Trans in children's and young people's services

[YetAnotherSpartacus]

OK … I can’t hold this in any longer. I went searching for a safe space to talk about trans issues and I found you guys (as per a previous post). I’m really hoping that you won’t think I’m stirring the trans pot for the sake of it. I really do have concerns.

I teach people who will one day, amongst other roles, work with boys, girls, young women, young men, parents and others in a range of ‘social care’ roles. This includes child and youth services and protection. In both my teaching, and the broader sector of practice that I prepare people to work in, I am facing a wall of ignorant, unthinking, militant trans orthodoxy, or a general fear of challenging this, or downright don’t-give-a rat’s-ism. The kinds of things that I hear people (and these are people with power as teachers, workers and even policy-makers) say uncritically (and as if they were droning a script) are:

• trans children have the brains of the opposite gender
• children should not need court consent, counselling or parental permission to have puberty blockers or hormonal drugs
• if a child wants to access PB’s or other hormonal drugs and the parents object, it should become a child-protection matter
• children should be watched for gender variant behaviour
• children should learn about trans from an early age
• all school toilets should be gender-neutral
• boys / men should be allowed into women’s / girls’ facilities if they say they are girls. Girls should not object.
• single-sex residential care homes (for girls, often those who have been sexually abused) should accept males who say they are female (even though we know there are high levels of sexual abuse in care homes)
• terms such a ‘women’ or ‘girls’ should be changes to ‘people who identify as …’

Beyond this, I have the following experiences:

• teaching a small but significant number of males who identify as ‘queer’, ‘trans’ or ‘female’ who have made it clear that they are entering the area to ‘save’ trans children from not being able to transition
• being told by management that the official position is ‘pro-trans’
• being told by some students that I am transphobic if I mention ‘women’. One was a ‘trans’ male who dressed in leather and studs and wore shirts with violent imagery and slogans.
• having colleagues tell me that they think the orthodoxy is rubbish, but being afraid to speak out (as am I)
• being in a meeting of practitioners and told that we must use ‘persons who identify as …’ instead of ‘women’ or ‘men’
• being in a meeting of practitioners and being shown a ‘trans-positive’ manual that advises that trans boys be allowed into girls’ spaces (camps, homes, detention facilities, etc.)
• raising an actual instance of harassment of a young lesbian by a trans man and general instances of lesbians being denied lesbian-spaces to be told that ‘trans comes first because they are so oppressed’.

This does not happen all the time, and nor is it ‘me against the world’, but it is prevalent enough to concern me and make me feel marginalised and silenced.

The reason I am writing this, apart from to get it off my chest and hopefully find some people who don’t think I am nuts for questioning it, is that I don’t think this is spoken of much (i.e. institutional responses to trans issues). Plus, these people have power over the lives of individuals, and some have the ears of policy-makers. Some make policies for organisations. This isn’t stuff happening on social media – it’s real – and to me it is terrifying because it can lead to the abuse of children, whether they be ‘trans’ kids or girls.

We don’t know the long-term effects of a set of drugs (PB’s) that were developed as an emergency measure to allow the treatment of some childhood cancers. We don’t really know much about child-transitioners. We don’t know much about the long term effects of hormone therapies on children’s bodies. Yet, we have generally moved away from a treatment regime that saw medical and surgical interventions as the last means to the first. Counselling and other therapies have fallen out of favour – and indeed are seen as ‘oppressive’ by some. This has all happened so fast that we don’t really know much at all, beyond isolated and mostly non-longitudinal studies. We know that some variants of ‘the pill’ have had detrimental effects, as has HRT – why are people naïve enough to think that hormonal treatments on young children are going to be magically better?

The issue of boys in girls’ and women’s spaces has been spoken of here, but I worry for girls who have no (or inadequate) parents to care for them or look after them, such as those in justice centres or care homes. These are vulnerable children.

Honestly, I know that many of us are wondering when this trans rubbish will dissipate, but I can’t help thinking that it might take a class-action of young people with cancers or a girls or two to be raped / murdered by a male claiming to be ‘trans’ for this to happen.

I'm sure most of us have said it's offensive to use the terms Cis or TERF. But you just did. Again.

I wrote a long message earlier but it got eaten . I just wanted to check in quickly and thank Wanking Monkey for pointing me to the Wanking Monkey thread. Made me laugh that did and in fact it made my day. I'll have another go with the more serious stuff re the prof. in Canada later.

"Even the New Scientist article (which I read with great interest as it's one of my favourite magazines) didn't categorically say 'pink and blue brains don't exist'. It said"

OK, so if there is no way of identifying these pink and blue brains yet, how are they making decisions about blue people with pink brains?

And we get back to the fact that unhappy children are being told that there problems stem from liking the clothes and toys traditionally associated with the opposite sex.

And the problem is being treated by creating the illusion that they can be turned into the opposite sex, when all that will happen is that they will be given unnecessary medical treatment that will leave them sterile and probably considerably shorten their lives.

