Female to male

[nightshade]

So in light of the current transgender debates that I've just recently become aware of...

I am presuming that female to male numbers are less?..

Academically and observationally why is this?

There's a lot of cognitive dissonance/doublethink around 'conversion therapy'. The phrase originates from treatments that were supposed to 'cure' people of being gay. None of them worked and most were barbaric.

The concept of conversion therapy has now been taken from sexuality and applied completely uncritically to gender identity as if these were the same thing and could be treated in the same way.

This ignores the fact that in so many cases, an affirmative approach to gender identity IS gay conversion therapy. See for example the situation in Iran, gender non-conforming children growing up in right-wing christian families (especially in the US) and the massive number of lesbian girls and young women transitioning in the UK today.

Some dyke (can someone tell me how to tag)?.

Why would that be??
I'm still trying to join the dots!!

The factors I see at play are:

1. many younger people rejecting their identity and looking for a different one, even if it's an impossible one (that might be part of the appeal);
2. them finding like-minded people who provide assurance that the new identity, even if impossible, is real;
3. traditional authority figures being in a state a fear and/or paralysis and feeling that they can't say that magical thinking is at play; and
4. mischief makers who see endless (and sometimes sinister) opportunities in this.

Thank you all for affirming my perspectives.

If you need to tag put the @ symbol in front like @nightshade. Or you can just make their username bold by putting asterisks immediate in front and immediately after it, for example "nightshade".

@nauticant

Did that work?

Yay!..cheers...do you get a bleep like facebooh? ?

It sent an email notification to the email account I have linked to mumsnet. I'm not sure whether it's made a difference to my life but it shows you care which is nice.

Lol..

I'll be back to a cynical old bastard tomorrow..!

Anecdotally, it seems that bullying is a factor for butch lesbian teenagers and effiminate gay boys turning to transition. But there isn't much research on it.

There was a thread on here only this week, I forget which one, where a poster said her now adult son was convinced he was a girl for years as a teen. This was many years ago, before the rise of trans ideology.

IIRC although the doctor considered he might be dysphoric he ended up with a counsellor that basically said his problem was not fitting in, and he needed new friends. The parents changed his school to one further away and it made all the difference. He's now an adult man with no wish to live as a woman and refers to that period in his life as "a very stange time".

That is much likely to happen these days. That teenager would be much more likely to be put on puberty blockers and a path to medical transition, even though the evidence says most gender non conforming kids grow out of it (possibly into being gay adults).

(If the poster who wrote that is reading this, you really should put that story on a blog if your DS doesn't mind, it's a powerful story that's stuck with me).

There is a recurring theme of being accepted IMO. Of teens being accepted when they come out as trans "their true self" and of parents being accepted when they find the "support" community of Mermaid (who as far asn I can tell, enable them and are not too strong on science).

I have no doubt it can be great for previously bullied, gender non conforming kids to go from being picked on and alone for being a butch girl or an effeminate boy, to feeling they're something special, accessing all the support and validation from the trans community online ad possibly in real life, and when passing, to fit in. If they only lived as a child - then problem solved!

But the tricky thng is when they grow up. The solution at 17 might not be a good solution at 30. Being potentially sterile, possibly having never been through puberty, with sexual organs that don't function properly, with health issues and finding it hard to find people who want to be your romantic or sexual partner. That's got to be tough. And is it worth fitting in as a child? I suspect given the longer view, people might well decide it's not.

We're a few years off the law suits I imagine.

The other factor is this is a youth movement (in part). It's still on the rise, but it will wane at some point. Probably about the time kids realise the health issues aren't worth it. The next, younger generation won't want a part of it IMO. But - like most youth movements - it will have changed our society a bit. Or a lot if this bill becomes law.

Mmmm. ..I think I preferred the days of wearing black and hiding in ones room surrounded by mouldy plates and depressing goth music!

In the last few years, I have came across two 15 year old girls wanting to transition to male. I've worked with teens for decades, and this is a very new thing. Their reasons were for intellectual parity and personal safety. What sort of society does this to our lovely daughters?

Absolutely...thats what worries me...

This is all very new to me...not the concept but the everyday reality..

I will publicly shame myself by stating I live in an area and a lifestyle where I have extremely limited experience of anything outside of gender norms...with the very odd gay/lesbian person around me..

I don't think anyone I know is even aware of these current debates nor feels they are anyway relevant to them...

It's a bit like Alice down the rabbit hole!!

With the utmost respect intended..

Their reasons were for intellectual parity and personal safety. What sort of society does this to our lovely daughters?

So nothing to do with gender dysphoria woman11017?

Lifestyle choice to alter their circumstances?

@datun is gender dysphoria another facet of body dysmorphic disorder..anorexia..self harm?

In essence an exaggeration of coming to terms with ones physical body as most adolescents do?

