Stella O'Malley, Trans Kids: It's Time To Talk

That clinic has been accused of overstepping some marks, not making actual (proven) clinical mistakes. It is all about procedures and clinical oversight.

Where do you draw the line between 'overstepping some marks' and 'making clinical mistakes'?

Whatever the Webberleys have been doing, their good faith and overall professionalism need not be doubted.

Kay As an adult you may have found it useful to have a health practitioner who was prescribing illegally, but this doesn't exonerate her. You may not agree with the system which refused the registration of her clinic, but you cannot argue that breaking the law is a 'professional' way to behave. The requirement for registration is for the protection of patients.

This is what Health Inspectorate Wales had to say about the Webberley case:

Unregistered healthcare services pose a risk to patient safety as they are not subject to the same level of scrutiny as registered services. HIW’s role is to check that patients receive good care and we are committed to taking action where standards are not met and against those who provide services illegally.

hiw.org.uk/news/onlinegpprosecution?lang=en

deepwatersolo;
Some of us "been there/ done that" TS men and women have been saying for a while that there will be "career ending / family relationships ending" court cases over all this in 20 years time.

So with rudimentary science, one can surmise the amygdala remains in control for longer while blocked, the frontal cortex remains undeveloped. Fuck knows what happens when cross sex hormones happen then.

I'm getting increasingly more concerned about this aspect.

Well, I guess, this will make a fascinating research topics in ten years or so, when there will be a really big and therefore statistically meaningful cohort of guinea pigs prepubsesently transitioned adults can be studied regarding these hormonal effects on their brain, IQ and maturity.

rightreckoner; you may well be right about the professional bodies unhappiness, but then, as I said, this is about" checks and balances", more than about clinical competence.

Actually, I doubt if she has got an actual " criminal conviction"; I don't think the court case has that status. I may be wrong on this. If anyone has the precise facts on that, I'd be interested.

When in the past action has been taken against private clinics, in all cases but one the action has involved disapproval, doubts, constant suspicions, checking up. Quite famous cases ( "R", for example) have been seen as the clinician being " closed down/ struck off" have actually been a ruling that there needed to be "supervision/ second opinions. "R" retired, but was free to carry on in the work.

The complexity of the whole damned business is underlined by the fact that the case that drove "R" to distraction , and resulted in retirement, was based around a particular male to female patient who later "retransitioned" to male and screamed " malpractice. Ironically the patient has since " retransitioned" m to f. Who would be a gender specialist psychiatrist? :-)

Yet that does underline need for checks and balances, and second, even third opinions. This is messing with people's lives. In my case, and those of other late transitioners, we could argue that we had had 40/ 50 years of GD, and it was not going away, but worsening.

With kids, it is different. How is anyone to tell what is for the best?. I'm inclined to be strongly against kids transitioning, on principle, but it is easy to say that. Faced with the actual problems , who would say what we would do?.

The youngsters who transition seem to have a childlike quality to them. I don't know if it's the lack of sex drive, brought on by medication or puberty blockers. But they seem unaware.

Without being too Wells or Huxley about it, they remind me of the Eloi

the Eloi have slowly become dissolute and naive: they are described as smaller than modern humans, with shoulder-length curly hair, pointed chins, large eyes, small ears, small mouths with bright red thin lips, and sub-human intelligence. They do not perform much work, except to feed, play, and mate; and when Weena falls into a river, none of the other Eloi helps her (she is rescued instead by the Time Traveler). Periodically, the Morlocks capture individual Eloi for food; and because this typically happens on moonless nights, the Eloi are terrified of darkness.

and the Fortunate Boys:

Fortunate boys!" said the Controller. "No pains have been spared to make your lives emotionally easy - to preserve you, so far as that is possible, from having emotions at all."

Re the Spiked piece linked to below: much of what BO'N writes is good sense, but here he claims that the trans agenda insists that transgenderism is a medical condition.

Not so. Or not always so. The TRAs are often contradictory of course, no doubt about it. But many will say that being TG is not a pathology, not a mental illness, and it doesn't need (and crucially should not have) a medical diagnosis (hence the drive to self-ID) It is all just a natural normal feeling.

The contradiction comes when this natural normal feeling ends up requiring hormones and surgery to be validated.

...send the clear message that it’s OK to explore those identities and find what’s right for you, not close off options to people.

