Althouse

Squelching.

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Wed, 20 May 2026 13:10:04 +0000

I'm reading a letter to the NYT "Ethicist" in "I Think Someone Is Living in the Storage Unit Next to Mine. What Should I Do? I was so uncomfortable I just threw my things inside and left":

"... there was a man in the unit directly across from mine — bags in the hallway, sitting on a five-gallon bucket, barefoot, writing on a notepad and eating cup noodles. As I approached, he pulled down a makeshift curtain of old plastic sheeting hung on a rope where the door would close. I was too surprised to get a good look inside, but I did see a large jar of yellow liquid and a semi-used roll of toilet paper, along with floor-to-ceiling bags and boxes that looked as if they had been there for many years. Behind the plastic it sounded as if he just continued to write. I had planned on organizing my unit that day but was so uncomfortable I just threw my things inside and left. On almost every subsequent visit of mine, he has been in there. He always pulls the plastic down, but it doesn’t cover the whole doorway, and it’s deeply uncomfortable shuffling around my own things (or using the hallway) while someone sits there five feet away. We don’t interact; sometimes I think I hear a pen scratch, but once I heard rhythmic squelching and got really grossed out jumping to an obvious conclusion...."

Observing the structure of my own thoughts — you can tell me yours — I saw:

1. A writer. It's so difficult to find a place in this world to be a writer, but there he is, sitting on a 5-gallon bucket, skritchy-scratching on a notepad.

2. It reminds me of "Bartleby, the Scrivener."

3. "Squelching" — It means squashing, crushing, putting down, thoroughly suppressing (says the OED). Henry Ward Beecher said, "The time is coming when you cannot squelch a barbarian horde in Pennsylvania without having it known throughout... the world." But it also refers to "The sound made by a liquid when subjected to sudden or intermittent pressure." "My boots began to squelch and pipe along the restaurant floors," wrote Robert Lewis Stevenson in "The Wrecker." "He squelching along all the way with his India-rubbers full of water," wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne, in "American Notebooks."

4. We would understand what the letter writer meant even if she'd used the wrong word, but she didn't. She's an excellent writer, in fact. Such a vivid scene. Perhaps he was scratchily writing about her. Oh, but she fears he is writing about her pornographically. He has no idea of her as a writer. These two cannot speak to each other. If it were a movie, they would have to meet. What movies am I thinking of? Something like "The Fisher King" or "Down and Out in Beverly Hills."

5. Do pens still scratch? Aren't they all fluidly roller-ball-y these days? But it seems fitting that the writer on the 5-gallon bucket in a storage locker would skritchy-scratch with something like the crow quill pen I remember from art school. The letter writer's art has a strong audio component. The pen scratches, the masturbation squelches.

6. Oh, but the letter writer! Help her! She has a problem. What is wrong with me that I have prioritized the man's tale of woe and not her discomfiture?

"We have reviewed video footage from the area which suggests that the cover was dislodged after a multi-axle truck turning onto 52nd Street from 5th Avenue drove over it.... manhole covers can get displaced by heavy vehicles...."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Wed, 20 May 2026 12:20:31 +0000

Said a representative from Con Ed, quoted in "Donike Gocaj, grandmother who ‘dropped’ into NYC manhole, hauntingly screamed ‘I’m dying’ — as witness claims there was nothing blocking it off" (NY Post).

A bystander: "She was just in the hole screaming that she was dying. Over and over she was like, 'I’m dying, I’m dying.'"

Cher is 80.

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Wed, 20 May 2026 12:14:03 +0000

Today.

I'm the original Cher fan, so I don't need to link to anything. I remember the first time I heard Cher — "I Got You Babe" on a radio station that only came in late at night, before the song had made the playlist on the New York City stations that dominated the airways during the day. I wrote the song title down.

"They say we're young...."

Sunrise.

