Wrong side of history

Apart from anything else, apparently the depth of the neovagina directly correlates to the length of the original penis

There are other other options such as skin taken from elsewhere, or a section of the colon.

Jazz also apparently has an eating disorder (hence the weight gain currently preventing their surgery) which would seem to demonstrate some sort of unhappiness?

It enforces the view that vaginas are literally just fuck-holes for men, that women are just objects to fuck - not humans who experience sexual feelings for themselves.

Exactly. Misogyny at its finest.

Apart from anything else, apparently the depth of the neovagina directly correlates to the length of the original penis.

Which, in jazz's case, is tiny.

Does anyone know if cross-sex hormones do the job in that sense?

We had someone on here awhile back who understands endocrinology and they said it doesn't.

Cross sex hormones didn't affect the brain maturation, apparently. Although someone who understands this stuff, might be able to comment more comprehensively.

I think (hope) Jazz may be OK. If you never really know what adult sexuality can be, it's possible that you simply never miss it. It's also possible that being seen as female, or beautiful, or 'womanly', or whatever, is of such huge importance to Jazz that it outweighs any lingering regrets.

I don't know.

I do have at least two friends who are entirely celibate -- one who is uninterested and would now probably have to call themselves ace-panromantic-with-kittens or something, the other simply deeply religious and single. They both seem at ease with that and just get on with a single, busy, work-and-hobbies life.

Maybe Jazz will be fine.

The lack of genuine puberty in the sense of maturing into an adult, though - that worries me. Does anyone know if cross-sex hormones do the job in that sense?

Here's what I know - when future generations look back at the current period and realize that a generation of gay and lesbian people were steered towards sterilization and surgical alteration as children because their gender nonconformity made other people uncomfortable, they'll look at those who thought that was a good idea in much the same way that we look at those who thought lobotomy was a good idea now.

Leave children alone.

Another point that Jazz's situation helpfully raises... if they will never experience sexual sensation or have any libido, what is the neovag for? Neolabia one thing - to have the external appearance and "fit in", but not a neovag. No ones gonna see that unless they're looking in detail!!

It enforces the view that vaginas are literally just fuck-holes for men, that women are just objects to fuck - not humans who experience sexual feelings for themselves.

The Jazz Jennings story is so unbearably sad. I hope he finds some happiness.

I don't know how you come back from that.

I don't know either. But his show worries me. He seems to be operating quite firmly within the framework of what has happened to him. Not trying to question framework.

I don't know whether that is because he has no context on which to base a challenge, or whether his maturity has been stunted, or whether it is actively discouraged because he is a cash cow.

Whether he is truly happy (despite being depressed...)

And I just have no idea what kind of a future he can have now. He'll never be a woman. But even if he were to decide to accept himself as a man and live that way, his boyhood has been stolen from him now, and his puberty. His chance to spend his formative years as a boy are gone.
How is he going to reconcile his adult life with his childhood.

How do you forgive your parents for not just failing to correct you as a child, when you thought liking barbies meant you were a girl, but for facilitating this change to your body and altering the path of your life accordingly.

I don't know how you come back from that.

Good blog post Dr Risotto, thank you for posting it.

Of course beach it is an excellent read that deserves to be widely spread.

And that’s Jazz whose family knew from a very early age that their boy was in fact a girl, because among other things he unbuttoned the poppers on his baby vest. This apparently means he was trying to make it into a dress.

I hope Jazz gets the best outcome possible for him as an individual, whatever that looks like, but that family’s behaviour is appalling.

Jazz Jennings was put on puberty blockers at 11. Then cross sex hormones.

At 17, he has the penis of a child, but the body of a woman, breasts, etc.

Quite unbelievably, his surgeon said the drugs have done you a favour there, indicating his breasts, but not down there, indicating his genitals.

As though it was some bloody surprise.

He has never had an erection, and has no libido. There is not enough penile material to create a neovagina. So they will either have to use part of his colon, or his torso. Which has no sexual sensation.

Nonetheless, jazz is celebrated and feted as a poster child for trans.

Jazz is depressed.

I don't watch his reality TV show but I have seen clips. A memorable one was him asking his father quite how much of his mother's vagina he saw during sex. The father left the tea table covered with embarrassment.

Jazz was obviously worried about what his genitalia would ultimately look like.

The fact that his sexual function is compromised forever, and he is permanently infertile, and on drugs for the rest of his life doesn't seem to bother his family.

I feel very ignorant about Jazz Jennings and this feels like a stupid question but have they only had puberty blockers so far? And if they stopped them now would they still go through puberty and develop. It's fairly heart-breaking to think of them having child-like genitals forever and completely losing their sexual functioning. It's such an important part of adult identity.

