argumentative essay about planets

Argumentative Essay On Space Exploration

There has been a long debate over whether space exploration is worth the cost. Supporters of space exploration argue that the benefits outweigh the costs. They point to the scientific discoveries that have been made as a result of space exploration, as well as the potential for future discoveries. They also argue that space exploration helps to inspire people and promotes international cooperation.

Opponents of space exploration argue that the costs are simply too high. They point to the billions of dollars that have been spent on space exploration without any clear return on investment. They also argue that there are more pressing priorities here on Earth that should be funded instead.

So, what do you think? Is space exploration worth it? Let’s take a closer look at the arguments on both sides.

Supporters of space exploration argue that the benefits outweigh the costs. They point to the scientific discoveries that have been made as a result of space exploration, as well as the potential for future discoveries.

One of the key benefits of space exploration is the opportunity for scientific discovery. NASA has funded countless research projects that have led to new discoveries about our universe. For example, the Hubble Space Telescope has provided scientists with valuable information about the origins of the universe and the evolution of galaxies.

Space exploration also has the potential to yield further discoveries. In recent years, there has been a lot of interest in exploring Mars and other planets in our solar system. Scientists believe that there may be valuable resources on other planets that could be used to help improve life here on Earth.

In addition to the scientific benefits of space exploration, supporters also argue that it helps to inspire people. Space exploration is an awe-inspiring endeavor that captures the imagination of people around the world. It promotes international cooperation and inspires people to pursue science and engineering careers.

Opponents of space exploration argue that the costs are simply too high. They point to the billions of dollars that have been spent on space exploration without any clear return on investment.

There is no doubt that space exploration is a costly undertaking. NASA’s budget is currently about $19 billion per year, and exploratory missions can cost billions of dollars more. Given the current state of the economy, some people believe that this money could be better spent elsewhere.

Opponents also argue that there are more pressing priorities here on Earth that should be funded instead of space exploration. They point to the many problems that we face here on our planet, from poverty and disease to climate change and terrorism. They believe that we should focus our resources on solving these problems rather than exploring space.

We are all explorers, motivated by an elemental yearning to understand the unknown. We have been exploring for centuries. That indomitable desire has most likely become humanity’s greatest strength. As a result, we must ask ourselves if it is worthwhile. Is looking into the infinite expanse of space worth our time and energy?

There are a few things we must consider when answering this question. Firstly, what is space exploration? Simply put, it is the investigation of outer space by means of spacecraft. That includes everything from manned missions to robotic probes. Secondly, what does exploring space entail? It involves learning about everything out there: the planets, the stars, the black holes. It also means traveling and investigating these places. Finally, what are the benefits of space exploration? There are many potential benefits, both tangible and intangible. Some of these include new technologies, increased scientific knowledge, and international cooperation.

So then, should we explore space? The answer is yes. Space exploration is worth it because it provides us with a wealth of opportunities and benefits.

One of the primary benefits of space exploration is that it gives us access to new technologies. In order to explore space, we have to develop new technologies. And these technologies often have a multitude of applications here on Earth. For example, NASA’s Curiosity rover is helping us to learn more about Mars. But the technology that was used to build the rover can also be used in other ways, like developing better medical imaging devices. So space exploration not only helps us to understand and explore the universe, but it also helps us to improve our lives here on Earth.

Another benefit of space exploration is that it increases our scientific knowledge. By exploring space, we are able to learn more about our universe and how it works. We can study the planets, the stars, and other objects out there. This increased knowledge can help us to solve problems here on Earth, like climate change. It can also help us to develop new technologies.

Finally, space exploration helps to promote international cooperation. When different countries work together on a space mission, it helps to build trust and cooperation between them. This is important because it can lead to better relationships and cooperation in other areas as well.

Humans have recently enjoyed a burst of technology, innovation, and knowledge that has been extremely fortunate. We’ve been stuck in the Stone Age for thousands of years, so our intellect hasn’t caught up to our accomplishments because we’ve experienced this tremendous change in our lifestyle. We confront today’s issues with the wisdom of our forefathers.

This is the root of all our conflicts, whether we realize it or not. One day, future generations will judge us in the same way. They will ask themselves whether we were good stewards of the resources and opportunities we were given. They will ask whether we explored space to its fullest potential and made the most of our time on this Pale Blue Dot.

