Quick review: “Gender Transition for Children DEBATE / Allie Stuckey vs Desmond Fambrini”

“Alexis de Tocqueville was the most famous observer of… Americans [being] prone to bring the language of the courtroom, of rights talk, into their everyday lives. He predicted that religious bodies in democratic societies would conform themselves to the democratic principles of deference to the majority. Churches would shy away from being different or distinctive and instead try to blend in as best they can. In doing so, they would ironically abdicate the very duties that make them useful to democracies: they would no longer provide a check on individualistic or democratic impulses.” — Brian Miller

I was recently referred to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut4QlgJ2WeQ, where the podcast episode description states:

“Two thoughtful advocates come together with very opposing views on the very hot and controversial topic of gender transition for children and if they should legally be allowed to medically transition under the care of their parents and physician.

Desmond Fambrini is a public and private school teacher who is a learning specialist with a Master of Science from Johns Hopkins University. He began his journey in education after graduating from Dartmouth College, where he double-majored in Government and Gender Studies, focusing on Education Policy and Gender and Adolescence.

Allie Beth Stuckey is the host of the popular conservative Christian podcast “Relatable.” She’s a wife, mom, commentator, speaker, and author of “You’re not enough and that’s ok” who’s passionate about helping women build their worldview upon the Bible.

You will be pleasantly surprised how beautiful this conversation is on such a contentious topic between two respectful and kind individuals.”

It was a cute discussion at first, and here are my thoughts:

On the puberty blockers question, Desmond said: “We’ve used puberty blockers for precocious puberty for decades before, we don’t know all of the long-term effects yet, that’s fair. But this is one of those times where I tend to go with the specialist, the endocrinologist, the child psychologist, and it seems like that would be a fair kind of intervention method…”

This kinda gave me COVID-19 vaccine mandate “trust the experts” vibes to be honest. Allie responded to this with an “unequivocally no before the age of 18”. Both started to get into a ‘what is an adult’ debate (à la ‘what is a woman’), and the tall poppy syndrome came out of me: if minimum age for puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy should be 18, then so should the legal age of sexual consent (which is 16 in my jurisdiction). Right or wrong will depend on your values, and clearly there’s a values conflict between Allie and Desmond, regardless of what the data and stats say.

Desmond then laid out his gatekeeping views: “Kids cannot make that decision on their own, but with people they can. Because that’s what I think, I don’t think a kid should be able to wake up and, call me controversial and actually, multiple people in my community don’t like me for this right. But if somebody at 16 is depressed… and they go ‘I want a transition, and I want the double mascectomy’. I don’t think they should be able to get that immediately, I think there should just be like the American Psychological Association says, significant screening. You need a doctor’s opinion, parent opinion… significant amounts of therapy, hormone blockers, to extend the amount of time that could actually be, you know where this can be considered, and then once every box is checked, to make something that drastic, ’cause you’re talking about a drastic decision…”

I think this is not far off from the current Australian position on gender transition:

“Consistent with Position Statement 103: The role of psychiatrists in working with Trans and Gender Diverse people, [RANZCP] continues to acknowledge that while a number of major professional organisations support the use of puberty suppressants and cross sex hormones for adolescents, we recognise that health authorities in some European countries have recommended restrictions be placed on their use.

The College does not call for the Government to commission an Inquiry following the release of the Cass Review. The College does continue to support the development of a nationally consistent framework for service provision and outcomes monitoring in order to enable the provision of consistent high-quality specialist care for people experiencing gender dysphoria.

The College emphasises that assessment and treatment should be patient centred, evidence-informed and responsive to and supportive of the child or young person’s needs and that psychiatrists have a responsibility to counter stigma and discrimination directed towards trans and gender diverse people.”

Allie referred to a questionable 2011 Swedish study, which I have previously blogged about, and I found that interesting in that she referred to this study in the correlation-causation fallacy context — that Swedish study is questionable precisely because of how it’s been interpreted to draw a correlation-causation fallacy. After some toing and froing around data and stats, Allie made it clear that she’s coming from a non-negotiable biological essentialist perspective, which I find boring — I lean more towards the theology and history of gender.

Allie argued that sex is not assigned at birth (extrinsic/nominalism), that sex is innate from a biological development perspective. Desmond responded that he more or less agrees with Allie, but emphasised that assignment is a ‘kindness’ language because unfortunately biological sex is tied into associated social expectations/stereotypes. I take the ‘third way’ view that sex assignment is a human representation of biological reality in a fallen world, that is, sex assignment (gender) and biological sex is more or less two sides of the same coin. In other words, I agree with both Allie and Desmond in complicated ways.

Whilst Allie and Desmond were arguing over the semantics (including intersex and John Money’s evilness) rather than the substance, I recalled that I blogged about my visit to the now (in)famous Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, Sydney, a few months ago:

“Parking around the church block was packed, and I spotted a NSW Police vehicle parked nearby, ready to respond. There were security guards at the church entry, and I then realised that I forgot to bring a headscarf. It was a good thing that I was well-covered otherwise. A young usherette approached me, pointing me to the dresser nearby that contained plenty of headscarves to choose from. My first church experience where headscarfing is strictly enforced.”

So my question to Allie is, is the young usherette wrong in this situation, noting that I’m a trans woman and she didn’t know that? Or is she, in fact, theologically correct in her actions? Or am I, in fact, theologically incorrect for unintentionally ‘deceiving’ her, noting that I’m just ‘being me’ as a trans woman without ‘performing’ womanhood? Super confused? I’m sometimes confused myself, meh.

I stopped watching at the 1 hour 20 minute mark as it started to be less edifying for me to listen to 40 minutes earlier. I found something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXhS-znBGUU (another great New Polity podcast episode on gender) to be very edifying to listen to (in full) recently instead.