Trans Activism is Oppressive, Dangerous, and Coercive, and "transition" is a lie.

 THIS IS LONG. 
There are 101 citations

It is time to confront this dangerous, sterilizing, mutilating "trans" experiment. 

I began writing this paper as a response to several disturbing and unpleasant conversations I had had with my daughters and a few friends. The subject matter is highly controversial. In my experience, people find any discussion confrontational. As I have been researching this subject over the last 10 months, I have been shocked to know people are not only unwilling to consider any alternative view, but they are also unwilling to read material, listen to interviews, consider studies, or contemplate even marginally there might be anything concerning about this social phenomenon called trans activism. Terms like “TERF,” and accusations themed “You hate trans people,” serve as the proverbial Berlin Wall against any exploration. The conversation is fraught and demonstrably dangerous to speak about, and there is a real possibility, perhaps a likelihood, of sanctions for publicly broaching the subject at all. The response to any question or presentation of facts is vicious, angry, and marginalising. My experience over these months is that of being an outsider to a cult. It has been oppressive to the point I have become reluctant to engage in any conversation on this subject.

When I initially began writing this paper, I intended to approach the subject matter through the categories of the history and culture of transgenderism, social contagion, the phenomenology of social movements, medicine and psychology, prisons, sports, crime, homosexuality and neo gay conversion, paraphilias and autogynephilia, parody of women and girls, expert discussion, current research and studies, first person observation from the de-transition community and an overview of verified harms. 

However, as I began writing referencing the nearly 100 sources I had already amassed, and falling down rabbit hole after rabbit hole, it quickly became apparent there was no way to speak to this topic without the paper becoming very long and very dense. The deep dive is covered in The Cass Report  and The WPATH Files. 

As there is more information than I had ever anticipated there being, I will limit this discussion to three specific areas with the caveat by doing so I will barely scratch the surface of a movement that has already, and will continue to have negative effects on young people and particularly adolescent girls, and even more specifically, girls who have endured trauma, mental illness, and are often on the autism/ADHD spectrum.

This discussion will consider social contagion and the phenomenology of social movements, medicine and psychology, and cult-mindedness as it relates to trans ideology.

The goal of this paper is not to draw the reader to my “side,” but to open the discussion and move it away from the terms and accusations used to shut down conversation, when conversation is not only necessary, but critically important. It is a documented fact, both through research and anecdotal accounts, people are being hurt psychologically, socially, and medically with permanent consequences.

In 2020, JK Rowling set off a firestorm of anger with a very short tweet on Twitter. What she stated is true, but the activist community rose like a tsunami to crush her out of existence. Over the next year or so, she stated several facts: women – lesbians specifically - do not have penises, and “people” who menstruate are called women. This enraged the trans “community” which subjected Rowling - and still does - to unprecedented viciousness and death threats. I was aware of these tweets, and I agree with her for the most part, whilst acknowledging she can lean to stridency. One still may not challenge the claim “trans women are women” and any attempt to do so, at least in face-to-face conversations, is met with vicious anger, the risk of being cancelled, the risk of losing jobs and/or clients, and for some notable people having to create a bunker or move away from their homes and. Several notable people, both trans-identifying men attempted to have her charged with hate crimes. The government declined to proceed:    ,  ; her comments stated facts, and as unpleasant as those are to some people, they did not meet the requirements for hate crimes. She responded on Twitter in April 2024: “I hope every woman in Scotland who wishes to speak up for the reality and importance of biological sex will be reassured by this announcement, and I trust that all women - irrespective of profile or financial means - will be treated equally under the law.” People with far, far more to lose than Rowling are subjected to death threats, are being abandoned by friends and too often losing contact with their families. 

In 2022 JK Rowling participated the podcast The Witch Trials of JK Rowling,  developed by Megan Phelps, a family member in a cult called the Westboro Baptist Church . In this podcast Megan recognizes that she grew up in a cult and draws direct links to coercive cult-like behavior in the trans activism community. This podcast sent me down a cavernous labyrinth of other podcasts, interviews with experts, with desisters (someone who previously identified as transgender but who re-identified with their biological sex prior to any medical intervention), de-transitioners, parents, psychologists, psychiatrists, and therapists who recognize the dangers inherent in the trans phenomenon and specifically how those to adolescent girls and people on the autism/ADHD spectrum. 

Human rights, compassion and understanding, and the right to live a safe life free from the threat of harm are certainly part of the discussion but these have been co-opted and manipulated in a way that makes any discussion taboo. One can postulate those caught up in this phenomenon are at greater risk from the movement, because it refuses to acknowledge they exist other than as a small, marginal population, and minimises, disputes, or denies the harms suffered by desisters, detransitioners, and those suffering regret. 

Historically transgenderism concerned men. Statistics from the turn of the 20th century until the late 50s, or mid 60s established the prevalence of transgenderism ranged from between .07% to 0.1%, and that transgenderism was vanishingly rare with women. In the 1950s a proto movement a rose where a very small percentage of crossdressing men began approaching medical professionals for hormone replacement which would feminize them and legitimize their desire to live and dress as women. However, even until 2015 the rates of transgenderism with women and girls remained low.  ,  

Between 2016 and 2020 the incidents of transgenderism generally, and specifically in adolescent females rose at an astonishing rate. Specific to adolescent females it is a more than 5000% increase. Transgenderism in adolescent males also began to rise but at a noticeably slower pace. Gender clinics began opening across the world, although primarily in what we call western cultures: United States, Canada, Europe. The demographic seeking services from general clinics skewed then and continues to skew heavily to adolescent females according to statistics such providers must maintain.

In his conversation on Heretics , Vancouverite “Billboard” Chris, real name Chris Elston, notes trans ideology is a phenomenon primarily affecting girls (30:29): “Gender dysphoria used to affect boys two to one versus girls…. We’ve seen a several thousand percent increase over time, but we’re talking {at the time} one out of 30,000... Today, the kids showing up to gender clinics, it’s 3 to 1 girls… We’ve seen a several thousand percent increase over the last 10 to 15 years.”

In the last four years, several organizations launched deep research into the subject of transgenderism, and specifically the phenomenon of transgenderism with adolescent females. The results of these studies demonstrate something counter to the claims of the movement. Advocates for transgender people claim the explosion of out trans-identifying people – children and adolescents included - is due to an environment now where it is safe to come out. It is safer, but this does not account for the stunning, unprecedented increase in adolescents claiming to be transgender, nor does this claim reference the pervasive, oppressive requirements for the general public. Stating one’s pronouns has become a forced act of allegiance with liberal values and transgender rights , as has establishing not just trans-aware, but pro-trans policies in schools, including preschools, and K-6. “In elementary and secondary school settings, the pronoun has taken on new meaning for the purpose of creating political consensus and a ‘shared public philosophy’.” 

In any other area of science or medicine, an increase of 5000 percent in a span of four years would provoke intense scrutiny of such a phenomenon; however where it concerns transgenderism, not only is has the word itself become a slag and is largely banned in the trans community, groups, researchers, scientists, therapists, psychologists/psychiatrists questioning the phenomenon are vilified and subjected to negative terminology (TERF, hater), marginalization, an outright hate on the grounds of trampling human rights. There is, however, little conversation about the rights of children to be children, and adolescents to be free from the known harms of puberty blockers, cross-gender hormones, and irreversible, unnecessary, disfiguring, and usually sterilizing surgeries. 

Genspect  is an evidence based, nonpartisan, anti authoritarian organisation created by Stella O'Malley, an Irish psychotherapist and author, and author of three books on parenting and mental health. Genspect “seeks a healthy approach to gender. The organisation is critical of the pervasive and unconstrained {emphasis, mine) gender-affirmative approach. Importantly, Genspect urges viewpoint diversity and free expression, and maintains safeguarding and informed consent as central to their mission.” 

The organization recognizes “the high occurrence of co-morbidities such as autism and ADHD among children and young people who are questioning their gender.”  This organization acknowledges, “much needed empirical research into the causes of gender distress has been made immeasurably harder by censorship and authoritarian efforts to restrict critical discourse on these issues.”  Genspect’s work focuses on young people who cannot legally give informed consent to life changing decisions . 