The answer to that question is complicated, but it comes down to one simple fact: yes, space exploration is worth it. It has been proven time and again to be an invaluable investment, both in terms of scientific knowledge and technological advancement. For centuries, humans have gazed up at the stars, dreaming of discovering new worlds. Now, with modern technology, we have the ability to turn those dreams into reality.

Space exploration has led to some of the most significant scientific discoveries of our time. It has helped us to better understand our place in the universe and the nature of the universe itself. It has also led to advances in technology that have made our lives better in countless ways. From the development of GPS systems to life-saving medical treatments, space exploration has had a profound impact on humanity.

In conclusion, space exploration is worth it because it provides us with many opportunities and benefits. It helps us to develop new technologies, gain scientific knowledge, and build international cooperation. We should continue exploring space because it has the potential to improve our lives here on Earth.

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Persuasive Essay Example: Pluto Should Be Considered a Planet

In the article “Nine Reasons Why Pluto Is a Planet,” (2015) Philip Metzger, a planetary physicist with a PhD, argues that Pluto should be considered a planet mainly because the IAU’s definition of a planet is arbitrary and confusing, and also because admitting it as a planet would bring the joy and excitement of discovery. He goes on to provide the analogy that if an animal doesn’t eat meat, it shouldn’t be considered a mammal but a dwarf mammal, just how since Pluto doesn’t “clear its neighborhood,” it’s not a planet. In other words, Pluto shouldn’t not be a planet just because it doesn’t do something every other planet does, saying the definition of a planet confuses doing something and being something. He also provides us with a diagram that “quantifies the ability of a planet to scatter all the smaller bodies out of its neighborhood.” It shows that Pluto has a considerable distance from the next nearest object in the Kuiper belt, a belt of many asteroids which Pluto is not a part of. This said distance is almost equivalent to that of the Earth and Venus. Here, Metzger shows us that Pluto does in fact “clear its neighborhood.” And lastly, Metzer describes the excitements that the admission of Pluto as a planet would bring to people. Metzger;s purpose is to convince the general public that Pluto should be considered a planet. Metzger’s tone is kept very conversational but formal at the same time making it easy to relate to anyone that can read and understand English. The significance of this article is that the debate of whether ot not Pluto should be considered a planet or not again has risen again, and his opinions are valuable because he was a former senior research physicist at NASA's Kennedy Space Center and is currently a professor at the University of Central Florida, meaning he knows his stuff pretty well.

I personally think that Pluto should be considered a planet too. I remember the first time I heard that Pluto was not a planet when my whole life prior I had always known it was, and it brought me deep sadness. I’m sure many people like me experienced the same thing, and that they’d want Pluto to be a planet again. Also, what does it matter that Pluto doesn’t clear its neighborhood? Just because Pluto is close to the Kuiper belt it’s not a plant? What has the definition of the planet come to? It seems like the IAU redesigned the definition of a planet precisely so that Pluto won’t meet the requirements, and if this were the case, why? But at the same time, Metzger proved that Pluto does clear its space like the IAU said it doesn’t with the nifty graph described earlier, so what the heck? And for those who say altering the definition would admit over 160 new planets to the solar system, is that really such a bad thing?

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The big idea: should we colonise other planets?

Is Elon Musk’s vision for the future a libertarian fantasy or scientific imperative?

T he question of human settlement on Mars is, for many people, not “if” but “when”. Elon Musk ’s SpaceX company began speaking of the Mars Colonial Transporter around 2012. Its latest incarnation, the prototype for a massive spaceship called Starship that can house up to 100 passengers and crew, took off from Texas in April but exploded before reaching Earth’s orbit . Whether that counts as a success or not depends on who you ask, but it testifies to Musk’s determination to see a human presence on Mars in the next decade.

His view that colonising the cosmos is humankind’s ultimate and inevitable destiny is widely shared. The moon, lacking an atmosphere, short on water, and with weak gravity, is not a very attractive stepping stone, but Mars has none of those drawbacks and is considered a much more viable place to build the first off-world settlement. “Once the exclusive province of science fiction stories and films,” according to Nasa , “the subject of space colonisation has rapidly moved several steps closer to becoming a reality thanks to major advances in rocket propulsion and design, astronautics and astrophysics, robotics and medicine.”

