Middle ground

[HDDD]

I've been trying to follow conversations online in regard to gender critical thought, pronouns, selfID, transrights, lesbian erasure etc. And all I can find is extreme views on both sides. Is there a middle ground? Is it here? Is Twitter too toxic? I want to be informed not screamed at.

[ArnoldWhatshisknickers]

It’s bone-deep Red Riding Hood instincts - cross-dressing wolf in the bed

Indeed. It is ancient wisdom we learned at our mother's knee.

Fairy tales contain much sage advice.

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

Is that thread still up, I wonder. If so someone should drop a link in the thread where the newbie was asking for intro to what the hell is going on links.

[OldCrone]

Is this the thread you mean?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3398737-We-re-Still-Here-Conference-8th-September-A-report-from-the-inside

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

Yes, thank you!

[zebrasdontwearbras]

Red Riding Hood and a wolf in sheep's clothing - ancient wisdom indeed.

A long while ago, an "educational" cartoon for kids was linked to on here, called Mr Wolf's New Dress or something. Lots of rainbows, and I think had everyone dressing up for "Pride". Mr Wolf wanted to wear a dress, but was scared, and so on, and I think it ended with the child taking a dress to Mr Wolf and encouraging him to wear it.

It has just struck me how concerning this is - trying to override children's natural instincts to fear the wolf!

Even more alarmingly, I tried to google search for this cartoon - something like "cartoon trans mr wolf's new dress" and got a "Warning - Child Pornography is Illegal"
WTF is going on??

[zebrasdontwearbras]

Ah - I think the google warning was because I put "kids cartoon" in the search - but damn, i was not expecting that.

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

I remember that cartoon! It was one of those moments where you're not sure if someone has zero self awareness or if they're straight up trolling.

[zebrasdontwearbras]

Yeah - I watched it with an eyeroll initially - like kittens says, it was almost like trolling.

But then, when you link it all together - all the queer theory, the breaking down of children's safeguarding, it is dead sinister.

We've got office leathery wank-boy working for the nspcc, fetish "pups" at Pride sporting erections while playing with kids.... and the big bad wolf is just someone who wants to wear a dress - send your child over to their place with a fabulous dress for them to wear! Not scary at all.

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

Even the thread the other day about the mum who regretted pushing her child to be "inclusive" towards someone the child hadn't really wanted to talk to was overrun with people insisting that the worst thing a little girl can ever do is be rude.

Rather rude than kidnapped, molested, or dead, imo.

[Tyrotoxicity]

I'm not sdure I agree with this.

And that, Arnold, is how you know you've been better socialised than me.

It doesn't quite click with you because it already clicked with you, because all the recursive layers of your social interactions made it click for you.

The word I was looking for in the end paragraph of my previous post? That was the experiencing self trying to communicate and not being able to find a way to make it click with anyone or anything around it in a way that works.

When you're first born, nothing really makes sense. Your brain has to write its own programs based on the context and the data and get them up and running.

The people in your context, who provided the data to refine your context? They did it well enough for you, that it clicked. They did it well enough for you, that you were able to integrate everything into an oscillating whole that could cope with its context.

They didn't do it well enough for me, because the first thing I remember seeing was the physical violation of the body by the penis, and the first thing I remember feeling was wrong and I couldn't find anyone who could make it click together and make sense so I could stop the wrongfeel.

And every time I tried to express it, everybody told me I was wrong.

That's what patriarchal trauma does to you.

The first trauma counsellor I ever saw told me to find my inner child, and it just sounded like bollocks, because I'm not a little kid any more. Took me seventeen years to find it. She's in the last paragraph of my previous post, and she's real.

She's really real. She's as real as all the rest of us. She's me.

You don't quite get it, because your social-emotional-linguistic-behavioural processing systems are integrated well enough, and mine aren't, and that makes us different. But you're trying, and that's enough, because it's a start.



So what on earth do the rest of you point at, on the inside of your mind-sensorium, with the verb "to process" when you're talking about trauma and csa survivors? I literally couldn't connect the words to my self, and now I've figured out how, and I'd really, honestly love to know how everyone else connects the words to their self!

(Thank you Arnold for opening a door into the adjacent possible, that will allow us all to get better at healing the little girls who are sacrificed on the altar of the patriarchal dick in body as well as mind.)

[Fieldofgreycorn]

Does it improve functioning? Are there studies to show an improvement in mental health? Reduction in suicidal thoughts?

