Conversion Therapy and a Survey of 25,896 LGBTQ youth

You are slowly beginning to understand the complexity and nuances of human sex differentiation.

Errr... no. I understand it very well. It is you who seems to have trouble. Human sex differentiation, except for those with differences of sex development, has not changed for millennia.

And now, thanks to modern medicine, even those with differences of sex development can reliably be found to be either male or female.

What is complex is how sex is translated in gender identity. Sex itself is simple.

Thanks though.

What would a 4% ‘desistance’ mean in practice?

The Australia statistic refers to persistence “until late adolescence” (they can’t yet have longer term data – and we will have to wait until this cohort of young people grow into middle age).

growinguptransgender.com/2017/12/03/the-end-of-the-desistance-myth/

So 3 years ago, we only knew that 4% expressed regret while still teenagers.

This means that RCH Melbourne inappropriately provided sex conversion therapy to 4% of children is saw prior to 2017. Do you think this is appropriate?

Keira Bell is in her 20s now. How confident are you and RCH Melbourne that this rate doesn’t increase for girls in their 20s?

No one has any idea.

And again, this was a blog post posted in 2017, and does not provide any raw data. It doesn’t not take into account the last 4 years of girls started on testosterone. I do have a recollection of looking into this Melbourne 4% claim previously and finding a source, and it only having data up to their late teens, not after. So 4 years ago, RCH Melbourne were claiming 4%, but had no idea what happened to them as they got older, having announced anything since of how they’re going in their early or mid 20s, and since then they’ve treated a big increase of girls with testosterone, who will still need to demonstrate which way they will go in the future.

We have NO idea what will happen to these girls.

Exactly!

None of the studies that TRAs report as demonstrating an extremely low detransition rate are recent, or take into account the very recent approach of giving girls puberty blockers then testosterone. This affirmative approach for girls has only really taken off in the last 5 years so these girls are only just reaching 20 or so now. The much reported “0.6% detransition rate” from the Dutch cohort only refers to those who underwent gonadectomy and were asked if they regretted it. We have NO idea how many girls regret or will regret testosterone. At all. No idea. Any claims to the contrary are lies.

Of course, there is no way in medicine to eliminate error completely, but fortunately, trans regret is extremely rare - somewhere between 0.3 and 3.8%, which is better than for most medical procedures.

This keeps getting posted. So I am going to post my comment on another thread. It was the results of a study following up transitioners from the 00s but the study was released in 2017. It was a study looking at something completely different but I picked these stats from them.

___

Has anyone else picked up that in this report

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5580378/

quite a number of the transitioners seemed to have detransitioned to the point where they stated they were no longer living 'as the opposite sex'? This is a small study but states:

135 natal males (119 living in the female role, 12 in the male role, 4 did not report their current gender role) and 66 natal females (60 living in the male role, 5 in the female role, 1 did not report a current gender role)

So... 8.88% of males and 8.33% of the females (this does not include those who did not answer the question which if the answer was to detransition would make these figures higher). And in Figure 3. 22.2% of those who socially transitioned, detransitioned.

Those numbers are pretty significant aren't they? And I point out these 8% figures are for POST medicalised transition.

It certainly makes me all the more concerned that a treatment plan that has been shown to perhaps have an 8+% rate of desistance from living in the 'gender' role they chose to have surgery to facilitate, is being hailed as the best course of treatment. At all!

———

I am not arguing that this is to be taken as ‘best evidence’ (yet I probably could using the standard set on this thread). I am however pointing out that the figure of 3.8% or less is most likely not correct either.

Strangely, studies into detransitioner numbers are deemed transphobic and shut down. And clinics are not following up to gather the numbers and, more importantly, provide care either.

And that activists need to stop making detransitioner stories about ‘restricting’ health care. It should be about ensuring the highest standard of health care for every single person, whatever their age but particularly for children and teens, and at every stage of transition.

Thank you kaineus

kaineus

I have only come across your posts once before, but both times now I learn something more about FTM transition. Thank you for that.

I, and many others on this thread, have great concerns about the way the current push from activists ignore the differences between the group transitioning 10-15 years ago and now. Or the differences between the late transitioning males and the majority of the children and teens.

There is never any acknowledgement of the needs of young teenage females. It seems always driven by the male perspective and those who point it out are derided as bigots.

It’s the push for affirming only as the only treatment with very broad and meaningless definitions for conversion therapy that is one of the problems. That other treatment options like watchful waiting while focusing on discovering and treating underlying health issues is considered problematic is a major concern.

Between reading your post and reading the detransitioner stories today, seeing watchful waiting working with a friend’s daughter while watching the very poor mental health of some of the other friends of my teen who identify as trans, I know having more than one treatment path is imperative and worth fighting for.