Why, though, should we wish to dwell on a world that lacks what we need to survive? There’s a dismaying irrationality in the answers. Stephen Hawking claimed that “spreading out [into space] may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves” – from the threat of human-made catastrophes such as the climate crisis or nuclear war. Well, lord knows the world has problems, but supposing they can be solved anywhere other than Earth is an escapist fantasy; Nasa’s claim that “the urgency to establish humanity as a multiplanet species has been re-validated by the emergence of a worldwide pandemic” borders on misinformation.

The timescales just don’t add up. Climate change either will or won’t become an existential risk well before it’s realistic to imagine a self-sustaining Martian settlement of millions: we’re talking a century or more. Speculating about nuclear war post-2123 is science fiction. So the old environmentalist cliche is right: there is no Planet B, and to suggest otherwise risks lessening the urgency of preserving Planet A. As for the threat of a civilisation-ending meteorite impact: one that big is expected only every several million years, so it’s safe to say there are more urgent worries. The sun going out? Sure, in 5bn years, and if you think there will still be humans then, you don’t understand evolution.

For some, the justification for planetary settlement is not existential fear but our innate drive to explore. “The settlement of North America and other continents was a prelude to humanity’s greater challenge: the space frontier,” reads a 1986 document by the Reagan-appointed US National Commission of Space , rather clumsily letting slip who it was and was not speaking for. But at least “Because it would be cool” is an honest answer to the question: “Why go?”

So let’s go with that, and assume something like Musk’s big fat rocket can get us there. What might life in Mars City be like? Advocates for off-world colonies love to show images like those in the physicist and space activist Gerard O’Neill’s 1977 book The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space – an orderly, utopian American suburbia of chic apartments and parks, simply transplanted elsewhere in the solar system. Science fiction, on the other hand, is full of grim outposts on bleak, frozen planets, and savage prison or mining colonies. If history is any guide, frontier settlements are no picnic, and certainly not the kind of places that nurture harmonious, tolerant societies. If you want to know what to expect from colonies established by “billionauts” such as Musk or Jeff Bezos , perhaps ask their employees in Amazon warehouses or the Twitter offices. Many advocates for space settlement are “neoliberal techno-utopians”, says the astrophysicist Erika Nesvold, who sell it on a libertarian ticket as an escape from the pesky regulation of governments.

The space industry doesn’t talk much about such things. As Nesvold discovered when she began quizzing commercial space companies in 2016, ethical questions such as human rights or environmental protection in space typically meet with a response of “we’ll worry about that later”. The idea is to get there first.

If the notion of a “colonial transporter” gave you a twinge of unease, you’re not alone. Associations of space exploration with colonialism have existed ever since it was first mooted in the 17th century. Some advocates ridicule the comparison: there are surely no indigenous people to witness the arrival of the first crewed spaceships on Mars . But the analogy gets stronger when thinking about how commercial incentives might distort rights afforded to the settlers (Musk has floated the idea of loans to get to Mars City being paid off by work on arrival), or how colonial powers waged proxy wars in far-off lands. And if the argument is that these settlements would exist to save us from catastrophe on Earth, the question of who gets to go becomes more acute. So far it has been the rich and famous.

Perhaps the most pernicious aspect of the “Columbus” comparison, however, is that it encourages us to believe that space is just another ocean to sail, with the lure of virgin lands to draw us. But other worlds are not the New World; space is harsh beyond any earthly comparison, and it will be constantly trying to kill you. Quite aside from the cold and airlessness, the biggest danger is the radiation: streams of charged, high-energy particles, from which we are shielded by the Earth’s magnetic field. Currently, a crewed mission to Mars would be prohibited by the permitted radiation limits for astronauts. We don’t have any solutions to that problem.

Planetary scientists are often among the least enthusiastic about space settlements. It’s not surprising really – you may as well ask ecologists if we should build cities in the Amazon. But whether you think we should preserve Mars for scientific study or try to “terraform” it to give it a breathable atmosphere and a warmer climate, it would be best to have that debate before we arrive.

