to think no one could support transing children after reading this

[naivetyisthenewblack]

Putting this in AIBU instead of feminism as it's a response to Butterfly, the mainstream ITV drama that seems to be supporting the idea that puberty blockers are safe / a good idea.

But, puberty blockers are far from safe. That we're giving them to kids is a massive scandal that will explode soon enough.

I challenge anyone to read this and explain why giving kids these drugs instead of counselling is a good idea.

www.transgendertrend.com/puberty-blockers-safe/

I think older trans people (most of whom have no intention of ever having genital surgery themselves) push child transition because the more younger transitioners there are the more it blurs the line between trans women and other women. The line “trans women are women” is hard to swallow when most trans women look like Eddie Izzard, as they do now. It will be much easier to push when there are more of these younger transitioners who will grow up to be fairly indistinguishable from any other woman. Of course, most of them would have likely grown up to be gay men with happy sex lives if left to themselves.

Imagine consenting to give up your right to a satisfying sex life before you have ever even experienced real sexual stimulation. If you watch Jazz Jennings you will see that that is unquestionably what has happened to her. I do not exaggerate when I say I believe her parents, doctors and all involved in the making of that horribly exploitative programme should be in jail for child abuse. In decades to come I am certain what they’ve done will be recognised as such.

I'm busybnow but I'll like to come back and read

I wrote a post about a similar thing the other day, but mine was more focused on the fact that many parents and parents of friends of the child in question take it all at 100% face value.

They see no need to do any deeper research as powerful lobby groups have come along all smiles and light (sometimes via official school guidance!), cheerfully telling them it's a definitely nothing more than "harmless pause" and parents need to do it to ensure the child doesn't commit suicide.

Given no right-minded person would come out with that level of sick hyperbolic emotional blackmail just to further a cause, its not unreasonable that loving concerned guardians go along with it.

If these activist groups came out with the honest truth - that these drugs mean your child will never have functioning adult genitalia, let alone a proper sex life/function/desire, that the side effects can be horrendous, and that many children simply "grow out" of their feelings anyway, you can imagine the outcome.

They are so desperate to justify themselves, they will throw children under the bus to achieve it.

Sloth, agreed. I remember seeing an episode when they were talking to her about when she has a vagina. I remember thinking what utter wickedness that was that they were lying to her like that. She is never going to have a vagina; self-cleaning, elastic. At best she is going to have an opening which has to be regularly dilated and will grow hair inside. It is terrible what they have done to her; they should at least be honest.

Still, the mum has the girl she "always knew" she was carrying.

I get scared about airing my views online as some intersectional feminists are quick to accuse people who say stuff like this as transphobics...but...my opinion is that we as adults should try our best to challenge gender stereotypes so that children can feel confident about their individuality whatever bits they were born with. There is still so much gender stereotyping in the media and advertising...imo the reason someone transitions (I mean surgically and taking hormones with the risks that entails) should not be because they feel they do not fit in with the stereotype society imposes in them. I realise gender dysphoria will happen in some people reagrdless of what sociological influences are going on. However, imo no child should feel they ought to change their bodies in order to fit into societal expectations. The adolescent brain is a complicated thing. I used to have crushes on girls and have dreams I had a penis. There wasn't any pressure around at that time to suggest that maybe this meant I should be a boy and as an adult I'm very happy to live as a heterosexual cis woman. I didn't share these things at the time so no one told me I should suppress them. Children and teenagers need the space to get to know the person they're developing into without feeling pressurised to label themselves. A boy who is into fashion or make up should not be told he likes 'girly things' and a girl who is interested in football or trucks or who doesn't care about the latest hairstyle should not be labelled unfeminine. Hormones are a tricky thing to mess with (I can't even tolerate oestrogen/progesterone medications as a woman) and there isn't yet a strong evidence base of the long term risks of giving hormonal treatments to preteens/teens who feel that they are the 'wrong gender'. I am not transphobic but I'm sure many would accuse me of being so based on what I've said.

Unfortunately @YesSheCan such ideas are now regularly condemned as transphobic. Don’t believe a boy is “really” a girl despite being a boy? Transphobic. Don’t believe people are “born in the wrong body”? Transphobic. Think scientists should be able to research in this area? Transphobic. Think women should have the political freedom to meet and discuss proposed sweeping changes to the law? Transphobic. And for any of these thought crimes you can quite easily find yourself ostracised by your friends and/or fired from your job.

I know a young man who, as a child, regularly wished he was a girl. He used to cry that he wished he was a girl. His parents encouraged him to be himself, not to be bound by gender stereotypes and to wear the clothes he wanted to wear, play with the toys he wanted to play with and loved and accepted him for him. His mum got a lot of shit for 'letting' him have a pink fluffy pencil case or play with a doll. As a 26 year old adult, he is openly gay, lives very happily as a man and works as a professional drag artist. He got to grow up in a household that allowed him to be himself and not be bound by ridiculous gender rules. Most importantly, he wasnt told his feelings meant there was something wrong with him. Some kids who feel as this young man did will grow up and realise they want to transition. But they deserve to have the opportunity to make that decision as a fully developed adult.

