What you all said was coming

I think ultimately what it comes down to is that it is insane to mess with people's healthy bodies in order to treat a psychiatric disorder.

If the problem is in the mind, you need to treat the mind, not the body.

I completely agree.

Oral sex, hand jobs, anal sex.

We adopted my 4YO at 9MO. I LOATHE it when people talk about it like you just go and collect a baby from the baby market and all live happily ever after. I love my dd to bits and have no regrets at all but it's soooo much more complicated than this in all situations

I feel like Temple Grandin has disappeared from narratives within autism.

She's extremely gender non conforming.

Stephanie Davis Arai was yelling this from the roof tops years ago. She had hundreds and hundreds of emails from 'trans' children and their parents and said she had yet to receive one which didn't have either homosexuality, trauma or autism as the starting point.

People have known about this for years.

And yet the National Autistic society are completely captured.

However, in part, I suspect due to the fact that there's a growing trend to center "actually autistic" voices - of whom a larger number identify as trans.

So the loop is difficult to break.

Oh yes. Lots of blithe remarks about 'I can always adopt' or even 'My sister could be a surrogate'. I have the impression adoption is a very different thing in the US where there still are many newborn babies given up by their mothers (and that can only increase now ), but over here nobody can count on being able to adopt, as (rightly) prospective adopters face extensive screening and not everybody will pass that. Also, of course, in the UK most children adopted by people outside their own family have been removed from their parents by social services and have significant problems - neglect, abuse, health issues, learning difficulties - which means their adoptive families have to be prepared for very tough times. Someone who is battling their own issues is possibly not the best person to take on that challenge.

This is real bones of the case - misdiagnosis and gender ideology
toss in homophobia. Better to be trans than gay etc

All the talk about infertility, which we know sounds obvious, but I wonder if yet again TRAs are being tricky with language.

I wonder if it is sold as you won't lose your fertility if you freeze your sperm/eggs beforehand.

We have "top" and "bottom" surgery instead is mastectomy and castration. I bet they sell it as "you can still have children afterwards*".

It's incredibly brave for him to come out publicly and to be named. I fear for all the abuse he will get from TRAs, although in reality his biggest concern will be his mutilated body.

The safeguards over this procedure have weakened in the NHS due to the lobbying by groups like Mermaids and Stonewall. (In fact you just have to look at Mermaids, which was original set by the mother of a mtf child, to be a support group and has now transitioned into a powerful profitable lobbying group).

Listening to real experts (practitioners with decades of experience) they can instantly identify the types wishing to change sex. Yet go on any pro-trans forum and they will either debunk them and claim that they are all now scientifically rejected (which they are not). Anyone with experience or knowledge is hounded out of their jobs, and more people like Tulip will go down this path, because all the sensible people were banned from talking about it.

Indeed.

He adds: ‘My concern is clinicians failed to identify red flags and change direction. Proper consideration needs to be given to issues such as OCD, internalised homophobia, depression, drug use, sexual abuse and childhood trauma as potential reasons for patients’ rejecting their sexed body.’

Stephanie Davis Arai was yelling this from the roof tops years ago. She had hundreds and hundreds of emails from 'trans' children and their parents and said she had yet to receive one which didn't have either homosexuality, trauma or autism as the starting point.

People have known about this for years.

I can't blame him as I taught a young boy who could have been Richie, except he also had mild learning difficulties.

He's since gone to Newcastle college which has a good dept for life skills for young people with autism and learning difficulties as well as a good rep generally for all students with autism.

It's been completely captured. He's socially transitioned. Possibly medically, hard to know though by all accounts you get what you want in adult services. Despite Tavistock not diagnosing GD over a decade ago.

He worked for the Civil Service, had treatment through NHS gender clinics, took all information and encouragement from the internet. complete capture mode.

History of mental health issues, gay.

• Late diagnosis of autism. Experienced homophobia and sexism growing up. Full 'bingo card.'

If Tulip ever gets as far as reading this thread, I'd like him to know that the general public are still behind the curve on this issue.

I don't think they quite grasp how much influence there is online. Or what is being taught in schools.

The effect of the subtle and insidious use of terms like assigned sex at birth, gender reassignment, affirmation treatment, etc, cannot be overestimated.

