Prospect Magazine: Kathleen Stock v Robin Moira White

Interesting too that that was your attitude when younger Old Crone.

Have you found, as I know I have and suspect may be the case for many others, that as you have grown up and older and gained responsibilities and priorities outside of your own individual fulfillment, that you are no longer able to expend all your energy proving people wrong and demonstrating your brilliance to the world? That you no longer really want to? That you have many things you'd rather be doing that seeking to define yourself in opposition to other people's prejudices?

We could argue all day about exactly what difference being born female would have had for a (theoretical) British man in a prestigious job, but we'll never know, and he'll never know. We don't have any way of knowing.

But isn't that exactly what Robin said?
Who can say but the best way to get me to do something is to tell me it can't be done.

I read that as meaning that the outcome is unknown, but that Robin would have tried hard for the best outcome. Not that success was certain. (But since Robin appears to have flounced, we'll probably never find out what was really meant.)

Assuming it would have made no difference is either a rejection of the documented and well established factors that hold women back, or a ludicrous degree of confidence in one's exceptionalism.

I don't think Robin made that assumption (not in that post, anyway).

I'm happy to be corrected if I've totally got the wrong end of the stick (it wouldn't be the first time ).

No, it's a common sentiment Old Crone . The question is though, how reliably does that attitude result in success? And which kind of success?

In my response above I address structural sexism. That a woman or trans-woman with that attitude might not succeed, including for reasons they don't fully understand or even perceive at all. Opportunities just aren't made available to them that are made available to male peers, often subtly, socially, untraceably.

Further, they might not even recognise that they have not succeeded, because they are not aware of the opportunities they didn't know about. So, in terms of the 'field of play' they understood themselves to have operated within, they were successful. It's just that others were playing a different game, in a differently defined field of play. Mysteriously, it seems, some of those others ended up in rather wonderful positions.

Other posters have addressed the ways that female socialisation might affect the practical adoption and persistent pursuit of this attitude. Lack of personal and societal support and encouragement, plus expectations and pressure to focus on other, more socially useful or acceptable tasks.

Then there's an important point about how we perceive success, especially in retrospect. We tend to draw a line from where we started to where we are. To perceive an inevitability in all, or most of that line, which in fact is entirely retro-fitted. Really, a messy cobweb of possibility would better describe the routes we took, the choices made, opportunities offered, happenstance and luck that resulted in our moving from one point to another, while not travelling other routes.

Finally, this idea of someone telling you you cannot do something, of that point being made clearly enough that you are able to perceive a gauntlet being thrown down, is simplistic and somewhat solipsistic, in that it implies a level of interest in you by others, that generally does not exist.

Sure, you can see that certain A-levels, degree courses or career paths are less frequently taken by women and girls. But few people are going to taunt you with the impossibility of your following an 'old school tie', masonic, golf-club mafia or other restricted route to success that only persists because it is unspoken. Far less one based on sexism, prejudice, unacknowledged bias, the desire to employ 'people like us' and a 'face that fits', which may not even be recognised overtly by the people who apply it.

People do not know why they succeed and why they do not, in many instances. Or even what the potential parameters of success are. Therefore they are in no position to control how they might succeed; how can you win, when the terms of the game you are playing are not made clear to you?

So, had Robin been feminised from pre-puberty, life would have been different and most likely, according to the retrospective line drawn by middle-aged Robin, successful. But Robin would never have known how else that life and career path might have proceeded, or quite why it went in the direction it did.

lottiegarbanzo I agree completely.

It's a bit like when people assume someone just hasn't tried hard enough. I would never say that if I'd been born to illiterate parents in the Ferentari slum, I'd still be living in the UK and doing the job I do. There's an enormous chance I wouldn't be. The cards would be stacked against me. Likewise if I grew up in Darfur, or other such places where life is immeasurably tough.
If I'd been born fifty year earlier, likewise. If I'd been born with a disability, likewise.
You just can't know that you'd have the same outcomes and have achieved the same success with a totally different set of cards dealt to you.

Some people do succeed in difficult circumstances, but having an easier start has to be taken into consideration. Not doing so is arrogant in the extreme. I'm very grateful for the chances I have had; I don't assume they were all unnecessary niceties I could have done without.

We could argue all day about exactly what difference being born female would have had for a (theoretical) British man in a prestigious job, but we'll never know, and he'll never know. We don't have any way of knowing.

Assuming it would have made no difference is either a rejection of the documented and well established factors that hold women back, or a ludicrous degree of confidence in one's exceptionalism.

I would also like to post this link as I think it is very pertinent when discussing 'access to puberty blockers'. Robin did state their belief that doctors know best (and we would ALL like to have that confidence, but then there are the doctors holding up buckets of discarded breasts from young teenagers, and saying 'yeat the teat'. Plus we KNOW how easy it is to get hormones via one UK targeted but internationally based internet GP service... but they are subjects for later).