I think that there are quite a few people out there who think that taking puberty blockers & then cross sex hormones means that the child will then have the puberty of the opposite sex.

Hopefully, there is minimal NHS "treatment" along these lines, but I am worried that the likes of Webberley are subverting the system. And justice won't be done down the line when the shit hits the fan. Just lessons learned (and we can see now how little that is true, given the willingness to abandon safeguarding procedures).

She plans to provide a sexual service because she has no access to sexual feelings of her own

Sorry, could someone please clarify what this means? Has Jazz Jennings announced that they plan to be a sex worker?

Doobigetta it means she will be able to provide pleasure to male partners by providing a neo vagina for them to have sex with - and to male or female partners by stimulating them, but she will not ever be a sexually mature adult, so will not be able to enjoy sex in the way other adults do.

Good grief.

When I was a child I was desperate to be a boy. I felt so certain that I WAS really a boy that I thought I would naturally change sex as I grew, as a part of growing up. I had a boy hair cut, a football strip, I refused ever to wear a dress or skirt. I went on and on at my Mum about being a boy.

Come puberty, all that evaporated. I am now a happy woman, not feminine but very female, and a feminist.

I would have begged for puberty blockers aged 10. I am very happy now that I have a great life as a woman, a great sex life, etc,

These stats and medical evidence need serious coverage in the credible press. The broadsheets, New Scientist etc.

Why aren’t doctors speaking out about this?

This makes me literally want to puke. What are these people doing to their children?

In years to come putting children on hormone blockers will be seen in exactly the same light as FGM. When the hell did it become acceptable to drug our children? To stop the natural development of body and mind? To bind a child’s breasts like some ancient Chinese footbinding experiment brought into the modern day. Pushing gender stereotyping down children’s necks, allowing people like mermaids access to children and families at very vulnerable times in their lives when most children hate the changes going on in their bodies and someone is there offering drugs saying you don’t have to allow your body to change, you can stay as you are!

What I'd like to know is why we are strenuously advised to allow dogs to go through puberty before neutering, as there are multiple growth hormones that are essential for them to develop healthily both physically and mentally, but blocking puberty entirely in children is totally fine and harmless?

This huge 'movement' with its tsunami-like power and unstoppability hasn't crept over the parapet of our consciousness gradually as social change has done historically. It's taken advantage of social media and everyone being their own judge and jury, driven by greed, by the profits possible for big pharma and other companies and institutions and their billionaire owners and investors, in supplying meds and services, backed up by their privately funded university departments and schools of gender studies to create the market for them.

Anyone who gets in the way of this process will be trampled on and abused, to be quiet and not resist with our demands e.g. to not have our recognition and rights as women frightened out of existence.

Ultimately the biggest, saddest victims will be those trans people who thought they had the support and opportunities they need. Some will come through it and be happier, and Jazz Jennings might be one of them, but many will not and who will care about them then? Certainly not the billionaires who added a few more noughts to their asset values because of them.

The reference I have for how these changes happen is Jane Mayer's book Dark Money. It's a long read but very informative. I'm about to start reading it for a third time.

God that's horrific. And inverting a penis can never make a vagina anyway. A vagina is a complex organ, not just the absence of a penis.
It's lying to children to tell them you can change sex, and it's abuse to collude with doctors to give children hormones they don't need and cut their healthy bodies. Fucking delete me for sayng it, it's true.

Can I defend the pharmaceutical industry for a moment? The medications used as puberty blockers are on the market for other, more regular reasons. For example, triptorelin is used in men with prostate cancer (my father is on it, aged 82). Similarly luprorelin is used for prostate cancer, and endometriosis. They are also used, with good reason in precocious puberty. The use as a puberty blocker for non-medical reasons is off label and the decision to do this rests with the parents and doctors responsible, not the pharmaceutical companies (or at least not, those at grass roots level who are most concerned with patient welfare).

I write this as a GC individual who completed the consultation, before I am accused of being pro child abuse.

Are the cash strapped NHS funding this ? Shocking that in the situation they are in they provide this yet desperate parents cannot acess proper mental health support

providing a neo vagina for them to have sex with - and to male or female partners by stimulating them, but she will not ever be a sexually mature adult, so will not be able to enjoy sex in the way other adults do.

That sits uncomfortably close to child abuse.

Eloquent and persuasive response there MorningsEleven

Great cogent debating there Mornings. I'm sure you have convinced loads of curious lurkers and posters with that.