Transing children

[Pratchet]

Brace doctor breaks cover and warns of the dangers

You're splitting hairs. They met the criteria for being gender incongruent, whatever it was called.

Diagnosis criteria.

To repeat there is not a single study that suggests most kids will desist when diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

POST 2013, the criteria is tighter and MUST include children who insist they are the opposite sex, and the diagnosis is now gender dysphoria

And so the rates have gone down 80%? Right? Yes? Because if they haven’t...

They met the criteria for whatever they were using at the time. And now you’re saying well actually, no Those kids weren’t really trans. Yeah but these kids now are trans, deffo. All fine now. Oh wait the numbers haven’t gone down... no there’s no hole in our methodology at all.

Yeah I’m well aware of the DSM. I use it at work.

To repeat there is not a single study that suggests most kids will desist when diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

But not is there a single study that suggests most kids will not desist. I'm assuming that because despite two requests you have failed to give details of a single one.

I think it's absolutely tragic, that grown ass adults refuse to accept expert opinions in studies of trans kids, and the opinions of trans kids and adults, in order to preserve bigotry, there has been not a single good-faith response in here, just discussions how to respin, re-interpret and paint trans care as nefarious for no other purpose than to slap each other on the back in the construction of a narrative that suits those opposing affirming treatment, based in propaganda, and a total lack of critical thinking.

Also it’s one of the DSM5 diagnoses that frankly needs to die a death. There’s nothing in the criteria that doesn’t apply to most GNC kids at some point in their lives. It’s worrying that normal behaviour is medicalised.

The intense criticism the lastest DSM has been subject to is basically because the revision process wasn’t transparent, it’s often not as evidence based as it should be, it’s too symptomatic rather than causal, and mainly, it seems to over medicalise a lot of normal behaviour - so for example the bereavement exclusion was removed from the MDD diagnosis.

crisp I work in medical research 🤦🏻‍♀️

I work designing and conducting studies. I do this for a living. I’m a scientist.

And your last post one might class as word salad, if one was being rude.

Kids are being channeled down harmful medical routes here for behaviour that’s within the spectrum of normal and likely transient. It is absolutely shocking that this is being done. It would not be acceptable in any other line of work and I’m at a loss to understand why this one field isn’t sticking to the same standards that the rest of us are held to rigidly.

I think it's absolutely tragic, that grown ass adults refuse to accept expert opinions in studies of trans kids

You seem to be describing yourself here. I have linked to peer reviewed articles, you have repeatedly linked to a single article on a website promoting a particular agenda. You have not provided any expert opinions (although I would expect any such opinions to be backed up by research).

I have asked you several times for proof of the assertions you are making. I am happy to be put right regarding any errors in my understanding of this issue. You have failed to provide any proof. And now you are resorting to abuse.

Crisp

I'm sure you're a huge fan of Jesse Singal, so here he is just for you.

medium.com/@jesse.singal/everyone-myself-included-has-been-misreading-the-single-biggest-study-on-childhood-gender-8b6b3d82dcf3

Let's go 'round again
Maybe crispy will turn back the hands of time
Let's go 'round again
One more time (One more time)

I think it's absolutely tragic, that grown ass adults refuse to accept expert opinions in studies of trans kids, and the opinions of trans kids and adults, in order to preserve bigotry, there has been not a single good-faith response in here, just discussions how to respin, re-interpret and paint trans care as nefarious for no other purpose than to slap each other on the back in the construction of a narrative that suits those opposing affirming treatment, based in propaganda, and a total lack of critical thinking.

This is a combination of word salad and projection, crisp.

Several posters have taken the time and trouble to deconstruct your posts, rebut the arguments and evidence the rebuttals with sources, citations and explanatory professional expertise.

Nobody is asking you to agree with what's been said - argue away - but this is a bad show from you. Substantive points, please.

Preserve bigotry.

Is there a recipe for that?

I just love this post-2013 date. It so happens that the single largest longitudinal study on gender dysphoric children was published in 2013. By the guys who pioneered hormone treatments for transgender patients. These are not anti-trans activists or transphobic bigots.

