Gender again. Sorry!

[monkers]

I would not expect doctors and charities to tell me the effects are completely reversible when they aren't, as with puberty blockers or fail to tell me there were other treatments available.

Please do not confuse or conflate puberty blockers with cross sex hormones. This deliberate abuse of medical evidence is known to medical practitioners, who despite their eloquence are reticent to being drawn into the politically driven and motivated culture war.

Here is one such report which is more usually unavailable to the public, appearing as it does in The Lancet to which I am a subscriber. I am not a medical professional, my subscription allows me to read articles but as you will expect does not give me leave to publish articles there.

To ensure that I am not guilty of cherry-picking, here is one such article in full - the bolded part is my bolding to provide a quick link to the especially relevant section (para 3).

Children need protecting. Most people would agree, but the implications vary wildly. On April 6, 2021, amid a flood of new bills to curb the rights of transgender and gender diverse (trans) youth in the USA, Arkansas became the first state to prohibit doctors from providing youth (<18 years) with gender-affirming treatment: puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and gender-affirming surgery. 20 other US states have introduced similar bills, while 31 states have introduced bills to limit trans youth participation in sport. However, what the bills seek to protect appears to be traditional gender norms, using a vulnerable group in a protracted culture war. The bills' socially conservative advocates create fear by focusing on emotive issues, honing the same messaging around protecting women and children that was used in earlier campaigns against abortion and same-sex marriage. As clinicians, it is important to use evidence to debunk the false claims being made.

Disproportionate emphasis is given to young people's inability to provide medical consent, a moot point given that—like any medical care—parental consent is required. Supplanting parents with the law for this decision presumes that a parent living alongside their child cannot grasp what is best for them, despite often witnessing many years of struggle. Driving this consent narrative is the anxiety evoked by focusing on the minority who regret transition (estimated as 1% of adults who had gender-affirming surgery as adolescents). However, in any situation when medical treatment will alter a person's identity, no one can know whether post-treatment regret will occur; therefore what matters ethically is whether an individual has a good enough reason for wanting treatment. Regardless of law makers' stance on identifying with a gender other than one's birth-assigned sex, the autonomy for this decision lies with young people and their parents.

More fear is stoked by rhetoric about a malevolent threat to children. Social conservatives in the USA, UK, and Australia frame gender-affirming care as child abuse and medical experimentation. This stance wilfully ignores decades of use of and research about puberty blockers and hormone therapy: a collective enterprise of evidence-based medicine culminating in guidelines from medical associations such as the Endocrine Society and American Academy of Pediatrics. Puberty blockers are falsely claimed to cause infertility and to be irreversible, despite no substantiated evidence. The dominance of the infertility narrative, usually focused on child-bearing ability, perhaps reveals more about conservatives' commitment to women's role as child-bearers. Puberty blockers are framed as pushing children into taking hormones, whereas the time they provide allows for conversations with health providers and parents on different options. Gender transition involves many decisions over a long time, and those who take hormones do so because they are trans. Contrary to claims of a new phenomenon, trans youth have always existed; historians show they have sought trans medicine since it became possible: the 1930s in the USA.

Focusing on potential harms ignores the fact that wellbeing is broader than physical health alone. The harms to wellbeing posed by prohibiting care are huge. Being a marginalised group (<2% of US youth), trans youth already experience the stress of discrimination and stigmatisation. They have high rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide: almost double the rates of suicide ideation of their cis peers. As Laura Baams discusses in her Comment, puberty blockers reduce suicidality. Removing these treatments is to deny life. Moreover, whereas the bills focus on medical treatments, the care trans youth receive is far wider in scope. Those seeking care typically also see social workers and psychiatrists, and much of health providers' work involves listening, talking, and setting up support in their families, schools, and communities. Health providers also discuss with them the idea that gender is something we “do” in social practice and can take many forms. Indeed, some choose social transition without medical treatment, and it is useful to remember that the notion of gender dysphoria perpetuates the historical pathologisation of gender diversity. Challenging the current social construction of male–female will undoubtedly ease trans youths' lives, reducing the pressure of rigid definitions. But alongside these social aspects is a pressing need for medical care.

While those pushing the legislation claim to protect children, their arguments lack the voices of trans youth and their health providers. Trans youth seek gender-affirming care because they are trans, and they have the same right to health and wellbeing as all humans.

