societal ignorance about intersex people, the irony of her statement wasn’t lost. For me, being intersex has been a beautiful adventure, full of unexpected sexual pleasure and a rich understanding of both male and female experiences that I feel privileged to have known — which is essentially the opposite of what doctors who promote IGM predict intersex people will experience.
Incidentally, proponents of IGM like to dismiss my experience as an exception. Perhaps I just want to be different, some speculate, which makes me laugh out loud. As the queer child of Latinx immigrants in a white neighborhood and school and having a name so unusual I grew up hearing, “Hida, what’s that?” I often longed to blend in. Or, some speculate, perhaps I’m just unusually self-confident, in a way that we can’t expect normal people to be. Far from it! As those close to me know, I suffer insecurities as much as everyone else.
The true reason I like being intersex is simple: When you don’t raise a child to believe they’re defective, they’re more likely to end up feeling good about who and what they are — and it’s my hope that all future generations of intersex people are given the chance to experience this. On that note, a growing number of medical associations have begun to listen to intersex people. They are honoring their oath to “first do no harm” by recommending that no cosmetic surgeries be performed unless intersex people seek them out for themselves, as other adults sometimes do, and we couldn’t be more grateful.
Hida Viloria is the author of Born Both: An Intersex Life and is a long-term intersex advocate.
Views expressed in The Advocate’s opinion articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, Equal Pride.
While public sentiment toward transgender people in the U.S. continues to warm, anti-transgender campaigners are exploiting the public’s uncertainty about trans youth to promote Florida-style bans on gender-affirming care.
And the stakes couldn’t be higher. Boston Children’s Hospital has been on the receiving end of at least three bomb threats this year due to misinformation about health care for transgender youth being provided there.
The piece hinges on what the authors describe as “emerging evidence of potential harm” related to the use of puberty-suppressing medications for transgender youth. But transgender health experts say that the data referenced in the Times‘ reporting comes to a different conclusion. The Times’ analysis of this data is so misleading that some advocates are questioning the motives behind the piece.
I talked with three experts – a trans advocate and educator, a psychology researcher, and a gender-affirming healthcare provider – to better understand what the Times got wrong and why it matters. Their criticisms touched on a range of issues including the data, the sources, and the framing of the issues. Many of these concerns are echoed by transgender people and care providers across the country.
“Basically, any way you slice it, this is not investigative journalism,” said Dr. Quinnehtukqut McLamore,
Dr. Quinnehtukqut McLamore, a psychology researcher familiar with the studies on gender-affirming care, criticized The Times’ interpretation of the data about puberty blockers. Dr. Quinnehtukqut McLamore
who has a Ph.D. in Psychology and conducts research at the University of Missouri at Columbia. “This is storytelling and editorializing from science they – at best – don’t understand because they don’t apply a logical lens to it.”
Critics of the Times piece said the reporters did get a few things right: More research on transgender health topics is needed. The reticence of drug companies to conduct research with transgender people creates barriers for FDA approval. Bone scans are beneficial for youth before and during treatment with puberty blockers.
And the most concerning is the fear that research findings could be exploited in the current political climate.
The Times article is itself a clear example of this exploitation in action and is arguably more dangerous than the transparently transphobic content published by opponents of trans rights. By echoing their claims in an ostensibly objective news outlet with a large, mainstream audience, the authors lend legitimacy to hateful extremists.
Many of the false claims promoted by those who believe gender-affirming care is tantamount to child abuse are presented to readers as if they’re objective fact. While this would be dangerous enough in an opinion piece, the Times framed this reporting as a well-vetted public service piece:
As growing numbers of adolescents who identify as transgender are prescribed drugs to block puberty, the treatment is becoming a source of confusion and controversy.
We spent months scouring the scientific evidence, interviewing doctors around the world and speaking to patients and families.
Here’s a closer look at what we found.
The celebratory response from far-right pundits is revealing. The Daily Wire‘s Matt Walsh, whose film What is a Woman? manipulates the documentary format in an attempt to legitimize harmful transphobic myths, took credit for “[forcing] the NYT to admit that puberty blockers are dangerous.”
