Ice pick lobotomies...

[diddlemethis]

To treat mental illness in the 1940s/50s orbital lobotomies were performed in their thousands. These grim operations consisted of an ice pick being inserted through the corner of the eye, which then broke the scull, and then the pick was used to mash the frontal lobe of the brain.

This was considered the best and kindest thing for folk suffering from mental illnesses.

AIBU, (definitely being a GF!) to think we will look back at the giving of cancer drugs and neutering children, on the understanding that it’s the correct and best thing to do, with the same horror?

@thetoothyteeth one is, she was the first to transition, and according to her mum it’s not a recent thing- been ongoing since she was 4/5 but they’ve only just started to take it seriously, counselling etc, but by all accounts if the others went to the GP they could have the treatment on nothing more than their say so.

@user since she was 4/5. Christ. I wonder if she was allowed to just be would she be transitioning now. Maybe but doubtful.

I work sometimes writing blog posts for a plastic surgeon (who doesn't do trans surgery) and clitoral hood reduction as part of labiaplasty is now illegal in the UK under female genital mutilation act. Now bare in mind, whatever your personal opinion is - these 'designer vagina' operations are done all over the world now with remote chances of any permanent nerve damage. Just women wanting a smaller vulva. Fine, crack on for them.

So adult women can't legally get a clitoral hood reduction in the UK but a child can get a tablet and surgery to make the clitoris a non thing entirely - not develop etc. It seems like this whole thing is unstoppable. The movement answers to no one.

When DD was 13/14 she liked to wear suits, men's shoes - and she questioned her gender. We had lots of calm, gentle conversations about how she was at a delicate age and hormones were running wild, and that it's perfectly normal to be trying to figure out who you are in your early teens. She seemed fairly resolute that she didn't 'feel like a girl'.

She came out as a lesbian when she was 15. She's now 20 and no longer wears suits, she hasn't since she came out. She has since told me that she knew she was 'different' and fancied girls but thought only boys could fancy girls without being bullied. Basically, she was very confused - as most of us are at 13.

Six or seven years ago the whole trans thing wasn't anywhere near as prevalent. If she'd been 13 now, what with all the guff on the internet and the (I'll say it) fashion for transing rather than counselling kids, goodness knows how things would have turned out.

DD is very happy with her girlfriend and they want to have children one day. Imagine how different things might have been and how she would've felt, years later, upon understanding that she was actually a gay woman.

It's so, so worrying.

I have wondered if giving someone drugs to change their body because they have gender dysphoria (and think their body is wrong / doesn't match their thoughts), is not too different to letting anorexics with body dysmorphia to starve to death (because as an anorexic, they "think" they are fat and should shrink to death even tho they are dangerously skinny) and let the anorexic go with absolutely no treatment because that's how they feel happiest - when starving to death.
They experience mind tricks.

It's called a disorder.
Seriously I am concerned how we are addressing mental health problems, and yes they are similar to the days of lobotomies and themany unethical treatments and experiments of the 1950s and 1960s which are now banned because of the horrendous effects on people.
A child might think they are a boy and not a girl, but they think lots of different things as we all know. We don't let them do certain things at a young age because they are still growing, developing, learning. Their brains are constantly growing new pathways. It's not until they are much older that this development slows down, the chemicals begin to balance out, and the individual's life becomes much ... calmer.
I just think of teenagers for example. They often want to do the opposite of the most sensible things at times, but mostly they grow out of it because they are growing and they are always changing.
So you are not far off OP.
And another thing, if typical drug approval testing takes years and years (10-12 years) to get through to be deemed safe or unsafe, why is no one saying we should halt what is currently happening to these confused kids thus far, and wait and see what the results are like in 10-20 years.... maybe it was right for them , but what if it's horribly wrong?
If "they" did halt drug giving then they could see if the giving of these drugs to stop sex development in kids was the wisest thing. How did "they" push it through so quickly, and how come no one is stopping medical advisors from doing so?
I agree some kids are quite possibly getting pretty messed up before our very eyes. And it seems if you try and say anything against this whole topic you are considered to lack progression, acceptance, tolerance etc. Have we forgotten our recent medical history and are we just rewriting the same old, same old as the OP suggests?

@thetoothyteeth I meant she had been saying she was a boy since that age and her mum just thought she was a tomboy (I hate that word) but it’s only within the last year or so they’ve been taking it seriously. I do believe she feels this way - I’ve known all 4 girls from when they were little and she never joined in with the princessy/girly stuff that my dd and the other 3 girls enjoyed. I don’t believe the other girls are transgender and it just makes a mockery of the one who is.