Butterfly - Feedback from ITV to email complaint

[ShineyNewName5032]

As many on here have noted Butterfly is possibly one of the most controversial topics covered on ITV. I wrote to express my concerns this is the response:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your email concerning ITV’s new drama series Butterfly.

The producers consulted with senior clinical psychologists as well as the charity Mermaids. Most importantly, they spoke to families and children about their own lived experiences. The programme does not “promote” Mermaids, although the charity is depicted in a handful of scenes across three episodes. It depicts the family being advised by a range of different professionals, and indeed being offered a range of different advice, both in this country and the United States.

We do not consider that the drama is irresponsible or could “lead to more suicides”. The drama depicts a nuanced and complex story of an unhappy child, whose feelings are increasingly distressing, and which are leading to self-harming. This reflects the lived experience of some young people who are not comfortable in their assigned gender, but we do not suggest that Maxine represents all young people in this situation. It is clear that our fictional families’ problems are complex, as Maxine’s parents both clearly wish to protect their child, but cannot agree on the best course of action, and this conflict is itself shown to be damaging to Maxine’s wellbeing.

Nevertheless, thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.

Yours sincerely,

Charlie
Viewer Services Supervisor

Dunno about anyone else but I keep getting an ad at the foot of the page for sublime dining at Harbour Hotels with a repellent looking image of a plate of food. I don't know what it's a photo of (tuna?) but it looks like a raw skate's wing. Or worse. I see it every time I reply to a comment and it's really off putting.

I don't get that ad, Prawn, but one of the suggested groups last time I checked my Facebook was "I'm a happy parent of a trans teen"...

when Anna Friel was delivering the line “I’d rather have a daughter than a dead son” she grimaced, as if she was thinking “who wrote this shit?”
Sometimes you can tell when an actor isn’t keen on their lines!

I dunno, she's done a lot of promotion thanking Susie Green and appearing to be completely on board.

OlennasWimple - there's a certain dark humour to that. Being followed around the internet by adverts is creepy enough already...

Yes, I thought that was a good comment too, gendercritter, and sensitively worded.

Young adults like Jazz Jennings are very vulnerable to exploitation, I fear.

Thank you. Whether F4 read it or not, I don't know

re the post that asks if there are any TS women who do not wear makeup and dresses. Yes, there certainly are. I never wore a dress to visit the Gender Clinics ( 2000 to 2005) and saw many others who just dress normally. I never wore makeup then, and never do now. I am far from alone. I possess no dresses , and only one skirt, bought for rather posh funeral. Hate it. .

Perhaps they should make a sequel, where the Susie Green character is shown desperately suppressing anyone who tries to speak the truth about what she did.

The way the show handled the suicide attempt was disgusting. I don't understand why this is not allowed to be criticised, given the amount of complaints there was about 13 reasons why for the same kind of thing. The message that came away from it is, if your parents split up..attempt suicide and they will get back together! Suicide is a great way to get what you want!

I feel so sorry for the child involved in this. They should have just been allowed to be a feminine boy. My son is 4 and he likes putting on princess dresses and such. I am not 'horrified' at all. Its utterly normal.

The writer said he envisaged families including children sitting down together to watch this, despite the watershed timing.

Would have been really interesting to do this story as a multiple perspectives drama; to get how the same events can look like night and day to different characters.

I thought they treated what the "parents" were going through very convincingly; the strains that sort of thing puts on the family, and their relationships, is akin to that put on by a disabled child. If that seems harsh, my career was with disabled kids, and we saw how the whole family was impacted. I don't think that allowing the child to just be a feminine boy, as someone suggested earlier, is always possible. I'm sure they would if they could. If the child insists, consistently over time, that they are of the opposite sex, and is consistently distressed about it, what is the parent to do? Seek help and advice, obviously... but after that? . It may all blow over, in many cases it does. But meanwhile.... a nightmare all round.

Kay, yes, life with a child with MH issues is an enormous strain on a family. It can crush a marriage for sure. I don't think anyone here would dispute that, and some of us are living it. There is no neat solution that will tie everything up with a bow. Especially not deciding that your child's obsessive delusions are actually factual and attempting to get medication prescribed that will stunt their development in almost every way.

That's what is being presented uncritically by this programme, with reams of approving promotional material. That's got nothing at all to do with presenting the reality of living with a child in extreme distress.

