# Variations in Nature | Jaimie Veale
> Understanding ourselves through exploring human diversity, evolution, health, and living well.
Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts.
Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`).
## Pages
### About
URL: https://jaimie.veale.phd/about/
Last updated: 2026-06-17T03:33:14.000Z
![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/fd/d6/fdd6220c-0ce5-4cfc-9c60-262f1e3e25b6/content/images/2026/06/Jaimie-Veale-small-2-1.jpg)

I'm a researcher and academic based in Aotearoa New Zealand, working as a Rutherford Discovery Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Waikato. 

My work focuses on transgender health and wellbeing, with a particular emphasis on the social determinants of health, human diversity, and the ways that policy, healthcare systems, and social environments shape people’s lives.

I lead [Counting Ourselves](https://countingourselves.nz/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) — the Aotearoa New Zealand Trans and Non-binary Health Survey, one of the most comprehensive studies of trans health in the world. Over the past two decades I've published more than 60 peer-reviewed papers in the field of trans health and wellbeing, and collaborated with researchers and communities across New Zealand, Canada, and internationally.

I've served as Secretary and a Board Member of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), founding President of the Professional Association for Transgender Health Aotearoa (PATHA), and as an Associate Editor of the *International Journal of Transgender Health*. I was one of the authors of the 2022 WPATH Standards of Care, the primary international clinical guidance for trans health.

Alongside my research and professional roles, I am interested in broader questions about what the extraordinary diversity that runs through all of human life can tell us about health, wellbeing, and how people can live well.

*Variations in Nature* is a space for exploring these questions through research-informed writing and reflection. The questions my work touches on matter to a much wider audience than the people who read academic papers. I write here as a researcher who thinks they belong in wider conversation.
## Posts
### My Submission to the Definitions of Woman and Man Bill
URL: https://jaimie.veale.phd/my-submission-to-the-definitions-of-woman-and-man-bill/
Last updated: 2026-06-24T02:49:02.000Z
*I submitted the following opposing the Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill in New Zealand. The submission draws on findings from* *the* [*Counting Ourselves (2022) community report*](https://countingourselves.nz/2022-survey-report/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd)*, the largest survey of trans and non-binary health and wellbeing ever conducted in Aotearoa New Zealand, which I lead as Principal Investigator.*

*My goal was not to enter into a debate about whether trans people exist. Their existence is a matter of observable social reality, reflected in their presence across cultures and throughout history. Instead, I sought to provide the committee with evidence that exists regarding the likely effects of the proposed legislation for a population that already experiences substantial discrimination, exclusion, barriers to healthcare, and housing insecurity.*

*I also see this bill as part of a broader international pattern that I have described elsewhere as trans eliminationism: a continuum of responses that work to remove trans people from social, legal, or physical existence through policies that restrict recognition, participation, or access to public life. These measures are justified not through any evidence of harm, but rather through political rhetoric that constructs trans people as an artificial threat and undermine their moral standing and credibility.* 

*This bill is best understood as a form of* definitional eliminationism*: an attempt to remove trans people from legal recognition by redefining the categories of woman and man in ways that deny the legitimacy of trans people.*

*Readers interested in that broader framework can read my recent article* [*here*](https://jaimie.veale.phd/from-prejudice-to-harm-current-policies-targeting-trans-people-follow-a-clear-pattern-of-escalation/)*.*

*You can make a submission on the bill* [*here*](https://www3.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/make-a-submission/document/54SCSSC%5FSCF%5F9E8E8A14-A51C-4567-AB33-08DE9053A7D1/legislation-definitions-of-woman-and-man-amendment-bill?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) *until midnight on 2 July 2026.*

I oppose the Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill.

I am the Principal Investigator of [Counting Ourselves](https://countingourselves.nz/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd), the largest surveys of trans and people ever conducted in Aotearoa New Zealand. The 2018 survey included 1,178 participants and the 2022 survey included 2,631 participants. Participants were aged 14 to 86 years and lived in every region in the country. The survey examined health, wellbeing, discrimination, housing, education, employment, healthcare access, identity documents, violence, and participation in community life.

