Frack's reference post

[FrackOff]

Hi All
I have been asked in various threads for references. I am starting a new thread as I've lost track of all the conversations. I wasn't going to bother as people usually don't want to read them but since one or two have said they really do want to read them with an open mind, here are a few.

Reidar Schei Jessen & Katrina Roen (2019) Balancing in the margins
of gender: exploring psychologists’ meaning-making in their work with gender non- conforming youth seeking puberty suppression, Psychology & Sexuality, 10:2, 119-131, DOI: 10.1080/19419899.2019.1568290

ABSTRACT
The past 15 years have seen the growth of puberty suppression as the prevailing approach to supporting gender non-conforming children and youth. Puberty suppression is considered to provide time for weighing up the pros and cons of medical transition. Research based on binary under- standings of gender has demonstrated that a carefully selected group of gender non-conforming youth benefit from physical treatment and gender transition, but the research that details how psychologists can best support young people during this time is limited. This is the gap addressed by the current research. The purpose of the present study is to explore the meaning-making framework within which some clinical psychologists and gender non-conforming youth approach discussions of puberty suppression. Five semi-structured interviews were conducted with clinical psychologists working with gender non-conforming youth. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. The results indicate that there is pressure on gender non- conforming youth, often coming from families, friends and mass media, to buy into heteronormative and binary discourses regarding gender and what constitutes a good life. The results also indicate that the participants deploy affirmative and exploratory therapeutic strategies in their work, in order to enable gender non-conforming youth to make informed decisions regarding puberty suppression. Participants emphasized the importance of therapeutic approaches that explore non-binary gender discourses, alongside the use of puberty suppression and other medical interventions that enable clients to fit more with gender norms. The therapeutic balance between affirmation and exploration may shed light on how both research within the binary tradition and critics of binary assumptions are in danger of oversimplifying the process of gender identity development. This research highlights the importance of understanding the complex negotiation of gender discourses that are in tension with one another.

ROGD, or sudden-onset adolescent gender dysphoria, can't be debunked, really, because it's just a description - the sudden emergence and expression of gender dysphoria in teens already in or through puberty.

The only way to debunk it is to call (the mostly but not only female) parents and therapists who notice and describe this phenomenon 'liars' and 'transphobes'.

Which isn't exactly, ya know, scientific, and is a wee bit sexist when it comes to mums. Smacks of 'mums are stupid and/or old and don't know about acceptance and stuff.' Which is clearly bullshit.

ROGD, or sudden-onset adolescent gender dysphoria, can't be debunked, really, because it's just a description - the sudden emergence and expression of gender dysphoria in teens already in or through puberty.

Exactly.

It's there, it's observable, it's happening.

It's the bit of the narrative never explored by TRAs. Why does gender dysphoria happen?

You may not be aware of this Frack, but in academia it is common practice for your arguments to be examined and questioned by an audience of your peers. You’re linking to peer-reviewed academic articles which present research, arguments and conclusions which can then be tested and scrutinised. A refusal or inability to answer questions in that sphere would not be seen as a positive. Mumsnet is not dissimilar in that regard.

ROGD, or sudden-onset adolescent gender dysphoria, can't be debunked, really, because it's just a description - the sudden emergence and expression of gender dysphoria in teens already in or through puberty.

Indeed. You cannot debunk the fact this is happening and that it is a new phenomena. That the number of adolescents with GD has shot up thousands of percentage points in a few years. That the sex balance has within a few years switched from mostly boys to mostly girls. That clusters of GD have emerged in friendship groups and some schools when others see no such thing. That similar patterns have not emerged among adult women.

This is text book social contagion.

Re ROGD, I posted an article and a summary on the Trans Kids thread. @PencilsInSpace posted another summary. So that's worth looking at if you are interested in the arguments. @OldCrone found an accessible link: [[https://genderchallenge.no/onewebmedia/Zucker2019_Article_AdolescentsWithGenderDysphoria.pdf Zucker, Kenneth (2019) 'Adolescents with Gender Dysphoria: Reflections on Some Contemporary Clinical and Research Issues'
Archives of Sexual Behavior Volume:48 Issue:7 Pages:1983 -1992]]

He says he's seen lots of people with what would nowadays be labelled as ROGD. But he doesn't write off assessing and treating them. He says the 12-18 month waiting lists are enough time to practice 'watch and wait'.

