Study find trans kids thrive after early transition

said almost exactly the same thing a couple of days ago when they first appeared Gorgon...but they won't go unchallenged here unlike the Guardian with its policy of modding anything GC.

This.

I've RTFT and I'd make a few observations.

Firstly, as much as someone like the OP might try and derail, this "study" has been published in Pediatrics, which is one of the most well known and prestigious paediatric journals around. So I think it does warrant discussion. BUT

1. Top journals often make mistakes with their publications. The best example being the Lancet and their grave error with Wakefield's fraudulent shit.

2. the fact it's in Pediatrics is very surprising because as has been pointed out already, as valid research it's a pile of shit low quality. It was also published in 2014.

3. the American Academy of Pediatrics is the proper one, not the crazy Christian one. But they commonly don't get things right. For example, they are ok with male circumcision despite every other paediatric organisation around the world being against it. So even though the AAP is the "respected" element of paediatrics in the USA, they do seem to have a hard time condemning unnecessary surgery on children's genitals.

4. Controls are absolutely necessary and could have easily have been used. It's not "denying therapy" when you're trying to prove if the therapy works or not.

5. I'd like to reiterate that teenage boys cannot go through female puberty. No hormone treatment will increase the endometrial lining of their non-existent uterus.

6. I think this is an area where comparison with intersex is actually valid. For years, the sex of intersex babies was assigned at a young age based on what their chromosomes were and what the surgeons thought they could make work in terms of appearance. This meant if there wasn't much of a penis, it was deemed better to remove the testes and construct a vagina. Equally if there was significant clitoromegaly it was deemed better to "make" a penis. Recently this has been (correctly in my view) to be inappropriate as it is adults deciding for children and any definitive surgery or treatment should be only undertaken as an adult. It is therefore completely contradictory that a different set of rules be applied here and adults should still be undertaking definitive procedures on children when they can't fully understand.

I think this study is the equivalent of Mermaids and quack Weberley publishing a study based on their own self selected patients while ignoring any information from the Tavistock clinic. I.e. It's bullshit.

said almost exactly the same thing a couple of days ago when they first appeared Gorgon...but they won't go unchallenged here unlike the Guardian with its policy of modding anything GC.

This.

Everyone could just collectively agree not to encourage Wakame to keep posting here by not engaging. Though at that point they'd just go bother some other group of feminists.

I used to love reading comments and posting on the Guardian website, there used to be some great posters who I learned a lot from on a whole range of subjects but the rightthink, dudebros and anti-GC policy did it for me and I ended up here

terry
Why would you go to an online newspaper to post comments and talk to others? I remember reading a 2015 article from The Guardian about how well fitting bras were hard to find in UK shops and while I was grateful seeing those 500 comments from people at the bottom to get different takes it just seems weird to go talk in threads on articles written by people of went to Calgary University.

God this is grim. I remember wakame when they used to try to overtake the guardian comment is free in a similar way. I am gutted that they are now here

I said almost exactly the same thing a couple of days ago when they first appeared Gorgon...but they won't go unchallenged here unlike the Guardian with its policy of modding anything GC.

God this is grim. I remember wakame when they used to try to overtake the guardian comment is free in a similar way. I am gutted that they are now here

Bowlof
I thought being gay was about who you wanted to get with not what you're doing during the day

Trying to remove a persons 'need' to transition through therapy is no different to conversion therapy.

This is an interesting point but I’d argue the opposite. Trying to channel a child who may be gay into ‘being the opposite sex’ is conversion therapy.

Natluc As I said, I respect your decision entirely.

My concerns are much more general and specifically for young people who I understand would have to take the hormones for such a long time. I imagine that there would be extreme distress if they then had to stop taking them on medical grounds.

I have seen today following the Social Policy conference how some people take issue with Dr Polly Carmichael's speech and the GIDs approach. Also that there are quite insistant calls to speed up the process through bridging prescriptions for blockers. It seems that some of the calls for better healthcare could lead to children and young people starting medication quicker and with less support.

None of the discussion about hormones affects my personal experience or feelings. I do though bring some knowledge and experience to the discussion which I think has relevence.

I and many other women who have had hysterectomies do feel deeply upset and sometimes angry when some TRAs use this experience as a way of 'proving' themselves similarly women but that's a different issue.

R0wantrees Ahh I apologise, I think I partly misunderstood you and partly poorly explained myself (most likely the latter..)

