THE T R A N S G E N D E R L EVIATHA N AMERICAN PRINCIPLES PROJECT FOUNDATION 1 A NOTE FROM THE PRESIDENT Americans are inundated with information to prevent self-harm, or those surgeries around the transgenderism issue, but we and hormone treatments cause irreparable only get one side of the story. Unfortu- mental and physical harm — increasingly to nately, that version of the story is fiction children. Such a cut and dried topic requires – loaded with misinformation, falsehoods, extreme candor in debate. That’s exactly and even deliberate distortions. There have why we chose Pedro Gonzalez to author been many terrible medical experiments this report. Our goal with Transgender Le- in America, but none of them have had the viathan is to provide a consolidated analysis deadly and destructive combination of ide- and understanding of transgenderism with ology, politics, and profits propelling them the hope that Americans will do as they into the culture. Lobotomies had profits, have done time and time again in times of but no ideology or political movement cultural crises — to choose the good, to con- supporting the procedure. Eugenics had an tinue to advance human flourishing, and to ideology and a political movement, but no protect the dignity of the human person. profits that could be reinvested in lobbying We hope that by reading this report you for protective legislation. Transgenderism are moved to take action to secure justice has the winning trifecta, and it makes the for all those who are being exploited by ma- movement much more difficult to defeat, licious politics, a destructive ideology, and a despite its obvious harm to people and the ravenous market — parents, children, and lack of any legitimate science or data to all who suffer from gender dysphoria. back up its central tenets. For the Family, What makes this even more difficult is that it’s impossible to compromise between the opposing arguments. One side is right, and one side is horribly wrong. Either peo- ple who suffer from gender dysphoria need President, American Principles cosmetic surgeries and hormone treatments Project Foundation ABOUT THE AUTHOR PEDRO L. GONZALEZ Pedro L. Gonzalez is an associate editor at Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. His writing has appeared in The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, The Spectator, The National Interest, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of a Lincoln Fellowship from the Claremont Institute and a Haggerty-Richardson Fellowship from the Conservative Partnership Institute. 2 THE TRANSGENDER LEVIATHAN CONTENTS Introduction ...............................................4 Patient Zero ............................................. 6 Bad Medicine .........................................10 Big Medicine .......................................... 14 Coming for Your Kids ..........................20 The Politics of Transgenderism ........22 Social Contagion ..................................25 The Way Forward .................................28 AMERICAN PRINCIPLES PROJECT FOUNDATION 3 INTRODUCTION “Drive Nature off with a pitchfork, she’ll still press back, And secretly burst in triumph through your sad disdain.” —Horace In our time, the so-called “affirmative care” mental illness,” and replaced with “gender model toward young people confused dysphoria.” The former described a pathol- about their gender has dominated the ogy—something unacceptable to diversity intellectual, moral, and cultural climate. and inclusion commissars—while the latter Heterodox perspectives on transgenderism is more benign and “refers to the distress invite scathing attacks imbued with religious that may accompany the incongruence fervor that, even if well-meant, impede con- between one’s experienced or expressed structive debate over the consequences of gender and one’s assigned gender.”1 The transition therapy pushed on younger and DSM-5 also noted that adult gender dys- younger Americans. Indeed, the model itself phoria occurred at a rare rate of 2 to 14 in is hardly ever interrogated and instead, the 100,000.2 Last year, however, a study pub- discussion centers on to what degree we lished by the American Academy of Pediat- should affirm and intervene as we attempt rics suggested that the rate of transgender to keep up with demand, which has grown identification among America’s youth may exponentially over the last decade. now be as high as 9 in 100.3 Further still, In 2013, “gender identity disorder” an analysis published in June 2022 by the was dropped from the fifth edition of the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental using federal data found that nearly one in Disorders (DSM-5), considered by many five people ages 13 to 