When challenged that no young person would be given a diagnosis other than that they are transgender, Jenkins stated “The purpose of the service is to explore, on an individual basis, with those young people and their families, what they’re feeling, what their experiences are, not to dispute the genuineness about their, about their....[tails off into stuttering]
I don’t think he actually understands the issues here, listening to him, tbh, he doesn’t even have the vocabulary easily at hand to discuss the matter. No one is accusing trans-identifying teens of lying that they feel they are trans, that their experiences of life have led them to conclude that they must be trans. Obviously their feelings are genuine - our concerns are that the basis of those feelings are coming of age in a society entrenched in toxic gender ideology, sex-based stereotypes, homophobia, misogyny, that young people may be dealing with complex trauma, abandonment, attachment issues, physical, emotional & sexual abuse, autism, mental health issues and find ‘belonging’ for the first time in a community that tells them that if they deny their biological reality and seek to alter their anatomy and physiology, they will find love and acceptance sorely lacking anywhere else in their life. The task at hand is to disentangle where the feelings and beliefs of the young person come from, and identifying how best to help the young person move forward and become a functional, physically & mentally healthy adult human. There’s a massive difference between challenging thought patterns - exactly what psychological therapy is supposed to do - and ‘disputing genuineness’.