My submission focuses on what the available evidence suggests about the likely impacts of this bill.

**The bill is not supported by evidence of a significant public policy problem.**

The stated purpose of the bill is to provide legal certainty by defining "woman" and "man" according to biological sex. The explanatory note argues that such definitions are needed to protect sex-based rights and spaces. However, no evidence is presented demonstrating that existing law has created widespread problems in New Zealand or that legal recognition of trans people has undermined women's safety, participation, or rights.

Good legislation should be evidence-based. Before Parliament restricts the legal recognition of a minority population, it should establish that a genuine problem exists and that the proposed solution is likely to address it. The bill does neither.

International scholarship has documented recurring patterns in which minority groups become the focus of legislative attention without evidence of harm. One is dehumanisation: when a group is portrayed as irrational, defective, or less deserving of dignity, the moral threshold for restricting their rights is lowered, and their testimony and lived experience become easier to dismiss. Another is the artificial construction of a threat, in which a minority group is framed as a danger to children, public safety, or social order. Together, the dehumanisation and threat construction allow measures that would otherwise be recognised as discriminatory to be presented instead as necessary protection and create the urgency needed for public mobilisation.

This pattern is emerging at a time in which several decades of expanding legal recognition of gender and sexuality diversity have unsettled longstanding social arrangements regarding gender, sexuality, and individual people's authority over their own bodies. Trans people have become a focal point for anxieties about these changing norms. In this context, legislation like this Bill is better understood as part of a wider effort to reassert fixed, binary categories against the expanding recognition of gender diversity and self-determination, rather than as a response to evidence of identified harms.

**We have well-documented evidence of harms experienced by trans and non-binary people in areas that are likely to become worse if the bill is passed.**

Counting Ourselves found that trans people already experience substantial discrimination, exclusion, and violence. Forty-four percent of participants had experienced discrimination in the 12 months prior to the survey, more than double the general population rate, and 74% had experienced discrimination at some point in their lives, up from 66% in 2018\. Participants were more than five times as likely as the general population to report discrimination when seeking medical care, and nearly four times as likely to report discrimination in public spaces.

Many participants reported avoiding public spaces because they anticipated mistreatment. Forty-three percent often or always avoided public bathrooms because they feared problems arising from being trans or non-binary, up from 33% in 2018\. A further 43% had been told or asked if they were using the wrong bathroom. Nineteen percent had experienced verbal harassment while using public bathrooms, 15% had been stopped from entering a bathroom, and 3% had been physically attacked.

Public discussion surrounding this bill frequently focuses on bathrooms and other gender-segregated spaces. The available evidence suggests that trans people are among those most vulnerable within these environments.

Defining legal categories in a way that excludes trans people may increase scrutiny, exclusion, and confrontation in these settings. International debates around similar legislation have often been accompanied by increased policing of who is perceived to belong in women's and men's spaces. Such scrutiny may also affect cisgender women and men whose appearance does not conform to gender stereotypes.

**No legal category for non-binary or intersex New Zealanders**

In Counting Ourselves, 56% of participants identified as non-binary — the single largest group surveyed, larger than trans men and trans women combined. A binary statutory definition of "woman" and "man" provides no category for this group, nor for intersex New Zealanders whose sex characteristics do not align with either definition.

**The bill may undermine access to identity documents**

A significant proportion of Counting Ourselves participants reported that their official documents did not accurately reflect their gender. Prior to the 2021 self-identification reform, 86% of participants had the incorrect gender recorded on their New Zealand birth certificate, and 74% on their passport. Forty percent said the binary options available to them simply did not reflect their gender, and 32% cited fear of harm or discrimination as a reason for not updating their gender marker.

Identity documents play an important role in accessing employment, housing, banking, education, travel, and healthcare.

Although the bill does not directly amend identity document legislation, it could create uncertainty regarding the status and purpose of gender markers on official documents. This would move New Zealand away from policies intended to ensure government records accurately reflect people's lived reality.

**The bill may increase barriers to healthcare**

The survey found substantial unmet need for gender-affirming healthcare. Across different forms of care, large numbers of participants reported wanting services that they had been unable to access. Many participants also reported avoiding healthcare because they feared discrimination or mistreatment: 21% had avoided seeing a doctor or nurse practitioner in the last 12 months for this reason.