It's OK. atm is a scientist. We are just stupid uneducated people

The thing about the "pink" and "blue" brain thing is that presumably these studies were of adult brains. The participants in the studies have been exposed to socialisation based on their sex for their whole lives. Brains are plastic and surely reflect that socialisation. How can you ever discount the fact that these studies could simply be saying - "people who have been socialised for pink brain traits have pink brain traits, whereas those socialised for blue brain traits have blue brain traits"? Like the London can driver example mentioned somewhere.

The real harm this is doing to women and children notwithstanding, I can't help the stirrings of real compassion after reading some
of ATMs posts. Trans people can't ever be what they want. Because what they crave and what women ARE is not the same. And even a scientist, with the arguments, surveys and stats at their fingertips is just desperately grasping at straws.

"Using cis people as a control group doesn't work. You need to use 'untreated' trans people as a control group. Which is sadly somewhat unethical."
Your understanding of medical ethics is rather poor. What is unethical is using non-reversible 'treatments' (hormones, surgery, blockers etc) on people when there isn't enough evidence that they actually 'treat' anything or improve anything. The evidence is not there, and despite lots of phrases in the various documents about 'careful selection' of candidiates, it isn't as clear-cut as some would like to claim. And this is talking about the use of surgery and interventions on adults.

Lots of medical trials use a treated and an untreated group, and in some cases when the value of an intervention becomes clear, the non-treatment group is put onto the treatment.

The issue here is that trans has become more of a social rather than a medical issue. Surgery/hormones on request and without proven efficacy of treatment seems to be the norm as regards some activists. I think we are beginning to see a kickback given now that there are numbers of detransitioners, beginning to talk about why they transitioned. So, it no longer is the case that the only stories out there to be heard are those struggling to gain access to surgical/hormonal transition and those happily transitioned (although some sectors do try to suppress the stories of detransitioners).

Although not all trans folk have dysphoria, interesting to compare those who do and their treatment with the ethical situation for other people with body integrity identity disorder, where so far as I know, the ethical position has been to not intervene surgically despite sincere requests and despite problems with other forms of treatment.

The real issue here (assuming adults can make their own decisions), is that pretending the evidence is in as regards efficiacy, or the brain-sex (or body map or whatever other 'theory' people want to throw out to 'explain' trans) is 'proven' misrepresents the actual situation, and this mistaken understanding is currently being used to push kids down the trans tunnel. From an ethical point of view, we should be pulling back and saving kids from untested and unproven interventions, even if that means some adults have a bit of a harder time or a less desirable outcome.

I know what you mean Datun. And I think it's part of the reason this has got so vicious, some very vocal transactivists (the ones with genuine dysphoria) are channeling this anger and despair at their situation into this facile all consuming black/white good/evil struggle against TERFs. And the fact that they can never be who they want to be means that no matter what women do, however much we pander to them, however much we give up, they will not be satisfied. Ever.

Surely any study would need to have 'cis' people as a control group, given it is claimed we have the right brain for our bodies and such..there has to be some form of marker surely? :S

Unless I am not thinking this through properly.

You would take (for example) 1000 'cis' women. 100 transwomen. And compare the brains.

Atm tldr

My take on this is somewhat different, Venus. The genuinely dysphoric, the old-fashioned transsexuals - known by trans activists as truscum - mostly know they're not actually female. They tend to be low key.

It seems that trans activists are mostly drawn from among the AGPs and assorted fetishists, people with Cluster B personality disorders. They're the ones who seek validation from using female only spaces, from inserting themselves into women's groups. While transsexuals tend to be humble and often adopt very quiet, "feminine" personas, the other group are unmistakably entitled and come across as very masculine in their aggression and mansplaining These are enraged by women who refuse to accept them as women, despite the fact that well over 80% have a penis. But it's not just women, this group are incredibly touchy and will go after anyone. Look at what happened to Michael Bailey, author of The Man who would be Queen. He was hounded relentlessly for years, his children threatened, attempts made to disgrace him, to lose him his job and all because he identified unwelcome aspects of transgender motivation.

There's a shortage of research into the aetiology of transgenderism for precisely this reason. Alice Dreger has spoken about how scientists and doctors are disinclined to work with such a volatile, aggressive and politicized group. Any researcher who comes to conclusions the trans lobby don't like will have their lives made sheer hell. Researchers know this. You'd have to be mad.- or a trans mouthpiece who's prepared to rig the data.

ATM, you may be a scientist at heart. Might be better if you were one in your head.

I agree Prawn, these are the newer breed, the more entitled with obvious male privilege. Sorry if I wasn't clear. But I do think some of them have believed their own publicity to the extent that they genuinely do think they are women and can do womanhood much better than shit old cis women. Agree about the cluster B, I think it is very obvious with these types. Massive narcissistic, histrionic rage. Complete lack of empathy with anyone or anything which doesn't further the trans cause, that has become so integral to their identity.

And as has been identified many times, they act very much like MRAs in their style of online "activism"

I heard of 'truscum' just recently. It's a chilling insult and is yet another reason why I am so horrified by the transagenda. That they have invented vindictive insults for anyone who does not accept their ideology is indicative of the TA mindset

Going back to the OP, what I still don't understand is why, post-Children Act 1989, involved professionals are content to trigger a cascade of interventions so quickly, cumulating in irreversible medical intervention.