Jenn Burleton, director of the TransActive Gender Project at Lewis and Clark’s College of Education and Counseling, has watched media narratives about transgender people evolve over 35 years of advocacy work. She’s seen the damage anti-transgender rhetoric can do. As part of the college’s first-of-its-kind certificate program in Gender Diversity in Children and Youth, Burleton lectures on the origins and impacts of anti-transgender bias.
Jenn Burleton, program director for the TransActive Gender Project, was interviewed for The New York Times piece but said the reporter’s coverage missed the mark.
She was one of the experts interviewed for the Times article. But Burleton told LGBTQ Nation she was disappointed that the reporter declined to include any discussion of the forces behind the current campaign against gender-affirming care.
“I primarily discussed the immense amount of disinformation being spread about trans-affirming healthcare, specifically as it impacts adolescents and teens,” Burleton recalled. “[Megan Twohey] seemed very interested in looking into that, and I believed the story was going to have content that exposed the false claims being made in white nationalist media and in some state legislatures.”
Instead of delving into the well-documented rise in trans antagonism promoted by far-right religious and political groups, the brief mention of Burleton portrays her as a pushy activist, prodding healthcare providers and advocating for “early and easy access” to puberty-suppressing medication.
Dr. AJ Ecker, a nonbinary trans doctor, provides gender-affirming care at Connecticut’s Anchor Health.
Dr. AJ Eckert, who directs the gender-affirming care program for Anchor Health in Connecticut and teaches at Quinnipiac University’s school of medicine, described the report as “another hit piece against trans people.” He also expressed frustration about the timing of the story, which was published on the first day of Transgender Awareness Week.
“I don’t understand how a journalist in good faith can publish something like this,” Eckert told LGBTQ Nation. “Trans youth are a vulnerable target and this is just so extremely sh**ty.”
Far from clarifying confusion about the safety and efficacy of “puberty blockers” in easing gender dysphoria, the reporting fuels an increasingly vitriolic debate over the existential rights of transgender people. The most vocal opponents of prescribing medications like Lupron to temporarily suspend exogenous puberty – or puberty a person would go through absent puberty blockers – are not calling for a more cautious approach. Rather, they advocate for the eradication of transgender identities altogether.
As trans Harvard Law instructor Alejandra Caraballo pointed out on Twitter, “The anti-trans side doesn’t want research, they want us eliminated.”
But no amount of research will make a difference if media outlets like the Times are unable or unwilling to accurately translate its findings and their significance.
“The entire article is based on the premise that puberty blockers are horrible for bone health,” Dr. Eckert explained. Through cherry-picked anecdotes and quotes, the story paints a picture of children being pushed into taking a dangerous and untested drug that might give them osteoporosis and which locks them into a medical transition process.
The Times describes one teen’s experiences:
During treatment, the teen’s bone density plummeted — as much as 15 percent in some bones — from average levels to the range of osteoporosis, a condition of weakened bones more common in older adults.
The anecdote elicits an emotional response, but there is no data to support the claim that puberty blockers are giving teenagers osteoporosis. Unfortunately, the average reader won’t dig into the cited research studies to fact-check these claims – they will simply trust that the Times’ interpretation of that data is accurate and presented without bias.
What Does the Data Say?
“Simply put, there’s no evidence in their review that puberty blockers lower adolescents’ bone mineral density at all. And here’s how I know this: [the studies] say so,” Dr. McLamore explained.
They explained that the difference in bone density between trans youth on blockers and their cisgender peers is attributable to the difference in exposure to sex hormones. Also, trans youth are more likely to have lower bone density before starting puberty blockers, due to a dysphoria-related lack of exercise and nutritional deficiencies.
“Puberty causes an increase in bone density. Blocking puberty will then halt this increase; therefore, bone density will decrease in these trans youth compared to cis youth, an expected result,” Dr. Eckert explained. “Trans youth treated with puberty blockers in early puberty have changes in bone health comparable to those of cis youth of their experienced gender.”
Also unfounded is the claim that gender-affirming care reinforces trans identity, as if healthcare providers are encouraging a bad habit by indulging a patient’s desire for medically-appropriate care.