What I meant is that having had a community of trans people having been to various bars and clubs and spoken to a great many trans people (biologically male and female) of a variety of ages (though all adults) and stages in their transition as well as a vast array of starting points and also with various goals with their transition, what I meant is that in the same way you have experienced what you have been through and having been to conferences and the like, I think that whilst I understand the risks of long term HRT, I see it to be life saving.

Of course if there comes a point in my life that it is deemed too dangerous for my health for me to continue taking estrogen then I will stop. I just hope that people such as yourself, who have been through an ordeal such as you have don’t see my use of hormones as trivial. In the sense that they were the easiest choice in the world, I too am worried about the long term affects, despite reading what I have ready about the safety of them for trans women at least. I would never want to cheapen your experience by claiming they are benign, they are very much a double edged sword.

Trying to remove a persons 'need' to transition through therapy is no different to conversion therapy.

Nonsense. Do we treat Anorexics by giving them liposuction?

Bollux

NatLuc
I am aware, from what you have said, and also other trans identified people who have posted on here that gender dysphoria is extremely distressing. I am also aware that for some people, physical transition is the only way to treat the condition. What you do with your own body, as an adult, is up to you.

This thread was discussing early transition in children, and I still think that therapy for those children is better than medication - even puberty blockers should not be given to children.

Trying to remove a persons 'need' to transition through therapy is no different to conversion therapy.
This is a poor analogy. Someone who is gay does not require body modification. A better comparison would be with someone with Body Integrity Identity Disorder. I can't see how anyone can argue that hormonal treatment and major surgery on a healthy body to relieve mental distress is preferable to trying to find a way to live in that body without those interventions. And for children, therapy is the only treatment that should be used.

NatLuc
Thank you, that's kind. I am very fortunate to have NED (no evidence of disease) its sadly very different for many women.

I think you might have missed the point I was trying to make, that I have read a great deal about HRT and have spent time with clinicians at conferences etc.

I'm not questioning your own decision, you've descibed how you came to it and I respect that.

My concern is that I see such a keeness to start taking hormones and for many young people at a time which would likely mean taking it for many years. The hormones are not replacements and I don't think there are any long term extensive clinical trials about possible implications.

We do though have large studies about HRT taken by women (however flawed they may be) and these are mostly for much shorter periods of time.

Statistics about cancer can seem very abstract (its probably a naural thing as we keep ourselves from worry) but I do see things differently having had the expeience of diagnosis.

OldCrone

The first article you linked to is from 1973 and refers to gay conversion therapy in someone who did not want to be gay.

It is a transsexual case study. Some of the techniques used are the same as for gay conversion therapy. We can't see that from the abstract but the paper is elaborated on in an old text book I have, ironically called "Abnormal Psychology" (bet they don't make titles like that any more). The case is a 17 year old male transsexual who quote: 'felt himself to be female'. There was an attempt to change the sexual orientation as well as the behaviour and fantasies.

The second one is more recent, but the bit you quote has no references to back it up. If that is true, why not cite some of the studies that showed it?

Fair question - it was the only other reference I could find on the internet quickly. The main reference for that is reference 4, a book by R.J. Stoller: Sex and gender from 1968/ 74. I've just managed to dig it out here.

There are a couple of chapters on the possible different treatments, the ethics, pros and cons etc. It was an authoritative text in its day and even though it is clearly 'of its time' it is of historical interest. It also illustrates how even in the 60s and 70s the search for an alternate cure was unsuccessful (and I find old psych books fascinating!):-

The most troubling aspect is that the easier it is to have such procedures done, the more patients request them. As the word gets around, as it has in the last decade or so, more and more effeminate men request to be changed.

The general rule that applies to the treatment of the transsexual is that no matter what one does - including nothing - it will be wrong. First, what happens if the procedures are completed? That many are better adjusted (we won't pause to document that vague term) postoperatively than they were before is a conjecture that can be proven only by having seen transsexuals (not pseudotranssexuals) in intensive follow-up from months to years after they have completed their sex-transformation procedures. Their anguish before the procedures is intense and genuine (one of the many points distinguishing their reactions from pseudotranssexuals). Nonetheless, they are left more or less dissatisfied feeling that although the necessary procedures have feminized some of their apperaance and functions, the results are far from complete. The transsexual will wish to have not only breasts, vagina and female-like external genitalia, absent facial and body hair (all of which can be supplied) but also ovaries, uterus and fertility. So if the surgeon complies with the patient's request, he is likely to be still harassed by the patient who wants more...

