Netherlands Puberty Blocker Review Comes to Opposite Conclusion, Dismisses Cass Review

Doesn't he now also claim to be a "cis woman"

I would push back on the idea that using the word gender depends on accepting a particular belief system. I’d suggest that "gender identity" is simply the label that has come to be used to identify a real neurocognitive experience, in much the same way that "phantom limb" is the label for a particular neurological phenomenon. The label itself isn’t the important part.

Perhaps “gender identity” isn’t even the best term. If we were naming the phenomenon from scratch, we might choose something like “phantom sex” or another term that more directly reflects the underlying experience—(although the worry would be that wording might be co-opted by those who want to dismiss gender incongruence as merely “imaginary.")

Whatever we choose to call it, what matters is that we understand three things:

1. What the phenomenon actually is.
2. That it is real—not as a separate physical entity, but as a genuine neurocognitive experience.
3. That it is conceptually independent of a person’s ideological or philosophical beliefs about gender stereotypes, or understanding of the biological facts of sex development.

I increasingly think that, if we want to make progress scientifically and reduce many of the social and political disputes surrounding this topic, we need to shift the focus away from philosophical / conceptual debates about "sex" and "gender" and their social consequences . Those debates are important in some contexts, but they don’t tell us much about the underlying phenomenon itself.

Instead, we should be asking how the brain represents aspects of the sexed body at a neurocognitive level, and whether variation in those processes can help explain gender incongruence. Which brain regions and neural networks are involved? How does the brain construct and maintain an internal representation of the sexed body? Are there variations in these processes that help explain why some people develop gender dysphoria?

Alongside that, I think we may ultimately need new terminology altogether. The word gender has accumulated so many cultural, conceptual, and political meanings that it often obscures the phenomenon more than it clarifies it.

It's the concept that one can internalise and "be" a particular gender. To non-believers like me, it's impossible to be a gender.

Exactly.

In this context, "being" a gender is a performed activity and declaring it as an identity is meaningless.

Yup. I'm not a man. I don't even "feel like a man". I don't have some mysterious and nebulous "male gender identity". I only present as a man by performing stereotypical masculinity.

I don't have a problem with the word "performance," personally. I feel it depicts exactly what I do.

This is a claim that’s widely repeated online, but I personally can't find any evidence that she actually made that statement?

If there’s an original interview, video, or post, I'd be interested to review it to better understand what she said and the context in which she said it. But until then, I don’t think it’s sensible to base an argument on an unattributed claim by one individual
that’s circulated on social media. :)

Furthermore, even if one individual did make an inaccurate statement about their anatomy, that wouldn’t establish that gender dysphoria isn’t a real condition or that people with gender dysphoria are generally deluded or lying. Those are general claims that require explanation and evidence about the condition itself from the body of literature, not anecdotes about one person

I didn't say I have a full-blown delusion, precisely because I know I don't. "Phantom limb" is indeed a lot closer to what I feel, except in phantom limb cases, the brain remembers a limb that used to exist and be attached to the body, which makes sense, while in my case, my brain wholesale made up a limb that never existed, and refuses to acknowledge the existence or position of bits that do exist, which is... a lot weirder.

I would argue it's difficult to imagine how such a fundamental neuro cognitive experience could have been caused by socialisation

Maternal socialisation, to be precise. Possibilities:

• She was convinced I was a boy while she was pregnant (she had Reasons for very, very much wanting this to be true), and that influenced my development in utero.
• She had a marked negative reaction when I was born to my being a girl, and I picked up on that.

Or maybe it's just all a big coincidence, and the faulty bit in my brain is purely neurological and not psychological at all. That's definitely another possibility.

The disagreement isn’t over the physical facts; it’s over how "sex" should be defined, recognised and applied in different social, legal and scientific contexts.

Interesting.

So, taking it from your perspective, they are aware of their bodies and have discomfort/distress about it. In the vast majority of cases their body is healthy and features are within the normal ranges, but they think the words are wrong.

How does that form a reasonable basis for redefining words such as 'sex'?

Why would a child's perspective on this be taken as a reason to change the word meaning altogether?

If redefining the meaning of sex to accommodate them is important, how does it then naturally follow that their body must be altered?

Bringing us back to the question of how does this justify giving puberty blockers to children for transition?

Alongside that, I think we may ultimately need new terminology altogether.

I would agree. And for more than just 'gender'.

Although, as you have pointed out, a large part of this is about redefining words. Gender, sex, man, woman, he, she, male, female.

You appear to be trying to find a measurable biological reason for transgenderism that can form the basis of redefining the meanings of these words. This idea is rejected by a lot of trans people and allies, including clinicians.

I think it's an area worthy of study, before a puberty blocker trial is considered. So far investigations have found nothing conclusive.

That "body map" in your brain and what it's telling you- that experence is real- whatever ideological beliefs you hold, that body map persists , and that it is what people refer to as "gender identity".

