Permanently damaging the ability of someone to experience a full sex life

[IdaBWells]

It really, really bothers me that with ROGD in girls or any of these conditions where teens are taking cross-sex hormones, they are not experiencing their natural puberty and then they may potentially have permanent changes which will prevent them having the full experience of sex and sexuality that they should have had.

It bothers me because

1. It is a human rights issue

1. The fact that adults are making decisions that they understand but an undeveloped teen cannot, about how this could seriously affect their sex lives, for ever.

1. The over involvement of adults into a child’s future sex life which is for the individual alone to make decisions about - ONLY.

1. Adults know that they are creating a situation where these young adults are going to have to explain their body changes to potential sex partners and that other people are going to have questions about how their body functions etc. In other words their privacy is permanently invaded really, this person becomes a sexually curiousity to certain people. Can young teens understand that?

1. Apparently permanent sexual dysfunction can be a result of transition, lack of orgasm or other issues.

1. They are of course usually sterilized if they take a certain formula of drugs.

I currently have three teens of both sexes. I see so much mental development happening at the same time as their physical development. Each year they mature so much. We just don’t know what interrupting natural puberty does to the brain. Then of course trans kids are not experiencing puberty at the same time as their peers, so they are out of step in terms of physical, mental, emotional, sexual and intellectual development.

The whole thing makes my blood boil as we are removing their right to their own rate of development. If their puberty has been halted from 12-16 and then they get the cross-sex hormones, where is the moment or timeframe when they are caught up enough on these years of development that they have missed that they are suddenly able to understand the magnitude of the decisions they are making?

This could explain how once they are on the “medical pathway” there is no turning around. Where in this process are these young people going to have a chance to reach a level of mature critical thinking?

Every single child going through this process on the NHS, where they transition or not must be followed for outcomes (which I hope is happening but I fear is not) because we don’t know what most 28 year old transitioners think about the decisions they made at 18.

I think all of this is absolutely horrific - the potential for damage to these lives is unbelievable.

As per TransposersArePosers, I am also worried re the sunk cost fallacy (new term for me, thank you).

When I was at uni, I was blind drunk one night (hiding from some heavyweight emotional baggage) and a "friend" took advantage. I have absolutely no memory of anything beyond dancing in the nightclub and waking up the next morning at my student digs. I was way beyond being able to consent. This was before consent was defined in the 2003 Act (but only just before that date) so now this would quite rightly by defined as a rape. In my head (then and still now), it was "just" that he took advantage. I never even realised started to consider the full potential legal ramifications of that night until 5 years later when they had something on the radio about it. I certainly would never have gone to the police even now.

My worry is too many of the people involved will take a very long time to separate out and understand that they are victims and then even longer to try and do something about it. Powerful people mess with your head.

I think one big problem is this 'born in the wrong body' paradigm, it is powerful rhetoric
people accept it as valid without questioning it
It conjures up an image of someone who has been deprived of a fundamental right ie the right to be in the correct body
When you unpick it it doesn't make any sense but people swallow it whole

I think it counjours up an image of someone who was a victim right from the very start, the odds were stacked against them, we must help them in their struggle to get to the right place etc etc

of course for many people puberty is a time when the body does start to feel alien and 'wrong' this feeling can be very easily mapped onto the concept of being born into the wrong body and then you get carried along this pathway of transitioning

Why does it always seem to be the mothers pushing this? Susie Green - where is Jackie Green's father, while Susie is the famous parent of a transgender child? In the little I've seen of Jazz Jennings, it seems to be the mother pushing for transition, while, as someone said upthread, Jazz's father looked troubled about some of the consequences of puberty blockers on his child.

Maybe it's the homophobia?

They don't want a lesbian or gay child, but can't really push too hard with the transition because it would be too obvious. Especially with the boys. Easier to believe with the mother it cones from a place of love/caring

Totally agree. Transing a child is child abuse in my book.

Just a reminder that MNHQ will zap this thread if it discusses the genitals of specific people...

I have said this before and no doubt will say this again. The use of puberty blockers for trans children is this century’s thalidomide. All of my doctor/medical student friends agree. These medications are effectively untested and already it is clear that they have grave side effects. A generation of gender non conforming children is being intentionally sterilised and god only knows what else. Of course these medications have application is some very rare and very extreme circumstances but shouldn’t he prescribed or recvonened as routine for children who are challenging their gender. And parents shouldn’t be consenting to this and tras shouldn’t be bullying parents into accepting. Doctors have a duty to protect their patients but they don’t because they know it will cost them their jobs. In this brace new world doctors should be provided with greater legal protections from claims of transphobia not only to protect doctors but to protect their patients. The current state of affairs really isn’t acceptable.

OlennasWimple
That's why I posted the video of Susie Green upthread with no comment. If anyone hasn't seen it, I recommend a look to see how amusing she views the whole thing.

I’ve reportedly my earlier post, just so you know in case it disappears.

"Widening the social distance between parents and children and preventing parents from safeguarding their children is the first step towards normalising paedophilia and paving the way towards societal acceptance of it."

"This is where all this is heading."

Precisely my fear citiesofbismuth. The thought of it keeps me up at night. Imagine a generation of pre-pubescents, bodies and minds frozen in time, with no sexual function and compromised intellects. Now, ask yourself: who would want that?

