Transgender Documentary on BBC2 Thursday 2100 "Transgender Kids: Who Knows best?"

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Looks like an interesting watch, that does not just accept the trans children or they will kill themselves rhetoric. I just hope the BBC actually do show it and aren't bullied into not showing it.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b088kxbw

The blurb:

Around the world there has been a huge increase in the number of children being referred to gender clinics - boys saying they want to be girls and vice versa. Increasingly, parents are encouraged to adopt a 'gender affirmative' approach - fully supporting their children's change of identity. But is this approach right?

In this challenging documentary, BBC Two's award-winning This World strand travels to Canada, where one of the world's leading experts in childhood gender dysphoria (the condition where children are unhappy with their biological sex) lost his job for challenging the new orthodoxy that children know best. Speaking on TV for the first time since his clinic was closed, Dr Kenneth Zucker believes he is a victim of the politicisation of transgender issues. The film presents evidence that most children with gender dysphoria eventually overcome the feelings without transitioning and questions the science behind the idea that a boy could somehow be born with a 'female brain' or vice versa. It also features 'Lou' - who was born female and had a double mastectomy as part of transitioning to a man. She now says it is a decision that 'haunts' her and feels that her gender dysphoria should have been treated as a mental health issue.

Thought as much.

I tweeted to ask where they were when Ada Wells was trying to expel lesbians from Edinburgh Uni for being homosexual and how they're supporting young lesbians under pressure to accept dick. Not expecting an answer.

I must admit I'm coming to the conclusion that trans doesn't actually exist as a discrete condition. I think gender dysphoria is likely to be a reaction to abuse, or homophobic society and parents or other problems the child has on their life. I also think that symptoms of mental health problems, like anxiety for example, could be misinterpreted as being gender dysphoria due to there being such a massive focus on trans issues at the moment. I do feel that there are some people for whom transition is the only option that allows them to live their lives happily but I think they're in the minority. To say that there is no social influence on dysphoria is ridiculous because none of us exist in a vacuum.
And I think transition should be a last resort if the child isn't helped by talking therapies and/or just growing out of it. And not for under 18s in any circumstances. Too much potential for mistakes to be made if children are transed.

Sorry long

I'm noticing this more and more.

I've just watched a thread unfold on another site that told someone expressing a different view hat "they simply don't understand what it's like when people don't identify with their biological gender". Whatever that is.

"it will cause them great distress if people like Dr Zucker tell them to drop the Barbie and grow up."

Why do Stonewall feel the need to misrepresent someone so heinously? They could simply disagree with his analysis and approach.

It's depressing that mainstream bodies are doing this. But also very telling and transparent.

Any averagely disinterested viewer could watch the documentary, read that statement from Stonewall and spot the rhetorical tricks that are being employed.

I'm just so fucking thankful I did my coming out in the 90s, not now.

That was the bit that made me flinch most too Manumission. Surely it's not doing anyone any favours to keep reducing the issue to ridiculous gendered props?

I'm so glad to have found this thread today. Thanks to all for helping me feel like I'm not entirely losing the plot.

It's not. And I think the penny will gradually drop for people.

I hope so.

I was also a bit at the "we don't want parents to panic" line. Well unless they are panicking about their child committing suicide unless they unquestionably follow their assertions that they are in the wrong body - then, THEN parents definitely should panic.

There is so much flip flopping in their arguements that it becomes very hard not to see it as mass gaslighting.

Mollie I don't know if this gives you any hope but my DD18 has performed a complete 180 on this subject and now speaks fluent "TERF". It was a long slow turning circle, mind you.

Admittedly I didn't know about Dr Zucker until yesterday but that Stonewall statement is totally misrepresenting his practice isn't it? I'm almost embarrassed by it. He was never advocating 'curing' trans people.

This is a very well written piece

alicedreger.com/gendermad

I think he should consider suing all these twats for libel.

That's great to hear Manumission. Sense prevails!

It seems like going back to medieval attitudes in many ways.

The trans activists will say 'they even accept trans in India/Thailand/etc why not here?' But the reality is that women are third-class citizens in these places.