Strong campaigning finally got the government to outlaw use of the term born in the wrong body, to insist that stereotypes are not invoked during teaching and that everything must be based on evidence. But bloody hell, what a low bar is that?

And that's just officially sanctioned school teaching. Look at the NHS removing the words woman from all their literature, slavishly following the ideology that has entrapped Tuilip.

And when you take into account all the other pro trans sites, it's little wonder that tulip ended up where he did.

The public know about trans ideology, it's rammed down their throat, but this sort of story is where they start to wise up about exactly who else is complicit and quite how far its gone.

And still we are the bad guys, the witches, those wishing genocide on others.

Fucking ridiculous.

I think ultimately what it comes down to is that it is insane to mess with people's healthy bodies in order to treat a psychiatric disorder.

If the problem is in the mind, you need to treat the mind, not the body.

I blame the doctors, not the mentally unwell people who were sold snake oil.

#NoDebate

I'm sure it is hard to treat people who've been coached in what to say. I have read that this also happens with eating disorders. Clinicians there presumably get training in how to recognise the signs and probe for what's going on underneath. What makes gender issues so different, in recent years?

One of the leaflets referred to in an earlier post talked about gender realignment surgery and said, more or less, it can leave you infertile. No, it WILL leave you infertile

I noticed that too the wording needs to be crystal clear, not CAN it WILL.
The same with needing a tube to pee, worded like you might need a tube. Give people the true stats x % of people who have this surgery will need to manually empty their bladder.

I have little sympathy for him, he was a fully grown adult, who made these choices to mutilate his body at the tax payers expense but at the same time I do hope he wins his case to open other people's eyes to the stupid ideology.

The NHS should not be buying into the idea that people can change sex.

Men should be able to feel free to wear frilly knickers, dresses & lippy but still be 100% man.
Just the same as women can wear jeans and doc martins but still be 100% woman.

I can see why the general public aren't being particularly sympathetic. They've had years of being told they had to believe red is blue or a trans person somewhere would commit suicide, so hearing that the NHS is being sued because "oops,no, it was red all along" is pretty galling.

I do believe that the NHS needs better protocols to help with transition (in whatever form it takes) but I'm also realistic enough to see that its hard to treat people who have been taught to lie to you, to give certain responses, in order to illicit the result they think they want. I can't see that any type of therapy is going to help when the patient is basically trying to game the system.

Oh dear. The comments aren't kind. On some other stories I have been very encouraged that DM readers have totally woken up to the issues and aren't having it, but here there is a lot of ignorant failure to understand. I hope he's OK. Win or lose this I an important case because it serves to pour in the sunlight and will hopefully be a wake up call to the NHS. I really hope he wins.

It does sound as if surgery was pushed as very much part of the whole transition whereas the whole point of self ID was that a person doesn't have to do anything, in some cases not even bother putting on the lippy and skirt, to be counted as a member of the other sex so it seems odd that he was fast tracked for this.

This is the crux of it, isn't it.

If someone develops a persistent feeling that there is something wrong with their body, which is in fact perfectly normal and healthy, I would say that's a mental health issue. Everybody else accepts this too when it's a case of wanting a healthy limb amputated or being convinced there's something horrible in one's appearance that needs repeated cosmetic surgery. But when it comes to saying 'I have a male body and I hate it, I should have been female, I want my genitals removed' suddenly a segment of the population sees this as an extension of being gay, a natural feeling, not to be questioned in any way, just affirmed. How? Why? It makes no sense to me at all.

That quote leapt off the page to me as well. Presumably each service will blame the other or draw a line around what they do when the real questions are asked.

I think this quote from the article shows exactly why the model for adult services needs an overhaul. I know one of the Indigo clinics I linked to earlier doesn’t even employ a psychologist (possibly more, but I just know about one).

”The clinic – which will not comment on Ritchie’s specific case – told the MoS it does not provide mental health services to patients.”

Well done to Ritchie for speaking out so bravely. Reading his account is so painful and I wish he had had better support. I do think he is right to bring this case as it is the only thing that will stop this absolute nonsense. I understand some on here have noted personal responsibility but ultimately he had medical professionals telling him that removing his genitals was a legitimate response to how he was feeling. He was in his mid 20s and couldn't properly navigate that, so what hope is there for the thousands who start down this route in their teens or earlier?