Controversial but curious.....

Redbird

for you Redbird.

I didn’t know your story and I am horrified to hear of it.

I join you though in wanting unbiased medical research and support. I think also that the side effects of Testosterone need to be discussed as many places as possible, as well as puberty blockers.

I recently read a post saying the the negative and life shortening side effects of Testosterone on female bodies was acceptable so that person can live their ‘trans’ life. Plus the assurance from that poster that of course, any life shortening or life limiting aspect would be made clear to the patient. Yet we know that it has not been made clear to many female transitioners.

And that discussing the extreme negative side effects, the prolapses, the atrophy, the pain from clitoral enlargement, the permanent bladder issues, the impact on other organs and that is just testosterone not covering the permanent pain and scarring issues with double mastectomy, on the area and the extended area too. Including range of movement.

So little of this is actually discussed in the glamourisation of these treatments. It is so hugely concerning.

I hope though that you are receiving the mental health support that you need.

@Redbird87 such a powerful post but I fear it won't even make a dent with people like the OP. For you💐

@Redbird87 I read your post and felt so fucking angry for you. FFS what are we doing as a society?

@Redbird87 thank you for speaking. I'm sorry this is the world and what you have lived.

@Redbird87 your post really hit home with me. Your words are so important.

@Redbird87 well said.

JBEM4 · Today 05:13

I have a trans son (19). He started his journey aged 13. It was a natural and organic transition and I, as everyone who knows him, expected it.

He's done 3 years of counselling with a clinical psychologist (monthly), has never questioned who he is not even for a second and is finally starting testosterone this month that will (he hopes) give him facial hair, give him a more masculine appearance and deepen his voice. For context, if you met him today you wouldn't know he was trans.
This is the process I feel people need to go through, the opportunity to exploring their true feelings to establish they have gender dysphoria. Yes it’s lengthy but necessary. As part of this process they need to accept that they cannot change their sex, but can present themselves as they wish.

Whilst I would like it to be a higher age, I accept 18 makes a person am adult and they are free to choose medical interventions be they hormones and/or surgery. However, the process should include factual information about the impact of hormones and surgery, short and long term, and what is and is not possible.

Whilst some people can pass, many cannot.

Fortunately FTM individuals don't seem to attract a fraction of the hostility, outrage and offence that MTF people do - why is that?
MtF people sadly include people who do not have gender dysphoria but do have paraphilia’s such as autogynephillia (AGP), voyeurism, exhibitionism etc. This, coupled with the fact that 98% of rapists and sexual offenders are male mean that, unlike FtM people, as a cohort they pose a higher risk to women and girls.

This cohort of transwomen are adversely impacting people with gender dysphoria as well as women and girls. They are pushing to enter femalevsingle sex spaces and sport.

I do try to understand others opinions but for the life of me can't fathom how/why people feel qualified and entitled enough to be so personally offended, judgemental, ignorant and vocal in their views that the trans community aren't worthy of respect let alone basic human rights.
Everyone should be treated with dignity and respect. The issue is the cohort of MtF people with paraphillia’s are not treating women and girls with dignity and respect. They do this by demanding entry to female single sex spaces and refusing to even discuss the compromise of third spaces. For example c18% of male prisoners are rapists, sex offenders etc. c50%+ of Transwomen prisoners are rapists, sex offenders etc. Personally I don’t believe all the Transwomen in prison have gender dysphoria, I think they have paraphillia’s, want easy access to female victims (prisoners) or want a safer place to serve their sentence. This is why they push to be placed in a female prison, female single sex spaces, female sport etc.

WRT basic human rights, please could you be more specific about which human rights your child is being denied. I am not aware of any.

No one chooses to be trans and those who are brave enough to transition do so because being at peace with themselves and living THEIR best life is more important to them despite the adversity, discrimination and abuse they'll receive from society.

I disagree, people with paraphillia’s are choosing. People with gender dysphoria are different.

My son is my son. His genitals do not define him. As parents we fight for our kids, for their right to have support, opportunities and advantages in life.. Parents will take on the whole damn system to get an autism diagnosis for their child because as a parent YOU know your child needs the right support and all that the health system can offer so your child can live their life and be the best they can be......
Why are trans kids/adults any different?
People with gender dysphoria are no different and should receive the appropriate support, opportunities etc. but this does not include lying to them that they can change their sex. This does not include inappropriate medical interventions for children.

As I said, counselling and, as adults, providing factual scientific information about the short and long term impacts of medication and surgery including failure rates should be an integral part of the health care approach.

The healthcare system is poor, not just for trans people, but for a whole range of things including, anorexia, depression, self harming, anxiety, knees and hips etc. Don’t mistake the difficulties your child has had accessing healthcare being because they are trans rather than the NHS is overloaded and at breaking point.