Then it's a complete misnomer, because it's got nothing to do with "gender" and everything to do with "sex". I have sex dysmorphia or something, not gender dysphoria.

Again with the strawmen and distinctions without difference.

Apparently because the mind knows reality does not match the belief, it can't be a delusion.

But the delusion is not that the body isn't what it physically is, but that the mind is somehow wrong for the body. The delusion is the transgender identity, the persistent belief that a part of one's mind is incorrect for one's body. When of course any given mind is the product of one specific body. It may be unhappy but it cannot be "wrong", any more than a body can have the wrong shadow.

Also time for the regular reminder of the rubber hand experiment that shows the body map is not innate, but something actively produced by our mind based on our experiences, and as such it can be induced to "map" sonething we fool ouselves into believing in.

Science addresses the how. Religion addresses the why.

@AimsAndObjectives this is a good example of what I mean by someone's own personal balance and acceptable level of cognitive dissonance.

As a non-believer in god, I have accepted that I have no answer whatsoever about why the universe happened, why we have consciousness and all that stuff.... other than "something started it all because it did". I'm quite happy with that being unknown and don't need religion to fill in the blanks for me. For some people, the existence of god explains it. If they also believe that the big bang was real, they will need to reject god as the creator of the universe but can presumably still have space for god as the creator of consciousness and the "souls" associated with this (i.e the part that is the mind, where it is separate from the body).

I feel similarly about the interactions of biology (e.g. testosterone-driven aggression and libido) and societal influence that might explain why we end up with sex-based stereotypes. I spent a lot of time learning why people thought of this as a gender identity, initially assuming that I had one too. I also learned some interesting aspects of feminist theory. The more I researched, the more I realised I didn't believe that everyone has a gender identity.... and that I'm totally ok with not knowing more about why we have a whole spectrum of societal behaviours that match or differ from sex-based stereotypes. I took my exploration of feminist theory as far as I had an interest, which I imagine to be a lot less than many posters on this board.

One thing I've noticed that I do find interesting is that some Christians get annoyed with me when I position their belief in god as just as real (or not) as someone else's belief that everyone has a gender identity. To me they are just as non-sensical as each other, but I know that plenty of people believe in either or both. Recognising this is why I don't use the word "delusional" to describe anyone's belief.

Everyone has their own appetite for seeking and getting answers on Life's Big Questions.

I think we have good evidence that some people can take against various bits of their body in a way that they simultaneously know is "not so", and yet can't help doing because there is a quirk of some kind in whatever maps their body; and that it is sufficiently distressing in some cases to lead to extreme action in trying to alleviate it.

Where the anomaly (and the ideas) come in, is in treating such a state of mind about sex-related bits of the body differently from a similar state of mind about other bits of anatomy, eg arms and legs.

I wonder if it is because the existence of another sex gives the illusion of a viable alternative which isn't there in the other cases. Despite talk of being "differently abled", the stark truth is that someone without their legs, arms, eyes etc is disadvantaged compared with a human being who has the full set of kit. They aren't simply a different kind of human being and anyone desiring that situation is clearly in an unhealthy state of mind.

But if it's your sexed bits you don't like, because the opposite sex exists it's possible to imagine being a fully functional human being of a different kind and entertain the idea that you are "really" that other kind in some way. In other words, in the cases of sex-related characteristics, what is different is not the mis-mapping but the interpretation of what the mis-mapping signifies.

The situation is complicated by the fact that sex has become so socially loaded that people can also have all sorts of motives (conscious and unconscious) for wanting to abandon their natal sex, which have nothing to do with how their brain maps their body. (Escaping from misogyny is an obvious one.) There is less incentive to desire body alterations of other kinds.

Yep ...back the question that was never answered way back at the start of the thread:

Is "being trans" a feeling one is the opposite sex, despite being the sex one is?

Or is it actually, truly, in a not-yet-understood way, genuinely being the opposite sex, in a way that makes you genuinely more like the oppodite sex than your own actual sex?

And if the former, why does believing yourself to be something that you are not place an obligation on the rest of the world to pretend you are?

And if the latter, why is this "thing that no one can perceive and that is not sex" suddenly now the "real" definition of Man or Woman rather than the simple observable fact of sex?

And even if it somehow is reasonable that this "thing that is not sex" has to ne the yardstick for a man or a woman, why it is also necessary to pretend the thing that is sex doesn't matter and doesn't have consequences as well?

Are people in favour of children being given puberty blockers and made sterile and likely brain damaged because they believe it is the best way to relieve the distress of the dysphoria, or because they actually believe men and women are labels for our minds rather than our bodies?

And adding another - if it's simply to relieve distress, what happens next?

