Trans kids

[Macareaux]

This is an interesting article in a US publication about trans kids and rapid onset gender dysphoria.

After considering many aspects of the issue and anecdotal reports and data, the writer comes to the the conclusion that the distilled problem is that there is no way of determining which children are truly trans and which are not.

If we are to progress then sooner or later these mainstream writers are going to have to have the courage to say that there is no such thing as a transgender child.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/11/andrew-sullivan-hard-questions-gender-transitions-for-young.html

the gender dysphoria remits, the gender social transition and hormonal suppression can simply be stopped, as both are fully reversible.

This is an absolute lie, uncategorically.

I had a two year course of these drugs in my mid 20s. I am now 37. The effects of these drugs is not reversible in the least. Every aspect of my health and life has been negatively impacted. Doctors don’t understand why and don’t care to find out. If you google, there are thousands of women like me, completely abandoned by the medical profession.

While the menopause this drug induces may stop (and it may not), you won’t simply go back to how you were before it, especially if taken to delay / prevent puberty, and then develop as normal.

That's a very interesting comment OldCrone.

There's nothing odd about the redirection.

Google scholar found me an open access version of the paper that Frack just linked to.

genderchallenge.no/onewebmedia/Zucker2019_Article_AdolescentsWithGenderDysphoria.pdf

If you follow all the links from that Psychology Today article there's only actually one large quantitative study there, although it generated two papers:

This one estimates the prevalence of 'Psychological Attempts to Change a Person’s Gender Identity From Transgender to Cisgender' in the US:

ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305237

This one goes on to assert a link between 'Recalled Exposure to Gender Identity Conversion Efforts and Psychological Distress and Suicide Attempts Among Transgender Adults'

jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2749479

Both papers are by the same authors and use the same, self reported data from the 2015 US Transgender Survey.

www.ustranssurvey.org/reports

The three excellent comments below the second paper explain the methodological issues:

1. The US trans survey collected data from people attending trans-focused community events, visiting web sites of transgender interest and other 'convenience' settings. There are not going to be many desisters in the sample even though we know that desistance is the most likely outcome from early gender dysphoria:

The researchers limited their survey to a sample of persons identifying as transgender (a term that lacks clinical specificity), rather than including all persons who have suffered from gender dysphoria (a DSM 5 diagnosis). As a result, the study is not generalizable to the larger population of persons with gender dysphoria (GD). - Julia Mason

It is very unlikely, for example, that the survey reached the population whose earlier gender dysphoria was alleviated through cognitive behavioral therapy or other standard approaches. - Hacsi Horvath

Another limitation is that the study data are from a convenience sample of current transgender-identifying individuals, rather than all persons with a history of GD. The sample is highly unlikely to have captured individuals exposed to GICE who subsequently adopted a gender identity concordant with their biological sex. Thus, these data cannot be generalized to individuals as they present with GD. - Richard Byng

2. The study does not control for comorbid mental health conditions - a key predictor of suicidality.

The key limitation is that the study did not control for comorbid psychiatric illness, the greatest single predictor of suicidality. While mental health conditions are acknowledged as confounders, they are declared unlikely based on the spurious idea that this would require internalized transphobia. Rather, it seems likely that professionals encountering persons with gender dysphoria (GD) and significant mental health problems were more likely to engage in conversations about the merits of transition, which may later be recalled as a conversion effort. Thus, the association found is arguably more likely due to reverse causation. - Richard Byng

So now those papers have been challenged, I wonder if fracks identity will be challenged again, making this thread be pulled too.

I've tried to read the Psychology today article, but I'm really struggling to make sense of it because of the terminology. For example:

Despite evidence that attempts to make transgender people cisgender are dangerous, these attempts are still common.

What would you do to make a 'transgender person cisgender'? I need a definition of what makes a person transgender, and what makes them 'cisgender'.

And this: They claim that there are compelling data showing that most transgender children will grow up to be cisgender. Not only is this untrue, but it also presumes that being transgender is an undesirable outcome that needs to be avoided.

If I'm understanding this correctly (and I'm not sure that I am), this person is saying that a physically healthy person becoming a lifelong medical patient, reliant on medication for the rest of their life and needing major surgery, is not an 'undesirable outcome' compared to that person just growing into a healthy adult with no additional medical needs. I must have misunderstood.

And this: We no longer consider gender diversity to be an illness.

What is meant by 'gender diversity'?

Can you help me out here FrackOff?

We no longer consider gender diversity to be an illness

There seems to be serious confusion among advocates of 'trans' between gender diversity, presumably meaning people not conforming to gender stereotypes, and then medicating people who don't conform to gender stereotypes

Of course girls should be able to be good at maths, be assertive, like playing football or getting dirty. That is not a mental illness

but 'trans' advocates seem to make a leap to medicating girls who behave in this way. it's most peculiar

I agree the wording is clumsy, but what I think they mean by making someone transgender into a cisgender person is persuading/supporting (depending on your opinion) them to stop wanting to change their identity from the one assigned at birth (or their sex identified at birth depending on your opinion).

