Earlier, I wrote about the New York Times’ new piece exploring the possible benefits of “gender-affirming” surgery for teens, particularly for teenage girls. The piece focuses mostly on so-called “top surgery,” or the removal of healthy breasts from girls and women who are transitioning to male.
One would think that even trans advocates would be able to acknowledge that performing radical surgery that is not medically necessary on teenage girls is something that should be frowned upon, rather than celebrated. And I’m confident that there are trans advocates who do believe that. But Chase Strangio is not one of them.
Fun fact: I went to college with Chase Strangio before he was Chase Strangio. He — who was still she at the time — was a few years ahead of me. I didn’t know him, but since he’s become somewhat of a transworld superstar lawyer and woke darling, I periodically get reminded that he’s a person some people think is very important. Our alma mater even gave him an honorary Doctor of Laws a few years back.
I’m not really sure what Strangio has done that merits an honorary doctorate. He seems to have made a name for himself mostly by calling anyone who even remotely questions aspects of radical trans advocacy as a transphobic white supremacist bigot, which I feel like isn’t anything to celebrate or admire.
Anyway, I do have to say that I’m grateful that Chase is a Juris Doctor and not a medical one, because based on his take on the New York Times article, it’s probably safe to say that he would not have upheld the Hippocratic Oath when it comes to children:
I had top surgery 13 years ago. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about how it was the best thing I have ever done for my survival. I also had orthopedic knee surgery at 14 and often regret it. But no NYTs pieces about orthopedic regret I see.
— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) September 26, 2022
Um, OK.
Just an amazing take. pic.twitter.com/6qnKO8cyeK
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) September 26, 2022
And it’s all downhill from there:
Pediatric ACL surgery is very common, particularly for athletes in girls’ sports who are not supported in strength training. It comes with a lifetime of potential complications. Many surgeries do. And yet this is how medicine works.
— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) September 26, 2022
Pediatric ACL surgery is performed for medical reasons, though. But do go on, Chase.
Meanwhile we hear about an “explosion” in trans care. But so much of the need was always there we just had no access to treatment. I spent years trying to access top surgery had to travel across the country for care and paid for it with student loans.
— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) September 26, 2022
Great use of student loan money, there. So glad Joe Biden just decided to cancel $10,000 to $20,000 in student loans for people like Chase Strangio.
Those examining our care know nothing about experiences or our history but write salacious pieces that tap into an existential fear about the complexity of sexed bodies.
— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) September 26, 2022
What the hell is a sexed body? Aren’t all bodies sexed bodies?
When I woke up from knee surgery, I felt like my body was mutilated, I felt depressed and disembodied and have had to spend decades working to regain strength and have had two subsequent knee surgeries.
— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) September 26, 2022
That really sucks about your knee surgery, Chase, but it didn’t require rewiring your endocrine system in order to be able to get it. It didn’t disrupt the development of sex organs or transform your genitalia.
By contrast, my top surgery had no complications and enabled my life to be full and free. I am alive because of that care. I would give almost anything to have had access to it earlier.
— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) September 26, 2022
“No complications” seems like a bit of a stretch considering the nature of that kind of surgery. At the very least, it would certainly complicate things for a 13-year-old girl who thinks she’s supposed to be a boy and doesn’t fully understand the ramifications of messing with hormones and removing her breasts.
Trans people and those who care for us are under tremendous threat. We are having all the wrong conversations and I fear for what that means for the many people who have a medical need that has exposed the fear of how powerful bodily autonomy can be.
— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) September 26, 2022
This is what Chase has to tell himself in order to justify his radical approach to gender affirmation. It’s straight-up insane.
Thankfully we have the NYT to navigate between these two "dishonest" extremes.
"On the left" – whatever that means, we are noting that claims of genital surgery are false and deliberately inflammatory.
No one needs this. And it isn't "honest". pic.twitter.com/oIUWYUXv8k
— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) September 26, 2022
Except … claims of genital surgery are not false.
The claim that "genital surgeries don't happen with minors" is demonstrably false.
Jazz Jennings was a minor who had genital surgery, and there are numerous medical papers in peer-reviewed journals documenting that this absolutely happens. Caraballo is just lying here. https://t.co/nK1i2vWSCO
— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) September 26, 2022
YouTuber turned TLC star Jazz Jennings underwent her first gender confirmation surgery at 17. After having started on hormone blockers at just 11 years old, Jennings had surgery to turn her penis into a vagina (Jennings has undergone multiple gender confirmation surgeries and has, by her own admission, experienced complications).
So Chase is lying about that. Shocker.
And it should also be noted that in the states where categorical bans on care have passed legislatively – Arkansas and Alabama – people are unable to get top surgery under 18 already regardless of how serious the need.
— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) September 26, 2022
“Care.” You keep using that word, Chase. I do not think it means what you think it means. There is no serious need for any healthy young woman under 18 to get top surgery. There should absolutely be bans on performing gender confirmation surgery on minors. When they’re 18, if they still want to proceed with surgery, they can go for it.
But in no way whatsoever should anyone of any age be taking any advice from Chase Strangio.
Did they surgically remove your healthy knee bec your pronouns were kneeless/person? -apples to apples https://t.co/IC7XBwszcz
— Blythe K Lynn (@BKLynn5) September 26, 2022
this is a really bad argument.
There are no online influencers, and no ideological movement, and no demands that parents not be told about, and no studies showing a peer effect, and no people who lose the ability to have an orgasm or children, with knee surgery. 1/ https://t.co/vVqcqL1ETY
— Dilan Esper (@dilanesper) September 26, 2022
this is a form of fallacy that you see online a lot that involves pretending you don't know why people are upset about something.
Strangio knows, probably more than anyone, why youth transition is controversial. It's not merely because some people regret it. 2/
— Dilan Esper (@dilanesper) September 26, 2022
yet he pretends that's the objection. There's a whole lot of straw in that man.
I would also observe that, assuming Strangio is telling the truth about never having even a ping of regret, one person's personal experience isn't how we do public policy! End/
— Dilan Esper (@dilanesper) September 26, 2022
What that guy said.
***
Related:
***