Powerful post kaineus and all the best to you in your journey. May you always be guided by wise health practitioners and make the best decisions for you.

This entire argument seems to be about the latest trend of people redefining things to mean whatever is convenient to them and then proceeding to push those definitions with all the fervor of a religious zealot despite any pushback. Anything but constant affirmation is "killing trans people." Telling someone maybe they should reconsider medically transitioning (a major life decision) is "conversion therapy." Hell, I've heard some people refer to reading Mumsnet as a form of "self harm."

Apparently if I question anything about my own medical condition or about any trans topics I'm not really trans, I just take testosterone for fun I guess, according to OP. So are you the arbiter of sexuality and gender identity then? Honestly I find all of your comments incredibly insulting as a trans person who is just trying to live his life. If "being trans" is about identifying as the opposite sex, then who the hell are you to say anyone who disagrees with you is just pretending to be trans?

I'm GLAD people questioned me. I'm GLAD I knew upfront what I was getting into instead of constantly being told I was "valid." If someone's identity is so fragile that they can't handle being questioned about it and overblow it as the same as "gay conversion therapy," honestly they probably aren't very mature and should be receiving therapy, not hormones. I'm not sure if you're trans, but hormones changed the way I process emotions a lot, and I would not recommend them to anyone who has difficulties with emotional stability.

I've had several trans friends suffer intense complications from medical transition/surgery that will follow them for the rest of their lives. Transitioning is a huge life decision not only socially but physically, so why should we not question it? Should everyone act on impulse? I took many years to finally decide to start HRT, and I'm glad I waited to be absolutely sure. It would have been nice to live out my teenage years passing as a guy for sure, but I prefer having that experience and knowing for sure that this is the right choice for me than to rush in.

It's people like you who make others hate the trans community and consider us unreasonable, because you do nothing but talk over people and assume every other trans person thinks exactly like you, while insulting actual trans people who disagree, regardless of their lived experience.

The thing is though: we don't need citable sources to prove that sex is real. That's just a distraction

I'm imagining a physicist saying "Oh golly-gosh, I know! I'll write a paper explaining that the Earth is round!"

I'd say that there might be a mathematician out there saying the same about 1+1=2, but knowing mathematicians, there probably is.

I'm afraid the word doesn't resolve into simple binaries like that. Some people's gender identity falls somewhere between male and female. Some NB people experience that as being neither, some experience it as being both. It's difficult for them to express their experience with clarity because our society makes no room for them, either socially, legally or even linguistically.

No shit. Society doesn't make room for people who think they don't have a sex. Or have both sexes. True.

People who don't want to adhere to gender stereotypes, however, involves, amongst other things, feminism of course.

Shizuku (re the non-existence of gender identity):
So when people talk about their gender identity, what is it that you think they are referring to?

-- It seems they are referring to something which does not exist. Roughly the same as what people who talk about their guardian angels are referring to.

Shizuku (more of the same):
So what do you think they are referring to? Do you think they are simply lying? Or delusional?

-- The latter, for the most part. Like you, if I read you right. You seem sincere. People make mistakes.

What do you think they (people who talk about their guardian angel) are referring to? Do you think them delusional? It would seem a strange matter to lie about, no?

[There are puzzles about these terms that do not refer to anything. How can we talk about them meaningfully, for instance? If you are interested in puzzles like this (and it is new to you) check out (Bertrand) Russell's ' Theory of Descriptions ' for a start on getting to grips. It is really neat. Not, perhaps, the last word, but a good start.]

Friday night. Time to relax. For no particular reason I thought of 30 Rock and Dr Leo Spaceman.

This best of compilation contains my long time favourite quote from the good doctor.

Jack Donaghy: Couldn't you just inject something right into his heart?

Dr. Leo Spaceman: I'd love to, but we have no way of knowing where the heart is. See, every human is different.

May your Mothering Sunday have every last bit of adulting done by some other fucker for once.

Ask the scientists - most of the ones on that link can be found through their universities etc.

I asked what axis would be used to define who would be more of a female on this spectrum than another female.

Since we cannot ask these scientists, what do you propose?

Surely you can see just how this pits females against females. Where would a women who had had a hysterectomy fit in? Or a menopausal woman? Or a woman with PCOS? A woman with low oestrogen?

And you are telling us that a transwoman is female. Where on the scale do they fit? Does it matter they are one of the 90% with a penis? Not on cross sex hormones? What about if they have 1 child, 7 children?

Or is it based on social/behavioral sciences and how we dress? Can we cook apple pie?

How do you honestly see this spectrum working?

