Althouse: "Some people, including those self-identified liberals worried about going too far, will see reducing the number of people who choose to transition as a good thing..."

June 19, 2025

"Some people, including those self-identified liberals worried about going too far, will see reducing the number of people who choose to transition as a good thing..."

"... as proof that only mythical 'real' trans people — those who feel that they must transition, no matter how hard it may be — are seeking treatment. But I ask you to imagine that teenager, the one who has to leave Tennessee or this country. The one who has to go through 'natal' puberty when everything about it feels wrong. The one who spends those hours in front of the mirror not trying to make their hair look good but trying to hide body parts that make them hate themselves. The one who adjusts, stuffing their desire, their shame and their hope into some dark closet of the mind."

Writes M. Gessen, in "The Supreme Court Fails to See Transgender Teens" (NYT)(free-access link).

72 comments:

Dave Begley said...: Just wait until the age of majority and then transition.; 6/19/25, 2:16 PM
Reddington said...: Yes, think of that teenager and the treatment they need to fix their mental disorder. Stop abusing them by “affirming” their disease.; 6/19/25, 2:17 PM
Aggie said...: Is it 'The Supreme Court fails to see transgender teens', or is it more, 'The Supreme Court fails to see the value in tying an entire country up in knots over a microscopic minority of mentally-ill teens that are too young to make life-altering decisions, and likely too mentally-ill to be considered competent to do so, anyway'?; 6/19/25, 2:22 PM
Assistant Village Idiot said...: Or those who have autogynephilia, or autism, or Borderline Personality Disorder that drives their dysphoria, rather than gender identity. And think of the children! After all, teenagers never felt badly about themselves until bigots started hating trans people. Also, puppies and kitties. Those can be sad too, you monsters.; 6/19/25, 2:29 PM
n.n said...: Homosexuals? Bisexuals? Gender simulations? The last have been identified as suffering catastrophic failure in the majority with no skill to predict therapeutic collateral damage, and a minority with forward-looking sustainable sexual corruption and MiC, PIC, and SIC profit with DIC patronage.; 6/19/25, 2:31 PM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: Anyone who needs more than five minutes to hide body parts that make them hate themselves is doing it wrong.; 6/19/25, 2:32 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: "But I ask you to imagine that teenager, the one who has to leave Tennessee or this country."

I'm originally from Tennessee. And although I'm a southerner, I'll still paraphrase Gen. Billy "Uncle" Sherman vis-a-vis Gen. Johnston "that if that teenager will leave Tennessee or this country, I'll give them rations. Our business with this insanity is at an end."

Go to a Brazil or Thailand and get all the body mods you want. Preferably stay there. A solid majority of the people of the United States have had enough of others encouraging kids to fuck up their lives before they're 18. We're sorry some of you decided to screw up your own lives, but pre age-of-majority kids will be left alone.

If you don't like that, prepare yourselves for a fight...a fight you'll lose.; 6/19/25, 2:34 PM
Ambrose said...: Go to Tennessee and advocate for a change in the law. We are a self-governing people.; 6/19/25, 2:39 PM
Gospace said...: Or M. Gessen could have summed up all of them with- "Those that are mentally ill."; 6/19/25, 2:42 PM
Kate said...: Masha says she always wanted to be a boy. When she grew up she learned she has that breast cancer mutation gene and had a double mastectomy. There's something poetically horrific about that.; 6/19/25, 2:44 PM
Marty said...: Masha Gessen. New York Times. Seriously?; 6/19/25, 2:49 PM
Hassayamper said...: Oh no. A teenager who hates the way a certain part of his body looks, and tries to hide or minimize it! Surely that NEVER happened before. Quick, chop off his cock and balls, and sterilize him with powerful chemicals, before he's scarred for life!; 6/19/25, 2:55 PM
tcrosse said...: Next it will be gastric bypass surgery for anorexic teenagers in order to "affirm" their delusions.; 6/19/25, 3:10 PM
n.n said...: The NYT is ignorant of teenage angst and clinical evidence of therapeutic failure, collateral damage, and forward-looking dysfunction.; 6/19/25, 3:11 PM
Mason G said...: When I was a teenager, transgenderism wasn't a thing. To be fair, there was the occasional George/Christine Jorgensen but transgenders were so few and far between that people didn't talk about about them. At all.

