Bob Withers on GMB and This Morning today

[HandsOffMyRights]

Psychoanalyst Bob, who wrote the excellent piece for yesterday's Mail, has just gone head tp head with India W on GMB. I didn't see it, but there's plus one and catch up.

He's on This morning at 10.30.

Lack of clarity around terms. Medical means taking medication, surgical means Well, surgery obvs. So medical transitioning is not the srs that Bergdorf seems to think it means.

I reckon Bergdorf is very well aware what it means and the misinterpretation is deliberate. The tactic seems to be to try to win over the uninformed general public with this innocent 'What? Nothing to see here...' schtick: throwing in a disingenuous 'fact' here, a smattering of fake stats there. All used like smoke and mirrors to distract from the annoying reason of what professionals like Bob Withers are saying.

The man should have been given more opportunity to speak. Another poorly control debate by GMB.

I did feel that it came across that IW thought autistic children were justifiable collateral damage. Like it doesn't matter if some of them are transed by mistake.

I did feel that it came across that IW thought autistic children were justifiable collateral damage. Like it doesn't matter if some of them are transed by mistake.

I've heard that from many TRAs.

Thanks Bob for repeatedly going back to safeguarding. Calm and clear and focused. MB completely unable to give any actual facts and trying to manipulate emotions. Same as always. It's funny, I've searched high and low for a cogent trans argument, and never found one.

The surgery and makeup are very flattering and I can't stop looking at MB, there was a lot of skill there.

Do you think? I thought MB was beautiful (albeit not passing) in the pre FFS days. Now? Like a doll.

It's funny, I've searched high and low for a cogent trans argument, and never found one.

Me too. "You're mean", "TWAW" and intersex based sophistry is pretty much the whole arsenal.

I think Bob was great, but it is infuriating how much air time he’s been given in 1 day, compared to other campaigning women who have been desperately trying to be heard. The main thing though is that at least the truth is now being discussed-there simply must be more talking therapy offered to children before any sort of medical intervention is offered-I don’t understand how anyone can think blocking puberty & preventing a child’s brain maturing is a useful thing when faced with a situation where the child is confused & will most likely be fine after puberty.

In tribute to a healthcare professional breaking ranks and speaking up...another B Withers for you all for your Monday evening listening:-

And Bob has been, like Julie B and many others, speaking up for a lot longer:
www.thesap.org.uk/events/gender-dysphoria-transgendered-states-view-consulting-room-robert-withers/ 2017

www.theguardian.com/world/2007/may/25/gender.uk 2007
As a psychotherapist who has worked closely with patients like Claudia, I thought your article ducked a couple of crucial issues. The first concerns the mechanics of sex. When Claudia was asked what she most missed about not being a man she talked coyly about not being able to pee standing up. Far more serious for my patients has been their inability to experience a proper orgasm with their genitals surgically mutilated.As an ex-patient of mine put it: "Would the NHS have provided me with a pouch if I had convinced a psychiatrist I was a kangaroo trapped in a human body?"

I think Bob was great, but it is infuriating how much air time he’s been given in 1 day

Bit unfair. As pom said, he's been speaking up for ages. Has a chapter in the Michele Moore book about transgender and young people.

happydappy2 cross-posts. See my post - Bob's been talking about this for a while.

Maybe it's the diverse, loud, and innovative campaigning women right now who are helping the Bob's (and others, see upcoming C4 programme ths week) get their voice heard?

It's shit. It represents the system as we all know it. Women's voices won't be recognised as the key 'change agents' in the end. It will probably be linked to male voices.

And still, we will get change made.

And, as per Lang's post, Bob was talking about this whilst I was totally unaware of the issues.

Whilst Bob was flagging things, I was happily going along with the transgender stuff ignorantly and implementing things that I had no idea was going to affect women (female) like it is right now.

If we were falling on swords, I should be there before Bob. (Still whistling Bill 'lovely day' in my head!)

Am I the only one who read the title and got confused with Bill Withers? And now I have "Lovely day" going round and round in my head....

Last post on this, I promise!

But I do feel passionately that it's the combination right now of women speaking loudly, innovatively (ManFriday, LAWS, FPFW, Standing for Women and many others) that are proactively shining a light on those long-standing, amazing people, male and female, who have been saying the same stuff for a long, long time, whilst being ignored by many of us, either accidentally or actively.

Many of us didn't realise/didn't know. That's not the case any more.

Amplify, speak, support.

For the benefit of women, and children, and, to be honest, men who've got caught up in this shitstorm.

Olenna gave you the gift of BIll Withers, just for you and inside your head!

It's gonna be....a lovely day

I've just had to google who it was that actually sang Lovely Day as I was thinking he'd had a bit of a change of career.

Perhaps the menz will listen to a man?

In the This Morning interview MB mentioned self harm but I didn't catch the detail. The suicide stats again or something a bit more accurate, does anyone know?

