Why detransitioners frighten trans activists - James Caspian in Spiked

[LangCleg]

A good article and timely. Begins:

A few weeks ago, I drove to a town on the south coast of the UK to interview someone I will call ‘Alex’. Twenty years ago, when in middle age, Alex underwent a medical gender transition from female to male (complete with hormone treatment, hysterectomy, removal of vagina and ovaries, and phalloplasty – that is, the creation of a prosthetic penis). Alex now bitterly regrets transitioning and wants to live as a woman again, but is now, in every way, indistinguishable from other sixtysomething, balding males, and despairs of ever being able to do so.

www.spiked-online.com/2019/10/23/why-detransitioners-frighten-trans-activists/

Heartbreaking.

Adults are entitled to make whatever cosmetic changes they choose to their bodies, but changes this serious with such a high risk of complications should be securely gatekept and come with psychological support to ensure that someone like Alex doesn't come to realise she has made such massive changes to her body and it hasn't been the solution she hoped it would be. And the trans lobby needs to help with this and not support the online groups training each other in what to say at clinic, the right answers that get the medications and surgery to happen asap. A trans acquaintance of mine got that kind of training online and saw every appointment, every stage of the process as an unbearable delay on the way to getting The Answer that would finally make them feel better, and they intentionally bypassed the processes that might have protected them. I'm very afraid for them that their transition won't long term prove the solution to the trauma that made being their biological sex feel so unbearable, along with a lack of good quality, regular and supportive mental health care.

This absolutely needs to be placed out of reach of children. This is not something any adult should be legally allowed to consent to on behalf of a child. The hyperbole about the surgery is a better risk than suicide is not an answer: high quality, easily available mental healthcare and support and help to deal with those feelings, particularly in the teen years, is what is needed.

How long has it been since Bath Spa spiked (pardon the pun) Caspian's research? Has to be about three years, doesn't it?

Imagine how much further on we'd be if they hadn't - especially now that desisters and detransitioners are appearing in such numbers that they're starting to organise.

So why are these ideas being promoted to the young? They are being taught that they need a personality to match their sex or to change their sex, at the same time sex is assigned and doesn't matter but inner gender identity is really important. It's all bunk isn't it, a new religion.

How long til our new friend comes along to say we shouldn’t ever even look at Spiked, as it causes kittens to turn to stone? 🤗

Wonder if we could crowdfund someone to do this research, either Caspian or someone else? Presume universities wouldn’t say no to a fully self funded candidate?

I can't remember where it was but I am sure I read something recently about someone saying transpeople detrainsition because of the bullying and abuse they receive. Does it ring any bells with anyone?

That’s the general TRA explanation for detransitioners. They are recycling the phrases they use to explain suicide ideation. You’ll have read it everywhere and anywhere.

The latest dismissal of detransitioners is that they are all mistaken and will eventually retransition- which is very convenient because it means the current detransitioners can’t refute it until they are dead/extremely elederly.

But a man who identifies suddenly as a woman is to be believed without question.

Why shouldn’t a trans man who now identifies as a woman be believed without question?

Essentially because it's deeply threatening to the feelings of some other trans people.

So why are these ideas being promoted to the young? They are being taught that they need a personality to match their sex or to change their sex, at the same time sex is assigned and doesn't matter but inner gender identity is really important. It's all bunk isn't it, a new religion

This!!

Why can't people just be themselves? - a "male" personality in a female body or vice versa? The world has moved on. People come in all sorts of variations and we are generally accepting of it.

Surgery for proper biological deformities are rationed on the NHS if they do not cause physical symptoms. For example, this has just been stopped on the NHS en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pectus_excavatum so why should someone have cosmetic alterations to their normal body if you cannot have cosmetic alterations to a deformed body? Deformities also cause massive psychological problems.

Plus, Alex has been without ovaries for an extra decade. If Alex went as a female to their GP and had loss of oestrogen at 40 they'd be given HRT.

Not for transmen. We just whip out their ovaries and make them menopausal. Won't be long before some of them start dying young from the strokes and coronary heart disease that oestrogen protects us from.

I am very sad for Alex. Hope they can find peace with their situation. It is a terrible thing to be in, I guess the only positive is that medics and the trans community listen to and learn from people like Alex.

I can't remember where it was but I am sure I read something recently about someone saying transpeople detrainsition because of the bullying and abuse they receive. Does it ring any bells with anyone?

No. The bullying the detransitioners refer to all comes from the so-called trans community. Or the motivation for the original transition coming from homophobic bullying.

Why don't you go and read what they're saying? They're not invisible.

I believe that what filthy is saying is that the general TRA line is that the majority of people who destransition, do so because of the high levels of bullying and lack of support they received for being transgender. I think I have read this before too. But it doesn't tally with the accounts I have read from detransitioners themselves over why they have chosen to destransition or desist.

Thanks Dave, yes that is what I meant. It was in an article I read in the last week or so about a TW who detransitioned. I didn't mean that is why they detransition - it was what someone in the article said. I can't find it to say who they were. I didn't explain myself properly, this is why I don't post here often. I got a deletion last time I did.

Ah, sorry Filthy.

Good article, worth a bump.

If the trans community was actually sensible they would see it as in their best interests to ensure everybody got proper counselling before hormones and surgery so that fewer people detransitioned

Yes, it’s a weird paradox, the whole thing:

Q: “Why are you reading right wing bigoted websites?”
A: “Why does it seem to be only so-called ‘right wing bigoted websites’ that are asking these important questions?”

Q: “Why are you so obsessed with the importance of detransitioners?”
A: “Why aren’t YOU worried about these people as well?”

It’s mindboggling. Surely the “woke” press like the Guardian et al should be all over the medical mistreatment of LGBT people? Surely TRAs should be horrified that people in similar positions to them are suffering?

Instead both are dismissive. In fact it’s not just mind boggling, it’s offensive.