This is a critical perspective: in Canada and the United States children and adolescents cannot provide informed consent prior to the age of 16  or 18 depending on the country and state . In neither country, where it concerns sexual assault and incest, children cannot legally give consent to sex with an adult generally, and specifically to sexual assault or incest, and cannot be said to have given consent.

We must wonder then why constraints on children and adolescents accessing blockers, hormones and surgeries that will alter their bodies and their lives should be so controversial and why, in thousands of cases, parents who oppose puberty blockers and hormone treatments are literally losing custody of their children. An internet search for such cases returns 375,000 hits . 

Trans activists, however, are opposed to any move to prevent a child or adolescent, regardless of their age, who declares themselves transgender to have access to puberty blockers and feminizing or masculinizing hormones. Such drugs stunt growth and the development of sex characteristics and organs and usually result in partial, if not complete sterility. 

Advocates for Trans Equality  makes these statements:

”Being trans is beautiful. Trans kids know who they are. Transition related care is safe. Transition related care is life saving. Regret about transition is extremely rare. Gender identity personal.” Yet none of these statements nor the site itself reference substantiated science. This organisation says claims regarding regret are unsubstantiated and rare despite many hundreds of published accounts. The search, “trans regret,” renders more than 20 million Google pages.  

The Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) , an organisation formed “in response to proliferation of treatment guidelines that promote medicalized youth gender transition without the benefit of systematic reviews of evidence,” states regret and detransition are examples of negative outcomes. Proponents of youth gender transition insist rates of regret following transition are extremely low;” however, the rates of regret, desisting, and detransition are unstudied and largely speculative.  

SEGM notes several reasons for the lack of substantiated and corroborated rates of regret: inadequate follow-up coupled with high rates of loss to follow up (meaning low participation rates in follow up), imprecision of the measurement of desistence and detransition, and reliance on biased samples or samples with poor generalizability.  There is a small number of longitudinal studies indicating long term satisfaction after surgical gender intervention, one following post-surgical transitioners from 1973 - 2003; however, these reference small cohorts of adults and do not include adolescents.  That said, The Amsterdam Cohort of Gender Dysphoria Study (1972 – 2015) suggests regret may be as high as 33 percent. 

Proponents of youth transition assert detransition should not be thought of as a manifestation of failed transition, yet neglect to reference known negative physical health outcomes including bone loss, impacts to cardiovascular health, sexual dysfunction, micro-penis syndrome, permanently enlarged clitoral tissue, infertility and sterility. SCGM also states inadequate attention has been paid to adverse psychological outcomes. 

The elephant in the room in this discussion is the explosive increase in adolescents, and adolescent females particularly, declaring themselves to be transgender in the last four to six years. Alex Capo is the Executive Director at The Charlton School , a therapeutic environment for girls, located in Saratoga County, NY. This school accepts fewer than thirty students at a time. In his presentation at Genspect 2024 in Lisbon , Capo also cites this massive increase. He notes the school welcomed one student identifying as transgender with a strong conviction to medically transition in 2016, six in 2018 and nine in 2020. 

Andrew Doyle, author and broadcaster, describes gender identity as the current social contagion, and likens it to an earlier contagion, anorexia/bulimia . The view gender identity activism is a dangerous, contagious phenomenon, not a factual disability or affliction, is held by an increasing number of experts in the fields of gender and sexuality; Helen Joyce, Journalist, author of Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, , Mia Hughes writer and social environmentalist, Kelly-Jay Keen, women's rights advocate, Peter Boghossian, Philosopher and professor at Portland State University  to name a tiny group of a growing cohort. 

So critical is the concern about trans ideology that the British government forced the closure of the Tavistock Clinic leading to an independent review of gender-related services in the UK, led by Dr. Hilary Cass. Her research, The Cass Review  was released in 2024. Following the Tavistock closing, medical and government authorities, and at least five countries that once led the way on gender affirming treatments for children and adolescents, are reversing course, arguing that the science undergirding these treatments is unproven and their benefits unclear.” 

This change is related to the 1995 Dutch protocol , which championed the use of “Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone agonist (GnRHa) drugs to suppress puberty in “juvenile transsexuals.” Scientists and public health officials in Finland, Sweden, France, Norway, and the UK now believe puberty blocking hormones may do more harm than good.  

Adolescent girls are highly over-represented in the transgender population. One parent reports the sudden increase of trans-identifying girls in their daughter’s classroom as jumping from none to 25% of the girls in the class in one month. This is arguably the result of the current social climate and the factual existence of social contagion. , ,  Adolescent girls are uniquely prone to such contagion. 

Social contagion was first documented in 1384. “Historical accounts indicate that sometime in the 13th century, a large number of the town’s children disappeared or perished….”  Carl Jung used the term “psychic epidemics” in his The Collected Works, which he described as, “the spontaneous manifestation of an archetype within collective life as indicative of a critical time during which there is a serious risk of a destructive psychic epidemic.” 

According to Mia Hughes, researcher and author of The WPATH Files, a 241-page research paper on pseudoscientific surgical and hormonal experiments on children, adolescents and vulnerable children, “Gender non-conformity only became a psychiatric disorder because, in the 1950s, men seeking the impossibility of a sex change began showing up in clinics recounting stories of childhood femininity. This prompted researchers to study feminine boys.” 

In her extensively researched document, The WPATH Files: Pseudoscientific Surgical and Hormonal Experiments On Children, Adolescents, And Vulnerable Adults,  Mia Hughes details the failings of transgender activism related to psychology and psychiatry, and specifically medicine (hormone treatment), and unnecessary, disfiguring surgeries, bookended by the almost complete lack of appropriate mental health care for youth and adolescents caught up in this social phenomenon. 

Hughes demonstrates through comparison, the criminality of unnecessary, deforming, sterilizing surgeries performed on youth well before they have had any real-life relationships (sexual specifically), and well prior to their having the ability to understand the long-term effects of such surgeries and resulting sterilizations. 

“It would be criminal for a surgeon to sever the spinal cord of a person who identified (emphasis, mine) as a quadriplegic or to blind a sighted patient who identified as blind. It is as unethical to destroy healthy reproductive systems and amputate the healthy breasts and genitals of mentally unwell people. To do so without first even attempting to help the person overcome their mental illness, without realistically preparing the individual for the grueling post-op period or warning of the life-long negative effect  that the procedures will have on their long-term health and ability to form intimate relationships amounts to medical negligence of the highest order.”  Although surgery in children and adolescents is disputed, as noted in his interview, “Billboard” Chris notes 179 US girls aged 12 had opted for double mastectomies .

Lisa Marchiano is a Jungian analyst, author, and podcaster.  Her research indicates we – being mostly what we term “the West” – are experiencing a contagion, or epidemic, which she says, “is manifesting as children and young people coming to believe that they are the opposite sex, and in some cases taking drastic measures to change their bodies.”  Further, Marchiano notes, “Current psychotherapeutic practice involves immediate affirmation of a young person's self-diagnosis, which often leads to support for social and even medical transition.” She adds, “It isn’t wise to act on strong impulses without understanding them psychologically first.”

Scottish journalist, Charles MacKay’s book, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds,” details what he describes as “moral epidemics.” To wit, “Nations,… like individuals, …have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness… whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; …millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.”

The social phenomenon of “trans” has had this effect, and adolescent girls are arguably victims, as they were during the 1990s anorexia and bulimia epidemic. Eating disorders, like gender disorders, are real and documented. However, the explosion of sufferers indicated a social contagion. That phenomenon was characterized by secrecy, on-line and informal in-person “Ana” groups, where girls were introduced to, and incited to participate, or to carry on participating even whilst in care with eating disorder clinics.

 

Kari Paul, reporter for the Guardian US, wrote about the explosion of anorexic teen girls and the implication of Instagram and TikTok in that phenomenon.  The spread of trans identity among adolescent girls follows a near-identical trajectory and affects an identical demographic. 