Please bear in mind not all trans people seek medical interventions as they do not want medication or surgery they just chose to present differently.

I've been accused of abusing my child, grooming my child, been told that he needs psychiatric help, he'll grow out of it, and that he doesn't have the right to live his life as he needs to. These are comments that no one is brave enough to say to my face.
It is very common for people to be brave from behind a keyboard.

Not understanding what it is to be trans, not having experiences, contact or relationships with someone who's trans does not afford anyone the right to decide/debate on their existence. Being so absolute in opposition/denial/disgust of how another person lives their life while having zero impact on anyone else's.
How do you define “trans”? What evidence do you have that everyone who defines themselves as trans has had zero impact on anyone else. Karen White attacked female prisoners they were impacted.

Being part of a free society gives us the right to debate and have a say in the laws of our country. It also allows professionals e.g. doctors, to debate and decide the right treatment, approach etc.

How we debate is a different argument and I agree that the current debate is toxic on both sides. There are rational voices but they are being drowned out.

So come at me. Please tell me how a trans person has personally offended you or negatively impacted your life and why a human beings value can't be based on their character and whether they're simply just a good person?
In order for me to answer this you need to define “trans”. Do you really see your child in the same trans category as Karen White, Isla Bryson, the 50% of transwomen prisoners who are sex offenders?
Have you considered people with gender dysphoria and their families should be vocal in stating that trans people with paraphillia’s do not speak for them?

*not "agreeing" with being trans isn't a valid excuse.....
I don’t think of it as agreeing or disagreeing. I believe everyone should be treated with dignity and respect, that you cannot change your sex, women and girls need single sex spaces and sports. I also believe how people choose to present themselves is a personal choice and provided they treat me with dignity and respect I will do the same.

Redbird 💐

I hope your excellent post can be archived if this thread is zapped (I suspect it might be).

Fortunately FTM individuals don't seem to attract a fraction of the hostility, outrage and offence that MTF people do - why is that?

Jesus Christ on a bike. You must either be dim or have been living under a rock.

What could possibly be different about M to F people I wonder???

Redbird

Not understanding what it is to be trans, not having experiences, contact or relationships with someone who's trans does not afford anyone the right to decide/debate on their existence.

Hmm, not understanding what it is to be the opposite sex to the one you are does not give anyone the right to decide/debate what the opposite sex is, to dictate how the opposite sex should name themselves, view themselves, behave or believe.

And yet that is exactly what the GI/Trans agenda does.

So sorry you’ve been through all that red bird. The word toxic is so overused, but it really seems to describe the experiences you and your friends seem to have had. I hope as many of you as possible find ways to your own peace as you deal with the fall out.

Ugh god I hate how both phone and browser versions kill paragraphs.

@JBEM4 I was a transman who was abused by a transwoman, gaslit, called a misogynist, bleated at by my social group (and their VERY extended, VERY terminally online support network) that I was a liar, too ugly for anyone to want to hurt that way, and to kill myself. -I didn't take T bc my friends, most of whom were, like myself, traumatized and mentally ill traditionally gender non-conforming girls, had their sex organs prolapse (ever put someone's vagina back into their body in a bathtub? I have!), most of them lost one if not both nipples, and all of them have dangerously high cholesterol, bone density loss, and pain in their vocal cords that won't go away, even for the ones who stopped dosing out of medical necessity. The oldest one is barely in their 40s, and all throughout, we get the pleasure of being doxed and hurt for not centering tw in our feminism, even when it's PAINFULLY, AGONIZINGLY apparent that they've been socialized as male and have zero problem treating you the way any other abusive male would, bc the entire movement's been overtaken by the notion that any form of gatekeeping is wrong and literally kills people.-Are there any other issues you feel guilty about thinking of? Or having doubts about? Do you ever feel an inkling of a suspicion that you're not disagreeing with this the way you might any other issue close to your heart?-I'm sure you're thinking I'm a liar and a nazi and a literal murderer right now, but I don't care. I hope my words brand themselves into your heart and you can't think for the volume of them in your mind if you ever even think about accusing women who've been hurt by this movement of being liars or nazis. It's disgusting the amount of lying going on, capitulation from the medical community despite those of us who've walked the walk begging for unbiased research, and cries of actual genocide. My ancestors no longer have a written language, and much of our culture was bulldozed off the face of the planet as short a time ago as my grandfather's lifetime. That is genocide, not this constant demanding of other people's rights. -If you want to be sensitive to everyone in the 'queer' (which is a slur btw) community, read up about how people on 8chan were groomed by perverts, or about pink pilling. Read about sissy fetishism. It's right there in their own spaces, the most carefully curated sub-reddits, twitter accounts, and even in-person places like bookstores and community centers. Read 'You Told Me You Were Different: An Anthology of Harm'.

