From Gender Nonconformity to the "Trans Kid"

The Mother of a Tomboy Contends with an Ideology Pressuring Her Gender Nonconforming Daughter to Declare Herself Male

“So, I knew about Lisa Littman's paper before she published it, which is the Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria paper, which was so contested and really politicized by the left. And this is the same way climate change research is politicized by the right. The left has really, really politicized research about trans kids in a way that is frightening and sad and a great disservice to anyone who might benefit from these medical interventions. And I'm saying might, because I really have, even after all this research, I truly have no idea. And frankly, no one else does either.”

“I mean, we can't discount the number of medical scandals that occurred when the industry saw an opportunity to pathologize something normal and make money off it; but I think it's bigger than that, because it's a zeitgeist shift. I'm really interested in how zeitgeist shifts happen, because this is kind of in the water now. Many, many people are subscribing to the idea that each person has a gender identity, and that we all have a gendered soul independent of our body, it just so happens that in some of us, the body and the gendered soul match.

I think this zeitgeist shift has gotten into all these nooks and crannies, and the ideology has borrowed the language of all of these different iconic liberal, liberation movements. So it borrows the bodily autonomy language of abortion. It borrows from the gay rights movement of born this way. And it's very, very hard then for a liberal who believes in all those other things—why would this be an exception? And why would you take exception to this unless you were bigoted? Our brains are predisposed to this.”

To complement her most recent piece “Where Have All the Tomboys Gone?” I’m posting a conversation with Lisa Selin Davis that I plan to turn into a feature story. The original interview aired on April 16, 2022. You can listen to the full discussion and other Conversations in Year Zero on Callin, or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts: Apple  |  Spotify  | Google.

Become a paid subscriber to my Substack to receive transcripts of all audio content across platforms.