Children of 12 to be allowed gender drugs to prepare for sex change

[femtastic]

Do you consider this to be a positive development?

Children of 12 to be allowed gender drugs to prepare for sex change

CHILDREN as young as 12 are to be allowed drugs to prepare them for changing sex.

The controversial treatment halts puberty, stunting sex organs and preventing the growth of facial hair and sperm in boys, and breasts in girls.

The injections, previously available only to over-15s with gender identity disorder, are being made available to younger people under an NHS study after pressure from families and doctors.

Doctors admit most children with the problem do not go on to have a sex change, often turning out to be gay. But blocking puberty hormones can make surgery easier if they need it.

Dr Polly Carmichael, who runs Britain?s only GID clinic in London, said several under-16s were prepared to sign up for the jabs, until now available only in the US, Holland and Germany at that age.

She said: ?The majority of our referrals are 15-plus. Of the children aged 12 and 14, there?s a number who are keen to take part.?

The study was approved by the ­National Research Ethics Service, which oversees hundreds of NHS projects.

expectation

Sorry, I misread. Yes, women's health services are an expectation globally. The WHO will make efforts to find ways of putting them in place if a region doesn't have them.

SGM, yes I agree with you. But there are many other children who have issues of sex and gender who are going to have very different feelings about this both as children and as adults. There has to be a balance between the needs of different children going through this process.

And actually this proposed process isn't going to resolve the issue of a child who wants to greatly alter their physical appearance during childhood or adolescence. That isn't something being offered.

but it's not expectations of their behaviour or the way they look
if society was more accepting of women displaying perceived masculine behaviours or vice a versa perhaps people who felt their sex was untrue would feel more able to live their own version of their sex.

what has women's health services got to do with perecption of sex and gender?

I didn't tell you that you couldn't post, nor did I say the condition isn't valid. I am not even questioning whether or not adults should receive this treatment.

I am questioning whether or not children should be offered a treatment which will probably leave them infertile (according to the US doctor who supports it), when the adult treatment would leave them with the choice to become biological parents if they choose. And I am questioning whether this treatment is appropriate when most children with GID don't choose medical treatment as adults, and no longer need to have such medical treatment to receive protection from discrimination under UK law.

Basking Seals, women's health services are offered to people perceived to be biologically female. How is that not about perception of biological sex?

I don't think you should be posting about it on this thread. That doesn't mean I'm telling you that you can't. I don't want to post about the details of why, because I think the whole discussion of it is inappropriate.

yes i agree. women's health services should be offered to people who are biologically women.

but what has that got to do with people with transgender issues feeling comfortable in or accepted by society?

Because some trans people (and I believe it is not representative of trans people in general) are campaigning against women's health services, because they believe they are discriminated against by the existence of such services.

And as a woman I object to my sex being defined as an appearance, when it is actually about the functions of my body - which is reflected in the health care provision I expect society to provide.

but in every group of people there will always be extremists, which does not negate the viewpoint or experiences of others in that group

Yes, I agree with you on that. I think that is the crux of this whole issue for me. What trans people should feel and how they should be treated has been heavily influenced by vocal extremists who only want their to be one trans truth. I am not at all surprised that the medical profession has taken this decision just after the government has changed the law so that protection for trans people now applies to all of them, rather than only those who are under medical supervision.

Lockets, one example is Lu's Pharmacy, Vancouver, which was picketed by trans activists. There are over one and a half million search results for it, so you could get a balanced view by picking yourself.

Obviously if people who have biologically male bodies (pointing out again that most transsexual people do not change their bodies) use a women's health facility, then it isn't a women's health facility. It would ethically have to have staff who were fully trained to treat and dispense to both sexes, otherwise it would be putting people's health at risk.

perhaps trans people would be wiser to spend their energy in re-definining limiting gender stereotypes, while still respecting biological women's and men's feelings about their sex.

however i still maintain that people are allowed to feel the way they feel, and people who feel different to the majority shouldn't have to deny those feelings, rather the majority should accept them, as long as it isn't to their detriment.

i think there's room on the broom for everyone.

Baskingseals, I actually think what you say should go on is mostly what goes on. But you wouldn't think so from the highly polarised debates that appear in the media or appear on these threads. I've completely changed my mind on the issue by going away and looking at people's personal feelings and beliefs, rather than what activists say people should be feeling and believing. Now I think that rather than an overall standpoint on it, it has to be looked at based on the particular context and the impact it will have on people involved in that context.

Parts of this thread are so sad :( , and have once again made me review how I feel about feninisim :(

I know this was originally a thread about 12 year olds but it has moved on. I cannot think how awful it would be to look at myself and loathe myself because I had a penis/vagina. And I am saddened by the attitudes of some - a little less turf war and a little more moral support for other people that are treated like shit just because of crappy stereotypes would benefit both 'sides', surely?

Just for background you are talking to someone who works with some 13 odd 'vulnerable' groups (DA, MH, LD, G&T Asylum Seekers and Refugees and so on) and I see on a daily basis the different types of crap our service users get thrown at them, and I get very frustrated when one group turns on the other (though it is frequent). Strenth in numbers and all that.

As or the poster who mentioned her 6 year old nephew, I would be bet my life that if she had said 'I bet there is a 6 year old boy out there right now wishing he was a girl', she would heave either been rubbished or references/evidence would have been insisted on?

I don't really know what I am trying to say? I havn't posted much recently as slipped into lurk mode, which obviously means I read more and speak less. I think I am at a crossroads, will go away and lurk more....

So it is feminism at the expese of the pain and sufering of others?

Hell no. Not for me.

I've just read the DSM criteria for GID in children. You can be diagnosed as having GID based purely on behaviour typical of the opposite gender, without ever having mentioned an issue with your biological sex or issue with your anatomy. By this diagnostic criteria, both my sister and my mother could have been diagnosed as having GID as children. Fortunately for both of them, they had parents who thought it was acceptable for girls to behave like boys.

I really can't agree on that comment on people misunderstanding feminism,on several levels....

1. Being supportive of trans people is not running to be on men's side, and is a pretty reductive and dismissive way to describe what people have been trying to articulate
2. Not all trans people are MTF and I do think that the FTM experience has been pretty marginalised in this discussion.. andI don't understand why
3. That some mtf trans people have polarized the debate, and continued to benefit from patriarchy is not to me an argument to dismiss a whole groups experience of life...that patriarchal privilege should be challenged, but if that privilege was removed then surely if someone was trans gender would be irrelevant to the grand scheme of life.

Actually by dismissing the whole concept as invalid, it seems that it has been impossible to debate whether this is a suitable medical intervention or not.

"I've just read the DSM criteria for GID in children. You can be diagnosed as having GID based purely on behaviour typical of the opposite gender, without ever having mentioned an issue with your biological sex or issue with your anatomy"

Isn't that only part A of the DSM?

Don't you also need to qualify under parts B, C & D.

B: disgust with physical gender characteristics
C: No intersex condition
D: condition causes significant stress/impairment

This closely matches the ICD system.

This paper covers it I think.