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Tue, 19 May 2026 22:54:14 +0000

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"The San Diego mosque shooters were 'radicalized online,' cops say — as it’s revealed they wore Nazi symbols and etched racist statements on their gear..."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Tue, 19 May 2026 20:33:08 +0000

"... as they opened fire outside an Islamic Center, killing three people in the process. The two teens 'did not discriminate on who they hated,' law enforcement officials said in a press conference Tuesday, adding they had recovered over 30 guns and a crossbow in connection to the suspects. A livestream video of the horrific attack, currently being probed by the FBI, shows Cain Clark with a Black Sun symbol, which is associated with Nazi Germany, square on his chest. Nazi SS commander Heinrich Himmler had the symbol inlaid into the floor of the Wewelsburg castle. Another symbol associated with a small online neo-Nazi group, the Atomwaffen Division, can also be seen on one of the shooters’ shoulders. Atomwaffen is the German phrase for 'atomic weapons.' Also seen on the handgun of one of the shooters is the statement, 'race war now,' right above a swastika. Neo-nazis and white nationalists are known for promoting race wars to overthrow the government or create a white ethnostate...."

The NY Post reports, in "San Diego mosque shooters were ‘radicalized online,’ wore Nazi symbols, inscribed vile 3-word message on guns."

What duck?

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Tue, 19 May 2026 13:46:18 +0000

Grok insists this interesting character is a "mutt duck," the offspring of a mallard and a "fancy/ornamental duck" that some human took the liberty to release into the local environment.

If you like the music Meade chose for this video, listen to more of Stephen Spencer here. He gets the lyrics from the stories his 3-year-old daughter tells.

It's not worth my time to keep track of the Trump/Mark Cuban love/hate relationship..."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Tue, 19 May 2026 13:15:34 +0000

... but here they are theatrically performing the love version of whatever it is they have going, which I'm just going to assume is about self-interest and getting something that looks good done:

"I want to thank the leaders of several major pharmacies and generic drug makers who are partnering with us on this effort, including the co-founder of Cost Plus Drugs, Mark Cuban. Mark, thank you very much. Mark, looking good, Mark. Come here, Mark. Nice to be with you.... We have the same thing, one thing in common. We want to make people better and keep them wealthy, right? Good. Good to be with you."

"Devastating to the prosecution’s case was Mr. Fuhrman’s turn as a witness — specifically his repeated past use of a racial epithet that he initially denied having uttered."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Tue, 19 May 2026 12:58:27 +0000

"That denial was shown to be untrue when the Simpson defense team introduced audiotapes of him using the word dozens of times. Mr. Fuhrman then acknowledged having used such language, but said it was in the context of creating a screenplay that he hoped would become a movie. Other trial witnesses testified that Mr. Fuhrman had indeed used the word in earnest; one of them recalled his having said that if it were up to him, Black people 'would be gathered together and burned.' On the tapes, he was heard saying that there were police officers who 'would just love to take certain people and just take them to the alley and just blow their brains out.'"

From "Mark Fuhrman, Flawed Witness in O.J. Simpson Trial, Dies at 74/A Los Angeles police detective, he was discredited during Mr. Simpson’s 1995 murder trial by defense lawyers who pointed to his past use of racist language" (NYT).

CNN goes wild over the incredible power of Trump's endorsement.

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Tue, 19 May 2026 12:14:47 +0000

🚨 JUST IN: CNN was just FORCED to report that Donald Trump has a 95% GOP primary WIN RECORD and he just forced Bill Cassidy into the worst performance for a sitting senator in *80 YEARS*!

"Cassidy did worse than EVERY SINGLE one, getting 25% of the vote for a senator, in a… pic.twitter.com/jrzh6GW3Q0
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 18, 2026

"And this is sort of just going back through the archives to see how bad Bill Cassidy did. He got 25 percent of the vote, okay? I went back and I looked at every single non-appointed senator. This in my mind was the worst primary showing ever, at least since the end of World War II. That is how badly Bill Cassidy did. He did worse than every single one. Getting 25 percent of the vote for a senator in a primary? It's literally unheard of! And that is because, of course, Donald Trump endorsed against this guy.... When in fact you go against President Trump, you go in the grinder.... If you look at Trump approval rating within the GOP—21st century own party approval at this point in term two—he's still at 83%. That's more popular than Obama was with Democrats. Way more popular than George W. Bush was with Republicans back in 2006. So the power of a Trump endorsement is still sky high. And we'll see tomorrow if that happens with Thomas Massie."

