I really, really hope the book finds a wide audience, Shannon. The way you tell your story (I’ve only heard the podcast but I’m sure it’s true of the book too) is nonjudgmental and full of love and empathy for Jamie. I think those things are prerequisites for being “heard” by well meaning people who want to help rather than hurt the Jamies of the world -- you’re describing a very real problem that society hasn’t seemed quite to identify yet, much less figure out how to address -- we don’t yet know how to help people whose gender / kinks become like an obsession or addiction and cause them nothing but misery, even as they sacrifice everything else that made them happy and well-rounded people. People who fall into this trap need help and not “affirmation” by all of society. They probably need something like a 12-step program where they stay “sober” from whatever triggers them -- message boards with certain content, certain types of porn, etc. and as with any other type of addiction, the person needs to want help first. You’re doing such important work in sharing your story. I wish you all the best.
This was so powerful and beautifully written, Erin. I especially liked this line: “a warped mirror into which Jamie gazed, seeing not the whole person that she was, but instead only her constituent parts.” Those who truly love us see our whole selves. These online communities are committing the Kantian sin of valuing only those parts of us that they can exploit. They are using people as a means to an end--as fodder for their ideology. Thank you for writing this review.
Thank you Mari! Yes that's another point that's so important: an ideologue has an agenda, and the difficulty we all sometimes have in identifying ideology is contributing to poor discourse and even worse individual mental/physical outcomes.
You took the words right out of my mouth. Beautifully written and incredibly compassionate.
This also jumped out at me: “As humanity enters a new normal—having access to millions of other minds, via the internet—we are struggling to stay whole, incarnate.”
This is so perceptive and just spot on. We are not used to having to sift through so many POVs all the time. It's a very new phenomenon. No wonder there is a POV war going on. That which remained hidden before is now being revealed and it can be shocking to discover how many other actual POVs there are in the world that don't align with your own. It can feel threatening.
The challenge becomes: who can we trust? Who are the true experts and who are the poseurs seeking power? Developing discernment is paramount, particularly for the young, who are still figuring out who they are and who are easily influenced.
I really like this book review and now I’d like to read the book. I, too, had heard Shannon on the Gender: A Wider Lens podcast and was really impressed with her-- and felt terrible for what she’d been through.
Here’s a question -- and this is not at all being asked in a confrontational way, but a sincerely curious way.
Why do you refer to Jamie as “she”?
On the podcast, Shannon referred to him as “he.” He’s clearly not a person who was in any way made happier by his gender transition and going along with his pronouns feels almost cruel to me.
I certainly don’t think _you_ are being cruel. I’m just saying _I_ would feel cruel to go along with a deeply mentally ill person’s ideas that make him feel worse.
To me it would be like agreeing with a person with anorexia that she’s too fat. Or agreeing with a paranoid person that the CIA really IS coming for him. That might be what they really believe, what they truly want to hear from us, but it seems cruel to agree.
So I’m just genuinely curious what your feeling is re the “she” for this very unhappy guy, whose best chance at happiness might indeed be relinquishing his addiction to / obsession with gender and coming back to reality and the rest of his interests and his life.
I personally find the pronouns thing overblown. In speaking life, it's easy to avoid using pronouns at all. I use "she" 1) simply for ease of writing and 2) because Jamie has gone to great lengths to present as a woman, and not using she/her is in this case needlessly inflammatory. If Jamie was a person in my real life for whom my input was crucial, it'd be a different story, especially if Jamie were a child.
I think that for adults who are perhaps close loved ones, that's not the hill to die on, because it shuts down communication. For activists, it's a bugaboo used as "evidence" of transphobia.
Disinvestment of intense meaning from some keywords is important. The words "he" and "she" signify something, but they do not create it (which the post- theorists believe). I can call Jamie "she" and still adhere to the truth that Jamie is and always will be male. a person could call me he/him all day long and I remain unharmed; that's important to establish: words are not harm.
I agree someone could call me he/him all day and I wouldn’t care because it’s just not that important to me personally. Likewise “Fatty.”
Just... something makes me hesitate to call a gender-sick / porn-sick unhappy man “she” (or call an anorexic Fatty -- even if she put a lot of work into her illness and wants validation and agreement -- or hand an alcoholic a bottle of alcohol), when that’s part of what’s making them sick.
Calling him “she” would almost seem like I was adding another obstacle in the path of his return to reality and health. If he were happy and fulfilled, I’d have no problem calling him “she.” I’ll call Blaire White “she” all day long because she’s thriving. I’ll tell a non-anorexic friend whether her outfit makes her butt look fat (if she asks), but that would be harmful to an anorexic friend (even though it’s just words). I’ll get drunk with non-alcoholic friends but not alcoholic friends. I won’t drink at all in front of some people. Just...context I guess.
I agree words are not violence, & I agree too much is made of mere words. We probably agree on 98% of this. But sometimes words matter more than others. Sometimes I think the words we choose might contribute to a specific person’s harm. Calling a gender-sick man “she” really sticks in my throat --and it’s not a political reason, although I have political feelings about preserving women’s spaces etc. It’s an “I don’t want to promote his illness” reason.
Anyway... I was interested to hear your perspective; thanks! :)
Hope you guys don't mind me chiming in, as it's interesting and important (not to mention these debates also have ripple effects for all other kinds of politics). I think with gender pronouns there's a few different things in the mix, which I personally find helpful to think of almost like different axes to consider. One is the metaphysical question of what someone's gender "really" is, and the extent to which it can be socially constructed, and how seriously we should take this identity as real even if there's other unhealthy stuff going on. Then there's the question of how it affects them mentally and emotionally if others misgender them, or don't take their identity seriously, or push back against their chosen pronouns, and what others' responsibility is to defer to their feelings and wishes. I.e., the relational piece: what they might call respect and dignity, what others might call unrealistic expectations or pushing agendas. Finally, what is the cost to others and society to make this extra effort (of using the person's requested pronouns, taking the whole thing seriously); how reasonable or unreasonable is it, does it lead to other slippery slopes?
And as you pointed out, for this last question you can also pose the equal and opposite question of what it might potentially cost that transgender individual if others are taking their demands *more* seriously than they should be taken.
But then this raises a fourth issue: do we risk paternalism in presuming to know what gender is "healthiest" for someone navigating that kind of complex experience we can't fully understand, and taking it upon ourselves to only respond in ways we deem to be good for them? This is the part that would make me most uncomfortable with your suggested logic. The anorexia parallel doesn't hold up because that's inherently pathological; there is literally no way to support someone's anorexia without supporting their illness. But there are many transgender people who are genuinely better off for having made that change (even to the point of saving their life); can we know for sure that Jamie is better off male, just because her becoming female was accompanied by lots of other pathology?