What I want to point out is that clinicians in every country have been attempting to draw attention to the fact that treating gender dysphoria has become very hard due to 'pre formed expectations' that teenagers and children arrive in the clinics with.

^Published April 22, 2021
Kasia Kozlowska, Georgia McClure et al^

Australian children and adolescents with gender dysphoria: Clinical presentations and challenges experienced by a multidisciplinary team and gender service

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/26344041211010777

I cannot imagine that Robin does not know about this study. I am sure there are others like it.

Maybe if they come back, Robin could answer just how clinicians are supposed to have the confidence in their diagnosis at this time?

Who can say but the best way to get me to do something is to tell me it can't be done.

It's interesting that this comment of Robiin's seems to have resulted in so many comments that this is a very 'male' attitude. My first thought on reading that was 'sounds just like me' (particularly when I was younger). Often in the context of being told that I couldn't do something because 'that's not for girls'.

Are people here really saying that they've never reacted to someone saying 'you can't do that' with an attitude of 'I'll show them'? Or have I misunderstood? I do feel I must have misunderstood some context or something.

In many ways reading this thread is very much like overhearing a number of accomplished, level-headed adults holding a conversation with a 12 year-old boy.

Or with the sort of adult I've met, also lawyers in a number of instances - very into the black and white thinking about personal autonomy, justice and choice, combined with the stereotyping and sentimentalisation of others, interestingly - who come across much like overgrown 12 year-old boys in many ways. Often very charming and socially competent, yet without quite grasping that other people are complex, unpredictable, uncontrollable individuals too. Or that finding ways to get along together might be more important than endlessly pursuing personal perfection.

I feel I'm digressing there though.

For example, Dr Rachel Levine, Assistant Secretary of Health in the United States

Or Victoria McCloud
Victoria McCloud is a British judge. She is the most senior public figure to have transitioned from male to female. In 2010 she became a Queen’s Bench Master, the youngest person ever and only the second woman.

first100years.org.uk/master-victoria-mccloud-biography/

'Who can say but the best way to get me to do something is to tell me it can't be done.'

Uh huh. It's a great sentiment. But it's also more hyper-rational, linear self-determination, viewed through the clear lens of hindsight, with over-emphasis on the power of one, of the will and exhibiting a belief in a personal autonomy that sits outside any social context.

Total lack of acknowledgement of relevant social structures, ideas and behaviours, their complexity, interactions and implications, or of the individual's unavoidable, intractable situation within them. Of the ways in which that situation - how the individual is viewed and acted upon by others - is beyond their control (and often outside their knowledge. It not the doors that appear challengingly closed to you that count, it's the ones you didn't know were doors, and those doors that you were never invited into the building to see).

This sort of exaggerated belief in the social reality of personal autonomy, is male privilege in a nutshell.

It is also and overlappingly, a classic example of the fallacy self-determined success. The idea among successful people, particularly those who never really experienced failure on their way up, that they earned their position justly and meritocratically; completely underestimating the role of luck, or acknowledging the existence of many equally talented and hardworking people who were simply less lucky and for this reason alone, less successful.

It is also the sort of argument one hears from a certain kind of male commentator in cases involving domestic abuse. 'Why didn't she just leave? If someone did that to me I'd leave. Therefore she must have wanted to stay, her actions demonstrate a choice to stay, so consent to everything that continued to happen'.

The idea that personal autonomy is not absolute, that it can be compromised by circumstance; socially, emotionally, financially and cognitively, just doesn't exist in the minds of some people (more commonly but not exclusively men).

There is something interesting in the performed autonomy of someone who does understand their social situation and context well enough to know that they wish to change it, that they wish to control the way they are viewed by others - and who believes that this is possible, that they have the power to control others' perceptions of and interactions with them. Yet who demonstrates no awareness of the lack of total personal and social autonomy inherent in the social condition they wish to enter and adopt.

Well, exactly - though I can imagine TRAs arguing that it was better to have a slightly lower IQ than be unhappy, have dysphoria, risk suicide, etc. etc. However, that only really works if you don't expect to be trading on your academic intelligence later on.

I doubt that anyone whose brain is a tool of their trade would want to have a few points lopped off their IQ, really.

That’s quite shocking. How can clinical experts continue to recommend blockers without substantial further research? A significant decline in IQ points is a damning finding that surely no TRA could defend - take puberty blockers and get stupider!

I wonder whether Robin’s retrospective desire for blockers would in reality actually have damaged the likelihood of succeeding in an academic subject and profession. Certainly no barrister I’ve ever met would be keen to have a few points lopped off their IQ.

One possible answer, @ArabellaScott, is that they believe they have actually changed sex, as India Willoughby claimed very recently. By those lights the space has remained single sex. Presumably that doctor, James Ma?, who criticised Margaret McCartney's Tweet yesterday, would back that view.

