Organized Effort Uses Pseudo Science And Lies To Attack Transgenders
The latest Republican efforts to block transgender care to adults puts the lie to the right wing’s claim that it wants to protect children who are groomed by pedophile teachers and are not mature enough to decide on their sexual identities.
The Southern Poverty Law Center said the rise of anti-trans sentiment among anti-LGBTQ groups has fueled a cottage industry of anti-trans research that in turn is promoted by anti-LGBTQ groups.
Activists said a transgender woman from Washington, D.C., was the first transgender person in the county to be violently killed this year. Jasmine “Star” Mack, 36, was killed on Jan. 7 in Washington, D.C. Mack died of an apparent stab wound to the leg in the 2000 block of Gallaudet Street NE. Mack is one of hundreds of trans people who have died violent deaths over the past decade, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
At least 35 trans and gender-nonconforming people were killed by violent means last year, and in 2021, the deadliest year on record, at least 50 died by gunshot or stab wounds. A Washington Post analysis of fatal violence against trans people found that more than 75 percent of the victims nationwide from 2015 to 2020 were Black transgender women.
The anti-transgender crusade is led by organizations that base their claims on unproven or debunked, phony science, like the theory of rapid-onset gender dysphoria with support from groups like Genspect, the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, the American College of Pediatricians and proponents of Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism, or TERF along with such traditional anti-LGBTQ groups like the American Family Association, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, and the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality.
The groups are reinforced by pseudo scientists like Lisa Littman and right wing commentators such as James Lindsay and Christopher Rufo.
By the end of 2021, at least 130 bills had been introduced in 33 states to restrict the rights of transgender people. In 2022, more than 230 anti-transgender bills were introduced in state legislatures.
Bills are pending in three states to withhold gender-affirming health care for people as old as 26. Oklahoma, South Carolina and Virginia are proposing to bar state health care providers from recommending or administering treatments like puberty blockers, hormones and gender-affirming surgeries to patients younger than 21.
Another Oklahoma bill filed this month, the so-called “Millstone Act,” would prohibit adults up to 25 from receiving gender-affirming care and would also block Oklahoma’s Medicaid program from providing coverage for “gender transition procedures” to people younger than 26. The Millstone Act reflects a Bible verse about punishing adults who harm children.
Republican legislators have backed prohibitions on transgender health care based on a purported need to protect children from alleged predatory doctors and “woke” gender ideology. Dozens of bills seeking to ban gender-affirming care for minors have been introduced in more than 10 states this year. The laws use inflammatory and misleading rhetoric to disparage gender-affirming care for youth with titles like the “Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act” and the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act.”
Denying transgender care will likely worsen rates of anxiety, depression and suicide among transgender youth and young adults struggling with gender dysphoria. The Trevor Project, a leading LGBTQ youth suicide prevention organization, said that nearly 20 percent of transgender and nonbinary 13- to 24-year-olds surveyed last year said they had attempted suicide in the past year. Fewer than a third said their gender identity was affirmed at home.
A leading opponent of medical transition for transgender people is Genspect, an international non-profit organization founded in June 2021 by psychotherapist Stella O’Malley. The group includes parents, educators, counselors, and clinicians and describes itself as “gender-critical.” It is against allowing transgender people under 25 years old to transition, opposes laws that would ban conversion therapy on the basis of gender identity and opposes public health coverage for transgender healthcare at any age.
Genspect also supports the unproven concept of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD), which proposes that a subclass of gender dysphoria is caused by peer influence and social contagion. The concept has been rejected by major medical organizations because of a lack of evidence and because it is likely to cause harm by stigmatizing gender-affirming care.
Genspect promoted misinformation by claiming that Boston Children’s Hospital performed vaginoplasties on minors. No such surgeries were performed on minors but Genspect claimed that adolescence lasts until 25 years old, meaning the the hospital was performing surgeries on “adolescents.” Vaginoplasty is a surgical procedure that results in the construction or reconstruction of the vagina and is used in sex reassignment surgery.
Major medical organizations have contradicted Genspect’s positions, including the discredited theory of rapid-onset gender dysphoria. Groups disputing Genspect include the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the Endocrine Society, the American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, which states “robust evidence demonstrates that access to gender-affirming care decreases risk of suicidal ideations, improves mental health, and improves the overall health and well-being of transgender and gender-diverse youth.”