What I hear from Erin's pragmatic take is mostly Issue 3: it just isn't difficult or onerous enough deferring to someone's chosen pronouns to make it worth fighting over, unless there were truly good reason to believe this is doing active harm. This is the way I feel: it's basically an issue of "why *not*? If there's not a strong reason for not, then to simply refuse on principle would feel petty, maybe even cruel if this brings them pain. Of course, this also means that if we mess up or make an honest mistake, it's not reasonable or fair to get dragged for it. It's not fair to expect walking on eggshells, or the ability to literally see them as metaphysically different; the best I can do is treat someone as the gender they wish, and make a minimum good-faith effort to *try* to see them that way even when this inevitably fails. But as a general rule, like so many other gestures of politeness - why not?
My other reason for taking the pronoun thing seriously (even if I don't relate) is that while words don't substitute for reality and too much tends to be made of them, they aren't completely divorced from it either. As you yourself said, sometimes words matter more than others, and this means they can really wound; not the words themselves but the larger context or personal history they bring forth. From knowing a bunch of different friends who have been through this experience over the years and hearing their descriptions, I have come to appreciate that being misgendered really does cut some people very deeply; it's been likened to receiving an electric shock or being kicked in the stomach, by others to being suddenly slapped for no reason, by others to being suddenly plunked back in their old body. That doesn't mean you've actually slapped or kicked somebody just because they feel that way. But it does mean misgendering them has induced some temporary distress, so to the extent that we care about that, it matters.
None of this is meant to criticize by the way; it's great to wrestle with these questions and if you're bringing them up, that means there's a hundred thousand other people pretending not to have them.
I really appreciate your thoughts. Re “the anorexia parallel doesn't hold up because that's inherently pathological; there is literally no way to support someone's anorexia without supporting their illness. But there are many transgender people who are genuinely better off for having made that change (even to the point of saving their life); can we know for sure that Jamie is better off male...?”
I suggest listening to the podcast (or reading the book when it comes out) and then asking yourself the same question again. Shannon comes across as a reliable and compassionate narrator, and Jamie, as she describes him, is someone in the throes of life-destroying pathology.
No, “not all trans people” are in the throes of life-destroying pathology. But there are many varied conditions -- from gender non-conforming kids who want to dress differently, to porn-sick gender obsessives with an out-of-control fetish who give up everything else in their lives, and lots of people in between --that we’ve lumped all together under “being trans” and this naturally confuses anyone who wants to think analytically and compassionately about this.
Not everyone who limits their food intake and worries about being fat is anorexic either. Limiting food intake has many causes. Some are healthy and some are not.
I think many good, kind, well-intentioned people today are operating under the assumption that “being trans” is _one_ (very concrete) thing, instead of a multifaceted cultural creation. At the risk of shilling for my own substack (sorry Erin) see “Trans Is Something We Made Up.”
“Being trans” in the 21st century West is a set of culturally created beliefs, sometimes accompanied by cosmetic procedures, which make some people happier and some people unhappier. “Being trans” is not a medical condition. It is not a brain-body mismatch.
It’s a set of beliefs and behaviors which (like limiting food intake) can sometimes be healthy and sometimes be life-destroying.
You support the overweight friend on a healthy diet in limiting his food intake. You don’t support the friend with anorexia the same way. You support the gender nonconforming kid in expressing her true self because you see it makes her happier. You don’t support the friend who is miserable in the throes of porn-addled gender obsession --who has given up every other aspect of his life, every other pursuit, relationship, hobby and interest--in the same way.
I'm way, WAY late on this thread. But i just finished-and loved-the book. My perspective is that there are major clues that James has some serious problems long before Jamie enters the picture. I'm thinking here of the poster full of self hatred, along with Jamie's descriptions of his/her internal experiences in the past. Now, of course, no one's memory is terribly accurate. But i don't think Jamie's descriptions of long term distress should be so easily dismissed just because it wasn't apparent on the outside (at least according to Shannon's own interpretation and memory). How often do we learn of a suicide death, or someone needing rehab, and think "wow, I had no idea"?
While i greatly respect that Shannon doesn't attempt to tell Jamie's own story, i think perhaps it's easy to gloss over what i feel is a very important piece of the book: the brief paragraph near the end when Shannon begins to see Jamie's irrationality as manifestations of psychosis. From Shannon's perspective, at least, it is clear throughout but especially there that both Jamie and James have much, much bigger problems than a gender crisis. There seems to have been a crisis of identity and pathologically low self esteem, possibly manifestations of a personality disorder, in James for many years prior to gender ever entering the picture. (This is also illustrated in the description of James' denial over his mother's death.) there is also obviously some severe depression happening right around the time Jamie really begins taking control. The gender identity issues seem to have become central to the story more because Jamie latched on to them to make sense of-and unsuccessfully attempt to resolve-some severe mental health issues. But the gender identity itself wasn't necessarily "the problem" or the reason for Jamie's irrational, immature, narcissistic, desperate behavior.
That's just my opinion, anyway. I tend to agree with Chris that the pronoun issue is overblown and unnecessarily inflammatory in many cases. I also feel it's not necessarily productive for strangers to try to impose some form of "tough love" or reality testing onto others (I'm not sure it's generally productive in families and friend groups either but that depends on how it's done and the individual involved). Telling an anorexic person that they are beautiful, thin, not fat, unhealthily skinny, etc does nothing to help and actually can often be just as damaging and encourage the disorder as calling them fat. Helping them overcome their delusional perspective is a delicate task and is not the job of every person who crosses their path. It won't be helpful and may be harmful. I kind of feel the same way with pronouns. Behavior like Jamie displays does show may traits of personality disorder. One of those is borderline, which is theorized to begin and worsen in part due to long term, frequent invalidation of the person's thoughts, emotions, and identity. A stranger or casual acquintance refusing to use chosen pronouns seems like it would be experienced as more invalidation of the person's perspective, which just makes the underlying emotional and identity difficulties worse, which is likely to make the gender dysphoria worse.
I'm not trying to accuse anybody here because it's controversial and a difficult issue. This is just my perspective that, after reading the book, I'm still more inclined to agree with Chris.
