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.

Thanks for the heads-up .

I've used up my question, could someone ask about the Brit awards etc?

I've just seen a transman on tumblr who has had phalloplasty talking about complications that happened after the surgery, including not being able to urinate through the newly created penis, and bladder spasms that caused incontinence. Also severe scarring on the arm where the skin was taken from.
Apparently the surgeon said that complication rates were close to 0% but from what I've read, phalloplasty carries a fairly high risk of complications of one type or another. Another account I read said that the person was farting from the new penis and weeing from somewhere behind the new scrotum. I hope I haven't offended anyone by posting these details, but I think it's important that anyone considering this surgery knows the risks it involves.
I suspect a lot of money is being made by various people who may not be very scrupulous, unfortunately.

but I think it's important that anyone considering this surgery knows the risks it involves

YY. It's often presented as relatively trouble free, performed by experts in reconstructive surgery. The problem is is not reconstruction, its construction, pretty much from scratch. And the body will always try to heal itself.

It strikes me as highly unethical to be performing what many people would regard as unnecessary surgeries on young women when those surgeries carry the risk of faecal and urinary incontinence.

How in the ever loving fuck can anyone think that a phalloplasty would be a low risk surgery? Has anyone had the stomach to google phalloplasty images? You need a strong stomach. The operation is barbaric.

I've just googled Gallavich. Barbaric is the word. Even if no complications 😫

BBC seem to be trying to make amends, they have randomly put up a front page 'news' story about a transgender person who did a webchat on reddit several months ago (October 23rd).

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38637837
source: www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/58zg1m/iama_trans_woman_who_has_medically_transitioned/
I am a bit at a loss as to why it's been put up, the webchat was in October, they must have received death threats and what not and are trying to rebalance things with uncritical propaganda.

It's all very depressing, isn't it.

My one bit of good news on this front was recently visiting a school where the toilets in the science block were labelled XX and XY

I suspect that's a nod to the science aspect. The way things are going, the next time you visit it will be 🚺 and 🚹

Don't worry RJDennis has proved (!? FFS) that men change their biology when they transition! Chromosomes don't matter.

The surgery is barbaric. Which is fine, I suppose, if you're a neurotypical adult in otherwise good mental health who can weigh up the risks and decide if these drugs and surgeries are the best course of action for you to be able to tolerate living in your body. But I worry about the increasingly large percentage of people who aren't in possession of the full facts, or who are incredibly vulnerable being relentlessly channeled into irreversible physical alteration when it isn't in their best interests.

IIRC, there is a pending class action against the manufacturers of Lupron from women with endometriosis. It creates a state of fake menopause, which doctors assure you is completely reversible. It turns out that isn't at all true, and thousands of women have suffered irreverisble damage to their reproductive health. Not only that, but it accelerates bone thinning, and there is a mounting pile of evidence for other severe and lasting side effects. It's a brutal drug.

Why anyone would think that's something that should be given to children for a condition that research shows they will tend to grow out of is beyond me. These children are being used as guinea pigs, and I am as certain as I can be that we will look back on this in the same way that we look back on lobotomies, as a clumsy, dangerous and damaging intervention that caused more harm than it cured.

Well, hmmm, there is a long history of drugs being given to people with assurances they were safe, ending up anything but - thalidomide, diethylstilbestrol being the ones which come to mind, but there must be others.

I honestly think that the transagenda is possible because of a conflation of several historical factors

• scientific understanding of hormones
• the ability of big pharma to synthesise these hormones artificially
• the desire to create a profit in global capitalist economies
• advanced modern surgical techniques (although the fact that this remains problematic may be why people don't go for full surgery)
• neoliberalism and the choice agenda, where the wishes and desires of the individual take primacy in free market conditions
• well-meaning and historically justified openness to difference in individuals (subverted to mean you can just make up what you are and have that accepted; including a conflation of accepting what a person says they are and accepting that person, it is the only area where you cannot challenge what comes out of a person's mouth)
• third wave gender identity politics - that gender is a performance- being subverted to mean that if you perform the gender of being woman, you are woman
• the social acceptance of shutting down debate and concern by calling all of the above bigoted, hate speech.

It is a medical scandal all this.

I saw puberty blocking described as "putting a healthy body into a state of disease" the other day. Which of course it is. It isn't the benign happy clappy "giving a child time" that it is claimed to be. It has physical and emotional consequences for a child and it interferes with a healthy and important process. Nobody knows what the health consequences will be long term for preventing a child from going through puberty and then administering opposite sex hormones. Really, these children do not go through puberty. I refuse to call what happens to their body once it is drugged with sex hormones "puberty". Puberty is a natural healthy process the body goes through which is, amongst other things, a maturing of the reproductive system. What these poor kids go through is the opposite of this.

It's just more evidence that trans ideology is extremely stupid and sick when they describe the injecting of drugs that sterilize a child as "puberty", just because the children will artificially grow facial hair or breast tissue.

And all these right-on wankers cooing about transgirls and transboys - what do they think happens to these children if you stop artificially drugging them? Do they remain their "true authentic selves" ? Or do they end up like poor Lou, people with damaged bodies, health issues and emotional scars.

What these people are doing is like something out of fascist Germany - if the techniques and drugs had existed at the time of fascist medical experimentation, I'm sure they would have used them on the homosexuals they persecuted and murdered.

When my child was offered blockers I was told it was just to give us thinking time.