The thing is though: we don't need citable sources to prove that sex is real. That's just a distraction. Some privileged people have great fun pretending they can't tell a man from a woman and that the definition of each is complicated. In real life, pretty much everybody is actually in touch with reality.

In the UK, the government is just about at that point every parent knows. The one where you play along with your child pretending to be a horsey day after tedious day but when they start pooing on paths and refusing to attend school, you get that firm face on and draw the line, no matter how epic the tantrum.

And I would argue that is an entirely ideological position that the vast majority of the population doesn't share.

It's not even that - it's just fucking around with words.

Shizuku - are you capable of expressing your position in a way that doesn't redefine well-understood English words?

You do know how babies are made - how do you describe the two parties required in your language? We can play your game if you want - tell us your words for "male", "female" and "sex" and we can try having the discussion in your made-up language. If you can manage to keep your definitions stable.

I suspect that there are so many more scientists who don't even register that this is something that they have to prove. Because it is proven science.

Emma Hilton and Colin Wright are on the case though - they talk about it here.

...saying to them i need a reference for there are only two sexes, and i can't find one. And one of my colleagues said to me, well it's just textbook. No, it won't even be in a textbook will it, and that's the level we're at - that even it's not just papers, it's not even textbooks preface their sections on on sex and its role in evolution or how sex develops in in a given individual - nobody needs to say there are two sexes, because biologists don't think this needs saying. It's like saying "water is wet", or like Colin said, "objects fall to the ground". You know imagine every paper on gravitational theory starting with a kind of image of Newton under an apple tree - it's just insane, and it's insane we are in a position where we're trying to create resources or you know citable resources just to fight against this nonsense. It's insane.

I have read the article you linked signed by scientists from a wide spectrum of disciplines.

It was a reaction to to some US domestic legislation that was being proposed and as such refers repeatedly to the draft legislation. There is no link to the draft legislation. I am not familiar with how the US drafts, enacts and uses domestic legislation. I believe it is quite different to the UK system. I do not believe the US has equality laws as robust as in the UK and the EU.

So I cannot really comment on the argument, except as inferred from the reaction document linked.

The proposed policy seeks to erase the identities of millions of Americans who identify as transgender (individuals whose gender identification differs from their assigned sex at birth) or have intersex bodies (individuals with biologically atypical patterns of male and female traits).

I do not believe that the UK has any plans to make it illegal to identify as transgender. In fact, the UK includes the characteristic of gender reassignment in the equality act. I would argue that there is very little chance that the UK will attempt to enact legislation banning people from stating that their gender identity does not match their sex.

I am unfamiliar with US legislation affecting people with disorders of sexual development, described using the word "intersex" in the text.

Given what I do know about the US healthcare system, I am unsurprised that people with congenitial disorders like DSD face challenges in accessing proper care. Given what I know of the US legal system I am also unsurprised that people with DSD in the US have difficulties if their biological sex is not correctly identified by the time the baby's birth is registered. Fortunately we have the NHS in the UK, which I am told is pretty good for people with DSD. I have not heard of any complaints about their legal identity from people in the UK with DSD.

I am not clear on the relevance of this letter to the topic under discussion.

I agree with the signatories that it would be unconscionable to use the pretext of science to enact policies that overrule the lived experience of people’s own gender identities

Like with religion, if a person chooses to believe in gender identity they should be free to do so. Any perceived mismatch between a person's gender identity and their sex should not matter so long as law is well-drafted to make clear which laws are is sex-based and which are not.

Again, I do not see the relevance of confusion in the US between gender identity and sex.

Like how climate change deniers are scientists? These are sex deniers?

So, not really so many notable evolutionary and developmental biologicals. And a whole heap of people heavily invested in progressing this theory....

Are the people who have been given the job of arbitrating which body configuration is more 'female' than another....

So, a group of people heavily invested in destabilising known science and may be supporting pseudoscientific theory and NOT known science, will be deciding which person is more female on the spectrum. Including people who are developing drugs and treatment plans for transitioning.

Anyone else see potential issues and conflicts of interest here?

I suspect that there are so many more scientists who don't even register that this is something that they have to prove. Because it is proven science.

I agree. It's certainly the case with the several medics I know. They were baffled by these claims when they learned about them, and they very much see them as fringe identity politics and are amused by them, because they are not affected by them in their day to day practice.

so trans people aren't changing sex - a trans woman was always female

You may not be aware of this but many transwomen have fathered children by using their male sex organs to impregnate a fertile female with their fully functional sperm.

In addition, please be aware that some transmen have become biological mothers using their female sex organs.

A simple internet search will reveal several cases for you to use as a portal to educate yourself on sexual reproduction by trans people.