On the other hand, if one does not assist transsexual patients they are deeply unhappy. The argument against treating this unhappiness by surgery or hormones is exemplified by the following statement "..if... the demand for a change of sex operation is based upon a delusion [sic] conviction, then only the treatment of the underlying psychosis or personality disorder is in my view admissible or correct".

One would not provide a throne for psychotics who delusionally felt he was a king; is it not as irrational to grant the transsexual his request just because he is unhappy? The cases are not identical. Psychotics who want thrones do not become less disturbed even when they become kings, but most transsexuals are less depressed and anxious, more sociable and affectionate, and so forth after "the change". Also very few transsexuals are clinically psychotic.

However, for all this, if there were any psychiatric treatment that was even partly useful, it would probably be better than this disquieting "psychosurgery." It has been suggested that "no psychotherapeutic procedure less than intensive, prolonged, classic psychoanalysis would have any effect. If properly done, it could probably reduce the patient's agitation and the level of his unhappiness. It is not impossible that his major symptoms may decrease in frequency and urgency."

This statement has the vigorous ring of sober caution; it also must have been written by someone who has never tried to get such a patient into analysis. Unfortunately, no one has ever reported having reached such success by any psychotherapeutic technique. We must search for such techniques, but in the meanwhile it seems haughty to say that "only such treatment as will enable them to come to terms with the reality of their condition is open to the psychiatrist to offer or endorse." Since we have nothing to offer or endorse that can give these patients any relief, to make this a rule to put into practice when sitting in one's office with the patient who asks for your help means to do nothing. The problem for the psychiatrist then is only: Should he do this nothing gracefully or horsewhip the bloody beggar off the compound?

--
There are those that have been waiting ever since to find this alternative to either 'psychosurgery' or doing 'nothing'. No-one seems to have found it yet...

You are, but also it wouldn't be a year if they took them at Tanner Stage 1 (9-12ish) They would have to stave natural puberty off until they went on cross sex hormones so it would be more like 5/6 years.

4thwavenow.com/about/

Search for the authors of the research that Wakame features a link to and there are numerous 'take downs' of their methodology and findings.

4th Wave Now seems to have the most comprehensive database of articles.

R0wantrees I am incredibly sorry you had to go through that. It must have been heartbreaking.

I know I can only empathise.. but I am sorry.

I know that all forms of HRT of all varieties are a trade of for risk and benefit.. for example I have sky rocketed my changes for breast cancer but my chances of testicular or prostate cancer are must lower. And yes, I have likely sterilised myself (I’ve moved beyond cyproterone. I should actually be having my second decapeptyl injection in a couple days time) after 9 months and I did not store sperm, but this was my choice as it was not something I wanted to do.

I’m not an expert on mental maturity nor trans issues but being around many trans issues and people and hearing their stories as shared experience rather than empathy, I can imagine I at least have been influenced in that respect in a similar way you have regarding gynaecological cancer issues.

Blockers are also associated with a 5-7 point drop in IQ. And it's not simply sterility - depending on the age started, it's also a complete loss of sexual function/sensation. While they're not being handed out like sweeties here - I think about a thousand kids, which is a thousand too many - they certainly are stateside. Probably several tens of thousand, at least. It's unconscionable.

NatLuc if you have read a report stating blockers are safe in the short term, would you post it please? I've yet to see anything that states giving blockers to children is safe.

My husband died when my youngest was 17, due to that she became depressed (hardly surprising). Our family Doctor took advice from a specialist before he would give her any AntiD's yet blockers are handed out like smarties.

spontaneousgiventime- I meant my stance on blockers needs to be reviewed because my understanding was that the effects in the short run (around a year) are not permanent. Obviously I was wrong.

NatLuc I had a hysterectomy when I was 40 yrs old for medical neccesity. In order for me to take the lowest dose of estrogen (this would be specifically hormone replacement therapy) it required discussion with my consultant, a proffesor at a centre of excellence and discussion at MDT meeting.

I also read a great deal about HRT as it was a decision based on potential risk vs potential benefit.

I only say this out of deep concern.

Use of HRT for women is a still contentious despite a long history with large clinical trials.

I am influenced by the fact that I have spent a lot of time in recent years involved with women who have had a gynaecological cancer diagnosis.

The problem is NO-ONE knows enough about the long term use of blockers on children. It is wholly unacceptable that children are given them, or have access to them due to the possibility of a social fad. TRA are encouraging children to take these blockers, it's not going to be them who face the long term effects it's going to be the easily led and gullible children.

Anyone who even suggests blockers to children is guilty of child abuse and that people are encouraging children is a stain on this country.