The National Academy of Medicine in France has explicitly acknowledged the role of social contagion in trans identities.  In their press release of February 25, 2022,  NAM states “Transgender identity is a feeling (emphasis, mine),…for which no genetic predisposition has been found.  Further, “While this condition has been long recognized, a sharp increase in demand for medical interventions has been observed first in North America, then in Northern Europe, and, more recently, in France, particularly among children and adolescents. 

A recent study of a number of trans identification in high schools in Pittsburgh revealed a prevalence that is clearly higher than previously estimated in the United States: 10% of students declared themselves to be transgender or non-binary or were unsure of their gender. In 2003, the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne diagnosed only one child with gender dysphoria, whereas today it treats nearly two hundred.” The press release cited here is critical reading: it highlights a raft of concerning social shifts; the sharp increase in demand for medical interventions, excessive engagement with social media, social acceptability, peer influence, and this social phenomenon as an epidemic, that, “manifests itself in the emergence of cases or even clusters of cases in the adolescents’ immediate surroundings.” 

NAM’s release advises “great medical caution” with children and adolescents, given the exposure of this population and the many undesirable effects and even serious complications that can be caused by some of the therapies available.” They note the May 2021 decision by the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm to prohibit the use of puberty blockers and stressing, “great medical caution must be taken in children and adolescents given the vulnerability, particularly psychological, of this population and the many undesirable effects and even serious complications that can be caused by some of the therapies available....”  

Taking into account the side effects such as the impact on growth bone weakening risk of sterility emotional and intellectual consequences and for girls menopause-like symptoms. The stance of the pro-trans, and trans activist communities, that there should be no impediments whatsoever, regardless of the age of a trans-identifying child or adolescent, ignores the documented, concerning effects of hormones generally and specifically for girls. This is, at best, an irresponsible stance. 

There is an equally unacknowledged reality in the general, trans-supportive and staunchly pro-trans populations being the incidences of trauma, mental illness, and autism among adolescents in this trans-identifying group. Estimates vary for several reasons, one being a trend towards self-declaration, which precludes a thorough psychological/psychiatric review. 

A journal article, Elevated rates of autism, other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diagnoses, and autistic traits in transgender and gender-diverse individuals , published in Nature Communications indicates, “Compared to cisgender individuals, transgender and gender-diverse individuals have, on average, higher rates of autism, other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diagnoses,” and that “studies have identified that between 4.8% and 26% of individuals who present at GD clinics have an autism diagnosis based on several different criteria. This compares to 1 – 2 percent of the general population estimated to be autistic. This investigation was based on “five independently recruited cross-sectional datasets consisting of 641,860 individuals.” 

 

This relates to the explosion of anorexia and bulimia in the 1990s and 2000s, and concerns an identical cohort; adolescent girls between the ages of 11 and 15. Eating disorders are an additional complication in the adolescent trans population.  This adds to the evidence this demographic has higher than average mental health issues, trauma (family, sexual assault, incest, abuse), and neurodivergent characteristics.

The Autism Research Institute (San Diego) makes some concrete statements regarding gender discomfort related to autism. Specifically, “literature on the intersection of autism and GDC has increased substantially in the last seven years. Early studies report higher rates of gender diversity than in the nonautistic population (Glidden et al., 2016; Van der Miesen et al., 2016; George & Stokes, 2017). Autism appears at a rate of approximately 1.8 percent in the general population. In the trans-identifying population estimates range from 6 to 26 percent. 

According to Doctor Lawrence Fung, a physician-scientist specializing in autism and neurodiversity and psychiatrist at Stanford University, says, “females on the spectrum seem to have more testosterone and masculine features... males on the autism spectrum have more feminine features.” Doctor Fung's research also shows that the brains of artistic men and autistic women are different ... Neuroscience could help explain why people with autism are more likely to question their sex.” 

An article in the Main Wire from March 2023 highlights research which indicates a “huge proportion of children pursuing gender transitions are autistic, often undiagnosed, 

yet parents seem predominately unaware of the links between autism and trans identification in adolescents . 

Doctor Susan Bradley, a Canadian psychiatrist who has been working with gender dysphoric children since the 1970s believes most children who seek gender transitions have high functioning autism and are being exploited by the medical industry.  “Children with autism make up an outsized portion but in the transgender identified population, autism spectrum traits make them particularly vulnerable to thought patterns that can lead youth to pursue gender transitions.... Transgender individuals are about three to six times more likely to be autistic than non transgender people.” 

The now-closed Tavistock gender clinic in the UK alleged that as many as 97.5% of its gender patients had autism.  doctor Bradley notes adolescents with autism have difficulties socially and struggle to understand how they're different. She knows they often feel left out of groups and are much more vulnerable often more suicidal, anxious, and depressed. 

Also from Nature Communications, “Two recent reviews identify higher rates of mental health conditions and mental distress (notably depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders) in transgender and gender-diverse individuals compared to cisgender individuals,” citing Reisner, S. L. et al. 

Global health burden and needs of transgender populations: a review. Lancet 388, 412–436 (2016). and Dhejne, C., Van Vlerken, R., Heylens, G. & Arcelus, J. Mental health and gender dysphoria: a review of the literature. Int. Rev. Psychiatry28, 44–57 (2016). 

Doctor Bradley suggests this demographic of autistic youth may be predisposed towards trans when they see trans identifying kids are automatically accepted. This can influence them to going down the road to transition because, “all of a sudden they feel as though that explains all the trouble all the way along.”  

Chloe Cole is a young woman who underwent cross sex hormones and a double mastectomy between the ages of 13 and 17. She regrets medically transitioning and states doctors failed to address her autism spectrum traits and the ways those impacted her gender identity.  Cole is one of many medically transitioned adults who are suing hospitals and medical professionals. Her attorneys “argue that doctors should have offered her psychotherapy to address her autism spectrum symptoms and mental health issues but instead made her gender dysphoria the top priority.” ,    Cole is not alone amongst post medical transitioned people pursuing legal restitution.  A search for “detransitioner lawsuits” results in more than 26 million Google hits. 

Josh Payne is the co-founder of Campbell Miller Payne, “a law firm dedicated to representing individuals who were misled and abused – many as children – into psychological and physical harm through a false promise of “gender-affirming care.”  His firm was approached by almost 80 post-transition people seeking legal recourse, and took 12 of those complaints. The millions of Google hits referencing legal action for harm, and the fact so may post-gender-surgery people are pursuing damages on the basis of having not screened and treated for existing mental health needs, including autism, should have us wanting to slam on the brakes. “Gender-affirming care is becoming big business. Revenue from sex reassignment surgery  is currently about $2.5 billion and is estimated to grow to $5 billion by 2030. And that’s just for surgery.” 

As a bookend to this conversation, I will briefly touch on Dr Steve Hassan and his work in and around cults, and his book Combating Cult Mind Control , and to reference Dr. Janja Lalich’s work in the same area .  Dr. Hassan is a licensed mental health professional, a recognized expert on cults and undue influence. Dr. Lalich is a professor emerita of sociology, and international authority on cults, extremism, and coercion specializing in, among many subjects, ideological extremism, with a particular focus on recruitment, indoctrination, and methods of influence and control. 

Regardless of the “flavour” of a given cult, or even whether an organisation or social movement is considered a cult, such as the trans activist community (this is a loose term), they possess significant characteristics in common:

• Excessively zealous, unquestioning; regarding the belief system ideology and practices as truth

• Questioning, doubt and dissent are discouraged/punished

• Mind-altering practices (denunciation specifically as it relates to trans ideology) used to suppress doubt

• The leadership/community dictates how one should think, act, feel

• Elitist thinking, claims of special, exalted status

• Polarisation – us-versus them mentality, which may cause conflict in wider society

• Lack of accountability; in this case, lack of corroborated, substantiated scientific or medical information, or long-term studies

• Ends always justify the means

• Influence and control through shame or guilt, peer pressure and other forms of persuasion

• Group members encouraged to live with, socialise with other group members

• Members believe there is no other way to be and may fear reprisals to themselves or others they leave or consider leaving; in the case of trans ideology, this would mean fear of repercussions, sanctions, alienation, and cancelling, for straying from the party line.