 

[icowden]

Please do not confuse or conflate puberty blockers with cross sex hormones. This deliberate abuse of medical evidence is known to medical practitioners, who despite their eloquence are reticent to being drawn into the politically driven and motivated culture war.
To ensure that I am not guilty of cherry-picking, here is one such article in full - the bolded part is my bolding to provide a quick link to the especially relevant section (para 3).

Thank you for the article. A very interesting read. The only statement I take issue with is:-

Trans youth seek gender-affirming care because they are trans, and they have the same right to health and wellbeing as all humans.

Surely they seek gender-affirming care because they believe that they are trans, and the point of that care should be to establish whether they actually are trans, what that means to them and how they want to move forward, how therapy progresses with both them and their parents until they are at the age of consent, and eventually whether they are fully cognisant of the risks and complications of surgery and hormone blockers.

One of the repeated concerns is around children who think they are trans or are trans because they have found a community that they can fit into rather than a genuine and deep felt need to attempt to change themselves to live as a different gender.

 

[AuroraSaab]

It's not a report. It's an Editorial, ie opinion piece, by Sam Thomas. It's online in full here:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(21)00139-5/fulltext

It's main thrust seems to be that children, or if not the child then the parents, should have bodily autonomy in deciding whether puberty blockers are appropriate treatment for body/gender dysphoria in kids.

That's all well and good but it relies on children and parents having the full information on these drugs, when in reality both Mermaids and the Tavistock promoted them as a 'pause button' and reversible. They are not.

Parents and kids are/were not always in possession of the full facts on either puberty blockers or the fact that most body dysphoria resolves on it's own. The Affirmation model doesn't allow for exploratory therapy or 'watchful waiting' either. Add to this the promotion of suicidal ideation and 'Would you rather have a trans kid or a dead kid?' and I would say that distressed children and desperate parents were not making properly informed decisions. They were going along with 'Doctor knows best'.

It's funny that having looked at the lack of evidence the countries with free health care are ending the medical pathway for children with body issue. The ones with a large private health sector are going full steam ahead. Almost as if generating money comes before 'First do no harm'.

Looks like the Conversion Therapy Ban Bill in Iceland has failed and been dropped. Common sense.

 

[multitool]

Just as well Aurora's knowledge of the effects of pharmaceuticals is greater than the consultants.

It expect she dId hEr oWn rEsEaRCh

 

[AuroraSaab]

Presumably your knowledge of the effects of puberty blockers exceeds that of the government and medical experts of the UK, Sweden, Netherlands, Norway, and I think France now too, who have all rowed back on their use with dysphoric children. Just like you know better than the medics and scientists who advise those sports bodies which have now sought to protect the female category

When professional bodies start looking at the evidence and stop allowing activists to call the shots, they change their policies.

Except in the US and Canada of course, where ideology trumps science and $$$$$ matters most of all.

 

[monkers]

It's not a report. It's an Editorial, ie opinion piece, by Sam Thomas. It's online in full here:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(21)00139-5/fulltext

It's main thrust seems to be that children, or if not the child then the parents, should have bodily autonomy in deciding whether puberty blockers are appropriate treatment for body/gender dysphoria in kids.

That's all well and good but it relies on children and parents having the full information on these drugs, when in reality both Mermaids and the Tavistock promoted them as a 'pause button' and reversible. They are not.

Parents and kids are/were not always in possession of the full facts on either puberty blockers or the fact that most body dysphoria resolves on it's own. The Affirmation model doesn't allow for exploratory therapy or 'watchful waiting' either. Add to this the promotion of suicidal ideation and 'Would you rather have a trans kid or a dead kid?' and I would say that distressed children and desperate parents were not making properly informed decisions. They were going along with 'Doctor knows best'.

It's funny that having looked at the lack of evidence the countries with free health care are ending the medical pathway for children with body issue. The ones with a large private health sector are going full steam ahead. Almost as if generating money comes before 'First do no harm'.

Looks like the Conversion Therapy Ban Bill in Iceland has failed and been dropped. Common sense.

This what makes you dangerous and to those who understand the science will think you sound unhinged. You have no idea what you are talking about, but that never stops you from pretending that you do.

The other big claim is that this is the same drug used to chemically castrate paedophiles. This is a scare and alarmist technique technique. It attempts to conflate trans people with paedophiles, even using the word 'groomers' to label the parents of trans youngsters.

