Excellent counter-view to ROGD

[garam]

Usually when you see hashtags about a diagnosis that doesn't stem from the medical establishment, you would be right to be dubious.
The anti-vaxxers are a good comparison.

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1021324454067163136.html

I've never seen an anime obsessive in action before. Are they all like this?

most women have a moment of ROGD, that first time when you are catcalled or wolfwhistled when you are on your way to buy an ice lolly in your shorts and t shirt at age 12,13,14

It's no surprise to me that it occurs around age 14.

Developing physically, but not emotionally or mentally, makes it very hard.

There is a complete lack of comprehension about the context. You don't know that your newly developing body is giving some random a hard on.

The realisation that you can be publicly commented on is shocking.

Hiding, disguising, minimising. It's a very common, female experience.

And that's the difference between homosexuality and transgenderism.

Which is why conflating the two is deceitful.

Absolutely. You're a teen. You get a crush on someone the same sex. You maybe even act on that crush by having sex. You come out to your parents as gay. Then a few years later you realise you really are only drawn to people of that sex - hooray, you're gay. Or you realise you fancy both sexes - hooray, you're bi. Or you realise it was just that one particular individual in that particular set of circumstances, and for the most part you fancy people of the opposite sex. Hooray - you're (mostly) straight.

Whatever the outcome, you haven't had any irreversible medical procedures carried out on you on the basis of how you felt at the age of 15 or 16.

Death of childhood indeed.

That makes me so sad.

Whatever the outcome, you haven't had any irreversible medical procedures carried out on you on the basis of how you felt at the age of 15 or 16.

Exactly.

The pp upthread who articulated the three types of trans. Firstly gender dysphoria, secondly gender nonconforming, and thirdly fetish.

The only one that needs any kind of treatment, or therapy, is the first.

It's not a lifestyle choice, it's not about diversity.

And, particularly with girls, it's a scandal. We all know what it feels like to be a teenager. But to end up infertile, with no sex life, and on permanent medication is heartbreaking.

Calling it something to do with diversity is nothing short of criminal.

May 2018 James Kirkup Spectator article:
Why are some MPs trying to shut down the transgender debate?

(extract)
"In 2009/10, the GIDS had 97 children referred, of whom 40 were listed as “assigned female at birth.” In 2016/17, the GIDS had 2016 children referred, of whom 1400 were assigned female at birth. The total caseload for the service rose 2,078 per cent in seven years. The number of assigned females being referred rose 3,500 per cent in seven years. Why have the numbers risen in this way? Is there a clear and undisputed explanation, which would render Lord Tebbit’s suggested research into causation redundant?

This is an issue addressed by Dr Polly Carmichael, who runs the GIDS, in a recent talk to the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health. In her thoughtful hour-long lecture, she said this:

“The rapid rise in the number of assigned females…. exemplifies the importance of keeping discourse open and allowing different voices to be heard.

“You might say the increase in the numbers of assigned females coming forward is [because] that it’s easier for females to talk about their gender-diverse feelings so what we are seeing is an increase in awareness getting towards a better representation of the true prevalence of this among females.

“A converse explanation, a question: are there issues for young women around how they perceive their gender? There has been a worry by some that people who would previously have had an outcome around sexuality are now having an outcome around gender.”

(In other words, these are girls who do not readily identify with the predominant idea of femininity and are sexually attracted to biological females, and who would, a decade or two ago, have grown up to consider themselves lesbians.) Dr Carmichael’s conclusion:

“The truth is we don’t know, but we need discussion in order to be thinking about what this could mean.”

Just in case that’s not clear, let me sum it up: the country’s leading centre for the care of gender-variant children says its caseload has risen more than twentyfold (35 times for girls) in less than a decade. The head of that centre doesn’t know why that’s happened and says the question needs further discussion" (continues)

additionally:
[Stephen Doughty MP] said. “Do you think the use of the phrase “trans lobby” is an appropriate one?”

As it happens, Dr Carmichael in her lecture said some things that seem relevant here:

“Gender has become amazingly topical and we have to be really careful not to assume that anyone is exploring or questioning their gender is going to want to change their bodies in line with that. The extremes on either side are not helpful. We need to look at the grey areas in between. To do that we need to be able to talk and discuss these issues. All too often stakeholders become lobby groups.”

link to the lecture quoted: soundcloud.com/user-664361280/dr-polly-carmichael-developments-and-dilemmas

I’m unlikely to lose my temper

I can’t decide if i like that more about you, or your perfect command of the pointed understatement

And yes, the death of childhood. of girlhood. I remember mine. Catcalled by a man in a car, aged 13. I never wore that dress again. And i didn’t go back into town for weeks. I couldn’t work out what I’d done wrong.

I would like to thank Garam for the OP. Not sure what side you are on, but anyone reading the thread will be absolutely convinced that ROGD exists and urgently needs investigation.

It's no surprise to me that it occurs around age 14

Absolutely. Girls are supposed to reach peak self confidence at age 11. It's so sad. You see your DD and their friends confident in their skin, remember them cartwheeling around unself-consciously, using their bodies in a myriad of ways and bam, their bodies start to develop, other people start paying attention to those bodies and then you see your DD or their friends often holding their hands across their bodies, self-consciously, and you long for those carefree days where they had the freedom to be themselves. We are women, we were girls. We know!

