Study find trans kids thrive after early transition

"I want children to get to adulthood intact, unmediated, fertile, sexually functional and reconciled to their physicality."

There is a whole debate which should be had about what age children should become adults. Would you believe that the age for criminal responsibility is 10? It's very hard to argue that someone should be criminallly liable as an adult but not allowed to decide what to do with their body. For me 10 is way, way to young but I do think that rights and responsibilities go hand in hand so whatever age we make children criminallly responsibile for their actions should be the age at which they can decide on medical treatment affecting themselves.

Personally I think 14 might be a reasonable compromise for criminal responsibility and authority over your own body (including hormones) but I can see a strong case for 16 too.

The bits of the brain that deal with mature risk and decision making aren’t actually mature until about 25.

And I agree with the point about buying hormones yourself - gosh that is really dangerous. You need access to a lab to monitor bloods if you’re altering hormone levels. I’ve seen a few people on here talking about self medicating with thyroxine and it’s such a risk - everyone reacts slightly differently and you do need that lab feedback and a trained eye to examine the results as well. It’s not just levels of individual things, often the pattern of results is as informative as a single out of range result. It’s a very risky thing to do.

To me there is such a gulf between what an adult understands as consequences and what a child can. A capable adult, who has been through a rigorous process of diagnosis for gender dsyphoria and still wants to transition? Well OK... it’s your bodily autonomy and you can alter your body as you wish.
For a child though it’s a different matter. They are not capable of understanding the ramifications of what they’re doing.

But we are not talking about sex, we are talking about someone taking control of their long term wellbeing

Yes, and their long term wellbeing may depend on not being enabled by adults who are supposed to protect them to take a life changing path when they aren't capable of understanding the full ramifications.

And on reasons for transition, from that same survey, nearly 60% of detransitioners said they found other ways to cope with dysphoria and nearly 30% said they'd resolved the mental conditions that had led to dysphoria.

On what therapy people get before transition: from a survey of 200 detransitioned ex-FTM, mostly young women.

"117 of the individuals surveyed had medically transitioned. Of these, only 41 received therapy beforehand. The average length of counseling for those who did attend was 9 months, with a median and mode of 3, minimum of 1, and a maximum of 60."

"I’d like to have something cool to say here, but I’m honestly just stunned at the fact that 65% of these women had no therapy at all before transition."

We have strangers mostly men advocating kids buying meds on line, getting tits early and sucking dick ( yes another well known TW made those recommendations) but its not seen as wrong or something to put a stop to....why?

It's a good question, isn't it?

NatLuc
I just thought you were replying to my comment. I would like your comments on why you think that those of us who hold that view are naive.

If you give puberty blockers at Tanner stage one, there are no sperm or ova available to be banked.

This is a critically important point which is being obscured by all this bullshit and flannel. There can be no biological children if young children block their natural puberty and then go on to take cross sex hormones. Children are effectively making a decision to be sterilised at the age of 9.

None of us really know who we are as teenagers. It's an age where we need to try on different personas to see what fits. And that's exactly what that time should be about. But it needs to be entirely reversible because - in my and many of my friends' experiences - who we thought we were as teenagers is not who we ended up being as adults.

There's a reason why tattoos are banned for under 18s. Why on earth anyone would think voluntary sterilisation and perpetual prepupescence is a good idea is mystifying. Unless they have a very sinister agenda and I don't really want to go there.

Absolutely agree with you Bowlofbabelfish. I have daughters, the eldest is 13. Her class ( of 14 year olds) is full of girls with long hair, and thick makeup. They all wear the same clothes out of school. It is nothing like my class at 14 ( I’m in my 50s). When we were 14 /15 we were mod fans, rocker types, the tail edge of punk, sports players. We had all sorts of hair, but more short than long. We were a pretty diverse bunch, and in my all girls school many of us were not at all “girly”.

@OldCrone - I am just reading posts whilst my phone syncs playlists before I go for a run, The post wasn't aimed at anyone in particular, least of all this thread specifically. It is more a view on the MN forums I know many hold.

I am heading out for my run now but I will properly read the last few comments once I am back and sorted. Just saw this and wanted to make sure no one thought I was aiming anything at anyone.

Will follow up soon. :)

Agree OldCrone

@NatLuc
I understand that you believe 'trans people can come to terms with the body they were born with'. However if you have never experienced dysphoria I feel that you do not understand how naive this approach is. You are then condemning that individual to a lifetime of misery.

That comment seems to be directed at me, as I think that bit in quotes is from one of my earlier posts. Can you explain why that approach is naive? It seems to me that the most appropriate form of treatment for a psychological condition would be to treat it using therapy to help the person to accept their healthy body, rather than medicate it.

There are many conditions where people must feel deeply unhappy about their bodies: many people who are born disabled or become disabled in later life, for example. Obviously medical help can be given as far as is possible, but sometimes nothing can be done other than to give that person psychological support and help them to come to terms with the body they have.

In the case of gender dysphoria, sufferers are not limited in any way with respect to what they can do with their lives in the way that a severely disabled person might be. Their body is healthy and complete as it is. Can you help me to understand why such a person cannot be helped to accept their body? I may be naive, but I would like to learn more.

NatLuc Being that you are a TIM (I post that as they have always admitted it themselves) your view is going to be skewed in that direction. You will project how you feel post transition onto children. You were old enough to be able to think through all the implications transition brings. Children are not.

And the highest risk takers on the roads...people that have just passed their test and think they know it all.

NatLuc, your post re carrying out years of research as an adult before you bought hormones online is in sharp contrast to what many teenagers would do. For them it's all about 'I want it NOW!!' There's no reasoning with a teenager who's hell-bent on doing something. It's bad enough telling my teenage DD that she's not getting to watch 15 films yet. They're not renowned for their ability to plan and wait for something years away. Their brains aren't fully developed.

