Abigail Shrier, Detransition & the Coming Trans Crisis | An Asian Trans View

Today, I want to talk about something I've become very worried about. This is a rather controversial topic, so I wish you could listen to the whole thing before jumping to conclusions.

Let's start with the recent drama surrounding journalist Abigail Shrier, and her book about the recent spike of teenagers presenting as trans, specifically who identify as trans men or transmasculine. Many trans people have accused it of being biased in its interpretation of the available research and data. Now, I haven't read the book, so I won't comment on it either way. However, from the interviews I've seen, it is clear that Shrier is not transphobic, that she doesn't have an agenda against trans people at all. Still, the trans community seems to be unable to have a productive conversation with her. It has again turned into an us-vs-them war, just like with JK Rowling, Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson and most recently Tulsi Gabbard. It really isn't an exaggeration to say that the trans community is an epicenter of the cancel culture crisis, especially when actual trans people like ContraPoints have been targets of cancellation too.

Whether Shrier has been biased is another matter, but the increase in young people identifying as trans is very real. An associated phenomenon that is equally as real, is the increase in the number of young people who end up regretting their transition, and detransitioning. Where this phenomenon was once quite uncommon, it's not so uncommon anymore, especially among younger transitioners. The trans community has so far treated this topic as taboo, and we haven't had much of a conversation around it. This, in turn, means that the gender critical people and their ideas have become established, without much opposition, in the detrans community. This, as you may know, has started to come back to bite the trans community.

Let's be frank about what's happening here: the trans community has become unable to have difficult conversations. Instead, led by misguided activists, there is a default reaction of us-vs-them, to assume people who disagree in any way are acting in bad faith. This development is, I think, caused by another development: the trans conversation isn't as based in the facts, the science, and the empirical data, as much as it used to be. As I have said repeatedly in the past two years, this is the result of the shift of the balance of influence in the wider world out there, especially among progressive activists.

You see, the Western world is effectively in this long-standing philosophical battle between those who believe in empiricism, science, objective reason and positivism, descended from Enlightenment thinkers going all the way back to figures like John Locke on one hand, and those who believe that everything is socially constructed to serve the interests of the powerful and oppressive, that objectivity hides power dynamics, and radical subjectivity is liberating, descended from a particular strain of Western Marxism that turned to cultural explanations after their revolution failed to materialize in the West, as Marx had predicted. You could call this the Enlightenment liberals vs the postmodern criticalists. Since around 2009, as a result of a combination of factors, including the Global Financial Crisis, the postmodern criticalists have gradually gained an upper hand in progressive activist circles. Given the vast expansion of the trans activists sector during this time, it was inevitable that the postmodern criticalists would gain a foothold here, and even displace the original trans narrative, like a big tsunami crashing into a small town and almost wiping the whole town out.

As a result of the influx of postmodern criticalist views, the trans discussion has been increasingly moved away from the science and the clinical evidence, towards one based around power, oppression, social constructs, and so on. Less Harry Benjamin and more Michel Foucault, even though Foucault probably didn't understand trans people at all! The result is that, we have become unable to respond to people like Abigail Shrier, JK Rowling or Jordan Peterson with facts and logic, and instead have come to see everything as an attempt to oppress trans people. Hence everything became a struggle, and eventually became a stalemate. Meanwhile, anti-trans forces are certainly doing better to sound reasonable, which means that trans acceptance stands to be gradually rolled back, one drama at a time. The trans community is heading over a cliff, and our so-called leaders are only accelerating the process.

To save the trans conversation, I believe we need to turn back to the science and the facts. That's why I'm a transmedicalist: I base all my trans views on scientific and medical understandings, and not on postmodern philosophy. There's this myth that transmedicalists are gatekeepers, but we're not. At least I don't do any gatekeeping. Moreover, I am completely supportive of non-binary and gender non-conforming people. I believe they have as much of a case of medical and scientific validity as binary trans people. Indeed, I believe that non-binary acceptance could lead to fewer people jumping into full medical transition and regretting it, but that's a topic for another time. Anyway, I believe we should discuss the scientific view of trans people, non-binary people, and GNC people more, and that's what I'll be doing going forward. Sometimes, we should just focus on nothing but the science.

I believe that, once we regain the scientific grounding, we will be able to have a rational and productive conversation on many controversial trans related topics. The community won't need to revert to the us-vs-them drama every time. We will stop losing ground in terms of trans acceptance. And everyone, on all sides, will feel less angry and frustrated.