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Further reading

Off-Earth: Ethical Questions and Quandaries for Living in Outer Space by Erika Nesvold (MIT, £26)

Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race by Mary-Jane Rubenstein (Chicago, £18.33)

Turning Dust to Gold: Building a Future on the Moon and Mars by Haym Benaroya (Springer Praxis, £44.99)

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• How to write an argumentative essay | Examples & tips

How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement . The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

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Table of contents

When do you write an argumentative essay, approaches to argumentative essays, introducing your argument, the body: developing your argument, concluding your argument, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about argumentative essays.

You might be assigned an argumentative essay as a writing exercise in high school or in a composition class. The prompt will often ask you to argue for one of two positions, and may include terms like “argue” or “argument.” It will frequently take the form of a question.

The prompt may also be more open-ended in terms of the possible arguments you could make.

Argumentative writing at college level

At university, the vast majority of essays or papers you write will involve some form of argumentation. For example, both rhetorical analysis and literary analysis essays involve making arguments about texts.

In this context, you won’t necessarily be told to write an argumentative essay—but making an evidence-based argument is an essential goal of most academic writing, and this should be your default approach unless you’re told otherwise.

Examples of argumentative essay prompts

At a university level, all the prompts below imply an argumentative essay as the appropriate response.

Your research should lead you to develop a specific position on the topic. The essay then argues for that position and aims to convince the reader by presenting your evidence, evaluation and analysis.

• Don’t just list all the effects you can think of.
• Do develop a focused argument about the overall effect and why it matters, backed up by evidence from sources.
• Don’t just provide a selection of data on the measures’ effectiveness.
• Do build up your own argument about which kinds of measures have been most or least effective, and why.
• Don’t just analyze a random selection of doppelgänger characters.
• Do form an argument about specific texts, comparing and contrasting how they express their thematic concerns through doppelgänger characters.

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An argumentative essay should be objective in its approach; your arguments should rely on logic and evidence, not on exaggeration or appeals to emotion.

There are many possible approaches to argumentative essays, but there are two common models that can help you start outlining your arguments: The Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

Toulmin arguments

The Toulmin model consists of four steps, which may be repeated as many times as necessary for the argument:

• Make a claim
• Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim
• Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim)
• Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives

The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays. You don’t have to use these specific terms (grounds, warrants, rebuttals), but establishing a clear connection between your claims and the evidence supporting them is crucial in an argumentative essay.

Say you’re making an argument about the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination measures. You might:

• Claim that unconscious bias training does not have the desired results, and resources would be better spent on other approaches
• Cite data to support your claim
• Explain how the data indicates that the method is ineffective
• Anticipate objections to your claim based on other data, indicating whether these objections are valid, and if not, why not.

Rogerian arguments

The Rogerian model also consists of four steps you might repeat throughout your essay:

• Discuss what the opposing position gets right and why people might hold this position
• Highlight the problems with this position
• Present your own position , showing how it addresses these problems
• Suggest a possible compromise —what elements of your position would proponents of the opposing position benefit from adopting?

This model builds up a clear picture of both sides of an argument and seeks a compromise. It is particularly useful when people tend to disagree strongly on the issue discussed, allowing you to approach opposing arguments in good faith.

Say you want to argue that the internet has had a positive impact on education. You might:

• Acknowledge that students rely too much on websites like Wikipedia
• Argue that teachers view Wikipedia as more unreliable than it really is
• Suggest that Wikipedia’s system of citations can actually teach students about referencing
• Suggest critical engagement with Wikipedia as a possible assignment for teachers who are skeptical of its usefulness.

You don’t necessarily have to pick one of these models—you may even use elements of both in different parts of your essay—but it’s worth considering them if you struggle to structure your arguments.

Regardless of which approach you take, your essay should always be structured using an introduction , a body , and a conclusion .

Like other academic essays, an argumentative essay begins with an introduction . The introduction serves to capture the reader’s interest, provide background information, present your thesis statement , and (in longer essays) to summarize the structure of the body.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

The body of an argumentative essay is where you develop your arguments in detail. Here you’ll present evidence, analysis, and reasoning to convince the reader that your thesis statement is true.

In the standard five-paragraph format for short essays, the body takes up three of your five paragraphs. In longer essays, it will be more paragraphs, and might be divided into sections with headings.

Each paragraph covers its own topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Each of these topics must contribute to your overall argument; don’t include irrelevant information.