“According to the gender-critical crowd, affirming a youth’s gender identity, whether socially and/or medically with blockers, causes a youth to double down on that identity. It’s an oft-cited argument to dissuade parents and school environments from affirming youths’ true identities,” Eckert explained. “There is precisely zero evidence that blockers ‘lock in’ a trans identity. Yes, many trans youth start gender-affirming hormones. Trans adolescents know who they are. Those youth who started on blockers and moved on to gender-affirming hormones do so because they are trans.”
To force youth to delay transition in the hopes that puberty will reaffirm their sex assigned at birth is cruel and potentially deadly. Heightened gender dysphoria is associated with an increased risk of suicidality.
“Puberty does not ‘help clarify gender,’” Eckert said. “For many of us, puberty can be highly traumatic and irreversible; waiting to see if gender dysphoria resolves is not a neutral response.”
On the contrary, puberty blockers can prevent the need for future surgeries by preventing the development of noncongruent sex characteristics like breasts or facial hair.
What’s the Harm?
As many transgender folks have observed, the study authors and named sources include a cast of familiar antagonists. And while the Times mentions in passing that some of these sources have testified in favor of state-level bans on gender-affirming care, their names are not cited in connection with the article’s dubious claims, leaving readers to take them at face value.
Of the 50-plus sources the authors say they interviewed, only about a dozen are named in the article. According to the Times, this is because several sources requested to not be named and more than a dozen declined the interview. Instead, they are cited under the syntactical cover of “some experts,” significant enough to matter but not specific enough to be held accountable.
Why do these concerns matter? Because they have a real-world impact. A well-functioning press has the power to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” But a reckless reporter’s pen can be just as harmful as a drunk surgeon’s scalpel.
The article repeatedly and uncritically leans into the talking points of anti-transgender extremists, parroting their narratives without examining their sources. As a result, advocates of gender-affirming care are finding themselves in a never-ending game of Whack-a-Myth.
“I’m tired of repeatedly refuting the same points,” Eckert said, noting that they have been so busy responding to the false claims that they have gotten little sleep since Monday. “But I have to keep doing it until mainstream media starts platforming trans voices alongside these biased and transphobic editorials.”
Though public trust in media is on the decline, the Times has managed to maintain a reputation as a trustworthy news source, particularly among the sort of well-educated, left-leaning readers who are most likely to support transgender rights.
The credibility of this story is also bolstered by its byline. Lead author Megan Twohey is best known for helping break the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault story. A film about her journalistic accomplishments, She Said, hits theaters this week. Co-author Christina Jewett is an award-winning journalist who focuses on issues including drug safety. Readers can’t be blamed for seeing them as trustworthy.
“The harm done by this article is not that it reveals disagreement about treatment methodologies among a relatively small group of providers and researchers. Disagreement and unbiased, ethical discussion about healthcare is imperative to delivering improved healthcare,” TransActive’s Burleton explained. “The harm done by this article is that it implies that trans-affirming providers and advocates oppose asking questions that will improve trans-affirming healthcare. The article ignores the [denial] that anti-trans zealots – including some care providers/’experts’ – have about the very existence or authenticity of gender expansive identity.”
Whether the author’s missteps are due to malice or ignorance is up for debate. But it is worth noting that neither of the reporters has much experience covering transgender issues. That much is clear from the language they use to describe the experience of being transgender. The authors conflate gender dysphoria and trans identity with “the discomfort of puberty” and cite an interest in wearing dresses as evidence that a child must not have a masculine gender identity. At one point, they go so far as to describe supporters of gender-affirming care as “enthusiasts.”
The Times owes transgender people an apology – and some serious soul-searching – after platforming anti-trans extremism under the guise of investigative journalism. While Monday’s front-page story purports to be a thorough analysis of the scientific research, it traffics in a dangerous misrepresentation of the data. It’s not the first problematic piece from the Times, but it is the most high profile. And while other media outlets are guilty of similar missteps, reporters like Twohey and Jewett (and their editors) should be capable of better. And if they aren’t, perhaps the Times should consider assigning these stories to transgender journalists.
As Americans, we encounter diversity daily. While we continue to see some signs of progress, the 2021 LGBTQ Youth Mental Health Study by the Trevor Project noted that at least once in their lifetime, 75% of LGBTQ youth reported experiencing discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. No matter how much progress we make, discrimination in any form hurts and can have a grave impact on one’s mental health.
