Why aren’t parents worried about the effects of hormones on their children.

@IvyTwines May I suggest you start another thread with your anti-vegan views? I would love to debate this with you, but do not want to derail this thread.

'As an aside, I'd like to agree with HermioneMakepeace that a vegan diet is nothing like giving children hormones and is often a lot more healthy than an omnivore one.'

I think the debate around this is quite similar: the long term health implications are unclear, the arguments get very heated very quickly, and you can find many, including medics, arguing against or for. The five children I personally know being brought up vegan or on restricted diets are all small for their ages (and when I'm buying clothes as presents I'm asked to age down). I was a strict, and, I thought, well-informed ethical vegetarian for 20 years but desisted on medical advice. I understand the ethical and environmental argument for veganism but given the debate around the health implications I think it's something an individual should choose when they come of age, rather than having imposed on them.

I highly recommend reading Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind. It's based on the principles of moral psychology, and in it he talks about how instinct comes first and the rational mind finds ways to justify the instinct, even if it contradicts facts and evidence. A kind of post-hoc justification. He sets out the moral framework that we (usually unconsciously) use e.g. care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal etc.

I think the pertinent one here is the care/harm foundation. These parents want what's best for the child* and the loudest, socially acceptable narrative is thst care = affirmation.

I'm probably not explaining it very well, but I really recommend the book. Coddling of the American Mind is also very good (and relevant to differences between Gen Z and older generations), and there are lots of interviews and lectures, of his, on YouTube.

*notwithstanding homophobes like the man put forward by the ACLU at last week's senate hearing

I think it varies enormously, depending on the parent.
Some rely on the advice they're getting from certain charities, thinking they're 'experts', and who are going to be absolutely raging when the effects hit their children and they find out there was little evidence and they were being sold ideology.
Others are walking a desperate tightrope with children who are struggling, and are trying to find a path forward that is best for their child.
These first two, I have a huge amount of sympathy for.
Others (and one of these I know personally) are Gender True Believers and are actively campaigning for their children to go on puberty blockers or full cross-sex hormones as soon as puberty is imminent because they believe in wrong body theory, and any evidence that this will cause lasting physical damage to their child is immediately dismissed as transphobic.
This last lot, I only have sympathy for their children.

As an aside, I'd like to agree with HermioneMakepeace that a vegan diet is nothing like giving children hormones and is often a lot more healthy than an omnivore one.

It feels a bit like the 2020s version of those parents who bring their child up strictly vegan, disregarding the health implications.

@IvyTwines I am one of those parents and there is overwhelming evidence that a plant-based diet is the healthiest. My two DC are extremely healthy. They are both a good weight, play a lot of sport and are never ill.

I am a bit insulted by your assertion that a plant-based diet is on a par with pumping a child full of hormones and chopping bits of them off.

Excellent post, notbad 👏🏼

Some flowers for you and your daughter, oxalisred it must be so tough.

Compare and contrast:

mercatornet.com/my-15-year-old-transgender-son-is-going-through-menopause/61413/

'“My 15-year-old transgender son is going through menopause — and I’m so proud of him.” As headlines go, this is gob-smacking. So proud that her child will be spayed? So proud that her daughter’s fertility will be destroyed? So proud that her daughter is going to be a client of the pharmaceutical industry for the rest of her life?'

thepostmillennial.com/giving-teens-cross-sex-hormones-causes-premature-aging?fbclid=IwAR3nP9T4lWt3z2cxCDkNSXEua-eBEmmgfu_bTiEKY5SRorhSynzZHYJqYrQ

I'm parent to an 18yr who has identified as trans. There's nothing we can do now to prevent her from medicating - our only hope is that the long waiting list will give her time to become content in her own body, rather than going on drugs and harming her body to create a change that she thinks will be the solution to her problem.

