WHO publishes 'controversial gender guidance'

The poster wasn’t claiming that Ashley thinks the default for all children with gender identity issues should be puberty blockers.

They were claiming that Ashley thinks it should be the default for all children.

But of course that’s not true, is it?

'Complications from genital surgeries are common. A California study found that a quarter of 869 vaginoplasty patients, with a mean age of 39, had a surgical complication so severe that they had to be hospitalized again. Among those patients, 44% needed additional surgery to address the complication, which included bleeding and bowel injuries.
For adolescents transitioning to female, puberty blockers and hormones can complicate eventual genital surgery. That’s because the medications can stunt development of the male genitalia from which a vagina and vulva are constructed. In 2020, de Vries and other Dutch researchers urged clinicians to inform transgender youth and their parents about this risk when starting puberty blockers.'

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-care/

'Bowers, the new WPATH president and a transgender woman, said she has worried that some patients who begin puberty blockers at a young age won’t ever be able to have an orgasm because they never experienced one prior to pausing puberty, regardless of whether they have surgery.'

I listened to Marci Bowers.

From the guidance: 'puberty blockers should be treated as the default option' for all youth.

Default option. Which implies that unless unusual/exceptional reasons presenting, all youth referred for gender issues should be provided with this medication.

It is known that many, in fact a statistically high number of children will, if uninterfered with, find that these issues resolve naturally.

It is also known that increasing numbers of young adults given blockers and the drugs, hormones and surgeries that the blockers are the known gateway to with (statistically) very few indeed moving on to any different pathway, regret these changes to their body and describe their distress, and the severe harms caused to them that are now lifelong.

Hesitating about prescribing these blockers, and leaving those drugs, hormones and surgeries as an absolute last resort would therefore be a very normal, sensible response.

As far as I can see, the argument against it is that yes, non trans children (and young adults) will be harmed, and regret it, and feel devastated at the destruction of their lives, but true trans children will not and be happy. And the issue is that these true trans children be happy and so non trans children are acceptable collateral damage in pursuit of this wonderful and crucial goal.

Which is leading me increasingly to the conclusion that those arguing for all this - like the boxing thread, the right of men to identify as women and fight women in the name of their validation which risks killing women -

is that there are two kinds of humans in this ideology. The trans ones and the other ones.

And so long as the trans ones are happy and have everything they want, it doesn't matter about what harms are done to the non trans ones. Losing their sports, resources, health care, being excluded, being maimed by regretted surgery, being killed in the boxing ring - it doesn't matter. Because they were not of the group of humans that have value or matter, and their harm resulted in the better happiness of a trans person.

And a good non trans person would embrace this and understand their subordinate role in life without protest, and think only of the support and furthering of the happiness of the trans person involved.

Am I starting to get this incredibly dysfunctional and appalling view?

Where did you get the idea that Ashley thinks a majority of children, or indeed all children, should be given puberty blockers?

Or is this just another made up thing ascribed to someone who supports trans rights to be quickly ditched when one of the two or three posters on here willing to challenge lies and nonsense points it out?

1. FWR has had posts about at least two male-born children who, after being on blockers, had sections of bowel turned into neovaginas because their penises weren't large enough to invert. Bowel surgery is not trivial. Penile growth is a function of puberty. These children's transition surgeries were made medically more complex and riskier by not undergoing puberty. So it's not a simple case that post-pubertal transition is uniformly easier than non-pubertal transition.
2. It is Ashley, not WHO, who is currently advocating the mass medication of children with puberty blockers.
3. This is the wrong set of questions when it comes to Ashley's proposal that all children take blockers.

The relevant set of questions goes something like:

• Why should a huge, >99.9% majority of children be subjected to the known risks of puberty blockers for the sake of a tiny tiny, <0.1% minority of children?
• Who gains from mass medicating children like this and how?
• Who gains from having a majority of children delay their puberty?
• What unintended consequences might there be of giving all or most children blockers: health, financial, social, and otherwise?
• What are the safeguarding risks associated with having huge numbers of older teens with the bodies of pre-pubescent children?
• What are Ashley's clinical and scientific credentials, given that Ashley is promoting a medical intervention?
• What are Ashley's motives for promoting this medical intervention at such wide scale?

