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

860 replies

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 06/01/2017 08:09

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.

OP posts:
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BenLinusatemyhomework · 13/01/2017 16:59

I watched this this afternoon and thought it was well done although it lacked much corroborating evidence on the claims of both sides of the arguement. I suppose this could be due to time constraints but it does leave it feeling like "opinions" rather than anything based in fact.

The transagenda lot all seemed creepy and hysterically illogical to me but perhaps I am biased because I think that of the whole movement. It would be interesting to hear the opinions of people who do not have a pony in the race and know nothing about the issues.

Lou's story was heartbreaking, I hope she has people around her loving her through this.

ageingrunner · 13/01/2017 17:12

The transman was saying that they feel responsible for children in their community, which I found scary and angering. These are other people's children that they're talking about. Their parents know them best, not some arguably mentally ill adults who've never met them Angry

illegitimateMortificadospawn · 13/01/2017 17:42

Did I hear blonde bob woman imply that parents who did not align with gender affirmative practices were at risk of having their children removed by the State? That's what it sounded to me - a veiled threat - bit I'll admit I was so Shock I may have read more into her statements on banning "conversion therapy".

SuburbanRhonda · 13/01/2017 17:48

I think what the priest was saying was that if parents don't support their child's trans "journey", they could lose them - either they will move away or they will kill themselves.

Way to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

OddMollie · 13/01/2017 17:53

Yes Seek - same, same, same. It's presented in the guise of being forward-thinking and open-minded (oh, the irony!) and there's an element of zeal in their outlook that makes me think of some sort of religious conversion. In fact, the whole thing with its 'don't look too hard at the science, don't question the doctrine' is a bit religious-cultish. The threat of lives sacrificed through suicide feeds in to this too, I think.

ageingrunner · 13/01/2017 17:57

What a twat that priest was really. I wonder how she would defend her position if she was in conversation with the parents of the children who had desisted?

nauticant · 13/01/2017 18:01

I think we're in for a decade of this stuff until society in general wakes up as if from a dream and says "what have we done?"

The court cases are going to be heartbreaking once it becomes possible to rigorously examine what's been going on.

EmpressOfTheSpartacusOceans · 13/01/2017 18:02

Like that transman, I think she'd see them as irrelevant, Runner. And detransitioners as acceptable collateral damage.

ageingrunner · 13/01/2017 18:10

Also collateral damage = the 80% of potential desisters. Transactivists don't care if many children are inappropriately transitioned, as long as the other 20% who would persist anyway get their treatment.

BBCNewsRave · 13/01/2017 18:36

Mollie You could almost hear the steel firedoors clanging down in their minds, shutting off any discussion.

Yes, exactly. Younger sibling said to me a while ago: "So, you know how it's sexist if we say certain clothes/interests/jobs are for men or women?... what about transpeople?" (or similar.)
I though, yey, peak trans reached for another person. But weirdly the next time we spoke the doors had clanged shut and apparently trans was all ok and no can't explain why. This is someone who is intelligent and thoughtful and is normally interested in opposing views and picking out the truth, rather than tribal politics.

It's bizarre - definitely comes across as some kind of brainwashing. In fact I think the comparison to religion is interesting... but for some reason we're allowed to disagree with religion. I don't agree with Islam, for example, but I don't want Muslims to be discriminated against/attacked/deported! And I'll be respectful to their beliefs to a degree, but it's not ok if they impose their beliefs and start insisting I live by Shariah law...
There's a difference between Islamophobia and simply not being a Muslim, but no such difference (according to trans activists) between transphobia and simply not agreeing with that belief system.

The transman seemed very attention-seeking (I don't use that word lightly, either). Very "We're messing with their ideas of gender - yey!" as if that was an end in itself, rather than a coherant rights movement.

There's clearly a lot of money going into the pro-trans side of this whole thing. In a horrifying way, it's actually fascinating to watch it unfold, like a cult. Are any psychologists out there quietly studying this from the sidelines, I wonder?

Shallishanti · 13/01/2017 18:46

it's so frustrating to hear 'we're messing with their ideas of gender- yey!'
when that's exactly what they're NOT doing. If he had been a younger person educated in the UK I'd be blaming Gove and co for the narrowing of education and lack of critical thinking in our schools.