I accept that he's seen these cases but that doesn't resolve the problem of the idea that kids might not say anything until they feel safe.

He also recognises the lack of rigour in Littman's study but appreciates the attempt and calls for more on the same topic.

See Trans Kids thread for arguments around these ideas

I might start refusing to answer DD's 1000 questions a day and just waving in the direction of some academic papers. It'd save me a lot of time.

So that's worth looking at if you are interested in the arguments.

We're not interested in what other people think, Frack. We want to know what you think. Referring us to another thread in which you made an assertion that got thoroughly debunked isn't telling us what you think.

Why are you supporting puberty blockers in minors but coming out against surgical intervention in adults? Why do you think MTF surgery an iteration of patriarchal imposition by surgeons but remain silent on FTM surgery?

Please answer the questions.

The idea that anyone would not be open to holes in their arguments is frankly quite disturbing.

We're quite used to seeing people with that attitude on here. The answers to the questions you've been asked are usually met with shouts of 'transphobe' and 'bigot' swiftly followed by a flounce.

So it's good to see that you're not going to follow the well-trodden path and that you'll come back and answer our questions later.

No you're misrepresenting that paper again.

Anyway, having now read the Zucker paper inside out and back to front I'm a bit bored of it.

I'd rather hear what you think. I'd rather you answered the questions people have asked you.

"See Trans Kids thread for arguments around these ideas"

You need to answer the question on the thread where the discussion is taking place and make your arguments here. You can't wave people off to look for your arguments (which may not even be there) within a sea of posts.

You posted academic research so clearly you hold academia in high regards. In academia you have to deal with questions from your peers directly, you can't wave them away like you're trying to do here.

Frack

This thread is about your claim ROGD has been debunked. In that paper it states:

Because ROGD appears to be a new clinical phenomenon, we know very little about its subsequent developmental course, i.e., its “natural history.” For example, we know very little about rates of persistence versus desistance

The whole final page is about how we don’t know what we are actually dealing with. How do you square that with your claim ROGD has been debunked and this paper supports your view?

You’re being so disingenuous now it’s quite ridiculous.

but that doesn't resolve the problem of the idea that kids might not say anything until they feel safe.

Ah yes, the idea that children successfully mask their persistent, distressing and intractable gender dysphoria, displaying zero symptoms of such, for more than a decade.

Do you have children ? Do you spend time with them if you do ? Have you ever met a child who could mask - 24/7, 365 days a year, year after year, the kind of distress that requires blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery ?

Do you think parents of kids with ROGD are stupid ? Do you think all ROGD kids live in families where the parents are threatening them if they deviate one iota from prescribed gender norms ? Do you not understand how dismissive and condescending you are to parents living with adolescents with sudden-onset GD ? The name describes what we see in front of our own eyes, yet here you come insisting that what we see has been 'debunked'.

smh

If you're too busy to respond you shouldn't start threads like this Frack. Your name is literally at the top of the post. It's not a discussion that can just carry on without you. You made yourself the subject.

People are very kindly asking questions which appear to highlight holes and gaps in your positions, but you're not having the courtesy to answer them.

You made yourself the subject.

Indeed.

@Oncewasblueandyellowtwo I am sorry not to have responded, your question got lost in the avalanches. My thoughts on your question are that young people who present as gender non-conforming could have a wide variety of reasons and related needs. Some might have some kind of body dysphoria. Others might just be gender non-conforming.

Incidentally, this is one reason why I think the idea of gender is useful. In a utopia perhaps we wouldn't have sex roles, but we don't live in a utopia. Until we do, we still need words to explain how people are non-conforming within hegemonic frameworks like heteronormativity. You could say gender non-conforming is sex-role non-conforming, maybe? But that limits the discussion to roles or activities. Maybe gender encompasses this but also includes the way someone feels inside.