Definitely, I've been posting a little blind here not having actually read the book or podcast. I intended those thoughts as more general principles that could also apply to Jamie, but I can see how in certain situations the calculus might change. Thanks, I will check out the blog post!
And I totally agree about the sheer degree of heterogeneity and how this is so often collapsed into a monolithic category (like for so many other things in the world). That's one reason I was intrigued by my friend's theory about different clusters of reasons and motives (including possibly, hormonal drivers in some cases).
I'll be the first to say it. Great article. I'll be sending it to a dear friend who's going through the exact some issue with a family member. Maybe the book can help them too.
I'll say this. I'm a lifelong progressive. But I'd be lying if I said that this new movement does't just seem a bit off. I'm PRO trans rights, as I'm sure you are. But there's elements of the extreme wing of this movement that either don't have people's best interest at heart, or they just don't realize how tricky and dangerous it all is.
No easy answers. Thanks for boldly writing about it.
Barney, yes I am also what used to count as a progressive lol. I have several trans people in my life, including several of my son's friends. I have only love and support for them. What I don't want is for people struggling with various mental and emotional health issues to go down a path of medical hardship that may be wholly unnecessary, for one thing. It's not good for struggling people, it's not good for trans people, and the *ideology* can be hell for relationships, as ANY extreme of ANY ideology can be.
I'm with you. With my friend it's his kid. Like us, a life long Democrat. I'd even call him more "woke" than me. Kid is 22 so there's not much to be done. But he said it's much harder than he thought it would be. And that his kid makes it difficult even when he & his wife are being as inclusive as possible. The rules keep changing. The language keeps changing. Every situation feels like a trap where their kid can accuse them of not being an "ally". Like most modern day "movements" I think this will settle down. All things indeed pass. But it's a bit insane out there at the moment. Thanks for speaking up! More of us progressives have too. Right wingers will indeed take advantage, but I make it clear I'm not on their side either.
I also support enshrining these into federal law (rather than just relying on SCOTUS precedent).
But that's it. I do not support any supposed "right" of a male who identifies as a female to female-only spaces, places, and events (and vice versa ). I fully support the right of such spaces, places, and events to exist, and to exclude males, even if they identify as female (and vice versa).
I'm pretty much the same. Although I think the the bathroom thing is overblown by conservatives. If there's sexual preditors of any gender in your establishment you've got bigger problems. But the idea that people born male should be allowed in women's sports is kind of ridiculous. Some sports can be gender neutral. But most competitive sports simply can't be if men are allowed in them.
Nice review! It sounds like a valuable book. And I don't know if you coined the term "online-ward" yourself, but you should patent it because it's both a brilliant concept and a nifty turn of phrase (though I guess the ableist connotations would stand out if you emphasize that part).
At several points you emphasize the limits and perils of language when navigating this kind of situation, including the closing "make them mean something better" which I loved because you don't just stop at blanket critique. Something you seem to be trying to reconcile throughout the review - and which Shannon and Jamie clearly grapple with - is the gap between the embodied reality of not feeling at home in your gender identity and wanting to reinvent it. and the verbal gymnastics and politics involved in having that new identity be socially and relationally real. If your partner still loves you for who you presently are, yet this comes by way of who you once were, than you have to decide what it means to be loved and to love.
I find myself wondering how much this would play out differently without the online factor figuring so strongly. Does it end up primarily being a commentary on the toxicity of online identity cultures, or is it still about the inherent challenges of transition in the context of relationships? Anorexia is an interesting alternate case study, though I think there are limits to how well this analogy carries over. There does seem to be something unique about gender and how identity (or its reconstruction) functions in that space, whose cultural resonances go so far beyond embodiment per se.
Thanks for this thoughtful comment. As far as I know, I coined "online-ward." You heard it here first, folks!
I think there's an important distinction to be made between gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia. Right now, at least according to WPATH, the two seem conflated. I think that's unhelpful. Feeling drawn to a different gender expression through clothing, activities, hairstyle, makeup or no makeup, etc. is gender dysphoria in my opinion, and I believe people should feel free to express themselves however they wish and feel comfortable. There are no "boy things" and "girl things."
Body dysmorphia, though, is an obsessive focus on perceived flaws. If you are transgender, or are looking at trans as a potential explanation for your other problems, that focus becomes specific to masculine/feminine secondary sex characteristics. You don't have to have boobs to wear a dress--plenty of females don't have large, shapely boobs. You don't have to have laser hair removal to wear makeup--plenty of females have varying levels of facial hair. Etc.
My self-confidence (in public), for instance, is boosted when I shower and blow-dry my hair and wear makeup and clothes that aren't sweats. But when I don't do those things, I don't obsess about how "wrong" my face is. As I said in another comment, the pronouns thing is odd to me, because pronouns do not create reality, just as gender expression does not create reality.
You're right that the anorexia analogy will only go so far, because they're very different issues (although, sometimes, not so different in an individual), but I use it as an example of body dysmorphia and how that's something very real, whereas words are just words.
I could always try to leak "online-ward" on Twitter and credit you authorship - even though you'd get hammered for stigmatizing mental illness and be reviled by the majority of the trans community after they check out your blog and immediately misinterpret your book review, you'd have ten thousand followers for life and you could start charging $10 a head for subscribers so you'd never have to work again.
That's a really helpful distinction between gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia, which I think is easily glossed over and would probably enrich many of these debates. That said, I wonder whether there's sort of third category of body *dysphoria*? Meaning, not a focus on how your body looks or outward flaws, but how it feels internally and subjectively from a physiological standpoint. Anorexia can be like this, too.
An old friend who transitioned recently (and went through a messy divorce over it), was telling me about their theory that a subset of people who want to transition are dealing more directly with identity issues wrapped up in cultural, social and political meanings and sometimes, psychological baggage; while there's another distinct cluster (which she believes is highly represented by people on the autistic spectrum), where there's a huge biological component: their hormones literally don't match which fueled their identity not matching, and as soon as they wake up to this and get the opposite hormones, they just feel better and more like themselves, and tend to also prefer being that opposite gender. I have no idea how accurate this is, but she speaks from experience including a bunch of support groups, and I found it compelling.
BTW, I also wanted to comment on 21st Century Salonniere's question below, but then had second thoughts about crashing that conversation (I always feel guilty and embarrassed posting more than once). If you think it wouldn't be annoying to add more I can post it there, no need to respond.
Also, and good faith readers will have picked up on this: I do not have a problem with trans people. If you are healthy (healthier?) and happier, then more power to you. I know some trans people who seem great. The recent spike in trans identification, though, seems fishy to me, that maybe some people are misdiagnosing themselves.
