TWIBS: Cass Says Porn Makes You Trans
Bloviating good-for-nothing unqualified annoyance Dr. Hilary Cass confidently declares exposure to porn might be making trans boys trans! As usual, she prefers theories without even a shred of evidence.
Humor, by Alyssa Steinsiek
I’ve been waiting for a good chance to go in on this old gas bag.
The gas bag in question is Hilary Cass, titular leader of the four-year Cass Review into the UK’s National Health Services’ treatment of trans kids at trans health clinic Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS). Cass was interviewed on Wednesday by Bostonian NPR branch WBUR News. I should clarify that I despise Hilary Cass for her ineptitude as a practitioner and the thoughtless damage she’s done to thousands of trans kids, and I loath the Report her work produced because it is an unforgivable hack job not fit to be used as toilet paper that has still, somehow, become the shining beacon on the hill for every anti-trans journalist across the globe.
Appearing on WBUR’s “On Point” podcast with host Meghna Chakrabarti, Cass and her interviewer spend about an hour misgendering trans kids (for a laugh, I guess), and that’s still not the most annoying thing about the interview. Truthfully, I don’t think I could easily rank how annoying the obnoxious crap that comes out of Cass’s yapper is, so I’ll just sort of go through the interview in chronological order and point out the various things that make it clear the good doctor is actually a bumbling buffoon.
To start, after talking a bunch of shit about whether or not puberty blockers maybe might not sort of possibly be unsafe for kids—she admits they’re fine for cisgender kids, but of course we must draw the line at trans kids—Cass says, “the more we can let young people go through their typical puberty … the more likely it is that they will make the best possible decision.”
A statement so flatly ignorant and inflammatory that I had to go scream into a pillow for half an hour before I could continue reading. Lovely. As I’ve explained recently to another churlish weasel, blockers are a typical part of gender-affirming care, and the vast majority of medical authorities agree that it’s the best course of treatment for trans youth. A highly credible study presented at a 2021 American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference & Exhibition found “a 60% decrease in moderate and severe depression and 73% decrease in suicidality among transgender and non-binary youth who received puberty blockers or gender-affirming hormones over a 12-month period.”
Next, Cass and Chakrabarti refer to young transmasc or non-binary people as “adolescent girls,” and discuss why there’s been such a significant rise in this particular group identifying as trans over the last few years. Rather than any of the typical reasons that people seen as “girls” might receive medical attention on a different timetable than their “male” peers, Cass suggests that “early exposure to pornography” might be to blame.
I don’t know what possible link any normal-brained person could draw between exposure to pornography and self-identification of one’s gender, unless perhaps you preemptively view transgender people through a sexualized slant, like some sort of annoying loser who should stop talking and thinking about trans people forever.
Later on Cass accuses WPATH and their cohorts of producing guidelines that, to paraphrase, feed into one another in a circular way. She praises the “Nordic” studies of working from a clean slate, specifically Finnish and Swedish studies, both of which have serious problems: The Finnish gender clinic from which their study was conducted has been accused by parents of psychologically torturing children and asking them deeply inappropriate questions, while the author of the venerated Swedish study has been speaking out against transphobic misinterpretation of it for years.
Near the end of the interview, Hilary Cass advises trans children and their families to “keep your options open,” and that “it’s not as urgent as it feels.” Classic patronizing slop from somebody who has absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. Because of Cass’ vile, shoddy Report, trans youth in the UK don’t have any options anymore.
Prior to heading the Review, Hilary Cass had absolutely no clinical experience with transgender youth. Unlike her, I know all about trans kids. I was a trans kid, I know trans adults who used to be trans kids, I’ve met trans kids. I’m not a doctor, and I can’t speak to the individualized needs of every single trans youth in the world, but what I can tell you is that we know—have known for quite a long time, now—that gender-affirming care works. It greatly improves lives, and sometimes it may even save them.
I don’t know how these children and their families will move forward, denied the right to express who they are and receive adequate treatment from doctors who should give a shit about them. But I do know that Hilary Cass has been instrumental in worsening their suffering, and I can only hope that decent journalists deny her the opportunity to spread her callous, uninformed bullshit.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a professional writer and video games nerd who cohosts a podcast about trans news!
