I am Jazz - critique by an endocrinologist

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Hello all, I've not posted on this board before and don't myself have a child who is LGBT. I posted this first on the Feminist Chat board but it was agreed over there that it's not really the right place for it.

Today I read this article, which is by an endocrinologist, and is a detailed critique of a book called I am Jazz, written by Jazz Jennings with help from a professional writer. I've not read the book or seen the TV programme, and it's only fair to say at the outset that the website which published this article is a US one which is very socially conservative and probably anti-trans for that reason.

However, the writer makes a lot of detailed points that I feel would be important for parents (and the wider public) to consider about what's involved when a child or teenager transitions and goes onto puberty blockers and then cross hormones. So here it is: www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/04/21220/

Thank you this was a very interesting read. As a parent of a child with gender dysphoria also alarming. I have always said to her that she should wait until her twenties at least before doing anything medical. I have copied the title below as I found the article difficult to find.

Gender dysphoria and Children: An Endocrinologist's Evaluation of I am Jazz

Ps, the is the address that I found it on

anglicanmainstream.org/gender-dysphoria-and-children-an-endocrinologists-evaluation-of-i-am-jazz/

Thanks, @allatsea123, and good luck. It must be very difficult.

Wow. That's awful reading. It's interesting to read rom a biological and medical standpoint. How could anybody want their child to go through that?!

@Staying, I don't know, but I suspect (a) parents are not told all of this and (b) they are terrified of the child committing suicide. The article makes the point that many children with gender dysphoria have pre-existing mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. This is complex and needs further research to disentangle to see whether a child's mental health is really improved by transitioning, in the longer term. As a layperson, it bothers me to think of these young people artificially kept as children when their peers are going through puberty. Puberty is hard for many children, dysphoric or not, but we don't know the effects on the brain and other systems of not going through it at the usual time. It must be hard socially not keeping up with your peers.

It's all pretty tewrrifying :(

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I agree. I find it horrifying that Jazz’s parents and doctors think it best that Jazz has a child’s penis and more complicated surgeries rather than go through puberty, develop sexually and then see what happens. That’s been on my mind since I read it. I cannot see how that’s an abuse of Jazz’s human rights, albeit with (probably) the best intentions.