This is interesting. Good to know someone cares.

[picklemepopcorn]

It doesn't say a lot, but I'm glad it is being considered and discussed. It's from a Canadian paediatric conference.

scienmag.com/few-transgender-teens-and-parents-willing-to-delay-hormone-therapy-to-preserve-fertility/

This is going to explode in a few years when these kids grow up and want a family.

I wonder who will be blamed. Will teens blame their parents for letting them? The paeds for not emphasising the risks? The government?

I have been thinking the same thing spontaneous. In 10-20 years when we begin seeing the side affects of mucking about with unnecessary drugs and surgery on children, who will the law suits be directed towards?

I can guarantee the drug cos, the Drs, the governments and the trendy groups that are pushing this agenda will have completely covered their own asses.

So guess who the children will have left to go after for compensation? Have the parents who are happily transitioning their children thought this through? It seems to me that they are going to be the ones left holding the short straw at end of all of this. And compensation will only be a small part of the fallout, I can't even begin to imagine the guilt/resentment that will go with it.

sorry that was to pickle too

Well, it is very difficult isn't it. And using the umbrella term trans probably doesn't help much. Do they mean only the group with gender dysphoria? Do they include masculine presenting lesbians, who are being pushed that it is more socially acceptable to be trans? What about those with autistic spectrum disorder experiencing significant distress and confusion over the changes of puberty? Precision of terminology is probably necessary to tease out the different priorities and concerns of people in the different groups, but it's probably considered transphobic to even try to do so. Or is it okay to, as this is about TIW, not about TIM?

I believe that there are indeed people for whom their gender dysphoria is so distressing/disabling that this route probably is the least bad option open to them. But I am very worried that a lot of other young people are at risk of being lumped in with them. With very serious implications. I'm not convinced that this research is even trying to distinguish this, but at least someone is starting to ask questions.

Two phrases jumped out at me: 'assigned female at birth' really? Biology doesn't matter when prescribing hormones? Would it be different if the child had been randomly assigned a different sex?
Also the idea that having to decide about fertility is very unfair. What has fairness got to do with it?

It's the starting point of a discussion, though. They are recognising the downside. They are still using the terminology of trans ideology, but they are talking.

Yeah, I have a real problem with the "assigned" at birth terminology. Apart from the very, very, very rare occasion where it isn't clear, and ultrasounds and chromosomes and all sorts of tests are called for, there's fuck all to do with assigning, and just recognising. The health care professionals don't exactly go along to the baby check going "eeny, meeny, miny mo, I think I'll tell them this one's a girl, just for the laugh".

Every time I see something that questions whether or not trans children should have drugs that damage their fertility, the response from the children/teenager is that they can adopt. They say it so flippantly that it really makes me aware that these are not adults as they have no concept of how hard it is to adopt.

Also when it comes to freezing eggs there is not a great success rate compared to freezing embryos or sperm and that isn't talked about enough. I didn't realise it until I thought about doing it myself and did some research it but Robert Winston says the best success rate for a frozen egg is somewhere between 1.5-2.9% (www.genesisresearchtrust.com/ivf-and-other-answers/egg-freezing-statistics)

Even if material is able to be preserved its a very expensive process. I feel sorry for all the people who will have to go through this and who weren't mature enough to appreciate the consequences.

I can guarantee the drug cos, the Drs, the governments and the trendy groups that are pushing this agenda will have completely covered their own asses.

So guess who the children will have left to go after for compensation? Have the parents who are happily transitioning their children thought this through? It seems to me that they are going to be the ones left holding the short straw at end of all of this.

I agree Totally. Definitely the others will have well-protected posteriors in all this.

Moss and NoCool
Yeah, I have a real problem with the "assigned" at birth terminology.

'Female assigned at birth' / 'Female at birth' (FAAB/FAB) were terms that radical feminists came up with over a decade ago. It was to be inclusive of intersex raised as girls. Unfortunately, this was hijacked by the TRAs (quelle surprise) into 'CAMAB' (coercively assigned male at birth) etc. But of course, TRAs have a bigger bandwidth than radical feminists.

Throughout that abstract it referred to hormone treatment for "transgender and gender-nonconforming youth".

Are those two groups the same thing?

A clinician in the US (Olsen I think) likened hormone therapy to chemotherapy - ie equally necessary to preserve life. This is the background of the research - no one is questioning the necessity of hormone treatment, just of mitigating the side effects.

I thought the stuff Stephen Whittle said around children was illuminating TBH...

I know lots of people are saying when the generation of kids grow up they will sue but I’m not sure...

SW was presenting his difficulties in having children as though they were another persecution of trans people. The things he described were the difficulties that all step parents, homosexual couples, couples struggling with infertility go through.

Part of this whole thing re children is creating fear and desperately reinforcing a lot of messages that ‘everybody hates trans people’ but that ‘transitioning is the only way to save your life’. There are an awful lot of messages that are presented as ‘affirming’ but are actually the opposite. I find that deeply worrying re children and I can fully imagine that it will result in thinking like SW - that difficulty having children is evidence of society hating trans people rather than the consequences of medical/surgical transition.

That’s all the ‘biological sex is a construct’ stuff

If biological stuff is a construct why the biological treatments?

Yes exactly Moss. If you can think yourself inti being the opposite sex and it's all about feelings then why do you need to change genitals? Surely you should be convincing yourself that you have a vagina?

They say it so flippantly that it really makes me aware that these are not adults as they have no concept of how hard it is to adopt.

Yes. It's as though a baby/child is a product, available commercially.

SW was presenting his difficulties in having children as though they were another persecution of trans people. The things he described were the difficulties that all step parents, homosexual couples, couples struggling with infertility go through.

My concern is that rather than be angry at the medical community for lack of fertility what we will actually see in the next decade (in line with what Amnesty said) is a big push towards the 'rights to reproduction'. Which in reality means the right of males, gay or trans (and maybe a smaller number of gay identified transmen) to be provided with surrogacy.

I suspect there is already lobbying being done around this and it worries me because it's an area that trans people and gay men will join collective forces on. I think one of the unintended, or perhaps just unforeseen by many, consequences of marriage equality will be a push to legitimise surrogacy as a viable employment option similar to the the way prostitution is being pushed as a reasonable choice of women to make.

Once the groundwork has been done by men then there will be a second wave of women getting on board with the idea that reproductive labour can be contracted out, like that article a while back from the eldest daughter of the rich gay couple who own surrogacy clinics.

I really hope governments stand firm on not allowing commercial surrogacy but given what a shit show politicians have been so far in protecting women and girls I don't hold out much hope.

This is going to explode in a few years when these kids grow up and want a family.

It's starting to descend into real dystopian fiction territory - where you'll have "women" who teeter around in ridiculous high heels pouting and simpering and sticking to every stereotype going... and then you'll have those biological females with uteruses who are no longer allowed to lay claim to the title "woman" - and who will be expected to provide surrogacy functions for the "real women". Basically right into Handmaid's Tale territory.

Children just don't have the life experience to decide whether they want their own children. I didn't want children until I was approaching 30 and I told people I didn't want them. Then I discovered I had fertility problems and lost over a decade of my life to soul-destroying fertility treatments. It's bad enough when you have no idea why it's happening. And contrary to the mainstream media's rosy view, IVF clinics don't have all the answers. Most infertility is at best partially understood and most miscarriages are unexplained.

During this time, I spent a large part of my life on fertility chat boards. Kids and parents of kids who are thinking about taking puberty blockers should spend a bit of time on these sites before taking such a drastic decision.

Also agree that surrogacy has a lot of ethical concerns.