Response to an ex-friend, who responded to my concerns about trans activism with not a single question or clarification but "transwomen are women" and an offer to continue our friendship only under the conditions that I submit to reeducation, which she offered to oversee:

"What would it take for you to say: "There might be a problem here? This movement may not be what it seems." Please think about it.

I started out with questions and doubts that I pushed beneath the surface. I told myself that maybe that I wasn't even capable of understanding as a "cis" person, but that was OK, it was supposed to make me uncomfortable.

But evidence of harms piled up & I couldn't keep looking away. Every time I asked a question, no matter how carefully & even obsequiously I worded it, even to the point where my use of approved jargon obscured what I needed to communicate, I got punished & didn't get an answer.

At best, I got ordered to "educate yourself," a charge I took seriously. So I went digging. I read carefully and with great interest the accounts of trans people; research of leading "gender care" providers; standards of care; adverse drug event reports...

... the history of psychiatry especially where it intersects with sex, gender, and sexuality; and on and on. I didn't find the reassurances I was looking for. The more I understood, the more questions and doubts I had.

It's curious that, while I have a lot of questions for you, you don't seem to have any questions for me.

("What do you mean when you say we're sterilizing gay kids?" might be an obvious question for an LGBTQ ally to ask.)

It's clear that not all cases of gender dysphoria are resolved or best treated by transition. Whatever else that tells us, it raises serious questions for affirmation-only as the standard of care.

The standard of care needs to take a wider range of factors, potential explanations, and treatment approaches into account. It's beyond dispute that there are serious implications for women's rights, speech, political representation, healthcare, and so on.

These issues are not resolved by repeating mantras. No one has ever explained why supporting trans rights requires denying sex and undermining women's sex-based rights, which are rooted in women's reproductive capabilities and vulnerabilities that transwomen do not share.

For me, this really does come down to whether female people should be able to name, organize, and be protected as a sex class or not.

There's no reason that I can see that women should be redefined as a mixed-sex class based on gender identity that privileges the identity claims of male people over the lived experiences of female people. You haven't given any. No one has. I'm starting to think there's no answer

If gender is fluid and can change over time, why do we carry out untested and often irreversible medical procedures on kids at younger and younger ages?

What are the limits to self-id? Could you or I identify as transwomen and so claim recognition and resources reserved for transwomen? If not, why not?

If being a woman is simply a matter of id'ing as a woman, why would being a transwoman not be a matter of id'ing as a transwoman? Perhaps you'll say that word is taken, it refers to a group of distinct human beings who need it— but then why are "women" and "female" under assault?

We need these words, too.

Perhaps you'll think it's offensive to suggest that we know what it's like to be a transwoman—of course, we don't! But no more do transwomen know what it's like to live as women.

Perhaps you'll say it's not a matter of unfairly excluding me from identifying as a transwoman—I simply don't meet the criteria to call myself such. Though of course the same could be said for "woman" not being an inclusive grab bag.

If women ceded feminism to transwomen and reorganized as a female liberation movement to advance the sex-based rights of females, just no longer calling ourselves women and girls, would that be acceptable to you or problematic?

Why?

And why is there so much lying, obscuring, silencing, and manipulating by trans activists to prop up false claims, enforce anti-scientific dogmas, and shut down debate?

When it comes to the stated objectives of this movement (protect trans people from violence, discrimination,
& harassment), there's a way to accomplish these things without lying, obscuring, silencing, & manipulating: recognize and protect people on the basis of trans status.

This seems like an urgent, just, and compassionate thing to do, and it takes nothing away from any other marginalized group to protect trans people as trans people.

That can't be said for protecting trans people by redefining women from a sex class to a mixed-sex class based on something utterly intangible, by adherence to a creed that not everyone professes.

You can label me "cis" & assign me a gender id but that doesn't mean I believe I have a gender id or that I consent to be defined by your belief that I have one. I am not going to define myself in terms of a belief system I don't share. I don't id as a heathen or infidel, either.

I admit I'm confused by "you're smarter than this" with regards to my rejection of a faith-based proposition.

In fact, your whole letter strikes me as utterly surreal in its indifference to the gap between doctrine and practice. It's tempting to think that what we're doing is synonymous with what we say we're doing.

I am telling you I see an enormous gap between the two in this case. The narrative does not fit the facts. Strangely, you don't seem curious about whether there might be any issue at all.

I care about what I might be getting right and wrong, and if I'm wrong about something, I want to know (your fervent injunctions to "believe harder" notwithstanding: I am talking about the facts: what we do, not what we say).

That's why I've spent the last several years researching this issue from every angle I can think of, trying to keep an open mind even as my concerns piled up.

What I've found has really shaken me, violates my core values and commitments (to liberalism, tolerance, nonviolence, solidarity across difference, the pursuit of knowledge, freedom of speech and belief, language as a means to communicate and not obscure...

... women's rights, protections for children), & I can't support this. How can you? How can you look at the collateral damage this movement is causing & call it just? I can't close my eyes & let other people tell me what I'm seeing. I can't judge by anyone's judgment but my own.

If you want to have a real dialogue where we can each ask and explore questions, I'm here.

But if what you have in mind is just more of the proselytizing that's in this letter—

—then surely we both have better things to do with our time and I must decline your offer to assist in my reeducation.

I gave up organized religion a long time ago. I don't have any plans to take it back up under a new guise.

Please take seriously your responsibility to understand what you support.

Please think about where you draw the line and what would cause you to withdraw your support from this movement.

Don't outsource your judgment to others who have their own motivations and blind spots. Don't make a virtue of handing off responsibility in that way.

And don't deceive yourself. You can't discharge responsibility that easily -- you can only pretend to.

Someday, you’ll pull a loose thread and the story you’ve been telling yourself will unravel. You’ll be left—as I am—without the consolation of appearances and slogans, but the reality of what we’re doing. It will amaze you what you —believing—were willing to overlook.

In the meantime, forgive me for my doubts. I don’t have recourse to an infallible creed. I can’t weave a flowing garment out of so many pulled threads.