Dr. Hassan’s BITE Model (Behaviour, Information, Thought, Emotion) echoes and expands on these concepts and speaks to a cult’s effects on physical realities, sex, clothing and hairstyles, group and self indoctrination via the internet, group think, separation of families, deception and withheld information, restrictions on non-cult (in this case, non-trans) information, compartmentalization – insider/outsider doctrines, change to a person’s identity, loaded language, cliches, buzz words, rejection of rational analysis and critical thinking, and constructive criticism, labelling other beliefs or knowledge as illegitimate or evil, or not useful, manipulation of feelings, suppression of anger, doubt, instill fear, and phobia indoctrination.  

The characteristics of cults apply in many ways to transgender activism. As an example, and one of thousands, Kathleen Lowrey, associate professor of anthropology, was dismissed from her administrative role when she said, “Transgender identity doesn’t trump biological sex for policy decisions.” 

In email from the dean of the U of A faculty of arts, Lesly Cormack, Lowrey was advised she was “no longer effective” in her role and that it was “not in the best interests of the students or the university for her to carry on.” The email from the dean also says, “I am willing to allow you to continue with your teaching... on the condition that you complete the majority of your time in the position effectively and in accordance with instructions.” In short, Lowrey either had to accept the cult-like, unquestioning ideology espoused by the university or leave her job.  She chose the latter.

In another instance, French teacher, Peter Vlaming, was dismissed on the spot from his job for alleged hate speech during a virtual reality experience with his class . Each student had been assigned a partner to keep them safe from falls and collisions. When he saw the student in question was heading towards a hard surface, he said, “Don’t let her hit the wall,” The “her” in question was an adolescent girl who had recently stated she was trans. Vlaming ultimately won $575,000 in damages from the Virginia school board that fired him. He has since moved to France . There are thousands of these stories. 

One need only broach the subjects of trans, trans activism, surgeries, hormones, puberty blockers, regret, to be instantly confronted with cult-like prohibitions. However, as one will see in the comments stream of Peter Vlaming’s interview on the Daily Signal,  while people may not be able to express their concerns to their families or friends, with the benefit of a “handle” and the conferred anonymity, most people do not support of the current runaway train. Such “pro “stop this madness” comments dominate comment streams.  It should go without saying – but it doesn’t - that this consensus is no indication of mass hate towards transgendered people, or those who think they are, but concern for the demonstrated lacks in science and evidence and the potentially negative, permanent effects of hormones and surgeries to those people. 

As a resource of first-person accounts, Parents With Inconvenient Truths about Trans , is a site supported by Genspect. There are countless heartbreaking stories posted by parents about their children, how those kids were coerced or enticed into trans ideology and social transition. These parents’ recounting are a window on the hows and whys of desisters. Genspect also hosts Stats for Gender  a compendium of statistics related to gender and based on both peer-reviewed papers and government-commissioned studies, submissions to governmental commissions, published books, or doctoral theses.

My intention by writing this is not necessarily to change minds but to encourage a much more open, honest, and science-based conversation about the current trans phenomenon. There is no question transgender people exist, and have always existed, and there is also no question people in this community or attached to this community should be safe from fear, abuse, social pain, or violence. 

The issues I have covered here represent the tiniest corner of a vast issue affecting everyone—parents, children as young as four in preschool, adolescents - and particularly adolescent girls – doctors, lawyers, psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, and educational institutions in a profound way. This discussion can no longer be curtailed in the general consciousness. The health, bodily integrity, and long-term wellbeing of a generation of young people depends on it. 

 

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16. Bruce, Lauren, et al. “Long-Term Regret and Satisfaction With Decision Following Gender-Affirming Mastectomy.” JAMA Surgery, vol. 158, no. 10, Oct. 2023, pp. 1070–77. Silverchair, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamasurg.2023.3352.

17. ---. “Long-Term Regret and Satisfaction With Decision Following Gender-Affirming Mastectomy.” JAMA Surgery, vol. 158, no. 10, Oct. 2023, pp. 1070–77. Silverchair, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamasurg.2023.3352.

18. “Caitlyn Jenner Says Transgender Population Is Growing at ‘Disturbing’ Rate.” Newsweek, 17 May 2023, https://www.newsweek.com/caitlyn-jenner-says-transgender-population-growing-disturbing-rate-1800973.

19. “Caitlyn Jenner’s New Campaign against ‘Gender Extremists’ Sparks Debate.” Newsweek, 5 Apr. 2023, https://www.newsweek.com/caitlyn-jenner-new-campaign-against-gender-extremists-sparks-trans-debate-1792718.

20. Caused. Is Gender Dysphoria Socially Contagious – Professor Dianna Kenny | CAUSE (Coalition Against Unsafe Sexual Education). 14 Sept. 2019, https://stopsafeschools.com/professor-dianna-kenny-is-gender-dysphoria-socially-contagious/.

21. ---. Is Gender Dysphoria Socially Contagious – Professor Dianna Kenny | CAUSE (Coalition Against Unsafe Sexual Education). 14 Sept. 2019, https://stopsafeschools.com/professor-dianna-kenny-is-gender-dysphoria-socially-contagious/.

22. Classical Liberalism Seminar - Mia Hughes - October 24, 2024. Directed by Stanford Classical Liberalism Initiative, 2024. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_JZXzocqd8.

23. Clayton, Alison, et al. “Commentary: The Signal and the Noise—Questioning the Benefits of Puberty Blockers for Youth with Gender Dysphoria—a Commentary on Rew et al. (2021).” Child and Adolescent Mental Health, vol. 27, no. 3, 2022, pp. 259–62. Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10.1111/camh.12533.

24. Cohn, J. “The Detransition Rate Is Unknown.” Archives of Sexual Behavior, vol. 52, no. 5, July 2023, pp. 1937–52. Springer Link, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02623-5.

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42. Hughes, Mia. The WPATH Files; Pseudoscientific Surgical And Hormonal Experiments On Children, Adolescents, And Vulnerable Adults.

43. Ibid, pg 70

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53. Warrier, Varun, et al. “Elevated Rates of Autism, Other Neurodevelopmental and Psychiatric Diagnoses, and Autistic Traits in Transgender and Gender-Diverse Individuals.” Nature Communications, vol. 11, no. 1, Aug. 2020, p. 3959. www.nature.com, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17794-1.tandfonline.com (Atypon), https://doi.org/10.1080/00332925.2017.1350804.

54. McClurg, Lesley. “Transgender and Nonbinary People Are up to Six Times More Likely to Have Autism.” NPR, 15 Jan. 2023. NPR, https://www.npr.org/2023/01/15/1149318664/transgender-and-non-binary-people-are-up-to-six-times-more-likely-to-have-autism.

55. McGregor, Kerry, et al. “Disordered Eating and Considerations for the Transgender Community: A Review of the Literature and Clinical Guidance for Assessment and Treatment.” Journal of Eating Disorders, vol. 11, no. 1, May 2023, p. 75. BioMed Central, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40337-023-00793-0.

56. Merrill Matthews, opinion contributor. “Matthews: Here Come the Gender-Detransitioner Lawsuits.” The Hill, 31 Oct. 2023, https://thehill.com/opinion/4284777-matthews-here-come-the-gender-detransitioner-lawsuits/.

57. Moser, Charles. “Blanchard’s Autogynephilia Theory: A Critique.” Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 57, no. 6, June 2010, pp. 790–809. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2010.486241.

58. “Muxe.” Wikipedia, 11 Nov. 2024. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Muxe&oldid=1256734380.

59. National Academy of Medicine in France Advises Caution in Pediatric Gender Transition. https://segm.org/France-cautions-regarding-puberty-blockers-and-cross-sex-hormones-for-youth. Accessed 15 Nov. 2024.

60. “Number of Gen Z People Identifying as Transgender Twice That of Millennials.” Newsweek, 24 Feb. 2023, https://www.newsweek.com/people-who-identify-transgender-doubles-gen-z-1783562.