Why would it have been considered good comedy to use naked "full plump butts" to celebrate Hillary's victory?

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Tue, 19 May 2026 11:57:35 +0000

Last night's "Late Show with Stephen Colbert," the first night of the last week of the show, featured various segments from over the years that were never aired. The first one is from election night, 2016, where they were prepared to gloat over Trump's defeat. Unlike the usual show, this thing was live and on Showtime, which meant they had the option to use nudity, and they did:

"We were so sure that the New York Times prediction needle was right, we hired a bunch of naked male models with the words, 'I'm with her,' painted on their full plump butts. Sadly, all of those models had to be put down. But first, we tried to save the bit. And as the outcome became clear, we repainted their butts to say 'We're fucked.'"

When I saw that clip on X this morning — at 3 a.m. — I hit the Grok button and got into a conversation that I'm only going to give you my side of. No Grok-writing below. This is all me:

1. Why would it even be considered good comedy to use nudity to celebrate Hillary's victory? What is the connection between the first woman elected president and emphasis on sexual nonsense? Seems tone deaf, even if she had won!

2. And Colbert (and his producer, in the audience in that clip) still seem pleased with their use of male nudity. They still have this juvenile preoccupation.

3. If that's all you can do with the freedom to push boundaries (by being on Showtime), what's the point? How could you think it celebrates the advance of women to have naked men enthused about being "with" her?

4. This is why comedy should be kept clean. Dirty can be funny to some people, but it's awfully shallow. There's nowhere really to go with it. That's quite aside from how it offends some people and drives many people away... and not just prudes but also people who are looking for something new and not stupid.

5. You can set aside censorship but still maintain a commitment to quality.

6. Reminds me of that famous photograph that had Clinton speechwriters feeling up "her" breasts (a cardboard cutout of her)

You know the photo:

3 hours after the rained-out sunrise, the post-rain sun looked quite white.

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Mon, 18 May 2026 23:14:49 +0000

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"Maybe such freaks should come to power — those who aren’t afraid of anything, who just do things — at least there are visible changes."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Mon, 18 May 2026 15:55:35 +0000

Said Svetlana Popova-Znamenskaya, who "stayed in Vologda to establish an architecture practice where she restores wooden houses and builds furniture" and has "a showroom with a specialty coffee shop opposite the local Kremlin and the new monument to Ivan the Terrible."

Quoted in "He Shut Liquor Stores and Banned Abortion, All for the Glory of Russia/A firebrand governor aims to transform his region into a laboratory for the Kremlin’s reactionary ideals" (NYT)(gift like).

"He" = Georgy Y. Filimonov, "the governor of the northern region of Vologda," who has "vigorously embraced the sort of 'traditional Russian values' espoused by the Kremlin, asserting Vologda as an undistilled bastion of 'Russianness.'"

And here's a quote from Misha Priyemyshev, "a designer who worked on branding for the city before Mr. Filimonov’s arrival": "Everything is very slow here, like in a true swamp. That swamp has a lot of power — the more you move in it, the more it sucks you in."

"Our investigators lost critical hours tracking down today’s shooting suspects because Austin’s City Council chose politics over public safety...."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Mon, 18 May 2026 15:08:16 +0000

Our investigators lost critical hours tracking down today’s shooting suspects because Austin’s City Council chose politics over public safety and prevented APD from using license plate readers and other crime-fighting technology.

Those cameras could have helped identify suspect… https://t.co/yp4ZKdLc1a
— Michael Bullock (@MBullockATX) May 18, 2026

Here's an AP report from half an hour ago: "3 young people arrested in series of random shootings across Austin that left 4 injured." I wonder how do they know its random? They're calling it a "series." It might have been coordinated.

