The Times Has Second Thoughts

The day is coming–rather soon, I think–when the current mania for drugging adolescents and carving up their bodies will be viewed with horror as one of the great crimes of our century. The costs of the “trans” fad have already become evident, to the point where the New York Times wants to position itself somewhere in the middle.

The Times story is headlined: “They Paused Puberty, but Is There a Cost?” Good question! The subhed: “Puberty blockers can ease transgender youths’ anguish and buy time to weigh options. But concerns are growing about long-term physical effects and other consequences.”

Here is one paragraph from the long article:

In a 2020 paper, 31 psychologists, neuroscientists and hormone experts from around the world urged more study of the effects of blockers on the brain. “If the brain is expecting to receive those hormones at a certain time and doesn’t, what happens?” said Dr. Sheri Berenbaum, head of a gender research lab at Penn State, and one of the authors of the paper. “We don’t know.”

In one sense, puberty blockers are the least of it. We certainly do know what happens when doctors slice off a boy’s penis or scrape away a teenage girl’s breasts and mangle her genitals. Do we have any idea what the long-term psychological and physical consequences of these surgeries will be? I think so, actually.

Ann Althouse quoted from, and linked to, the Times story, and welcomed comments. They are generally hostile, to put it mildly, to the “trans” fad and the Times’s belated second thoughts. A friend comments:

Unbelievable. And the mealy-mouthed Times diction is priceless. It’s got “growing numbers”, “experts” “data” “research”…and my favorite, “concerns” “are growing”…their concerns have concerns they are so concerned…and in “growing numbers”…

He also excerpted some of the many comments:
 

D.D. Driver said…
The concerns are “growing.” No one had concerns right out of the gate? We needed to send young, otherwise healthy human guinea pigs through an experiment to see if it helps before we had “concerns” (which are growing, btw).
11/14/22, 10:33 AM

cubanbob said…
Transgenderism is a mental disorder. Pretending it isn’t especially in a child is monstrous. Doctors who perform these “treatments” on minors are on the Mengele spectrum.
11/14/22, 10:45 AM

Fred Drinkwater said…
My blood pressure just sprayed out of my ears. I don’t believe in Hell, but some folks are going there regardless.
11/14/22, 11:01 AM

Pianoman said…
I guess we’ve reached the peak for “minor gender-affirming care”. When the NYT is pushing back, you know things have hit a tipping point.
11/14/22, 11:04 AM

JaimeRoberto said…
It would be a start if we didn’t call it “gender affirming care”. The treatment doesn’t affirm their gender. It changes it.
11/14/22, 2:11 PM

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said…
“But concerns are growing about long-term physical effects and other consequences.”

No shit? I don’t even need to read the excerpt. Idiocy so manifest, expertise so corrupted by ideology, that gales of laughter are the only response.
11/14/22, 11:05 AM

DarkHelmet said…
It’s bad and should be illegal except in very, very rare cases where something other than gender confusion is at issue.

That this even needs to be debated is evidence that our culture has gone insane.
11/14/22, 11:05 AM

Also this:

Owen said…
Pianoman @11:04: “…When the New York Times is pushing back…”. Yes. But rather than being “pushback” that aims directly to check or reverse this evil, I think it is mostly CYA so the NYT can later claim that it was not aiding and abetting the evil, not 100% and loudly, anyway. Possibly also the purpose is battlespace prep: the NYT can see an approaching tsunami of public horror and revulsion, and wants to frame the fight in the least-bad terms.

Pass the popcorn.

A small number of people are making a great deal of money from the “trans” fad at the expense of troubled children. Liberals in general, and the Democratic Party and the New York Times in particular, have been their enablers. A reckoning is coming–and, as I said, sooner rather than later.

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