By legally defining trans people out of recognised gender categories, the bill may contribute to stigma and make engagement with healthcare services more difficult.

**The bill may increase housing insecurity and exclusion from support services**

Counting Ourselves found elevated rates of homelessness and housing instability among trans people. Nineteen percent of participants had experienced homelessness, including 31% of Māori participants. Fourteen percent had ever needed emergency housing, including a refuge or shelter; of those, 21% did not attempt to access it for fear of mistreatment as a trans person, and 8% who did try were denied access specifically because they were trans.

Emergency housing providers, refuges, correctional facilities, and other services often rely on legal or administrative definitions of sex and gender when determining placement and eligibility. Because the purpose of this bill is to introduce and reinforce sex-based definitions throughout New Zealand legislation, it has the potential to affect how these services interpret eligibility, placement, and access for trans people.

**The bill may reduce participation in sport and recreation**

Sport is commonly framed by anti-trans movements as a setting where cisgender women require protection through binary sex categories. The available evidence, however, does not point to trans people as the source of harm. Instead, evidence shows that trans people are already experiencing substantial exclusion from sport and recreation because of concerns about how they will be treated.

Counting Ourselves found that of those who played or were interested in competitive sport, 41% had avoided competitive sport because of concerns about how they would be treated as a trans person. Forty-five percent had avoided gender-segregated exercise or recreational sport for the same reason, and 43% had specific concerns about accessing a bathroom or changing room. Legislation that further entrenches binary sex-segregation in this area is likely to compound this existing exclusion.

**Conclusion**

The areas commonly invoked in support of the bill — including bathrooms, sport, identity documents, and access to services — are areas in which trans people already experience substantial disadvantage. The available evidence therefore suggests the bill is likely to increase exclusion and barriers to participation rather than address a demonstrated public policy problem.

I therefore urge Parliament to reject the Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill.

Thank you for considering this submission.
### From Prejudice to Harm – Current Policies Targeting Trans People Follow a Clear Pattern of Escalation
URL: https://jaimie.veale.phd/from-prejudice-to-harm-current-policies-targeting-trans-people-follow-a-clear-pattern-of-escalation/
Last updated: 2026-06-18T02:17:13.000Z
# 

Public debates about transgender issues are often framed as disagreements over evidence or safety. 

  
In my [new article](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26895269.2026.2682499?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) published in the [International Journal of Transgender Health](https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/wijt21?ref=jaimie.veale.phd), I argue current policy shifts are better understood as part of a recognisable escalation pattern. 

  
I call this “trans eliminationism” – efforts to remove trans people from social, legal or physical existence.

  
The concept of eliminationism was developed by political scientist [Daniel Goldhagen](https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/daniel-jonah-goldhagen/worse-than-war/9780786746569/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) to describe ideologies that frame a targeted group as incompatible with society and therefore as requiring removal.

  
Trans eliminationism exists on a continuum. 

  
At the less severe end, though still deeply harmful, is social and legal erasure such as restricting healthcare access, prohibiting changes to identity documents, removing gender as a protected category, banning trans content from schools and libraries, and pushing trans youth into conversion practices. 

  
Some of these measures are now occurring in many jurisdictions. For example, across the United States, [anti-trans bills continue to be introduced in various states](https://translegislation.com/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) and in New Zealand, the [Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill](https://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/members/2026/296/en/latest/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) is currently [open for submissions](https://www3.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/make-a-submission/document/54SCSSC%5FSCF%5F9E8E8A14-A51C-4567-AB33-08DE9053A7D1/legislation-definitions-of-woman-and-man-amendment-bill?ref=jaimie.veale.phd).

  
Social and legal eliminationism can create conditions in which more severe forms of harm, including incarceration and physical violence, become easier to justify by weakening legal protections, normalising exclusion, and reducing the social and political costs of further restrictions.

  
For some of the most marginalised trans people, [incarceration and violence are already a lived reality](https://www.themarshallproject.org/2024/04/26/trans-prison-voices-gender-essay?ref=jaimie.veale.phd).