MrsJohanHegg · 13/01/2017 18:48

"I don't agree with Islam, for example, but I don't want Muslims to be discriminated against/attacked/deported! And I'll be respectful to their beliefs to a degree, but it's not ok if they impose their beliefs and start insisting I live by Shariah law...
There's a difference between Islamophobia and simply not being a Muslim, but no such difference (according to trans activists) between transphobia and simply not agreeing with that belief system."

^^thank you for this, BBCNewsRave - my thoughts exactly and a great analogy.

I have a large number of LibFem pro-grand friends currently going nuts on Facebook and complaining to the BBC. Scared to say anything contrary as I'd be ousted from my social circle at best, I don't dare think what at worst! I thought that the documentary was well balanced and actually fantastic as a first step in chalk arguing the trans doctrine.

MrsJohanHegg · 13/01/2017 18:49

...that should say "pro-trans" obviously, my phone is being irritating Hmm

tygr · 13/01/2017 18:50

According to twitter, the 80% desist rate has been debunked. Most of the tweets I've read and the articles linked to say that the 80% were never gender dysphoric in the first place and basically everything to do with Zucker has been discredited but none of them were scientific evidence. I haven't had time to properly research it but I'd like to know more about that figure and his research because it stood out so starkly in the documentary.

I wonder why this argument is so emotionally charged. It makes it so hard to have a reasoned, intelligent debate with so much vitriol and hysteria. Were the early days of the gay rights movement like this?

MrsJohanHegg · 13/01/2017 18:50

... also "challenging" not "chalkarguing" FFS Apple

venusinscorpio · 13/01/2017 18:50

It's definitely like a cult.

MrsJohanHegg · 13/01/2017 18:52

tygr I think the argument that they were "never dysphoric in the first place" is just TRAs trying to get around the fact TBH.

venusinscorpio · 13/01/2017 18:55

How would they have a clue who was really gender dysphoric in the first place? And surely that's the point, that non trans children are being misdiagnosed? Not having a go at you, just find their reasoning bizarre.

Original poster
ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 13/01/2017 19:11

How would they have a clue who was really gender dysphoric in the first place? And surely that's the point, that non trans children are being misdiagnosed? Not having a go at you, just find their reasoning bizarre

This^ if you accept that the high percentage who desist were never "really trans" , it still doesn't matter. The point is that none of the TRAs have (as far as I know - happy to be corrected) come up with a means of telling if someone is really trans or not, other than waiting to see if the desist. Surely it is wrong to socially/medically/surgically trans people with no way of telling if it isn't he right thing to do. Surely "watchful waiting" is more ethical than transing people who may or may not be trans just in case?

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tygr · 13/01/2017 19:27

Currently reading this about detransitioning trans men

guideonragingstars.tumblr.com/post/149877706175/female-detransition-and-reidentification-survey

It's hard not to view anything through our own personal prism and as a tomboyish child who liked to dress in boy's clothes and be mistaken for a boy (this was before school so age of 3 or 4 I guess), I can easily see that in 2017 a child like me might been taken down a trans path. I am categorically not trans and it worries me that many of these children won't be either and learning to accept themselves is surely a more productive path than social transition.

On the other hand, for those children for whom full transition will turn out to be the outcome they choose, there's no denying that the earlier they start hormone therapy, the more effective that transition will be and I can see that delaying puberty does have a benefit. The problem is, it's so invasive and much of it irreversible. I would hate to be in the position of a parent trying to negotiate all of this. As an adolescent I think it would've been overwhelming.

venusinscorpio · 13/01/2017 19:32

Interesting links, ageing. Bollocks has it been "debunked" that most children presenting with apparent gender dysphoria desist. They're clutching at straws. Sadly most people will listen to them because they can't be arsed to inform themselves.

They need people to believe that there is a solid population of trans children and the merely GNC confused children were never part of it. Which given how poorly defined, tenuous and vague the category of "transgender" is, I don't see that they're in a position to judge this, because it's basically meaningless.

venusinscorpio · 13/01/2017 19:39

Is that in a series of blogs? Will they do one about how rapey cotton ceiling suggestions are for lesbians?

EmpressOfTheSpartacusOceans · 13/01/2017 19:51

No, because Stonewall no longer give a fuck about lesbians. If they ever did.