What's wrong with medical transition for kids? I need sources!

Maybe reframe this?

Due in part to the length of the waiting lists for child gender identity clinics in the UK, the overwhelming majority of kids in schools who identify as trans have never seen a gender specialist but have effectively diagnosed themselves with gender dysphoria.

Medical evidence and the historical dearth of trans teenagers in British schools over many previous decades shows us that without social/medical intervention, in the vast majority of cases up to 95+% of children with dysphoria desisted from a trans identity on going through puberty, many later describing themselves simply as gay or lesbian.

Whereas almost 100% of children who go on blockers proceed to cross sex hormones.
The latter group will be medical patients for the rest of their life, with increased risks of strokes, heart attack, suicide, cancer, osteoporosis, difficult surgeries, early menopause, dementia, sterility, shortened life span etc.

The Tavistock data shows that this is a vulnerable group with significant comorbidities - 25% ADHD, 30-60% Autism, high rates of Eating Disorders, Anxiety, Depression, Abuse, Adoption, OCD, bullying etc.

Transition cannot change this background so a child with gender identity issues will still have to deal with the comorbidities and even the dysphoria, sadly, may well still remain after medical and surgical input.

Schools which, quite rightly, will not administer any medicine to a child without the named box/dosage seem strangely confident about initiating and offering their own form of unevidenced 'treatment protocol' (without any medical input at all) where they are prepared to countenance, for example, that some boys are now girls, call them by a girl's name, she/her pronouns, hold a special celebration assembly, allow them potentially to use girls' spaces and PE sessions - and make it difficult for the teen's female peers to express any discomfort whatsoever because of 'inclusivity'.

What is the effect on the plasticity of the developing child's brain?

I would be tempted to reverse the question and ask the school, Where is their medical evidence underpinning the rationale and success of their chosen treatment protocol, or that recommended by the external group, without a diagnosis, bearing in mind that they are not mental health professionals?

How confident are they that what they are doing is not actually reinforcing something that a child would have naturally grown out of as in the past, when we didn't have swathes of 'trans and non-binary children' in schools, which instead potentially leads to them becoming a lifelong medical patient with the concomitant risks?

Could a person potentially sue their school for having reinforced or prolonged their dysphoria by socially transitioning them?

What might be the potential safeguarding problems when all the trusted adults in a child's life refer to a male person as a girl? Residentials? Changing rooms? Safety in PE?

How easy is it nowadays for a child to desist (having socially transitioned at school) when everyone else around them is so invested in maintaining their trans identity?

Medical doctors are not in agreement, some gender specialists are strongly against early social transition of children and yet this school knows better? How?

www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-bulletin/article/sex-gender-and-gender-identity-a-reevaluation-of-the-evidence/76A3DC54F3BD91E8D631B93397698B1A

It's up to them to prove that their treatment protocol works and is safe, OP, not you. And if the group they refer on to can't provide the required medical evidence, then maybe that will set the school's alarm bells ringing...

You asked for detransitioners, OP - try these 2 videos on youtube by ImWatson.

'detrans awareness day'

'Ramblings of a detransitioned woman'

She speaks with a lovely scottish lilt - but it's an absolutely heartbreaking story, of a confused young woman rushed through to the medical pathway. This poor girl. Really powerful testimony.

Here's another good source: new Finnish guidelines.

One Year Since Finland Broke with WPATH "Standards of Care"

Has a full translation of the Finnish guidelines there. Their commentary:

^Although pediatric medical transition is still allowed in Finland, the guidelines urge caution given the unclear nature of the benefits of these interventions, largely reserving puberty blocker and cross-sex hormones for minors with early-childhood onset of gender dysphoria and no co-occurring mental health conditions. Surgery is not offered to those

Perhaps just buy the school a copy of 'Irreversible Damage' by Abigail Shrier? Worth the money if it will do the trick.