Anymore, it seems, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one. What happened?; 6/19/25, 3:16 PM
Achilles said...: These are monsters who are trying to destroy lives and create eunuchs.

They are on the same moral plane as the people who commit female genital mutilation.

The courts have no place in this discussion except to hand out sentences to the people who are mutilating children.; 6/19/25, 3:19 PM
guitar joe said...: "Just wait until the age of majority and then transition." Absolutely. No cruelty in that. In fact, it's cruel to give in to the demands of people whose minds and bodies are still changing, whose emotions are so often in turmoil, and who will likely settle on a solution other than surgery. I think gender dysphoria is real, but very, very rare. The reaction to the spike in recent reports of it among young people should not be to rush them into treatment in order to move them into transitioning. Professionals should instead be asking why this phenomenon is occurring. I do not think it is peer or societal pressure alone. Something's up.; 6/19/25, 3:20 PM
n.n said...: Therapeutic dysphoria and engineered dysfunction with forward-looking profits. NYT knows who butters its bread as a a majority... democratic subset of the 40 trillion dollar debt shared through Diverse, diverse redistributive change schemes.; 6/19/25, 3:41 PM
phantommut said...: The overwhelming desire to deny some part of objective reality is a mental illness that should be treated as a mental illness, ESPECIALLY in the formative years.
-
Knuckledragger opinion here: The biggest problem with the Mental Health profession is the number of practitioners who are either (a) mentally ill themselves or (b) perfectly willing to milk their patients' (and their parents') problems for maximum insurance dollars.; 6/19/25, 3:58 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: "Anymore, it seems, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one. What happened?"

The internet and cell phones and access to the most effed up pornography you can imagine being available to kids before they've even turned 10 happened.

I've mentioned Mark Laita's Soft White Underbelly Youtube channel before, but I encourage anyone to view this particular interview to get a perspective of how dangerous some of this stuff is.

As a parent, my wife and I work overtime to limit online exposure for our children, and what exposure they do have is heavily supervised. They don't use the word "viral" in the context of being online for no reason, these pitfalls spread faster than typhus.

I think it's time for a national conversation about this issue. Huge parts of the internet and childhood access to phones and social media is a communicable vector for so many kids that just want to feel accepted by somebody, especially in so many situations where they're not getting acceptance from their own families, which is heartbreaking.; 6/19/25, 3:58 PM
Quayle said...: Why don't we let parents beat their children? (After all, won't it make them stronger to grow up with such adversity? Remember "A boy named Sue.") We don't allow parents decide to do it because the collective judgment of society is that hitting children does more harm than good.

We don't let children transition for the same reason, and we don't let parents decide, for the same reason. More harm than good.; 6/19/25, 4:04 PM
MadTownGuy said...: Mason G said...
"When I was a teenager, transgenderism wasn't a thing. To be fair, there was the occasional George/Christine Jorgensen but transgenders were so few and far between that people didn't talk about about them. At all.

Anymore, it seems, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one. What happened?"

Indoctrination, and proselytization. From K-12.; 6/19/25, 4:28 PM
Greg The Class Traitor said...: What "gender affirming medicine" does is gives kids a lifelong drug addiction, because they can't EVER stop taking those cross-sex hormones without "detransitioning".

What M. Gessen and all the psychotics like M refuse to see is all the lies they are running with their drug addiction, chemical castration, and surgical mutilation.

What they are refusing to see is the high % of those kids who, if not giving the drug addiction, will eventually come to be comfortable with reality, and will go on to FAR better lives as real males / females, rather than fake females / males.

We can't change your sex. We don't have the medical and genetic technology necessary to do that. So if you want a REAL solution, you want the "trans" person to accept the reality of the situation and end their gender dysphoria.