Your general support came through loud and clear in the OP, at least to me. I hope the last comment didn't imply otherwise. I shared the anecdote about my friend in part because it's an interesting theory, and would explain a lot about the conflicting impressions people get about some of this stuff. My guess is there is some contagion and suggestibility going on as well (and possibly, lowering of the threshold), but aside from a handful of people I've been friends with I'm just not close enough to any of this to feel qualified reliably picking out examples from a distance.
Thanks for sharing. Wow, that sounds so painful for Thrace and Jamie. I do question the narrative of "support is the only option" in these cases, though I understand the reasoning behind it. But it doesn't seem like support actually helps that much.
In this case, the evolution happened in phases. And when Shannon expressed that her support could not include devaluing certain aspects of Jamie’s body or that appearing to be a woman doesn’t make you one in every way, Jamie wouldn’t accept it.
Some people won’t like this comparison, but another form of body dysmorphia, anorexia, does not get treated with support and affirmation. Changing how you dress and present yourself to the world is a thing; despising your body is a different thing. A woman getting reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy is substantively different than a woman whose boyfriend is paying for a boob job.
Very solid thoughts, and the connection with other dysmorphias - both anorexia and plastic surgery - has been in my thoughts and heart in the past several years.
Ian, yes -- in the last few years, we’ve been told that unquestioning support and affirmation is the only right response.
One size fits all.
But it’s so much more complicated than that, isn’t it.
Unlike, say, being gay or lesbian, which is very simple -- people are same-sex attracted, they don’t need any drugs or surgeries, they don’t need any “affirmation,” they just need to be left alone to live their lives -- people develop a desire to transition for _many_ different reasons.
“Being trans” is not one simple thing like “being gay” is.
Some “trans” people were very feminine boys or masculine girls who from early childhood wished they were the opposite sex. These are probably the people who most well-meaning people think of when they think of “trans.” The OG trans people.
Some are teen girls who were never particularly masculine but who became acutely uncomfortable with their changing bodies and/or society’s sexualization of them.
Some are quirky kids who never quite fit in, and they read online that transition might “explain everything” and give them an accepting community to be part of.
Some are grown men who develop a fetish around imagining themselves as women.
The list goes on and on. Kids with autism, kids with personality disorders, kids with a history of sexual abuse.
In Jamie’s case (going by the podcast -- I haven’t read the book, but I will!) it definitely seems like an unhealthy porn-fueled obsession / addiction which has harmed rather than enhanced his life.
How can any caring person continue to offer unquestioning support to a loved one’s self-harm, once it’s crossed the line like Jamie’s clearly did?
We’ve been sold an oversimplified narrative when it comes to gender. It hurts people.
Thanks for the information! That is very helpful in expanding understanding on what drives a lot of what is going on now. And sounds like we have yet another reason to be careful about porn.
Can you say a little more about what Shannon herself considered to be "The Problem"? You are persuasive in making the case that the villain is the "ideological community... a funhouse of distress...a society of mutual self-destruction," but to specify these things is to beg the question: what did these structures do to Jamie and, by extension, the marriage? Was it Jamie's depression? Her escalating insecurity? The collapse of purpose and, say, "outwardness," for lack of a better word?
I appreciate that Shannon maintained her love, openness and support for her husband as he went through all of this. I really do believe her assertion that it was not the unconventional gender representation itself which destroyed her marriage to Jamie. But again, it isn't clear what changed, unless the story is really about Jamie's mental breakdown, which just happened to occur in the forms and vocabulary of this strange journey our culture has undertaken in dealing with gender expression. Is this a book about mental illness? Or about the trans experience? Or is that question itself too either/or?
I don’t want to give too much away from the book, because it is deep and beautifully articulated. I think it’s all of the above. Jamie seemed to have some (I have to say it) internalized homophobia regarding his same-sex attraction. Once “he” became “she,” and adopted the “I am LITERALLY a woman” ideology, she was never, ever going to be satisfied with how she existed in the world in a body that even when feminized is ultimately, in some unchangeable ways, male. (I’m talking, like, skeletal anatomy.)
Shannon ultimately couldn’t continue the unquestioning support of an endeavor that wasn’t merely changing her spouse’s appearance, but entire worldview—one that requires some level of dishonesty or at least pretending, AND was observably making her spouse emotionally unstable and even suicidal.
I imagine it’s not unlike being married to someone who becomes a religious fundamentalist. You can try and try and be supportive, but if they want you yourself to profess unquestioning belief, sometimes that’s just not a road you can follow someone down.
I’ll need to check out that podcast. Truly, Shannon’s openness and compassion is beautiful. It’s very sad when one learns that openness and compassion are not always enough to help the ones we love.
One element that I think is often overlooked (and it’s hard to point this out without sounding like “PMS bitches be crazy”), is that trans women who are early in the transition process are on an insane amount of estrogen. Remember what it was like being 10-14? I’d expect their emotional rollercoaster to be 10x that based on chemistry alone, much less the influence of online communities plus the political weight of “trans issues.” It would be very hard to be married to an adult who had the emotional volatility of a 13 year old girl.
This is true, and many trans people are on the record about how dramatically hormones can alter their moods and mental health. I'm not sure, though, that Jamie was ever on hormones while still married to Shannon. That was a point of contention between them throughout the book (Jamie waffled on whether or not to start hormones.)
Another issue I haven't touched on at all, because it's not part of the book, is that cross-sex hormone replacement therapy has very serious medical ramifications. We still don't fully understand how hormones work and interact in our bodies, and fiddling with them is highly experimental (though advocates will insist that it's not). I'm in an A&P class right now taught by an endocrinologist, and without ever having even glancingly touched on cross-sex hormones, he's been open about how incompletely understood our endocrine systems still are.
Thanks Erin!
May I add: 18 Months will be available on Amazon October 16.
I really, really hope the book finds a wide audience, Shannon. The way you tell your story (I’ve only heard the podcast but I’m sure it’s true of the book too) is nonjudgmental and full of love and empathy for Jamie. I think those things are prerequisites for being “heard” by well meaning people who want to help rather than hurt the Jamies of the world -- you’re describing a very real problem that society hasn’t seemed quite to identify yet, much less figure out how to address -- we don’t yet know how to help people whose gender / kinks become like an obsession or addiction and cause them nothing but misery, even as they sacrifice everything else that made them happy and well-rounded people. People who fall into this trap need help and not “affirmation” by all of society. They probably need something like a 12-step program where they stay “sober” from whatever triggers them -- message boards with certain content, certain types of porn, etc. and as with any other type of addiction, the person needs to want help first. You’re doing such important work in sharing your story. I wish you all the best.