And has anyone mentioned social contagion? This stuff gets picked up by groups of friends, just like anorexia did in our day.
Good luck, OP

Scott's website: www.trevoices.com/

extract from Scott Newgent, a transman, on wht Scott is against children transitioning.

I wasn’t “born in the wrong body.” I was born female. But I didn’t like it. So I changed my appearance, at significant monetary, psychological, and physical cost, with plastic surgery and hormones. My sex never changed, though. Only my appearance changed.

Anyone going through this is in store for a brutal process. Yet we now have thousands of naïve parents walking their children into gender-treatment centers, often based on Internet-peddled narratives that present the transition experience through a gauzy rainbow lens. Many transition therapies are still in an experimental phase—as you will learn if you become sick during or after these treatments.

During my own transition, I had seven surgeries. I also had a massive pulmonary embolism, a helicopter life-flight ride, an emergency ambulance ride, a stress-induced heart attack, sepsis, a 17-month recurring infection due to using the wrong skin during a (failed) phalloplasty, 16 rounds of antibiotics, three weeks of daily IV antibiotics, the loss of all my hair, (only partially successful) arm reconstructive surgery, permanent lung and heart damage, a cut bladder, insomnia-induced hallucinations—oh and frequent loss of consciousness due to pain from the hair on the inside of my urethra. All this led to a form of PTSD that made me a prisoner in my apartment for a year. Between me and my insurance company, medical expenses exceeded $900,000.

During these 17 months of agony, I couldn’t get a urologist to help me. They didn’t feel comfortable taking me on as a patient—since the phalloplasty, like much of the transition process, is experimental. “Could you go back to the original surgeon?” they suggested.

Whenever you question the maximalist activist line on trans affirmation, you are directed toThe World Professional Association for Transgender Health (or WPATH)as a reference. But much of what you find there consists of vague phrases such as “up to doctor’s discretion.” Several lawyers suggested I had a slam-dunk medical-malpractice case—until they realized that trans health doesn’t really have a justiciable baseline. As a result, treatment often issubpar, as I have experienced first-hand.

Lupron, the hormone blocker some doctors seem intent on giving to kids like Tylenol, isn’t evenFDA-approved to treat children with gender dysphoria. (In 2001, the manufacturerpled guiltyto fraudulent sales practices with regard to its marketing as a prostate-cancer drug.) We don’t yet know its long-term effects off-label, despite the fact parents have been assured that its effects are safe and even reversible.

Here is what we do know:The long-term use of synthetic hormone therapyshortens lives. Specifically, these medications are associated with an increased risk of heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms, bone damage, liver and kidney failure, mental-health complications, and more. Almost a quarter of hormone-therapy patients on high-dose anabolic steroids (such as the testosterone taken by female-to-male transitioners) exhibit majormood-syndrome symptoms. Between three and 12 percent go on to develop symptoms of psychosis.

quillette.com/2020/10/06/forget-what-gender-activists-tell-you-heres-what-medical-transition-looks-like/

Thousands of young women have been where your child was and desisted. 80% without an affirmative approach

Your later post (apart from the unnecessarily aggressive start) was much more considered. I hope your child finds that testosterone makes them happy.

This booklet for/by detransitioners may be helpful www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4228051-A-thoughtful-and-beautifully-illustrated-booklet-for-Detransitioners?pg=1

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a4288795-Helen-Webberley?msgid=109527324#109527324

Page 22 there are posts by Rowantrees and CharlieParley that you might find useful.

I don't think that there are hard and fast rules in parenting. We do what we feel is right for our child, who we know best. You sound like you have both been on quite a journey indeed and stronger for it.

If your son starts hormones as an adult, this is their choice and as a parent most would love their child whether they agree or not.

I think in OPS case the school is positively trans affirming rather than neutral. I think she is trying to find evidence for balance and to avoid the automatic transphobe accusations. As you know, it isn't transphobic to want watchful waiting rather than active pushing. In some schools in my area it is almost endemic to identify in groups. It's different elsewhere.