Not understanding what it is to be trans, not having experiences, contact or relationships with someone who's trans does not afford anyone the right to decide/debate on their existence.

And you don't have the right to decide who is and is not allowed to enter this discussion.

Why anyone would be a cheerleader for their healthy child becoming a medical patient for life is beyond me.

Living on the kiddy cancer ward for a year really hammers home just how lucky kids born into healthy bodies are. Throwing that good health away for the sake of a chasing after an impossible dream (changing sex) is proper bonkers.

I can't spew hate at someone no matter how much you would like that to happen with such a provoking opening.

I feel deeply sorry for your child. Not believing in gender as anything more than a social construct I see what is happening to them as a tragedy to be honest. You saying you knew they would transition worries me they are a vulnerable child trying to please a parent. I worry this is a lesbian not seen as acceptable as a lesbian. Unless your son is now gay? Either way I feel a lot of FtM transitioners are trying to transition away from misogyny and the patriarchy.

If you are uk then I would argue your child taking up 3 years of psychological care only to be further harmed hurts other children because that level of support isn't available for kids with other mental health issues. The services are overstretched as it is. That's before we look at how accepting gender transition breaks down female boundaries and safety by normalising it for violent predators. If men can now be women and women can now be men then how are we to know if workforce stats are hiding inequality or not? The stats become useless sadly.

I hope your child finds happiness and doesn't live to regret their decision to be enthralled to medical for life.

He's done 3 years of counselling with a clinical psychologist (monthly), has never questioned who he is not even for a second and is finally starting testosterone this month that will (he hopes) give him facial hair, give him a more masculine appearance and deepen his voice. For context, if you met him today you wouldn't know he was trans.

This is worrying. The point of counselling would be to question and explore. We cannot know at 13 who we will be at 25 or 35 or older. There are many many detransistioners who regret their facial hair, the loss of their natural voice, and realise there was no need to make permanent changes to their perfectly well functioning bodies to be who they are and to dress how they like. Most people WOULD know by the way. Most people would be polite. But however hard we are pushed to not make a judgement, the truth is we all make judgements on one another all the time. Why put your child through that. You do not have their back in my opinion.

Perhaps you should ask yourself some of the hard questions before it is too late. Be the adult. Your child is still a child.

My son thought he was trans, he came out to me at the age of about 14/15. We went to GIDS with him and very luckily had a great family counsellor there who helped him to realise that a lot of his feelings were due to internalised homophobia.
If it wasn’t for the Covid lockdown then I expect he would be a heavily medicalised transwoman now, but lockdown did put a pause on all of it, long enough for him to realise that he was quite happy to be a (slightly effeminate) man. He’s now 21 and loving life, a lot more than if I had rushed him down the puberty blocker and medical route.
So yes, I know, or more correctly knew a trans person, and I loved him enough to ask the tough questions and help him question just what ‘trans’ is. I did not want a life for him where he was always wanting to be something that he could never achieve, let alone a life of medical interventions.

A question to the OP is "are you happier that you have a trangender son, rather than a lesbian daughter?"

It seems a lot easier to medicalise a gay child and say that they have a medical problem rather than accept a gay child. We see this a lot with homophobic religious families in America, as it's much easier to cast the "disease" as a sin rather than the child as a "sinner".

Whilst (1) I don't think the OP will be back and (2) I don't believe there is any good faith in their posting I will comment as follows on two points in the opening post:

of how another person lives their life while having zero impact on anyone else's.

False. I can give a list of impacts but doubt the OP would be interested.

No one chooses to be trans and those who are brave enough to transition do so because being at peace with themselves and living THEIR best life is more important to them

True. Their best life is the only thing that is important to them, everyone and everything else is either collateral damage or required to perform service.

very possibly, my feelings were

"So come at me. Please tell me how a trans person has personally offended you or negatively impacted your life"

that I could not imagine any possible reason this would be a productive thing to do

I don't generalise I really don't think all trans people are like that - so how could revealing anecdotes possibly feel like anything except an attack on her son.

How does a F2M negatively impact me?

It narrows the definition of female and women to feminine, to those without interest and capabilities defined as masculine in our society

My biology doesn't define me - nor does it define anyone else - yet the minute you accept a transgender identify you have defined someone's identity as inconsistent with their biology. Which means you think that identity and biology ARE linked

I feel sadness for F2M people - the actions they need to take to be at all convincing are harmful to their bodies and you only get one life , one body

I feel hate towards those who encourage and support F2M transitions. Because it's not necessary - women in the past learnt to accept their body , learnt to reject sexism and gender constructs that didn't apply to them

I feel angry that those transgender supporters can't accept people as they are , can't let them live as themselves , can't see past their bodies to see the real person , but have to support them instead to be physically changed , and usually as a result sterilised

And sterilisation of none conformists has never been a good idea in any circumstances