61. Parents Lose Custody of Transgender Child - Google Search. https://www.google.com/search?q=parents+lose+custody+of+transgender+child&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA1034CA1034&oq=parents+losing+custody+of+their+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCAgCEAAYFhgeMgYIABBFGDkyCAgBEAAYFhgeMggIAhAAGBYYHjIICAMQABgWGB4yCAgEEAAYFhgeMggIBRAAGBYYHjINCAYQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAcQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAgQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAkQABiGAxiABBiKBdIBCTEyNzk0ajBqNKgCALACAQ&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8. Accessed 15 Nov. 2024.

62. Park, Rachel H., et al. “Long-Term Outcomes After Gender-Affirming Surgery: 40-Year Follow-up Study.” Annals of Plastic Surgery, vol. 89, no. 4, Oct. 2022, pp. 431–36. PubMed, https://doi.org/10.1097/SAP.0000000000003233.

63. Paul, Kari. “‘It Spreads like a Disease’: How pro-Eating-Disorder Videos Reach Teens on TikTok.” The Guardian, 16 Oct. 2021. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/16/tiktok-eating-disorder-thinspo-teens.

64. Peter Boghossian. https://peterboghossian.com/. Accessed 15 Nov. 2024.

65. PITT. Headline: When a Quarter of the Class Identifies as Trans. 5 May 2022, https://www.pittparents.com/p/headline-when-a-quarter-of-the-class.

66. ---. Parents Deserve Answers before Medicalizing Gender Identity. 7 July 2022, https://www.pittparents.com/p/parents-deserve-answers-before-medicalizing-6ae.

67. ---. Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) | Substack. 15 Nov. 2024, https://www.pittparents.com/.

68. VA School Board to Pay $575K, Change Policies to End ADF Lawsuit on Behalf of Wrongly Fired Teacher. https://adfmedia.org/case/vlaming-v-west-point-school-board. Accessed 15 Nov. 2024.

69. ---. They Pushed Me into This Ideology and Tried to Keep Me There Forever. 7 July 2022, https://www.pittparents.com/p/they-pushed-me-into-this-ideology.

70. French Teacher Bids Adieu to Trans Ideology, Wins $575,000 in Lawsuit. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_P4sMdOaJQ Accessed 15 Nov. 2024.

71. To My Daughter’s Therapist: You Were Wrong. 7 July 2022, https://www.pittparents.com/p/to-my-daughters-therapist-you-were.

72. Stats for Gender.Org Home Page.” Stats For Gender, https://statsforgender.org. Accessed 14 Nov. 2024.

73. Trans: A Dangerous Youth Subculture. 7 July 2022, https://www.pittparents.com/p/trans-a-dangerous-youth-subculture.

74. ---. Transgender’s Connection with Pornography: It’s Undeniable. 7 July 2022, https://www.pittparents.com/p/transgenders-connection-with-pornography.

75. ---. True Believer. 7 July 2022, https://www.pittparents.com/p/true-believer.

76. Postma, Hermes. “The Dutch Leaks: Trans Regret Is Possibly 33%.” Genspect, 5 Oct. 2024, https://genspect.org/trans-regret-is-possibly-33/.

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78. Report, Canadian Gender. “Pronouns and Children: When Schools Go Too Far.” CANADIAN GENDER REPORT, 20 Dec. 2021, https://genderreport.ca/pronouns-and-children/.

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Depression made me fat. It also nearly killed me. One day to termination...

 In 2014, I was photographing a place for one of my (then) realtors. I happened to catch a look on their face... I was angry and embarassed all at the same time. I could tell they were disgusted by my size. I had been doing a fair amount of work for this client, but after that day, I never heard from them again. I was so appalled, hurt, and hating myself. 

I had just gone though a period - being a good two years - of a deep depression and had gained a lot of weight - maybe not a lot by some standards, but 50lbs on a 5'4" frame is a lot. My ideal weight is between 120 and 125. 

Around the same time, my sister came to my house. She hadn't been over and we hadn't seen each other for several years. If you read this blog, you'll  know the backstory. She had barely sat down at my table before she looked at me and said, "You need to lose about 50 pounds, hey?" Between her and my client, I was again pitched into a pit of self-loathing. 

In February 2015, I hired a trainer and hit the gym for a bunch of reasons: I was super pissed of by that client's unspoken but very loud comments, and my youngest was getting married. So I went at it. Hard. For 18 months, I was on a specific, non-changing diet and in the gym five to six days a week. I lost a ton of weight, gained a pile of muscle, was wearing a size 4, and was feeling great. My trainer encouraged me to compete, and I did that too. I came in last there but that was ok. 

During that time, I donated a lot of my clothing because I couldn't imagine not being in the gym at least four days a week. I thought my habits were well-established and that yes, I'd gain a bit of weight - because one cannot survive on a competition diet forever - but I was pretty confident I'd be able to maintain a reasonable weight for a person my age. My trainer said not to get rid of my clothes - she's a very winning competitor and she told me she usually gains 20 lbs between competitions, but I was deluded and thought size four was a forever thing. 

Shit happens when you're not paying attention.

In 2017, early in the year, I took up pottery. I was still in the gym, but I really enjoy pottery and it began taking up more of my time. The weight began to come on. I should note here I have very few mirrors in my house and none are full-length. That's a whole other story in a book called dismorphia. 

By 2019, I wasn't in the gym more than three days a week. I didn't have my trainer anymore, and I had let other pursuits take some of that time. 

I knew I wasn't doing well, so in the spring of  2018, I got an appointment with my friend's doctor, who my friend likes very much, for an assessment for anxiety. Unsurprisingly, it came back with high anxiety and depression. That doc sent me to a counsellor, who was great but who is part of a group of professionals. I could not see this one person on a regular basis and couldn't choose to see them specifically - one gets who one gets in that clinic. I didn't want to be relating the whole story every time I saw a different counsellor, so I didn't pursue. I should say though, the initial assessment was that I'm not a terrible person, that I have some life-long family-related challenges, but I have a very supportive spouse and three great adult children, who are in the loop about the family stuff, so I figured I'd just carry on. I wasn't feeling awesome but I wasn't suffering too much. 

In early Feb 2019, I was asked to participate in a public talk with five other people in my profession. It was a HUGE nod: one of the presenters is top of the field in this country, and I was blown away to share the stage with her. I remember seeing the video of my part of the event, and liking my presentation but also being aware I had gained a bunch of weight. I was disturbed and that realisation bored into my brain like a worm... 

Then the pandemic hit. My gym closed, we were locked down for six weeks, I was lonely, bored out of my mind, angry, frustrated. Stupidly, and not realising I was sliding deeper, I was on twitter a lot. Twitter is poison generally, but for depressed people, it is as dangerous as a loaded gun. 

I stopped going to the gym after it reopened. It was so on again, off again for another year, I couldn't re-establish a healthy, regular habit. Add to that, I developed a real dislike, bordering on phobia about seeing people masked. Masked and huffing at the gym was not on my dance card... 

I wore a mask when necessary but I avoided going anywhere it was necessary, which is to say I quit going out of the house any more often than necessary - work, and pottery. Our studio owner at the time was a 77 year-old man with a pacemaker and diabetes, so for him, I masked. 

My spouse loves grocery shopping so that was covered. There was a period I'd go to the shops with them but I would not go in, becasue I didn't want to see them in a mask. I still have PTSD about masks, especially those damned blue medical masks. 

What I didn't know was that I was already depressed and sliding into another debilitating depression. I knew I wasn't doing well, but I didn't have a clue how far in that deep dark well of despair I already was. By January 2021, after the 2020 winter holiday season that didn't happen, I was in bad shape. Bad enough that I was ideating not rarely. In late January that year, I was in full thinking about it all the time mode - and I'm talking about suicide here. 

One evening - a Sunday night, I was in the pottery studio by myself, and I could not stop crying. I was alone, sobbing, and wondering if there was any tubing about. I was lucid enough to know I was in crisis, so I called our city's crisis line and was with an intake person for two hours. She was concerned enough about my state she wanted to send the city police to transport me to hospital, but I told her I was going to go home, that my spouse was there, and I'd be ok. I was, until about 2 a.m., when I woke up in a panic of despair, and again was picturing where there was hose in my garage. Again, I called the crisis line and spent another two hours with them. 