I started my periods when I was nine. I remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday. It was in the summer holidays. Back then, girls were not properly told what was going to happen and I was traumatised.

I could not have made the decision as to wanting children then any more than I could decide what I wanted for dinner. Children are not thinking of a day when they will have children, or at least they shouldn't be.

No-one can, with any substance say what these drugs are going to do to children used long term. This is another Thalidomide in the making and yet the train keeps on a rolling.

Humans cannot change sex.

Doubtless there are children who are unhappy with puberty and gender roles. An awful lot of the women on this site are gender non conforming. We have been trying to smash gender roles for decades, some of us.

To then see those roles narrowed to the point it’s acceptable to tell a boy who is feminine that he's a girl is against everything i believe.

That boy is a boy. The solution to his unhappiness at not fitting the ‘boy’ mouldy is not to tell him he can become a girl. He cannot - NOTHING can do that. The solution is to examine why children are unhappy in their gender roles.

For girls (and I think 70% now if oresentations are girls?) I can really see why puberty looks shit. The world is so sexualised now - even from when I was going through puberty there has been a huge change and I’m only fortyish. Porn has exploded and changed in nature. Everything seems so sexualised. Social media is a huge influence and I don’t think those who grew up with it understand just how much it can be toxic and how different life was without it. Girls now - I look around and wonder where the rockers are, the goths, the girls with shaved heads and biker boots and tea dresses. It seems to be a uniform look of swishy straight hair and specific clothes, makeup, everything. Like there’s only one way to be a girl.

But the solution to looking at that and thinking no ta is NOT to say you’re a boy. Nothing can change you into a boy. The solution again is acceptance, of finding g your own way to be a girl, free from the crap gender roles society squeezes you into.

To tell a child they can be the opposite sex is cruel. No other dysphoric or dysmorphic disorder is treated like this.

If an ADULT wants to transition, after full assessment, then that is up to them. But children do not understand what they will lose.

It is child abuse.

I saw a twitter post with a link from a well known TW. The comment was "you can buy hormones/blockers here kids and no need for mum and dad to know.

This comment was liked hundreds of times.
Anyone else encouraging kids to buy drugs/medication without parental consent would be called a child abuser/drug pusher.
Yet under this "its all for the kids to stop them killing themselves" guise it was deemed ok. Twitter didnt see the harm either.

We have strangers mostly men advocating kids buying meds on line, getting tits early and sucking dick ( yes another well known TW made those recommendations) but its not seen as wrong or something to put a stop to....why?

Yes there are those that detransitioned. But the reasons for detransitioning are many. And many of the reasons are nothing to do with 'not being trans afterall'

How do we know - when TRAs got the person researching it stopped from researching it?

@MIdgebabe

Natluc...homeones for a 17 year old girl will be about 5 years too late to stop physical changes

Make that more like eight or nine. I was menstruating at nine, if not earlier.

It is unreasonable. To take a very provocative analogy would it be Ok for a thirty year old to have sex with a 14 year old because it’s legal in two years time?

No of course that would not be okay. But we are not talking about sex, we are talking about someone taking control of their long term wellbeing. I understand the parallel you are drawing but I don't think it is the same.

So you say. But kids are buying hormones online. And detransitioners report not having had sufficient counselling.

Whilst I was not one of the adolescents purchasing hormones online I DID purchase hormones online from pharmacies as an adult whilst waiting for the adult NHS GIC consultation waiting times between sessions to allow me to get them on prescriptions. But this was only after years of research in to dosages, risks and taking responsibility for my own actions. I think if people were not so desperate there would be no need to do this.

Yes there are those that detransitioned. But the reasons for detransitioning are many. And many of the reasons are nothing to do with 'not being trans afterall'.

Stephanie Davies Arai (Transgender Trend) discusses some of these isssues:

NatLuc Not offended at all. Always interested to read another perspective in this debate, especially one informed by personal experience.

IMHO the trouble is that the vast majority of kids desist, but not all. We're therefore actually discussing where the medical profession should exercise its discretion - do we harm 80% by putting them all on an early intervention path or do we harm 20% by delaying. In all other areas of medicine, the potential risk of a negative outcome to the vast majority of a patient cohort outweighs the potential benefit to a minority.

As in other areas of medicine, I am therefore of the firm opinion that we should prioritise the avoidance of iatrogenic harm to the desisters. As we know from a large number of studies, even under the stricter criteria for GD, medical professionals continue to be unable to accurately predict who will desist - a considerable number of kids with the severest GD desist, some with mild GD get worse as they go on and persist into adulthood.

Your argument for better support is worthy of closer consideration, especially within a robust debate about all of the consequences of treatment approaches that would touch on those points you raise. Prioritising the avoidance of harm to the majority does not mean abandoning the minority to their fate after all. Although if TRAs succeed in convincing the government that GD is not a medical condition I worry it will go the other way to even less publicly financed support...

Also, the enthusiasm with which those youths have been greeted who develop GD (or more accurately ROGD) in mid-to-late puberty is problematic in this regard. Because we do know from decades worth of research that while we cannot predict persisters/desisters within the younger cohorts, those who persist into adolescence are almost always transsexual as adults. Those are valuable, valid stats professionals can base their decisions on.

Even if ROGD as suspected turns out to be caused mainly by social contagion, it will have muddied the waters as for the stats on the desistance rates in adolescence. I'd love to know what you think of this phenomenon? (It's not caused by greater acceptance or visibility after all, as that would have affected boys and girls equally.)

Agree Cosmic Canary.