Colin Robinson
Sep 1, 2018 · 1 min read

A few points…

What the fuck?! I never once claimed nor implied transphobic intentions in my essay. I critiqued Littman’s research study and interpretations (and ROGD theory more generally). The word ‘transphobic’ (and its variants) doesn’t appear once in my essay.

In your earlier essay, you didn’t use the word “transphobic”, but you did use the words “anti-transgender” and “anti-trans”. You wrote, for instance “these ROGD proponents can conveniently claim they are not anti-trans”… Is there a major difference between the meanings of “transphobic” and “anti-trans” according to you? If so, what?

Imagine any other well established medical condition that affects children — perhaps it’s asthma, or autism, or diabetes, or insert-your-pet-condition-here. And imagine that I were to claim to have discovered a brand-new-type of that condition, one that has an entirely distinct cause (in fact, it is contagious!) and which likely requires an entirely different form of treatment.

Regarding diabetes, it is well established that there are several different forms of this condition, which do require different forms of treatment…

I’ve lived through cycles like this many times before — I’ve come to refer to it as the Dregerian narrative.

As your link confirms, “Dregerian narrative” refers to Alice D. Dreger — a bioethicist who has worked for open-minded discussion about how the medical profession has treated intersex children and conjoined twins, as well as about gender dysphoria.

I’d suggest right now we need more, not less, Dregerian thinking…

Colin Robinson

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