As the Director of Health Care International’s (HCAI) Youth & Family program, I have the good fortune of being able to speak to teachers, parents, school administrators and kids about how the power of kindness and acceptance can save lives.
We will always encounter diversity, in some form throughout our lives, and inclusivity is not guaranteed. But the fact is that in the LGBTQ community, if a person has just one individual to support and include them, it can make a lifesaving difference.
According to the Trevor Project study, lower suicide rates were reported for LGBTQ youth who had access to spaces that affirmed their gender identity and sexual orientation. The statistics are even more significant in the transgender and non-binary community where youth suicide rates were cut in half when pronouns were respected by the people they lived with compared to individuals whose pronouns were not respected by anyone with whom they lived.
I know this to be true because I am often that one person for many of these kids. Through my work with HCAI, I am often called upon when a child is in a dire situation. There have been many instances when I am meeting with a child in a psychiatric hospital after an attempted suicide. Most times, these kids are there because of the anxiety and depression they experience due to feeling a lack of love or acceptance.
The foundation of HCAI’s Youth & Family Program is empathy, kindness and acceptance. Most of all, these kids and families need to know they aren’t being judged and that they are in a safe environment to speak and feel freely. When they come to us or when we are called in to help, the first thing we do is listen.
It’s human nature to tell someone “Don’t worry, everything is going to be okay.” But, in most cases, the kids that I encounter do not feel okay. In fact, they are very close to committing self-harm or even worse, committing suicide. The key is to empathize and listen and connect them with the right assistance. The first thing we say is “We are sorry you are suffering; how can we help?”
During one of our recent school trainings, a transgender student asked to meet with me prior to the workshop. He shocked me when he said, “You helped me when I was in the hospital two years ago.” It was a total surprise to see a transformed teenager who was previously nonverbal and refused to communicate with me at that time.
I realized I had previously worked with him while he was at a psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt – nearly two years prior. At the time, he had no support system and was nonverbal simply because he felt like his voice was not heard. I knew at that moment that we needed to help him. We started by assuring him that he could be his authentic self and that we believed him.
HCAI provided him with a binder – a compression undergarment to flatten the chest – and today he is continuing his journey to transition. It only takes one person or organization’s unconditional support to significantly reduce the suicide risk.
Sometimes the only support that kids will experience is outside their home – at school and with friends. Therefore, it is important for schools to set the tone of acceptance. When we meet with schools, we ask administrators and teachers, “Do your students walk into your building and see themselves represented every day?” Kids cannot be what they do not see. If they see themselves in the curriculum, in the library, in the Pride flag that is flown year-round, their path to acceptance and reduced mental health crises increases.
In fact, the Trevor Project study noted that LGBTQ youth had lower rates of attempting suicide when they found their school to be LGBTQ-affirming.
How can we expect a student to give 100% when they can’t be 100% of who they are? Imagine students that must worry about getting beaten up, teased or even which bathroom they need to use simply if they try to live their truth. If gender identity and sexual orientation is all they can think about because they aren’t being accepted and living freely, it is not only preventing them from moving forward but also from being their best selves both physically and mentally.
The indisputable reality is that the LGBTQ community – and transgender and non-binary individuals even more so – are facing mental health concerns at an alarming rate. The benefits of something as simple as a sense of belonging is lifesaving. In HCAI’s Youth and Family Program workshops and trainings, we ask parents, caregivers and educators to lead with empathy, kindness and acceptance. Diversity happens. Inclusion is a choice that can save a life.
It is critically important for LGBTQ youth to have access to resources, services and support that enables them to feel accepted and included. Even more, the support of one family member, friend, mentor, coach, or teacher could be the relationship that saves a life. In their 2019 Youth Mental Health Study, The Trevor Project found that LGBTQ youth who reported having at least one accepting adult were 40% less likely to report a suicide attempt in the past year.
HCAI can be a resource to connect LGBTQ youth with the people and services they may need. If you know someone who is struggling with their mental health, be the person who makes a difference and act today.
