WHO publishes 'controversial gender guidance'

Well that headline from Unherd is hella misleading. There's no guidance published yet.

Where do I find the WHO's consultation process for this? It's here. And should we tip off any of these groups https://sex-matters.org/posts/category/groups-defending-sex-based-rights/ or any Lords (e.g. Baroness Nicholson)?

I started losing respect for the WHO as a child when they couldn't seem to focus on diseases like malaria, tetanus and polio (assume all your guesses as to why I would be interested in these ailments to be correct) .

I lost all respect for them when they failed to have any evidence based backbone at the start of covid.

Colour me blasé now they have complete disregard for opposing views coupled with total lack of evidence.

Meh. It's time for the entire UN to be reformed or disbanded anyway.

Just to get back to the actual short consultation period notice, because I first reacted to how unprofessional their approach was I missed a faily important point.

I did say this yesterday, but in fact even discussing who is one the panel seems irrelevant if WHO have already said that the guidelines will be about the affirmative approach, including use of hormones.

When was this decision taken and who by.

We could waste hours trying to flood them with suggestion for people we think better placed to promote watchful waiting, but it will be a complete waste of time if they have already decided the approach, and just want guidelines on that.

Does anyone know when and how this decision was reached?

Was there an open consultation?

People can describe themselves however they choose, so long as they're not male people trying to use this language obfuscation to force their way into female people's spaces. Sex is the bit that matters in that case because it is about impact on others: not how an individual would like to express themselves.

That's all there is!

Transmasc just neutrally describes a trans person with a masculine presentation.

Basically sexist stereotyping

Ah but it's a girlybeard. Easy to tell the diff.

Transmasc just neutrally describes a trans person with a masculine presentation.

"Transfeminine" person Florence Ashley says this about florenceself:

Even though I experience gender dysphoria vis-à-vis my beard, my conscious decision not to continue with electrolysis has allowed me to develop a stronger sense of myself as a person outside the binary – although I remain well shaved most of the time.

So "transfeminine" in this case seems to mean "bloke who sometimes has a beard".

https://www.florenceashley.com/uploads/1/2/4/4/124439164/ashley_thinking_an_ethics_of_gender_exploration_-_against_delaying_transition_for_transgender_and_gender_creative_youth.pdf

Yep, transmasc is just another name for a bloke. It's dead simple and easy to understand. Just focus on the haircut, then everything makes total sense.

Just a quick aside - not wanting to derail here:

Transmasc and Transfemme are rising in popularity as terms used to describe trans people in terms of the important, current part (who they are) and not in terms of whatever plumbing/history they have. It avoids the many issues that the 'AFAB/AMAB' descriptors (always hated them) and their FtM/MtF predecessors had while sidestepping the culture war-baiting sex/gender definition contention.

Transmasc just neutrally describes a trans person with a masculine presentation.

Slight derail, but Florence Ashley describes themselves as transfeminine. How is transfeminine different from trans woman? Is it meant to replace trans woman?

Otherwise, looking at the panel biographies, it strikes me just how prolific the activists have been in furthering an agenda with the many publications, sitting on committees, writing national and international health care policy, pushing for new ‘guidelines’ all with a very specific agenda focused on building an agenda that affirms/validates the needs of a vanishingly small group of people.

Amazing at the power, speed, and scale of what has been achieved by mostly men. It would have to be men, because if these issues were primarily women’s issues, they’d still be ignored.

Cleverly piggybacking on work based on good intentions to support the LGB community, but seemingly no boundaries can ever be acceptable as the agenda has progressed into pathologising vulnerable children and young adults. Yet, you wonder just how much someone such as Florence Ashley would truly have wished to have blocked their puberty and ended up with a strong possibility of not being able to be a fully sexual being?

The tragedy is how more and more I see the TI affecting vulnerable autistic teens / young adults with black and white thinking, difficulty picking up on other’s malicious intentions, and looking for a script they are so susceptible to echoing the beliefs they read online without questioning it. And as they don’t fit into rigid sexual stereotypes and so end up believing that if they’re not a Kardashian female or a Tate male then they must be trans.

@BonfireLady if they make the consultation period for the whole done and dusted guidelines the same sort of speed as they have done this panel consult then I think it will be REALLY hard to comment by then.

Thank you @Imnobody4 for posting the SEGM response. I assume that they may have started researching this back in June when some of the names were known. Its a long and thorough document and feel that this should happen at every stage (comment on what they have just done).

@ButterflyHatched its not the guidelines yet. But I think you can see that if this group are aiming to be open and above board about consultations on anything then pressing start on 18 Dec with end date of 8 Jan is asking for people to be hostile to the process - whatever it is. (The WHO holds itself to a high standard which is why I flagged their Ethics statements and Integrity hotline. I don't think they have (yet) met their own standards. If they can meet those standards then any guidelines will be met with more confidence and that is surely what you want (not boycotts and challenges).