But in the last few years, her mental health has not been good - she has the trifecta of ASD, depression and eating disorder. She believes that changing her body will alleviate a lot of her mental unhappiness. Husband seems to agree with daughter that "everything is a trade off" and the side unknown and irreversible effects may be worth the improvement to her mental health.

But the main reason why I haven't come down hard against my daughter's view is because she's my daughter, she's vulnerable and I want to maintain a good relationship with her. If I don't show willingness to hear her perspective (she knows that I don't agree with her), I fear that she will proceed without us anyway and cut contact, we would really lose her then. It's entirely fear driven, not because I agree that she "doesn't feel like a girl, therefore she must be a boy".

There’s been a constant drip drip of TV and films presenting so called trans children. I was watching the American series Good Girls, which is very enjoyable except suddenly the non conforming girl says she’s a boy and demanding that her mother buys her puberty blockers which she can’t afford. Not sure where the story is going but it seems very insidious as it’s just affirmation all the way

I deal with suicidal children and teenagers on a regular basis. They are assessed, their intent evaluated, and a safety plan is put in place. Usually this safety plan involves constant supervision at home with safeguards in place. If the risk is deemed very high and/or full supervision of a child who has real intent cannot be provided, the child is admitted to a mental health unit. This is very rare, compared to the number of presentations. The vast majority of the time a child can be kept safe and prevented from serious self-harm at home, with good outpatient mental health support. Obviously mental health support for children and adolescents isn’t as good as it could be, and is geographically variable but management does not include acquiescing to the demands of the child.

I have yet to have it explained to me how children who are apparently suicidal from their lack of gender affirmation are inherently harder to keep safe than others who present for other reasons. Are they more committed to their suicidal ideation? If that is the case, why aren’t inpatient child mental health units full of children who are suicidal because of lack of gender affirmation? And if they are more committed to their suicidal ideation, does that mean the solution is to acquiesce and give them treatments that don’t offer any psychological benefit but incontrovertibly lead to physical harm, or escalate their mental health support?

The Tavistock admitted that suicide in their experience has been rare, one case, and their own evidence shows the children don’t benefit psychologically. So the reasons they still want to give children puberty blockers are....what? What else is there?

The answer is, it’s a lie. Children who want medical gender affirmation are no more likely to be presenting to the emergency departments, waiting for acute mental health assessments, taking up beds in inpatient mental health units than any other children. Puberty blockers are actually given to meet an ideal that has been created, that it will be wonderful for a child to be able to be more like the sex they want to be when they’re older. I know this because I know children who have expressed exactly zero suicidal ideation who have been put on puberty blockers. The suicide stats are just a front, because none of the gender clinics want to admit they’re using puberty blockers out of a pursuit for an ideal that adults have told them they want current children to have that they didn’t have: to “pass” better. When Norman Spack said he was “salivating” at the idea of giving children puberty blockers, he wasn’t talking about “salivating” about the idea of reducing suicidal ideation.

Parents are incredibly vulnerable and they’ve been led to believe, by clinics and certain organisations, that this is the only pathway to true happiness, so when asked to consider risks and negatives of these drugs, it’s very difficult. There are a number of professionals around the world who deserve a great deal of scrutiny for this.

The 14th episode of the excellent gender through a wider lense podcast talks about the many different ways that gender dysphoria can be approached, rather than jumping to instant medicalisation.

'Is it possible that they have only seen wholly positive renditions such as I Am Leo and that Butterfly miniseries? Have there been enough questions asked in mainstream media that it is impossible they are not aware?'

The mainstream media and arts seem to have gone full 'pro-ana' on this. With any other sudden onset phenomenon there'd be Panorama programmes looking into the background, Tumblr, Reddit, MRAs, mental health, porn and the trendy new misogyny, the desire for celebrity, the pharma and surgery industry, lobby groups' behind the scenes role, the blacklisting, death threats and doxxing, interviews with detransitioners themselves, so many stories that in any other era journalists and writers would be desperate to cover but here, tumbleweed.