Which is what's going to happen to the majority of kids that these State laws protect from the Dr. Mengles of the "Gender Medicine" field.; 6/19/25, 4:34 PM
n.n said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/19/25, 4:43 PM
n.n said...: Liberals have reached a rational threshold and stopped progressing. They are questioning their confinement in the leftist corral. The conceived inconsistencies of the Pro-Choice religion, and their misplaced faith in the aurhority of The Twilight Fringe. Stop grooming, corrupting, sacrificing the children. Maybe, baby.; 6/19/25, 4:48 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: "If you don't like that, prepare yourselves for a fight...a fight you'll lose."

Expanding on this a little:

What are these people expecting from parents? That most of them are just going to lay back and let other people screw with the thing that's most precious to them? More precious than their own lives? I get that these people may not value their own lives anymore and are willing to sacrifice them on the altar of tranzrightz, but I think they're underestimating the deathly resolve of the parents they're trying to overthrow legislatively. Do they really think concerned parents will hesitate to do anything necessary to protect their kids?

There is no law, no court, no legislation, no level of enforcement that will weaken the resolve of millions of parents to protect their children from this plague. The inflection point has been reached. We will protect our kids by any means necessary.

They should live their lives the way they've chosen, and if they're bereaved by those choices and their misery needs company, they need to console themselves with other fuckups that are 18 or older. "Normies" are seriously done with this shit. Stop now.; 6/19/25, 4:48 PM
IamDevo said...: Why would anyone listen to or read anything that Masha Gessen pukes out? He/she/it is proof that, sometimes you really can tell the book by its cover.; 6/19/25, 4:49 PM
Leland said...: I see the kid, recovery from a cold, who isn’t allowed to carry cough drops or headache medicine on their person in school, because they are considered too young to properly dose themselves. If they can’t have cough drops, they can’t make decisions to have puberty blockers. The left might have got away with it, had they not decided that the parents also didn’t need to know.; 6/19/25, 4:55 PM
Lazarus said...: While 'm a'gessen if M. Gessen is male or female, let me suggest first, home schooling, and second, learning to love or like or at least put up with your actual body parts while you're looking forward to getting that snazzy new penis or vagina. Whatever it is that you want to be, real men and real women don't go around playing the victim.; 6/19/25, 5:09 PM
Lindsey said...: It is tragic that so many cannot see how harmful it is to create a group of people who are chronologically adults but have the minds and bodies of prepubescent children.; 6/19/25, 5:16 PM
Achilles said...: phantommut said...

It is also larded up with Karens.; 6/19/25, 5:17 PM
boatbuilder said...: What Constitutional principle was the Supreme Court supposed to be following in order to "see" transgender teens and proclaim their wisdom as superior to that of the elected legislators of Tennessee?; 6/19/25, 5:21 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: “Yes, think of that teenager and the treatment they need to fix their mental disorder. Stop abusing them by “affirming” their disease.”

Entirely.

I couldn’t care less about some dysphoric adult deciding to mutilate themselves. What is horrifying is that we crossed some weird threshold where a significant percentage of the country thinks it’s OK to do this to children.

We somehow fell back into an age of leeches, witch trials, and alchemy. Future generations will be merciless in their judgment.; 6/19/25, 5:32 PM
Peachy said...: 4:55 - Leland. #; 6/19/25, 5:34 PM
Iman said...: What weirdness, mental illness or child mutilation won’t the progressives abide or promote?; 6/19/25, 5:48 PM
Iman said...: Well said, Quayle @4:04PM.; 6/19/25, 5:50 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: You mean kids don't have a constitutional right to a sex change operation? I'm pretty sure Madison made that part of the Constitution.; 6/19/25, 6:17 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Oh well, this isn't over. You can be sure another of the 700 District Judges will rule that kids do have a constitutional right to a sex change operation. They'll just use different language to justify it.

The left never gives up. Ever.; 6/19/25, 6:19 PM
Mason G said...: "You can be sure another of the 700 District Judges will rule that kids do have a constitutional right to a sex change operation."

