Times 16/2/1/9 Staff at trans clinic fear damage to children......

[Melroses]

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/staff-at-trans-clinic-fear-damage-to-children-as-activists-pile-on-pressure-c5k655nq9

Does anyone have a share token?

[Sunshineofleith]

I agree. They know what to say.

[R0wantrees]

It's the script stuff that has me questioning how this can possibly be allowed to continue unchecked.

The 'script' has been in place for a long time, its been speeded up by the internet along with accessibility to medical and surgical interventions.

Young people struggling with dificult feelings and who believed 'something something was wrong' but without understanding what it was in the past might have had to wait for books or articles.

Stephen Whittle, Wiki:
"He knew he was romantically attached to other girls at school – he never told them, and so his love was not reciprocated – but he also knew that he was sexually attracted to men. On top of that was a strong desire to be a man, to grow a beard and to have a hairy chest. He had read articles about people like Della Aleksander and April Ashley who had had a sex change. In 1972, at the age of 16, whilst visiting his doctor about a sore throat he read about a female to male transman (FTM) transsexual person"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Whittle

Leanne Mills Dail Mail interview:
(extract)
"Born a boy and called Lee Antony, she began to feel she was in the wrong body at the age of four, when she tried on a Native American woman’s costume at a children’s dressing up party because ‘it made me feel like one of the girls’. At seven, she was being bullied at her all-boys primary school because she appeared so feminine and loathed football and playground rough-and-tumble.

By her early teens, she was secretly rooting through the wardrobe of her mother, Mavis, trying on her clothes.

‘I hated my male self and couldn’t even look at my body naked in the mirror,’ she says. ‘Dressing as a woman made me feel happy.’ (continues)

"Leanne — then still Lee, of course — buried her head in those delicate hands and wept at her father’s pronouncement. The teenager had learnt about transsexualism — a term coined only a decade or two before — from a Seventies book by a U.S. psychiatrist that was on her parents’ shelves. It was called Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask) and contained a short reference to transsexuals." (continues)
www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6493959/Transsexual-warn-reality-transexual.html

[TheSteveMilliband]

BetsyMoo Thankyou! I even asked on the times help page but they had no clue!

[NonHypotheticalLurkingParent]

mrskeats I really feel for you. It's a very odd situation to be in. Of course you can ask, DD is now definitely a girl/woman and a lesbian. She's been diagnosed and treated for OCD. The medication helped enormously. She still has some differences of opinion on gender than I do, but we can discus it now.

How old's your DC? How long have they identified as trans?

You're welcome to PM me if you want.

[Popchyk]

From the article:

"Some openly homophobic parents sought transition for their children because they were gay".

And we have Ruth Hunt of Stonewall and Owen Jones cheering this and decrying everyone who speaks out as a bigot. Forced homosexual conversion therapy is to be lauded, it seems.

[FloralBuntingIsObnoxious]

Oh yes, I know the script is in place, and that the internet is creating lightspeed connections to it, and also that the children involved often know it's a script to expedite access to treatment because they have been groomed to believe that medical intervention will fix them.

What I'm really wanting to drill down on, and I would really like a journalist to do this, and then someone in authority, is the fact that clinicians are recognizing the script among a large cohort and it is not stopping the system dead as it should. If a lot of people were turning up at a pain clinic to try and access opiates and it was extremely obvious that there was a script being used by them to get hold of the drugs, there would be systems in place to halt what was a clear gaming of the system.

[R0wantrees]

What I'm really wanting to drill down on, and I would really like a journalist to do this, and then someone in authority, is the fact that clinicians are recognizing the script among a large cohort and it is not stopping the system dead as it should.

If a young person searches on youtube, 'Am I transgender?' most of the people in the top ranked videos comment, 'if you are asking the question, you probably are'

[R0wantrees]

If a lot of people were turning up at a pain clinic to try and access opiates and it was extremely obvious that there was a script being used by them to get hold of the drugs, there would be systems in place to halt what was a clear gaming of the system.

Scripts can be unconsciously assimilated. It will be a complex dynamic.

[FloralBuntingIsObnoxious]

Scripts can be unconsciously assimilated. It will be a complex dynamic.

Undoubtedly. But if you're hearing coaching from parents? If you're hearing the same phrases from so many apparently unconnected young people, what is the point where a clinician says "Hold on a minute, there's something not quite right here..."

[NonHypotheticalLurkingParent]

Floral - maybe the report is the tipping point for change. The everyday clinicians will have a much clearer picture of what’s happening than those higher up, but they will not necessarily listened to. Hopefully, now it’s there on paper, something will be done about it.

