Something About Mary
Lessons from an X/Twitter Ratio
The response on the X / Twitter platform to a post by a Manitoba hospital during Transgender Awareness Week has some important lessons on the state of public understanding of gender medicine and children.
The post by the Children’s Hospital Foundation of Manitoba tells the story of Mary. It reads:
Mary is a 10-year-old, who just wants to feel like a “real girl,” in her body and thanks to her family's unwavering love and support, together they are on a gender-affirming path to make her feel more authentically herself.
A link to and article on the foundation website tells us that Mary is “a dancer and musician, expressing herself through the beauty of movement and sound” and lives in a “world painted in shades of magenta.” According to the article,
Mary thinks she was about seven years old when she began to articulate feelings of longing to be a “real girl.” Femininity – dresses, rainbows, and girl roles in games and on screen in Disney movies – felt like the only areas that truly aligned with her identity.
The article goes on to described the “support” Mary is receiving through the HSC Children’s Hospital and the GDAAY program.
The post was promptly “ratioed.” In the world of social media a post is ratioed when the negative responses greatly outnumber the positive ones. The are different ways of calculating a ratio but one common one is to add the number of likes and re-posts (which usually indicate support) and compare them to comments and quotes (which are often critical). After 48 hours the ratio on the post was 5,108 comments, 764 quotes, 102 re-posts and 157 likes, which works out to a ratio of 22.6:1. On X/ Twitter, a ratio of more than 2:1 is considered not good, 10:1 is a major problem and more than 20:1 is off the charts disaster.
Another way of determining a ratio is to compare the likes and comments on responses to the original post. Here the story is just as bad. A response by @palladianblue, who has only 3,496 followers while the Foundation has 4,472, received over 1400 likes, 10 comments (all supportive), 3 quotes (all supportive) and 124 reposts.
The Foundation briefly turned off replies on the post when the number of replies reached 1500 but then turned then back on. It may be that their media staff realized that Twitter what happens on Twitter will have very little immediate impact on the Foundation’s work. Social media platforms have a tendency to sort into echo chambers. Particularly since Elon Musk took over, X / Twitter has become a platform of choice for critics of gender ideology. Critics of gender medicine saw the comments and quotes by other critics of gender medicine and momentum built worldwide. A single large account can have a disproportionate impact. A one-word comment by @ZubyMusic got 4000 likes.
However, the Foundation depends for its support on the local media, local donors, the provincial and federal governments and large Canadian companies. Most of these people neither know nor care what sort of response the post received on X / Twitter.
They should care, though. The affirming model the hospital supports is being rejected around the world. In the United States, the leading proponents of gender affirming care are now facing multiple negligence cases. At least one claim has started in Canada.
One of the grounds for these claims is that children and adolescents are not able to give meaningful informed consent to treatments that may leave them sterile and have other long term health consequences. A paragraph from the article, shows the problem with heartbreaking clarity.
Despite the challenges, Mary envisions a future aligned with her true self. She dreams of a world where her body reflects her identity, eagerly anticipating the day her doctors allow her to take hormones that will aid her transition. Even at age 10, the prospect of a future boyfriend worries her, wondering if or at what phase of dating she’ll need to disclose her journey. And she worries, a little, about never having a baby – but says her plans to be a famous actress won’t allow time to be a mom anyway.
Mary is just 10. The fact that he (I refuse to participate in misleading a child) is even thinking about a future boyfriend at this age is worrying. His parents should be thinking ahead about his dating prospects, which will be severely limited after transition. Straight men, the kind you would want your daughter to bring home, usually want to have children with their partner. There are also gay men who want a committed, loving relationship but they are attracted to someone with an undamaged male body. That leaves a small pool of men who seek out transwomen for an exotic sexual experience. This is the painful reality that Jazz Jennings is facing. Mary may not care because the combination of cross-sex hormones and surgery may leave him without sexual response.
Mary dreams about being a famous actress. So do thousands of 10 year olds but 9,999 out of 10,000 won’t make it. Parents should encourage children to cherish their dreams but they also have to prepare them for reality and protect them from choices that could lead to a lifetime of regret.
The whole article reeks of the sexist stereotypes that underlie gender ideology. Why has nobody explained to Mary that boys can sing, dance and wear magenta too? If Mary is really serious about a career as a performer someone should be thinking about how it may be impacted by transition.
As a dancer, Mary will still have male bone structure and will therefore lack the flexibility of a female. Meanwhile, lack of testosterone will prevent him form developing the muscles needed for the leaps and lifts expected of a male dancer. Then there is the risk that suppression of puberty will interfere with bone development and leave Mary at risk of early onset osteoporosis.
The effect of transition on a singing voice is another question mark. It is hard to say how suppression of puberty and cross sex hormones will affect the development of a boy’s voice, but the horrifying history of the castrati gives some indications. In the 17th and 18th century, thousands of boys, mostly from around Naples, were castrated prior to puberty to preserve their singing voices. A few developed voices of exceptional power and flexibility and enjoyed glittering international careers. Many more died during surgery or ended up as servants or doorkeepers in brothels.
Part of the tragedy of the story is that if Mary had not been affirmed, his cross gender identification would likely have desisted with the onset of puberty. Studies done before the affirming care model took over found that between 60 and 90 percent of gender non-conforming children accepted their sex during puberty, with the majority turning out to be lesbians or gays. Many of the angry responses to the post came from lesbians or gays who see affirming care as an insidious new form of conversion therapy.
It's hard to say what the future holds for Mary but he, like all children, deserves medial care based on sound science rather than ideology.
"Mary" or any other boy/male will never know if he eventually feels like a real girl because someone with a male body can have no idea what it feels like to have a female body. We know from adult males with the sexual fetish of autogynephillia that they make assumptions about "what a woman feels" and what a woman is "supposed to" enjoy feeling like, most notably that women enjoy being passive, receptive sex objects for dominant males, and even like to be humiliated. A young boy with no experience with sexual arousal would not think in these terms. When a boy says he believes that he is "really" a girl, he needs to be asked exactly what makes him think that he is a girl? His preference for girls' clothing? The toys girls tend to play with? Does he think that he will enjoy having breasts or having babies as women do? Does he want to be a stay-at-home parent as his mother might be, rather than a go-to-work father? ?????
Great article. You are correct in the things you say, and Canada as a country will eventually catch up to reality and honesty, but not before more children are harmed. Sadly.