17 identify as trans- “U.S. psychiatry’s bible for diagnosing gender today.4 In terms of national and re- 4 THE TRANSGENDER LEVIATHAN gional distribution, the highest percentage unprecedented relative to the size of the of youth who identify as transgender are in group it claims to represent. The amount the Northeast, with the lowest percentage of money moving through corporations, in the Midwest. The top five states with the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), po- greatest number of youth in this category litical action committees (PACs), and govern- are California (49,100), New York (34,800), ments is staggering; the number of powerful Texas (29,800), Florida (16,200), and Illinois individuals involved is myriad and includes (13,700). While there is national variation, Republicans and Democrats. It would be this is happening all over the United States. impossible to exhaustively list all the vari- But the pendulum has begun to swing ous entities involved in such a small space. in the opposite direction. Public exposure Instead, this report highlights and provides to transgender ideology and its advocates, background on key individuals, institutions, particularly those in the education system and organizations so readers can inform promoting radical ideas about sex and gen- themselves on how we arrived at this point, der to children, often deliberately without where it might lead next, and why we must parental consent or knowledge, has led to fight back. There are generally two motives increased public skepticism and outright driving the normalization of transgenderism: anger. The attempts to indoctrinate children ideology and interest, or those who are true have personalized the issue for millions of believers and those who merely see trans- Americans in a way that few issues do. genderism as an avenue for increased profit This report is a broad but concise over- and power. The result, however, is the same: view of the issue based on five Ws and a society that lives by lies, the undermining one H: who, what, when, where, why, and of the family, and a radical reimagining of how. The sheer immensity of what I call the the relationship between the individual and “transgender leviathan” is, in some ways, their body and the citizen and state. AMERICAN PRINCIPLES PROJECT FOUNDATION 5 PATIENT ZERO Dr. John Money Janet Reimer and her twin sons, Bruce and David. To understand how we got here, it is made his bones researching intersexual helpful to revisit the “John/Joan” case, an conditions, he was mainly concerned with experiment by the influential psychologist proving a theory about humans: that the and sexologist John William Money. Its main primary factors behind psychosexual differ- subject, David Reimer, was a kind of patient entiation are environmental rather than bio- zero for transgender children. Many aspects logical—that nurture, not necessarily nature, of this story prefigured things all too familiar determines one’s identity in regard to one’s in our time: the media’s role in promulgating gender. “It was in his first published papers and popularizing radical ideas,5 the involve- at Johns Hopkins that Money generalized the ment of the state—Money received funding theory of psychosexual neutrality at birth from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from hermaphrodites to include all children, throughout his life—and the complicity of even those born without genital irregularity,” the medical establishment and healthcare wrote John Colapinto, who authored a book companies. about the story of David Reimer.6 Money An émigré New Zealand, Money received was nothing if not consistent with this idea. a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1952. By 1966, he Modern advocates of transgenderism, on had founded the Gender Identity Clinic at the other hand, simultaneously insist people Johns Hopkins University, where he would are simply “born this way” (nature) while de- conduct research on, among other things, manding that children must be “transitioned” sex reassignment, something that was still (nurture) at the slightest indicator of confu- considered taboo then. Though he wrote sion by any means necessary, as rapidly as a dissertation on hermaphroditism and possible. Gender is simultaneously a social 6 THE TRANSGENDER LEVIATHAN construct and an essential reality that de- In his book, Sexual mands absolute affirmation. Signatures, [Money] As noted by Colapinto, “Money’s reach and influence throughout the academic and wrote that “explicit scientific world would help to define  the scientific landscape for decades to come.”7 sexual pictures . . . can His followers went on to occupy top spots at and should be used leading universities, research