It sounds as though a child expressing dissatisfaction with his or her gender (role) is rapidly labelled as trans. It is very odd how quickly and completely we seem to have forgotten that experimentation like this is a normal part of childhood and for most children is a passing phase.

I know two or three children who are currently atypical in terms of their, for lack of a better term, 'gender behaviour' or 'gender expression' if you prefer, one quite significantly so. All are currently being left to get on with it however they like by their parents. Interestingly, none is being questioned, much less bullied, by the peer group.

I don't understand why this approach doesn't recommend itself to childcare professionals, nor why they and some parents consider it is necessary to frame this as being 'trans' to the children. It feels as though adults are plonking a very inflexible template onto young children without stopping to think, or let the kids figure out what they want. It reminds me of how people used to force left-handed children to use their right hands.

And why doesn't anyone spot the latent (or not) homophobia in all of this?

Proven efficacy of treatment on trans people? Do you honestly think WPATH and other organisations are carrying out a massive medical experiment on trans people?

There is proven efficacy across a variety of studies, plus large amounts of anecdotal evidence. Everyone I know on HRT is reporting improvements from starting. Just look into any of the studies into quality of life for trans people post-transition. It's the social stigma of being trans that is the main problem now (which stretches out to employment, transphobia etc.).

The people who detransition do it for two main reasons:

1. Society generally being cockwombles to trans people and them being unable to deal with the stress
2. Comorbid conditions that weren't disclosed properly / handled well.

The (in)famous Walt Heyer was the latter. Chelsea Attonley was the former.

Detransition rates are incredibly low. Like

We actually had the experience, about 6 years back, of having one of our children referred to CAMHS because he was deeply unhappy, self-harming, and saying he wished he was a girl.

We got a brisk, not too sympathetic, but useful professional who listened to all he had to say and then said, 'He doesn't have gender dysphoria. He doesn't have a mental health problem. He has a school bullying problem.'

He moved school to one that had boys in the choir, boys doing drama, and boys in the knitting club. As soon as he was free to follow his own tastes without any little toads telling him he was being 'such a girl ' or 'so gay ', things calmed right down for him.

Just an anecdote. But what if the professional had been through the course in the OP, and had been on the alert for signs of 'non-gender conforming'?

It's OK. atm is a scientist. We are just stupid uneducated people hmm

Special badge for ad hominem and straw man in the same paragraph. Top work!

Most kids who are suicidal and say they are trans have many other serious psychiatric problems . its rarely as simple as you imply

I know, IBelieve. The old style transsexuals were the ones who built up individual goodwill with women, who might be invited to use the ladies. "because it's you." They mostly dreamed of a handsome husband (I remember reading this in a transsexual's blog - heartrending) which meant they were no threat to us. The new group tried exploiting that goodwill and failed for reasons that don't need repeating.

What's so screwy is that the ones who go for extreme.surgery are often quite realistic about the fact that they are still men. It's the ones with the proud ladystick who insist they're biologically fem

The genuinely dysphoric, the old-fashioned transsexuals - known by trans activists as truscum - mostly know they're not actually female.

So many wrong assumptions and generalisations in one sentence. Unless you are just talking about Miranda Yardley.

Do you honestly think WPATH and other organisations are carrying out a massive medical experiment on trans people?

With respect to children, especially girls, yes I do.
Trans in children and treatment wit has blockers is new and no one knows the long term effects.
Cross sex hormones are not risk free especially in women where risks of cancer and osteoporosis are increase.
Evidence suggests a large proportion of gender dysphoric children will spontaneously become happy with their birth sex and become gay adults.
It's very hard for me to understand why there is such acceptance of blockers/cross sex hormones at a young age in the face of those risks. Surely treatment to increase the chances of these children accepting their healthy body is a far safer and more ethical option? This would be the medical route for other conditions that seem similar to me, such as body dysmorphia/anorexia.
I don't think it's helpful to lump that treatment in with gay conversion/"pray the trans away".
Unless you also think we should be chopping legs offor people with BDD and severing the spines of trans able people, as psychological treatment is "praying the BDD away"?

What's so screwy is that the ones who go for extreme.surgery are often quite realistic about the fact that they are still men. It's the ones with the proud ladystick who insist they're biologically fem

Err...nope. Nope. And a whole big dollop of nope.

How many trans people do you actually know?!?

Special badge for ad hominem and straw man in the same paragraph. Top work
I'm fed up of your patronising "I am a scientist" nonsense. I've said before, this board is full of well qualified people. Just because we disagree doesn't mean we don't understand. You are just the epitome of mansplaining.
Interesting you only respond to me when I'm not posting logical argument too.

ATM, we don't do medicine on "anecdotal evidence". Everyone you know is reporting good results from HRT? Confirmation bias much? Placebo? And has it not occurred to you how little data there can possibly be on taking cross sex hormones for 40+ years?

As for your claims about desistance... You don't seem to have any regard for science, or data at all really. You don't get to decide which research we can refer to and you don't get to invent your own facts.