Not my opinion, I hasten to add.

Charlie, I was reading this, just now. I don't know if you've already seen it, but I hadn't read it before.

Commentary: Cognitive, Emotional, and Psychosocial Functioning of Girls Treated with Pharmacological Puberty Blockage for Idiopathic Central Precocious Puberty

Gonadotropin releasing hormone agonists (GnRHas) have been found to impair memory in adults, so the study byWojniusz et al. (2016)on the possible cognitive effects of these drugs on children treated for idiopathic central precocious puberty (CPP) represents an important contribution to research in this area. Recent findings that GnRHas increase depression symptoms (Macoveanu et al., 2016) and slow reaction time (Stenbæk et al., 2016) in healthy women, and reduce long-term spatial memory in sheep (Hough et al., 2017) underline the importance of the research thatWojniusz et al. (2016)have undertaken. However, their reassuring statement in the abstract that girls undergoing GnRHa treatment for CPP and controls “showed very similar scores with regard to cognitive performance” and their conclusion that “GnRHa treated girls do not differ in their cognitive functioning … from the same age peers” (Wojniusz et al., 2016) may be overly optimistic. These statements minimize the fairly substantial difference found in IQ scores and may also overemphasize its lack of statistical significance, as given the small number of participants in the study statistical significance has a high threshold. The statements should be qualified to indicate that the research has, in fact, reinforced concerns over the impact of GnRHas on cognitive performance in children. [bold mine]

Girls treated for CPP with triptorelin acetate were tested with the short form Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children III. It was found that the girls had a mean IQ of 94, as against a mean IQ of 102 for the matched control group (Wojniusz et al., 2016). These IQ estimations are presented as standardized IQ scores, which places a girl scoring 102 at the 55th percentile, and a girl scoring of 94 at the 34th percentile. It is questionable whether scores that indicate a percentile gap of this size can be described as “very similar.” The 8 point gap is not statistically significant (p= 0.09) but, as the authors point out, this may be a function of the small number of participants (15 treated girls, 15 controls).

The authors contend that despite the small number of participants the results can—probably—be relied on to indicate that if GnRHasdocause a decline in IQ, this decline will be under 1 standard deviation (SD), which “represents a boundary of what is a clinically interesting difference” (Wojniusz et al., 2016). The contention that a decline only becomes clinically interesting if it is of at least 1 standard deviation is unconvincing. Any findings which indicate that GnRHas cause a decline, even a modest decline, in IQ are likely to be of considerable interest to patients and their parents. It is a factor that they may well want to consider in deciding whether or not to take the drug. They may, for example, wish to consider the possible effect of GnRHas on a child's school and exam performance. In this respect it can be noted that 2 of the treated girls had been held back a year at school. Given their advanced physical maturity, children with precocious puberty may find it particularly uncomfortable to be put in a class where they are a year older than their class mates. If GnRHa treatment does cause a reduction in IQ, this may contribute to the decision to place a child in a lower age year group. Certainly, treatment that has a deleterious effect on IQ will do nothing to help children who are academically behind to catch up. [bold mine]

Continues: www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00044/full#B8

Well, it’s quite telling which questions get answered, and which go unanswered.

I hate to bang on, but I really would still like an answer to this question. It doesn't have to be Robin who answers. Anyone who supports the idea that Transwomen are Women could have a bash:

Why does Robin's desire to use the ladies' in Tesco trump my desire to have that space single sex?

Further to the comprehensive comment posted by PurgatoryofPotholes at 01:28, I just wanted to add that in the sheep study where puberty was blocked and then allowed to continue, the measured effects were permanent. The affected sheep were worse off even though they had eventually gone through puberty.

That's why I consider this push for puberty blockers as a harmless pause to be highly irresponsible. Yes, in terms of their primary function - to stop puberty - they are indeed reversible. But the emerging data shows that the side effects are not. That includes neurological and physiological changes that have a detrimental effect on the quality of life for these children.

And before anyone says but at least they haven't committed suicide, the underlying assumption, that puberty blockers reduce the risk of suicide, is false.

Puberty blockers are now known to cause depression and suicidal ideation even in children that previously had suffered neither depression nor suicidal ideation. So much so that patient leaflets now have to carry a warning that they do.

I don't think we can have an honest discussion about the use and usefulness of puberty blockers if that fact isn't acknowledged by both sides.

I've just remembered the account by one MNer of a Swedish documentary on young transitioners.

This is a direct link to the documentary. www.svtplay.se/video/33313874/uppdrag-granskning/uppdrag-granskning-transbarnen

This is in Swedish only for now. A trans child, Leo was treated for puberty blockers for 4 years. Leo ended up with osteoporosis (significantly below any normal bone density interval), fractures in the back, constant pain and worse mental state.