These are the much vaunted experts working in the field. Their study showed a desistance rate of 2 in 3.

Here's a blog refuting criticism of the study aptly named

A Lot of People, Myself Included, Have Been Misreading the Single Biggest Published Study on Childhood Gender Dysphoria Desistance and Persistence

(Worth a read because a certain link plopping poster will almost certainly make the exact criticism this article addresses.)

And here's what the writer says about desistance:

"WPATH and the American Psychological Association and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Endocrine Society all recognize that desistance occurs, and I have never spoken with a clinician who believes it to be a full-stop myth. There is good reason for this expert consensus."

So I checked the link to the Endocrine Society because our link plopper heralded them as the absolute be-all-and-end-all of transgender experts in an earlier thread. And here is what their updated guidance, published in 2017, states on desistance in children:

"With current knowledge, we cannot predict the psychosexual outcome for any specific child. Prospective follow-up studies show that childhood GD/gender incongruence does not invariably persist into adolescence and adulthood (so-called “desisters”). Combining all outcome studies to date, the GD/gender incongruence of a minority of prepubertal children appears to persist in adolescence (20, 40). In adolescence, a significant number of these desisters identify as homosexual or bisexual.

It may be that children who only showed some gender nonconforming characteristics have been included in the follow-up studies, because the DSM-IV text revision criteria for a diagnosis were rather broad.

However, the persistence of GD/gender incongruence into adolescence is more likely if it had been extreme in childhood (41, 42). With the newer, stricter criteria of the DSM-5 (Table 2), persistence rates may well be different in future studies."

And the reason they say may is quite simple. Previous studies have been analysed in retrospect by applying the new, stricter criteria to the children taking part. The result was the same - of those that met the stricter criteria again only a minority persisted.

Is there a recipe for that?

It's going to involve aspic, isn't it? I just know it.

Thanks Charlie, I posted the same article below but didn't have the patience to explain it like you have

@crispbuttyfan have you read the whole thread? Could I ask for your comments on the thoughts I have shared and the video further up? Also on the open acknowledgement by experts who work with transgender children that there are huge unknowns and a lot of research is still needed in order to understand gender and gender dysphoria?

Crikey, I should learn to check before posting! I was writing this while cooking dinner for the kids so it took me quite some time.

No don't worry! Your explanation is great.

I torally agree babel I am also a research scientist and I'm shocked by some of the quasi science bandied about by the grace community

Grace?

based in propaganda, and a total lack of critical thinking.

Thats the weirdest thing,..thats virtually the same thing i was thinking about you

Crisp is back

SarahCarer that is exactly the point.

Given the scientific uncertainty - acknowledged both by national and international GD experts and the fact that the desisters part ways from the persisters only after the first flush of puberty hormones ie once their bodies start changing, the affirmation model with puberty blockers given before the onset of puberty is indeed locking children in.

Considering what they are being locked into - multiple of surgeries, sterility, very little or no sexual development and a lifetime of drugs this should be enough to make anyone question such a treatment regimen.

The previously widely used wait and see approach (Zucker being one of the most famous practitioners) did indeed prioritise the well-being of the desisters by delaying irreversible puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. And for a good reason as we are now finding out: the early administration of puberty blockers (see Jazz Jennings) can also condem these children to remain asexual into adulthood.

Not to even mention that a huge, I mean absolutely vital but hardly ever mentioned aspect of puberty is the complete re-organisation and restructuring of the child's brain. That's why teenagers need about 90 minutes more sleep than younger children or adults - because their brains do such incredibly heavy lifting, which can only be done while sleeping.

This is absolutely essential to the healthy development of a child into an adult. And we are messing with this - a process we're not even anywhere close to understanding.

That's what we're talking about at a bare minimum, not taking possible other longterm side effects of puberty blockers into account:

arrested development of physical growth
arrested development of sexual function
arrested development of brain function

How on earth can we be the bad guys asking for caution here?

PRIMUM NON NOCERE

What happened to first do no harm?

I think it a tragedy that so many children who are forced into the transgender box by parents and medical professionals feel that they are stuck in the box with no way out.
Their stories will break your heart.