As director of HCAI’s Youth and Families program, Tony Ferraiolo helps to provide a safe, supportive place for LGBTQ youth and their families. Tony joined the HCAI family in 2021. The program aims to build bridges within communities so every child can be their authentic self and walk a path of happiness filled with love and kindness. After years of struggling with his own gender identity, Tony transitioned in 2005. Realizing that he went through this difficult time not knowing any other transgender person, he made it his life purpose to support LGBTQ youth and their families. Tony is also a certified life coach, published author, and holds a teaching certification in mindfulness. He is co-founder of the Jim Collins Foundation, a nonprofit providing financial assistance for gender-confirming surgeries. Tony was the subject of the award-winning documentary A Self-Made Man. To learn more about Health Care Advocates International visit https://www.hcaillc.com/.
Editor’s note: This article mentions suicide. If you need to talk to someone now, call the Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860. It’s staffed by trans people, for trans people. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for LGBTQ youth at 1-866-488-7386. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
The trial over Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming care for trans children recently began. As vulnerable children await to hear if their bodily autonomy will be stripped away, we should remember that cisgender children seek gender-affirming care with relatively little social stigma attached.
Twenty years ago, in rural Maine, I was one of them.
As a teen boy who identified as a boy — randomly sprouting breasts really, really sucked. I hated my body, wore a shirt in the pool, dreaded the school locker room, dressed in layers and walked hunched over to hide my shape.
When I was going through puberty, my body’s hormones were firing in every direction, and I started developing breast tissue similar to a girl’s. The technical term for this condition is gynecomastia, but most of us know it as the dreaded “man-boobs.” Up to 60% of teen boys have asymptomatic gynecomastia, according to the National Institutes of Health. Adolescent symptomatic cases, like mine, are less prevalent, but it affects about 65% of adult men.
As a teen boy who identified as a boy — randomly sprouting breasts really, really sucked. I hated my body, wore a shirt in the pool, dreaded the school locker room, dressed in layers and walked hunched over to hide my shape. I lived in constant fear of nipple-grabbers at school (teen boys are weird) and being outed as a “boob-haver.” I was uncomfortable and embarrassed 24/7 and had about zero percent confidence in myself, all because of the misalignment between how I felt I should look and how I actually looked.
When I confided in my conservative dad about what was happening, I was about 15. He saw how much this was holding me back, and we immediately went to a plastic surgeon for a consultation. A quick procedure and a few weeks of wearing an ace bandage later, I was flat-chested and finally had a body that looked like mine.
Trans children deserve the same consideration.
The next year was the best year of my life up to that point. I felt great. I felt confident. I made a ton of new friends, decided to get in shape, played a sport, put gel in my hair, started dating, partied — all the good stuff. For the first time, I felt and acted like an average teen instead of just barely participating out of aggressive discomfort and fear. I went from a guy who hated being seen to the most seen guy at school in no time.
Over the years, I’ve had medical procedures that saved my body, but my breast reduction saved my mind. Receiving care that affirmed my perceptions of my gender drastically changed my life for the better. I can attest that having mind-body alignment feels like a superpower.
The care that I received is just one small example of the gender-affirming care that cisgender folks receive regularly. We just call it “health care.” I got breast-tissue reduction surgery, but breast augmentation for cisgender women to conform to a perception of womanhood is even more common. Cisgender people alter their eyes, noses, lips, faces, hairlines, facial hair, body hair, height and even the nether regions to more closely align with our culture’s ideals of “the perfect man” or “the perfect woman.”
We frequently change or “enhance” our bodies hormonally, too. Kids have been dosed with human growth hormone since the ‘60s to make them taller, and men looking to achieve a cartoonish level of “manliness” get testosterone pumped into their veins. Hormone replacement therapy is commonplace for cis-women and menlooking to maintain or enhance their vitality in ways that align with their gender identities and gender ideals.
The care that I received is just one small example of the gender-affirming care that cisgender folks receive regularly. We just call it “health care.”
But I don’t see the care that affirms cisgender norms, expectations and functions, including for children, being questioned to the same extent as transgender care. By contrast, even the most basic of trans care — respecting gender identity and expression, puberty blockers and hormone therapy — is scrutinized endlessly and demonized to the point of being life-threatening for patients and doctors alike.
The double standard is glaring. And a recent viral interview between Jon Stewart and Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge about her state’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth points to a large part of the problem. Without being able to name a credible source, Rutledge claimed that 98% of youth with gender dysphoria would grow out of it. To which Stewart replied, “Wow, that’s an incredibly made-up figure.”