institutes, and journals, while his theories became the cor- as part of a child’s nerstone of a whole medical field—pediat- ric endocrinology. He is even credited with sex education” . . . introducing the terms “gender identity”8 and “gender role.”9 Indeed, Money’s subversive influence over language was profound. He to conceal David’s identity. After a botched popularized “paraphilia,” meaning abnor- circumcision severely damaged his penis, mal or irregular (para) love or liking (philia), David’s parents brought him to Money at over “perversion,” because the former, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. The in Money’s view, was less stigmatizing.10 Reimers had become aware of Money’s “Sexual preference,” he argued, should ideas about gender through the media long replace “sexual orientation,” as it suggests before he saw their son. Money’s influence that these are less so matters of taste and stemmed not so much from clinical work choice than they are fixed and involuntary.11 but from his ability to promote his theories At a TEDx event in 2018, a medical student to a broader audience through his writing named Mirjam Heine delivered a talk, “Pe- and the media.15 When he first founded the dophilia Is a Natural Sexual Orientation,”12 controversial clinic at Johns Hopkins, Money wherein she cited the tenth revision of deliberately chose to issue a press release the International Statistical Classification through The New York Times alone, counting of Diseases and Related Health Problems on benign coverage from the prestigious (ICD-10) for the description of pedophilia newspaper to set the tone for the rest of as the “sexual preference for preadolescent the media.16 The plan worked. children.” ICD-10 placed pedophilia in the Upon meeting with the Reimers, Money category of paraphilias.13 The road to that quickly advocated David be “sex reassigned” point owed much to Money, who had also into a girl. Though Money and his colleagues claimed responsibility for the terminological at Johns Hopkins had performed sex reas- switch from “sexual deviation” to paraphilia signments on hermaphrodite children, a in the DSM-3.14 similar procedure had never been attempt- The case for which Money is best-known ed on a child born with normal genitals and involved two identical twin brothers: Brian nervous system.17 Desperate and badgered and David Reimer (born Bruce Peter Re- by Money to proceed (he accused the par- imer). Money called it the John/Joan case ents of “procrastinating” for taking time to AMERICAN PRINCIPLES PROJECT FOUNDATION 7 make up their minds), the Reimers ultimate- thromboembolism—blood clots—in a large ly agreed to move forward.18 At twenty-two cohort of Dutch transsexual subjects, which months old, Money’s team at Johns Hopkins may have been associated with the medica- Hospital removed David’s testicles and pe- tion.20 A follow-up report found “long-term nis. Rudimentary female genitals were con- ethinyl estradiol use was independently structed in their place using his remaining associated with a threefold increased risk scrotal skin. “A rolled piece of gauze covered of cardiovascular death.”21 It is no longer with telfa was then placed in the midline to recommended for feminizing hormone effect a midline furrow leaving constructed therapy today, but there are plenty of other labia majora on either side,” according to expensive poisons from which to choose. operating notes.19 Money strictly instructed Money believed that exposing children David’s parents to hide from him the fact to pornographic material was an appropri- that he was born a male—that he was the ate way to help form their “gender sche- subject of a radical experiment. Throughout mas,” as he called them. In his book, Sexual his adolescence, David was forced to wear Signatures, he wrote that “explicit sexual pic- girl’s clothing and encouraged to engage in tures . . . can and should be used as part female behavior under the name “Brenda.” of a child’s sex education” 22 by parents and He also received regular doses of ethinyl- teachers, prefiguring the gender ideologues estradiol, an estrogen medication. A Dutch of our time who stock the libraries of middle study reported a 20-fold increase of venous schools and high schools with books depict- David Reimer 8 THE TRANSGENDER LEVIATHAN ing underage queer sex.23 He subjected the the women’s movement, “which had been Reimer boys to this and far worse things arguing against a biological basis for sex during the John/Joan experiment. According differences for decades.”31 In reality, how- to Colapinto, Money forced the twin boys ever, Brenda was miserable and never took to perform sexual acts and inspect one to being a girl and struggled with severe another’s