This example paragraph takes a Rogerian approach: It first acknowledges the merits of the opposing position and then highlights problems with that position.

Hover over different parts of the example to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

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An argumentative essay ends with a conclusion that summarizes and reflects on the arguments made in the body.

No new arguments or evidence appear here, but in longer essays you may discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your argument and suggest topics for future research. In all conclusions, you should stress the relevance and importance of your argument.

Hover over the following example to see the typical elements of a conclusion.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

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109 Space Exploration Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best space exploration topic ideas & essay examples, 📑 good research topics about space exploration, ⭐ simple & easy space exploration essay titles, 💡 interesting topics to write about space exploration, ❓ research questions about space exploration.

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• Venus: The Object for Research and Space Missions The current offer is unique in that it is planned to launch modules on the surface of Venus and keep them active for a long time.
• Liquid Lake on Mars As a matter of fact, it is also an interesting article because it revolves around the probability of having a new form of life in the Solar System outside the Earth.
• Mars Reconnaissance Orbital Some challenges were encountered with two of the devices mounted on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in November. The HiRISE installed in the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has shown over time that, it is of great importance […]
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• Jupiter: From a Wandering Star to the King of the Planets In spite of the fact that Jupiter is more distant than Mars to the Earth, it is usually brighter, and it shines during the whole year around.
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The Worst Argument for Youth Transition

Andrea Long Chu says the unpopular part out loud.

Listen to this article

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

The point of a public intellectual is to make wild arguments with maximum conviction. And in this respect, Andrea Long Chu—transgender woman, Pulitzer Prize–winning literary critic, irrepressible provocateur—always exceeds my expectations.

In a recent cover story for New York magazine, Chu makes the case for child gender transition using the most unpopular rationale possible: in essence, that minors should be allowed to have mastectomies and other gender surgeries if they want them, simply because they want them. “We will never be able to defend the rights of transgender kids until we understand them purely on their own terms: as full members of society who would like to change their sex,” Chu writes. “ It does not matter where this desire comes from .”

Counterpoint: It does.

The most broadly appealing version of the argument for medical transition is that a small number of people have a psychological condition (gender dysphoria) that makes them unhappy (because their sexed bodies feel alien to them) and doctors have treatments (hormones and surgery) that can help.

In making the case for youth transition, activists have tended to emphasize the first part of that story—the distress of gender-nonconforming children—to justify treatments that would otherwise sound extreme. Even Marci Bowers, the president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, has noted that blocking puberty early means patients might never develop adult fertility or sexual function. The price of a genetically male child never growing an Adam’s apple or having his voice break—the outcomes that will help that child pass more easily as a woman one day—can be giving up orgasms and the ability to have biological children.

Put simply, this is not something that most parents would agree to—unless the alternative was worse. And so medical-transition advocates have highlighted the possibility of suicide by gender-nonconforming minors: Would you rather have a dead son or a living daughter? (Thankfully, adolescent suicides for any reason are rare, although rates have risen in the past decade.)

Treating gender dysphoria as a clinical diagnosis with a medical solution, Chu argues, has “hung trans rights on the thin peg of gender identity”—the idea of a male or female essence (or something in between) that resides inside all of us. She notes that this argument was copied from the marriage-equality fight, where activists stressed that being gay was an innate and unchangeable state, not a trend, a pathology, or something into which a person could be groomed or seduced. Adopting a similar “born this way” argument for medical transition, Chu writes, “won us modest gains at the level of social acceptance.”

From the July/August 2018 issue: When children say they’re trans

She doesn’t think this is enough. Instead, she makes an argument for full-throttle libertarianism, albeit without ever using the word. She doesn’t want grudging accommodations and delicately balanced rights. She wants people like her—born male and living as women—to have unfettered access to female sports and services, based purely on their self-identification. And she wants Americans of any age to have the right to “change sex,” a phrase she seems to define specifically in terms of medical body modification.

The stark facts of child transition are that when the puberty-blocker model was developed, a few hundred minors sought treatment every year—England’s main clinic had only 210 referrals in 2011—and those treated were mostly natal males who had suffered gender dysphoria since early childhood and exhibited no other mental-health issues. What kicked off the current debate was a steep rise in the number of children seeking care, and the changing demographics of those children. In recent years most of the patients have been genetically female, and many of them presented with other issues, such as autism , eating disorders, anxiety, or past trauma.

