Ben Hunte BBC article about puberty blocker ban

It’s not surprising that that would influence thinking, behaviour and identity.

So what? Artificial hormones influences your behaviour, so what? It doesn't change your sex. There are plenty of women who are masculine and men who are feminine. It doesn't change their sex.

But there will be some boys who grow up like that who have absolutely no concept of their future as a man and internally envisage their future as a female.

No male can 'have a future as a female'. A female isn't a male without a penis. Or a male who's had facial surgery. Or a male who takes hormones.

Bloody hell. Women are nothing, are they? Males cannot live as females.

Take a minute and make a list of the ways a male 'can live as a female'. And then read back what you've written.

Or do you think that trans people have been well served by the studies done so far.?

No. (Sorry if this post is too long)

If you read the old literature and papers from the 50s 60s and 70s you’ll see that most of the original psychiatrists and doctors who started treating transsexuals including with referrals for hormones and (experimental) surgery did so because they had no other solutions but at the same time were quite negative about that course of action. It was seen as a last resort and stipulated that if we (society) are going to allow this sort of treatment it must be used sparingly and evaluated and followed up rigorously long term. Every single patient. Along with research into causality.

Most of those ambitions have failed. Patients who do go through treatment both adults and children drop out in large numbers and so do those who don’t pursue treatment as they would rather forget it’s something they ever even considered. Now it’s even harder to contact old patients due to lack of consent.

In terms of researching causality it’s difficult to evidence ‘identity’. As many posters here know (and I agree) it’s become difficult to research it. Just like it’s seen as not politically correct to research ‘why are people gay’ or ‘is one race more intelligent than another’, now to research: ‘why are people transgender and are there alternative treatments’ has become transphobic.

I think some clinicians are on board with that because the narrative is if someone is truly trans/ transsexual we have nothing else to offer other than transition so we should stop questioning and support people to make the best of it and part of that is helping them stop seeing themselves as defective or disordered.

That’s how I understand it anyway. I don’t think the drive to sell more drugs/ pharma conspiracy theory is a major factor. I also think some of it is now driven by a large reservoir of (what we used to call transvestites) people who have a new found freedom to experiment with hormones and surgeries and want more access to female spaces than they previously have had. Much of the drive to shut down debate has come from those quarters. (This forum has played a part in helping me understand that).

I agree that there are some kids who will never desist and for whom a medical transition is probably the the best treatment and the best way they can be at peace with themselves. However, we can’t tell which ones fall into this group and we know it’s likely to be just a small minority of those who have GD. Therefore we have to choose where the balance falls. Either we can medically intervene in lots of cases based on the say-so of the child. That way we will end up with kids who had medical procedures performed on them when they couldn’t understand or consent to them. They are likely to require medical intervention for life, be infertile and often lose sexual function. The alternative is that we are restrictive. That means that there will be some who will not be able to have medical intervention until adulthood and will go through the puberty of their natal sex. They may have regrets that they weren’t allowed to alter their bodies earlier when they are adults. However, to my mind, it is clear that the latter scenario is always better than the former.

But there will be some boys who grow up like that who have absolutely no concept of their future as a man and internally envisage their future as a female.

What age of children are you referring to here? Do they think their bodies will spontaneously change into one of the opposite sex? Or are they thinking more about conforming to female stereotypes rather than male ones?

My son wanted to wear a dress pretty much all the time between the ages of 4-10. We let him.
FWIW my son is now sporting a shaved head and a tracksuit and he knows, as he always has done, that he is a boy, whatever he wears or plays with, whatever he calls himself or however he behaves. He knows he is loved as he is.

Of course that’s great and all fine. But there will be some boys who grow up like that who have absolutely no concept of their future as a man and internally envisage their future as a female. It may be somewhat abstract in the early days and it may be an absolute minority of children but it does happen. Yes early social transition must make it very difficult to back out of.

Typesofcatalogue

You write that you agree that treatments need to be significantly revised. And we all agree that this revision is desperately needed and that further evidence needs to be reviewed and gathered to ensure that all future treatment is evidence based and as far as it can be tailored.

I have not really seen though, and you might have already mentioned this, why do you think this situation has come about where we are stuck with inadequate evidence and, in my opinion, many studies that border on wishful thinking theory?