Three young people were in custody following at least 10 random weekend shootings in Austin, Texas, that left four people injured, city officials said. Driving around the city in stolen vehicles, at least two of the suspects fired at two fire stations, apartment buildings and houses during a string of robberies and shootings from Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning, Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said Sunday. Two boys, ages 15 and 17, were apprehended after they were pulled over in a stolen car and attempted to run. A third person who had been in the car also ran and was detained Sunday night at a gas station in Manor, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northeast of Austin....

My son was among the Austin residents who received a police warning to "shelter in place."

Equality? Ridiculous!

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Mon, 18 May 2026 13:01:14 +0000

There's no way in the world that 7 of the top 14 novels here were written by women.

In fact, there's only one really great novel written by a woman in the past 200 years and that's Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchel.

I'd rate it as the greatest American novel of all time. https://t.co/6OJWFjTDk9
— Ted Joy (@TedJoy71) May 16, 2026

Here's the Guardian's explanation, "Who’s in, who’s out, and how many have you read? The story behind our 100 best novels list":

The most striking difference between this list and its predecessors is an increase in female writers: 36 out of 100 compared with 21 in 2015 and a paltry 16 in 2003, with only Jane Austen’s Emma and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in the top 10 of both previous lists. The number of women rises as the decades go by; half of the contemporary writers are female. This might not announce the decline of the great white male, but it does signal a much-needed reset.

Spoiler alert: top spot goes to George Eliot’s Middlemarch, a vast cathedral of a novel taking in love, faith, friendship, betrayal, science, politics, morality and power, but never losing sight of its provincial inhabitants. As one of our panellists wrote, “anyone who reads this novel cannot come out of it unchanged”. Virginia Woolf famously declared it “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people”. OK, it is not as obviously passionate as Wuthering Heights..., at No 20 on our list, or as fun as Pride and Prejudice (at nine). But all human life is here.

Another undisputed masterpiece is Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved at No 2. Just as Eliot wanted to make the lives of ordinary people real, so Morrison set out to make personal the experience of enslaved people. Beloved confirmed her as the great American novelist of her time. This devastating novel will haunt you for life.

This is the kind of talk you hear from enthusiasts of the novel. These things haunt you, they won't allow you to go on with your life unchanged.

It made me think of this line from Michelle Obama that's been haunting me since 2008: "Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual — uninvolved, uninformed."

The women-empowering-women genre of political ad.

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Mon, 18 May 2026 10:45:13 +0000

This new Spencer Pratt ad may be somewhat innovative in its forthright use of AI:

“You are not alone.” Yoga moms, silent majority, and a preference cascade all in one. Whether or not Angelenos elect @spencerpratt as LA mayor, he and his team are revolutionizing politics. pic.twitter.com/l4pwOSmNUH
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) May 17, 2026

But it reminded me of something else that got plenty of attention not too long ago. I'll bet you remember this Kamala Harris ad:

Both ads depict women as inhibited in expressing their personal political preference but speaking woman-to-woman and conquering that inhibition.

Sunrise in the rain.

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Sun, 17 May 2026 23:38:51 +0000

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

The flowers are Golden Alexander.

"[T]he foundation of Mr. Colbert’s success was something new to late night: hard-core, point-of-view political comedy."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Sun, 17 May 2026 13:41:19 +0000

"He had developed it while contributing to 'The Daily Show' on Comedy Central. A broadcast network, steeped in the traditional 'both sides' style of Johnny Carson, was going to expect him to drop that as well as the character. CBS did; Mr. Colbert tried. It didn’t work.... The network says it decided to end 'The Late Show' because it was losing at least $40 million a year. Sounds credible, doesn’t it? Maybe not.... In forcing Mr. Colbert out and shutting down a 33-year late-night franchise — while selling that post-local-news hour of airtime to a syndicated show instead of replacing him with an original program of its own creation — CBS is assenting to its own diminishment. The biggest loss is to core America values, such as the right to speak freely, even in brutally mocking terms, about those in power. Then there is the opportunity, shared by everyone, to find and be entertained by voices like that on a free national platform, or to turn them off and watch something else."

