How much longer is this going to take?!

ARE WE IN A CULT? OMG HOW DO I GET OOT?

If people who were gender critical stood up and said 'lets sterilise all trans people so they cannot procreate' we'd be rightly called transphobic and cancelled. And the irony of this story is...

To me a lot of your voices sound like a religion that don’t want to hear other views

"Consequences of treatment" (ie infertility) could only be viewed as acceptable in the case of the trans youngster if we buy into the idea that without it they will kill themselves without it.
And do the young people making the choices have a real understanding of what they are giving up? I don't think so, given the lies told about them actually becoming the opposite sex.

That will be the cult at work yes why bother engaging with other peoples opinions. Particularly when you guys can claim that being trans doesn’t exist yet medical professionals will tell you otherwise. To me a lot of your voices sound like a religion that don’t want to hear other views.

Sorry to disappoint you but yeah there are many trans people maybe not in your word salad world but in the real world otherwise gender clinics wouldn’t exist etc

Consequences of treatment may be acceptable in some situations and not in others depending on risks and severity

How in anyone's world is it OK to perform double breast mastectomies on teens, and to give them the same drugs as used to castrate paedophiles?

Some treatments should never happen. Experimentation on kids to satisfy an ideology is one.

Yes it is.

It’s not. You know very well even using common sense that’s not how medical decisions are made. Treatment that may be appropriate in one situation may not be in another. Consequences of treatment may be acceptable in some situations and not in others depending on risks and severity.

These false analogies used by people on the ‘GC side’ lose a lot of credibility. Same as ‘if they wanted to be a duck would you sew on a beak?’ And ‘if they were anorexic would you affirm their need to lose weight’.

Different conditions. Different treatments. Different causes.

What doctor would agree to that? Who would say "well she can always adopt"?

None. That’s not a comparable analogy anyway.

Yes it is.

What doctor would agree to that? Who would say "well she can always adopt"?

None. That’s not a comparable analogy anyway.

But there isn’t good evidence for using puberty blockers as usual treatment for gender identity issues in children. Puberty is often a key factor in desistance, so stopping puberty also stops the process that likely will resolve the gender issues.

It’s not a 100% absolute though. There will always be a need for clinical discretion.

Some people need to change physical aspects of sex to function better, to survive.

We don't know this, because no one's going to be looking for a medical cure for this psychological disorder.

Mermaids have done a fantastic service by taking the LGB Alliance to court.

I imagine that there will be further publicity when the case resumes in a couple of weeks given the prominence of Mermaids in the news media recently.

Actually, in the sense of men who change into women or women who change into men, none of us (including you, Freespirit42) knows any trans people, since there are no men who change into women or women who change into men. Nor have there ever been any such people, so no-one (including Freespirit42) has ever known any trans people in this sense.

To others than Freespirit:
This person makes her intellectual capacities clear in her posts. Given this, we might be inclined to pass on by; why engage with such a level of discourse? (Why bother trying to play chess with such a pigeon?) However, she has a vote, as well as a voice. We need such people's votes. And, well, clearly reason is not going to work here. So, what? Any ideas?

In the sense of men who change into women or women who change into men, it isn't possible actually to speak to any trans people. Why? Because
in the sense of men who change into women or women who change into men there aren't any trans people. That is, there are no men who change into women or women who change into men. And you can't talk to people who don't exist, not really. Can you?

I know that's (weirdly) difficult for some people to understand, but do try.

I'm sorry not to have responded sooner, but I have been away with (and talking to) one of my adult children. Your 'hope' is fulfilled of necessity, by the way: none of my (or anybody else's) kids could be trans in the sense of men who change into women or women who change into men just because there are no such men or women. Phew! Lucky, that, huh?

Someone on another thread (just searched- can't find it!), wrote a comment- a vision of the future- that links to what you have pointed out here bird.
The commenter imagined that in the future, those on the GI side of the debate will have to pull back closer to the GC view- and that when things do change for the better, all the feminist work to get there will be forgotten and the narrative will be that it was the TRA's that got us there.
It was so much more articulate than what I have just written!
Tried advanced search- I replied so I could come back to it, but can only find my threads and not my replies.
I likened it to Batman The Dark Knight- where he is willing to be seen as the villain as what's needed is greater than himself.
Maybe someone can help me find it with that info!

