American Academy of Pediatrics - statement on transgender children

[MuseumofInnocence]

I have friends who are very pro-transgender and today, many are delighted by this new policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2018/09/13/peds.2018-2162

The policy statement talks about how "gender-affirming" treatment is much superior than what they call the "watchful waiting" approach, which is now "outdated". I tend to sit up and listen when I see medical professions talking about sex and gender, and this goes against what I intuitively think.

I wonder if I could share and see your take on it. There are better informed people than me here. One of the things I saw was a very dubious suicide statistic in the article (about children in Oregon having higher suicide attempt rates if their parents are not supportive).

I have had a quick read - I will spend more time on it later. But what really struck me is that it started off well - saying that gender variance is normal - children do not all conform to stereotypes and they and their families should be supported to develop resilience.

And then moves swiftly on to detail about how this "normal" variance should be corrected with surgery and hormones, even if there is no gender dysphoria.

The fact that transgender people feel unable to attend medical appointments due to stigma is appalling, as is bullying and harassment. But the answer isn't to surgically and chemically alter children (using procedures with very little evidence to back it up) so that they don't have to face that stigma. It is to educate the wider public that being gender variant in the body you were born with is NORMAL AND HEALTHY and does not need to be corrected.

If the answer to, say, black rights, was to say in order to avoid discrimination and bullying, we should be intervening medically to make a child appear less black, what kind of a world would that be?

I'm naturally suspicious of any adults or culture that support sterilising non gender conforming children.
Call me a cynic but American healthcare is run as a business, and this business creates lifelong customers.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has some "form" - for example, it has a section devoted to CAM/integrative medicine.

Horrible. Glosses over physical effects of blockers and cross sex hormones. No talk of desisting. In fact the majority of hormone discussion is around females and suppression of periods. Very little mentioned about boys

The AAP are often touted as being a prestigious source, but they are the only major paediatric organisation of any country to support male circumcision. Every other country’s paediatric organisations’ position statements are against it. So this position is perfectly in step with that.

Don’t forget how much money these US doctors will be making from this.

Someone told me US oncologists get paid by the drugs companies for prescribing certain cancer drugs. I would hope that’s illegal. But these gender doctors are going to be paid a lot more for surgery and hormones than for a wait and see approach.

A lot of contradictory statements. Being GNC is fine except if you are you need surgery.

A transgender identity is caused by a complex mix of things including lack of mental health support and mental disturbance but it’s not a mental health condition
Anyway, this heralds the shift in the standard of care that TRAs have been pushing. There will now be a shift in the standard of care to allow the default treatment avenues to be affirmative only, including hormones, blockers and surgery.

Open season basically, and a degree of protection against future lawsuits , because they can now argue that they were just following the standard of care.

Brace new world...

You do the wokey-cokey and you turn around...
And that's what it's all about!

Fortunately not all Americans are like that (NAAALT)

The difficulty with the last video is that it's from a hard-right group that opposes abortion, support for abstinence, and smacking children. Do we want to side with them?

I think we should but on this one position only. Being sceptical of the trans-gender dogma doesn't automatically follow that you might be anti-abortion and the rest of it.

Research on long-term risks, particularly in terms of bone metabolism62 and fertility,63 is currently limited and provides varied results.

Yeah, no fucking shit. Women (and of course some men) have been living with the effects of these drugs for decades with zero fucking help or research. But sure, let’s say they’re fully reversible and inject them into children without a critical medical need.