P E R S P E C T I V E : M e d i a C i r c u s
When In Doubt, Blame Tumblr
BY ED SIKOV
“Police in Pakistan
say they have
found the bodies
of two transgender
women who were tortured and
beaten to death. Senior offi cer Mohammad
Ali Zia says the bodies were
recovered late Saturday from a locked
house in the Sahiwal district of the
eastern Punjab province. He says it’s
unclear what motivated the killings,
which appear to have taken place
three days ago. Transgender people
are often subjected to abuse in conservative,
Muslim-majority Pakistan.
They are also among the victims of
so-called honor killings carried out
by relatives to punish perceived sexual
transgressions.”
This news comes to us from Associated
Press, while the Guardian chose
instead to go with Jamie Doward’s
infl ammatory report on an altogether
different topic: “School counsellors
and mental health service providers
are bowing to pressures from ‘highly
politicised’ transgender groups to affi
rm children’s beliefs that they were
born the wrong sex, a leading expert
has warned. Marcus Evans, a psychotherapist
and ex-governor of the
Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation
Trust, whose Gender Identity Development
Service (GIDS) is the only
NHS clinic to provide gender counselling
and transitioning, said many
experts were living in fear of being
labelled transphobic, which was having
an impact on their objectivity. ‘I
believe the trans political agenda has
encroached on the clinical environment
surrounding and within the
Gender Identity Development Service,’
Evans told the Observer column in
the Guardian. ‘Young people need
an independent clinical service that
ADELAIDE CONNAUGHTON
HONORED WITH STREET-NAMING
PHOTO ESSAY
BY DONNA ACETO
Adelaide Connaughton,
a
longtime Democratic
activist
has the long-term interests of the patient
at heart. To some extent, this requires
a capacity to stand up to pressure
coming from various sources:
from the young person, their family,
peer groups, online and social networking
pressures, and from highly
politicised pro-trans groups.’”
So let’s review. in Pakistan, they’re
killing trans women, and it’s nothing
out of the ordinary. In the UK,
meanwhile, they’re worrying that too
many kids change genders because
therapists aren’t brave enough to help
them make the right decision.
I am sorely tempted to say that
this is a First World problem clashing
with a Third World problem, but I’m
not sure that this is what these two
culturally contradictory stories actually
boil down to.
“The number of children referred
annually to GIDS has risen from
468 in 2013 to 2,519 in 2018. Some
claim social media is a factor in the
increase. In a hard-hitting paper,
presented at a conference earlier
this year and shared with the Observer,
Evans quoted the experience
of ‘Dagny,’ a woman who identifi ed as
a trans man in her teens, has now
detransitioned, and says she was infl
uenced by views expressed on the
social network Tumblr,” the Guardian
piece contineud.
She transitioned from one gender
to another because of stuff she saw
on Tumblr? Didn’t the therapist she
worked with — the one who oversaw
her transition — notice that her reasons
for transitioning were, um, sort
of fl imsy? Tumblr? Really?
Did that not ring any bells at all
in any of the therapy sessions she
went through on her way from female
to male? Were the fi rst therapists so
cowed by the all-powerful transgender
movement that they couldn’t see what
and City Council staffer
who also worked in exinmate
reentry and rehabilitation
for the Fortune
Society, was remembered
on June 23 with a streetnaming
in her honor in
was staring them in the face: namely,
that this girl was not transgender?
Here’s more from the Guardian:
“Last week ‘BBC Newsnight’ reported
that the Trust had data showing that
children who took hormone blockers
had reported an increase in thoughts
of suicide and self-harm. The Rrust
said the data, involving 44 children,
was too small to draw fi nal conclusions.
It said the data suggested the
positive outcomes were likely to outweigh
the negative.”
Oh, so in other words the reporter
basically made up the conclusions
until fi nally admitting what they actually
were.
This supposed exposé followed an
open letter posted online by a former
clinician at the Leeds branch
of GIDS, Dr. Kirsty Entwistle, who
warned that “traumatic early experiences,”
which might be a factor in a
young person’s desire to transition,
were not being investigated by medical
staff out of fear of being labeled
transphobic.”
There’s something suspicious
about all of this. I tend to distrust arguments
on traumatic experiences. Isn’t
that theory the psychiatric community
tried to foist on gay men and lesbians
for decades? If only we hadn’t
been traumatized during our formative
years, the argument went, we
would be so-called normal, meaning
straight and cisgender.
I am also skeptical of the case being
made that medical staffers are so
terrifi ed of being called transphobic.
By whom?
Blaming malpractice on a cabal
of unidentifi ed name-callers strikes
me as a weak foundation on which to
build a case. Peer pressure to transition?
Peer pressure to diagnose? It
may be true, but I doubt it.
Forest Hills, at the corner
of Queens Boulevard and
71st Road. Connaughton,
who enjoyed a relationship
of more than 30 years with
Lynn Schulman, who is
also active in Democratic
that blame divergent sexuality
politics, died suddenly in
May 2018 at the age of 59.
Schulman was joined
at the ceremony by City
Councilmember Karen Ko-
➤ STREET NAMING, continued on p.21
PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER
Victoria Schneps-Yunis
CEO & CO-PUBLISHER
Joshua Schneps
FOUNDING EDITOR IN-CHIEF
& ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
Paul Schindler
editor@gaycitynews.com
DIGITAL EDITOR
Matt Tracy
matt@gaycitynews.com
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Duncan Osborne
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Donna Aceto (Photography)
Christopher Byrne (Theater),
Susie Day (Perspective),
Brian McCormick (Dance)
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Kelly Jean Cogswell, Andres Duque,
Steve Erickson, Andy Humm,
Eli Jacobson, David Kennerley,
Gary M. Kramer, Arthur S. Leonard,
Michael T. Luongo, Lawrence D. Mass,
Winnie McCroy, Eileen McDermott,
Mick Meenan, Tim Miller,
Donna Minkowitz, Christopher Murray,
David Noh, Sam Oglesby,
Nathan Riley, David Shengold,
Ed Sikov, Yoav Sivan, Gus Solomons Jr.,
Tim Teeman, Kathleen Warnock,
Benjamin Weinthal, Dean P. Wrzeszcz
ART DIRECTOR
Marcos Ramos
ADVERTISING
Ralph D’Onofrio
PH: 718-260-2524
rdonofrio@schnepsmedia.com
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES
Gayle Greenberg
Andrew Mark
Jim Steele
Julio Tumbaco
Miriam Nieto
Jay Pelc
Laura Cangiano
Kathy Wenk
Jeannie Eisenhardt
Lenny Vigliotti
Elizabeth Polly
CO-FOUNDERS EMERITUS
Troy Masters
John Sutter
Please call (212) 229-1890 for
advertising rates and availability.
NATIONAL DISPLAY ADVERTISING
Rivendell Media / 212.242.6863
Gay City News, The Newspaper Serving Gay, Lesbian,
Bisexual, and Transgender NYC, is published
by Schneps Media. Send all inquiries to: Gay City
News, One Metrotech North, 10th Floor, Brooklyn,
NY 11201. Phone: 212.229.1890 Written permission
of the publisher must be obtained before any of
the contents of this paper, in part or whole, can be
reproduced or redistributed.
All contents © 2019 Schneps Media
Gay City News is a registered trademark
of Schneps Media
Fax: 212.229.2790
© 2019 Schneps Media
All rights reserved.
FOUNDING MEMBER
August 1 - August 14, 2 20 019 | GayCityNews.com
/GayCityNews.com
link
link
link
link
link
link