I'm sorry your opinion of this board is so poor. I'm sorry you feel alienated.

I wish you and your son all the best.

There were paragraphs when I posted It!

I'm not the TRA.

Ì dont think of myself as a perfect mother by any stretch and rarely feel.particularly skilled at the job. But omg am I glad my 17 year old has had me as a mother and not any of you lot. His life would have been unendurable.

Equally when I announced to the world (via FB!) that he was changing his name to a male one at age 12 I got nothing but support from my friends. I'm so grateful my friends are not you lot!

I am a very ordinary, untrendy middle aged mum.

We have been with the Tavistock for 5+ years. There has never been the slightest pressure for him to start on medication. Blockers were discussed neutrally as an option which we turned down with their support. My son will begin testosterone when he turns 18. Ì found their neutrality very helpful. Ì don't recognise the descriptions of the Tavistock on here at all albeit I realise there have been some very serious issues.

Mumsnet is frequently accused of being transphobic. Stereotyping forms a part of discrimination and I do find a lot of what I read on here stereotypes my son and very much stereotypes me as his parent.

I share the concerns on the erosion of female only spaces. Ì hate the language we are increasingly being expected to use. Ì am team Rowling (though my uber woke student daughter is not). When my son was younger and I was asked by cubs and school and NCS what arrangements I wanted for residentials I always opted for single room or female. Ì did not want my biologically female child in sleeping quarters with people with penises. For obvious, factual reasons.

I am fortunate that aside from a nightmare dysfunctional year when a childhood of confusion combined with starting high school came to a head, I have always been able to talk openly and honestly with my son. It's not always been easy but he is where he wants to be, I would say where he needs to be, and I feel it has been my job to support him not deny or denigrate or try to manipulate his feelings .

Towards the end of our nightmare year we went to an exhibition in London called trans voices or something like that. A lot of the exhibits made me incredibly uncomfortable. But there were many raw accounts from young trans people of trying to navigate these very difficult paths with no support. I'm truly not one for portentious statements and we were barely speaking at the time but as we left I said 'I know we're not getting on at the moment but I promise you, whatever happens, you will never be that unsupported'. He told the other day he has always remembered that.

I rarely talk much about this but recently at work a young father quizzed me in what I thought was quite an open way about our 'journey'. When I'd finished he said "that's fascinating but no way is any daughter of mine doing anything like that". Ì thought that was very sad.

Had he not been supported amazingly by his school, his family and his friends I would have feared for him. Please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Balance not backlash.

Before you attack me, I don't have the answers. Ì just thought the thread might benefit from a different standpoint.

I'm off to bed so unable to search stuff out but the school should have an awareness of child development, ages and stages of cognitive functioning. The cognitive reasoning part of the brain isn't fully developed until around 25 years old. That's why children and young people are often impulsive and more likely to risk take. They also can't process more than one big life change at a time and tend to fixate before moving on. Young children have no real concept of permanence or of abstract notions like gender and can't fully think ahead or problem solve. There's reasons there's age limits on things like films, alcohol, sex, working, being in charge of a car. There's reasons we don't try to teach young kids complex subjects like algebra- their brains haven't the capacity to fathom the abstract. So for children to be allowed to make massive decisions that are irriversible is irresponsible at best.
Cutting it short, maybe look for something on child / brain development?

There is also the fact that they may lose sexual function and the chance to have children, and how can they make any sort of decision about that at such a young age? And how can their parents consent to that on their behalf?

The debunked suicide stats would be worth a mention too.

I think videos are a terrible idea, sorry. I won't watch videos because they're too demanding of my time.

There has been plenty of press coverage of the Keira Bell judgment OP

Ì am so glad you are not my son's mother. There is a difference between balanced debate and a crusade

There is plenty of good evidence in Keira Bell's judgement:

www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Bell-v-Tavistock-Judgment.pdf