Daily Mail has covered this further:
'Transgender patient was left depressed and suicidal after 'losing his penis' when he surgically transitioned to a woman without having psychoanalysis first'

Psychotherapist Bob Wither treated a transgender patient 25 years ago. After transitioning from man to woman he regretted it and became suicidal. He stressed people with gender dysphoria should get psychotherapy before.
Trans journalist India Willoughby says it's only controversial because it's new'
(extract)
"Ms Willoughby, who made history as a the first transgender woman to front an all-female talk show on Loose Women, replied: 'One per cent of the world's population is trans.

'So across 10 school years that would be those 17 pupils - in that context it isn't that many. The only uproar here is that it's a relatively new thing.'

She attacked Mr Wither's example of his patient that regretted transitioning by saying: 'The case you cite, I would argue that the vast majority of people who transition are extremely happy.

'We have been treating this condition extremely well for 50 years now.

'The first sex change took place before the first heart transplant - doctors understand it.

'We have something called the World Health Organisation (WHO) and they all agree, there's a consensus of opinion here.

'I have a young son and from three or four I was aware that something was wrong. We know who we are, it's not a problem.'

But Mr Wither stressed society needs to prioritize child protection.

He said: 'I think that get overlooked and we should have that conversation together.

'How can we best prevent people having unnecessary surgery?

'And can we agree that if anybody transitions and ends up regretting it, they have lost their fertility, their sex life is very likely to be seriously impaired...'

But Ms Willoughby claimed she felt as if 'she is on trial for being trans'.

She added: 'When we talk about being transgender, issues get conflated.

'Sometimes it's a sex offender and suddenly everyone who's trans is a sex offender.

'This time it's autism - the two are not automatically linked.

'Gay people used to be treated as if they had an illness that needed treatment - this is the same thing but with autism.' (continues)
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6404961/GMB-transgender-debate-Bob-Wither-psychotherapist-India-Willoughby-transgender-journalist.html

In the This Morning interview MB mentioned self harm but I didn't catch the detail. The suicide stats again or something a bit more accurate, does anyone know?

It was about suicide, Stonewall cited. But MB muttered 80 per cent. That's not even the myth Stonewall wields (you know, the study of 27 handpicked young people).

MB also mentioned teenagers being on the pill and comparing that to puberty blockers. How irresponsible can you get.

I find MB worse than IW. Somebody upthread hit the nail on the head about how MB deliberately befuddles interviewers with their '"nothing to see here" mirrors.
Watch how they try to turn the forest story into Bob likening trans children (no such thing btw) to ferral creatures.

Thank you.

I thought Bob was great in the this morning clip. Really firm, clear, calm and reasonable.
Honestly I don’t care if it takes a man to say these things and if the DM is the only paper printings this -we need people to start listening. This is a tragedy on a national scale and so many children are being hurt by the current affirmation strategy. Proper counselling and looking at other reasons a child might be saying they are trans are essential to stop more people being hurt

He was very reasonable and clear. Munroe couldn't bully him which was good.

And of course people tell each other what to say to get on the medical pathway. Lying about that makes you look ludicrous.

Munroe is pure manipulation.

I watched this so you don't have to. I give you the supremely irritating Monroe B vs Bob. (and I've called the presenters P1 and P2 because I don't know who that woman is. P2 is Scofield). I need a lie down and gin after that (but will settle for a cup of tea and a mince pie). Is the IW link on this thread too? I might do that later on