[NonHypotheticalLurkingParent]

In all my dealings with CAMHS, which are probably run in a similar way to GIDS, the clinicians are very in touch with the patients and know what they need, but funding stops them being able to provide the services required, so people get signed off, or signposted for the only treatment they provide, that probably won’t work.

[R0wantrees]

I think the kids, to a certain extent, do realise it's a script though. The script just provides a means to get the treatment. DD knew if she voiced any doubts it'd slow down the treatment pathway. That's the really scary thing.

Many individuals and organisations who claim to advocate for those who transgender constantly refer to innacurate suicide and self-harm statistics.
For vulnerable children and young people this will have a profound effect on them

[R0wantrees]

If you're hearing the same phrases from so many apparently unconnected young people, what is the point where a clinician says "Hold on a minute, there's something not quite right here..."

THe founder of GIDS seems to have articulated a 'script' which suggests that children can be 'born into the wrong body', have an innate gender identity and that medical, surgical and social transition can be appropriate.

[R0wantrees]

confirmation bias?

[FloralBuntingIsObnoxious]

In all my dealings with CAMHS, which are probably run in a similar way to GIDS, the clinicians are very in touch with the patients and know what they need, but funding stops them being able to provide the services required, so people get signed off, or signposted for the only treatment they provide, that probably won’t work.

There seems to be a culture in CAMHS of a budgetary motivation to sign trans identifying children off to the Tavistock and the actual MH issues never get addressed by CAMHS at all. I mean, aside from all the tin foil hat big pharma stuff of getting kids on lifetime meds, there's a large element of cooking the books in terms of trying to deal with a massively under resourced system for basic MH issues and shunting some troubled kids off to a different sector to keep numbers down. Which obviously just passes the problem on to the Tavistock who don't seem to have the resources or time to give to it either. But they do have the nice hormone pills.

Jesus, I need to go to bed.

[R0wantrees]

If all the public funding which goes to trans rights/trans affirming organisations etc went to CAMHS and their services were child centred, many man young people would benefit long term, especially those questioning their gender identity.

[Mrskeats]

Thanks non have pmd you

[Thingybob]

I just saw this on Twitter
twitter.com/FierceMum/status/1095824981903265795.

A good example of the "significant persecution” that GIDS face

[Barracker]

The following words were spoken 15 years and 18 days ago, in the House of Lords during the GRA debates. The speaker was Baroness O'Cathain.

It is an obvious failing that the Bill as drafted contains no requirements of psychiatric evidence. It could be that there are severe psychiatric reasons why such a change should not be made. Yet such evidence could be excluded. The panel may never see it and I do not believe that that is right. Furthermore, these amendments would create a system of assessment which was left open to abuse. By selecting the right medical expert and learning to say the right thing at the right time, transsexuals could quite easily pass the test laid down by the Bill at present.

I read recently that there are websites which teach transsexuals the right things to say when being interviewed by medical professionals. They advise them, basically, on how to cheat; on how to present the classic symptoms of gender dysphoria in order to get the operation they feel they want. I have no doubt that with the growth of cyberspace there will soon be websites advising on the best way to get a gender recognition certificate. We must take steps to limit the scope of that kind of abuse.

A more rigorous regime is all the more necessary because the medical profession itself seems to be in turmoil over the appropriate standards to be applied in these cases. Some medical professionals working in this area feel that some of their colleagues are less than rigorous in assessing people. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Chan, has given us a description of one such case. Perhaps some professionals feel that their duty is simply to give the patient what he or she wants. I suggest that that is a dangerous approach to take. Not only is it a dangerous approach, but it is an enormous step to take.

Sadly there is plenty of evidence that people regret having a sex change. Only today my attention was drawn to a television programme broadcast in September of last year on ABC, the Australian broadcasting network. It was called "Boy Interrupted" and was about Alan Finch who, with the support of health professionals, had sex-change surgery at the age of 19. He now says, Anatomically, I was never a woman … Everything was fake about it from top to toe". At age 31 he decided to change back to his biological sex.

All of this was spoken before the GRA became law. 15 years ago. This crisis has been fomenting for a decade and a half, and it has been facilitated, eyes wide open, by those with the power to dismiss dissent.

That it has evolved to affect children was entirely inevitable.

[R0wantrees]

There are some parents once connected with Mermaids who have been incredibly active and influential TRAs.

