WHEN THE RIGHT IS SO WRONG.
John Money was a controversial man, but Matt Walsh has done himself no favors by mentioning him and the Reimer twins when using his work to attack work on gender transitioning. Brian Reimer suffered complications from a circumcision, and his parents were convinced by John Money that he could be given female hormones and be raised as a girl. Brian Reimer’s case serves as an own goal for transphobes, in that Brian Reimer demonstrates that it is the brain that determines gender orientation not genitalia.
What is common, though, is if a child is born intersex, the parents of the child were persuaded, in some cases, through lies and misinformation, to consent to surgery to assign a sex to the child, and in many cases, the parents made the wrong decision. Nowadays, doctors will say, “Wait and watch.”
People claim that gender does not exist, and while it is not synonymous with sex, gender is social, and sex is biological. The fact remains that a doctor who delivers a baby, unless they are the family GP, and treat the child into adolescence or adulthood, they make a determination on the basis of genitalia not observation, so a child may be assigned male at birth but be feminine in mannerisms, and vice versa.
The other fact that is ignored is, trans people can be gynephilic or androphilic. An androphilic trans girl may decide he wishes to live as a cisgender gay male, whereas a gynephilic trans girl may decide that they wish to transition and live as a transgender lesbian. A gynephilic transwoman may find it near on impossible to enter a heterosexual relationship with a woman especially if she believes in traditional gender roles.
Furthermore, de-transitioners may be like reformed smokers. In other words, some smokers will start at 16 and continue until death, which may well be age 92, yet some smokers might start age 16, stop at 25, for 6 months, start again, stop at 30 for 9 months, start again, transition to a social smoker and stop at 45. Unlike smokers, however, who typically stop not because their best friend who used to be a smoker stopped and no longer provides them with an ashtray when they go to visit, but for health reasons or even wealth reasons, or who resume because their best friend says, “Come on, just have one,” de-transitioners often do so because of a lack of social support or confidence, and will subsequently re-transition after their parents have died, or they are in a more supportive environment. If one talks to some of the senior members of the gay and lesbian community, they will find that some have been out all their adult lives, while some may have married in their early 20s (some gay men, and I do not mean this as hate speech) may have met a woman they genuinely loved, while at college, and married to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War, much like Bill Clinton undertook a second degree in England, had kids, and when they turned 50 or thereabouts, could no longer hide it and they divorced.
The right-wing always likes to cherry-pick, but so often, examples they cite can be so wrong.