I think they mean a transgender person is someone who needs to change their identity (and in many their body) from the one assigned at birth (or their sex identified at birth depending on your opinion). And a cisgender person is someone who doesn't need to.

By gender diversity I think they mean the idea that there are more than two ways to express one's gender and that this originally encompassed gender dysphoria.

But I didn't write the article, so i am only applying my own interpretation here.

That's an awfully carefully selected quote there, isn't it?

Yes, I recommend everyone reads the full paper now OldCrone has found an open access link.

Not only a carefully selected quote but a highly selective summary of the paper overall.

I think they mean a transgender person is someone who needs to change their identity (and in many their body) from the one assigned at birth (or their sex identified at birth depending on your opinion). And a cisgender person is someone who doesn't need to

this is interesting

I would take issue with the word 'need', and would personally substitute 'want'.

also, for now, let's leave aside the Danielle Muscatos of this world, as I'm guessing by this definition that Frack doesn't consider them to be 'transgender'

But it's still good to get a definition

However, let's talk about 'wanting to change your body' Do you believe that children should be allowed to change their bodies Frack ? what should be the minimum age for being able to get your tongue split for example?

@BernardBlacksWineIceLolly I agree, I also don't like the idea of sex specific neurology and sex attraction

@TheProdigalKittensReturn I tried really hard to present the whole story of the article without being selective but by all means have a look and quote more (@OldCrone found an accessible link)

@Datun If anyone is up to date with the research it's this guy; his paper lists loads of recent references and he's at the forefront of this area in both publications and practice. I don't agree with everything he says. I chose him to post partly because of this. There are quite a lot of his accessible articles here

I also don't like the idea of sex specific neurology and sex attraction

that's quite the leap Frack. sex specific neurology is about minds. sex attraction is about bodies. completely different

I am not sexually attracted to women's bodies.

but getting back to wanting to modify your body frack. from what age should children be able to choose to have a tattoo, or a belly button piercing?

Feel free to submit your own summary to the discussion @PencilsInSpace

@BernardBlacksWineIceLolly When would you let your kid have their ears pierced (me- about 7)? When would you let your kid have a tattoo (me- the legal age, 18)? When would you let your kid get their tongue split (yuck, I would never endorse this)? When would you let your kid be referred to the GIDS (me- if they were showing distress about their gender which persisted long enough for me to get worried, then at that point)? When would you let your kid go on blockers (me- if they were showing distress about their gender which persisted long enough for me to get worried, then at that point)?

All of these things re subjective, informed by legal frameworks, how well you know your kid, and what the professionals say.

In the UK, beyond blockers, surgery and cross-sex hormones are not available to children.

I didn't make that leap/conflation, @BernardBlacksWineIceLolly, Zucker did, and I don't really like the way he puts it but I don't know enough about the neuroscience to have an informed view on that specific point

eh?

Frack, you seem to be reading this

It is less clear to what extent hormonal suppression has completely reversible effects with regard to sex-dimorphic neural regions of interest and correlated behavioral parameters

as referring to sexual attraction. I really don't think it is. unless you mean a different part of the article?

When would you let your kid go on blockers (me- if they were showing distress about their gender which persisted long enough for me to get worried, then at that point)?

I don't want to personalise this, and I realise that we have a fundamental difference of philosophy which is not going to be resolved here

but the idea of allowing your child to take drugs with harmful long term side effects (which hormonal blockers are proven to have - read Tammy's posts) because they feel unhappy about and restricted by gender stereotypes just blows my mind

it's so unbelievably conservative (small c) and conformist

society makes you unhappy? change yourself!

heaven forbid we change society eh?

(sorry to keep going on)

I know some children who recently lost a parent. They are deeply, unbelievably, unfathomably unhappy at the moment. they'll probably be a` bit unhappy for the rest of their lives

If I could give them a pill now that would make them 'happy', but would cause their bones to regularly fracture as they got older, would I?

absolutely not.

Now add into the mix that there is very credible evidence that that pill won't make them 'happy' at all. That if they're female in particular, their likelihood of suffering from suicidal ideation will remain consistent or possibly increase. and they may lose 6 IQ points

Just why would you do that to a child, for any reason whatsoever?

In the UK, beyond blockers, surgery and cross-sex hormones are not available to children.

On the NHS they are not available. Helen Webberley prescribed testosterone for a 12-year-old girl in the UK.