You may and I'll add it to the article!
This was so powerful and beautifully written, Erin. I especially liked this line: “a warped mirror into which Jamie gazed, seeing not the whole person that she was, but instead only her constituent parts.” Those who truly love us see our whole selves. These online communities are committing the Kantian sin of valuing only those parts of us that they can exploit. They are using people as a means to an end--as fodder for their ideology. Thank you for writing this review.
Thank you Mari! Yes that's another point that's so important: an ideologue has an agenda, and the difficulty we all sometimes have in identifying ideology is contributing to poor discourse and even worse individual mental/physical outcomes.
You took the words right out of my mouth. Beautifully written and incredibly compassionate.
This also jumped out at me: “As humanity enters a new normal—having access to millions of other minds, via the internet—we are struggling to stay whole, incarnate.”
This is so perceptive and just spot on. We are not used to having to sift through so many POVs all the time. It's a very new phenomenon. No wonder there is a POV war going on. That which remained hidden before is now being revealed and it can be shocking to discover how many other actual POVs there are in the world that don't align with your own. It can feel threatening.
The challenge becomes: who can we trust? Who are the true experts and who are the poseurs seeking power? Developing discernment is paramount, particularly for the young, who are still figuring out who they are and who are easily influenced.
I really like this book review and now I’d like to read the book. I, too, had heard Shannon on the Gender: A Wider Lens podcast and was really impressed with her-- and felt terrible for what she’d been through.
Here’s a question -- and this is not at all being asked in a confrontational way, but a sincerely curious way.
Why do you refer to Jamie as “she”?
On the podcast, Shannon referred to him as “he.” He’s clearly not a person who was in any way made happier by his gender transition and going along with his pronouns feels almost cruel to me.
I certainly don’t think _you_ are being cruel. I’m just saying _I_ would feel cruel to go along with a deeply mentally ill person’s ideas that make him feel worse.
To me it would be like agreeing with a person with anorexia that she’s too fat. Or agreeing with a paranoid person that the CIA really IS coming for him. That might be what they really believe, what they truly want to hear from us, but it seems cruel to agree.
So I’m just genuinely curious what your feeling is re the “she” for this very unhappy guy, whose best chance at happiness might indeed be relinquishing his addiction to / obsession with gender and coming back to reality and the rest of his interests and his life.
I personally find the pronouns thing overblown. In speaking life, it's easy to avoid using pronouns at all. I use "she" 1) simply for ease of writing and 2) because Jamie has gone to great lengths to present as a woman, and not using she/her is in this case needlessly inflammatory. If Jamie was a person in my real life for whom my input was crucial, it'd be a different story, especially if Jamie were a child.
I think that for adults who are perhaps close loved ones, that's not the hill to die on, because it shuts down communication. For activists, it's a bugaboo used as "evidence" of transphobia.
Disinvestment of intense meaning from some keywords is important. The words "he" and "she" signify something, but they do not create it (which the post- theorists believe). I can call Jamie "she" and still adhere to the truth that Jamie is and always will be male. a person could call me he/him all day long and I remain unharmed; that's important to establish: words are not harm.
I agree someone could call me he/him all day and I wouldn’t care because it’s just not that important to me personally. Likewise “Fatty.”
Just... something makes me hesitate to call a gender-sick / porn-sick unhappy man “she” (or call an anorexic Fatty -- even if she put a lot of work into her illness and wants validation and agreement -- or hand an alcoholic a bottle of alcohol), when that’s part of what’s making them sick.
Calling him “she” would almost seem like I was adding another obstacle in the path of his return to reality and health. If he were happy and fulfilled, I’d have no problem calling him “she.” I’ll call Blaire White “she” all day long because she’s thriving. I’ll tell a non-anorexic friend whether her outfit makes her butt look fat (if she asks), but that would be harmful to an anorexic friend (even though it’s just words). I’ll get drunk with non-alcoholic friends but not alcoholic friends. I won’t drink at all in front of some people. Just...context I guess.
I agree words are not violence, & I agree too much is made of mere words. We probably agree on 98% of this. But sometimes words matter more than others. Sometimes I think the words we choose might contribute to a specific person’s harm. Calling a gender-sick man “she” really sticks in my throat --and it’s not a political reason, although I have political feelings about preserving women’s spaces etc. It’s an “I don’t want to promote his illness” reason.
Anyway... I was interested to hear your perspective; thanks! :)
Hope you guys don't mind me chiming in, as it's interesting and important (not to mention these debates also have ripple effects for all other kinds of politics). I think with gender pronouns there's a few different things in the mix, which I personally find helpful to think of almost like different axes to consider. One is the metaphysical question of what someone's gender "really" is, and the extent to which it can be socially constructed, and how seriously we should take this identity as real even if there's other unhealthy stuff going on. Then there's the question of how it affects them mentally and emotionally if others misgender them, or don't take their identity seriously, or push back against their chosen pronouns, and what others' responsibility is to defer to their feelings and wishes. I.e., the relational piece: what they might call respect and dignity, what others might call unrealistic expectations or pushing agendas. Finally, what is the cost to others and society to make this extra effort (of using the person's requested pronouns, taking the whole thing seriously); how reasonable or unreasonable is it, does it lead to other slippery slopes?
And as you pointed out, for this last question you can also pose the equal and opposite question of what it might potentially cost that transgender individual if others are taking their demands *more* seriously than they should be taken.
But then this raises a fourth issue: do we risk paternalism in presuming to know what gender is "healthiest" for someone navigating that kind of complex experience we can't fully understand, and taking it upon ourselves to only respond in ways we deem to be good for them? This is the part that would make me most uncomfortable with your suggested logic. The anorexia parallel doesn't hold up because that's inherently pathological; there is literally no way to support someone's anorexia without supporting their illness. But there are many transgender people who are genuinely better off for having made that change (even to the point of saving their life); can we know for sure that Jamie is better off male, just because her becoming female was accompanied by lots of other pathology?
