Jesse Singal article (largely) on detransitioners

[leyat]

This has trans twitter blowing up and I find it very revealing www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/when-a-child-says-shes-trans/561749/.

This is an extremely balanced piece that takes on quite a bit of trans/gender identity dogma in how it approaches gender, but because the author is writing about the issues with the affirmation approach, in light of the many desisters and their testimonies re this approach, his piece is being attacked by TA's, a whole bunch of men, and Lena Dunham as 'dangerous'. It helps highlight how to promote trans dogma you have to completely ignore desisters and with that their humanity.

It's a long piece but I recommend taking the time to read it, maybe make a cuppa first...

[PlectrumElectrum]

I'm just about to read this on my lunch break - got my coffee & biscuits at the ready.

Thanks for the link.

[leyat]

It's very interesting, it doesn't question the whole gender identity thing at all, i.e. it presupposes that there are kids have an innate gender identity and that this can be at odds with their body, but it is still very interesting in how fairly it looks at desistance and what that means for clinical approaches. That doesn't stop me reading it and at regular intervals just kind of shaking my head at how crazy this all is, the idea that kids connecting with one set of gender norms over another and/or having distress at their sexed body means that their bodies are wrong (!).

[KatVonSweet]

Very interesting and balanced, it shows how we need to aid and support all the young people with gender disphoria to help them find the right path. Other mental health issues shouldn't be discounted.

The level of kids believing they are trans is big and growing. I see it with my children's friends...3 I.D as trans, another as a "demi woman", they do seem to change their minds about it all too. No one should rush these kids into anything.

[leyat]

Gender identity in my view is the pathologising of personality. But I understand that sexed body dysphoria is a distressful condition, although since there's no such thing as brain sex or innate gender, I don't view this as the result of 'being in the wrong body' but rather as a mental health issue. I do accept that for some with dysphoria a last resort is medical treatment to ease symptoms, and possibly surgery, but the fact that children are being treated as though their bodies could be 'wrong' and the whole focus is figuring out whether this is the case, is failing them utterly. One thing we can say though, no-one in the future can claim we didn't know the issues and risks of not only upholding the notion of innate gender - something which is not only regressive but for which there is no scientific basis - but also of medicalising children in this way.