Award winning article from 1997 on David Reimer

We fought a war to stop the nazis experimenting on humans. Two decades after the end of the war, a physician in North America mutilated a child, and then a psychologist performed an experiment that severely damaged two children. He should have been struck off and never allowed to practise medicine again, but instead we are left with John Money's legacy. Rather than men and women being treated as equals, they are labelled according to a social construct of "gender", which is totally inappropriate in the twenty-first century. Psychologists, psychiatrists, and plastic surgeons make a great deal of money out of maintaining the myth of gender identity. They will not back down, and will fight hard to protect their livelihood.

Absolutely Gwynfluff I think I saw in the article someone quoted talking about the ‘male brain’ as a concept, without further exploration of that. The rationale in the article for the failure of Money’s experiment with these children, wasn’t being made from a GC position.

Anne F-S (I wasn’t aware of her background) was right though to be highlighting the need for adequate professional support for families (whether in the case of DSDs, as she was talking about in the quote) or even today, if we extrapolate that to families trying to help their children dealing with anxieties or distress about ‘gender identity’ while facing a health system geared towards unquestioning affirmation.

Though what ‘good’ support should look like, would of course be the crucial factor, I find it interesting and sad that over different decades and across these in some ways overlapping related issues, the informed, professional emotional support of affected families and children seems to have been lacking. Or worse, created a professional vacuum which has been filled by solely political theories of what good ‘treatment’ looks like.

What is it with a lot of these 'intellectuals' like Foucault, Money, so many of the Queer Theory proponents and their blatant advocacy of pedophilia?! Ugh...

Its rooted in the transgression of boundaries/ societal norms which includes Safeguarding.

Derrick Jensen (from 1:50) demonstrates Queer Theorists links with pedophilia in form of Jeopardy Quiz.
Eugene, OR - March 4, 2018

Summarised on previous thread by carceralfeminist :

"Bullet points from the video here. Note, these are Derrick Jensen's claims:

-There is a long correlation between anarchism and paedophilia. (All the kids get upset!)

-Foucalt is commonly known as the godfather of queer theory. Foucalt argued for the eradication of age of consent laws (as in down to infant).

-The author of the founding document of Queer Theory is Gayle Rubin. 50% in that article is about defending paedophilia, specifically "boy lovers." Quote from the founding document: "like communists and homosexuals of the 1950s, boy lovers are so stigmatized it is difficult to find defenders of their civil liberties, let alone for their erotic orientation." She compared paedophilia to a preference for spicy food.......

• Author of Public Sex , Pat Califia wrote "any child old enough to decide whether or not she or he wats to eat spinach, play with trucks or wear shoes is old enough to decide whether or not she or he wants to run around naked in the sun, masturbate sit in somebody's lap or engage in sexual activity." Allegedly advocates that paedophiles should be more involved with children.

• Judith Butler, most famous queer theorist of today. Wrote that there are some forms of incest that are probably not traumatic.

-No queer theorist has spoken out strongly against paedophilia.

-Queer theory is a harmful philosophy, comes from post-modernism and is a response to lesbian feminism. (Interesting that it's now the 2nd wavers that are fighting it.)

-Queer is by definition against all that is normal. The problem is that it is based on a blanket attack everything, without making distinctions to preserve behaviours that are helpful. Even within a horribly oppressive structure, there are still norms worth keeping. Queer theory is too broad, based on getting rid of boundaries. But some norms should not be transgressed (i.e. paedophilia is never okay!!!!)"
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3355827-Queer-theory-and-what-it-means-in-extremis

Jane Clare Jones, 'QUEER THEORY, FOUCAULDIAN FEMINISM AND THE ERASURE OF RAPE'
janeclarejones.com/2018/08/30/queer-theory-foucauldian-feminism-and-the-erasure-of-rape/

They remind me a little of some of the romantic thinkers when they wrote about education. They have a theory of mind or a theory of education, but don't seem to have had much actual experience of children and what they are like. They seem to picture them as in many ways small adults.

