One small voice for sense ...

[DancelikeEmmaGoldman]

Pediatric gender clinics: We may look back and ask 'what were we thinking?

“Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, Children’s new gender clinic is portrayed as an unmitigated good. Yet what’s happening in England — where, as here, the number of young people presenting with gender confusion is skyrocketing — suggests that current treatment of pediatric gender-identity problems ignores underlying causes and entails risks that are not being discussed.

Several studies indicate that a strikingly high percentage of young people, especially girls, who identify as transgender have pre-existing autism, ADHD and/or psychological problems, all of which may underlie their gender confusion.”

m.startribune.com/pediatric-gender-clinics-we-may-look-back-and-ask-what-were-we-thinking/511596442/

And another one.

www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/listen-to-carlotta-dont-give-the-child-hormones/news-story/6038bee648fa2af97089f6d9a6256aa0?nk=6da6672f40a3c8843a46c4a559e99f1c-1561183706

Miranda Devine is a terrible person, the Nigel Farage of Australia, (unless that’s Alan Jones), so while she’s never going to be on the side of feminists, she isn’t afraid to hold an unpopular opinion.

Carlotta is an unexpected ally:

“Carlotta, 74, had a sex change from male to female in the early 1970s when she was in her 20s and the surgery was groundbreaking. In those days she was a celebrated showgirl at the cross-dressing Les Girls cabaret in Kings Cross and her survival from discarded baby to sexually abused boy to runaway teen to transgender pioneer and cultural icon is a testament to her fortitude.”

“As far as Carlotta is concerned, this is nuts: “I don’t agree with it. I’ll probably get shut down for saying it but I don’t think you should muck around with the body like that. Let the chromosomes take over first.”

Another high profile transsexual in Australia is Sandra Pankhurst, who also experienced a terribly abusive and traumatic childhood. AGP aside, the role of physical and emotional trauma in the development of dysphoria doesn’t get much airtime, although I think it should.

As a fairly famous Australian feminist said to me at a conference earlier this year, “It’s easier for our current society to change the body than the mind.”

And she commented about the despair she felt when an essay of hers from the 1989s is now taught at a university with a “trigger warning.”

It’s easier for our current society to change the body than the mind.

That is such a powerful statement.

the role of physical and emotional trauma in the development of dysphoria doesn’t get much airtime, although I think it should

yes. The fact that both of the posters who who have talked honestly and openly here about suffering from gender dysphoria (and thank you and for that), also talked about suffering terrible abuse in childhood really shaped my thinking on this.

I think the focus on affirmation stops us a society from examining why children may be suffering from dysphoria, and from potentially picking up and stopping cases of child abuse. it's shameful.

Thank you for posting this. I've often wondered what Carlotta thought about this (secretly hoping she would be on the side of sanity). Carlotta is a cultural icon in Sydney often referred to as "The Queen of The Cross". She has never been shy of stating her opinion.

As for Miranda Devine ugh, don't get me started on her defense of Cardinal Pell.

discarded baby to sexually abused boy to runaway teen to transgender pioneer

But “being trans” is a perfectly natural phenomenon and not related in any way to childhood abuse or related mental health issues.

Why can’t they see this? Why do we have to pretend this is a completely normal thing?

I forgot to add that Carlotta was a panelist on Beauty and the Beast back in the 90's. I'm about to run out of charge but if you google "beauty and the beast Carlotta" you should come up with some YouTube clips of old shows.

I don't think Carlotta has shied away from the fact that her terrible childhood had much to do with who she became.

Why do we have to pretend this is a completely normal thing?

It's astonishing how the trans lobby has managed to portray believing you are the opposite sex, or that you have been 'born in the wrong body', as a 'normal' state.

Here’s another one. I’m bound to think though, that you might want to seriously contemplate the issue before you start hacking into healthy bodies.

At the heart of the problem is confusion over the nature of the transgendered. "Sex change" is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.

www.wsj.com/articles/paul-mchugh-transgender-surgery-isnt-the-solution-1402615120

I know the last one is 3 years old, but it’s a pretty authoritative source. These voices are drowned out and disappeared in the feeding frenzy of the current social hysteria, but they’re still there.

The reference to the recovered memory craze strikes me as an interesting analogy. Another one was the “satanic cult” hysteria of the 80s. Even experts are not proof against social contagion and will manipulate the evidence, scientific and otherwise, in favour of their theory. The trouble is these experts have access to scalpels and drugs; swept up in their own version of Beatlemania, they are promoting their current craze into vulnerable humans. In 20 years we’ll look back at mutilated children and wonder what went so wrong.

DanceLikeEmmaGoldman
The reference to the recovered memory craze strikes me as an interesting analogy. Another one was the “satanic cult” hysteria of the 80s.
I've often thought that as well. And the "57 varieties of gender" nonsense reminds me a lot of the MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder) that accompanied the "satanic" hysteria - every victim (after many months of expensive therapy) had dozens of 'alters', each one of which were supposedly completely individual personalities.

Of course, that's all old hat nowadays - you just wake up in the morning and decide what your personality sorry, gender will be today.

I’ve seen the apparent link to autism mentioned a few times. I’m autistic, and also am incredibly glad that when I was younger being transgender wasn’t really a thing. I remember always associating with boys more often - dressing like one, being into sports and engineering and science. All things that I think girls should be able to do just as much as boys, btw. But I also remember the confusion of puberty, and loathing my body for its breasts and periods. I still have scars from self-harm. I remember often wondering what my life would be like if I was a boy. It probably wasn’t until my early 20s that I actually felt comfortable as a woman. It concerns me hugely that if I were born 20 years later, I might have been identified as having ‘gender identity issues’, and/or that I would have seen about trans issues on social media, or been talked to about it at school, and would have believed that that was my issue. How many other young people are going through exactly what I was, but are now having the pressure or influence to ‘admit’ to being trans?