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In their letters, Susan and Marcus Evans, David Bell, and Roberto D’Angelo, Lisa Marchiano, and Shlomit Gorin, protest that my review “contributed to the shutting down of much-needed discussion and debate.” I certainly hope they are right. Debate about whether trans childhood exists needs to stop. Such debate is cruel and it is damaging. The sooner we stop entertaining a multiplicity of opinions as to whether trans childhood is of “delusional intensity,” the closer we will be to ending the conversion practices Gender Dysphoria licenses, if not models—and the closer we will be to exploring how to work with trans children rather than against them. Lest “conversion therapy” sounds excessive, ask yourselves this: if, as the Evanses advocate, we see childhood transness as an epidemic in need of explanation, containment, and treatment, what will stop us from seeing trans adults as grown-ups who didn’t get “good” (i.e., gender-corrective) therapy? It’s not hard to see where the Evanses’s and Bell’s positions lead: to the eradication of transness overall.
The Evanses dedicate their letter to protesting the Journal’s choice of me as reviewer and the title of my essay. My position, they write, demonstrates “significant bias” because I am “unable to hold…complexities.” But my saying that there is nothing psychoanalytic about conversion therapy is neither an idiosyncratic nor a fringe position: it is literally the position adopted by the IPA itself. “Psychoanalytic technique,” the IPA’s position statement reads, “does not encompass purposeful attempts to convert or change an individual’s sexual
orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”1 Notably, the Evanses’ focus on me also allows them to sidestep all the points I raise. For two authors who keep emphasizing their wish for genuine conversation, this is certainly a missed opportunity. And their concern that the Journal has not given them a “critically balanced” review should also give us pause: do journals owe “crit