As far as I know, gender dysphoria becomes different to gender nonconforming, at the point at which it distresses the individual concerned. To a debilitating level.

As it’s entirely subjective. It’s based on the person’s own perception of how they feel.

I’ve read accounts of people who can’t bear to look at their sexed bodies because they find it so distressing.

I can’t quite remember the exact criteria. But I think there are about six. And and you only need to tick two of them.

However, almost anyone can tick two of them.

As it’s subjective, I guess they had to look at the symptoms and decide which of them would constitute enough of a problem.

I’m sure most women can empathise up to a point.

When you’re going through puberty, and your sexed body becomes the focus of attention, even as you remain in that childlike state, it can be exceptionally distressing.

It’s certainly no surprise to me that more girls are presenting at clinics than boys.

I fervently wish the entire issue had remained firmly in the realm of medicine, rather than rights and lifestyle.

Yep, saw eating disorders too in the same girls. Datun and nightshade Common feature is to starve oneself to stop periods?

It's a semantic minefield and apologies if I'm using the wrong terminology. I am also new to this political arena.

I can only speak from my own observation that these two girls seemed to be disempowered. One had perceived their own intellectual disempowerment because of their sex, and the other had experienced personal danger because of her sex.

Wonder what choices I'd be making if I was a teen girl now.

And wouldn't it be cool if Lesbian and Feminist Rights were taught in mainstream schools. I wonder how that would affect teenage girls' experience of puberty?

woman11017

I know a girl/young woman (13 years old) who has convinced herself that she should be trans. She has a very athletic build- partly genetic (her parents are both similar) and partly due to training/competing in sports. Her main reason for coming to the conclusion that she must be trans is that she does not conform to what she is being told a girl/woman should be-both in terms of how she looks and what she wants to do. From what she tells me she has no problem with her body or her lifestyle but she is getting the message from society that if that's the case she shouldn't be a woman. She has been bullied (told she is a boy, ridiculed etc) and is frequently called a tomboy.

She has also found lots of information on the internet to tell her that the answer to her problems is to be trans.

I find it hugely depressing. This thread has given me some food for thought and some reading to do. Thank you

Issues come to be thought about/addressed as a mental health issue when daily life is impacted upon. So, wanting to dress in a certain way, being called by a different name/using different pronouns, playing with certain toys etc are not likely to be viewed as a mental health issue unless they start impacting on attending school, socialising, maintaining friendships, meeting developmental milestones/ making academic progress, eating, sleeping, keeping safe etc.

It is my experience such preferences only result in problems in living when the people around the child make these preferences seem problematic/wrong/make a big deal out of them. In my view it is the people we usually come to label 'transphobic' and 'transactivist' that create the problems in the above scenario. If everybody stopped gender stereotyping then life would get a lot easier for many people in many different ways!

The children who have mental health issues are the ones who experience problems reconciling different aspects of themselves. With some gender non conforming children, this usually involves their sexed bodies. To help with this, psychotherapists promote the idea of tolerating and living with conflict and contradiction .

At the Tavistock, the majority of young people seen at their gender identity clinic do manage to reconcile the contradictions and this is very much held in mind when discussing physical treatment. Bernadette Wren, Head of Psychology at the Tavistock, highlighted the challenge for therapists when she wrote: "how do we justify supporting trans youngsters to move towards treatment involving irreversible physical change, while ascribing to a highly tentative and provisional account of how we come to identify and live as gendered?"

"how do we justify supporting trans youngsters to move towards treatment involving irreversible physical change, while ascribing to a highly tentative and provisional account of how we come to identify and live as gendered?"

Become a feminist. Feminists will tell you exactly how you come to identify and live as gendered!

@datun The quote is from an article in Feminism and Psychology. Wren is a feminist and explores some of the tensions between being a feminist and a therapist: "As a feminist, I have been aware of the concern of some feminist authors (e.g. Burman, 1992; Gill, 1995) that postmodern notions of gender, that regard subject positions as multiple and fragmented, risk offering no clear path to political action and may deny the possibility of an identity around which women can collectively mobilise. At the same time, as a therapist, I have questioned the relevance of the appropriation of postmodernism to mental health and psychotherapy, where meaning and coherence are still valued as goals of the work"

I feel that those in power (right through the management systems)are not making decisions with sound evidence and academia behind them?

IMO the Tories made it very clear, when they got into power, that they were not interested in making decisions based on science / evidence - dogma / ideology are more important to them.

Didn't Gove say "Britain has had enough of experts" - and he Secretary of State for Education!

I thought the video linked in previous page about the woman who has detransitioned so sad. She’s been left with a permanently changed body and sounds like she only had 3 sessions of therapy before hormones were started. Very interesting what she said at the end about numbers of people detransitioning rising exponentially, and that the trans lobby can’t keep on pretending they don’t exist.
I really admire her for being brave enough to speak out about her experiences