What I hear from Erin's pragmatic take is mostly Issue 3: it just isn't difficult or onerous enough deferring to someone's chosen pronouns to make it worth fighting over, unless there were truly good reason to believe this is doing active harm. This is the way I feel: it's basically an issue of "why *not*? If there's not a strong reason for not, then to simply refuse on principle would feel petty, maybe even cruel if this brings them pain. Of course, this also means that if we mess up or make an honest mistake, it's not reasonable or fair to get dragged for it. It's not fair to expect walking on eggshells, or the ability to literally see them as metaphysically different; the best I can do is treat someone as the gender they wish, and make a minimum good-faith effort to *try* to see them that way even when this inevitably fails. But as a general rule, like so many other gestures of politeness - why not?
My other reason for taking the pronoun thing seriously (even if I don't relate) is that while words don't substitute for reality and too much tends to be made of them, they aren't completely divorced from it either. As you yourself said, sometimes words matter more than others, and this means they can really wound; not the words themselves but the larger context or personal history they bring forth. From knowing a bunch of different friends who have been through this experience over the years and hearing their descriptions, I have come to appreciate that being misgendered really does cut some people very deeply; it's been likened to receiving an electric shock or being kicked in the stomach, by others to being suddenly slapped for no reason, by others to being suddenly plunked back in their old body. That doesn't mean you've actually slapped or kicked somebody just because they feel that way. But it does mean misgendering them has induced some temporary distress, so to the extent that we care about that, it matters.
None of this is meant to criticize by the way; it's great to wrestle with these questions and if you're bringing them up, that means there's a hundred thousand other people pretending not to have them.
I really appreciate your thoughts. Re “the anorexia parallel doesn't hold up because that's inherently pathological; there is literally no way to support someone's anorexia without supporting their illness. But there are many transgender people who are genuinely better off for having made that change (even to the point of saving their life); can we know for sure that Jamie is better off male...?”
I suggest listening to the podcast (or reading the book when it comes out) and then asking yourself the same question again. Shannon comes across as a reliable and compassionate narrator, and Jamie, as she describes him, is someone in the throes of life-destroying pathology.
No, “not all trans people” are in the throes of life-destroying pathology. But there are many varied conditions -- from gender non-conforming kids who want to dress differently, to porn-sick gender obsessives with an out-of-control fetish who give up everything else in their lives, and lots of people in between --that we’ve lumped all together under “being trans” and this naturally confuses anyone who wants to think analytically and compassionately about this.
Not everyone who limits their food intake and worries about being fat is anorexic either. Limiting food intake has many causes. Some are healthy and some are not.
I think many good, kind, well-intentioned people today are operating under the assumption that “being trans” is _one_ (very concrete) thing, instead of a multifaceted cultural creation. At the risk of shilling for my own substack (sorry Erin) see “Trans Is Something We Made Up.”
“Being trans” in the 21st century West is a set of culturally created beliefs, sometimes accompanied by cosmetic procedures, which make some people happier and some people unhappier. “Being trans” is not a medical condition. It is not a brain-body mismatch.
It’s a set of beliefs and behaviors which (like limiting food intake) can sometimes be healthy and sometimes be life-destroying.
You support the overweight friend on a healthy diet in limiting his food intake. You don’t support the friend with anorexia the same way. You support the gender nonconforming kid in expressing her true self because you see it makes her happier. You don’t support the friend who is miserable in the throes of porn-addled gender obsession --who has given up every other aspect of his life, every other pursuit, relationship, hobby and interest--in the same way.
I'm way, WAY late on this thread. But i just finished-and loved-the book. My perspective is that there are major clues that James has some serious problems long before Jamie enters the picture. I'm thinking here of the poster full of self hatred, along with Jamie's descriptions of his/her internal experiences in the past. Now, of course, no one's memory is terribly accurate. But i don't think Jamie's descriptions of long term distress should be so easily dismissed just because it wasn't apparent on the outside (at least according to Shannon's own interpretation and memory). How often do we learn of a suicide death, or someone needing rehab, and think "wow, I had no idea"?
While i greatly respect that Shannon doesn't attempt to tell Jamie's own story, i think perhaps it's easy to gloss over what i feel is a very important piece of the book: the brief paragraph near the end when Shannon begins to see Jamie's irrationality as manifestations of psychosis. From Shannon's perspective, at least, it is clear throughout but especially there that both Jamie and James have much, much bigger problems than a gender crisis. There seems to have been a crisis of identity and pathologically low self esteem, possibly manifestations of a personality disorder, in James for many years prior to gender ever entering the picture. (This is also illustrated in the description of James' denial over his mother's death.) there is also obviously some severe depression happening right around the time Jamie really begins taking control. The gender identity issues seem to have become central to the story more because Jamie latched on to them to make sense of-and unsuccessfully attempt to resolve-some severe mental health issues. But the gender identity itself wasn't necessarily "the problem" or the reason for Jamie's irrational, immature, narcissistic, desperate behavior.
That's just my opinion, anyway. I tend to agree with Chris that the pronoun issue is overblown and unnecessarily inflammatory in many cases. I also feel it's not necessarily productive for strangers to try to impose some form of "tough love" or reality testing onto others (I'm not sure it's generally productive in families and friend groups either but that depends on how it's done and the individual involved). Telling an anorexic person that they are beautiful, thin, not fat, unhealthily skinny, etc does nothing to help and actually can often be just as damaging and encourage the disorder as calling them fat. Helping them overcome their delusional perspective is a delicate task and is not the job of every person who crosses their path. It won't be helpful and may be harmful. I kind of feel the same way with pronouns. Behavior like Jamie displays does show may traits of personality disorder. One of those is borderline, which is theorized to begin and worsen in part due to long term, frequent invalidation of the person's thoughts, emotions, and identity. A stranger or casual acquintance refusing to use chosen pronouns seems like it would be experienced as more invalidation of the person's perspective, which just makes the underlying emotional and identity difficulties worse, which is likely to make the gender dysphoria worse.
I'm not trying to accuse anybody here because it's controversial and a difficult issue. This is just my perspective that, after reading the book, I'm still more inclined to agree with Chris.
Definitely, I've been posting a little blind here not having actually read the book or podcast. I intended those thoughts as more general principles that could also apply to Jamie, but I can see how in certain situations the calculus might change. Thanks, I will check out the blog post!
And I totally agree about the sheer degree of heterogeneity and how this is so often collapsed into a monolithic category (like for so many other things in the world). That's one reason I was intrigued by my friend's theory about different clusters of reasons and motives (including possibly, hormonal drivers in some cases).
This is offensive Erin. I'm banning you from this blog
Well I in turn ban you.
Erin, I love the compelling way you write and how you tackle the tough and delicate issues with grace. I think I will be ordering this book. Thanks!