So the consultation is on the composition of the panel, not on the content of the guidelines (because the guidelines will be drawn up by the panel once they have met to discuss "evidence")... I think I've got that right.

Apologies if this is a daft question and/or is answered above and I've missed it:

Does anyone know if the guidelines that the panel come up following their February meeting with will be put out for review and consultation before being finalised and released? Or will this panel have the autonomy to create and release guidelines, without any consultation, once they have written them?

There's so much information to try and take in on this one that I've ended up a little lost.

Riittakerttu Kaltiala should certainly be on the panel, and someone from, say, Sweden.

And at least one of the critical researchers into puberty blocking and the Dutch protocol. Stephen Levine or Julia Mason or, more generally in the wider field, Michael Biggs.

And as I noted earlier, given that this panel is going to recommend 'inclusive care' rules, it's important that the panel understands how forcing gender identity ideology on everybody, including people who don't share the religion, means that many women, in particular, will feel excluded and humiliated and ridiculed by having their sex-based gender labels turned into body parts or functions. (Men would feel humiliated, too, if they were actually dehumanised in the same way as women already routinely are.)

In other words, the panel should not simply ignore the clash of rights or the clash of the needs of various demographic groups in the recommendations it makes. Everybody should matter here.

Thanks for the link, shocking reading. It did make me laugh when he decried the "shitiness of straight men..." Surely he is one ?

But if 80% of ‘trans’ kids desist under watchful waiting, why would anyone medicate all of them? Or are we still in the evidence-free paradigm where puberty blockers are completely reversible with no side effects here?

who has time to check out all these people

I meant to add no doubt the combined minds of FWR will do that in record time!

Thankfully the WHO seems, for now, to have resisted the worldwide anti-trans reactionary swing and has published sensible and appropriate guidance in line with what people who have actually experienced these treatments first-hand have been saying for years.

Good for them. Is the extinction burst finally, at long last, ending?

Thanks @Gettingmadderallthetime for making this clear

This is about the formation of a guideline development group.
This link takes you to the WHO guidance for setting up GDGs, ^iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/145714/9789241548960_eng.pdf^

I realised after I posted in haste that I hadn't been clear, but in my head I was thinking who has time to check out all these people already appointed and / or suggest who should be in the group.

So I do think the very short consultation period on this crucial aspect of forming guideline, is definitely wrong. And probably deliberately so.

Although it is possible WHO itself is to blame because effectively they have said in advance what the guidelines will say, eg affirmation.

Maybe there was an earlier consultation or in principle statement which slipped out over the summer holidays.

It's rather convoluted thinking.

This has always been the trans arguement, not only because as stated it stops them experiencing puberty of their actual sex and can "smoothly" transition (which sort of suggest that if puberty only entrenches your biological sex then it is real.

But also because those who have transitioned later in life have complained if only they could have transitioned younger they could more easily create the appearance of someone of the opposite sex.

This is all part of their "literal violence" scenario.

But what of course they dont say is that if you allow someone so young to have affirmative hormones etc., than it means that if and when they de-transition they are in a far worse situation in terms of being able to fully become the biological sex they really are.

No, it's rather the opposite. The argument being made is that if you let children develop normally it is then harder to transition - so 'cis' children have an advantage by growing steadily into their own adult sex without having to reverse and have a second go on the 'correct' path. By giving puberty blockers to 'trans children' so they don't go down the 'wrong' path they can then continue on the 'correct' path more easily (without the physical and metal toll of having to cross over after 'wrong' development) - equalising advantage.

Not surprised you misread though. It's rather convoluted thinking.

Yep.

So Florence Ashley argues that letting this stage (puberty) of human development progress uninterrupted “strongly favours cis embodiment by raising the psychological and medical toll of transitioning”.

Am I reading this right - Ashley recognises that puberty blockers cause a psychological and mental toll, and believes this toll needs to be imposed on ALL teenagers, so that “cis-gender” people are not at an advantage???

And this is the sort of person WHO feels is best qualified to advise them on this?

Useful response by SEGM

https://segm.org/world-health-organization-transgender-guidelines

This is about the formation of a guideline development group.
This link takes you to the WHO guidance for setting up GDGs, https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/145714/9789241548960_eng.pdf

Note this ...
Potential members of the GDG are identified by the steering group and
are selected to encompass the technical skills, diverse perspectives and geo-
graphic representation needed.

It may be that these do NOT represent diverse perspectives or the geographical representation needed. For example would it be sensible to ensure that countries which have done large amounts of work in this area and collected evidence should be in this mix?

Might be worth mentioning their Ethics statements (WHO's that is). https://www.who.int/about/ethics/code-of-conduct-for-responsible-research

There is an Integrity hotline. https://www.who.int/about/ethics/integrity-hotline - which allows for anonymised reporting of breaches and is administered by a third party.

I am reading this timescale (which does seem deliberately chosen to reduce commenting) to relate to comments on the GDG but I am not confident about anything here as its all new to me and I have just skimmed.