I asked about the name of the drug and they waffled a bit and didn't tell me.

When I asked about the side effects I was told that there were a few but all were reversible except in very extreme and rare cases.

I was discouraged from googling about it as there is so much misinformation on the internet that I may end up scaring myself.

I had a huge list of questions with me but I was never told any of the downfalls, or that that path would likely encourage my child to transition when they may not have done without them, it was touted as some sort of miracle saviour drug that would stop my child feeling awful about their body, stop any thoughts of suicide or self harm, and we were told puberty would start as soon as the blockers stopped, if we did stop them.

I, fortunately, wasn't as desperate as some parents I've seen who's child had been suicidal or self harming. If my child had been harming themselves then I would likely have swallowed everything he said and bitten his hand off for the drugs.

Parents aren't being told the truth when their children are getting put on these drugs either.

The more I read, the more I wonder what the fuck is happening, why is there such an agenda to push these drugs onto children? Are these kids being used as some sort of experiment?

Historically it makes me wonder about other moments in the past when sterilising kids for one reason or another has been considered hunky dory and society has stood around and approved. I wouldn't have believed we could have got to this point - I thought our belief in human rights had taken us beyond this.
But no, all it has taken is some unsubstantiated claims about suicide and many threats (non credible death and rape threats, totally credible job loss ones) and here we are.
It is terrifying in terms of how weak our attachment to human rights must really be. If we will sterilise kids what else will we do?

'right on wankers' - yes, and not feeling able to question it out of fear of losing your job. You can see how silencing happens.

"When my child was offered blockers I was told it was just to give us thinking time.

I asked about the name of the drug and they waffled a bit and didn't tell me.

When I asked about the side effects I was told that there were a few but all were reversible except in very extreme and rare cases.

I was discouraged from googling about it as there is so much misinformation on the internet that I may end up scaring myself.

I had a huge list of questions with me but I was never told any of the downfalls, or that that path would likely encourage my child to transition when they may not have done without them, it was touted as some sort of miracle saviour drug that would stop my child feeling awful about their body, stop any thoughts of suicide or self harm, and we were told puberty would start as soon as the blockers stopped, if we did stop them.

I, fortunately, wasn't as desperate as some parents I've seen who's child had been suicidal or self harming. If my child had been harming themselves then I would likely have swallowed everything he said and bitten his hand off for the drugs.

Parents aren't being told the truth when their children are getting put on these drugs either.

The more I read, the more I wonder what the fuck is happening, why is there such an agenda to push these drugs onto children? Are these kids being used as some sort of experiment?"

This is terrifying. Why aren't the media (Guardian) discussing this? This should be sent to evey media outlet, every MP, every medical body. It's very powerful. I can't imagine what parents in this situation are going through. Just desperate to help their child.

Fish, would you be up for posting on the Jess Phillips webchat?

The more I read, the more I wonder what the fuck is happening, why is there such an agenda to push these drugs onto children? Are these kids being used as some sort of experiment?

When you look at the £90K per annum per child cost for those drugs (net of all the related monitoring costs, counselling & review appts), you could buy quite a lot of psychiatric and psychological support for children to help them with their gender dysphoric distress and any suicidal ideation/self-harm if you had a more nuanced watchful waiting approach. Given existing evidence on desistance (small studies but better than zero evidence for long term impact of blocker/no same sex puberty - as all precocious puberty cases presumably subsequently go through the normal hormonal puberty for their sex), surely there is a far more compelling case for (small c) consrvative management of gender non-conforming children? I can't think of any other branch of medicine where caution is thrown so freely to the wind, let alone the disregard for all the ethical issues surrounding a vulnerable patient cohort & gaining meaningful consent.

On the Jess Phillips chat thread, there is now a very strong run of trans questions there which seems at odds with the 'equality for women in the workplace' topic. I am as Spartacus as you can get, but it is starting to look like a massive derail which could undermine posters' awareness raising intent.

fish

That is beyond shocking. Thank God you have the strength and inner resources to remain firm. I'm sure it's been one of the hardest things you've ever had to do.

You come across as so eminently rational and credible. And a highly caring individual.

Thanks again for your support on these issues. I'm sure it makes many sceptics in MN pause when they realise they are speaking to somebody who is immersed in the ideology and describing it as so unhelpful.

Yes totally agree mortificado

fish

I'm another one who wonders whether or not you would be willing to post on the web chat for Monday?

There are so many aspects to the ideology that I would like to see addressed. I have asked about autogynephilia not being mentioned in Maria Millers report (98 pages) because the sexualising of women as victims is so appalling.

But is it only one aspect. Exposing a sexual motivation for men and the transing of children are emotive. And chickenshit politicians seem to be too petrified to address it.

"On the Jess Phillips chat thread, there is now a very strong run of trans questions there which seems at odds with the 'equality for women in the workplace' topic. I am as Spartacus as you can get, but it is starting to look like a massive derail which could undermine posters' awareness raising intent."

I agree, it can be off putting and looks OTT and just makes people back away. Only thing is - how do you tackle equality for women in the workplace - when "woman" doesn't really mean anything tangible any more.

Well, I did once experience a male colleague relate an anecjoke to much laughter which went like this:

Male employee approaches boss to tell him some news. Boss is worried what potential news will be. Male employee explains that he is now going to identify as a woman. Boss is relieved as gender equality statistics will look better.

Laughter all round in mostly male meeting. This was two or three years ago.