Not the romantics, but the 20th century ones also seem to see human beings mainly as animals.

Thanks for sharing the article. I'm slowly making my way through it.

"A childhood sexual experience, such as being the partner of a relative or of an older person, need not necessarily affect the child adversely," Money told Time.

🤮🤮🤮

What is it with a lot of these 'intellectuals' like Foucault, Money, so many of the Queer Theory proponents and their blatant advocacy of pedophilia?! Ugh...

You would think 'cancel culture' would be eager to bin Queer Theory in its entirety given the sort of characters that have promoted it over the years, but nope.... Strangely silent on this.....

Thank you for your kindness @Goosefoot and @MoleSmokes. This thread is opening up so many interesting and interconnected issues.

I agree with what you wrote @MoleSmokes:
”There are mad-bastard, psychopaths and sadists in all walks of life. I do think rather more could be done though to keep them out of practicing in regulated professions like clinical psychology, psychiatry and all others where the client/patient is more vulnerable than the average ...
“The stark difference between "profession-facing" vs "patient-facing" personas makes it very hard for people who have been abused in any way by these people to be believed.”

Indeed. This issue of the vulnerability of patients/clients in such situations is a massive one. If we add this vulnerability to the power imbalance inherent in the relationship between the psychiatrist/psychologist and his or her patient, it becomes a lethal recipe for abuse and injustice.

gender is the child's choice to express and should be unhindered by unhelpful stereotypical beliefs and other people's needs to fit children into boxes

I thought the article was fascinating. But it was very much endorsing essentialist gender identity predetermined in the womb. Constant references to how ‘masculine’ John/Joan was and how he wanted to play with the ‘boy’ toys. So it actually plays into the discourse that there is this ‘essence’. Gender ideology has an essentialist strand and an extreme postmodern everything is constructed/performative strand. Though often what is ‘performed’ is very stereotypical.

I also thought I recognised the Anne Fausto-Sterling name.

Someone asked about how this story might have altered feminist discourses about how gender is constructed - but feminist constructivist theories predate this case. Wollstonecraft writes of the societal expectations on women to behave in Ceri ah ways, de Beauvoir does in the 40s etc. There are really only a very small group of feminists (usually radical end) who felt there were distinctive female qualities that were powerful and could be transformative of patriarchal power structures.

DSD and Intersex are used interchangeably, but they do not mean the same thing.

(Just like gender and sex!)

'Intersex' used to be children born with ambiguous genitalia, or whose development at puberty did not match their genitalia (eg males with complete androgen insensitivity).

Since Intersex has been renamed Differences/Disorders of Sexual Development, it now includes unambiguously male or female children with unusual genitalia, such as boys with mild hypospadias that may not affect their function and may not need treatment.

The number of children born with DSD must be greater than that of children born Intersex, as DSD includes Intersex.

"Fausto-Sterling also seems to be the source for the damaging misinformation that the prevalence of intersex might be as high as 1.7%."

Indeed. The first thing I thought when I saw that quoted was, "Where? Japan? Galway? Glasgow?"

"Statistics and Semantics: Is Intersex “as common as red heads”?"

mrkhvoice.com/index.php/2019/05/12/statistics-and-semantics-is-intersex-as-common-as-red-heads/

Fausto-Sterling also seems to be the source for the damaging misinformation that the prevalence of intersex might be as high as 1.7%.

Anne Fausto-Sterling, an embryologist at Brown University, endorses Diamond and Sigmundson's recommendation for delaying surgery

She appears to be one who will discard what she has earlier promoted if it suits her personally:

twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1230128097376243720

Like we have not learnt from the recent past, even from this connected field of medical and psychological practice. This is very concerning in so many ways. I used to assume that modern medical practice learns from its mistakes and it draws from evidence where there are unknowns or uncertainties. Rather than basing actual irreversible care on wider cultural stereotypes or on simply adopting and following fashions in theories or political positions without conducting proper research. It is shocking.