Call me paranoid if you like but I prefer to see myself as a cynic.

I think one big problem is this 'born in the wrong body' paradigm, it is powerful rhetoric
Agreed. I just repeat that it is impossible to be born in the wrong body, you are your body.

As I've said so many times, this is going to be the biggest medical scandal of all time. It's horrific. Where are the ethics of the professionals promoting this shit?

This whole issue has politicised me in ways I never thought possible. It’s been both illuminating and downright frightening to see how close to the wind we actually sail, when women’s rights can be stripped without thought or discussion and where people are afraid to speak out against the harm being done to children in the name of “inclusiveness” and progressive thinking.

I keep thinking, no surely not, nobody is going to allow children to be sterilised and suspended in pre-pubertal bodies, with all this issues we know that causes (lack of neurological development, lack of maturation of gametes and so no fertility) plus all the issues we don’t get fully know about from using unlicensed drugs. But it’s happening. Actually happening. Just horrifying.

OP I agree with you about the kids making permanent life choices in the NHS system at 18. The NHS has age-based rules about blockers, hormones, surgery apparently.

There are some kids seeing private doctors though and presumably that doesn’t come with any age based rules.

Gosh, I got deleted and haven't a clue what I said that was offensive. No explanation from mumsnet either

There are some kids seeing private doctors though and presumably that doesn’t come with any age based rules.

The mother of a gender dysphoric child who used to post here said one of the reasons she left Mermaids was because a lot of the other parents used to use meetings to swap information about online pharmacies and private doctors where they could obtain medication the NHS refused to prescribe.

Having researched puberty blockers she was determined to protect her DC from them. The other parents were frantic to obtain them.

I do find myself wondering why parents would want to promote child transition. I expect the lies about the suicide rate are partly to blame.

I know trans "conversion.therapy" is said to be ethically wrong. But I'm sorry I really don't understand why it is not better for children to get counseling to help them accept the healthy growing fantastic bodies they have.
If homosexual people had trouble accepting their sexuality, surely we would expect them to receive counseling to help them accept it. Or on another tack, anorexics do recieve counseling to help them accept that they are too thin, and food is not the enemy.
People who have trouble accepting their physical reality need counseling surely? And the people around them maybe need some as well to accept that person for who they really are, "cross gender" dress and toys and all. Address any potential latent homophobia or gender stereotyping.

Ah shoot me, I'm obviously a hopeless transphobe

It is terrify. I got a crap tattoo at 18, thankfully in a hidden place. I was legally an adult and able to make that decision, but I wish I hadn’t had it done.

While I understand that Gillick competent children can make their own decisions, there are some things that shouldn’t be available as an option for children to choose, as they are too big to comprehend and make a truly informed decision - and these sorts of untested treatments that can have unknown effects and could involve irreversible changes are right at the top of that list.

Yes the castrati, that came up on another thread I was on a few months ago. They grew unusually tall, and so were often bullied as they were easy to spot. Hundreds of boys would be castrated for only one to succeed.
It is such a sad sound too. It suddenly struck me then that we would hear a castrati voice again, surely, with the blockers etc.

Thing is, most people’s experience of ‘hormones’ is female hormonal contraception. There is huge societal pressure to not acknowledge that these hormones may actually be detrimental to health. Instead they are positive and liberating, yay.

I do know it’s not the same, but still, I feel there’s a link here with the negative effects of the contraceptive pill being so understudied / suppressed.

People want to believe you can just dose up on hormones and achieve the sex result you want with no issue. The push for that is strong.

Castrati grew much taller than they otherwise would have done, with a long rib cage. I think that must also be the case with boys put on blockers ? The large lung capacity along with the undropped voice gives a particular sound, not a boy’s voice, or a woman’s , not a falsetto. It is a male voice still though.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjvfqnD0ws

I agree Batteries. There’s a lot of known risks of hormonal contraception - increased risk of stroke, for example, with some contraceptive pills if you take them for a long period of time. Then we have all the other lovely side effects like loss of libido, weight gain, bloating, painful periods...and the list goes on and on. That’s a relatively small amount of same sex hormones which work with the female body.

How can it be possible to be using off-label drugs for children with no long term research available on what the effects might be? It’s madness.

I just tried to listen to that recording. But I couldn't... it all just sounded so wrong. There was too much behind it.

Too upsetting to think this is the modern day version and what we are doing to these kids. All.pushed for by people who have gathered children, lived their lives and benefited from their fully grown in tact male status

There is huge societal pressure to not acknowledge that these hormones may actually be detrimental to health. Instead they are positive and liberating, yay.

Exactly Batteries

I was involved in an online discussion with someone about my concerns regarding puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and they kept reiterating that it had to be fine because "hormones had been used for decades, which meant we understand all about them". And I kept saying that even same-sex hormones used for contraception have side effects, and importantly we don't know all the effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on children, but they would then acknowledge that "OK, same-sex hormones do have side effects" and then just kept going back to the "hormones had been used for decades, which meant we understand all the effects" - it was infuriatingly circular.

Unsurprisingly, this person was male-bodied and therefore hadn't actually experienced the (sic) well-understood side effects of hormonal contraception.