Susie Green and Keira Bell on Newsnight

Thanks Fine and Betty. Going to have a read.

This is one of Dr Hakeem’s papers:
www.researchgate.net/publication/273461356_Psychotherapy_for_Gender_Identity_Disorders

He wrote this. I bought a copy ages ago and then accidentally left it on a plane having only read the intro!

www.amazon.co.uk/TRANS-Exploring-Gender-Identity-Dysphoria/dp/1911246496?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Professional Background: www.priorygroup.com/consultants/dr-az-hakeem

I had never heard Susie Green (or Keira Bell) speak until yesterday.

Two things struck me about SG.

First, that she is massively over-invested in her child. Unhealthily so.
Her child is her project. She has to defend the Mermaid position (and reject the findings of the court) because to do otherwise is to acknowledge what she had done to her child (and also what she has actively facilitated being done to other children). The guilt would be over-whelming were she to acknowledge what she is responsible for. She does not come across as very well balanced. She is a perfect example of why impartial, objective, evidence-based, multi-disciplinary services are required. Those with skin in the game, whether parents of children with dysphoria or trans-identifying adults should not be let within an asses' roar of these vulnerable children or their parents. In Ireland the problem is exemplified by TENI who are involved everywhere you turn, largely peopled by late-transitioning transwomen.

Second, which also suggests that she is not well-balanced: the repeated references to suicide as an inevitable outcome for children with dysphoria who are not facilitated in their hopes/wishes/demands (specifically in this case puberty blockers). The repeated references to this inevitability connects to her need to justify the appalling decisions she has made. Its function in arm-twisting frightened parents is another matter.

While I was horrified listening to her I also saw this persona built within a scaffolding which is slowly being pulled down around her. I can't say I felt sorry for her, but she is clearly someone who will need help to come to terms with what she has done. She is totally invested in this fantasy and needs it to continue for her own sense of self.

www.drazhakeem.com/specialist-psychotherapy-for-gender-dysphoria/

Sounds like a pretty rational person.

Has anyone seen this (apologies if it's already been discussed).

ripx4nutmeg posted it on Twitter, this doctor ran an adult gender dysphoria psychotherapy clinic, and 26% of his patients over a 12 year period were 'regretters'.

I'd love to hear more from him but his Twitter is private (can't say I blame him). Seems this may have been some time ago, before the current social contagion, and dealing with adults that were able to fully consent, too.

No one bothered to check up on these people either. They were a 'lost statistic' :(

they never wanted to be actual men just non women

I find this really very sad.

Can’t imagine, can’t! Although it takes all sorts I suppose.

I'd imagine they had in mind looking like an anime girly-boy:

www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/291889619575796061/

Want to be young, pretty, fit men then? I can imagine anyone wanting to look like Homer Simpson...

Finn it's mindboggling. I'd expect more rigorous data collection from a year 11 doing a science project.

Loads of the paediatric MtF transitioners in the public eye are very tall. Nikki Tutorials is a good example.

But if you point out the extra height using GnRHas can add to an MtF adolescent, the activists just use it as an argument to start cross sex hormones at 14 instead of 16 😢

For scale, the internet says Ellen Degeneres is 5’7” (and that the average British woman is 5’3” www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11534042

In females, blocking from the very early stages of puberty likely makes them a bit taller too. This might well have been a positive in the traditional, early childhood onset gender dysphoria group (of whom only a minority are female) but the current group of adolescent female patients, who only become distressed by gender around the onset of menses anyway, are unlikely to gain more than an extra inch or so, and it’s probably not worth the reduced bone density payoff (of course, we have many, many years before this group are of an age to really know what’s what in terms of life long bone health).

Puberty blockers have been around for a while now. I'd expect to see some anecdotal evidence around this, if nothing else

There should be actual data, because Someone should have collected it. But there doesn't appear to be - why not. As for anecdotal evidence - not a great collection there either (again, why not) but even if there was you have to look very hard to remove bias - from any agenda. And there would be bias and an agenda!

I'm just shocked at the lack of data outcomes recorded by the NHS. How can any science progress without experimental data? How can best practice be reached if you're not even recording outcomes?

www.lupronvictimshub.com/lawsuits.html

this is a must read for anyone promoting the use of this type of drug (apparently all brands of puberty blockers are pretty similar). There are a number of lawsuits from men with prostate cancer (the people it was designed for I think) who have had negative effects and also women, one of whom I noticed experienced 'abnormal physical symptoms' including suicide ideation from her second injection!! One lady went blind.

