To think that this book should not be sold to young girls?

[WandaWomblesaurus]

twitter.com/Waterstones/status/1623584986740953091?s=20&t=WU0D0fzc6ClGJC5R-gJnuw

Waterstones tweeted celebrating a book that is about transing girls. Here is one of the illustrations from the book.

AIBU to think that this is directly promoting self harm to young vulnerable girls?

Awful !

Did you see the later pages, promoting testosterone use and suggesting that puberty blockers were harmless?

It's a book about someone's lived experiences. When happen to be positive ones, they don't require censoring because they don't fit your world view.

They do not have lived experience that puberty blockers are reversible, how could they?
You can't even use basic logic in your rush to promote defend this shite.

The post I responded to said "harmless" not reversible.

If anyone's in too much of a rush to promote something, it's you, not me.

Take your own advice.

I have just looked at the Google Books preview, if what is in the book was Lewis's experience growing up then I just feel great sadness, the pain coming through is obvious.

The page in the OP is just awful though.

Puberty blockers can be hugely damaging and there is little to no evidence of any benefit. All research that does exist that is suggestive of benefit has been assessed as being of poor quality. Moreover, the research was carried out mostly on young males. In a book aimed at young women, any suggestion that puberty blockers are harmless or reversible is negligent.

Suggesting to teenagers that lesbians who hate their bodies might be happier if they take testosterone and cut their breasts off is roughly the same as telling young women who feel they are overweight that they might feel better if they take amphetamines and have a gastric bypass.

But as someone else has stated, this will give important historical context when looking back at a scandal that will end up eclipsing the scandal over lobotomy. That is undoubtedly where we are heading as thousands of young women are being pushed towards transition, when it is clearly not indicated for that demographic.

I don’t know if this image will be allowed but this is the reality of what this ‘cartoon’ promotes.

www.thefp.com/p/i-thought-i-was-saving-trans-kids

Also this is a very powerful testimony from an American counsellor in a ‘paediatric gender clinic’.

Ah, that explains a lot. So the 'fatty lumps' is how the author felt. It's absolutely OK for individuals to write about their personal feelings and I suspect that this person felt particularly alone and 'freaky' as a teen and perhaps wished there was something they could relate to.

Whether you like it or not, there are genuine cases of gender dysphoria. Yes, there are countless kids who believe they are trans. I thought I was myself at 16 until a kind Sociology tutor steered me towards feminist literature and I realised it was societal expectations of women that I was uncomfortable with, not my vag. I'm sure that many boys feel uncomfortable with male expectations too. For some people though, this is very real. Lots of these people will be under 18. How do we help them? How do we make them feel supported, heard and that they are being taken seriously.

I refuse to believe gender dysphoria is 'made-up'. For crying out loud, you don't get your cock cut open and turned inside out for fun do you? You don't do it so you can have a cursory glance at half naked women in a changing room. You don't get your breasts chopped off for shits and giggles either. I do think that the timeframe for living as the opposite sex should be longer before any interventions (inc. blockers) take place, complete with heaps of counselling and work on the self - this is major stuff and many people are mistaken. Not all of them though and these people must be listened to and understood and if part of that involves reading about the experiences of others then so be it. Better that than self-loathing/harming/destruction or even suicide.

Maybe books on the subject of 'I thought I was trans but I was just rejecting expectations' are needed too?

Puberty blockers are not harmless.

I refuse to believe gender dysphoria is 'made-up'.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the feelings of distress don’t exist. My personal feeling is that physical transition is snake oil and that in the longer term, and on average, it causes more physical and mental damage than it alleviates. It is far from being fixed science and is based on poor evidence, having been set in motion by a pervert (John Money - feel free to look him up.)

For crying out loud, you don't get your cock cut open and turned inside out for fun do you?

95% of men who claim they are women have no intention of having their penis and testicles removed. The majority claiming they are trans now, and particularly those driving much of the extremist lobbying, would previously have been called transvestites.

And where is anyone saying these young women are having mastectomies for shit and giggles? These are children as young as twelve and presumably feel strongly it’s the right thing for them. Do you think they understand the consequences well enough at fourteen years old to take that decision?

@PriOn1 Regardless of how small the percentage is, there are still biological males having this procedure. They were once boys and I'm willing to bet their adolescence was a living hell. Todays boys (and girls) in this situation need to be listened to and understood, regardless of number. And who on earth is allowing girls as young as 12 to have a mastectomy? That's abysmal and you will recall that I spoke about a much longer period of time living as the opposite sex before interventions start. In the meantime, how is their wellbeing ensured? How can they feel less alone? Part of this surely includes hearing the experiences of others.

@PriOn1

Your declarations and stats, where do they come from? They seem so different from what is recently published.

My personal feeling is that physical transition is snake oil and that in the longer term, and on average, it causes more physical and mental damage than it alleviates.

But this study of 27,715 transgender people found that
*After adjustment for sociodemographic factors and exposure to other types of gender-affirming care, undergoing 1 or more types of gender-affirming surgery was associated with lower past-month psychological distress (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.58; 95% CI, 0.50-0.67; P < .001), past-year smoking (aOR, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.57-0.75; P < .001), and past-year suicidal ideation (aOR, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.50-0.64; P < .001).…..This study demonstrates an association between gender-affirming surgery and improved mental health outcomes. These results contribute new evidence to support the provision of gender-affirming surgical care for TGD people.

95% of men who claim they are women have no intention of having their penis and testicles removed.

The same study found:
Of the 27 715 respondents, 3559 (12.8%) endorsed undergoing 1 or more types of gender-affirming surgery at least 2 years prior to submitting survey responses, while 16 401 (59.2%) endorsed a desire to undergo 1 or more types of gender-affirming surgery but denied undergoing any of these.