If people feel that they have issues then mental health treatment is what is needed.

The whole concept of changing sex has already been proven wrong when the original botched experimentation on kids went disasterously wrong.

People who have had 'sex reassignment surgery' who get dementia wake up every day in distress when they see that their genitals have been removed.

This isn't some progression. Castrating people because they have mental health distress should be in the history books. Not in primary schools.

Imagine going to the doctor around 10 and saying you were so adamant you did not want babies that you'd like to be sterilised please, so you could live without fears about getting pregnant.
What doctor would agree to that? Who would say "well she can always adopt"?

Etc

there’s a pattern here, don’t you think?

Some people need to change physical aspects of sex to function better, to survive. Male to female or female to male. They will live as closely as possible to that sex or ‘as if’ they have changed sex. There will always be people who live as the other sex.

I think many of us assumed it was accepted that everyone knew really that these were not women, but that this was a polite fiction and mantra

Well, we know that. We know that a transwoman means a male who pictures himself as a woman, whether that's from the deepest dysphoria and anguish, or as a fun thing to do on Tuesdays.

But a child taught from the earliest age that woman, girl, boy, man mean inner feeling will not know that.

And this is the problem. What screening is there to know that medicalisation / surgery is the best option for a child? At the moment it's unethical. I hope this is the right thing for Georgie Stone, but life is long and it seems far more common sense to have this path open only for mature adults.

Doubtful about how good a fake vagina and ladybits are going to feel btw! Women have enough trouble with the real stuff.

Gender non conforming behaviour and people presenting as the opposite sex are phenomena found in most human societies. It’s a spectrum of behaviours and identities. It’s cross cultural and throughout time. It’s as much a part of human behaviour as sexuality.

Yes indeed. So why are they trying to edit it out by sending these people down pathways that result in them being castrated/sterilised? That isn't the progressive society that genderists say it is.

Hopefully we’ll find a sensible level way of doing things in this country, that keeps as many people safe as reasonably possible. There’s no absolute guarantee of safety for anyone and most harm does not come from trans people. Whatever the outcome it’s not going to please everyone

well a good starting point to keep as many people (and I reckon 50% of people) as safe as possible would be

single sex hospital wards
single sex refuges
single sex prisons
single sex changing rooms
single sex toilets
Etc

there’s a pattern here, don’t you think?

Gender non conforming behaviour and people presenting as the opposite sex are phenomena found in most human societies. It’s a spectrum of behaviours and identities. It’s cross cultural and throughout time. It’s as much a part of human behaviour as sexuality.

Almost every country in the world has transgender and transsexual people. Even primitive cultures. Surgeries and hormones is a modern iteration. Yes it’s gone too far in transitioning some children and particularly young females in the US. Pendulums often swing too far each way before reaching equilibrium.

I don’t think it’s going away. Not unless you had some sort of incredibly brutal right wing or totalitarian or oppressive government in place. I guess the closest in the west was Trump and the bathroom bill and that didn’t last long.

Hopefully we’ll find a sensible level way of doing things in this country, that keeps as many people safe as reasonably possible. There’s no absolute guarantee of safety for anyone and most harm does not come from trans people. Whatever the outcome it’s not going to please everyone.

Yes, I can see that too. When TWAW was first being bandied about (long before I discovered Mumsnet) I think many of us assumed it was accepted that everyone knew really that these were not women, but that this was a polite fiction and mantra, rather than an attempted assertion of fact. Then the insistence started that these men actually were women, which is when the veneer was removed and the real intention became visible, assuming you wanted to see it.

Point absolutely taken Prion, and no disagreement from me at all.

But for me the shift from magical thinking (men who feel like they are women actually, physically become women, and all the drugs and surgery is just a way to speed up.and streamline physical reality) to evidence-based facts (men who feel like they are women are still biologically men) seems an important step.