Welcome to Gender Analysis

Gender Analysis is a web series launched in 2014 exploring transgender science and life experiences in depth, and revealing the many insights to be found at their intersection. We take a closer look at fields such as sociology, public health, psychiatry, cognitive science, and more, weaving these diverse perspectives into a deeper understanding of gender-related phenomena. Gender Analysis goes beyond the 101s to educate both trans and cis viewers on some of the most fascinating dimensions of our lives – and the pressing issues we face in society.

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New episodes of Gender Analysis are published several times a month and are backed by our generous supporters on Patreon. Want to learn more? Check out our instant index for a quick introduction to the wide range of topics we cover:

Curious about…?

Gender dysphoria Self-discovery
How hormones work Bathroom bills
Finding a doctor Treatments for trans youth
Passing Sexuality
Transness and autism Paul McHugh
Regret and detransition Sex chromosomes
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The Dangers of Detrans TERF Entryism: Lessons for Organizers from OH HB 68

By Ky Schevers and Lee Leveille, co-developers of Health Liberation Now!

This report serves as a follow-up to the previous report by Zinnia Jones, “Counterpoint: Ohio trans youth care ban veto was a victory for a gatekeeping surveillance state targeting trans adults”, which initially reported on the TERF entryism into legislative testimony and liberal press during the fight against Ohio bill HB 68. We strongly recommend reading Zinnia’s piece as it goes into the individual testimonies submitted in more detail as well as the original proposed regulations by Gov. DeWine to replace HB 68.

Over the past winter and early spring, Ohio bill HB 68 brought out a force of LGBTQ+ organizations, trans people, their families, and other allies to defend access to trans health care for trans youth. Joining them was Carey Callahan, a detransitioned woman who presents herself as being moderate and an ally to trans people compared to anti-trans detransitioned activists. Gathering testimony from nearly twenty detransitioned and desisted people, liberal press like the Washington Post celebrated the action as a brave, trans-supportive coalition against the Christian Right. Yet further investigation reveals that these supposedly pro-trans detransitioned people are not as supportive as they seem. Indeed, the majority of the testimonies were collected and submitted by Max and Kitty Robinson, two self-identified extremist TERFs. As will be shown, Callahan is still in contact with the same anti-trans detrans/desisted radical feminists she has organized with for nearly a decade, whom actually oppose trans health care, not support it. That contact led to the laundering of their testimony into legislature and press, making up the majority of the opposing testimony to HB 68 without acknowledgment of their opposition to trans health care. In contradiction to her public appearances, it’s evident that Callahan is still connected to anti-trans actors and willing to call upon them when organizing.

Below we lay out how we came to this conclusion and what Callahan needs to do if she truly wishes to make amends for her past anti-trans organizing. Until this is met, we caution activists or trans-led organizations against working with her to protect their spaces from entryism of anti-trans actors. Continue reading

Posted in Anti-trans detransitioners, Are You Asking Why? Collective, Influence groups, Ohio, Politics, Regret and detransition, TERFs | Leave a comment

“Still dreaming of running over the trans activists”: Sharon Beck, leader of anti-trans parent group Cardinal Support Network and wife of SEGM’s cofounder, “guided” Ohio Rep. Gary Click on his trans care ban

“I might get kicked off the forum as some socialist tranny is probably in charge of policing it.”
“This is disgusting and needs to be outlawed as a Nazi crime.”
“Predators stalking the internet trying to convince young teens and adults that they need to alter themselves is socially unacceptable, unethical, immoral and inhumane and I am hoping one day, ILLEGAL.”
“we females have been told that ‘Furries’ are harmless.”
“#trans = #childsacrifice.”

This person helped Rep. Gary Click ban healthcare for trans people across Ohio.

Content note: violent rhetoric, anti-trans slurs, and constant misgendering.

Last month, we anticipated that Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s vaguely-worded proposal to regulate adult gender-affirming care could radically endanger the existing landscape of transition treatment in the state. In January, our suspicions were confirmed as those proposals took definite shape: the draft administrative rules would require six months of therapy for those under 21 before starting any gender-affirming medical treatment, and would require gender-affirming care providers to hire or contract with a psychiatrist and an endocrinologist to manage treatment; providers must also have their gender-affirming care plans approved by a medical ethicist (proposed rules 3701-3-17, 3701-59-07, 3701-83-61, 5122-14-12 and 5122-26-19). Continue reading

Posted in Adult care restrictions, Cardinal Support Network, CCV, Conversion practices, Faith and religion, Family, Gary Click, Gatekeeping, Genspect, Influence groups, Law, Ohio, Ohio administrative rules, Parents of ROGD Kids, Parents of ROGD Kids Ohio, SEGM, Sharon Beck, Stephen Beck, Transphobia and prejudice | Leave a comment

Counterpoint: Ohio trans youth care ban veto was a victory for a gatekeeping surveillance state targeting trans adults

On Friday, December 29, Ohio governor Mike DeWine announced a ban on gender-affirming surgeries for transgender minors as well as new restrictions on clinics providing gender-affirming care to adults. But you wouldn’t know it from the headlines, most of which simply describe Gov. DeWine’s veto of HB 68 as a victory for trans youth:

Better coverage by AP and Cleveland.com highlights the truly significant new developments here: in his prepared remarks, Gov. DeWine outlined plans for administrative rules that could significantly limit the care available to transgender adults as well as youth. These rules, intended to “address a number of goals in House Bill 68”, could be drafted as early as the first week of the new year:

I believe we can address a number of goals in House Bill 68 by administrative rules that will have a better chance of surviving judicial review and being adopted. Today, I am directing my administration and the relevant agencies to begin work on administrative rules that will go through the full JCARR process to establish important protections. I invite the members of the General Assembly to meet with us to collaborate in the rule drafting and move this process forward, starting as early as next week.