Well, FB, in many cases you will be correct. But you referred to " a child with MH" issues". The psychiatrists who specialise in these things might say that they are often dealing with a fixed brain condition ( ie, something that will not go away, like colour blindness as a simple example) , not with delusions, in the usual sense. It is often tehcase that the parents HAVE treated it as a delusion, and not gone along with it. In the case of someone I have never met but my ex knows well, the mother and father still refer to their child as " darling girl's name" even though he went through th eTavistock clinic, then a Gender Clinic, is post op, and has a pretty striking beard. And is at one of the finest Universities in the world, doing well. But I'm not a=saying that all cases are like that. In fact in most cases the child " backs off" and lives as a homosexual adult. But again..... wat about in years to come. It is all tragic, for all parties, but in many cases it is a real thing, not bad parenting.

What exactly is a 'real thing'? Gender Dysphoria? Undoubtedly. It's not an instance of a boy actually being a girl, because that is not possible. But it is a serious condition that needs extensive investigation and is often a symptom that indicates other things.

For a very, very small number the dysphoria might be eased by limited medical intervention, but that's got to be weighed against the huge negatives involved with that intervention so that there can be a meaningful application of informed consent.

A responsible presentation of this and the impact on a family involved might be possible. This. Was. Not. It.

In fact in most cases the child " backs off" and lives as a homosexual adult.

Since nobody can know which of the children will not desist (apart from knowing that they are in the minority), and growing up to be a homosexual adult does not require any medication, surely none of these children should be medicated as children. For the few who do not desist, the medical treatment can come later, as adults, when they are mature enough to make a properly informed decision.

I agree with every word of that, OldCrone. The more I learn the more certain I am that under 18s should not be medicated.

Me too. Adults can make adult decisions about whether or not transition is a path they want to pursue. Children simply don't have the cognitive capacity required for it to be safe or wise for them to be allowed to make that decision. The fact that the majority desist just underlines the fact that the decision on anything medical should be deferred till adulthood.

re the post that asks if there are any TS women who do not wear makeup and dresses. Yes, there certainly are

I agree with this. The Transwomen I know own are trainers , jeans and T-shirts sort of people, with no make up. I haven't asked personal questions but I am assuming they are transsexuals with body dysphoria, as opposed to AGPs.

The transwoman in her 60s/70s who stopped to express support when I was leafletting was (as I recall) wearing a dress, light coat, flat shoes and a little make up. She fitted in really well because she was dressed like lots of women that age.

Up close you could tell her sex from the bones in her face but from a distance she passed really well. The product of good observational skills, I'd guess. Plus she was lucky to be only about 5'7" and have a relatively slight frame for a man.

But what made the difference was how she walked and carried herself. That and the appropriate clothing. There was nothing of the fetishist about her.

NRTFT, but I suddenly remembered this, if it's not been previously mentioned:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear_the_Silence

Hear the Silence is a 2003 semi-fictional TV drama based on the MMR vaccine controversy, which started when Andrew Wakefield published a paper claiming a possible link between the MMR vaccine and autism....Christine Shields, a fictional mother who discovers the possible MMR-autism link when her son is diagnosed as autistic.[1] Stevenson's character begins telling doctor after doctor that her son seemed to develop autism soon after he received the MMR vaccine, but she does not receive any sympathy from them, nor does she receive any from her boss, or even her husband. However, this all changes when she meets Dr. Wakefield, who believes her statements...

ITV again. And now people are dying of measles. The similarities are striking, no?

kesstrel

Good point there.

re prawnof the ..etc... and the transwoman who stopped. ( above) If that was in Guildford, it was probably me. Though I was not wearing a dress, as I own none, a nd I was not wearing any makeup at all, as I don't. But the age you mention and the height does fit, and I did talk to someone who was leafleting. In the rain. By the library. People like me prefer " transsexual woman" to transwoman, but I'd not fallout with anyone over it. And if it wasn't me. then there is another example of a TS woman who tries to live a normal life, and not scare the horses.

NRTFT, but I suddenly remembered this, if it's not been previously mentioned

Just like the two Judge John Deed episodes about MMR vaccine that got memory holed. I’ve met the man who wrote a drama about mobile phone masts causing brain tumours that hasn’t been repeated since either. Dramatists aren’t scientists. They really don’t know how to evaluate scientific evidence.

Excellent review by Sarah Ditum

sarahditum.com/2018/10/27/trans-drama-butterfly-is-rejection-and-sexism-dressed-up-as-social-justice-tv/