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Transgender Documentary on BBC2 Thursday 2100 "Transgender Kids: Who Knows best?"

860 replies

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 06/01/2017 08:09

Looks like an interesting watch, that does not just accept the trans children or they will kill themselves rhetoric. I just hope the BBC actually do show it and aren't bullied into not showing it.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b088kxbw

The blurb:

Around the world there has been a huge increase in the number of children being referred to gender clinics - boys saying they want to be girls and vice versa. Increasingly, parents are encouraged to adopt a 'gender affirmative' approach - fully supporting their children's change of identity. But is this approach right?

In this challenging documentary, BBC Two's award-winning This World strand travels to Canada, where one of the world's leading experts in childhood gender dysphoria (the condition where children are unhappy with their biological sex) lost his job for challenging the new orthodoxy that children know best. Speaking on TV for the first time since his clinic was closed, Dr Kenneth Zucker believes he is a victim of the politicisation of transgender issues. The film presents evidence that most children with gender dysphoria eventually overcome the feelings without transitioning and questions the science behind the idea that a boy could somehow be born with a 'female brain' or vice versa. It also features 'Lou' - who was born female and had a double mastectomy as part of transitioning to a man. She now says it is a decision that 'haunts' her and feels that her gender dysphoria should have been treated as a mental health issue.

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Notrevealingmyidentity · 13/01/2017 20:27

I hope so.

venusinscorpio · 13/01/2017 20:25

It's not. And I think the penny will gradually drop for people.

OddMollie · 13/01/2017 20:15

That was the bit that made me flinch most too Manumission. Surely it's not doing anyone any favours to keep reducing the issue to ridiculous gendered props?

I'm so glad to have found this thread today. Thanks to all for helping me feel like I'm not entirely losing the plot.

EmpressOfTheSpartacusOceans · 13/01/2017 20:07

I'm just so fucking thankful I did my coming out in the 90s, not now.

Manumission · 13/01/2017 20:07

"it will cause them great distress if people like Dr Zucker tell them to drop the Barbie and grow up."

Why do Stonewall feel the need to misrepresent someone so heinously? They could simply disagree with his analysis and approach.

It's depressing that mainstream bodies are doing this. But also very telling and transparent.

Any averagely disinterested viewer could watch the documentary, read that statement from Stonewall and spot the rhetorical tricks that are being employed.

Notrevealingmyidentity · 13/01/2017 20:05

I'm noticing this more and more.

I've just watched a thread unfold on another site that told someone expressing a different view hat "they simply don't understand what it's like when people don't identify with their biological gender". Whatever that is.

ageingrunner · 13/01/2017 20:05

Sorry long Blush

ageingrunner · 13/01/2017 20:05

I must admit I'm coming to the conclusion that trans doesn't actually exist as a discrete condition. I think gender dysphoria is likely to be a reaction to abuse, or homophobic society and parents or other problems the child has on their life. I also think that symptoms of mental health problems, like anxiety for example, could be misinterpreted as being gender dysphoria due to there being such a massive focus on trans issues at the moment. I do feel that there are some people for whom transition is the only option that allows them to live their lives happily but I think they're in the minority. To say that there is no social influence on dysphoria is ridiculous because none of us exist in a vacuum.
And I think transition should be a last resort if the child isn't helped by talking therapies and/or just growing out of it. And not for under 18s in any circumstances. Too much potential for mistakes to be made if children are transed.

EmpressOfTheSpartacusOceans · 13/01/2017 19:54

I tweeted to ask where they were when Ada Wells was trying to expel lesbians from Edinburgh Uni for being homosexual and how they're supporting young lesbians under pressure to accept dick. Not expecting an answer.

venusinscorpio · 13/01/2017 19:52

Thought as much.

EmpressOfTheSpartacusOceans · 13/01/2017 19:51

No, because Stonewall no longer give a fuck about lesbians. If they ever did.

venusinscorpio · 13/01/2017 19:39

Is that in a series of blogs? Will they do one about how rapey cotton ceiling suggestions are for lesbians?

venusinscorpio · 13/01/2017 19:32

Interesting links, ageing. Bollocks has it been "debunked" that most children presenting with apparent gender dysphoria desist. They're clutching at straws. Sadly most people will listen to them because they can't be arsed to inform themselves.