Of course, I have my own thoughts and most of the regular posters on here do. And they are most likely very similar. But I am interested in your perspective.

Or do you think that trans people have been well served by the studies done so far.?

I don’t think human identity is as simple as that though. Part of identity development in humans involves an identification process and there is a gendered, as in sexed, element to that. Brain tissue is sensitive to oestrogen and testosterone and behaves and develops differently under each (as do other organs). It’s not surprising that that would influence thinking, behaviour and identity.

There is the effect of hormones on brain tissue certainly. But, if a person had not taken csh and has no hormone imbalance, why would a perfectly health person of any age experience the effects typical of the other sex’s hormone mix in their brain?

Brain tissue is sensitive to oestrogen and testosterone and behaves and develops differently under each (as do other organs). It’s not surprising that that would influence thinking, behaviour and identity.

Identical twins disprove this.

I acknowledge this is really difficult but don’t see the practical solutions here very often. I do agree though we need to go back to viewing this as a medical condition (with compassion) and not a lifestyle choice to promote.

Perhaps the very first step and most practical solution is look at the Swedish approach. Limiting the ‘celebration’ of unrealistic outcomes. Balanced reporting (unlike this crap reporting at the moment on the BBC, articles by people like Lavery) would be a start.

Not having children see tv series where children or parents miraculously change sex and live happily ever after as that sex. Have TV series where kids are non conforming and celebrate non conforming. Not conforming to societies expectation of either sex. Allow people to be who they are without either changing sex or erasing sex (NB).

Allow detransitioners to talk and actually try to understand them and where the process failed. Because it did fail and the female detransitioners are the ones left with the more significant damage than the males. Of course, there is damage to all detransitioners. But hearing more of their stories openly, without them being demonized will help hugely.

genderreport.ca/the-swedish-u-turn-on-gender-transitioning/

Here is a snippet. In the fall of 2019, there was a 65% decline in the number of referrals to gender clinics in Sweden. This corresponded with experts calling on the government to review clinical protocols and more balanced media coverage of the phenomenon of regret among gender transitioners, including the airing of a documentary entitled “Trans Train”

And yes. Surely the move away from it being considered medical condition with significant emphasis on mental health has harmed so many. It removed the focus of mental health exploration.

Make no mistake. A couple of sessions over zoom with a GGP doctor ain’t the epitome of mental health excellence.

Personally, for me, the first practical solution would be to stop teaching it in schools. Restrict Internet advocacy and promotion. And get to grips with what pornography is doing to young girls and boys.
Teach children that gender stereotypes generally from a hierarchy with women and girls at the bottom, and why they are avidly promoted. How they manifested and exactly how to recognise them.

Yes. Agree with most of what you write.

If someone thinks they identify with or as the opposite sex, the first question should be how. Once you get an answer to that, the rest should follow.

Ultimately it’s a difficult and almost philosophical/ metaphysical question. I think psychiatrists are well aware of that. In the original Julia Grant documentary you see even then the psychiatrist points out... can anyone know what it’s like to be the opposite sex? But still we have the issue of managing extremely distressed patients in a clinical setting. That won’t go away.

Someone's sex has got nothing to do with identity, and everything to do with their body. If I woke up tomorrow in the body of a man, I would be a man. My sex is a description of my reproductive potential. It's got nothing to do with my thoughts or feelings.

I don’t think human identity is as simple as that though. Part of identity development in humans involves an identification process and there is a gendered, as in sexed, element to that. Brain tissue is sensitive to oestrogen and testosterone and behaves and develops differently under each (as do other organs). It’s not surprising that that would influence thinking, behaviour and identity.

My sister - dressed ‘like a boy’, had boys glasses, boys haircut, boys toys, boys hobbies... mum and dad just let her get on with it and found it quaint.

She wore a dress last summer (when it was bloody hot and she’s seen one I had similar and really liked it) and posted it on Facebook - no one had never seen her in a skirt/dress (last time was at my wedding almost 30 years ago) it was very funny!

Yep, @BernardBlackMissesLangCleg, sounds like you and your son are doing great.