It takes no account of the way in which this drug is prescribed and used.

I can buy pain killers off the shelf round the local Co-op in the full knowledge that I can use them to take my own life. I am restricted from buying above a certain quantity, but that is no deterrent. I can buy a pack and return there a few minutes later when a different person is on the till, or walk another 100 metres to the petrol station and buy another pack. So to bang on medicines being available off-label is a ridiculous argument.

An understanding of what dosage is required to achieve an effect at a safe level is paramount. There is no evidence of young adults or children being prescribed blockers at unsafe levels. It is also a much different medical paradigm; one can not simply say that the usage / dosage in a pre-pubescent youngster can be compared with the usage and dosage of a post pubescent adult to achieve a different outcome. To do is a nonsense and dangerous talk. It is propaganda.

While you seem free to make these claims, there is no sound evidence you can rely on. It is not ethical to make a claim and not be able to provide properly conducted research to support it.

Further to what you say, there is evidence from research into the effects of blockers on adults at higher dosage for the purposes of chemical castration, and what that research shows is that there is no accompanying sterility, and that the effects are temporary. In other words after the treatment stops normal function returns.

On the other hand chemical castration of men using female hormones is another matter. Again depending on use / dosage the effects are more permanent, especially in terms of atrophy. I spelt this out before, but interestingly you tended to mock it.

In the early part of this century British society was making strides forward, and now we are regressing. Being a lesbian has never been a crime in this country, and yet one friend was subjected to involuntary conversion therapy in 1990. Her father (or the Fuhrer as she called him) was a vicar. The bastard beat her regularly and verbally abused her. Eventually she walked out and never saw her parents again.

Homosexuality between men wasn't finally legalised until 2003. Same sex marriage not until 2013.

The pardon of Alan Turing was blocked by parliament. This didn't stop QE2 from granting him a pardon.

It seems that this social progress is being resisted by people who might happily identify as social conservatives, who portray themselves as moderates, and polite and respectful people, but in reality are petty small-minded control freaks, living in little bubbles of vanilla believing they have the right to takeaway the human rights of others, often with some fixation about one God or another.

 

[monkers]

Thank you for the article. A very interesting read. The only statement I take issue with is:-

Surely they seek gender-affirming care because they believe that they are trans, and the point of that care should be to establish whether they actually are trans, what that means to them and how they want to move forward, how therapy progresses with both them and their parents until they are at the age of consent, and eventually whether they are fully cognisant of the risks and complications of surgery and hormone blockers.

One of the repeated concerns is around children who think they are trans or are trans because they have found a community that they can fit into rather than a genuine and deep felt need to attempt to change themselves to live as a different gender.

Thank you, and I'm glad you took the trouble to read and consider it.

On your point, I'm going to return to the point I made before about the use of that word 'belief'. In ordinary usage that word tends to be used regardless of whether the stimulus for the belief is intrinsic or extrinsic. Religion is a system of belief because it is taught. Without the teaching of it, a person may develop with some sense of spirituality, but not with the idea of there being a creator, a supreme being, of heaven and hell.

For a trans person, that concept of 'belief' is markedly different, it is not extrinsic, it is an internalised belief that is perhaps better thought of as self-knowledge.

There is no test for gender identity. As yet mind-melding with Vulcans is not available on the NHS.

As for the ongoing idea of 'fads'. For some young people there is a tendency to wish to break free from the manner is which society wishes to suppress individuality, or perhaps more precisely the expression of it - it manifests as an expression of refusing to being boxed in by social norms. If one makes the mistake of identifying these young people and trying to treat them as such, then one might be making a mistake.

These young people are very easy to filter provided they are given the opportunity to speak freely.

It can take some imagination for those people who are relentlessly straight, or maybe a bit square to get their head around, but it's been evolving over a period of time through punk, glam rock, etc etc. Now it is evolving again. Here's Chris, previously Christine and the Queens in a BBC interview from some four years back, though it's worth noting that they has evolved further since ...


View: https://youtu.be/ISvtTtoGq-Y

 

[AuroraSaab]

This what makes you dangerous and to those who understand the science will think you sound unhinged. You have no idea what you are talking about, but that never stops you from pretending that you do.

Another verbose post that says very little.

Do you honestly think the scientists and doctors in the UK, Sweden, Norway etc. didn't understand the science when they banned puberty blockers? Do you think they are pretending too or didn't do any research first?