You're so kind. Thank you for the encouragement. I think you'll find Shannon's writing is skillful, incisive, and moving.
Hey Erin -
I'll be the first to say it. Great article. I'll be sending it to a dear friend who's going through the exact some issue with a family member. Maybe the book can help them too.
I'll say this. I'm a lifelong progressive. But I'd be lying if I said that this new movement does't just seem a bit off. I'm PRO trans rights, as I'm sure you are. But there's elements of the extreme wing of this movement that either don't have people's best interest at heart, or they just don't realize how tricky and dangerous it all is.
No easy answers. Thanks for boldly writing about it.
Barney, yes I am also what used to count as a progressive lol. I have several trans people in my life, including several of my son's friends. I have only love and support for them. What I don't want is for people struggling with various mental and emotional health issues to go down a path of medical hardship that may be wholly unnecessary, for one thing. It's not good for struggling people, it's not good for trans people, and the *ideology* can be hell for relationships, as ANY extreme of ANY ideology can be.
I'm with you. With my friend it's his kid. Like us, a life long Democrat. I'd even call him more "woke" than me. Kid is 22 so there's not much to be done. But he said it's much harder than he thought it would be. And that his kid makes it difficult even when he & his wife are being as inclusive as possible. The rules keep changing. The language keeps changing. Every situation feels like a trap where their kid can accuse them of not being an "ally". Like most modern day "movements" I think this will settle down. All things indeed pass. But it's a bit insane out there at the moment. Thanks for speaking up! More of us progressives have too. Right wingers will indeed take advantage, but I make it clear I'm not on their side either.
Tough times for nuance.
Share this book with them, for sure.
"I'm PRO trans rights"
I think it is very important to be clear about exactly which "trans rights" one supports.
For example, I fully support the "trans rights" to nondiscrimination in employment that are delineated in the SCOTUS Bostock decision: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf
I also support enshrining these into federal law (rather than just relying on SCOTUS precedent).
But that's it. I do not support any supposed "right" of a male who identifies as a female to female-only spaces, places, and events (and vice versa ). I fully support the right of such spaces, places, and events to exist, and to exclude males, even if they identify as female (and vice versa).
For more on women's sex-based rights see
https://womensliberationfront.org
https://womensdeclarationusa.com
https://www.lesbians-united.org
This is an important distinction. There’s a prominent scene late in the book that speaks to this.
I'm pretty much the same. Although I think the the bathroom thing is overblown by conservatives. If there's sexual preditors of any gender in your establishment you've got bigger problems. But the idea that people born male should be allowed in women's sports is kind of ridiculous. Some sports can be gender neutral. But most competitive sports simply can't be if men are allowed in them.
"Although I think the the bathroom thing is overblown by conservatives."
I am unsurprised to note that you are a man.
This is a great review, Erin. "Funhouse of distress" is a wonderful characterization of so much of online culture. Well done!
Thank you!
Nice review! It sounds like a valuable book. And I don't know if you coined the term "online-ward" yourself, but you should patent it because it's both a brilliant concept and a nifty turn of phrase (though I guess the ableist connotations would stand out if you emphasize that part).
At several points you emphasize the limits and perils of language when navigating this kind of situation, including the closing "make them mean something better" which I loved because you don't just stop at blanket critique. Something you seem to be trying to reconcile throughout the review - and which Shannon and Jamie clearly grapple with - is the gap between the embodied reality of not feeling at home in your gender identity and wanting to reinvent it. and the verbal gymnastics and politics involved in having that new identity be socially and relationally real. If your partner still loves you for who you presently are, yet this comes by way of who you once were, than you have to decide what it means to be loved and to love.
I find myself wondering how much this would play out differently without the online factor figuring so strongly. Does it end up primarily being a commentary on the toxicity of online identity cultures, or is it still about the inherent challenges of transition in the context of relationships? Anorexia is an interesting alternate case study, though I think there are limits to how well this analogy carries over. There does seem to be something unique about gender and how identity (or its reconstruction) functions in that space, whose cultural resonances go so far beyond embodiment per se.
Thanks for this thoughtful comment. As far as I know, I coined "online-ward." You heard it here first, folks!
I think there's an important distinction to be made between gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia. Right now, at least according to WPATH, the two seem conflated. I think that's unhelpful. Feeling drawn to a different gender expression through clothing, activities, hairstyle, makeup or no makeup, etc. is gender dysphoria in my opinion, and I believe people should feel free to express themselves however they wish and feel comfortable. There are no "boy things" and "girl things."
Body dysmorphia, though, is an obsessive focus on perceived flaws. If you are transgender, or are looking at trans as a potential explanation for your other problems, that focus becomes specific to masculine/feminine secondary sex characteristics. You don't have to have boobs to wear a dress--plenty of females don't have large, shapely boobs. You don't have to have laser hair removal to wear makeup--plenty of females have varying levels of facial hair. Etc.
My self-confidence (in public), for instance, is boosted when I shower and blow-dry my hair and wear makeup and clothes that aren't sweats. But when I don't do those things, I don't obsess about how "wrong" my face is. As I said in another comment, the pronouns thing is odd to me, because pronouns do not create reality, just as gender expression does not create reality.
You're right that the anorexia analogy will only go so far, because they're very different issues (although, sometimes, not so different in an individual), but I use it as an example of body dysmorphia and how that's something very real, whereas words are just words.
I could always try to leak "online-ward" on Twitter and credit you authorship - even though you'd get hammered for stigmatizing mental illness and be reviled by the majority of the trans community after they check out your blog and immediately misinterpret your book review, you'd have ten thousand followers for life and you could start charging $10 a head for subscribers so you'd never have to work again.
That's a really helpful distinction between gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia, which I think is easily glossed over and would probably enrich many of these debates. That said, I wonder whether there's sort of third category of body *dysphoria*? Meaning, not a focus on how your body looks or outward flaws, but how it feels internally and subjectively from a physiological standpoint. Anorexia can be like this, too.
An old friend who transitioned recently (and went through a messy divorce over it), was telling me about their theory that a subset of people who want to transition are dealing more directly with identity issues wrapped up in cultural, social and political meanings and sometimes, psychological baggage; while there's another distinct cluster (which she believes is highly represented by people on the autistic spectrum), where there's a huge biological component: their hormones literally don't match which fueled their identity not matching, and as soon as they wake up to this and get the opposite hormones, they just feel better and more like themselves, and tend to also prefer being that opposite gender. I have no idea how accurate this is, but she speaks from experience including a bunch of support groups, and I found it compelling.