Pre-puberty, I was a serious tomboy, was usually mistaken for a boy and used (just "felt right with") male pronouns when I could. My parents were similar to you - accepted me as the non-conforming female I was. If I could have opted out of female puberty, I probably would have done, but as a healthy female, it was just never an option, so I got through it. I'm now a happy, healthy middle aged woman, who still prefers combat trousers to dresses.

FWIW my son is now sporting a shaved head and a tracksuit and he knows, as he always has done, that he is a boy, whatever he wears or plays with, whatever he calls himself or however he behaves. He knows he is loved as he is

and that is the healthy approach

how anyone can fail to see the homophobia and sexism inherent in trying to convince a child they are a member of the opposite sex rather than just accepting them as they are is an utter mystery to me

you sound like a brilliant parent umbel

I've complained again, pointing out the GGP connection to the underage patient who did commit suicide, the Samaritans guidelines and the utter unsuitability of Haddock as a source. Will report back if I hear anything.

I think we do have to row back on the recent escalation of numbers of children treated with blockers. I’m not convinced how useful blockers are as puberty is both the cure (in the majority of cases) and the diagnosis (in the few who persist). Halting natal puberty delays the inevitable. (Although there maybe very occasional exceptions in complex cases).

Absolutely agree - as close to zero as possible given the long term effects for such little benefit (if any) and the experimental nature of this route.

It continues to astound me that with all the money being thrown at this that there haven't been proper studies and data on patients properly gathered and analysed.

All that 'awareness raising', instead of highlighting the actual issues, that there is a lack of mental health care and a lack of research into the best way of treating dysphoria - just becomes a marketing exercise, selling the body dissatisfaction in the same way that the fashion mags have been doing for years.

I also think that the more a young child socially transitions the more painful natal puberty is going to be regardless of the eventual outcome. But then we are at... Oliver wants to wear a dress and call himself Jane... do we let him? How far does that go and at what point does Oliver have to accept he is a boy and how do you know he really has? Or do you stop that behaviour and risk further problems and self hatred in adulthood?

Yes, I think kindly and gently support Oliver to be his best self (maybe even change his name to a more neutral one but I don't think a feminine one, that creates a false impression for others) - he can wear what he likes and play with the toys he likes but kindness is to be honest with him and ensure he understands he is a boy and that won't change.

It makes me think a little of when people have to come to terms with big things in their lives - like if someone has a terminal diagnosis, it is not kind to hide that from them. It is better to tell them the truth so they can make their own informed decisions and live out their days in the way they choose.

The adults involved with these children don't seem to have the concept of 'coming to terms' with reality. There are many unpleasant truths in life that we have to deal with and suggesting to an impressionable child that their immutable sex is a reality they don't have to accept is not kind.

The age of 25 has been mentioned because that is when the frontal lobes are supposed to mature and people are more able to make life decisions on an adult basis. I'm not sure it would be practical or desirable to restrict drastic cosmetic surgery to people over the age of 25 but considering that doctors are well aware of age and possible regret when they are restricting sterilisation treatment in women to 30+ I think there is an argument for urging extreme caution.

It is well known that teenagers' brains are developing at the rate of a toddler's and their sense of risk taking is limited and impulsive behaviour is more likely. Knowing what I and my peer group were like in our teens I think they should be strongly discouraged from making any irreversible decisions and the 80% desistance in dysphoric children bears that out.

It would be really helpful to have some more data about the 20% that don't desist from these thoughts - I feel like we know very little about them. We are hearing from some on here but they haven't had drastic surgery and, while they say they would have preferred to have surgery at a young age, that is no guarantee that they would be happier in their current lives.

As some have found, once they have had the surgery, their lives actually get worse and having a chronically unhealthy body makes them understandably less happy.

In my opinion, the move to ‘socially transition’ is deeply misguided and plays a significant part in cementing the idea of a ‘trans’ identity in children who are nothing of the sort. The lengths some parents go to and the requirement for the child to be complicit in the deception make it almost impossible for either child or parent to back away from.

Yes, I think that's a very important part of it all.

**Oliver wants to wear a dress and call himself Jane...do we let him?

My son wanted to wear a dress pretty much all the time between the ages of 4-10. We let him. We tried to build his resilience against people who would censure him for this. We tried to show him that others too had transgressed stereotypes. We were open about him being a boy who liked ‘girl’ things, and encouraged him to do the same. We told him we loved him as he was and were proud of his uniqueness. What we did NOT do was tell him he was a girl, or that he could become a girl. We did NOT tell others he was a girl or would become a girl.