Are you saying that the WHO is 'outright lying' about the well documented and obvious differences between transitioning before and after puberty? How are they lying? Have you ever actually talked to a trans person who transitioned prior to puberty?

How do we query that? I think someone in Govt needs to do that? Or the press?

Well, much as I would like to think everyone will stop and listen to someone posting on FWR on mumsnet, I dont think they will.

So maybe everytime we see someone or a group talk about getting better delegates etc., we need to remind them the decision has been taken.

Not now, as I am not going to upset myself as the New Year comes in, we could collect the links that a PP added higher up this thread, and each time a group, or petition or whoever posts something send them the links and say we need to question their position, not how it is going to be written up!

How do we query that? I think someone in Govt needs to do that? Or the press?

Sorry but to say again, this petition, as have posts on here, are missing the point.

WHO have already decided their position. Affirmative action and hormones.

They merely want people who will write guidelines promoting that.

We need to be querring how they reached the position they already have.

And to repeat the repeated repeat!

WHO have already decided their position. Affirmative action and hormones.

Interesting points. If this panel of 'experts' produce anything, it will be very rigorously examined by actual experts and they might find that these biased, underhanded tactics embarrass them and do more harm than they anticipate.

On balance, I'm inclined to agree.
If I had more confidence that I could trust the survey to be handled well by those running it, I would add my name anonymously to it i.e. if they could see my name but they kept it private (like the UK government petitions).
A large demonstration that there is resistance to an approach does have its own merits. Equally, if it's not signed by many this could convey an unintended message that it's not something that people find important.

However, given I don't have that confidence (I hadn't seen its flaws until I looked through it more thoroughly) and the NHS-commissioned Cass Review is already gaining traction, I feel we're in a good place to let it play out in England. If I were in Scotland I may feel differently again, given the NHS there is actively pushing against the Cass Review and saying that it isn't relevant in Scotland. It's frustrating and concerning watching the strategy that the WHO is using play out at a world scale.

I'd want our government to say why they will not engage with it, and why the NHS won't touch it.

I don't want a place at this particular table, frankly. Let them do all this nonsense and then say "oh that's nice, but we aren't using it ever".

Strong agreement. Plus: And these are the principled and principal reasons that this guidance shall appear neither in NHS nor NICE guidelines nor recommendations.

I wonder if a refusal to engage with a process and outcome that was vitiated at the outset is a better approach.

I'm unsure that signing a petition in this case won't simply make it look like this is A Good Thing that some people Want To Be A Part Of. Why? It looks nothing but dangerous.

I'd want our government to say why they will not engage with it, and why the NHS won't touch it.

I don't want a place at this particular table, frankly. Let them do all this nonsense and then say "oh that's nice, but we aren't using it ever".

It would have far more impact.

Looking through the list of signatories, there is some duplication. Also it seems to be the case that if you give your name, this will be published. Overall, not the best way to run a petition.

However, there are some encouraging names on the list.

I saw one person named as "anonymous". I may do the same and use the email validation to prove that I am me.

It's better than no petition at all, but certainly not ideal. It would be very easy for the WHO to point out its flaws if they don't sort out the duplication issue.

Copying separately in case it gets deleted.

https://who-decides.org/home?val_dt=260ca9dd8a4577fc00b7bd5810298076#sign

Weirdly, the link jumps straight to the assumption that the reader is signing it, but you can scroll up to the top to read what it actually says. Then back down again to sign it. Hopefully they will fix that glitch soon.

This is a great thread on X by Leo Sapir, laying out the key problems with the approach (the conflict of interest in the panel and lack of attempt to mitigate, the short time period and clash with festive season of consultation and the predetermined outcome):

https://twitter.com/LeorSapir/status/1741210385108136119?t=Y4Ww3-s3E3KQxgF-ltJRzw&s=19

It also includes a petition. Hopefully I'm allowed to post the link to this.

Just to repeat as I know I fell into this trap but:

The position of WHO is already decided.

They are merely asking for people to write the guidelines for what they believe is the best approach ie affirmative action including use of hormones.

That is the problem.

They aren't saying we dont have a position.

Just who are the "best" people to write the guidelines for our already decided position.

Interesting point. We aren't supposed to feel euphoric about our gender. That's a heightened abnormal response.

Stonewall was also an amazing group.

Once.

Yes. As I said, it's exposing weaknesses and vulnerabilities in many organisations that do otherwise do good work.