Writes Bill Carter, author of “The Late Shift” and “The War for Late Night,” in "CBS Cancels Itself, Not Just Colbert" (NYT).

The biggest criticism I'm seeing there is the failure to put something new — "an original program of its own creation" — in that slot. But maybe they know that slot is doomed. People don't watch TV the way we used to. Staying up/getting into bed early to spend that last waking hour with Johnny lest you miss the whole thing forever — there's no going back to that.

Who jumps out of bed to answer the doorbell?

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Sun, 17 May 2026 13:27:06 +0000

I'm reading this interview, in The London Times, with Tori Amos:

What do you wear to bed?

A slip. If I’m alone, I’ll also have, on the floor, a pair of cut-off blue jeans shorts, a Rick Owens bomber (above) and a pair of white Roxy sneakers just in case somebody rings the doorbell.

Fear of blue and desperate clinging to "character-defining grey."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Sun, 17 May 2026 12:59:09 +0000

"The resurfacing will dramatically and permanently transform the character-defining grey, achromatic appearance of the reflecting pool basin. The new colouration will cause the pool to resemble a large swimming pool rather than the reflective civic landscape it was designed to be, distorting the experience of the site for the millions of visitors who come to it each year."

So said the Cultural Landscape Foundation, a Washington society, quoted in The London Times, which looks like this, going all in on AI imagery:

I was going to ding the the Cultural Landscape Foundation for writing "grey" instead of "gray," but when I saw "colouration," I had to assume that The London Times imposes its British spellings on quoted material.

It's funny how people are getting cranked up over the color blue. The Foundation associates blue with backyard summer fun incompatible with what the reflective pool is supposed to be. Our reflections are supposed to be achromatic... gray... character-defining gray. That is, we're supposed to look into the reflective surface of the water and think somber thoughts. You're supposed to think about Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln, and not in their happier times. You're supposed to feel sad. It's "distorting the experience" if you feel festive or even optimistic.

I've got to assume that the idea of "character-defining gray" emerged from a process of thinking about that one MLK quote that has come to stand in for everything he every said or did: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." He said content of their character, not color of their character.

I wonder if these Cultural Landscape people thought about the meaning of blue and gray in the context of the Civil War. It could be easy to embrace the blue as symbolic of the Union. But they don't want to. By fighting, they are reinforcing the idea that this reflection-pool blue means Trump Trump Trump.

"His disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now a part of legend, and it’s nice to see that his political career is OVER."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Sun, 17 May 2026 09:50:21 +0000

Said Trump, in social media, quoted in "Trump Gets Revenge Against Republican Who Voted to Convict Him" (Bloomburg).

In a 3-candidate primary, Cassidy came in third, the other 2 advance to a runoff. Trump's candidate, Julia Letlow, came in first.

Conceding, Cassidy said "I find that people of character and integrity don’t spend their time attacking people on the internet."

"They know that American society is going to turn against them in big ways because they are the greatest and most illegitimate pirates who ever lived."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Sun, 17 May 2026 09:38:35 +0000

"Tech is the single most powerful force that was ever arrayed against the humanities. There is a huge difference between knowledge and information, and these asinine people have taught our population that all of knowledge can be reduced to the status of information. Press a button, you got your answer. So the whole humanistic mentality of mystery, obscurity, patience, beauty — it’s the opposite of what this technology has inculcated."

Said Leon Wieseltier, Maureen Dowd, in "What A.I. Kant Do" (NYT). Wieseltier is identified only as "editor of the journal Liberties," but I needed more context, so:

Yes, tell me about the the whole humanistic mentality of mystery, obscurity, patience, beauty under siege by the greatest and most illegitimate pirates who ever lived.

I wondered why Dowd — or whoever wrote the headline — went with the stale pun "Kant" when they could have used "Oh, the humanities!" But though I came up with that on my own and was going to use it as a kicker at the end of this post, a quick google showed it's been used and used and used.