The evidence and treatment aims are all very clearly laid out In the current NHS service specs.

www.england.nhs.uk/publication/service-specification-gender-identity-services-for-adults-non-surgical-interventions/

www.england.nhs.uk/publication/service-specification-gender-identity-services-for-adults-surgical-interventions/

[Birdsfoottrefoil]

Field just looked through the first of those two links and the complete lack of evidence is shocking. A narrative review by specialist interest/lobby group WPATH is not evidence and that is about all there is. How did these service specs get to be written with no evidence to back them up?

[NeurotrashWarrior]

Skeksis. Yes.

[Mxyzptlk]

I suspect that much of this was planned out a long time ago and gradually rolled out in stages in a quite deliberate manner

Yes it was.
Much of it is detailed in the book "Trans Britain - Our Journey from the Shadows" edited by Christine Burns (a transwoman).

[Creepster]

It has been over ten years since the online MRAs at a voice for men organized around using transgender ideology to promote their misogynistic, homophobic, agenda, as well as organizing the creation of fake feminist pages on Facebook to undermine Feminism.

[Fieldofgreycorn]

Birds ok fair enough, you would usually expect to see more evidence in a spec. It’s generally accepted there is a lack of solid long term high quality evidence in this area.

There is some evidence of treatment success published in papers that are generally not accepted on this forum eg
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2265.2009.03625.x

There is no other treatment is there? They cite WPATH who are globally recognised. Specialist policies are often written be specialist groups or sub groups of larger organisations, which are then used by the wider medical community. It’s no different for transgender health.

[Birdsfoottrefoil]

Clinical guidelines are usually written by NICE or SIGN and the writers declare any conflicts of interests or just interests. WPATH are a transgender lobbying organisation who do a lot of narrative reviews and self-referencing.

The review you cite found only 28 very poor quality observational studies, mostly lacking controls. Unfortunately I would need to pay to access the full paper to establish what the follow up time is, drop outs, inclusion criteria, etc but other, more rigorous, reviews have found short follow up with huge drop out rates and ‘interesting’ exclusion criteria (eg the patient who died as a result of treatment excluded instead of being recorded as a very negative outcome). Given the quality of the data available the authors cannot conclude that there is any causal relationship or that the probably very short-term followup results was not influenced by bias, regression to mean, placebo, etc. However, I note this poor bit of research is extensively cited...

[OldCrone]

You can read the full paper in Fieldofgreycorn's post here:

www.academia.edu/37216299/Hormonal_therapy_and_sex_reassignment_a_systematic_review_and_meta-analysis_of_quality_of_life_and_psychosocial_outcomes

Some excerpts:

The evidence in this review is of very low quality due to the serious methodological limitations of included studies. Studies lacked bias protection measures such as randomization and control groups, and generally depended on self-report to ascertain the exposure (i.e. hormonal therapy was self-reported as opposed to being extracted from medical records). Our reliance on reported outcome measures may also indicate a higher risk of reporting bias within the studies.

Furthermore, since hormonal therapies were administered as a part of sex reassignment, inferences regarding hormones solely are very weak and are confounded by the effects of sex reassignment surgery and psychotherapy, which were provided implicitly or explicitly in most studies. Benefits noted in individuals undergoing this transition can certainly be attributable to these two co-administered interventions. We excluded studies that did not mention hormonal therapies to remedy this indirectness of evidence; this exclusion poses another limitation to our review because it may have diminished the total body of literature.

The potential benefits of hormonal treatment to individuals with GID demonstrated in this review should be balanced against possible adverse events such as thromboembolism and cardiovascular effects of hormones.

Further research is needed to ascertain benefits and harms of hormonal treatments in this context.

All looks a bit inconclusive really.

[Birdsfoottrefoil]

Some other facts about that review: some studies had followup from only 2 months (in 10/28 studies they don’t report followup), another had loss to followup of 75% (not reported in 9/28). At the time of the study (so post transition) 39% had comorbid psychiatric disorders (mood disorders, anxiety disorders, somatoformdisorders, schizophrenia, substance abuse and eating disorders).

But the main issue is the lack of controls. If you picked up a random bunch of people who have been accepted by psychiatric departments for treatment, so at their ‘lowest point’, but then didn’t provide ANY treatment and interviewed them 5 years later you will find on average they will have improved. Especially when you consider any successful suicides, in patients, those disillusioned with it all, those who have fallen out of society, will all be included in ‘loss to followup’.