Undoubtedly, such children need parental support, counseling, and appropriate medical treatment. The “affirmative” model departed from this assertion, though, characterizing extensive psychological assessments as transphobic gatekeeping. Removing barriers to medical transition was a “life-saving” approach, supporters claimed.

However, the evidence that adolescent medical transition prevents suicide turns out to be thin. As early as 2018, the Gender Identity Development Service—Britain’s leading child gender clinic, staffed by doctors involved with transition-related care—criticized a television drama called Butterfly that showed a gender-nonconforming 11-year-old attempting suicide. “It is not helpful to suggest that suicidality is an inevitable part of this condition,” the clinic declared in a statement. “It would be very unusual for younger children referred to the service to make suicidal attempts.” Last month, a Finnish study concluded that suicide was rare among minors seeking help at gender clinics, and when deaths occurred, they reflected overall mental-health challenges rather than being specifically linked to gender dysphoria.

This emerging evidence doesn’t bother Chu, because she regards evidence as a real downer. She criticizes the writer Jesse Singal’s 2018 Atlantic cover story on child transition—which included interviews with doctors and patients who had a variety of perspectives on the issue—and claims that it ushered in an unwelcome phase of the transgender debate. “The story provided a template for the coverage that would follow it,” she writes. “First, it took what was threatening to become a social issue, hence a question of rights, and turned it back into a medical issue, hence a question of evidence; it then quietly suggested that since the evidence was debatable, so were the rights.”

Daniela Valdes and Kinnon MacKinnon: Take detransitioners seriously

For Chu, the primacy of rights means that evidence is irrelevant to medical decisions—even when children are involved. This view has two logical implications: The first is that, if we are now just letting kids do whatever they want with their bodies, why not let them get married at 12, or drink alcohol at 13, or consent to sex at 14 with an adult partner? “Toddlers have the right to get tattoos” might be the worst political slogan I have ever heard.

The alternative argument is that gender—however you define it—is so unique and important that it alone justifies total bodily autonomy for minors.

Whenever I read Chu’s work, I get the sense that she’s mocking the strand of feminism for which I have argued all my adult life. The project of feminism, from Mary Wollstonecraft onwards, has been to decouple the material reality of being born female from notions of passivity and femininity. But in her book, Females , Chu writes enthusiastically about “sissy porn,” in which “getting fucked makes you female because fucked is what a female is.” (Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer the more standard definition of XX chromosomes and the body type evolved to produce large gametes.) Shorn of identifying information, the author of that quotation could be assumed to be an old-school misogynist rather than a darling of the progressive left.

But such trollishness is Chu’s preferred style when writing about gender. (Her literary criticism is more straightforward.) She has written that she transitioned to experience “benevolent chauvinism” and to wear hot pants, and argued that “my new vagina won’t make me happy, and it shouldn’t have to.” The modern trans movement has largely tidied away the suggestion that sexuality—and particularly, the sexual fetish known as autogynephilia, where men become aroused by the thought of themselves as women—has anything to do with transition. Yet Chu has steamrolled through that taboo too, wondering aloud whether sissy porn made her trans. Sometimes I think only her ideological opponents actually read her work. Certainly, liberals tend to get uncomfortable when you quote from it, because they know perfectly well that this is not the trans-rights narrative approved by GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign. You have to argue against her with one hand tied behind your back, politely overlooking her actual, published statements, including her claim that the anus is “a kind of universal vagina through which femaleness can always be accessed.”

Anyway, it turns out that I wasn’t wrong to think Chu is mocking me—because she is, specifically, by name. Her New York article includes me on a list of supposed gender-critical “militants,” alongside Singal, Matthew Yglesias, Matt Taibbi, Andrew Sullivan, Meghan Daum, and Bari Weiss. “Many of these writers live in self-imposed exile on Substack, the newsletter platform, where they present themselves as brave survivors of cancellation by the woke elites,” she writes. Never mind that to most of America, my European center-left views make me a woke elite. My offense is to be “preoccupied with the ‘science denial’ of radical activists, who have put wokeness before rational standards of care.” Yes, I do think doctors should have a good evidence base before giving out drugs used for chemical castration . Guilty as charged!