I also don't understand the push because of the vocal minority of trans adults who shout about #truscum or *transmedicals, seem to believe that no medication or diagnosis is required to be trans.

It's completely incoherent. Why can't adults say 'by all means socially transition, but look, you don't need to change your body to do it - look at these people' (not that I generally think the ' suck my ladydick' types are role models, but this is a strand of the ideology too.)

Yet somehow the only thing being pushed on children is medical transition.

I find breast binding a thorny issue too. It's not benign and can cause permanent tissue damage too, but you can't actually stop a girl from doing it unless you keep her locked in her room.

And so may parents won’t let their kids eat non organic or fast food because y’know ‘hormones’

The problem is, older TRA’s (most of whom do not transition, interestingly) bang on about “literally killing us” and “trans kids being driven to suicide”. I do wonder if parents are terrified of losing their DC to suicide if they don’t go along with this nonsense.

I agree. It's shameless, given that the suicide myth is based on one very small, study that has been long been discredited.

Useful information with references here:
www.transgendertrend.com/the-suicide-myth/

Because puberty blockers are fiiiiiiiine

They are fully reversible

Anyone who is objecting to the use of blockers is just a hateful bigot

Your child will kill themselves if you don't allow them these unlicensed drugs

Better a daughter than a dead son

Etc etc etc

I came across the term ‘Munchausen Moms’. I wonder if there might be some truth in it in some cases.

I am always suspicious when an all-boy family have one who transitions and is suddenly wearing dresses, pigtails and doing ballet.

Thank you so much Sophocles - it means an awful lot. I quite often think I am going absolutely mad because everyone I know IRL is of the same horrified viewpoint. Why then is no one in a position of authority questioning it? Or do some quietly agree with us but are too far in to row back?

Is it possible that they have only seen wholly positive renditions such as I Am Leo and that Butterfly miniseries? Have there been enough questions asked in mainstream media that it is impossible they are not aware?

I know that after seeing I Am Leo, for a very long time I didn’t question whether this was a branch of medicine progressing with full scientific backing as I naively trusted both the BBC and the NHS. It sets out with an attitude that doesn’t even trigger the thought that there is any doubt regarding diagnosis and the required treatment protocol.

I’m sure I would not have proceeded without looking into it deeply because I don’t allow any treatment on my children until I’ve looked at it carefully from every angle, but is it impossible that they are still acting in good faith?

worriedstar, rogdmum, biggreenolives, blackwave and all the other parents having to deal with this, sending you support and solidarity

You and your children are one of the reasons I won’t shut up about this. The simplistic, pat, one size fits all model of affirmation doesn’t serve your children, it’s not good enough and we absolutely must keep talking about the complexity of what’s going on. I know you know this and I’m teaching granny to suck eggs, but just wanted to chip in with my support.

The fact that adults in schools / random adults on the internet can interfere in family life, enabling children to transition while positioning parents as bigots is unethical and dangerous

Exactly! And the support of those adults encourages the child to think they must be correct in feeling they need to transition. Like if an adult told a child with anorexia that yes, actually they are a bit fat and their cruel parents are trying to keep them fat for nefarious reasons.

Any genuine concern that’s raised can be dismissed as bigotry and so people are reluctant to speak out because they don’t want to be labelled bigots and because they need to choose their battle in that if they’re dismissed as bigots early on they’ll have lost any influence or goodwill they might have had whereas going along with things for a while then commenting mildly might have more effect.

Why can’t organisations go into schools and help children understand that what they’re feeling is normal and passes in the vast majority of cases?

The suicide thing is another example of cognitive dissonance. What would a parent do if their daughter came to them saying she wanted to break up with her boyfriend but he told her he'd kill himself if she did? They would recognise it as a form of coersion. How many people would advocate staying in an unhealthy relationship because it's "literally saving a life"? Yet we are told to support our children make irreversible decisions about their bodies using the very same line of argument.

Excuse the typos