The journalist also found an additional 12 cases in Stockholm only where children had serious side effects (bone fractures, deep regret from voice changes, injuries, deteriorating mental health and significant weight gains). Leo’s case was not reported and not one of these.

Leo’s parents were not informed of the risk and the doctor that warned the parents about the side effects was reported to the management and silenced (words like incitement was used).

The psychiatric staff initially blamed everything on the hormone team. The head of the department with the hormones claimed in the interview to never have seen the reports from the psychiatric team.

Investigation only seem to have started after the journalist made the program and it wasn’t possible to cover up any more.

And this was Astrid Lindgren’s children’s hospital, one of the hospitals that at least stopped with this treatment. Other hospitals are happily going and claims that the treatment side effects doesn’t worry them.

The program finishes with that nobody know the number of children with serious side effects (some seem to be covered up). Some other Swedish hospitals keep going.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a4410679-Trans-children-in-Sweden-serious-side-effect-cover-ups-by-hospital

I don't think the assertion that one can't be only thinking of oneself and simultaneously pushing a political agenda should be accepted either. The political agenda is born from naive self interest. People use their power however they can to push the agendas that matter to them. Robin is doing so with an agenda conceived in self interest.

Thank you for such great links and extracts. This information needs to be bought into the light.

I think the 'determination' issue may have started from my reply to Robin in relation to Robin's post suggesting that if Robin had been a woman early in her career she'd have has as much success as she did as a man. I think that fails to acknowledge the structural barriers women face and fails to acknowledge tharlt, as a group, women are often socialised into looking after each other and being pleasant rather than being as dogged qnd self confident as men are. Of course there are many very determined women. In the face of such massive structural barriers women's rights would have taken no steps forward withoutbl such determined women. But that doesn't mean that Robin's assertion that things would have been no different if she'd been perceived as a woman. Such a statement should not be accepted as it's a denial of the external but also internalised factors which oppress women.

Thank you for posting this Purgatory.

Yes, Helleabore, the prospects for young female transitioners are frankly, heartbreaking. In my last post, I focused on the effects on young male transitioners, but it looks terrible for young females.

The consequences for girls who were prescribed GnRH agoniststo delay puberty temporarily seem to have been dire.

extract

For years, Sharissa Derricott, 30, had no idea why her body seemed to be failing. At 21, a surgeon replaced her deteriorated jaw joint. She’s been diagnosed with degenerative disc disease and fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition. Her teeth are shedding enamel and cracking.

None of it made sense to her until she discovered a community of women online who describe similar symptoms and have one thing in common: All had taken a drug called Lupron.

Thousands of parents chose to inject their daughters with the drug, which was approved to shut down puberty in young girls but also is commonly used off-label to help short kids grow taller.

The drug’s pediatric version comes with few warnings about long-term side effects. It is also used in adults to fight prostate cancer or relieve uterine pain and the Food and Drug Administration has warnings on the drug’s adult labels about a variety of side effects.

More than 10,000 adverse event reports filed with the FDA reflect the experiences of women who’ve taken Lupron. The reports describe everything from brittle bones to faulty joints.

In interviews and in online forums, women who took the drug as young girls or initiated a daughter’s treatment described harsh side effects that have been well-documented in adults.

Women who used Lupron a decade or more ago to delay puberty or grow taller described the short-term side effects listed on the pediatric label: pain at the injection site, mood swings, and headaches. Yet they also described conditions that usually affect people much later in life. A 20-year-old from South Carolina was diagnosed with osteopenia, a thinning of the bones, while a 25-year-old from Pennsylvania has osteoporosis and a cracked spine. A 26-year-old in Massachusetts needed a total hip replacement. A 25-year-old in Wisconsin, like Derricott, has chronic pain and degenerative disc disease.

“It just feels like I’m being punished for basically being experimented on when I was a child,” said Derricott, of Lawton, Okla. “I’d hate for a child to be put on Lupron, get to my age and go through the things I have been through.”

I will leave the thread there.

Did I miss it then?

Did we get an acknowledgment of the fact that young females are being put at significantly increased risk of adverse long term life limiting and life shortening side effects to accommodate male’s desire to ‘pass’ in this push for puberty blockers? That Robin’s advocacy of puberty blocker treatment is putting young females at great risk, but of course, not one male advocate can mention that because it would be incredibly unfair on young females to not get equal opportunity here.

And, of course, such an acknowledgment would point out that the mantra of ‘fully reversible’ is a lie, and we cannot have that pointed out.

Nor can we have it pointed out that a male body is not ‘just like a female body’ at all, juvenile or adult.

I am not surprised though. Imagine if a barrister who is representing Stonewall in a major case acknowledged this.

It is always important however that readers understand what questions have been avoided, cherry picked and why.