This idea of elected officials stripping away the autonomy of parents and children to make the kinds of medical decisions that would be best for them is appalling. As Stewart pointed out to Rutledge, the state is not even allowing parents to weigh their options based on the guidelines of the country’s top medical organizations.
We should think more deeply and compassionately about those seeking health care in the trans community as they suffer mind-body misalignment that many of us can’t even imagine. Having a little empathy is a good thing, and for those of us who get to bathe in the privilege of doing whatever the hell we want to our bodies, it’s probably even our responsibility.
Some folks may disagree that the care I received was gender-affirming, and I’ll admit I’m not an expert on health care — cis, trans or otherwise — but I am an expert on me, what I did and why I did it. For me, it was straightforward: I’m a dude, I was born a dude, I want to be a dude, and having breasts didn’t align with that for me. They needed to go for me to live a fuller life.
Some may also argue that societal pressures and expectations influenced my choices, and to that, I don’t necessarily disagree. Who knows, if breasts on a guy were the pinnacle of manliness in 2002, I might have rocked it, but surgery is a lot faster than turning the Titanic of culture, and I would have missed some of the best years of my life waiting.
Here’s what I know for sure, had I been trans and seeking the same surgery, there’s a good chance it wouldn’t have been as easy as it was for me — 20 years ago in rural Maine or today.
Australia’s national men’s football team, the Socceroos, just became the first FIFA World Cup side to collectively speak up on human rights issues in Qatar. In a powerful video released on October 27, sixteen current and former Australian players, supported by the broader playing group, expressed their solidarity with migrant workers and LGBT people, making it clear that “universal values like dignity, trust, respect and courage should define football values.”
Players correctly assessed the situation in Qatar, where important reforms have been introduced but require better implementation. More importantly, they acknowledged that the decision to host the World Cup in Qatar resulted in preventable suffering and harm to “countless migrant workers,” who are not covered by recent reforms.
FIFA did not require Qatar to make labor rights commitments for the millions of migrant workers that FIFA knew Qatar would need to build the World Cup infrastructure.
“These migrant workers who suffered are not just numbers. Like the migrants that have shaped our country and our football, they possessed the same courage and determination to build a better life,” said president of the players union and former Socceroos player Alex Wilkinson
In the video, the Socceroos strongly endorsed an effective remedy for migrant workers who have been denied their rights, supporting a migrant workers center and the decriminalization of all same-sex relationships.
Qatari authorities responded to the video insisting that “no country is perfect,” and that “Protecting the health, safety, security and dignity of every worker contributing to this World Cup is our priority.” But they fell short of committing to set up a remedy fund for workers who faced abuses because reforms came too late or were weakly implemented.
In May, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, and a global coalition of rights groups, unions, and fans, launched the #PayUpFIFA campaign, demanding FIFA provide financial compensation for serious abuses against migrant workers, including deaths, injuries, unpaid wages, and exorbitant recruitment costs.
Unprecedented, bold acts of solidarity by both current and former Australian football players have set an important example. FIFA should follow up by announcing it will make right the abuses it has both enabled and will profit from.
Security forces in Qatar arbitrarily arrested and abused LGBTQ Qataris as recently as last month, Human Rights Watch said on Monday, in the run-up to hosting soccer’s World Cup which has put a spotlight on human rights issues in the Gulf Arab state.
Homosexuality is illegal in the conservative Muslim country, and some soccer stars have raised concerns over the rights of fans traveling for the event, especially LGBTQ individuals and women, whom rights groups say Qatari laws discriminate against.
A Qatari official said in a statement that HRW’s allegations “contain information that is categorically and unequivocally false,” without specifying.
Organizers of the World Cup, which starts on Nov. 20 and is the first held in a Middle Eastern nation, say that everyone, no matter their sexual orientation or background, is welcome, while also warning against public displays of affection.
“Freedom of expression and nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity should be guaranteed, permanently, for all residents of Qatar, not just spectators going to Qatar for the World Cup,” HRW said in a statement.
The organization said it had interviewed six LGBTQ Qataris, including four transgender women, one bisexual woman and one gay man, who reported being detained between 2019 and 2022 and subjected to verbal and physical abuse, including kicking and punching.