Continue reading

Posted in Adult care restrictions, Anti-trans detransitioners, Are You Asking Why? Collective, Conversion practices, Gatekeeping, Influence groups, Informed consent, News, Ohio, Ohio administrative rules, Privacy, Psychotherapy, Regret and detransition, Surveillance, TERFs, Trans youth, Transgender medicine, Transphobia and prejudice | Leave a comment

New trial exhibits in Doe v. Ladapo: DOH worked with Genspect leaders Stella O’Malley and Joe Burgo in July 2022; Hilary Cass met SEGM’s Patrick Hunter to discuss Florida’s anti-trans report; Jamie Reed’s attorney Vernadette Broyles chose the lineup of detransitioners speaking at the Board of Medicine

Doe v. Ladapo is the case brought by transgender plaintiffs in Florida challenging SB 254, a law prohibiting gender-affirming medical treatment for minors and severely restricting access to care for trans adults since its enactment on May 17, 2023. In addition to outlawing treatment for trans minors, SB 254 requires adults to see a physician in-person before starting hormone therapy, and excludes nurse practitioners from prescribing any hormone therapy for the purposes of transitioning. In October, Doe was certified as a class action that includes all trans adults and minors seeking gender-affirming treatment in Florida (ECF 166). The trial itself is scheduled to begin on December 13 (ECF 165), and the plaintiffs and state defendants have now filed their exhibits in advance of the trial.

Exhibit and witness lists:

Trial briefs:

Dozens of these exhibits offer significant new details describing how Florida’s Executive Office of the Governor, Department of Health, Agency for Health Care Administration, Board of Medicine, and Board of Osteopathic Medicine worked with anti-trans groups throughout 2022 to achieve the predetermined outcome of restricting gender-affirming care. We now know that the state was covertly assisted in this effort by the leadership of the anti-trans group Genspect, Child & Parental Rights Campaign lawyer Vernadette Broyles, and Riittakerttu Kaltiala of Finland’s Tampere University youth gender clinic; Hilary Cass of NHS England’s Cass Review also privately expressed an interest in the sham report against gender-affirming care commissioned by Florida’s AHCA. Several individuals worked behind the scenes with Patrick Hunter, a leading member of the anti-trans Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM). After being appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis to the Board of Medicine, Hunter arranged for extensive anti-trans testimony from SEGM associates to be submitted to the Boards of Medicine and Osteopathy. We’ve highlighted this and other notable new findings that expose the plot against gender-affirming care in Florida and beyond. Continue reading

Posted in American College of Pediatricians, Catholic Medical Association, Conversion practices, COVID-19, Dekker v. Weida, Doe v. Ladapo, Gender Exploratory Therapy Association, Genspect, Influence groups, Law, Litigation, National Catholic Bioethics Center, Psychotherapy, Regret and detransition, SB 254, SEGM, Transphobia and prejudice | Leave a comment

The Observer gets it wrong: Anti-gay and anti-trans conversion practices have always appealed to “fluidity” of both sexual orientation and gender identity

Commentary on: The Observer, “The Observer view on gender dysphoria: criminalising therapy poses risk to children’s welfare” (2023-10-22)

Summary

  • In a recent editorial, The Observer argued that bans on conversion practices in the UK should encompass anti-gay but not anti-trans conversion therapy, on the grounds that “the fluidity of gender dysphoria makes it a completely different phenomenon to sexual orientation in young people”.
  • Anti-gay conversion activists do not recognize such a distinction, uniformly consider anti-trans conversion practices to fall within the scope of their anti-gay practices, and have historically made the same arguments in favor of allowing anti-gay conversion therapy – assertions irresponsibly echoed by The Observer in opposing a ban on anti-trans conversion practices.
  • These parallel arguments are made by the most prominent anti-gay conversion groups currently active in the UK and abroad, and include the following claims: sexuality in youth and young adults is fluid; most youth who identify as gay will not do so in adulthood; this alleged sexual fluidity should be explored in therapy to identify “underlying causes” of being gay; gay affirmative psychotherapy and bans on anti-gay conversion practices are purely “ideological” and not “evidence-based”; and bans on these conversion practices endanger the health and welfare of the public. The UK’s leading anti-gay conversion groups have consistently made these assertions in defense of conversion practices throughout the past five years.
  • Anti-gay and anti-trans conversion activists both seek to portray queer and trans identities as fleeting phenomena, merely transient youthful confusion superimposed on an underlying cisgender heterosexuality. In reality, the vast majority of trans and gender-diverse youth exhibit long-term stability in their gender identities, and are frequently aware of their transness for several years before ever disclosing this to an adult.
  • These conversion practices are not severable: they consist of the same substance, and can only be usefully understood as anti-LGBTQ conversion practices altogether. Regrettably, The Observer has thrown its weight behind the very same claims used by anti-gay conversion activists to promote these dangerous practices. In this case and elsewhere, transphobia is simply a recycled form of homophobia.

Continue reading

Posted in American College of Pediatricians, Conversion practices, Dekker v. Weida, Florida, Gender Exploratory Therapy Association, Genspect, Influence groups, Law, Media, Misinformation, Rapid onset gender dysphoria, Replies, SEGM, Sexuality, Trans youth, Transphobia and prejudice | Leave a comment