P1 – good morning to you both. Now the tavi is the only NHS transgender clinic for children and the centre received less than 100 referrals in 2009 and last year received more than 2000. Why do you think that is?
M – definitely because there’s more information out there. I think times are changing, and the way that we think about gender is changing. A lot of people are of the mindset now that gender is different from biological sex and that gender is on a spectrum and it’s identity that is impacted by a range of factors such as society and … just generally [waves arms about] what you’re exposed to.
P2 – this whistle blower teacher who was called Carol in the paper, she made 5 main points and we’ll cover those points as we go through our chat. Point one – too many children are being allowed to transition or identify as non-binary, neither male nor female. ‘Too many children?’
B – as a psychotherapist I suppose what I’m going to say is that a mismatch between somebody’s perceived sense of who they are –their minds and of their bodies. And the question is that if there is a mismatch like that, what do you do? Do you alter your body to fit in with your mind or do you alter your mind to fit in with your body? The concern is that if there are too many children who go down the medical route, they may make irreversible changes to their bodies …
M – But!
B – excuse me, just let me finish. And it’s a child protection issue because if somebody did transition for the wrong reasons say like they were autistic and they felt that they could solve their emotional problems by medically transitioning and the problem with that is that they could discover later on that they haven’t really got the benefit that they thought they would.
M – can I just interject because immediately I think we need to be really careful about how we’re referring to transgender children. There’s a myth that transgender children are medically transitioning when what we need to be doing is supporting these children in exploring or expressing their gender identity. And the reality is that [smirking] children are not having sexual reassignment surgery. The reality is that children are expressing their gender – whether that’s binary so from female to male; male to female or non-binary as they don’t identify with a binary gender. So when they’re not medically transitioning – and they’re not – all that parents and teachers can do is support them and use the pronouns that they want and choose themselves and encourage them to express themselves with the clothing or hairstyles or anything.
P2 – well you’re talking about clothing or hairstyles rather than medical intervention but it’s 18 for sexual reassignment surgery, and 16 for hormone injections, with parental consent.
M – absolutely. If a child or a teenager is old enough to be having sex or taking contraception pills, then they’re old enough to have autonomy over their own bodies to decide who they are as a human being.
P2 – one of the other points that was made is that trans is in vogue and a fad. Trans children operate in powerful cliques which groom and encourage other children to transition.
M – I found this really concerning because she was saying that trans kids are popular like it’s some kind of abomination, like it’s a bad thing. When it’s better that trans kids are popular and that they’re doted on by their peers and encouraged to be who they are by their peers …
B – [hugely sceptical expression] can I just …
M – what’s happening is that kids are being much more accepted.
P2 – is it a fad?
B – well there’s some reason for this huge increase in numbers and we need to understand why. Nobody really understands why and properly researching. We need to protect children from wrongly transitioning. There may be some people who end up very happy, doing medical treatment …
M – children aren’t having sexual reassignment surgery
B – [irritated] excuse me. Yes, children aren’t having SRS but once they start on medical puberty blockers, nearly 100% go on to fully transition, whereas if you don’t start those blockers, about 80% go back to their original gender. We don’t know much about gender identity but we know that it’s quite normal for someone to identify as a gender that is not the same as their biological sex and then spontaneously desist.
M – that’s not true either [sounding increasingly sulky]
B – the problem is that if we put them on medication we’re likely them to go the full route down medical transition. I have no problem with people expressing gender diversity, celebrating different roles, so we don’t get caught up in stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. I think that’s absolutely right and we should affirm kids in what they want and what they feel. But if we treat them medically, without knowing what we’re doing and what the longterm consequences are, we’re storing up a medical problem.
M – but that’s why all the medical procedures are there. Why you go through certain services such as the tavi to seek out help and to seek out guidance. But if you’re not doing that, like the patient that you mentioned, someone that didn’t seek out counselling and have SRS then we’re back 25 years later. But the general numbers are not there to say that trans people go back.
B – no, this person that you’re referring to did actually go through the correct procedures, had the sessions such as are offered at the tavi. The problem is that people come up with the idea that they’re going to get better through the surgery and they’re coached into what answers to give at the sessions.
M – this is a very small amount …
B – it’s not small. This is a huge number of people. There’s a huge number of people in Finland who all said that they all spent their childhood in the forest, alone, imagining that they were male wolves. And that’s because, if you come into a gender clinic …
M – let’s not pay attention to kids and feral children …
B – excuse me a minute. If you come into the clinic, if they identify as somebody whose transitioning in their adolescence, they’re less likely to be given the treatment. But if they have a story that they’ve always thought of themselves as male or female, they’re much more likely to be put along the medical pathway. People know what to do in order to get the treatment, the medical treatment. And they fixate on that as a way to solve their problems. Monroe, please come in
M – no, it’s just mind-blowing that you compared trans children to feral children.
B – not feral children, no! They came up with a story that when they were kids …
M – it’s not a story. What we need to be doing is listening to trans kids as the statistics are showing that when trans kids are not encouraged to express their gender identity, levels of trans children self-harming or thinking about self-harming or committing suicide as reported by stonewall are so high. They’re in the 80s.
P2 – final point here. Many trans children are also autistic which leads them to question their gender identity because of this and the tavi has reported that 35% of children who are referred to the centre from 2011 have been autistic.
M – but how many autistic people aren’t transgender as well? We need to look at the balance there. And also the majority aren’t autistic either. I think the two can be apart, but they can be together as well.
B – we need to talk about how we can protect children here and if somebody transitions because they’re autistic and they think that’s going to fix it, that is a tragedy and we need to protect that person.
M – what I have an issue with is the damning tone of this article and the fact that it’s in one of the papers that perhaps isn’t the most progressive or protective over trans people. And when you as a medical practitioner go and add your narrative to a paper that is known for bigotry, that is extremely reckless.
B – yes, I wish the left wing press would pick this up more, I’ll be very honest with you. I’m very surprised that the MoS are the only people who are picking this up …
M – well I’m not surprised because the tone of your article was extremely irresponsible as a medical practitioner.
B – no it wasn’t. it was a straightforward professional …
M – if you want to protect children, you’re not going about it the right way
B – we’re trying to protect children who are transitioning for the wrong reasons …
M – I can safely say that your letter has made a lot of trans children’s lives a lot harder.
B – on the other hand, people might say that it’s brought an important issue to the …
M – other people might have bias absolutely but
B – it’s not a bias. If people transition because they’re gay and struggling with that
M – so being gay has nothing to do with it.
B – yes it does. Rupert Everett has said that if he were alive at this time …
M – Rupert Everett is a gay man!
B – yes but he has said that if he were alive at this time, he probably would have transitioned because he spent a time female identifying.
M – well let’s not take Rupert everett’s word for anything! What’s he an expert on.
P2 – well let’s stop it there but one thing I think we can agree on is that it has to be discussed and it is about protecting children.
B – yes I think we can both agree with that.
M – [flicks hair] yes, just maybe not through the daily mail.
B – sorry about that.

Love the tone and face expressions Orchid. We are in your debt.