I haven't mentioned paedophiles or Alan Turing, or dosage for kids. You just continue to chuck stuff like that around because you imagine it generates sympathy for your 'it's all a culture war... nothing to see here...move along' narrative when there are serious issues around evidence and informed consent in the treatment of children and young people at gender clinics.

 

[monkers]

Another verbose post that says very little.

Do you honestly think the scientists and doctors in the UK, Sweden, Norway etc. didn't understand the science when they banned puberty blockers? Do you think they are pretending too or didn't do any research first?

I haven't mentioned paedophiles or Alan Turing. You just continue to chuck stuff like that around because you imagine it generates sympathy for your 'it's all a culture war... nothing to see here...move along' narrative when there are serious issues around evidence and informed consent in the treatment of children and young people at gender clinics.

What you need to keep in mind is that I am not one of those people who wants a culture war. Nor am I pushing any narrative as you claim.

But I do have over 50 years of living in the LGBT community, and I have raised a trans child. I've seen the relentless anguish of a child who society could not make sense of, a child who with help became a fully formed highly intelligent and articulate adult. Over time with the help she received that anguish abated, and now thanks to dangerous people without knowledge peddling an alarmist agenda it has returned.

The narrative is toxic, she takes no part in it, and despite her eloquence would not wish to speak publicly about her life. Trans people are not all trans activists. Those that I know have been trying hard to live ordinary lives while trying to also be unseen. They are not hiding among us as a danger or threat, they are simply living.

At one time trans women were living peaceably in the UK, now there are searchlights everyone looking for them; people desperate to expose them, identify them, dox them, and expose them to harm.

There have been a number of trans people recently targeted, not for doing anything wrong, not even for speaking out, but identified by gender critical activists.

My niece has her life turned upside down last year when subjected to this, with her car vandalised, her house broken into, property stolen, excrement and graffiti left in and outside her house.

This is why you people are dangerous, you expose people to harm in this relentless pursuit of purity. This is why it is a form of fascism, and why I will not be stopped from saying so.

 

[monkers]

Another verbose post that says very little.

Do you honestly think the scientists and doctors in the UK, Sweden, Norway etc. didn't understand the science when they banned puberty blockers? Do you think they are pretending too or didn't do any research first?

I haven't mentioned paedophiles or Alan Turing, or dosage for kids. You just continue to chuck stuff like that around because you imagine it generates sympathy for your 'it's all a culture war... nothing to see here...move along' narrative when there are serious issues around evidence and informed consent in the treatment of children and young people at gender clinics.

You calling me 'verbose'.

Sweden 'banned' puberty blockers. Not even true.

People will be quick to see that I do not say, it's just a culture war, nothing to see here. Just lies, piled upon lies.

I get tired of having to show posters here that you are just gish galloping. Why can't you stop yourself? Has it ever crossed your mind that you might need a bit of help with that?

 

[AndyRM]

What you need to keep in mind is that I am not one of those people who wants a culture war. Nor am I pushing any narrative as you claim.

But I do have over 50 years of living in the LGBT community, and I have raised a trans child. I've seen the relentless anguish of a child who society could not make sense of, a child who with help became a fully formed highly intelligent and articulate adult. Over time with the help she received that anguish abated, and now thanks to dangerous people without knowledge peddling an alarmist agenda it has returned.

The narrative is toxic, she takes no part in it, and despite her eloquence would not wish to speak publicly about her life. Trans people are not all trans activists. Those that I know have been trying hard to live ordinary lives while trying to also be unseen. They are not hiding among us as a danger or threat, they are simply living.

At one time trans women were living peaceably in the UK, now there are searchlights everyone looking for them; people desperate to expose them, identify them, dox them, and expose them to harm.

There have been a number of trans people recently targeted, not for doing anything wrong, not even for speaking out, but identified by gender critical activists.

My niece has her life turned upside down last year when subjected to this, with her car vandalised, her house broken into, property stolen, excrement and graffiti left in and outside her house.

This is why you people are dangerous, you expose people to harm in this relentless pursuit of purity. This is why it is a form of fascism, and why I will not be stopped from saying so.

This makes a lot of sense to me, though I'm not trans, I know trans people who have experienced similar and just want to live their lives unhindered by people who care more about what's in their underwear than who they actually are.

Are there vocal trans activists? Sure, but they are a minority and like most forms of activism there are aspects I agree with, and others I am opposed to.