In my opinion, the move to ‘socially transition’ is deeply misguided and plays a significant part in cementing the idea of a ‘trans’ identity in children who are nothing of the sort. The lengths some parents go to and the requirement for the child to be complicit in the deception make it almost impossible for either child or parent to back away from.

FWIW my son is now sporting a shaved head and a tracksuit and he knows, as he always has done, that he is a boy, whatever he wears or plays with, whatever he calls himself or however he behaves. He knows he is loved as he is.

No, they're thinking I can't wait to have this treatment, because then I won't be the sex I am.

Which is quite clearly not true. It's setting them up for a lifetime of conflict.

YY. It's not possible to change sex and this should be made absolutely, explicitly clear. Not everyone is likely to validate you.

This idea that your sex is somehow outside of your biological anatomy is what is leading children and teens to imagine that sex is a spectrum with any number between male and female. And it's all based on thoughts.

Yes, and it's clear when you go on Twitter, that so many of them think you just choose a "gender" according to your personality. It's an in group label. No one wants to be "cis". It's a social phenomenon.

We can't make laws to protect the people who need them based on this, there at the very least needs to be clearer parameters of what "trans" is and an acknowledgment that not everyone who affects different pronouns is likely to have gender dysphoria.

And I had a post deleted for indicating the same thing about genital surgery. The expectations and promises from surgeons of what the creation of a “vagina” from prepubertal tissue will bring are enormously different to the realities.

Trans people, and specifically in this scenario of those who were on puberty blockers as children, are victims of cavalier surgeons who do not place the patients’ best interests first. They are being treated appallingly, and I cannot fathom how we are the bad guys and get posts deleted for pointing this out and for wanting high standard healthcare for trans people, while others are happy to accept medical staff acting without boundaries and subject trans people to substandard care.

Oliver wants to wear a dress and call himself Jane...do we let him?

These children aren't thinking, oh, I can't wait to have this treatment because then I'll be a boy with breasts. Or I can't wait to have this treatment because then I'll be a girl with a beard and receding hairline.

No, they're thinking I can't wait to have this treatment, because then I won't be the sex I am.

Which is quite clearly not true. It's setting them up for a lifetime of conflict.

(and I do know the difference between you're and your)

Some people develop an early identification with the opposite sex despite the sex of their body. The sex of their body does not convince them they are that sex - their cross sex identity starts to develop before they include the sex of their body. So the sex of their body does not become integrated in their developing sense of self.

What you're describing is a disorder. It isn't a normal state to be so alienated from you're own body. And what would cause a small child to have an 'identification with the opposite sex'? That could only be about stereotypes, because they have been told that certain clothes or behaviours are only for the opposite sex.

The solution is to do away with the stereotypes and make sure children who are genuinely confused or alienated from their bodies get appropriate therapy.

It has been suggested that for some people with gender dysphoria the problem may be neurological rather than psychological. This makes it difficult to treat but it helps no one to pretend that people can change sex or that they actually are the opposite sex just because they suffer from such a condition.

Oliver wants to wear a dress and call himself Jane...do we let him? How far does that go and at what point does Oliver have to accept he is a boy and how do you know he really has? Or do you stop that behaviour and risk further problems and self hatred in adulthood?

Why do you have to stop the behaviour? Why can't Oliver wear a dress? It's only stereotypes which say he can't. If he dislikes his name he can choose one he prefers. It doesn't help him to tell him he can be a girl if he wants to and that he can change sex.

Yes, indeed. A 'gender identity' is an idea or belief. That's it. That's the sum total of it.

Some things can not be completely known (existence or non-existence of a deity/god, say). There, we are bound to respect the belief or non-belief of others.

When there is clear and present evidence proving a simple fact, we are not bound to go along with a delusional belief or mistaken idea.

Our biological sex is for 99.9999% of people very clearly and straightforwardly known, easily observed and definitely verifiable.

Our thoughts, ideas, feelings and emotions are our own, unique to us (despite various patterns and commonalities) and are not predicated on our sex.