May 2018 Spectator, James Kirkup: 'Why are some MPs trying to shut down the transgender debate?'
(extract)
"Some people in the gender debate say harsh and critical things about Mermaids. I am not doing so here. My suggestion is that Green, having had her own family experience of transgender issues, has decided to devote herself to charitable work in the hope of offering what she believes as help to others who need it. The same is true of several others who work or volunteer at Mermaids. Read this for a moving account of how devoted some parents are to Mermaids for their help.

Despite its influence, it is worth noting what Mermaids is not. It is not a research body. Its activities are support (for families) and advocacy: based on its contacts with those families, it argues for what it sees are better policies and practices by the NHS and others. It does not carry out or commission clinical or academic research. Its most recent annual report lists among its charitable activities “campaigning and advocacy” and says: “Mermaids has also become more active in lobbying”. (continues)
blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/why-are-some-mps-trying-to-shut-down-the-transgender-debate/

embedded link from article:
'The Moment I Knew My Child Was Trans'
(extract)
"I told Susie how since we had accepted our child as a girl, since we had stopped our nightly cycle of rejection and denial, the joy had come back into her life. How she had started talking about books and toys and animals again. How she had started to laugh and smile. How she had grown in confidence. How the stress and weight of the world on her shoulders had lifted. How a simple shift in pronoun had transformed our sad depressed child into one with the happiness of a child who has finally been seen by their parents.

“That’s your answer,” said Susie. “You found out, just as I did, what the scientific consensus supports, whatever you do, as parents, you can’t make a child be a gender they’re not”.

Years have passed since that phone call.

We’ve had our share of challenges, all related to how the world treats children like my daughter. We’ve been on a huge learning curve, and our friends, family and school have learnt alongside us. Support at school was critical. Great leadership from the head teacher and a proactive zero tolerance approach to bullying, including misgendering, meant that the school adapted quickly, accepting our daughter completely. Our child is now loving school, learning, growing and enjoying spending time with her friends – who love and accept her as a girl, and as trans.

Our focus has shifted – trying to help build a society that is ready for our daughter. A world that will love and accept her as we do – a world where she doesn’t face prejudice, discrimination and hate. A world where she can read a newspaper without seeing trans people mocked, feared, treated as lesser.

My daughter is still my daughter. She is happy. Thriving. Her being transgender is the least interesting thing about her. She’s just a girl.

I’d like to say more but the children are awake, my time is up. I’ve been called to judge a Lego-making competition. The weekend awaits.

My wife and I blog here. You can also reach us on Twitter: @DadTrans & @FierceMum"
growinguptransgender.com/2018/02/27/the-moment-i-knew-my-child-was-trans/

'research' articles from blog:
growinguptransgender.com/2019/02/13/offensive-dated-harmful-2019-research-from-gids/

growinguptransgender.com/2018/01/27/gender-constancy-in-trans-children/

growinguptransgender.com/2017/11/27/puberty-blockers-gnrha/

growinguptransgender.com/2017/11/25/diagnostic-importance-of-starting-puberty/

[feministfairy]

Comments have now appeared under the article. The Sunday Times has this and three Martina / sports articles today. Excellent coverage (and the Mail on Sunday is covering the trans sex offenders in women's prisons story.

[NonHypotheticalLurkingParent]

Floral It's not purely budget for CAMHS to refer on to the Tavistock. It's because gender dysphoria is no longer seen as a mental illness, if it's not mental illness, it's not in CAMHS remit. Therefore, if the clinician you see in the first instance (usually a mental health nurse in our trust) believes there to be no mental health concerns or the child/young person is not open about them, even if they are patiently obvious, they will sign you off. Sadly it's all about meeting criteria and willingness to engage. Where CAMHS are hit by budget is they are unable to provide the services that would encourage patients to start engaging in treatment.

[hipsterfun]

When all this starts unravelling, I think we can expect a lot of material to start disappearing from the internet. I’m taking screenshots and making PDFs.

[R0wantrees]

All of this was spoken before the GRA became law. 15 years ago. This crisis has been fomenting for a decade and a half, and it has been facilitated, eyes wide open, by those with the power to dismiss dissent.

That it has evolved to affect children was entirely inevitable.

see thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3463920-Lets-go-back-to-2007

[feministfairy]

hipsterfun
That's a really important point. It's critical for parents who know that their children have been groomed / influenced by others. Take details and keep records of every adult intervening, school staff not sharing information with parents, school insurers, details of organisations accessing their child.
Then - if their child is one of those who when they hit their 20s and realise that what they believed when they were 14 is not now what they want, they can sue. Especially those organisations who enabled them to mutilate their bodies and medicate themselves before they were able to fully understand and consent. Being infertile and having no real sex life should command significant damages I would think.