Thanks for the link to that article, that was a really interesting but tough read. Those poor children and their families.

The account of rigidly theory-led influential figures practising in the medical establishment then closing ranks to exclude the voices of the people with disorders of sexual development who then rejected the treatment they had been given (the members of ‘ISNA’) has resonance around detransitioned people and the ‘affirmation’ model, as does not being clear when something is experimental or outcome unknown, as does the lack of non-directive emotional professional support for families with children who are distressed around gender:

‘Chase says she understands why the medical establishment has resisted listening to ISNA. As she once wrote: "Our position implies that they have unwittingly at best and through willful denial at worst - spent their careers inflicting a profound harm from which their patients will never fully recover." So she does not expect doctors like Gearhart to change their views unless forced. "I think a context will open up for surgeons who keep doing this to be vulnerable to lawsuits," Chase says. "But it's going to take a while to create that context. Right now, we can't sue, because it's standard practice and parents give permission. The first thing that we want to have happen is that when they recommend this to parents, they tell them it's experimental and there's no evidence that it works and that there's plenty of people who've had it done to them who are mad as hell."

Other large changes will have to take place. Anne Fausto-Sterling, an embryologist at Brown University, endorses Diamond and Sigmundson's recommendation for delaying surgery but says that the medical establishment will have to provide education and emotional support to help parents with the difficult task of raising an infant whose genitals are atypical.

"A different kind of support system has to start getting built," Fausto-Sterling says. "At the moment there is no ongoing counseling done by people skilled in psychosexual development." Currently, she points out, counseling is done neither by experts trained in gender issues or psychology nor by intersexual peer-support counselors - it's handled by surgeons or endocrinologists, who conduct only cursory follow-up exams once a year. "If there was really a wholesale change in this," she continues, "the medical profession would have to do something like what they've done with genetic counseling - which is to develop a specialty of people who would work with these families long-term and help them resolve both emotional and practical questions. The practical questions are very real: 'What do I do when it comes to undressing in gym? How do I intervene with the school system?' There are a lot of things that have to happen to make what I'm arguing or Cheryl's arguing or Mickey's arguing work. There's a different infrastructure that has to get built and put into place. I think it's the responsibility of the medical profession to do it ‘
L

GCGayDad

There are mad-bastard, psychopaths and sadists in all walks of life. I do think rather more could be done though to keep them out of practicing in regulated professions like clinical psychology, psychiatry and all others where the client/patient is more vulnerable than the average bear.

The stark difference between "profession-facing" vs "patient-facing" personas makes it very hard for people who have been abused in any way by these people to be believed.

.. there sometimes seems to be little awareness that sexuality can be all over the place in the teen years

There is peer pressure to reach puberty by a particular school age, any variation from the norm is an uncomfortable experience.
Children falling outside of the usual age markers are acutely aware of this. It makes them a vulnerable group.

Modern life, if only we can just let them be.

Just to mention too: modern psychology involves active requirement for therapists to question and reflect on what needs of my own may I be trying to meet in this client and my treatment plan? What stuff of mine is becoming involved?

Heartbreaking.

There were a number of children who played innocent victim to the God-complexed medical professionals convinced of their own rightness and focused on their career based agenda rather than the best interests of the child. The boy in the bubble, Genie Wiley, both similarly had their lives taken over in pursuit of interesting research and were later abandoned and left to pick up the damage as best they could. These children were never really people to these professionals, and these cases formed a basis for medical ethics now in place.

The professional in this case is also an example of what happens when someone in need of a good psychologist themselves, and a number of very troubling social, emotional and sexual beliefs, values and behaviours, gets into a position of sufficient influence. And how some fields, when not strongly regulated by robust ethics, standards and safeguarding policies, will always provide the opportunity for children to be abused and exploited, and will inevitably attract adults with an interest in the field that may not be altruistic.