Genspect is closely affiliated with the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM). SEGM is not recognized as a scientific organization but is often cited in anti-transgender legislation and court cases. SEGM is an activist non-profit organization that is known for mischaracterizing standards of care for transgender youth and engaging in political lobbying using misinformation which contradicts the evidence base around transgender healthcare. The group routinely cites the discredited theory of rapid-onset gender dysphoria and opposes informed consent for transgender healthcare for people under the age of 25.
The theory of rapid-onset gender dysphoria claims that a type of gender dysphoria is caused by peer influence but the theory hasn’t been recognized by any major professional association as a valid mental health diagnosis. Use of the term has been discouraged by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and other medical organizations.
Part of the layered attacks on transgender people is Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism or TERF, a loosely-organized collective that promotes hatred and exclusion against transgender women in particular, and transgender people as a whole. They have attached themselves to radical feminism as a means to attempt to deny trans women basic access to health care, women’s groups, restroom facilities, and anywhere that may be considered women’s space.
The campaign against transgender rights has been fueled by people like Christopher Rufo, a far right activist and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, who is known for his opposition to teachers discussing LGBTQ issues in schools. He has contended that public schools are often “hunting grounds for sexual predators” who groom children to believe they are transgender.
Another figure in the fight against the LGBTQ community is James Lindsay, a mathematician and conspiracy theorist who also is a proponent of the grooming conspiracy theory and has been credited as one of several public figures responsible for popularizing “groomer” as a slur directed at LGBTQ educators and activists by members of the political right. Lindsay has referred to the Pride flag as “the flag of a hostile enemy.”
The movement against the transgender community is rife with wild misinformation by national figures. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a possible 2024 presidential candidate, has carved a reputation as being a foe of the transgender community. DeSantis’s “Don’t Say Gay” law is based on the unfounded fear that teachers who discuss transgender issues are trying to groom children into believing they are transgender.
Last May, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., falsely tweeted that the 18-year-old who killed 19 children last May at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, was a “transsexual leftist illegal alien.”
Two far right lawmakers, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Color., were among the top three sources in the country for promoting the grooming conspiracy theory, according to a report by the Human Rights Campaign and the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
Boebert responded to the report by tweeting, “My tweets about groomers are only third? Guess that means I have to tweet about these sick, demented groomers even more.”
Last September, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said a gender affirming doctor at the University of Wisconsin “sterilizes and mutilates” children. That same month, Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., said high suicide rates among trans youth, widely believed to be due to systemic discrimination and lack of access to proper healthcare, were in fact due to sexual “grooming” into being transgender. Herschel Walker, a losing GOP candidate for Senate from Georgia, was reported as saying that trans children would not be able to get into heaven.
The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) is a right wing advocacy group of pediatricians and other healthcare professionals. The group advocates against abortion and the adoption of children by gay or lesbian people. It also supports conversion therapy for LGBTQ members. In 2005, the group claimed between 150 and 200 members and one employee; in 2016, it reportedly had 500 physician members.
ACPeds has been listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for pushing “anti-LGBTQ junk science.” Mainstream researchers, including the director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, have accused ACPeds of misusing or mischaracterizing their work to advance ACPeds’ political agenda.
An incident in 2021 in Los Angeles s known as the Wi Spa controversy, became one of the earliest guideposts for the anti-trans movement.
It involved an incident on June 24, 2021, when a woman posted a video to Instagram in which she had confronted staff at Wi Spa, a Korean spa in Los Angeles, about the ostensible presence of a nude individual with a penis, most commonly believed to be a trans woman, in the women’s section of the spa. The video went viral, attracting significant attention from TERFs, online and right-wing media, which led to protests and counter-protests over the alleged incident.
An individual, reported to be a transgender woman, was charged with indecent exposure relating to the alleged incident after four women and one minor girl filed police reports in July. The suspect had previously been convicted of indecent exposure in 2002 and 2003, being obliged to register as a sex offender since 2006 and convicted for failing to register in 2008. The suspect denied guilt, claiming harassment over being a trans person.