The next day, I told my spouse what was going on so they were aware. They're very supportive. Very. 

Meanwhile, there was encouraging news about a vaccine, and spring was coming. I had some hope. But I was out of the gym completely, my diet was shit; there was a lot of wine by this point - not to the point of alcoholism, but a couple glasses every night. Again, I had no idea I was as depressed as I now know I I was. Everyone was struggling, we were 14 months into the damned pandemic, and I just figured everyone was feeling as I was. 

In July 2021, our government lifted the mask mandate. It was absolutely amazing. It lifted my spirits a LOT to not see everyone masked up. Yes, people carried on masking but very many fewer. At the same time, our city's huge annual rodeo happened, and we got the go-ahead to photograph an event we'd been shooting for four years. So the summer was fine. I knew I wasn't at my best, but I felt the pandemic was behind us, and I could begin healing. But no. 

In early September, our goverment put the mask mandate back into place, and I felt absolutely crushed. I had three vaccinations on board by then, so having that mandate come back... On September 4th, I walked into our members only pottery studio thinking we wouldn't be subject to the mandate, and found everyone masked. I lost it. I went on a big, scary, loud, angry rant. I absolutely freaked out everyone in there - 20 people at least - who had never seen me in any kind of state, let alone ranting. I had to apologise specifically to two people who I seriously scared - and I will say I scared myself as well.

As I sat at my wheel, tears pouring down my face, despair choking me, one of the members came by me. As background, I thought we were good friends. I had introduced this person to their spouse, photographed their wedding, done headshots for them both, hung out with them, trained with one of them for a while. As he passed in front of me, he asked what was wrong. Through my tears, I said I was so frustrated at people who wouldn't vaccinate because we were back to mid-pandemic dystopian facelessness everywhere. He literally laughed in my face. I didn't know he was an anti-vaxx idiot. I felt like I'd been struck. 

Two days later, on his facebook, his mother, who was faced with vaccinating or being out of a job for a while, posted that she had "gone on the special train, and it was really smoky in there." There is little that enrages me as much as racisim, so this horrifing equating vaccinating - literally a life-saving, socially-conscious, right minded thing to do - with trains transporting Jewish people to their deaths in German ovens absoltely blew me apart. 

And I was descending ever further into a black, black depression. You know the "frog in water on the stove" analogy - the one where a frog in water won't notice the heat creeping up until it's too late and it dies by being boiled? Yeah... that's what was happening to me. 

An aspect of depression for me is intense anxiety centred on my weight; an anxiety so profound and debilitating, I had become absltuely obsessed about my weight. I would wake up sometimes 20 times a night in an absolute panic. Concurrently, I was so depressed, I couldn't imagine going out of the house, let alone to the gym. I did not want anyone to see me: I'd gone from 130, all muscle to 160, flabby, palid, anxious, angry. 

December 2021 rolled around. We had a very good winter holiday - lots of friends and family over for dinner. I wasn't ok, and I knew it, but at least we could have our traditional holiday family dinner. 

This is where it took an absolutely devastating turn. I lost my persective. My anxiety became extremely pronounced to the point I was misinterpreting everything, and I was engaging in rants - two hours at a time - a few times a week. My spouse could not understand, and could not help. In this context of massive depression, debilitating anxiety and paranoia, I started to believe my kids (all busy, productive, amazing adults) had begun to dislike me to such a point they were no longer calling, or even responding to texts. 

There was LOTS going on I didn't know about: I didn't know my eldest and her partner were really struggling. Add to that, she had to let go of her lovely dog - an 11 year old boxer/bull terrier with terrible joint issues. His joints literally liquified. It was terrible. My other daughter in town was also struggling with massive anxiety which at one point caused a physical reaction - paralyisis in one of her legs. So their not calling was due to all sorts of stuff not related to me. But I knew none of it except for the dog, so I was taking it all very, deeply, horrifyingly personally. 

I finally decided I should say something, but in my state, I had no good grip on what to say, or how to say any of it. They took it as an indictment. It sparked five months of silence from one of them, and utter chaos via texts - I was writing pages and pages of insane angry, abusive, horrifying, accusitory rants to my children - all three of them, and imagine for my youngest, who lives in the US in a no-travel permitted bloody pandemic. Meanwhile, I had ramped up my rants to almost every day, for hours on end. This culminated in June with me essentially telling my spouse to leave, that we were done, me jumping in my car and heading west into the mountains in a white-out spring storm. The one thing that saved me from not driving off a cliff - literally, because I wanted to so, so badly - was my dog; she was in the car with me and I adore that dog. There is no way I was going to hurt her. 

My intention was to drive 3 hours west and hole up in a hotel in a small town where I feel safe. But I was so incredibly depressed, I couldn't do it. My anxiety was so intense, I could not drive that road I've driven so many times in my life. I managed to get 45 kms west of my city, and could not do it. Depressed, massively anxious and loathing my inability to do ANYTHING. I dragged myself back home, still white hot angry, buzzing with anxiety. Finding my spouse here, I badgered them. "Why are you still here?!" My spouse is a strong person. In 26 years, I've seen them shed tears twice: once when our first dog had a terrible accident, and we had to let him go, and this moment, where I was bullying them to leave. 

I was still not fully aware of how actually serious my depression was. I had been crying for hours every day for, by then, four months, but in that state, I believed my children were victimizing me, my spouse was colluding with them, and that everyone was against me.  

Then, my middle daughter sent me a long text. Within, were the words, "you are my abuser." That was the bottom. I was done. I had done to my children what my mother had done to me. I had not only abused them for by then six months, I believed they hated me, and that left me zero to live for. 

But that message, those words, were like a kick in the head. Something broke through. I called my doctor and said I wanted to take my life, that I had ruined my relationships with my children and my spouse, and that I could not live anymore. Writing this, I'm sad for myself. I've struggled with depression all my life, and I have had three periods where suicide seemed the only way to stop all the pain, but I had never called anyone to say, "I'm doing this. I am a liability to everyone around me." 

I've known my doctor since she was 4 and I was 5. Her former spouse hung himself where his children would find him. She knew the sounds, and she HEARD me. She immediately sent me mental health assessments, booked an apointment with a psychiatrist, got me connected to a psychologist and got me on an anti-anxiolytic. 

Often attendant with anxiety and depression is gut issues. It should have been a clue that I have had such severe reflux for 10 years that between that an waking up due to obsessing about my weight, I was not sleeping. I think I was getting maybe four hours on a good night for the last 15 years. Didn't help we had a mattress with memory foam, which is bloody torture for hot sleepers. My doc got me on some meds for reflux too. 

I've been on this drug now since June. My suicidial ideation began subsiding about four weeks after starting this drug, and between then and now, it very, very rarely peeks around the corner for a sec and then goes away. I have also finally stopped obsessing over my family issues, which invaded my thoughts very, very often for more than 40 years. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this particular drug I'm on literally saved my life, and let me put up a huge, thick, mostly soundproof wall between myself and my family and their bullshit and their narcissism. I'll come back to this in another post. 

So back to the issue of weight. I am the heaviest I have ever been in my life. I don't know how much I weigh, but I know it is probably 20 lbs more than before I began training in 2016. 

Depression can kill a person by many means; suicide, alchoholism, poor diet. In my case, I don't eat regularly - I hear there's a term for this, "atypical anorexia, where sufferers are heavy but don't consume enough calories, leading to the body acting as if it is starving by slowing metabolism to a molasses in january pace. This leads to rapid weight gain if one begins eating regular meals. Without exercise, the body stays in starvation mode. 

So this is where I am. Last year, I didn't think I could still ride a bike and being as depressed as I was, I was very terrified to try. I finally did, and it was fine, but between a very very wet spring and an intensely hot summer, we didn't get out very often. But at least I knew I could do it. 

Last week, we were in DC to be part of a panel discussion about our exhibition there. We walked 60 kms in the four days we were there. That was very encouraging. Today, one of the organisers sent photos from the event, and I was left absolutely SHOCKED at how I look. I know I've gained weight but I had no idea what I look like - again, no mirrors lower then collar bone around in my house. I don't recognize the person in those photos. I turned sixty in the middle of the pandemic. It took my youth, my health - mental and physical - and has left me an old, fat, very out of shape, high blood pressure, self-hating person who in no possible way resembles who I once was. 