That’s exactly what puberty blockers etc DOES do though surely :( literally closes off the “option” of being allowed to just explore who they really are and coming to terms with their own body. Not to mention fertility etc

OMG, Datun, I have thought that....the persistent child-like outlook and demeanor of transitioned kids now in their 20s. I have wondered if it was just a sunny personality, a determination to demonstrate that all is well with their world tra-la-la, but I am not sure.

Of course puberty has an effect on neurological development. We know that. We're told so often that the brain is plastic at crucial times in adolescence (one of the reasons why the typical teenage body clock is so whack, and does not fit in with school days and exam requirements). Messing with puberty cannot be a good thing.

So with rudimentary science, one can surmise the amygdala remains in control for longer while blocked, the frontal cortex remains undeveloped. Fuck knows what happens when cross sex hormones happen then.

I'm getting increasingly more concerned about this aspect.

The youngsters who transition seem to have a childlike quality to them. I don't know if it's the lack of sex drive, brought on by medication or puberty blockers. But they seem unaware.

When you listen to them talk, there's a lot of the superficial going on. It's difficult to explain, but it wouldn't surprise me if their intellectual development hadn't been stunted along with their puberty.

Isn't there some evidence to suggest that their IQ decreases by eight points?

If you don't develop a fully mature intellect, you don't know what you don't know, right?

I think Dr Webberley’s professional body would disagree with you about her professionalism given her criminal record.

re Dr Webberley; Some adult Transsexual people have been unhappy for some while about young and/ or "undiagnosed officially" people using Dr Webberley's services. Only because being cynical old people we like to see checks and balances. How skilled their clinical / psychiatric assessment cannot be clear. We prefer the standard route through the NHS, although even there there can be doubts about decision making.

Most people who use the Webberley service are mature adults, and are willing to "take their own chances" after a lifetime of increasing misery with GD and years of further waiting for the NHS. They have found the service to be professional and principled . In fact, as someone who has been through the NHS system many years ago, but who has had long term medical issues with ( some) post op hormones, I have considered using her service myself. Most of her clients seem to be very happy indeed with the clinic. Well, they would be, maybe, but it is so.

There have been a number of services such as hers over the years, and all have had difficulties with " the NHS Gender Services Establishment". Yet over time the "G.S.E. Establishment"has often been seen to have moved closer to what those private services have been doing. It is all a tad unclear, tbh. The issue with a private clinic seems to be one of " who oversees and checks?". That clinic has been accused of overstepping some marks, not making actual (proven) clinical mistakes. It is all about procedures and clinical oversight.

Whatever the Webberleys have been doing, their good faith and overall professionalism need not be doubted.

adulthumanandtired

"That first poor child who was autistic- glued to their laptop - unlimited and unsupervised access to the internet (or so it appeared) is so, so dangerous. And that’s even apart from all the online trans social contagion."

I completely agree with you about social contagion.

However, it is virtually impossible to supervise a teenager's use of the internet.

If you know how to do it without utterly alienating your child please do tell me. Thus is a genuine request.

I really wish I had not given my child a phone that connects to the internet when they went to secondary school. But I, like the vast majority of parents, did.

R0wantrees

"Dr Helen Webberley's (GenderGP Private Online Clinic) article for GayStar News:
'Why I declined Channel 4's invitation to talk about trans kids
Channel 4 is making a documentary called, Trans Kids: It's time to talk'
(extract)"

"Ms O’Malley wanted to be a boy as a child, a desire which she subsequently grew out of. This confusion about her gender has given her the strong conviction that gender variance in children is transient. This is what the programme explores"

I don't Stella ever said it was transient for all, she said it was transient for her. What right has this doctor to diagnose Stella via internet and make her own pronouncements!

Many of us who are gender critical would still argue on some circumstances it is right for adults yo transition. The programme was about children.

R0wantrees

"Review by Q42 a Manchester Youth Group for ages 13-18 funded by Children In Need
(concludes)"

"...transitioning the problem isn’t being lost, it’s knowing exactly where you want to go but having to jump over endless roadblocks on a constantly shifting route to get there." This seems to miss the point that 'knowing' is actually quite subjective. What we know for sure at 13 might change.