And yes, the death of childhood. of girlhood. I remember mine. Catcalled by a man in a car, aged 13. I never wore that dress again. And i didn’t go back into town for weeks. I couldn’t work out what I’d done wrong.

Mine was age 11, La Rochelle, France. I was wearing my much loved Minnie Mouse striped navy T-shirt and shorts set. A group of young men started whistling and cat calling.

My mother seemed impressed and told me it was because I had nice legs

It's a very uncomfortable and disquieting experience at that age and not one young boys (as a rule ) are put through.

I couldn’t work out what I’d done wrong.

Because it feels negative.

Up until then, it's good girl, clever girl, pretty girl (yes, I know).

And then there is an undercurrent.

Suddenly, it's different. It's not approving. It's not benign. It's not affirming.

It's confrontational, accusatory, and, very quickly becomes resentful.

What you were feted for, you now appear to be blamed for.

And this happens to almost every woman. They don't all develop gender dysphoria.

But the seeds are there.

Hi, can everyone henceforth please ignore icy? Its all getting rather tiresome.

Transpeople claim that women on the internet know nothing about being teenage girls, social pressures and how men think.

But we know all too well.

That's the weird thing, isn't it? Parents posting about their children, often girls, usually mum posting, don't know anything about what it's like to grow up in a female body or anything about their own children, do they?
They really should listen to unrolled Twitter threads by non entities with no actual concern for the wellbeing of their kids and ignore their own experience and instincts.

Yes, Zutt. I would dearly love not to know how (some) men think about women, but unfortunately the fuckers keep forcing their opinions on me, unsolicited.

I remember the death of my girlhood, it happened when I was about 12. My best mate decided he wanted to fuck me, and he didn’t understand the word no. Then a couple of years later, while on holiday in France, an old guy started talking to me and my sister, well talking to us in French, which we mostly didn’t understand. Then he came up behind me and grabbed my breast.
It’s the feeling that someone reacts to your body, rather than you as a person that’s so destabilising. Up till that point people have addressed you because they want to speak to you as a person, but suddenly you feel dislocated, because this new body that’s developing seemingly has no relation to the person inside. I can thoroughly understand how young girls want to crawl out of their own skin at the sight of their owb bodies, because it feels like a new outfit that’s been put on you that no one can see through, and it’s a horrible feeling.

So, not so much "excellent" as "a bit rubbish, but makes the OP feel better about the fact that people are starting to notice the social contagion element to this in teens and looking into that a bit more" then?

What's clear from all of our experiences on here is that nothing much has changed for girls growing up. Just the way we deal with it, or expected to deal with it.

My daughter is experiencing the same social pressures that I went through, as did my mother and grandmother. Those of us that don't like or can't cope with the pressures find different ways to take control. The ways to control seems, to me, to go through phrases, mine and my friends it was trying to take control with food, my cousin was self harm.

My problem was that I didn't see that link. I didn't see that it's being going on for years, and I just looked to see how other people around me were dealing with it and followed suit.

If older women experience were valued, and not seen as irrelevant, maybe I'd have been able to see how pertinent their advise is and not harmed myself.

"Transgender" is talked about as being youth led, and older women need to stop talking about it because we are old and don't understand and our experiences are irrelevant.

But, it isn't youth led, is it? There are plenty of older people involved. They just aren't mothers.

I've never seen an anime obsessive in action before. Are they all like this?

Certainly seems that way, doesn't it? Triggered otaku is triggered and likely to keep this up for a while.

And yes, the death of childhood. of girlhood. I remember mine. Catcalled by a man in a car, aged 13. I never wore that dress again. And i didn’t go back into town for weeks. I couldn’t work out what I’d done wrong.

Yep, though I was significantly younger than that when I had my "is this really what the next 40 years are going to be like?" moment. Luckily my mum was at least able to answer the "what did I do wrong?" question with "you didn't, men are pigs".

(Makes popcorn in anticipation of angry bloke responses to the last bit.)

Sorry if this is a derail from where we've arrived but I find it really odd that anyone is denying ROGD exists since we know GD is an official diagnosis, the rapid onset of the dysphoria isn't a psychological condition and doesn't claim to be. So of course you won't find ROGD exists as a diagnosis in its own right. It describes the rapid onset of a known psychological condition. As you were.

I think the issue is that people like Garam would like us to believe that there is no rapid onset and everyone who later IDs as trans knew that they would do so at the age of 3 and was only prevented from doing so at the time by a cruel, oppressive society.

Which is clearly nonsense, but there you go.

I never asked my mother what I'd done wrong. I was too mortified. And pretty sure that whatever it was that had happened, it was my fault. I was only a year into discarding my chopper, my parka and my stretchy ron hill gb tracksuit, growing my hair out from its spiked mullet and actually dressing "like a girl", whatever that means.

Do you see now, garam, why women here take a different approach to what these girls are telling us? It seems very familiar to us. We get the message, loud and clear.