How can you have a right to something that doesn't exist?; 6/19/25, 6:22 PM
Steve said...: Does this mean that if in my heart or hearts I believe I am an NBA super star the Lakers have to give me a contract? Or if I think I'm Napoleon the French Army should follow my orders?

It's a mental illness. and chemically or physically mutilating children to go along with their illness is a form of child abuse.; 6/19/25, 6:24 PM
Leland said...: Thanks Peachy.; 6/19/25, 6:28 PM
Mason G said...: Lots of times, people use analogies in an argument. It seems like it's not that often the comparison of two things matches up as perfectly as does the comparison of transgenderism and anorexia. I've never seen a transgender supporter address the anorexia comparison in their arguments supporting surgery/hormone treatment. Has anybody?; 6/19/25, 6:49 PM
Big Mike said...: But I ask you to imagine that teenager, the one who has to leave Tennessee or this country. The one who has to go through 'natal' puberty when everything about it feels wrong. The one who spends those hours in front of the mirror not trying to make their hair look good but trying to hide body parts that make them hate themselves.

And for every individual like the one described in this heart-rending screed how many transitioned people will someday come to a realization that they were conned and coerced by expert psychologists and other adult medical professionals into undergoing irreversible surgery while still a young and impressionable child? Are the surgeries being performed for altruistic reasons, as Masha Gessens is trying to get us to believe? Or are the medical professionals just trying to make a fast buck?

I look forward to the day when juries award the conned and coerced youngsters — now adults — with judgments running to 7 or 8 figures. I look forward to the day when these surgeries disappear because malpractice insurance has become simply too expensive. I look forward to that because the medical community will have brought it on themselves.; 6/19/25, 6:51 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: "How can you have a right to something that doesn't exist?"

You must not have been paying attention for the last 60 years. The Consitution is what Federal judges say it is. Federal law is what the judges say it is. They have been given unlimited power to do pretty much anything. I find that crazy. But most 'muricans love it.; 6/19/25, 7:03 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: The Althouse comment section does what it always does with SCOTUS rulings. They ignore the law. They ignore the Constitution. They ignore the SCOTUS opinion. And they argue the merits of the issue.

Which is irrelevant. The SCOTUS has made its ruling, and what you and I think doesn't matter.; 6/19/25, 7:05 PM
Jake said...: “those who feel”

Hmm. I feel like many things. Doesn’t mean I should, or the rest of society, should let me act on those feelings.; 6/19/25, 7:10 PM
Jake said...: The body parts don’t make them hate themselves. They hate themselves and think it’s because of the body parts. Maybe hate is too strong, but they certainly don’t feel comfortable being themselves. They want to transform. I’m old enough to remember Silence of the Lambs. Ya know, back when everyone knew what crazy was.; 6/19/25, 7:12 PM
Ampersand said...: Masha, a nonbinary former gay woman, has the instincts of a narcissistic exhibitionist. I remember people like her from college. The people I knew in college outgrew it. Not Masha.; 6/19/25, 7:22 PM
gilbar said...: imagine that teenager..
the young teen, that questions EVERY THING.. including their gender..
the OBVIOUS THING TO DO, is for the teen to embark on a course of irreversible drugs AND surgical mutilation..
Because; after all.. it will be a HILARIOUS JOKE if in 3 or 4 years they realize that they WERE just a questioning teen..
And NOW, they'll be a LITERAL CIRCUS FREAK!!
great job pharma! (plus GREAT PROFITS!!!); 6/19/25, 7:46 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: “those who feel”

"Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel." - Jean Racine

For all these feelers feeling cutting up healthy kids is the right thing to do, their lives certainly are tragedies.; 6/19/25, 7:55 PM
gilbar said...: here in Iowa, if you are a minor, that wants a tattoo..
you are free to get one.. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO is WAIT until you're 18

If you want one WHILE you're a minor, and you have BOTH parent's approval.. Guess what? you *STILL* have to wait.

You know why..
Because a child is NOT Ready for permanent changes.
children Already HAVE enough permanent changes without adding on new ones..