They were detained without charge in an underground prison in Doha, HRW said, and one individual was held for two months in solitary confinement.
“All six said that police forced them to sign pledges indicating that they would ‘cease immoral activity,’” it said, adding that transgender women detainees were mandated to attend conversion therapy sessions at a government-sponsored clinic.
Qatar does not “license or operate ‘conversion centres,’” the Qatari official said.
One of the transgender Qatari women interviewed by HRW told Reuters on condition of anonymity that she was arrested several times, most recently this summer when she was held for several weeks.
Authorities had stopped her due to her appearance or for possessing make-up, the woman said, adding that she had been beaten to the point of bleeding and had her head shaved.
The behavior center she was mandated to attend told the woman she had a gender identity disorder and accused her of being transgender in search of “sympathy from others.”
“The last thing I want is sympathy, I just want to be myself,” she said.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has released an anti-trans campaign ad as part of his reelection campaign.
The ad features former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who has been vocal in opposing trans swimmer Lia Thomas’s participation in women’s NCAA competitions. Gaines tied with Thomas for fifth place in the 200-meter freestyle at this year’s NCAA championships.
In the ad, Gaines claimed that “for girls across America” the dream of being a successful athlete is “being taken away by men competing in women’s sports.” At that moment, a photo of Thomas appears on the screen.
“Sadly, few stood up for me,” Gaines said. “But Rand Paul is not afraid to fight for fairness for women and girls.”
Rand Paul then speaks to approve the message “because I’ll always fight for fairness.”
Gaines has been speaking out against trans athletes for a long time and has become a mouthpiece for anti-trans Republicans.
In 2021, she appeared in an attack ad put out by the Republican Governor’s Association against Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) after she vetoed bills banning trans girls from women’s sports.
“I was forced to share a locker room with a biological man. It was uncomfortable and it was wrong.” Gaines said in the ad.
“This has to stop,” she concluded. “If Laura Kelly can’t protect women, she shouldn’t be governor.”
Gaines also recently joined Herschel Walker, Georgia’s anti-LGBTQ Republican Senate nominee, at a rally where Walker voiced his belief that trans kids will not get into heaven.
This is also far from the first time Paul has taken a stance against the trans community.
Last year, Paul went on an anti-transgender tirade when questioning Admiral Rachel Levine, who was at the time President Biden’s nominee for assistant secretary of health. She now holds the position.
Paul decided to rant about how gender affirming health care for transgender kids should be banned instead of left up to families and doctors. He peddled lies about transgender health care and the treatments available to trans youth and peppered Levine with questions about trans identities, declaring that transitioning is a “temporary, superficial fix for a very complex identity issue.”
“You give a woman testosterone enough that she grows a beard,” he said, “you think she’s going to go back to looking like a woman when she stops the testosterone?”
A Russian court on Monday set Oct. 25 as the date for American basketball star Brittney Griner’s appeal against her nine-year prison sentence for drug possession.
Griner, an eight-time all-star center with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was convicted Aug. 4 after police said they found vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.
The Moscow region court said it will hear her appeal.
Griner admitted that she had the canisters in her luggage, but testified that she had inadvertently packed them in haste and that she had no criminal intent. Her defense team presented written statements that she had been prescribed cannabis to treat pain.
Her February arrest came at a time of heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington, just days before Russia sent troops into Ukraine. At the time, Griner, recognized as one of the greatest players in WNBA history, was returning to Russia, where she played during the U.S. league’s offseason.
The nine-year sentence was close to the maximum of 10 years, and Griner’s lawyers argued after the conviction that the punishment was excessive. They said in similar cases defendants have received an average sentence of about five years, with about a third of them granted parole.
Before her conviction, the U.S. State Department declared Griner to be “wrongfully detained” — a charge that Russia has sharply rejected.
Reflecting the growing pressure on the Biden administration to do more to bring Griner home, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken took the unusual step of revealing publicly in July that Washington had made a “substantial proposal” to get Griner home, along with Paul Whelan, an American serving a 16-year sentence in Russia for espionage.
Blinken didn’t elaborate, but The Associated Press and other news organizations have reported that Washington has offered to exchange Griner and Whelan for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who is serving a 25-year sentence in the U.S. and once earned the nickname the “merchant of death.”
