Can we talk about WPATH?

I was reminded of this reading the very lively Future thread.
I'd be interested to hear about the presentation titled Uterus Transplantation: The Next Frontier of Transgender Fertility but can't find anything online.
Any news from this, um, "frontier"? Do they publish these presentations?

They recognise the risks from puberty blockers, so instead of deciding that they should reduce their use, they advocate going onto cross sex hormones earlier.
There are risks associated with waiting until 16 to administer cross sex hormones, therefore this should be done on a case by case basis
twitter.com/green_susie100/status/1059177316901904394

The comments under this don’t seem that supportive (but it could also be that I’m blocked by the ones who are receptive)

mobile.twitter.com/green_susie100/status/1059085046773137408

Susie Green at #WPATH2018 🇦🇷
@green_susie100
We are not going to accidentally make someone trans, even if we give them hormones...being trans is not a negative outcome. Johanna Olson-Kennedy Lets be less concerned about certainty and more concerned about improving the quality of people’s lives

I'm going to have to stop reading the tweets on WPATH as I'm finding it truly terrifying,

One of the studies between GNC children and trans children seems to look at very shallow indicators.
twitter.com/green_susie100/status/1059518710564708353

They are looking at do you like girls toys or boys, who do you prefer playing with, who will you grow up to be.

Also, why are none of these 'studies' providing any definition of gender? It would all make a lot more sense if they were clear what they were talking about. But I guess if the end goal is surgery and hormones and being a 'real' woman you can't just say gender is societies construction of men/ women identities through clothes/ roles etc.

'are they game?' so basically daring kids to medically transition? Crikey!

Perhaps this is the reason males who identify as women are so forceful in asserting that teenage girls ROGD is not a thing. They want those wombs before the girls can make a reasoned adult choice in avoiding having their fertility stolen and used by males.

Do they think human beings are just like Lego?

Clearly.

And no ethical consideration of any babies in the equations.

Do they think human beings are just like Lego? FFS.
This would be ridiculously laughable if it wasn’t so damn likely that some loony tune will actually pursue this, backed up by those who think this is actually progressive.
What are the implications for those of us with donor cards and the potential change from opt in to opt out rules for human organs? Sinister indeed.

Still on the topic of uterine transplants: The paper cited in my prior post also suggests that the Montreal Criteria will be changed so that young trans men (transitioning females) who've never borne children will be able to donate their uteri to be transplanted into natal males, whom the paper calls "nongenetic females":

"Though most of the research has been carried out in female individuals of reproductive age, we cannot preclude at this stage that future research may allow for postmenopausal women to act as successful donors. Furthermore, we do not believe that, ethically, a nulliparous woman, who has by her own volition never desired to bear children, should be rejected as a potential donor on this basis. Indeed, we emphasize that the Montreal Criteria are dynamic and subject to evolve with the advancement of medicine and the development of the transplant. Because the medical and surgical challenges involved in performing uterine transplant on a nongenetic female recipient or from a postmenopausal donor are likely not insurmountable, a change in feasibility would necessitate a revisiting of the criteria in question."

"Nongenetic females" is a new one to me - anyone else heard it before?

An earlier poster said they can't imagine uterus transplants for men getting by an ethics committee. But ethical guidelines known as the Montreal Criteria have already been developed by medical groups. And while the MC originally said only biological women should be eligible for uterine transplants, the MC have already been criticized for leaving out trans women & men in general - & work is underway to change the criteria so that eventually men, trans or not, will be equally eligible for uterus transplants as women.

In 2013, a paper called "Ethical considerations in the era of the uterine transplant: an update of the Montreal Criteria for the Ethical Feasibility of Uterine Transplantation" appeared in the medical journal Fertility & Sterility in 2013.

www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(13)00636-5/fulltext

Two relevant paragraphs:

"Uterine transplant offers the same promise of a solution for males or trans individuals wishing to gestate a child as it does for genetic females with UFI (Uterine Factor Infertility). Nevertheless, the Montreal Criteria require that the recipient be a genetic female. This warrants both justification and discussion. To date, only female recipients have been used in animal and human trials of uterine transplant. There are many interesting yet daunting theoretical medical issues concerning uterine transplant with a nongenetic female recipient, including the creation of adequate uterine vascularization de novo, the necessity for appropriate hormone replacement to sustain implantation and pregnancy, and the placement of the uterus in a nongynecoid pelvis. These unique considerations merit investigation; however, in the absence of sufficient research demonstrating safety and efficacy, uterine transplant in men and trans individuals fails to meet the first stipulation of Moore's Criteria for Surgical Innovation, which requires that novel surgical procedures have an adequate research background. It is on this basis that the Montreal Criteria exclude nongenetic female recipients.