Serious Question:
Which is MORE PERMANENT?
a tattoo of a rose on your ankle?
or chopping off your dick or your breasts?; 6/19/25, 8:03 PM
Breezy said...: It’s the age old rule - you get more of what you elevate. Making gender dyphoria a thing attracts more young people to it. The sheer fact that this is a SCOTUS decision is indicative of us losing our grip on what’s true and not true. Changing one’s sex is not an option, period. Behaving as the opposite sex is acceptable in most circumstances, just not where girls and women are hurt.; 6/19/25, 8:30 PM
MikeD said...: The "poor teen" is likely on the autism spectrum & has been groomed by mom and a cohort of same in school "health depts.".; 6/19/25, 8:47 PM
Kakistocracy said...: The Supreme Court didn’t rule against trans rights. It simply allows states to prohibit and protect minors from irreversible harm, just like the most progressive European nations.

The movement didn’t have science on their side. You’re not going to win in court anywhere if you don’t have evidence.

It's hilarious how the trans activists have taken over the gay and lesbian rights movement. It's a very convoluted story of how the trans movement got so far ahead of the country because of their scientific, cultural, and political echo chambers, and also because of their deliberate attempts to suppress contrary thought or disagreeable evidence. The Cass report, the Alabama discovery, the Hopkins suppression, the WPATH/Rachel Levine/SOC-8 disaster and the ill-advised decision to bring Skrmetti to SCOTUS all contributed to this humiliating loss for the activists. Children are a red line.; 6/19/25, 9:06 PM
Prof. M. Drout said...: I wish I could remember where I saw this analogy so as to give credit: "Our 7-year-old really wants to be a dolphin, so we are going to let her have her arms and legs removed." Or "Our 8-year-old identifies as a unicorn so we are going to have a horn surgically implanted in her forehead."
That sounds insane, right?
"Our 11-year-old wants to be a girl so we are going to inject him with chemicals and then chop his penis off," is just as insane.; 6/19/25, 9:51 PM
~ Gordon Pasha said...: As an endocrinologist I think the best argument for children transitioning is: If a child is convinced he has cancer would you subject him to chemotherapy and radiation or would you put him with someone who can help him with his delusion. What AAP has done with its promotion of transitioning kids is criminal; 6/19/25, 10:29 PM
Kirk Parker said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/20/25, 12:42 AM
Kirk Parker said...: M. Gessen fails to see that the Supreme Court is not a super-legislature.; 6/20/25, 12:42 AM
gadfly said...: President Trump is concerned that military action against Iran could lead to a situation similar to Libya, where the removal of Muammar Gaddafi resulted in chaos and instability.

That concern for Iran destabilizsation doesn't compute after Donald Trump’s reported a scheme to end the horror that unfolded in Gaza is to somehow dump one million of the enclave’s 2.5 million people into Libya in return for unfreezing $30bn in frozen assets. The idea is as stupid as it is evil.

Perhaps he can alter his scheme and send the Gazans to Iran instead after the bombings, with radiation added to the mix.; 6/20/25, 1:01 AM
wendybar said...: Why can't Gadfly stay on message instead of foaming at the mouth about Trump 24/7??; 6/20/25, 2:35 AM
Big Mike said...: The sheer fact that this is a SCOTUS decision is indicative of us losing our grip on what’s true and not true. Changing one’s sex is not an option, period.

@Breezy, absolutely! A person with a Y chromosome is a male. Surgically remove his penis and testes and he does not become a female — he becomes a castrated biological male.; 6/20/25, 4:19 AM
Enigma said...: Regarding teen emotional struggles and efforts to hide body parts?

1. Puberty is a b*tch
2. Mental illness is a lifelong b*tch
3. Cutting off your own body parts, stunting natural growth with chemicals, and dooming oneself to lifelong treatment, stigmatization, and probably reproductive issues is faaaaaaaaantastic! Sign me up!