  
## How escalation happens

  
Research on eliminationist movements points to recurring mechanisms through which societies move from foundational prejudice to increasingly severe restrictions and harms.

  
One is dehumanisation. When a group is portrayed as irrational, defective, immoral or less deserving of dignity, moral inhibitions about harming them are lowered. This makes it easier to justify restrictions on their rights or to dismiss their testimony and experiences.

  
Another is the artificial construction of a perceived threat. Targeted groups are framed as a danger to children, public safety or social order. This generates the urgency needed for public mobilisation, because measures that would otherwise seem discriminatory can instead be presented as necessary forms of protection.

  
A third mechanism, specific to trans eliminationism, is what I call biological reductionism.

  
This involves reducing the complexity of sex and gender to a single biological characteristic and treating it as a person’s essential nature – determining who someone really is, regardless of their lived experience, social role, body or self-understanding. 

  
It is then used to determine how they should be recognised and treated in areas such as healthcare, law, education and sport.

  
Under this logic, trans people become impossible by definition. This is particularly insidious because it makes what is fundamentally a political manoeuvre appear as merely recognising biological reality. 

  
This is the approach taken in a 2025 US [executive order](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) that defined sex by reproductive cells and in the bill currently before the New Zealand parliament.

  
Human biology is more complex than this framing allows. But the deeper problem is the assumption that biology alone should determine legal status or social recognition in the first place.

  
![A graphic showing how different mechanisms strengthen each other.](https://images.theconversation.com/files/742273/original/file-20260616-71-zp37s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip) 

Current policy shifts show a pattern of escalation against trans people. [CC BY-SA](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) 

  
These mechanisms frequently operate together. 

  
Claims based on this biological reductionism are used to cast doubt on trans people’s credibility and self-understanding. This dehumanises trans people and enables artificial threat construction in which trans women are framed as men invading women’s spaces, or trans youth as vulnerable children being manipulated by adults.

  
Each mechanism strengthens the others, and together they create the conditions under which eliminationist policies appear to be reasonable responses to genuine concerns or danger. 

  
## Why this matters

  
[Historical research](https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/daniel-jonah-goldhagen/worse-than-war/9780786746569/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) shows prejudice can be mobilised by political actors seeking support, power or cultural influence. Trans people have become symbols of broader social change. 

  
For some political movements, opposition to trans rights has become a way of expressing resistance to changing norms of gender, sexuality and individual people’s authority over their own bodies.

  
We currently use the broad term “anti-trans” to describe very different beliefs, policies and political projects. These beliefs and actions do not all carry the same implications for harm.

  
The concept of trans eliminationism provides language for recognising when political ideas and policy proposals move beyond prejudice and into efforts to reduce or remove trans people’s social, legal or physical existence.

  
Understanding the mechanisms for escalation helps us recognise how harmful policies are often preceded by changes in the way people talk about a group – shifts in language, assumptions and public narratives that make exclusion or elimination appear reasonable, necessary or even compassionate. 

  
This is why current policies, justified as protective or evidence-based, must instead be understood as part of a documented pattern of eliminationist harm.

  
History shows eliminationist projects generally emerge gradually, becoming normalised one policy, one justification and one compromise at a time. 

  
But history also shows that escalation is not inevitable. Similar trajectories have been interrupted and reversed, including the rollback of criminalisation laws and expansion of legal rights for lesbian and gay people in many jurisdictions.

  
Those reversals were built on sustained resistance and community leadership. The same is possible now if harmful patterns are recognised and resisted before they escalate further.![The Conversation](https://counter.theconversation.com/content/284734/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic)
  
  
This article is republished from [The Conversation](https://theconversation.com/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) under a Creative Commons license. Read the [original article](https://theconversation.com/from-prejudice-to-harm-current-policies-targeting-trans-people-follow-a-clear-pattern-of-escalation-284734?ref=jaimie.veale.phd).
### Puberty Blockers: Why Politicians Overriding Doctors Sets a Dangerous Precedent
URL: https://jaimie.veale.phd/puberty-blockers-why-politicians-overriding-doctors-sets-a-dangerous-precedent/
Last updated: 2026-06-17T03:45:30.000Z
Also published in 

