New York Magazine was slammed on Monday after it ran a cover story arguing that children should have the freedom to “change their sex” through irreversible and life-altering medical procedures.
The article, written by Andrea Long Chu, a man who identifies as a woman, argues that the “freedom of sex” should be expanded to children quickly drawing criticism from commentators pointing to the harmful impacts of transgender procedures on children. For example, putting children on things like puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones can permanently impact their fertility, stunt bone development, and cause heart issues among other health problems. Genital surgeries and procedures to remove healthy breasts from girls who identify as boys also have irreversible impacts.
“We must be prepared to defend the idea that, in principle, everyone should have access to sex-changing medical care, regardless of age, gender identity, social environment, or psychiatric history,” Chu wrote. “This may strike you as a vertiginous task. The good news is that millions of people already believe it.”
Elsewhere in the article, Chu said that it doesn’t matter where some children get the desire to identify as transgender comes from. Many commentators have pointed to peer pressure and social media influence to explain part of the explosion in children who claim to be transgender.
“We will never be able to defend the rights of transgender kids until we understand them purely on their own terms: as full members of society who would like to change their sex. It does not matter where this desire comes from,” Chu wrote.
The article comes after a think tank called Environmental Progress leaked files from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health showing that doctors in the organization believe a 16-year-old girl may have developed liver tumors after being put on male hormones and that many recognize that children cannot give informed consent to transgender procedures.
Throughout the story, Chu also downplayed concerns about men entering women’s bathrooms, harming women during sports competitions, and parental influence over their children’s medical decisions.
“The TERF [trans-exclusionary radical feminist] does not, after all, fear being assaulted by a Y chromosome in a women’s restroom,” he wrote. “Her paranoid fantasy is of a large testosterone-fueled body wielding a penis — an organ to which, as Butler points out, the TERF attributes almost magical powers of violence.”
Chu also claimed that it was a “fantastical idea” that males would perform better than females in sports competitions and that sex-segregated sports were meant to propagate “inequity.”
“Widespread discomfort at the largely fantastical idea that trans girls will always dominate in their chosen sports reflects a basic patriarchal belief that the physical advantages of being male are perfectly acceptable so long as they are possessed by men. (In this sense, sex division in sport is meant to enshrine inequality, not to mitigate it.),” Chu wrote.
Chue said that everyone, including children, should have the “right to change one’s biological gender.”
“What does this freedom look like in practice? Let anyone change their sex,” Chu said. “Let anyone change their gender. Let anyone change their sex again. Let trans girls play sports, regardless of their sex status. If they excel, this means only that some girls are better at sports than others. Let people use the gender-segregated facilities of their choice; desegregate whenever possible. Do not out children to their parents.”
Conservative commentators slammed the article saying that it was irresponsible and that it was impossible to change one’s sex.
“You disgusting sadists,” Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro said.
“What’s that line liberals always trot out about ‘when they tell you who they are, believe them’? They want to manipulate and surgically mutilate kids. This is evil, and I’m not going to even entertain the idea there’s nuance here,” Real Clear Investigations writer Mark Hemingway said.
“The bad news is that no one, regardless of their age, CAN actually change sex. The destruction to children’s bodies is very real, the delusional pursuit of actually changing sex is not,” Inez Stepman said.
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