So that’s 72% of transgender people have either already had gender affirming surgery or desire(intend) to undergo gender affirming surgery.

Association Between Gender-Affirming Surgeries and Mental Health Outcomes
JAMA Surg 2021 Jul 1;156(7):611-618. doi: 10.1001/jamasurg.2021.0952.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909023/

@Onnabugeisha

In 2016, a meta-analysis of 27 studies estimated a rate of approx 10 per 100,000 of the population (0.01%) have a transgender diagnosis and/or surgical or hormonal treatment. In contrast 355 per 100,000 of the population(0.35%) self-identity as transgender. This means only 2.8% of the transgender community is undergoing any gender-affirming treatment with the vast majority 97.2% simply self-identity with no modifications to their sexed body whatsoever.

No one knows for sure how many transwomen keep their penis, but there are fewer than 10 surgeons in the UK who can undertake the relevant operation. Even if they each performed one operation every single day this would still only represent an absolute maximum of 3,500 surgeries each year. The actual number performed is likely to be very much smaller than this. An estimate of just a few hundred operations each year would not be unreasonable.

There is also data available from the US HERE showing that genital surgery is very rare. In this study (sampling 20% of all outpatient hospital discharges in the US) there were only a few hundred genital surgeries performed each year. (205 in 2012, 250 in 2013, 345 in 2014). This suggests that between 1000-2000 genital surgeries were performed across the whole of the US each. If the trans community in the US represents 1% of the US population this means we’d expect there to be in the region of 3 million people identifying as trans in the US. This means less than 0.1% of the trans community undergoes genital surgery each year supporting our conclusion that the vast majority of males who identify as women retain their penis.

fairplayforwomen.com/penis/

@MorganKitten but she didn't advocate for the chopping off of Ralph did she?

Adolescence is a living hell for most people. It was for me.

I'm glad that I was 'only' able to give myself permanent scars from self harm (still clearly visible nearly 30 years on) and lasting damage from anorexia and bulimia. At least I wasn't given the option to cut off my breasts and render myself infertile, prematurely menopausal , and dependent on expensive drugs for the rest of my life

Teenage girls don't need extra encouragement to loathe their bodies.

Black girls are taught to see themselves as ugly and to aspire to a 'White' beauty ideal. Indian girls buy skin bleaching cream. Chinese/Korean girls have epicanthal fold surgery on their eyelids to look more European. I'd hope that as women, we can see how destructive that self loathing is. I don't know why we would want to encourage it in the name of gender.

@ClearMoth
Your data is very old compared to mine.

There is a huge difference between ability to access gender affirming surgery (and pay for it in the US) vs intent or desire to have it. You cannot say that the vast majority of men (or the pp 95%) have “no intention” of ever getting genital surgery on the basis of a decade old data that only shows those who could access surgery, pay privately for surgery and have already done it.

In addition, the 1% of the population being transgender includes nonbinary people who both vastly outnumber transmen or transwomen and don’t need surgery so you cannot use 1% to extrapolate an expected need for gender affirming surgery of 3m people.

I've just been reading about top surgery on 13 year olds. In the USA. Unscrupulous surgeons with dollar signs in their eyes. That's where blame lies. Not with Waterstones and not with someone writing about their own experiences. I also found out that nobody would be having this surgery in the UK until the age of 17-18 which is still far too young, granted, but my outrage is directed firmly over the Atlantic. If these surgeons said no, this wouldn't be happening.

@ClearMoth
“FairPlay” also misrepresented the study that the HERE links to
There is also data available from the US HERE showing that genital surgery is very rare

The HERE links to this 2018 study which states that genital surgery isn’t that rare for those undergoing gender affirming surgery at all:

p3 “The incidence of genital surgery increased over time: in 2000-2005, 72.0% of patients who underwent gender-affirming procedures had genital surgery; in 2006-2011, 83.9% of patients who underwent gender-affirming procedures had genital surgery. Most patients (2319 of 4118 [56.3%]) undergoing these procedures were not covered by any health insurance plan.”
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5875299/

Agree. It’s batshit you can’t drink alcohol, or have sex but you can undergo major irreversible body modification surgery.

Being listened to is fine. Being told it’s all going to be fine and being given appropriate treatment, whatever that might be, is also fine.

We are discussing a book that is being pushed into the mainstream, into a febrile situation where there has been a 4000% increase in patients in the demographic the book represents.

There are clusters of cases in teenagers in certain schools and areas, and older women are not transitioning in similar numbers, which strongly suggests social contagion.

To throw a book like this, which is basically normalizing an experimental treatment with devastating side effects, into this febrile situation is, at best, negligent.

@PriOn1

While I agree social contagion/gender confusion is a thing, I don’t think the difference in #s of older women not transitioning compared to young teen girls identifying at transmen can solely be put down to the above.

The waitlist from first referral to first consultation at the NHS gender clinic is around 4.5yrs! The latest figures they show are that they offered 1st appointments in May 22 to those referred in Jan 18. Obviously some of this is the knock on effect from covid, but it also doesn’t include the waitlists to get two consultants to agree to refer to the gender clinic..those are probably another year or so if NHS usual waitlists are anything to go by. It doesn’t include the process time and waitlist for the surgery itself either.

But the point is that a teen can identify as a transman in an instant, but it takes more than 5yrs to even be seen at the gender clinic, never mind get the surgery.

There is also the fact that the older you are, the more you would be put off by such long waitlists for surgery. Plus you are at higher risk of surgical complications. So the things you might have desperately wished for when young, the ship could have quite literally sailed for your generation.

Finally, as is typical with medicine, surgery techniques and technology for natal men was/is prioritised over surgery for natal women/transmen.

Nah, your first line had it all. Social contagion is a real thing.