But. I called my gym to make sure I still have an active membership (yes, unused for two years, so that's $400 for nothing). I am absolutely terrified to go back. I am terrified that someone who knew me "when" will see me and say something. But I'm going to try. I feel like if I don't, even with good drugs on board, I'm going to slide back into black. 

The moral of this story? If you encounter someone you used to know, and see they have changed a lot in the last three years, PLEASE don't say "wow, you've gained weight," or "you've changed a lot." PLEASE ask them "ARE YOU OK? Can I help? Tell them you care for them. Tell them they're important to you. And PLEASE stick it in your brain they are STRUGGLING, sometimes to get from day to day, and sometimes not to die. 

Be kind. Be aware, be compassionate. 

(I haven't copy-edited this yet, so if you're reading and you find errors - and you will - forgive. I will fix). 

Cults, white men, anger, and deadly viruses

 In the last two years, social division has become a destructive force. Conspiracy thinking, anger, rhetoric, full-on lies and disinformation have infected everything; social discourse, politics, health, families. 

This stuff - opposition to necessary health measures, bizarre beliefs the government is scurvy and not trustworthy - has become currency in certain social/cultural groups in this country, the US and the UK, and to a somewhat lesser extent all over Europe as well.

I dislike the term "dog whistle," but it is apt: this rhetoric - they're out to get us/kill us/destroy our country - signals to others the person writing/speaking is part of that in-group and that in-group, despite being small but vocal, somehow knows all secrets. This is a core aspect of conspiracy thinking.

It is fascinating to watch people -very often men between 25 and 50, most always white men - align with these sentiments. Curiously, this age demographic is also the most-often represented in crime stats, but that could be a case of correlation, not causation.

This type of group-think, more than borders on cult; members/adherents must accept all of what the group is founded on. "Membership" requires dissociation from certain realities - that the "leaders" are compromised, complicated, criminal, and in the case of Lich et al, self-aggrandizing grifters - and separation from wider social groups where the group's positions are at best unpopular, and usually rejected for the extremism they espouse. One could study certain - ok, all - religions and see exactly the same constraints.

Certainly, in private, some members of these de facto cults will question parts, or maybe even the whole of the platform. However, publicly voicing discomfort with the group's goals, questioning those, or the acts associated with those goals, results in expulsion and shunning - again, as with cults, you're either in all the way, or you're not in at all.

As with other cults, expulsion results in loss of contact with and acceptance by the group, and the loss of self in some respects: members of these groups - and they are extremist in their own rights - define themselves through membership in the group and by the group values. Expulsion necessarily results in full, usually uncomfortable and often personally devastating reassessment of one's self and one's beliefs. When we add in aspects of "We are real men fighting for 'freedom' ", it's worse because the "who am I, " Am I a proper man," and "Are my values correct?" questions necessarily arise.

The "cult" in the scenario here requires dedication to specific platforms:
Trudeau is a dictator (obviously false and ridiculous)
Trudeau intends to ruin the country (also false and impossible in a democratic country where people vote every four years)
Trudeau is a criminal (false. He might not be great at his job but that doesn't make one a criminal).
The pandemic is fake (ridiculous and the core fallacy)
Health measures (used by every country in the world to the extent a country's economy allowed) violate "freedoms."
Vaccines are dangerous, ineffective, deadly (despite the indisputable fact the VAST majority of people who have access to vaccinations have had at least one and something over 75 percent of people on the planet have had two or more).
VARS is reliable (it is absolutely not, and a disclaimer to that effect precedes the tables of "incidents")

So. It's a cult and it's members share a number of similarities: white, male, under-educated, angry, feeling marginalised, very uncomfortable with significant social shifts (LGBTQ+ rights/Women's rights/autonomy). When that demographic is already feeling very out of control and seeing their world and their hold on "power" shift substantially, and then you add in a pandemic, and necessary health measures, this stuff is a predictable outcome. 

EDIT, March 2024:
This week, I happened to find a fascinating TikTok account - a political psychologist, who is an expert on the sociocultural aspects of politics, and by extension, although not his specialty, cults/religions. Via that creator, I found a metastudy of exactly the points I have covered here: Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition  (https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/jost.glaser.political-conservatism-as-motivated-social-cog.pdf): 

I am no expert, and my background in sociology amounts to a diploma, but this stuff fascinates me mostly due to clear evidence since 2016 of how incredibly destructive membership in certain social groups and in religion generally are in terms of people subjugating themselves. 

Jealousy dreams

 Last night I had this weird dream (aren't they all) set in the 1920s or so, where I was visiting, or staying in an old Victorian-type house. At some point, my siblings arrived - there was a reason, but I don't remember it - as did my dad, who is deceased in real life. 

My eldest step-sister is a bit of a band-wagoner and in this dream she was extolling the virtues of whatever thing she was into at the time and taking up all of my dad's attention. MY dad, her step-dad. 

At some point, I challenged her for holding court. There were words exchanged to the effect that I am nothing and to get out of her way. I asked her what she knew about me, and specifically my education, and she replied, "you don't have one." This is where it came to blows; full on me pound on her until she was on the ground, PAFF PAFF PAFF in the face!

This dream occurred only a few days after me having a moment of thinking I've put much of my past behind me. Apparently not. 

Just now, as I was searching for an email I sent to a client, I found an email to my spouse from March 2009. In it, I reference "two people, who came here (my house) with lunch they'd brought. For themselves... and they thought it was funny that they'd forgotten to call me to see if I'd like lunch too. But they weren't bothered about sitting at my table, eating the lunch they didn't share and letting me clean up after them.... " This was my step-sister and my step-mother. I know. It sounds very Cinderella. 

This incident happened following my step-niece having been here for most of the previous month, me feeding and housing her so she could be in town to complete her drivers training, with not a jot of "Hey can I pay you some rent/food money?" Nada. I found out not many months later this niece was bulimic/anorexic, which accounted for why so much food disappearing while she was here - huge blocks of cheese that normally would last several weeks and full loaves of bread, which disappeared over night - and all the "coughing" I would hear every night - not coughing; puking, I realised later. Oh. And she stole things from me when she left. Nothing huge really - some irrelevant bits and bobs and an expensive pair of tweezers I'd bought for work - I was still doing hair and related at the time. But theft is theft. 

This happened 11 years ago and I'm still so chapped about it - these two incidences specifically, and how often stuff like this happened and how marginalised I was - I mean, how loudly does it scream "YOU'RE NOT IMPORTANT" for my sis and istep ma to turn up to my house with a flipping COOLER full of lunch for themselves, not share, and to claim "Oh, we forgot to call and ask." Such a load of shit. I hate them for it. In my perception they both speak to me so condescendingly... I haven't seen either of them for ages, so certainly my memories are coloured by these incidences, but even recently my step-sister commented on something I'd posted on FB; her comment had the same condescending "tone" (if that can be derived from a FB post). She seems to forget I am in my 60th year... 

/rant. I'll flesh this out later. 

Ding Dong that asshole has been fired!

Warning, Rant: 

All those "fuck your feelings" people are sure having some feelings now. I agree with Biden/Harris it is time to begin repairing the immense damage the #trumptastrophe has wreaked on the US, and indeed the world, but I am going to gloat and be angry for a week (ok, probably way longer), because we KNEW. We KNEW it would go like it did - without question. 

Maybe we didn't know how bad it would be, but we knew it would be horrifying. 

 The vast majority of Trump voters are non-college-educated white people, and the vast majority of those are non-college-educated white males. This is TERRIFYING. It's also the reason #trumpstain uttered "I love the uneducated." 

Of course he did; they wouldn't/couldn't read or research well enough to understand what was going on, AND the #orangeshitstain capitalised on that, and their fear, and their propensity to believe conspiracies, and told them endless, endless lies - including that the economy was the best it's ever been - and they are not educated enough to understand how economies work anyway, so couldn't begin to understand the catastrophe he was selling them. 