[ ![The Conversation](https://getlogovector.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/the-conversation-logo-vector.png) ](https://theconversation.com/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) [ ![RNZ](https://www.rnz.co.nz/assets/cms_uploads/000/000/528/rnz-logo-RGB-2025.png) ](https://www.rnz.co.nz/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) [ ![NZ Herald](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/The_New_Zealand_Herald_logo.webp) ](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) [ ](https://medicalxpress.com/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) [ ![New Zealand Doctor](https://www.nzdoctor.co.nz/themes/custom/nzdoctor/logo.svg) ](https://www.nzdoctor.co.nz/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) 

The New Zealand Government’s [ban on puberty blockers](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/579385/new-zealand-pushes-pause-on-puberty-blockers-pending-uk-trial?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) for gender-affirming care marks a troubling shift: politicians are now making decisions that should sit with clinicians working alongside young people and their families or whānau.

  
[Puberty blockers](https://theconversation.com/what-are-puberty-blockers-what-are-the-benefits-and-risks-for-transgender-children-226006?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) have been used in gender-affirming healthcare for decades.

  
They temporarily suppress the hormones that cause pubertal development, giving young people and their families time to make informed decisions without the pressure of irreversible bodily changes proceeding in a direction that may not fit who they are.

  
They can also reduce the need for later interventions such as hair removal, voice therapy or chest surgery. If treatment stops, puberty resumes – a key reason they are considered an appropriate early intervention in international clinical guidelines.

  
The government has framed its decision as a “precautionary”, citing [England’s Cass Review](https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20250310143933/https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd), which emphasises the need to see mental health improvements before allowing these medications to continue to be used.

  
This reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what puberty blockers are designed to do.

  
Puberty blockers are not a mental health treatment and are widely accepted as effective at their actual purpose: pausing unwanted physical changes.

  
They do not themselves change the body in ways that affirm a person’s gender. Any mental health benefit is secondary and shouldn’t be the central measure of whether they work.

  
Despite this, reviews like Cass still call for mental health improvements, repeating an outdated framing that assumes gender-affirming care is about treating a mental health condition. 

  
It is also important to note that evidence for mental health outcomes is contested rather than lacking – and many other paediatric treatments continue to be used despite having similarly limited or even weaker evidence.

  
## Why the evidence doesn’t support a ban

  
[The claim](https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2511/S00161/new-safeguards-for-puberty-blocker-prescribing.htm?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) that puberty blockers have a “lack of high-quality evidence” could be misleading to anyone who is not aware of the full context.

  
It could apply to many areas of young people’s healthcare, including widely accepted interventions.

  
A large proportion of medications used in children – such as commonly prescribed antidepressants and increasingly prescribed ADHD medication – lack high-quality evidence about long-term developmental impacts.

  
Even treatments for precocious puberty, which use the very same puberty blockers, have limited long-term data on psychosocial outcomes. In all these cases, the safety profile is considered acceptable, and no one demands high-certainty mental health evidence for their use.

  
The government has placed a burden of proof on puberty blockers that we do not place on other paediatric care.

  
Proponents of the ban have stated that [other types of pediatric care have adult data to draw from](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/579494/govt-s-puberty-blockers-move-attracts-strong-reactions?ref=jaimie.veale.phd). The concern raised about puberty blockers, however, is specifically about impacts during a critical developmental period (puberty), so adult safety data couldn’t address this for any pediatric medication.

  
The government [also notes](https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2511/S00161/new-safeguards-for-puberty-blocker-prescribing.htm?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) that puberty blockers are “not currently approved by Medsafe for use in \[gender-affirming care\]”. But again, they don’t provide the context that off-label use is routine and accepted across medicine.

  
Many medications used for children are prescribed off-label because regulatory processes often lag behind clinical practice. 

  
## A glaring inconsistency

  
Puberty blockers will remain available for children with precocious (early) puberty, who are typically younger than those receiving them for gender-affirming care.

  
The government has offered no evidence showing that the risks differ meaningfully between these groups. That inconsistency alone raises serious questions about whether this decision is grounded in evidence or ideology.