Now, call me overcautious but if someone suggested my child needed to take that drug for a number of years with all of these possible issues around it, I would be looking for any alternative including buying a desert island and disappearing for 10 years - can gender identity issues persist when there is no one around to create social conditioning (like the falling tree in the forest - does it make a sound if there is no one there to hear it?)

There seems to be suggestion that there may be foul play going on in relation to the number of lawsuits dismissed/settled - I haven't read it all.

PotholeParadies that would suggest that blocking puberty of boys would make them extra tall?

Jackie Green appears to be tall and willowy, you tube clips of a beauty contest where I imagine many/most of the young women would be naturally tall anyway suggest she is definitely at the upper end of the height spectrum for women.

I have also seen clips from around age 11 (possibly before puberty blockers) which suggest a more sturdy body type and give no clue if future height. One can only surmise but I suspect the eventual body habitus would have been different without puberty blockers and cross sex hormones.

I thought I'd read that the NHS was grateful to get this clarification? They were in a bind having to 'affirm' anyone who suggested they may have any kind of gender issues; this judgement has been so needed.

Seems like the whole 'industry' is stuck in an evidence catch-22. The NHS can only get away for so long operating on a shaky evidence based foundation (as they found out this week). For the lobby groups like Mermaids the last thing they want is concrete research and evidence because it almost certainly won't fit with their narrative.

She will blame GIDS, and GIDS will blame Mermaids and other pressure groups.

It will be an absolute shit-storm of mutual blaming. There are so many individuals and organisations implicated in this that there will be a frenzy of buck-passing the like of which we have never seen.

It's a disaster. We know that anorexia and malnutrition as a teenager is a risk factor for early onset osteopenia and osteoporosis, because 1) the teenage years are the peak age for bone density (it's all downhill from there in terms of bone density) and 2) the menstrual cycle is important. Disruptions at any age may affect bone density (and not for the better).

I've seen it stated before that the contraceptive depo-provera (the injection) should only be used a maximum of two years in a woman's lifetime, before the increased risk factor for osteoporosis becomes too high.

There is a petition to investigate Lupron as a drug used as a medication for other issues, such as prevovious puberty on a purely temporary basis. Full of comments. What happens when a child has been on it for years?

www.petition2congress.com/ctas/investigation-lupron-side-effects-leuprolide-acetate

I wonder what excuses Susie Green will try when the pigeons currently flying home to roost all arrive and start shitting.

She will blame GIDS, and GIDS will blame Mermaids and other pressure groups.

Polly Carmichael in 2015:
“When the idea of the blocker being available to younger people was being pushed forward, I think that inevitably – understandably – there were quite simplistic arguments that if you have the blocker then all the problems disappear. In our experience, all the problems do not go away.”

The blocker can be therapeutic in itself, because it takes away the anxiety that comes with going through the “wrong” puberty. It also gives young people much-needed time and thinking space. “The idea was, if you could reduce that distress, then there would be room for young people to really explore the less reversible interventions: cross-sex hormones,” she explains. “But there’s also a lot of pressure to introduce cross-sex hormones at a younger age. It’s currently at 16. For some, there’s a real wish to bring it down to 14.” When I ask who she means, she says Mermaids and the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (Gires), a transgender advocacy charity based in the UK. “Really big changes like that should not be considered outside proper research protocols. We just don’t have the evidence.”

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/sep/12/transgender-children-have-to-respect-who-he-is

Otherwise, is there a risk that mtf transitioners who took puberty blockers end up being taller than the average male, let alone the average female? What implications does that have for their gender dysphoria?

Puberty blockers have been around for a while now. I'd expect to see some anecdotal evidence around this, if nothing else.

The negative effects of stopping children from going through puberty have been put forward as a reason to start cross sex hormones earlier. We don't yet have any long-term evidence of the effects of early use of cross sex hormones, but some of the proponents of this ideology are keen to get started on this further experiment and recruit more children for it.

It was discussed at the WPATH conference a year or two ago. I remember some tweets from Susie Green about it.

[quote PotholeParadies]There is an interesting discussion of what it did, height-wise, to boys, back when it was cultural to castrate boys to stop their voices breaking.

amp.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ir6yd/how_big_are_eunuchs/[/quote]
The castrati tended to grow taller because the growth plates didn't fuse as they normally do after puberty, so their bones would keep growing for longer. They also suffered from osteoporosis.

www.nature.com/articles/srep28463/

We have less evidence of what happens to girls because this is the first time girls have been experimented on in this way.