They need people to believe that there is a solid population of trans children and the merely GNC confused children were never part of it. Which given how poorly defined, tenuous and vague the category of "transgender" is, I don't see that they're in a position to judge this, because it's basically meaningless.

tygr · 13/01/2017 19:27

Currently reading this about detransitioning trans men

guideonragingstars.tumblr.com/post/149877706175/female-detransition-and-reidentification-survey

It's hard not to view anything through our own personal prism and as a tomboyish child who liked to dress in boy's clothes and be mistaken for a boy (this was before school so age of 3 or 4 I guess), I can easily see that in 2017 a child like me might been taken down a trans path. I am categorically not trans and it worries me that many of these children won't be either and learning to accept themselves is surely a more productive path than social transition.

On the other hand, for those children for whom full transition will turn out to be the outcome they choose, there's no denying that the earlier they start hormone therapy, the more effective that transition will be and I can see that delaying puberty does have a benefit. The problem is, it's so invasive and much of it irreversible. I would hate to be in the position of a parent trying to negotiate all of this. As an adolescent I think it would've been overwhelming.

Original poster
ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 13/01/2017 19:11

How would they have a clue who was really gender dysphoric in the first place? And surely that's the point, that non trans children are being misdiagnosed? Not having a go at you, just find their reasoning bizarre

This^ if you accept that the high percentage who desist were never "really trans" , it still doesn't matter. The point is that none of the TRAs have (as far as I know - happy to be corrected) come up with a means of telling if someone is really trans or not, other than waiting to see if the desist. Surely it is wrong to socially/medically/surgically trans people with no way of telling if it isn't he right thing to do. Surely "watchful waiting" is more ethical than transing people who may or may not be trans just in case?

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venusinscorpio · 13/01/2017 18:55

How would they have a clue who was really gender dysphoric in the first place? And surely that's the point, that non trans children are being misdiagnosed? Not having a go at you, just find their reasoning bizarre.

MrsJohanHegg · 13/01/2017 18:52

tygr I think the argument that they were "never dysphoric in the first place" is just TRAs trying to get around the fact TBH.

venusinscorpio · 13/01/2017 18:50

It's definitely like a cult.

MrsJohanHegg · 13/01/2017 18:50

... also "challenging" not "chalkarguing" FFS Apple

tygr · 13/01/2017 18:50

According to twitter, the 80% desist rate has been debunked. Most of the tweets I've read and the articles linked to say that the 80% were never gender dysphoric in the first place and basically everything to do with Zucker has been discredited but none of them were scientific evidence. I haven't had time to properly research it but I'd like to know more about that figure and his research because it stood out so starkly in the documentary.

I wonder why this argument is so emotionally charged. It makes it so hard to have a reasoned, intelligent debate with so much vitriol and hysteria. Were the early days of the gay rights movement like this?

MrsJohanHegg · 13/01/2017 18:49

...that should say "pro-trans" obviously, my phone is being irritating Hmm

MrsJohanHegg · 13/01/2017 18:48

"I don't agree with Islam, for example, but I don't want Muslims to be discriminated against/attacked/deported! And I'll be respectful to their beliefs to a degree, but it's not ok if they impose their beliefs and start insisting I live by Shariah law...
There's a difference between Islamophobia and simply not being a Muslim, but no such difference (according to trans activists) between transphobia and simply not agreeing with that belief system."

^^thank you for this, BBCNewsRave - my thoughts exactly and a great analogy.

I have a large number of LibFem pro-grand friends currently going nuts on Facebook and complaining to the BBC. Scared to say anything contrary as I'd be ousted from my social circle at best, I don't dare think what at worst! I thought that the documentary was well balanced and actually fantastic as a first step in chalk arguing the trans doctrine.

Shallishanti · 13/01/2017 18:46

it's so frustrating to hear 'we're messing with their ideas of gender- yey!'
when that's exactly what they're NOT doing. If he had been a younger person educated in the UK I'd be blaming Gove and co for the narrowing of education and lack of critical thinking in our schools.