Are the people advocating PBs implicitly writing a blank cheque that the trans person will be accomodated as the oppodite sex in all things going forward and placing an obligation on society to cash it because otherwise BANG, back comes the dysphoria which we already established is so bad it justified blocking healthy psychological and sexual development? In a society that let that happen are we really going to be allowed to say "no" to the further demands that will undoubtably follow (and follow with the additional emotional blackmail of the damage already done)?

And if not, where does the actual boundary lie, after they already accepted so much?

Depends on whether India Willoughby understands what a cervix is. Also, is there any chance surgeons have learnt how to make and insert a plastic cervix?

@Sunnibee
I'm not sure these two statements sit well together.

These people generally aren’t claiming to have the opposite anatomy. They’re perfectly aware of what their bodies are.

and

Gender is real in the sense that is it a real psychological-/ neuro cognitive experience . That "body map" in your brain and what it's telling you- that experence is real

Using the word "gender" doesn't require a belief system. Using the phrase "gender identity" does.

"Phantom sex" sounds like a good description for anyone who genuinely experiences distressing dysphoria about their sexed body and finds that imagining it to be the opposite sex alleviates this in some way. It doesn't explain the fetishists' experience, but nor does gender dysphoria currently.

Did you get chance to read the blog I linked above? For me, having a societal understanding of the difference between a fetishist and someone genuinely experiencing phantom sex (or whatever we call it) is critical. Without that difference being clear, we're never going to help distressed children or adults. This relates to point 1 on your list of key questions: describing what the phenomen is. It needs decoupling from the fetish.

This then leads to your second numbered point. It's possible to acknowledge that the experience is real while still seeking to find and treat the underlying reasons that led to it. The success of this will largely come down to how wedded the person is to the belief that we all have a gender identity. If that's their start point, there may be no possibility of ever getting deep enough to understand what caused the distress because there will be a foundational understanding that it's a mismatch between a firmly held sense of gender identity and biological reality.

Regarding point 3, if someone believes we all have a gender identity, there is probably no way of ever establishing how separate these things are in their mind.

Yes.

I don’t understand how medical care can treat somebody on the basis that they have dysphoria, (disconnect between mind and material reality) but also be part of a movement that takes the ideological view that material reality is irrelevant.

’TWAW’ is where it all breaks down.

He not only thinks he has a cervix but wants to flaunt it on TV.

@BonfireLady For some people, the existence of god explains it. If they also believe that the big bang was real, they will need to reject god as the creator of the universe

All that big bang theory, or any other mainstream cosmological theory, does is attempt to explain the way in which the universe evolves from its initial state. They cannot explain why there is an initial state. Even cyclical cosmological theories cannot explain why there is something rather than nothing. At times I have believed in a god and at times I haven't; it makes no impact on my scientific reasoning. Perhaps you are thinking of literal Creationists?

Mr Menno has an hilarious instructional video & song about India & his cervix.

I'm definitely thinking of all Christians.

If you're a Christian who rejects creationism, of which there are many, you presumably choose which bits of Genesis are just a story. To some Christians the entire Bible is true.

I presume that most Christians believe Mary was a virgin and that Jesus rose from the dead... Setting aside artificial insemination on the former, both are biologically impossible of course.

Believing that Jesus was a man and the son of a deity is another good example of a belief that clashes with reality.

When belief conflicts with scientific facts it's very personal as to what people believe.

If they also believe that the big bang was real, they will need to reject god as the creator of the universe

Missed the original post with this and a bit off topic, but why would believing in the big bang prevent you from believing it was instigated by God?

Most Christians are under no obligation to believe Genesis is scientifically factual. They might have other non-scientific beliefs that they are required to profess and those would make a better analogy for you than cosmological theories.

But surely that's physically impossible for any woman unless using a speculum and a tiny camera. I think Willoughby just doesn't understand what a cervix is, probably means 'vulva'...

That's why it's funny. And also sad that someone should go to such lengths to get a simulacrum of female anatomy and either nobody's explained or IW has not understood what female anatomy actually is and the limits of what they can give a male person.

I've said it often already- I think the trans fantasy falls into the same bucket as clairvoyance, shamanism, mediums, resurrection, underwater humans, gods and so on - a very obvious metaphor for the subconscious mind to seize on to explain/label a need or feeling.

Death, animals, fate, water, the opposite sex; all universal and familar but also ultimately barriers we can never cross. No wonder the human mind ascribes meaning and significance to them beyond their actual factual existence.

And also very telling in the context of this thread.

Clearly gender dysphoria doesn't extend to distress at missing the parts of the opposite sex's body one doesn't know about. Only the phyiscal differences one knows about cause distress,

Highlighting again that for all the talk of body map, both the map and possible distress because of it are products of the mind constructing meaning based on what it experiences.

Gender dysphoria is a mental distress entirely within and caused entirely by the (sub)concious mind and the associations that person subconciously projects onto body sex. It's not an unmediated experience.