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.

I missed her name but she wasn't putting up with any daft arguments.
That poor girl who transitioned and wished she hadn't was terrible.
I am sure there are plenty of adults who wish to be another sex and should live as they think this presents but lying to people and saying a sex change is possible is terrible. Particularly children and adolescents.

If she's too young to make the decision then don't let her make it! Good god.

I thought it wasnt too bad considering it was only an hour. At least there were some sensible people on it.

I thought it was good. It very clearly got the point across about how TAs are stifling debate and shutting down anyone who questions them.

There were, but I felt they didn't get as much air time as the batshit crazy ones. Maybe I got my hopes up too high.

Gina Ripon. She was excellent.

I thought the 400% rise in gender clinic referrals since 2010 was astonishing - can't remember if that was a UK figure or Canada.

I waited until the whole thing was aired until I looked on here. I thought it was brilliant. Very balanced but on the whole Cheri de Novo and the trans counsellor came across as zealots to me and Zucker was very balanced. I think given the sensitivity round the trans debate the BBC handled it very well.
"Lou" if you read this you made me cry. for you thanks for telling your story. You are a female role model.

Thanks Gallavich I think I will have a look for some if her work.

I thought it was revolutionary.

It's the first time I've seen the media actually saying anything that's not purely trans bandwagon and they covered a decent amount, if not everything. The scientist was called Prof Gina Rippon.

What baffles me most is the hastag of Zucker critics kidsknowbest. What the fucking fuck would a kid possibly know 'best' about? Kids should be listened to buy kids do not know best about what they need.

Ultimately this is a medical decision, regardless of what you believe about the whys and wherefores these things require a medical doctor to carry out a medical intervention. What other medical treatment would we claim kids (and these are fucking kids in the case of puberty blockers) know best about? Literally not a single one, they can't even self medicate with off the shelf cold remedies and yet suddenly they know best about ongoing, life changing medical treatment. Everybody who used that hashtag is on some other planet.

Agree can you imagine a child making a decision on a psychiatric or cancer therapy.
And if the child is saying things it is often, not always, the parents or Internet or bloody Disney influencing them.

I thought it was pretty good all things considering. Came across as very fair in letting both sides say their piece and I think that was vital in order to avoid claims by TRAs that it was "anti-trans propaganda" being taken seriously by anyone new to the subject.

IMO the pro transing kids people came across as scaremongerers and zealots whose position was almost entirely based on restrictive ultra sexist stereotypes. Zucker et al came across as serious, sensible experts - I liked how they kept saying stuff like "it's simplistic to claim that all gender dysphoria has the same cause".

Yes I agree Beachcomber

Her name rings a bell, I must have come across her before.

Tonight's newsnight has more.www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/live/bbctwo

No it doesn't - iplayer fail

I thought it was brilliant, fairly balanced and allows people to come to their own conclusions and perhaps challenge their views.

I hadn't heard of her previously but I've googled her and she has been saying what she said in the programme for at least six years. I must say that debunking the male/female brain theory is far more useful for gender equality than telling boys who like dolls and dresses that they are born in the wrong body and will never be happy unless they mutilate themselves.

Given that it's the first trans critical programme I have ever seen, I thought it was fairly well balanced. It has to be noted that the pro trans allies were not scientists or doctors. Just one trans-man.

At least they managed to get in the statistic about most children growing out of gender dysphoria. For any parents of trans children out there, I hope you take heart from this.

Oh dear twitter is not happy

In danger of what, exactly?

I found the trans man (Herschel Russell?) so offensive when he dismissed people who desist transition, on the basis that they were a small minority compared with those who persist.

I mean, seriously - would he actually say that to "Lou", to her face? That her experience wasn't as important as his because she was in a minority?

It has an air of hysteria. Don't get it. I thought the programme was very sensitive

I thought the bit where Hers Chelsea compared gender identity to dancing to internal music was almost Evangelical.
The doctor who said GRS was like rebirthing patients seemed to have a good complex. They didn't seem entirely rational.
Then again they portrayed families who didn't trans their children as old fashioned.