It reminds me of children being severed from their daemons in Northern Lights.

thebewilderness - total agree with you. The questions you ask are vital.

Dr Risotto - thanks for posting that blog. It's brilliant. I'd like to post it on another thread if that's OK.

thebewilderness you're absolutely right and I read this what CBB can teach us about gender politics blog post yesterday which basically says that.

Beyondww that's what struck me when I read some if the blogs. Puberty blockers on boys (plus other surgery) gives them the fem looking body and the genitals of a little boy in someone who is now over the age of consent (without dev cog ability). A paedo's wet dream? My blood ran cold when I read some of Jezz Jennings accounts. She isn't someone who should be going in the mens.

The difference between the lobotomy scandal, and the current horror, is that there isn't a doctor, parent, mp or transactivist who will be able to claim "we didn't know of the harms, nobody told us, we didn't know better."

Because it's 2018. And we have the Internet. And EVERY doctor, parent, mp or transactivist will have to answer how it was that they ENGAGED with every argument for NOT transing kids, and dismissed all the evidence, called people Terfs. They are choosing this awful path, eyes wide open, knowing all the evidence and arguments for not doing it are being dismissed.

The Internet takes receipts.

I wouldn't be Maria Miller or Suzy Mermaids in ten years for all the tea in China.

I asked this on another thread and think it worth asking here as well.
Can you mandate belief?
Can you codify into law the idea that some people can mind over matter themselves out of material reality and into the opposite sex and must be treated accordingly?
It is like transubstantiation. A belief that no one actually believes.
Will you allow people to drug and mutilate children based on this belief that no one believes?

Doh, of course Jessica, it was Kingsley! (That Sojourner Truth quotation is marvellous, thanks for reminding me of it.)

Plus - the only way they will know they are missing vital parts of adulthood is by observing other adults - but they may not have the fully developed cognition skills to recognise

This also plays in to the situation where we have so many men being oblivious of just how women have to navigate life.

See the reaction to #metoo. The disbelief. The dismissal. The whataboutery. Purely because they have NO experience of it.

They Just Don't Get It.

It's a chilling parallel to imagine children growing up confined to the trans community, and not realising exactly what they have not experienced.

Particularly with all the fake affirmation that goes on in the community. The conflict, should arise, would be mind blowing. But it has to arise first.

The thing that's been bugging me recently about puberty blockers and mental age of a prepubescent child is that it messes with the age of sexual consent. If a 16 yo has not gone through puberty, they are no more mentally capable of consenting to sex than a 9 year old. And then does that pave the way for the resurgence of PIE type organisations... ("well if that 16 yo can legally consent, then so can this 9yo...").
Very scary.

i Martin Amis' novel The Alteration

It's actually Kingsley Amis- who was a bot of an old git but could certainly write.

And the discussion about women's strength reminds me of the famous Sojourner Truth quote;

i That man over there says women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And arn’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed, and planted , and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And arn’t I woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and bear the lash as well! And arn’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen them most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And aren’t I a woman?

Only certain women - generally white and/ or upper class- can be seen as weak. And only in certain circumstances.

Because of the manipulation and falsification of suicide stats, Terry. The public are fed this line of "better a trans child than a dead child", and also "puberty blockers are safe and reversible, they can change their minds later". Glossing over the horrendous side effects of puberty blockers, the problem that because they block puberty, they also block the jump in cognitive development that goes with puberty, the fact that once children are on puberty blockers they almost never turn back. And continually saying "well, actual surgery isn't allowed until 18", ignoring the fact that because of the blockers, the competence to make decisions may be impaired, and in any case we now know that the pre-frontal cortex, the bit of the brain responsible for impulse control and decision making, isn't fully developed until the early to mid twenties. Add into that an obfusticating dose of waffle about Gillick competence (which is meant to protect girls from the life-long consequences of getting pregnant under age, not allow them to opt into the life-long consequences of mutilating surgery) and you have a perfect storm of confusion among adults supporting children, the very adults who should know better.

Just read the article and it is about women being hardier in times of famine and disease. So it's not about physical strength.

I wonder how that plays back into the thread a little while ago about women being habitually deprived of food in favour of the men of the house? Is it a form of natural selection? That it's more important for women to stay alive as they can only make one baby at a time (broadly speaking)?

I can't think of anywhere where modifying children's bodies stands up to scrutiny. Foot binding and FGM are definitely a bad thing, circumcision is frowned upon and only practiced amongst religious groups. Corsets were replaced by Liberty bodices. We don't even routinely pin back boys' ears (now they do not have to have short back and sides - I love a good pair of ears ) and even routine tonsillectomy is off the cards. So why have we suddenly started sterilising and modifying young people, and why is it so universally acceptable?