  
The Ministry of Health’s [puberty blockers evidence brief](https://www.health.govt.nz/publications/impact-of-puberty-blockers-in-gender-dysphoric-adolescents-an-evidence-brief?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) did not identify evidence of harm that would justify a ban on using puberty blockers for gender affirming healthcare.

  
By contrast, the risks of withholding this care – forcing young people through a puberty they cannot stop or reverse – are clear and significant.

  
And while the government notes it is aligning with the UK, there is a broader international context. Restrictions on puberty blockers have emerged in [Great Britain](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-restrictions-on-puberty-blockers?ref=jaimie.veale.phd), [parts of Scandinavia](https://transsafety.network/posts/socialstyrelsen/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd), [Queensland in Australia](https://www.health.qld.gov.au/system-governance/legislation/ministerial-direction-treatment-of-gender-dysphoria-in-children-and-adolescents-with-hormone-therapy?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) and [some US states](https://www.kff.org/lgbtq/gender-affirming-care-policy-tracker/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd). But these have occurred in a context of political pressure and culture-war dynamics, rather than by any new medical evidence.

  
Meanwhile, most comparable countries – including most of Australia, Canada, much of Europe, and leading international medical bodies – continue to endorse puberty blockers as standard care. 

  
The government also cites its public consultation, but public views cannot replace clinical expertise.

  
## Politicised healthcare?

  
The voices that matter most – trans young people, their families, the clinicians who work with them and [trans health experts in Aotearoa](https://patha.nz/news?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) – have been clear: access to puberty blockers is crucial.

  
These voices appear to have been ignored. When complex medical decisions are shaped by public polling rather than the needs of patients and their families, healthcare is being politicised rather than protected.

  
At its heart, the issue is simple: puberty blockers have been used safely for decades and there is [no evidence of harm](https://www.health.govt.nz/publications/impact-of-puberty-blockers-in-gender-dysphoric-adolescents-an-evidence-brief?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) that would justify banning them for gender-affirming care.

  
The decision to restrict access specifically for gender-affirming care, while allowing the same medicines for other uses, is inconsistent and may be discriminatory.

  
And the implications extend beyond trans young people. When governments override established clinical practice without evidence, and when minority groups become targets of restrictive medical policy, it sets a precedent that should concern everyone.![The Conversation](https://counter.theconversation.com/content/270246/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic)

  
This article was first published in [The Conversation](https://theconversation.com/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) under a Creative Commons license. Read the [original article](https://theconversation.com/puberty-blockers-why-politicians-overriding-doctors-sets-a-dangerous-precedent-270246?ref=jaimie.veale.phd).
### Transgender is Not Ideology
URL: https://jaimie.veale.phd/transgender-is-not-ideology-2/
Last updated: 2026-06-07T22:09:18.000Z
By **Joan Roughgarden** and **Jaimie Veale** · Originally published in [ ![San Francisco Chronicle](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/San_Francisco_Chronicle_logo.svg) ](https://www.sfchronicle.com/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) 

In [an executive order](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) issued hours after his second inauguration, President Donald Trump sought to deny the reality, or even the possibility, of transgender people.

The order concerned the production of sperm and egg, known as gametes, defining a female as someone who, at conception, is destined to produce the “large reproductive cell” (egg), and a male as someone destined to produce the “small reproductive cell” (sperm). Gender, the order declared, is an “ideology,” and it instructed every federal agency to use the term “sex” instead.

Trump is partially correct about the biology of sex, but incorrect about gender and the existence of transgender people. As scientists who have studied sex and gender for many years, we can tell you that transgender people are a natural part of the human species. Transgender is not a recent ideology concocted by elite liberals to deny reality and common sense.

Across cultures and through time, societies included people corresponding to what the West now calls trans or gender diverse. Anthropologists and historians documented these people across North America, South America, Polynesia, India, Southeast Asia, ancient Rome and other parts of the world. Many cultures accepted these individuals as simply part of everyday life, often holding respected social and spiritual roles unique to their cultures.