Chu identifies my fellow militants as an insidious force against the affirmative gender-care model. The queer theorist Judith Butler believes that only fascists —and trans-exclusionary radical feminists, or TERFs, whom Butler sees as fascists in disguise—have questions about the new orthodoxy on gender. But Chu is willing to grant us membership in a third category. We are TARLs, or trans-agnostic reactionary liberals. (To my ears, this doesn’t sound as catchy as TERF, but then, I haven’t yet had the newer term screamed at me through a megaphone by a six-foot figure in a balaclava.) “The TARL’s primary concern, to hear him tell it, lies in protecting free speech and civil society from the illiberal forces of the woke left,” she writes. “On trans people themselves, the TARL claims to take no position other than to voice his general empathy for anyone suffering from psychological distress or civil-rights violations.” Again, guilty as charged.

The ostensible hook for Chu’s argument is a new book by Butler, and the essay begins with a review of it. My impression, however, is that Chu finds Butler’s prose dull (relatable) and their persona dour; she clearly prefers her own rhetorical fireworks and provocative poses to Butler’s pioneering work in the field of impenetrable subclauses .

Chu’s real motivation, surely, is a sense that her side is losing. In Europe, where the “Dutch protocol” of puberty blockers was developed in the 1990s, several countries are turning toward talk therapy as a first-line treatment instead. Just after Chu’s essay was published, England’s National Health Service announced that it would no longer routinely prescribe puberty blockers for dysphoria, saying that the evidence for their safety and effectiveness simply was not good enough. France, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and even the Netherlands have also pulled back—hardly a roster of countries that you’d describe as being to the right of the United States. Crucially, these decisions have been led by doctors, not politicians, unlike in the U.S., where the debate is extremely polarized and the most high-profile opponents of youth transition are Republican governors .

Helen Lewis: The only way out of the child-gender culture war

But even in America, the debate is shifting. Quite a bit of Chu’s essay is devoted to complaints about media organizations that have not sufficiently echoed the activist line—that puberty blockers are safe and reversible, and that the “ science is settled .” The New York Times is deemed to have fallen into the hands of barbarians, or at least failed to stop them from storming the affirmative gates. (Its recent publication of more skeptical articles has led to staff revolts .) “The paper consistently refuses to treat transition-related care the way it would any other health-care matter … as an issue of access,” Chu laments, ignoring the fact that if rates of women seeking abortions, say, rose by thousands of percent in a decade, the Times probably would write about the phenomenon.

The loss of the Times as a reliable ally matters because the American model of youth transition is best described as consensus-based rather than evidence-based —which is to say, it rests on the agreement of credentialed experts rather than on the conclusions of highly rigorous studies. And when the clinical rationale for underage medical transition disappears, what is left is ideology. “The belief that we have a moral duty to accept reality just because it is real is, I think, a fine definition of nihilism,” Chu writes. She would prefer to make a radical claim for unfettered personal freedom, even for minors: “Let anyone change their sex. Let anyone change their gender. Let anyone change their sex again. Let trans girls play sports, regardless of their sex status. If they excel, this means only that some girls are better at sports than others.” (It doesn’t, of course—it means that male puberty and higher male testosterone levels confer significant sporting advantages, but that’s me being a reality-accepting nihilist again.)

Above all, Chu argues, we should treat children’s statements about their identity with unquestioned reverence: “To make ‘thoughtfulness’ a requirement of any universal right is to taper that right into an exclusive privilege. That trans kids’ access to care will in most cases be mediated by parents or legal guardians is an inescapable fact of the way our society regards children, rightly or not. For now, parents must learn to treat their kids as what they are: human beings capable of freedom.”

In making a case this way, Chu shows a titillating disdain for respectability politics—and will surely irritate many people who share her political goals. For skeptics of puberty blockers like me, who are used to arguing against people who claim that any overreach in gender medicine is not really happening, or that too few patients are involved to be worth caring, or that we should be writing about something more important instead—all the riotous flavors of denial and whataboutism—Chu’s case for unlimited agency for teenagers is refreshing. She said everything out loud, and her argument is logical, coherent, and forcefully delivered. You just won’t hear it made very often, because it’s about as popular as the case for letting 9-year-olds get nose jobs.