Helen Lewis, a staff writer at The Atlantic, has been no stranger to Trans rights criticism over the years. Although her Wikipedia page seems to portray her as an ally of Trans people, once you look into the dozens of pieces she has penned on Trans issues, her writing tells a vastly different story.
In a June 2025 article, she attempted to argue that her position was the middle ground between the Trump administration’s complete erasure of Trans people and that of “Transgender advocates.” She expressed that even though she has several concerns about “males who identify as women,” it doesn’t mean she believes they are “innately predatory or degenerate.” And yet, in the same article, she admits to supporting much of MAGA’s anti-Trans platform, including President Trump’s executive orders. Overall, her supposed calls for moderation on Trans issues come off as completely disingenuous.
And now in her most recent article, “The Tide Goes Out on Youth Gender Medicine,” she has once again decided to put her biases against Trans people — and faulty reasoning — on full display.
Dispelling myths
Not only is Lewis’s new article inaccurate regarding the facts but also, I believe, immensely harmful in its depiction of Transgender healthcare as somehow “shaky” and lacking evidence. She cites several biased sources of information to support her claims, including from the anti-Trans organization Our Duty, which believes that “sex is determined at fertilisation and is immutable — it cannot be changed.”
Her argument, like that of many who oppose what they see as “gender ideology,” is that confused children are being misled into believing they are Trans, and parents are being coerced by schools and the medical system to go along with it. In addition, all this newfangled “gender” stuff is not backed by scientific research, and is only peddled by the left-wing zealots who want children to engage in acts of “genital mutilation” that they will likely regret for the rest of their lives.
The reality is that Transgender, gender-nonconforming, and Intersex people have existed all throughout history, and more often than not, Trans people realize that something is different about themselves from a young age. Whether they are taught about the possibility of being Trans in a nonjudgmental environment — and that everything will be okay if they are — is an entirely different story. The findings of several medical studies suggest that Transgender surgery satisfaction rates are actually higher than for most other procedures, including hip replacements. And one of the main risk factors for predicting surgery regret was "poor support from the family.”
Lewis also cites a report that indicates that puberty blockers alone may not necessarily improve mental health outcomes, and suggests that some youth were put on a medical pathway too soon — after just one appointment. But when non-Trans youth are given the same kind of gender-affirming care, such as teenage girls who are prescribed estrogen therapy for polycystic ovary syndrome or boys with gynecomastia who get their breasts removed, there is no public outcry or doubt cast on these treatments’ safety and efficacy, precisely because they are used in a manner that aligns with the child’s gender assigned at birth.
Conclusion
But Lewis’s claims do make perfect sense if you come at it from a standpoint of: Transgender people are not a legitimate category of human beings, and it is neither possible nor advisable for somebody assigned male or female at birth to be recognized as a woman, man, or nonbinary, whether medically, legally, or socially.
Right now, it is an incredibly difficult and stigmatizing time to be a Trans person in the US. Every day there are more politicians, news outlets, public figures, and social media influencers who look to stoke the flames of manufactured outrage on culture-war issues around Trans people to get more clicks, views, and ad sponsorships. But what seems to ultimately inform Lewis and other opponents’ reasoning on Trans youth care is not logic or concern for children’s safety and well-being but rather an abject disgust for Transgender bodies as an irredeemable form of “genital mutilation.”
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