In contrast, Western society intertwines gender diversity with medicine. Our society authorizes physicians to define what counts as “normal,” subjecting trans people to a diagnosis of illness. The American Psychiatric Association classified transgender identity as a mental illness until 2013, as it did for homosexuality until 1973.

Today, every major U.S. medical association — the [American Medical Association](https://www.ama-assn.org/about/leadership/everyone-deserves-quality-medical-care-delivered-without-bias?ref=jaimie.veale.phd), [American Psychiatric Association](https://www.psychiatry.org/about-apa/policy-finder/position-statement-on-treatment-of-transgender-%28tr?ref=jaimie.veale.phd), [American Psychological Association](https://www.apa.org/about/policy/transgender-nonbinary-inclusive-care.pdf?ref=jaimie.veale.phd), [Endocrine Society](https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/102/11/3869/4157558?ref=jaimie.veale.phd), [Pediatric Endocrine Society](https://journals.lww.com/co-pediatrics/Abstract/2017/08000/Statement%5Fon%5Fgender%5Faffirmative%5Fapproach%5Fto%5Fcare.15.aspx?ref=jaimie.veale.phd), [American Academy of Pediatrics](https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/142/4/e20182162/37381/Ensuring-Comprehensive-Care-and-Support-for?autologincheck=redirected&ref=jaimie.veale.phd), [American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry](https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Latest%5FNews/AACAP%5FStatement%5FResponding%5Fto%5FEfforts-to%5Fban%5FEvidence-Based%5FCare%5Ffor%5FTransgender%5Fand%5FGender%5FDiverse.aspx?ref=jaimie.veale.phd) — supports transgender people and their right to appropriate care. Still, if the medical establishment can switch from pathologizing trans people to supporting them, it could switch back under political pressure.

Medical definitions of sex are unmoored from the biological definition. Today’s medical education focuses on chemistry and molecular biology, in place of zoology, botany, ecology and evolution — the subjects where natural gender diversity is encountered. Medicine uses practical but inconsistent markers to define sex, such as genitals, chromosomes and hormones. These traits statistically correlate with human sex, but do not define it. All the anatomical and behavioral traits that correlate with sex taken together describe human gender.

Zoologists, botanists, ecologists and evolutionary biologists generally define sex in this way: males make small gametes (sperm), females make large gametes (eggs) and hermaphrodites, such as most plants and many marine animals, make both.

Many animals change sex, such as coral reef fish that switch from making sperm to making eggs, or the reverse, during their lives. In turtles and other reptiles, sex is determined by the temperature at which eggs are incubated. Thus, sex may be determined well after conception according to social and environmental circumstances. And in humans, gamete production does not occur at conception. Various precursor stages appear in the fetus weeks after conception and gamete production awaits puberty.

Beyond gamete size, everything else — including secondary sex characteristics, body size, shape, color, behavior and social roles — is gender.

Gender in nature is also extraordinarily varied and fluid across plants and animals, including humans. Beyond gamete size, no general binary describes how living things look, act or relate to others. Across species, gender difference ranges from penguins with near identical male and female genders to the extreme dimorphism of lions. Human gender diversity is in the middle, showing some gender difference that varies within and across cultures.

Our society presumes a male/female binary, which is true for gamete size alone but not for gender.

So how do trans and other gender diverse people arise from this underlying gamete-size binary? Developmental biology provides the answer. From conception to birth, the human body and brain develop in a shifting hormonal environment. In mammals, genital structures develop early in fetal life, whereas the brain and many other anatomical structures, as well as behavioral traits, develop later. If hormone levels vary during these stages, the brain and the rest of the body can develop along different developmental paths, which can result in trans and gender diverse people. This is a natural and expected variation in how human development unfolds.

In matters of law and policy, “sex” actually refers to elements of gender because the criteria that have historically determined one’s “legal sex” (typically genitals, chromosomes, appearance and/or behavior) are properties of gender and not sex. As such, the courts should recognize that legal sex encompasses gender diversity.

Our overall message to policymakers and the general public is simple. For those guided by religious and ethical principles, follow the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” And for Christians in particular, Jesus’ teaching is clear, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40). These principles imply a moral obligation to understand and appreciate our shared human condition.