MHFA England - captured?

It would be interesting to know what ‘danger’ you perceive in communicating with people using traditional grammatical standards like pronouns that relate to their sex?

I think it’s probably quite harmful to perpetuate the impression that everyone agrees that a person is actually the opposite sex as that can have serious repercussions for their life.

For example, if everyone in a position of trust around a girl with ‘gender issues’ agrees that she is actually a boy and would therefore follow a pathway that leads her to take testosterone in the future and an elective double mastectomy, rather than helping her address her feelings around, say, the sexual assault that triggered her, that is harmful.

We need to find a way of reaching vulnerable young people that have been convinced of impossible things by trans ideology.

i haven’t worked in mental health for a long time either but generally we didn’t go along with peoples beliefs if they were patently untrue no matter how fervently they believed them. I had one man who was absolutely convinced he was Jesus Christ - I didn’t address him as the messiah or the son of god because affirming that delusion wasn’t helpful for him

What do you mean "why would they do that?" How do you refer to someone in the third person in a first aid scenario without assuming gender, without buying into genderwoo, and without directly referencing the sex they are presenting as (assuming "gender" as you call it)? So you're on the phone to an ambulance to hand over to paramedics and you need to say "she/he"... or what? What do you say without "assuming gender"? You have to ask the person what they identify as (or as I put it, wanging on about genderwoo). Which I'm saying I would find distressing at a time when I'm already distressed because it's bloody obvious that I'm female and just the act of "not assuming gender" is not a neutral act.

Or are you implying MHFA is only for people having a bad day not people in genuine crisis in need of immediate medical attention? Is the issue here that you've just never actually had to deal with a real and serious MH crisis so don't know that you'd need to... oh I don't know, identify the patient to emergency services?

You mean the number of trans people using MHFA? I wonder why that could be? Maybe the affirming approach isn’t helping

I haven’t worked in mental health for nearly three decades, so appreciate things will have changes massively. But do you really collude with people over their sex? You’d never say to an obese person, ‘your just a bit podgy’ or ‘you’re slim’ just as you’d never say to someone with anorexia ‘you’re just a little bit skinny’ ‘you’re fat’. You’d generally avoid mentioning any characteristics in the initial phase of treatment and as the therapeutic process evolved, you’d very gently and slowly, start to talk about the difficulties / issues surrounding the illness. So whilst I would use their preferred name and be very careful with pronoun use with a dysphoric patient, I would use their biological pronouns when discussing with a colleague. Would this now be wrong? presumably on the training day ‘Lu’ was not actually present. Or is part of the training about not making assumptions? In which case the instructor could have been reminded the delegate, gently, that when medically treating an individual it’s very important to leave assumptions outside the consulting room door.
the only time it was ever okay (and even then not all professionals would agree) to collaborate with a dementia patient was if being factual with them would cause greater upset.

Also, even if a was 'dealing with an imaginary foe', one of the issues with mental health is what exactly? Would you like me to spell out your ignorance and idiotic logic here for you? I'm sure everyone else can see the paradox you've just created right there.

No I am someone who understands exactly how much damage gender ideology can do the mental health of other people.

HTH.

If correctly identifying someone's sex is 'dangerous' it would suggest that the person had already been indulged to the point of fragility.

If someone's in urgent need of mental health treatment the last thing they need is someone indulging their imaginings.

It's more that you seem to be battling an imaginary foe. I'll leave you to it

Says it all doesn't it?

I'm going to instantly dismiss you because you aren't on message and are making a point that I deliberately wish to be ignorant about so I don't have to question my own position.

@RedToothBrush I can't take you seriously. Gender critical people would get the same help as anyone. It's all about keeping an open mind and helping the patient in the moment. Challenging dysphoria would not happen during any first aid.

Oh there is a lesson to be learnt. These include ones you don't want to hear...

Yes you will. This doesn't mean you should affirm though. This is the trap the Tavistock fell into and the Cass Review felt was problematic.

This also doesn't mean there aren't other scenarios where someone might be distressed and it relates to trauma related to someone using opposite sex pronouns.

The idea that this goes in one direction only is pathetic and ridiculous.

We have a whole series of threads relating to the abuse of wives. We've had various legal cases which have drawn attention to cases where women have been told they can't have been raped, denied medical care, forced to share changing rooms with a male amongst others.

Obviously gender critical women are amazing and never ever have their own mental health issues and if they do it's their own fault for not accepting males dominance over them...

Numbers of people identifying as trans have increased rapidly lately, I don't think the others have. By all means, complain. But I think it would be a shame to pretend there's no lesson to be learned.

Definitely ask about how other protected characteristics will be examined during the training. Make sure your replies cover as many of the other 8 as possible.

Why would they do that? It seems the lesson is not to assume gender. Not to bang on about genderwang

And yet as someone with a serious mental illness who is also GC, I feel MHFAs are unable to support me because if I came across one who started wanging on at me about genderwoo or asking my pronouns in the middle of a crisis it could send me over the edge of feeling completely alone and isolated, I'd pretend everything's fine, then go home and carry on with plans without seeking help.
Meeting people where they're at includes supporting GC women without shoehorning ideology into anything.

I can just picture the trainer’s wagging finger at the front of the room. FFS. 🙄

Yes, but why did they do that? They obviously didn't explain very well, but you do come across people with quite severe dysphoria when working with mental health.