It was even famously used, 15 years ago, as a punchline on "The Big Bang Theory":

"Well, then, prepare to be terrified. If your friends are unconvincing, this year's donations might go to say the geology department... or worse it could go to the liberal arts. Millions of dollars being showered on poets literary theorists and students of gender studies"/"Oh, the humanities!"

Sunrise.

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Sun, 17 May 2026 00:46:04 +0000

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"Contrast the way UFO belief operates with historical celestial apparitions, such as the aerial phenomena associated with the Virgin Mary in Fátima, Portugal..."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Sat, 16 May 2026 12:53:42 +0000

"... on October, 13, 1917. On that day, approximately 70,000 people reported witnessing a variety of celestial phenomena. The people ranged from devout Catholics to atheists and skeptics who were there to disprove the testimonies of witnesses. But the institutional church influenced the interpretation of that event, and the devout welcomed their interpretation. The UFO community is not as trusting. It is characterized by suspicion of conventional authority, be that the Catholic Church or the U.S. government. Rather than being defined by a hierarchy, UFO belief has been shaped by pop culture. For decades, films and television series such as 'Star Trek' and 'Star Wars' offered cosmologies populated with advanced intelligences. These stories did not create belief in UFOs, but they helped establish a cultural vocabulary through which anomalous experiences could be understood. Most significantly, 'The X Files' popularized the idea that governments conceal knowledge about nonhuman intelligence.... Each new file release, leaked testimony or declassified video generates further interpretation rather than closure. The two most famous catchphrases from 'The X Files' — 'I want to believe' and 'the truth is out there' — express this perfectly...."

From "The UFO files reveal a hidden truth about a growing religion/Belief in alien life is on the rise — fueled by declining trust in institutions" (WaPo).

"The Girlbossification of AI/Reese Witherspoon, Mel Robbins, and Sheryl Sandberg are telling women to use ChatGPT or get left behind."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Sat, 16 May 2026 12:32:30 +0000

That's a headline at The Cut.

I haven't read the article (yet). I just went to AI, asked it to read the article for me, and added the prompt: "I thought 'girlboss' was a dying framework." Grok agreed with me about "girlboss."

But — I'm reading the article now — The Cut isn't promoting "girlbossification." It's sick of these girlboss celebs:

In the future these women are selling, AI can make you a better worker and mother and a more fulfilled human being. Automate as much of your job as you can so you can focus on getting that promotion, get an AI assistant to keep track of your kids’ doctors’ appointments and soccer games, and use ChatGPT to see what you’d look like with bangs or bleached eyebrows without wasting your precious time at a salon. The most common response to this kind of evangelizing has been pure annoyance. “Reese Witherspoon is trying to tell us, ‘Hey, women, get down with your own subjugation,” one commenter said. “Shilling for the technocrat bros in late stage capitalism under the guise of feminism is beyond insulting. It’s vile.”...

"Texas Children’s Hospital will create the nation’s first 'detransition clinic,' fire five physicians and pay the state $10 million..."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Sat, 16 May 2026 09:08:26 +0000

"... under an unusual settlement announced Friday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). The clinic would focus on providing [free] medical care to patients who had undergone gender-affirming healthcare and work toward reversing its effects, Paxton said.... The move follows an investigation that began in 2023 after Texas passed a law banning health providers from facilitating gender-affirming medical care for minors.... In a statement, representatives from the hospital system insisted they had been compliant with all laws but were settling to 'protect our resources from endless and costly litigation.'"

The Hill reports.

I'm also reading the Axios report of this story. There's this quote from Paxton:

"Today is a monumental day in the fight to stop the radical transgender movement. This historic settlement reflects an institutional and fundamental cultural shift away from radical 'gender' ideology."

And what Axios calls a "Reality check" (but I think Paxton would call radical ideology):

Transition-related care for kids is considered safe, appropriate and medically necessary for children by major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association.

Surgeries for transgender children are rare. Transgender teens who get gender-affirming care report high levels of satisfaction.

Detransitioning, or stopping or reversing gender transition, is relatively uncommon. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health said evidence of later regret is limited.