"However, it certainly bears mentioning that there does not seem to be a prima facie ethical reason to reject the idea of performing uterine transplant on a male or trans patient. A male or trans patient wishing to gestate a child does not have a lesser claim to that desire than their female counterparts. The principle of autonomy is not sex-specific. This right is not absolute, but it is not the business of medicine to decide what is unreasonable to request for a person of sound mind, except as it relates to medical and surgical risk, as well as to distribution of resources. A male who identifies as a woman, for example, arguably has UFI, no functionally different than a woman who is born female with UFI. Irrespective of the surgical challenges involved, such a person's right to self-governance of her reproductive potential ought to be equal to her genetically female peers and should be respected."

Note that the plan seems to be to extend to males the diagnosis of UFI, a form of infertility that until now has been regarded as exclusive to females because women are the only people nature designed to have uteri, functioning or not.

If men's lack of uteri comes to be seen as the medical condition known as UFI, & men's UFI is considered "no(t) functionally different" to women's UFI, men will be able to claim that medical treatment for UFI is their human right - & they'll also be able to further demand that the treatment be provided on request & paid for (depending on the country) by state health services &/or private insurance.

As the paper says, a trans woman's "reproductive potential" - here specifically meaning the potential to gestate a child within the historically & biologically female organ colloquially called a womb - "ought to be equal to her genetically female peers and should be respected."

This is effing horrifying!!!!!!!!!!

How can even the most ardent trans supporters sit through this and not be HIGHLY suspect??

So:
1 - there are no clear diagnosis criteria (at least I've never seen any that seem convincing and rigorous)
2 - we have to 100% take children at their word
3 - but they aren't sophisticated enough to entertain the long term effects of their choices?

Asking a child or young adult if they may want to be a parent is 'disruptive', but putting them on hormones isn't?! It's hard for girls to get their periods early, but you don't hear parents pretending it's something other than it isn't!

One of the slides ends with saying, and then we ask them 'are they game' - this seems hugely flippant

Disturbing Twitter thread looking at the consequences of what is being pushed/suggested at WPATH:

twitter.com/LogicalMarcus/status/1059431661862039552

It's becoming clear to even these maniacs that puberty blockers are dreadful things. This is their solution.

(Not for the fainthearted. I'm not fainthearted but was half an inch from crying.)

Latest series of slides from WPATH tweeted by Susie Green. If Susie's blocked you (as she has me), then you can read 4th Wave Now's narrative (spoiler: the end goal is, as we suspected, uterine transplants).

twitter.com/4th_WaveNow/status/1059483829088309248

boatyardblues I’m pretty sure those that thinking this is a viable option have watched the Emma Thompson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito film ‘Junior’ and think - “let’s give it a bash, we’ve got mobile communication devices after Star Trek showed it was possible.”

Medical ethics appear to have been thrown out of the window for transgenderism/transexualism. It’s abhorrent that there are more protections in place for experimentation on human tissue than there is for living, breathing vulnerable children and adults.

So donors have to have had at least one full term delivery?

That’s going to rule out a lot of dysphoric females from being donors.

www.healthline.com/health-news/uterus-transplants-raise-hopes-and-ethical-concerns#1

I think it’s been more live donors than dead ones so far:

Dead donors seem the only ethical choice given the highly complex and risky surgery involved. I believe this is the approach used in f 2f uterus transplants

Addendum: I also think the idea is revolting, that healthy women’s wombs would be harvested, medical research and resources diverted to this and foetuses endangered to validate someone’s sense of their internal identity in this way. Urgh.

Aren’t there a whole bunch of hormonal changes going on in pregnancy? Is it possible to gestate a healthy baby without all those?

And how would that work without a female endocrine system?

I have also given this a little thought and can’t square the womb-cervix-vagina conundrum. A neovagina does not have a cervix, so you can’t link an implanted womb in a MTF to the outside world. A vaginal bleed is often the early warning of something going awry - eg miscarriage or partial placental abruption, loss of mucus plug of early labour. Even if you could successfully implant a womb and mimic the endocrine changes, the pregnancy would need a phenomenal amount of monitoring to keep the patient safe. I’m assuming a missed, retained miscarriage could lead to sepsis and an abruption into a ‘blind’ womb would be extremely dangerous. And this is just risks to the patient, never mind the foetus.

When, as seen in the Guardian letter, terms like “male-bodied” are deemed offensive, when all the terms to remove distinction between men and women are removed, when transwomen are women, then there will be no way to even discuss why you would not implant a uterus into a man.