"People can face uncertainty around their identity, including gender identity." But the reality is that gender identity isn't some inatr feeling we all have internally it's a concept created within culture. We have a biological sex and if we feel at odds with that we need counselling before making massive changes that could leave us sterile. Puberty blockers stop the brain developing as well as the body. How can that assist a child in making wise decisions?

"That’s why it’s important to embrace the wealth of options and identities that exist" but TRAs do not seem willing to embrace the belief one doesn't need to buy into 'gender' at all! Unless thatvis packaged as an identity. Like calling atheism a religion!

"And for those that do explore and do find what’s right for them, no one has to right to tell them they’re mistaken and they’re still lost…" except of course the parents who love them a lot more than their new found You tube star does, and actually care what happens to them!

Because we are talking about children not adults!

"For one thing virtually every human on the planet represents who they are externally." To some extent yes but I am not just a woman, I am a complex person and taking drugs to alter my body eoukf not affect 'who I was' it might endanger who I am!

"The other, particularly frustrating, element to this is the idea of being “led”. The path to medical transition is one that needs a hell of a lot of determination to go down. It’s not one that a Pied Piper figure can trick confused children into going down. It’s one that’s very long and sometimes distressing and one involving a lot of professionals weighing in."

I think, perhaps unknowingly, You tube presenters telling their story of medication and surgery to vulnerable teens are exactly like Pied Pipers! How ironic to mention it! But I do not think the realise they are doing it!

"The question to ask is “why?” Why would anyone bother to “lead” young people down that path? Who on earth would stand to gain from doing that? People who do “lead” people astray or exploit lost and vulnerable people do so for their own gain, and the only person who potentially stands to benefit in the situations in the film is the individual themselves."

Not so, the presenters get affirmation for their 'choices' even if they feel they have no choice. Yet, they are validated, etc.

I don't think they are genuinely trying to lead others astray but by presenting their 'only option' I do think they are leading others.

Eighteen months is a very long time when you are suffering and when puberty is marching on undeterred by your dysphoria.

Surely, 18 months is not a long time when it comes to judging, whether somebody toys with their gender or not?

THere has been a constant and considerable push by some Mermaids parents, some TRAs and Dr Webberley to focus on the wait times of GIDS.

Its been going on for months.

It seems the hope is that it would open up the possibility of referral to private healthcare either for full treatment or the supervision of GPs to provide 'bridging prescriptions'

THere is though also a significant difference in approach by clinicians such as Dr Webberley with that of Tavistock GIDS.

Hadn't read Spiked before, is it usually woke?

Surprised to see something like that in Spiked which I think is a first for them.

Funny how the pink news article leaves out Cale, who detransitioned, from the list of interviewees

Spiked needs to decouple it’s comments section from Facebook.

Some of us would love to comment - as, indeed, we used to - but it’s more than our jobs are worth now.

My god that’s good - the Spiked thing. That’s the toughest I’ve seen.

Article in Spiked in response to the programme:
www.spiked-online.com/2018/11/22/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-trans-kid/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

(I was referring to Webberley's Pink News Article, cited above).

They chose someone who toyed with their gender as a child (as most kids have) as an example of why we shouldn’t take the feelings of gender variant children seriously.

And then:

Eighteen months is a very long time when you are suffering and when puberty is marching on undeterred by your dysphoria.

Surely, 18 months is not a long time when it comes to judging, whether somebody toys with their gender or not?

Sure, once puberty marches, there is a time factor. However, before puberty there was childhood, which would have provided ample time for getting an appointment. Or are we talking about some kind of rapid onset gender dysphoria here, in which case I wonder about the consistency of it all...

This is all very self-contradictory and illogical.

"At the very least any reasonable trans person who cared about the welfare of children would want to discuss these issues and see a programme investigating them as important. But instead the discussion is all about the impact on them and how it is aimed at dissing them.....not concern over the consequences of children which anybody not obsessed with their own identity can surely see."

this ^^

lassupthebrew "The names chosen by transitioners hinting at influence of on line trans media stars. The switch over of gender balance to more girls identifying as boys when for decades it was the other way round until 3 or 4 years ago."

Can you day more about this here or pm me, please?

"At the very least any reasonable trans person who cared about the welfare of children would want to discuss these issues and see a programme investigating them as important. But instead the discussion is all about the impact on them and how it is aimed at dissing them.....not concern over the consequences of children which anybody not obsessed with their own identity can surely see."

This is so true.