 

[AuroraSaab]

This is why you people are dangerous, you expose people to harm in this relentless pursuit of purity. This is why it is a form of fascism, and why I will not be stopped from saying so.

It's not fascism to think that men - because that's who we are talking about - shouldn't be in women's prisons, rape centres, domestic violence refuges, changing rooms, and sports.

It's not fascism to ask that a disabled person gets a same sex carer if they wish.

It's not fascism to ask for better, holistic standards of care, rather than automatic affirmation, for kids with body dysphoria.

It's certainly not fascism for women to discuss things which impinge on their lives, or their children's lives. They have every right to do so. Shouting terf/Nazi/fascist because the days of No Debate are over won't make any difference anymore. Nobody cares about your hyperbolic slurs.

 

[monkers]

It's not fascism to think that men - because that's who we are talking about - shouldn't be in women's prisons, rape centres, domestic violence refuges, changing rooms, and sports.

It's not fascism to ask that a disabled person gets a same sex carer if they wish.

It's not fascism to ask for better, holistic standards of care, rather than automatic affirmation, for kids with body dysphoria.

It's certainly not fascism for women to discuss things which impinge on their lives, or their children's lives. They have every right to do so. Shouting terf/Nazi/fascist because the days of No Debate are over won't make any difference anymore. Nobody cares about your hyperbolic slurs.

I've just told you what I consider to be fascism, and I didn't say anything about any of those things.

Your ignorance and extraordinary claims make you dangerous.

The fact that there is not one scintilla of recognition of the harm you are complicit with is obvious.

No matter what harms trans people face you ignore and continue with this relentless outpouring of bigotry.

My niece has had no involvement with any of your pet topics, never been in prison, never been to a women's refuge, not been a female hospital ward, doesn't go to the gym and use the changing rooms, or the swimming pool, never been involved with Stonewall, never been involved in trans activism, she keeps away from social media, never even retweeted a view she agrees with about trans rights. Nothing. She keeps away from it.

However her life was turned upset down. Why? How is this justified?

The police investigation confirms that the attack on her property was carried out by gender critical activists in the area. Charges have been brought - I hope they go to prison.

When the house is sold my niece can hope to get her life back together. In the meantime she continues to pay the mortgage, and continues to have to pay rent in another area.

What she has been enduring is a form of fascism, driven away from her home in fear of her life.

Then I read your reply. Though I won't type the words, better people than you will know what I am thinking.

 

[icowden]

It's not fascism to think that men - because that's who we are talking about - shouldn't be in women's prisons, rape centres, domestic violence refuges, changing rooms, and sports.

I think @monkers point is that in the Venn diagram of gender identity you have people in the middle who are trans, who just want to live a normal quiet life in the way that is best for them and didn't ask for any of the nonsense. Then to the left of them you have the vocal activists who often aren't trans but push a message about what trans is, and exhort suppression of free speech, death threats, violence etc. Then to the right in the middle you have the group of questioning people who don't have full knowledge about trans but might have some concerns as to whether help is being offered in the right way and that we aren't doing more harm than good or devaluing other minority groups which I think is @AuroraSaab and myself, and then you have on the far right the Rick De Santis, right wing fascists using the issue to demonstrate why trans people are evil and should boil in satan's 7th pit of hell.

Happy to be corrected on the above.

Then there are people who tread the line like KJK who is right on the line between the middle right group and the far right group, and to a degree is being seized on by the far right group to promote their agenda.

And while everyone is shouting, what tends to get overlooked a little is the vulnerable group in the middle who have had difficult decisions to make and just want people to stop shouting.

 

[AuroraSaab]

The police investigation confirms that the attack on her property was carried out by gender critical activists in the area. Charges have been brought - I hope they go to prison.

Really? I have literally never heard of feminists being involved in anything like that. They are usually arrested for putting stickers and ribbons out. I'm surprised it hasn't made the papers.

In years gone by transwomen didn't push for access to single sex spaces. Now they do. We can argue about whether they are genuinely transgender or not, but the fact is it is happening.

https://nypost.com/2023/06/09/women-only-spa-must-welcome-naked-trans-clients-with-penises/

I'm tired of kindness being demanded of the women who have to put up with this nonsense in the name of inclusivity. I'm tired of women being told to move over because the feelings of the men who don't want to be men matter more than women's feelings.