@Datun If anyone is up to date with the research it's this guy; his paper lists loads of recent references and he's at the forefront of this area in both publications and practice. I don't agree with everything he says. I chose him to post partly because of this. There are quite a lot of his accessible articles here

You said he said they were reversible. According to latest research, they're not.

Quite apart from the IQ points, there are numerous people who have been affected by brittle bone disease, as a result. Not reversible.

And, 99.9% of kids who take hormone blockers take cross sex hormones. Hormone blockers, by themselves, push you onto cross sex hormones. That is not reversible.

My question to you is why do you think there are so many young girls wanting to transition? What is going through the minds of these girls that makes them want to disguise their female bodies?

Because if you're going to ruin their lives, give them irreversible medication, make them lifelong patients, make them infertile, and have no sex life, you'd better have a bloody good reason.

Frack your thread is back up, and the disruptor has been dealt with. So you can now engage there.

I think they mean a transgender person is someone who needs to change their identity (and in many their body) from the one assigned at birth (or their sex identified at birth depending on your opinion). And a cisgender person is someone who doesn't need to.

But we don't have an 'identity' assigned at birth, and our sex can't be changed. I agree that there is no point in trying to change someone's identity/personality from the one they have, and that trying to do so would be harmful for that person.

Are our personalities supposed to 'match' our bodies in some way, in your view? And if so, in what way?

By gender diversity I think they mean the idea that there are more than two ways to express one's gender and that this originally encompassed gender dysphoria.

OK, you've completely lost me here. 'More than two ways to express one's gender'. I have never knowingly 'expressed my gender', since I have no idea what that means. Can you explain?

I'm interested in your own views, FrackOff, rather than those of the person who wrote the article, so don't be concerned about whether you are interpreting it as they meant it.

Thanks, I'll have a look.

I agree with Zucker that the reduction of stigma has led to more girls thinking about their gender as something they can act on in terms of their bodies. He says that blockers are reversible but I haven't read all the research on this- I imagine he has read a lot more than me.

He also says that some girls might be thinking in this way because of sexual abuse or other traumatic things they associate with being female- and he proposes a case by case approach to finding this out and supporting patients in the most appropriate way- in some cases this might progress to blockers.

(4) “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD) as a new developmental pathway
He says
- it's not new and he's seen people like this for years but that they never had a label;

No he doesn't, he says,

With regard to the first question, it is my view that this is a new clinical phenomenon. I was seeing such adolescents in the mid-2000s in Toronto (I just didn’t have a label for them)

and later he says,

Because ROGD appears to be a new clinical phenomenon, we know very little about its subsequent developmental course, i.e., its “natural history.”

Earlier on he says,

Over the past dozen or so years, it is my view (and that of others) that a new subgroup of adolescents with gender dysphoria has appeared on the clinical scene.

- there are more, though, than there used to be, which he thinks is related to (1) and (2) above;

He doesn't come to any conclusions. This is all he says:

The second question, ['how do we understand it?'] in my view, is much more complex since it requires an answer about causal mechanisms, which is a formidable task. At the very least, it should be possible to study correlates of ROGD and see how these correlates are similar to, or different from, what one might find in early-onset gender dysphoria. Littman argued for the influence of peers and social media in inducing gender dysphoria in these adolescents, but it is far from clear why these adolescents are so “susceptible” to such influences. For example, is it possible that these adolescents are struggling with identity formation in general and are searching for a social environment/milieu in which they feel supported and accepted? In other times in the postmodern West, would such adolescents have found a different subcultural space in which they felt such support? Littman also argued for generic mental health vulnerabilities in these adolescents that preceded the development of ROGD, but this strikes me as too non-specific. There would be many young adolescents with the same types of mental health vulnerabilities who do not develop ROGD.

Personally, I think he's onto something with this:

In other times in the postmodern West, would such adolescents have found a different subcultural space in which they felt such support?

I think it's probable that had these young people been born a decade earlier, they would likely have shown up in the self harm statistics and a decade before that, the statistics for eating disorders. This is in no way to belittle their very real distress:

When we suffer from underlying psychosocial vulnerabilities, disruption, trauma, or interpersonal anguish, our unconscious looks for socially sanctioned garb in which to clothe our distress. Symptoms gain cultural currency through a complex and largely unconscious negotiation between the medical establishment, activists and advocates, media, and the patients themselves. Once these symptom templates have been codified and validated, they can be found by those unconsciously seeking to express wordless distress, and a feedback loop begins, further reifying the condition.

Lisa Marchiano in Michele Moore and Heather Brunskell-Evans new book -

www.amazon.co.uk/Inventing-Transgender-Children-Young-People/dp/1527536386?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

See also Ethan Watters book Crazy Like Us for discussion of the way the west exports narratives of mental distress around the world.

www.amazon.co.uk/Crazy-Like-Us-Globalization-American/dp/141658708X?tag=mumsnetforu03-21