For as long as time, girls hitting puberty have had one of two reactions as their breasts develop (i.e., male attention beacons). Some stuff their bras, wear outfits that emphasize décolletage, and maximize attention, while others wear high neck dresses and seek modesty. In a medical waiting room the other day, of 16 female staff portraits on the wall, 7 women had bare shoulders and showed plenty of skin.

This is all NORMAL and part of the struggle to compete in an inherently competitive world.; 6/20/25, 4:51 AM
Tarrou said...: It's amazing how much suffering there is in being a rich american with nothing to do but navel gaze a few inches lower.; 6/20/25, 4:56 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Straw teenager alert! Her argument was powerful except for one fact. The prepubescent “trans teen” is as rare as the mythical unicorn. Suicidal tendencies are just as prevalent in post-op trannies as the kids bullied by their mother to transition who are reluctant to be surgically altered.; 6/20/25, 5:24 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/20/25, 5:31 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: “ It's hilarious how the trans activists have taken over the gay and lesbian rights movement.”

I think that it was a stupid hill for the Gays, and especially the Lesbos, to die for. One of their arguments is that they were born that way, and at least for Gays, there seems to be some science behind that. Wire up a guy’s man parts and show him naked male and female figures, and straight guys react mostly to nude women, gay guys to naked males, and the relatively rare bisexual males to both. There often are apparently brain differences. In the equivalent test on women, the bisexual section of the graph is much broader, without the sharp cutoff in the distribution seen in male homosexuals. There is nothing yet found yet for juvenile transgendered, esp when so many grow out of it. If anything, M2F transgendered often turn out to be gay submissives.; 6/20/25, 5:33 AM
Tina Trent said...: So mom wants to mutilate and sterilize her daughter at 13, as well as exposing her to dangerous and unproven drug therapy, and subject her to a permament subculture lifestyle, so mommy can get approval from the Times.

Why doesn't she just upgrade her subscription to include the cooking section?

These mothers are all Munchausens by Proxy narcissists, and the therapists are woman-hating sociopaths. Where are the fathers to protect their daughters?; 6/20/25, 6:17 AM
Rusty said...: Shhhhh. He's in love.; 6/20/25, 6:56 AM
Jamie said...: The only thing in Kak's 9:06 comment that I disagree with is the "hilarious" part. I have no sense of humor about this issue, and having come around - reluctantly - to normalized gay marriage quite a while ago (though I still balk at declaring gay marriage "just the same" as plain old marriage*), I cannot fathom why gay and lesbian people have allowed their disparate "communities" and "message" to be hijacked like this.

And there are still so many places in society where it is unacceptable to say ordinary true things like, "Gender transition doesn't actually turn you into a woman,son - you're not going to start menstruating because you don't have ovaries or a uterus. Nor a man, miss - you will never need a prostate exam because you don't have a prostate." Nor can you say, "Kid, your suicidal thoughts might go away for the time being if you go on testosterone, but that's because testosterone functions as an antidepressant, not because it's 'curing' you. There is nothing wrong with your body, but your mind doesn't know that - and it's adults' job to help your mind learn it."

* I am given to understand, for instance, that a marriage between gay men generally isn't even expected to be sexually monogamous.; 6/20/25, 7:07 AM
PM said...: Dear Teen,
You're in the toughest, weirdest age. Hang in there. You'll get through it just the way you are.; 6/20/25, 11:12 AM
loudogblog said...: "The Supreme Court Fails to See Transgender Teens."

I think that the problem was that too many people only saw the transgender teens and put ideological blinders on when it came to seeing all problems with the transgender teen issue.; 6/20/25, 12:10 PM
Rick67 said...: One of the things I find exasperating about the whole trans discussion is when activists speak of a "Trans Day of Visibility" or "fails to *see* transgender teens". As if people who are trans (however one unpacks the term) are somehow not visible or people fail to *see* transgender people.

We *see* them perfectly fine. It's not about visibility and see-ing. It's about how we understand these people and what they are feeling and what they want to do to themselves about that. We also think at the very least if they're not yet adults they shouldn't be allowed to make decisions that will permanently alter/change/damage their bodies.; 6/20/25, 3:33 PM