Genspect and the illusion of good intent

Confirmation Bias

With good intentions, my dad sent me a long email including multiple talks given at a conference put on by Genspect, an organization I hadn’t heard of before. For more context, my dad is a heart doctor, and we were previously discussing me being nonbinary and the current climate in the trans community. Genspect is a fairly recent group, just having formed in 2021. The main basis of the group seems to be providing an alternative to the WPATH: the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Filled with disgraced doctors and hateful parents, they are currently in the process of submitting “concerns” to the WHO about the continued use of the WPATH’s SoC(standard of care), which essentially details everything you would need to know as a medical professional about treating a transgender patient. Though their concerns seem reasonable at a surface level, doing only a little digging reveals an ugly truth: these people do not want you to transition. Their website’s mission statements seem to be all about “exploring other options” and other vaguely positive bullshit that doesn’t actually stand for anything, but when you look into what they actually do and publish, it’s nothing but thinly veiled hatred for trans existence. On their websites, they frequently cite sources that are very small and as such do not provide an accurate sample size for reality. They’re all incredibly pointed and appear as if the researchers had some, let’s say, “preconceived notions” on trans people. They claim to have trans members(they’ve proven very difficult to find!), assuming they do exist, they’d be unlike many other trans people in that they hold a strictly transmedicalist position on gender. Meaning, you’d need an official psychiatric evaluation and multiple other screenings, AND you need to be on some form of hormone replacement therapy in order to be trans. Again, to someone who doesn’t know much about any of these topics, this sounds fairly normal, but in reality, it’s damaging to many marginalized people and people underserved by the medical industry. I think there is room for criticism of WPATH, and this issue requires a great deal of nuance; a level I’d never expect to ever come from these people. Below is my response to my dad that I’ve touched up to provide more presentable info without the context of the specific videos he sent me, and to make it more presentable to read. It’s not an extremely deep dive(though it’s definitely possible to do one here), but for a surface analysis of a suspicious website I’d say I did a pretty good job. If you’re hear at all, I really appreciate the time you’ve already taken to hear me out, it really means so much to me.

I've skimmed and watched most articles here at this point. They range in quality but are mostly good at presenting neutral. From my cursory glance at their whole deal, Genspect seems to be parading itself as a very neutral and inclusive space, but doing a little digging reveals the opposite to be true. Positive commenters on their youtube videos, main website, and other linked sites are full of people who either have children who transitioned and are bitter about it, or full with people who are very afraid of the new and changing world we live in. Their partner website, "Beyond Trans", describes itself as a therapy resource for trans people; what it actually does is provide trans people with the means to detransition(for better or for worse). Their other partner website, "StatsforGender", is a compilation of common sources supporting their arguments. There is a list of broad topics you can click on, like "Autism" and "Pronouns", and the site will show you a list of sources they’ve compiled. These sources, however, are lackluster at best. In fact, it appears that the studies are referenced multiple times with occasionally edited abstracts to fit the current discussion. They’re also usually pretty barebones, as most all studies in this area of research are. What the website really seems to be for, is a quick resource people can use to back up their hate speech online, or for confirmation bias. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Genspect exists because of this very concept. Either that, or this once respectfully critical organization has been hijacked by bad actors wanting to make a quick buck off of preaching hate. The most insidious part of StatsForGender is that it paints neutral despite being entirely back by Genspect.

The speakers you sent me are all well-educated and seem relatively harmless(except for that frog scientist lady Heather Heying, she’s anti vax(!!) and her most recent book got some pretty poor reviews from experts in her field). Genspect seems to be surrounding themselves with people like them to create an air of intellectualism and academic prowess. Most of their other speakers though, are either lower-level medical professionals, professionals in some other field that sometimes could maybe deal with a trans person, or are just parents with no medical background whatsoever. Simply put, they are a group with an incredibly targeted agenda, and do not mean well.

I'm not dismissing some of the valid points they bring up, and in fact, I agree that we should be careful when allowing those under the age of to access for those under 18 to medically transition, and that trans people in sports is an issue. There also does seem to be some physical health risks associated with gender affirming care; even a broken clock is right twice a day. WPATH are certainly much more qualified to tackle nuanced issues than these people, no matter how hard dissidents claim there is a “trans agenda”. I think a big reason lies are able to be created peddling this idea is that it’s historically been so difficult for trans people to get recognition/transition, and people are trying to make it considerably better in a much shorter timespan compared to other marginalized groups who were previously denied rights. I invite you to read this recently published national transgender adult survey (with 90,000 respondents, the largest number of transgender participants in any research like this ever!!) taken in 2022, and this CNN article about it. Not all the findings of the survey have been published yet, but the "early insight report" reveals this staggering detail that I've taken from the CNN article: "Ninety-four percent of respondents who lived at least some of the time in a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth reported being “a lot more satisfied” or “a little more satisfied” with their life, with 79% expressing the highest level of satisfaction, according to the report." 

You can take the results with a grain of salt or not, but I think I trust this data as it overwhelmingly supports things actual transgender people have been saying for years over a ragtag group of bigots. A lot of the hate directed at trans people is out of fear, fear of the unknown and of the changing world we live in. Like other minority groups the Right has chosen to vilify in the past, trans people have become the scapegoat for society’s ills, and whatever the hell “wokeness” means. The thing is, many people’s perspectives shift when someone they know or someone in their immediate family comes out. In the past few years, republican lawmakers have been less and less successful publishing anti-trans legislation in smaller governments because a member of their party votes against the rest of them. It’s not always this easy, but sometimes all it really takes to get the ball rolling is a conversation.

Lots of the Genspect speakers seemed to find a common thread between their arguments, that no matter what, societal gender roles have always existed throughout history, and nothing you do to change your appearance can ultimately change that. This is usually supported by older studies into human evolution and research from the speaker's respective biological fields, but they fail to recognize that society has changed to a borderline unrecognizable degree since even the early 2000s. We are changing faster now than we ever have before, and the differences that do exist between biological sexes are becoming less and less relevant. Instead of looking to the past on dated academic research, instead look to other moral panics sparked by hateful people afraid of the uncertain. I ask these people, do you think you’re correct this time? I am very happy that you have taken it upon yourself to do so much research and investigation. But, there are significantly more bad actors in this space than there are good ones, and it's hard to recognize them for who they are.

I don’t really think I can blame my dad for finding this site and thinking it a legitimate organization. He’s sort of their target audience here: a concerned but well-meaning parent and medical professional who believed he was finding a less biased source for information on trans issues. If someone who’s been through schooling for longer than I’ve been alive can be duped into believing blatant misinformation about transgender people, what hope do any of us have to continue this conversation? I wish that left leaning media in this country would actually push back against right winger’s ridiculous terms, or for literally any person with a voice heard by millions to champion queer people as hard as the right has been demonizing us. I’m fortunate that my dad was so receptive to my concerns, and I reiterate, this is unfortunately the best way to get this news across to more people. To have those difficult conversations coming from a source of love and concern. This just isn’t possible for a large portion of the queer community though, as you can only try so hard to change a bigot’s mind. I’m remaining hopeful though, as things have been trending upwards for trans people in the minds of regular people despite what lawmaker would have you believe.

I’m a little unsure of how to end this, but I can say this: when it’s safe for you to do so, stand up for your queer friends. We notice. 💜