Meanwhile, depression-level unemployment and nearly 250,000 dead because he knew about corona in bloody NOVEMBER but carried on calling it a hoax, and spouting LETHAL lies to this demographic - which, by the way, has sustained the vast majority of those deaths...

He has consorted with - courted - despots. 20 years ago, USians would have stormed the gates of the white house had the occupant so much as nodded their head towards Russia.

But Trump? He is so compromised as a person that the only personalities he wanted to emulate were Erdogan, Kim Jong Il, Putin - and that was OK with that uneducated demographic?? Good god!

I am furious. I'm furious about people posting and sharing utterly garbage "news," and calling me names for providing links to show them how wrong was the information. I'm furious about the destruction of relationships and families.

I'm FURIOUS to have had deep-seated racism and discrimination exposed in people I know and that fury is compounded by those people trying to convince me any of that has merit. I am beyond, beyond repulsed by how anyone calling themselves "christian" could entertain that disgusting man and his disgusting family - particularly knowing he is on record - as in video - lashing out at and disparaging the religious. 

I have NO love for religions - plural; religion is a scourge and if we didn't know that previously, we must know it now after watching the "religious right" fawn over a child rapist (who so intimidated the two women he raped - with witnesses present - when they were 12 and 13 year old children, they have not proceeded with their cases. Yet), a sexual predator, a liar, a cheat, a philandering asshole, a confirmed criminal; "I voted for him because he is a christian," is the most serious indicator of utter paucity of ethics and morals anyone could ever utter.

"But abortion!" Really??? He paid for at least two of his concubines to have abortions - and probably paid for more. 

"But her emails!" FuckSAKES! EVERY member of the Trump family had a private email server for the entirety of that "administration." Ivanka used hers to secure millions and millions of $$ in Chinese patents at the same time her #trumpstain father was inciting war with China. Dumb and Dumber (Jr. and Eric) used theirs for similar pursuits. 

"But Hillary killed 42 people." GodDAMN! Anyone who's ever had a job knows how bloody impossible it is to keep a secret in the workplace; how the fuck could Ms. Clinton kill 42 people and the facts never emerge. LIke, this level of idiocy is impossible to comprehend. 

"But gay marriage." It's MARRIAGE. Period. It's a legal contract; if you don't want one, don't have one. Stay out of other people's bedrooms... and by the way, the contract is nice for some, but unnecessary in the bedroom; consenting adults can have sex with any other consenting adult any way, and any time, and anywhere everyone consents to. 

"Oh, the supreme court..." the fallout is yet to be seen. As a side note, who paid off Kavanaugh's debt? #impeachthatlyingrapingassholenext. 

He didn't ignore white supremacists. He never spoke against them; he never called them out. He COURTED them. He literally consorted with them and THIS lit a BONFIRE of racists emerging into the public and KNOWING they would say whatever, to whoever, whenever - and that they could literally kill a man by putting their knee on his neck and taking almost 10 minutes to cause him to suffocate to death, and that the #cheatoshitpresident would not only NOT condemn the act, he would revile those who did. 

Anyone who claims the #orangecatastrophe isn't racist is fucking crazy. Not once ever did that predatory asshole ever date/marry/consort with a woman of colour - and while that is likely due to women of colour having too much self-respect to even entertain the idea of it - but it is yet another proof he's a racist. This is a fact and it is public record as are the NYC discrimination cases he lost. 

So yeah, people may read this and think I'm super angry and they will be absolutely right. I am angry that my drive to be informed was reviled and pilloried. I am deeply, deeply angry my character was called into question because I was informed, terrified, disgusted.

I am beyond disturbed people I know well chose to dive into idiotic Qanon garbage and that they berated me when I provided corroborated information that might have given them pause, but which they rejected without considering. I am furious people shared (and continue to do so) idiotic, unsubstantiated, massively false memes, and that they called me names (You're a bitch. You're negative. You're a loser. You're an angry libtard) when I showed them how wrong and dangerous such memes are.  

Yes, I'm pissed and I'm going to be pissed for a long, long time. Suck it up. 

It's not my country, but I will, along with an historical number of voters, try to begin healing.

Raiding the Archives

I decided to do a bit of digging into my parents' past. Upon checking with the provincial archives, I discovered two things; divorce records are public domain, and secondly, anyone can order a copy. So I did. I received 123 pages of legal documents (some duplicates, so about 115 unique pages), including a hand-written letter my mother (the narc) wrote, which was entered into the record as an affidavit, and which became the basis of questions in a later deposition.

Nothing in that letter surprised me necessarily; she has harped on about her divorce for more than 50 years.... However, what DID come as completely new information was that it was SHE who brought the divorce action. She has always claimed my father "abandoned" us. Completely false. I also didn't know she had threatened several times both in the letter and the deposition to leave the city with us to prevent our dad from seeing us. This was at odds with the fact she wouldn't acknowledge she was divorced and continued for years to call my dad her husband, even after he had remarried. It was so, so weird. It wasn't "I am divorced and my former spouse is remarried," it was "My husband is living with another woman and they don't have a real marriage."

It should be noted here while she was carrying on about my dad and "his women," (the only woman being someone who became my step mother and was for 33 years) my mother was herself dating someone - she the sunday school teacher and he the deacon - and this resulted in her falling pregnant and them having to marry very quickly. She will have become pregnant slightly before she got her decree absolute. She's a very skilled hypocrite....

The other revelation, which makes sense of her relationship with me and with my two sibs, is the clarification of our roles to her, and the clarification - like crystal clear - she at no point saw us as humans separate from her, but as the means of expression.

She has always scapegoated me, but these documents confirmed she has done so at least since I was nine (when all the custody proceedings were in full swing), and likely before that. I don't have any particular memories but a younger-than-nine-year-old child wouldn't recognize scapegoating or gaslighting.

The hand-written letter and the later deposition are fascinating with respect to scapegoating though; my mother put words in my mouth: she made claims - numerous times - about what I was saying to her or telling her. For instance, she claimed I told her, and I quote, "Daddy says you're sick, sick, sick in the head and we don't have to listen to you." This. Never. Happened. She makes this statement three times in the deposition as something I allegedly told her, and curiously, it is always in exactly the same format: three "sicks" followed by "in the head, and "we don't have to listen to you." It's weird. She claimed I told her my dad said this to us. I know this is a full lie. Anytime - up to and including when we were married adults with children of our own - we'd ask our dad what went on, his reply was always "It's a long story." He never said anything more than that.

My mother makes several statements about things I supposedly said to her, including that I (specifically me) wish to see less of my dad - absolutely false - and that I (again, specifically me, not my sibling and I) are disturbed by my father's "lovemaking in the front seat of the car and in the pool." This specificity is so, so weird. My dad was a preacher's kid who struggled very much to find a path to remarriage, as he'd been told since birth he'd burn in hell if he committed adultery - and in Baptist world, a marriage after divorce is adultery. The idea he'd engage in "lovemaking" in front of his children is ridiculous. None of what she claims happened and she contradicts herself several times between the letter and the deposition.

The short form is she has always used me to voice what she will not say herself. Where it concerned my dad and my step mother, my mother would claim I said terrible things about them, when it was she doing it. She put words in my mouth to my teachers, to a couple pastors, to people we knew. I spent most of my pre-teen and teen years being utterly confused about what was going on, because people would confront me about what I'd "said," when I hadn't said. It took me ages to understand she was lying to everyone. For the record, I haven't seen her in seven years, but she still claims I'm somehow wrecking her computer... or her life. It varies.

My next youngest sibling is mentioned but once in the entirety of those documents and not at all in the hand-written letter. I'm not sure whether this was due to her being invisible to my mother, or because she was the "golden child" so my mother protected her. Predictably though, as neither I, nor our youngest sibling has anything to do with our mother, the golden child is now the unfortunate recipient of our mother's wrath and abuse.

I'm after my mother's counselling records now. I'm almost certain I won't be able to find any records of her therapy sessions with my dad prior to their divorce, but I know I will find family counselling records and can access them because I was there. I've read some of them. I'm going to get copies so I can re-read.

Fascinating shit.