genitals during his regular vis- academic, emotional, and social difficulties. its.24 Brian recalled that Money introduced Money made no meaningful mention of this them, at the age of six, to “play at thrusting in his book, Man & Woman, Boy & Girl, to movements and copulation.”25 With Brenda which the John/Joan case was central and on all fours on his office sofa, Money would which, again, portrayed the experiment as make Brian come up behind on his knees a success.32 and place his crotch against Brenda’s but- At 15, Reimer learned that he had been tocks. He would also have Brenda lay down, born a boy and took the name David after legs spread, and instruct Brian to lie on top. the Biblical figure, whose stand against a On at least one occasion, Money “took a Po- giant reminded him of his own struggles. laroid photograph of them while they were He underwent treatment and therapy in an engaged in this part of the therapy,” wrote attempt to reverse what Money had done. Colapinto, citing Brian.26 Though he was David even married and adopted children. mild-mannered around the parents, if the But he struggled with trauma and depres- boys resisted his instructions, Money would sion for the rest of his life, and eventually become angry with them. Colapinto noted committed suicide in 2004, when he drove that when Brenda didn’t want to hear his into the parking lot of a grocery store and talk about “clitorises” and “penises,”27 Money shot himself in the head with a sawed-off snapped, as he also did when they refused shotgun. David Reimer died at the age of to inspect each other’s genitals.28 He called 38, two years after his brother Brian died the physical part of the therapy “sexual re- of an overdose of antidepressants. The hearsal play” and insisted it was critical for a truth of the Reimer story had come to light “healthy adult gender identity.”29 before their deaths, but Money publicly Money marketed the John/Joan case as a dismissed the criticism as conservative po- total success. It was praised as such in Time litical bias and a conspiracy against him. He magazine and the New York Times Book Re- enjoyed lifelong funding from the NIH. Not view, and it was cemented in textbooks rang- long before the twins died, the institute rec- ing from social sciences to pediatric urology ommended Money for a grant for a major and endocrinology.30  Money’s findings fit project: a classification and consolidation of the intellectual zeitgeist of the time, finding contemporary knowledge of paraphilias or enthusiastic support, as Colapinto wrote, in “perversions.”33 AMERICAN PRINCIPLES PROJECT FOUNDATION 9 BAD MEDICINE f oo r p o n Before the mid-1990s, medical transition ham’s ideologues, shockproof to external was still primarily reserved for adults. stimuli, are now in complete control of the The truth about the John/Joan case was medical establishment. revealed in 1997, thanks to the work of Mil- In 2009, The Journal of Clinical Endocri- ton Diamond, an academic critic of Money, nology & Metabolism, published by the in- and Colapinto’s journalism.34 But that didn’t fluential Endocrine Society, recommended stop the tide that brought us to where treating diagnosed “transsexual adoles- we are today. The medical establishment cents” with puberty blockers.37 “There was today proceeds with the same resistance an attitudinal shift to be able to say that The to reason and decency that characterized Endocrine Society supports this,” said Nor- Money’s approach. Diamond said that some man Spack, a pediatric endocrinologist at believed in the John/Joan case “almost as a Boston Children’s Hospital who helped au- religious entity,” and nothing would sway thor the study.38 Spack founded the Gender them of its success.35 No evidence could Management Service (GeMS) clinic, Ameri- ever be sufficiently damning to change ca’s first clinic for transgender children, in their minds, and damning evidence would 2007.39 Two years later, puberty blockers be severely qualified or suppressed. As the started becoming generally available in the political philosopher James Burnham wrote: United States, partly thanks to the Endocrine “An ideologue—one who thinks ideologi- Society’s endorsement.40 What followed cally—can’t lose. He can’t lose because his was the explosive growth of a new indus- answer, his interpretation and his attitude try. In 2007, GeMS was the only pediatric, have been determined in advance of the hospital-based clinic in the U.S. that offered particular experience or observation. They comprehensive assessment and medical are derived from the ideology, and not intervention to “transgender youth.”41 subject to the facts.”36 Unfortunately, Burn- Today, there are over 60 such clinics, ac- 10 THE TRANSGENDER LEVIATHAN