I have spent time in Indonesia where gay men aren't much of a thing but they have a lot of (pre-op) transwomen, it's homophobia if anything - you don't see gay couples, but if you dress up as a woman it's somehow not gay so they turn a blind eye.

I'd love to be able to see 20 years into the future to find out where all the trans stuff has gone. What will be the prevailing ideology then? How many of the under-25s who are calling themselves, or being identified by parents, as "trans" now will be living as the opposite sex, still be taking hormones, have had surgery? Will there be a huge amount of medical and surgical interventions to try and reverse the effects of "transing" treatments being doled out now? It did occur to me, watching the documentary last night, what a great money-spinner the whole trans industry must be - especially in the USA and other countries with no NHS. .

I think it'll be a mess, to be honest.

Some of the people who were transed but would have been happy as gay people will probably just stick with the surgicalized bits-added/bits-cut-off bodies that they now have, because trying to transition back is just too shaming/traumatizing, and because of the medical difficulties of actually transitioning back properly so who knows what your poor old body will look like in the end.

Some will transition back, at enormous psychological cost, and be angry and bitter about what has happened to them.

There will almost certainly be a lot fewer butch lesbians and femme-y gay men--which means probably somewhat fewer gay people in general. Not that this will represent a problem for GLAAD, Stonewall and all those organizations, since their focal interests and membership will be largely focused on "queer" people (trans of various types, heterosexual women who claim that they are "queer" because they are polyamorous or pansexual or pancake-sexual or .... ugh, who fucking cares....).

People who actually are gay will probably wind up splitting and forming their own organizations (amidst the usual death threats, rape threats, censorship attempts and so on).

People who have been transed and are now regretting it will sue in some cases. Some doctors may start getting more cautious, leading to more lawsuits from young people on the other side, who want to be transitioned.

Commentators will be writing articles on "The Great LBGT Split: Could it have been prevented?" and getting nostalgic for the good old 1990s when we were all in it together.

roses The trans activists will say 'they even accept trans in India/Thailand/etc why not here?

Don't they identify at trans in those places though? Rather than women? (And where's the transmen? Or did I just not notice?)

I must admit I'm coming to the conclusion that trans doesn't actually exist as a discrete condition. I think gender dysphoria is likely to be a reaction to abuse, or homophobic society and parents or other problems the child has on their life. I also think that symptoms of mental health problems, like anxiety for example, could be misinterpreted as being gender dysphoria due to there being such a massive focus on trans issues at the moment

There also seems to be a pretty strong link between autism and gender confusion.

I watched this this afternoon. It was far better than I expected. As a PP said, the makers gave the TRAs lots of time and let them hang themselves with it. Not surprised to hear Twitter is aflame. This documentary is damaging to TRAs because the impression the programme made, as the facts unfolded, was that Prof Zucker and those recommending caution were the only grown ups in the room.

What did that ghastly transman do? I missed it. I do hope he isn't an academic or a HCP.

Prawn, he's a psychotherapist.

Yes that's another worrying aspect ItsAllGoingToBeFine. I'd forgotten about that. Autistic children have spoken about feeling something about them wasn't right in some way, and latching onto trans as an answer.

"Don't they identify at trans in those places though? Rather than women? (And where's the transmen? Or did I just not notice?)"

I think that's part of the sexism. A man can be a woman in these places - and in fact they have more freedom than actual women do. But a woman has her place and that doesn't include doing 'man' things, like going around on her own, or being promiscuous. E.g., there was the recent case of the British banker who raped and murdered a Indonesian prostitute in Hong Kong - the Indonesians weren't interested in the case, the attitude was 'well she was a prostitute'.

Speaking of transgenderism in other cultures reminded me of the thing that some TAs do of looking for historical precedents to show that trans people have always been around. One that I see mooted quite frequently is native American two-spirit people - this piece debunks that quite well I think as well as illustrating how as opposed to smashing gender transgenderism massively reinforces it

culturallyboundgender.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/toward-an-end-to-appropriation-of-indigenous-two-spirit-people-in-trans-politics-the-relationship-between-third-gender-roles-and-patriarchy/