BTW, I also wanted to comment on 21st Century Salonniere's question below, but then had second thoughts about crashing that conversation (I always feel guilty and embarrassed posting more than once). If you think it wouldn't be annoying to add more I can post it there, no need to respond.
Well first, I’d rather be poor than Twitter famous lol
Comment away!
Also, and good faith readers will have picked up on this: I do not have a problem with trans people. If you are healthy (healthier?) and happier, then more power to you. I know some trans people who seem great. The recent spike in trans identification, though, seems fishy to me, that maybe some people are misdiagnosing themselves.
Your general support came through loud and clear in the OP, at least to me. I hope the last comment didn't imply otherwise. I shared the anecdote about my friend in part because it's an interesting theory, and would explain a lot about the conflicting impressions people get about some of this stuff. My guess is there is some contagion and suggestibility going on as well (and possibly, lowering of the threshold), but aside from a handful of people I've been friends with I'm just not close enough to any of this to feel qualified reliably picking out examples from a distance.
Thanks for sharing. Wow, that sounds so painful for Thrace and Jamie. I do question the narrative of "support is the only option" in these cases, though I understand the reasoning behind it. But it doesn't seem like support actually helps that much.
In this case, the evolution happened in phases. And when Shannon expressed that her support could not include devaluing certain aspects of Jamie’s body or that appearing to be a woman doesn’t make you one in every way, Jamie wouldn’t accept it.
Some people won’t like this comparison, but another form of body dysmorphia, anorexia, does not get treated with support and affirmation. Changing how you dress and present yourself to the world is a thing; despising your body is a different thing. A woman getting reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy is substantively different than a woman whose boyfriend is paying for a boob job.
Very solid thoughts, and the connection with other dysmorphias - both anorexia and plastic surgery - has been in my thoughts and heart in the past several years.
Ian, yes -- in the last few years, we’ve been told that unquestioning support and affirmation is the only right response.
One size fits all.
But it’s so much more complicated than that, isn’t it.
Unlike, say, being gay or lesbian, which is very simple -- people are same-sex attracted, they don’t need any drugs or surgeries, they don’t need any “affirmation,” they just need to be left alone to live their lives -- people develop a desire to transition for _many_ different reasons.
“Being trans” is not one simple thing like “being gay” is.
Some “trans” people were very feminine boys or masculine girls who from early childhood wished they were the opposite sex. These are probably the people who most well-meaning people think of when they think of “trans.” The OG trans people.
Some are teen girls who were never particularly masculine but who became acutely uncomfortable with their changing bodies and/or society’s sexualization of them.
Some are quirky kids who never quite fit in, and they read online that transition might “explain everything” and give them an accepting community to be part of.
Some are grown men who develop a fetish around imagining themselves as women.
The list goes on and on. Kids with autism, kids with personality disorders, kids with a history of sexual abuse.
In Jamie’s case (going by the podcast -- I haven’t read the book, but I will!) it definitely seems like an unhealthy porn-fueled obsession / addiction which has harmed rather than enhanced his life.
How can any caring person continue to offer unquestioning support to a loved one’s self-harm, once it’s crossed the line like Jamie’s clearly did?
We’ve been sold an oversimplified narrative when it comes to gender. It hurts people.
Thanks for the information! That is very helpful in expanding understanding on what drives a lot of what is going on now. And sounds like we have yet another reason to be careful about porn.
Can you say a little more about what Shannon herself considered to be "The Problem"? You are persuasive in making the case that the villain is the "ideological community... a funhouse of distress...a society of mutual self-destruction," but to specify these things is to beg the question: what did these structures do to Jamie and, by extension, the marriage? Was it Jamie's depression? Her escalating insecurity? The collapse of purpose and, say, "outwardness," for lack of a better word?
I appreciate that Shannon maintained her love, openness and support for her husband as he went through all of this. I really do believe her assertion that it was not the unconventional gender representation itself which destroyed her marriage to Jamie. But again, it isn't clear what changed, unless the story is really about Jamie's mental breakdown, which just happened to occur in the forms and vocabulary of this strange journey our culture has undertaken in dealing with gender expression. Is this a book about mental illness? Or about the trans experience? Or is that question itself too either/or?
I don’t want to give too much away from the book, because it is deep and beautifully articulated. I think it’s all of the above. Jamie seemed to have some (I have to say it) internalized homophobia regarding his same-sex attraction. Once “he” became “she,” and adopted the “I am LITERALLY a woman” ideology, she was never, ever going to be satisfied with how she existed in the world in a body that even when feminized is ultimately, in some unchangeable ways, male. (I’m talking, like, skeletal anatomy.)
Shannon ultimately couldn’t continue the unquestioning support of an endeavor that wasn’t merely changing her spouse’s appearance, but entire worldview—one that requires some level of dishonesty or at least pretending, AND was observably making her spouse emotionally unstable and even suicidal.
I imagine it’s not unlike being married to someone who becomes a religious fundamentalist. You can try and try and be supportive, but if they want you yourself to profess unquestioning belief, sometimes that’s just not a road you can follow someone down.
Thank you for the great review... and the thoughtful insights with which you ended. Sincerely, Frederick
I’ll need to check out that podcast. Truly, Shannon’s openness and compassion is beautiful. It’s very sad when one learns that openness and compassion are not always enough to help the ones we love.
One element that I think is often overlooked (and it’s hard to point this out without sounding like “PMS bitches be crazy”), is that trans women who are early in the transition process are on an insane amount of estrogen. Remember what it was like being 10-14? I’d expect their emotional rollercoaster to be 10x that based on chemistry alone, much less the influence of online communities plus the political weight of “trans issues.” It would be very hard to be married to an adult who had the emotional volatility of a 13 year old girl.
This is true, and many trans people are on the record about how dramatically hormones can alter their moods and mental health. I'm not sure, though, that Jamie was ever on hormones while still married to Shannon. That was a point of contention between them throughout the book (Jamie waffled on whether or not to start hormones.)
Another issue I haven't touched on at all, because it's not part of the book, is that cross-sex hormone replacement therapy has very serious medical ramifications. We still don't fully understand how hormones work and interact in our bodies, and fiddling with them is highly experimental (though advocates will insist that it's not). I'm in an A&P class right now taught by an endocrinologist, and without ever having even glancingly touched on cross-sex hormones, he's been open about how incompletely understood our endocrine systems still are.