i think there's an extraordinary, purposeful decision not to collect good data engender medicine. The high court was astonished when it asked the gender clinic that she had been at. What they're doing isn't something that you can answer same sort of questions about as other health care. Parents think, this will make my child feel better. This will alin my child's body with who they really are inside. But actually, what'shap in the gender clinics is there doing some sort of very radical, sort of american consumerist cosmetic surgery like that. i think they're working outside the paradime of evidence based health care.
Biological sex is no longer accepted as a basic fact of life. It is forbidden to admit that female people sometimes need protection and privacy from male ones. In an analysis that is at once expert, sympathetic and urgent, Helen Joyce offers an antidote to the chaos and cancelling.
Shermer and Joyce discuss: What is a woman? What is a man? • conflicting rights: trans vs. women • sex vs. gender; who you identify as vs. who you are attracted to • cross-sex identification • gender dysphoria • social contagions • gender affirming care • puberty blockers, testosterone, hormone treatment • detransitioning • top surgery, phalloplasty, vaginoplasty • preferred pronouns: compelled speech ≠ free speech • trans sports • exclusive spaces, and more…
Helen Joyce is a senior staff journalist at The Economist, where she has held several positions, including Britain editor, Finance editor and International editor. Before joining The Economist in 2005 she edited Plus, an online magazine about mathematics published by the University of Cambridge. She has a PhD in mathematics from University College London. On Twitter, she is @HJoyceGender.