The White House said it has not yet received a productive response from Russia to the offer.
Russian diplomats have refused to comment on the U.S. proposal and urged Washington to discuss the matter in confidential talks, avoiding public statements.
U.S. President Joe Biden met last month with Cherelle Griner, the wife of Brittney Griner, as well as the player’s agent, Lindsay Colas. Biden also sat down separately with Elizabeth Whelan, Paul Whelan’s sister.
The White House said after the meetings that the president stressed to the families his “continued commitment to working through all available avenues to bring Brittney and Paul home safely.”
The Biden administration carried out a prisoner swap in April, with Moscow releasing Marine veteran Trevor Reed in exchange for the U.S. releasing a Russian pilot, Konstantin Yaroshenko, convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy.
The NBA has fined basketball star Anthony Edwards $40,000 for using an anti-gay slur.
The player for the Minnesota Timberwolves found himself in hot water earlier this month after a video on his Instagram story depicted him mocking a group of men standing on the sidewalk. The video has since been deleted, but Edwards could reportedly be heard saying, “look at these queer a** n****rs.”
After backlash, he tweeted an apology, writing that what he said “was immature, hurtful, and disrespectful.”
“I’m incredibly sorry,” he continued. “It’s unacceptable for me or anyone to use that language in such a hurtful way, there’s no excuse for it, at all. I was raised better than that!”
NBA Communications confirmed Edwards’s fine in a statement released on social media which said he had used “offensive and derogatory language” and that “Edwards has acknowledged that his actions were inappropriate.”
Players have been fined before for using homophobic language.
In 2021, Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant was fined the largest amount permissible by the NBA for his direct messages to actor and comedian Michael Rapaport.
He used derogatory remarks — criticized as homophobic by some and acknowledged as “inappropriate” by Durant — toward Rapaport. As a result, the NBA announced a $50,000 fine levied against Durant, reportedly the most allowed under the collective bargaining agreement.
A week after the death of a trans man at the hands of a 20 year-old assailant, soccer fans in Germany rallied in support and mourning for the victim at a match in Bremen.
The Bremen team superfans, or ultras, unfurled massive banners at the 60-minute match reading “Queerphobia kills!” (“Queerfeindlichkeit tötet!), “Against all transphobia!” (“Gegen jede Transfeindlichkeit!”) and “Rest in peace Malte.”
Twenty-five-year-old Malte C., identified by police only with his first name and initial in keeping with privacy rules, died a week earlier from injuries sustained at the Christopher Street Day parade in Münster, the city’s annual Pride march held the previous weekend.
According to witnesses, Malte intervened when his attacker started hurling homophobic slurs at a group of women parade-goers. He was struck twice in the face and fell to the ground, hitting his head. He never regained consciousness.
Police apprehended the suspect at Münster’s central train station based on photos and video provided by witnesses, on the same day Malte succumbed to his injuries. The suspect is being held in investigative detention on suspicion of bodily harm resulting in death.
Community leaders in the German city reacted with shock to the violent attack. Roman Catholic bishop Felix Genn called it “barbaric” and an “insane act.”
“Intolerance, exclusion, and hatred must have no place in our society,” he said in a statement.
The German government’s Commissioner for the Acceptance of Sexual and Gender Diversity, or so-called queer commissioner, Sven Lehmann, shared the bishop’s shock.
“Malte has died following a hate attack at the CSD Münster,” he wrote on Twitter. “I’m stunned and sad. My condolences and deep sympathy go to his family and friends. Violence against queer people is a threat that we must all stand up to.”
The soccer demonstration in Bremen came just days after another violent attack on a trans person, when a 57-year-old trans woman was assaulted on a tram in the same city.
Soccer ultras have been outspoken in support of LGBTQ and trans rights. In the U.S., ultra fan group The Uproar, supporters of the North Carolina Courage, rallied against re-signing Jaelene Daniels, who refused to wear the team’s rainbow jersey, while Prideraiser, a coalition of independent soccer ultras, raises money for local LGBTQ charities annually for Pride Month.
Los Verdes, ultras for Austin FC, collaborates with the team’s goalkeeper, Brad Stuver, to fundraise for organizations including Playing for Pride and the Transgender Education Network of Texas.