The massive problem we have now is Lang's 'sacred caste': a new attempt to circumvent protections and standards for children in the pursuit of an adult agenda. By adults wholly convinced of their own self righteousness and superiority. Plus ca change.

Very interesting that the male professional with the power was wholly convinced in their own mind that a male infant with a damaged penis had no future, was incapable of maleness. And yet: that they would create a 'girl' with a vaginal cavity but without the sexual experiences of a woman, without the ability for fertility or having a child? No mention at all. Nor that at some point someone would have to explain to this created female that they were never going to menstruate or carry a child, and why that was. The utter dismissal, the unimportance of the female experience is writ large, as it always is. A female just has long hair, breasts, performs femininity adequately and has the required hole for a male to penetrate. Job done.

The conclusions from the article seem strong that sex is what it is and must be accepted as it is; gender is the child's choice to express and should be unhindered by unhelpful stereotypical beliefs and other people's needs to fit children into boxes; nothing should be done in childhood that damages or removes sexual experience or fertility from the future adult; and all decisions about body alteration should be made by the person themselves in adulthood.

Nothing whatsoever to disagree with there.

I think a lot of people's emotions are on a bit of a thread these days, GCGayDad. I'd just go with the flow and have a cry.

I think what I found interesting was that Morney seemed so clearly to be reacting to his own up-bringing in the positions he adopted. I know a person who is one of the major psychiatrists working with gender confused kids in my area, he's all about affirmation only. What strikes me is how much this seems to be a reflection of his own feelings and fragility - he is a person who really is very kind and wants to do good, but struggles with any sort of conflict, with watching other people struggle. His background also seems to have included a childhood that was overly rigid and perhaps judgemental and he subsequently has suffered from mental health issues.

I've known a few very mentally healthy people in psychiatry, one used to work in the clinic I did when I was younger, and they seem to be good at their jobs. Very stable kinds of people who aren't needing affirmation from others. But it seems to be fraught to find those people. Maybe the problem is someone like a GP who has their own issues generally isn't interpreting their patient care through them, whereas in mental health care, we are always looking at others mainly through our own experience of being human.

They get away with it because of the way patient confidentiality is built into the system.

Suffice to say, there's tragedy in there for those affected while the experimenters get to walk away from consequences or responsibility for the harm these experiments caused.

There's precedent. 75 years ago a doctor famously got away with cruel and inhumane experimentation on twins. At least his evil was made public.

@Goosefoot
I agree. If I look at the psychological assessment I was subjected to recently, aside from the gaslighting and bullying during the interview with the psychologist, his report was full of supposedly scientific and empirical bullshit. The session before my interview with him consisted of me completing multiple questionnaires. I’ve since worked out that the results from one of them - one used as standard in cases of “forensic psychology” - are what led to some bizarre findings about me in the assessment report. For example, his report said that There is evidence have “histrionic” and “narcissistic” tendencies and am on the clinical scale for OCD! Wtf. I have had a lot of therapy over the years - as it happens, the best of all with a male therapist, who is the kindest and most empathetic practitioner you could clever meet - and never has anyone ever suggested that my issues include OCD, narcissism or a histrionic personality. I’ve since found some critical academic papers that indicate the tool used is intrinsically flawed and regular leads to over-identification of the three specific aspects mentioned in my assessment.

So yes, a great deal of psychological science would appear to be bullshit. And worse yet, the whole surrounding health and social system privileges the practitioners of this bullshit and allows them to keep getting away with it.

Sorry, I think I’ve been a bit “triggered” by this whole thread. I just bought sandwiches for a homeless man in the street and started crying.

There is a huge amount of bs in psychology. I think making it isn't a scientific discipline has been a very mixed result, it lends it an aura of empirical evidence that is pretty misleading in many cases.

The replication crisis where past scientific studies cannot be replicated for ethical and most probably fraudulent reasons.

Medical and psychology 'disciplines' seem to be the worst affected.

This is the God complex in action.