I know people don't like this idea and mock it as some kind of woo spirit idea. But there are lots of precedents for talking about how people feel inside, eg imposter syndrome, 'more Bengali than British'; 'more British than Bengali', 'not a proper mother', depersonalisation, depression, religious faith, etc

On the questions about Jazz Jennings and surgery:
What is happening to her sounds horrible. I feel very uncomfortable with the idea of creating a neo-vagina at all. Bottom surgery is not satisfactory for a lot of trans men, either. The whole thing is driven by heteronormative ideals. In a non-gendered utopia this might not even arise. But we don't currently live in a non-gendered utopia.

Some bottom surgery goes really well and leaves people feeling very happy. Others go badly and lead to a lot of pain. Many people are happy with breasts/chest surgery that helps them to pass as one sex or another with clothes on, but are reluctant to go for bottom surgery because of the unsatisfactory nature of it- in terms of function and pain.

What we need are options for people- not gender conforming ones, necessarily, but options, and good clinical discussions with well trained clinicians that transcend the idea of specifically gendered bodies. These high quality clinical discussions need to be available to people on a case by case basis. A nonconforming body might be the result, for some. The idea of a trans person who ends up after treatment with a body that doesn't fully conform to binary ideas of sex might feel very uncomfortable to some people, but it's not your body, is it?

And this is another reason why I think gender rather than sex is a useful concept. I think gender allows for some variation in bodies, feelings and presentations.

Anyway: the sheer range of provenance, feelings and clinical needs of trans people means that there will always be some who need some kind of treatment, whether that's surgical, medical, or psychological. How we determine who these people are and exactly what their needs are is something that happens in collaboration with clinicians and ideally with families, for young people. The kid's contexts and environment needs to be assessed and supported. This might mean things like having access to safe toilet facilities, for example, or protection from bullying and isolation. Some will need treatment and some won't. Whether or not ROGD is really a thing is kind of irrelevant to this fact. All of these people need some kind of support.

I really have to work now, so don't take my absence personally.

I would still like to know how you account for the difference in the requirement for medical treatment for adult MTF trans and trans children.

Adult MTF trans generally don't have surgery, have gone through male puberty and may or may not take female hormones, the effects of which on them are entirely reversible. Trans children of both sexes are being put on puberty blockers which will have life-long consequences for them, may stop them every experiencing adult sexual development and are often put on the path to surgery - removal of the penis and testicles or the removal of breasts.

Why do you think children are seen as needing body altering hormones and surgery, whilst adult MTF trans aren't?

'Options', but trialling DBT for co-morbid suicidality in GD adolescents is 'unethical'.

I see we've moved on from 'ROGD is debunked' to 'ROGD is irrelevant'. Neat.

Supporting ROGD means either giving girls male hormones that permanently alter their bodies, and maybe cutting their breasts off and hysterectomies, or simply taking the "support them and they'll grow out of it" approach depending on whether it's a teenage fad or whether it is a serious condition requiring medical intervention.

"Thing" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The dismissal of young girls' experiences is quite something.

Gender non conforming kids should not be tagged as anything other than just kids.

Girls wearing trousers are still girls.

There will be such an avalanche of mental health disorders when all these kids realise they were lied to and they are just perfectly normal and never needed drugs or castration.

This all needs stopping in its tracks now.

On the questions about Jazz Jennings and surgery: What is happening to her sounds horrible. I feel very uncomfortable with the idea of creating a neo-vagina at all. Bottom surgery is not satisfactory for a lot of trans men, either. The whole thing is driven by heteronormative ideals. In a non-gendered utopia this might not even arise. But we don't currently live in a non-gendered utopia.

NOT WHAT YOU WERE ASKED.

Why is surgery driven by heteronormative ideals but puberty blockers are not?

I think it's absolutely vile that you support medically-induced anorgasmia and reduced cognitive function being imposed on minors but protest about adult males having surgery to remove their penis, and have nothing at all to say about adult females having surgery to remove their breasts.

But worse of all - you pretend you don't see what we're asking so that you don't have to answer. Because there isn't an answer that won't have 99% of readers recoiling in utter horror, is there, Frack? And, deep down, you know this.

Until we do, we still need words to explain how people are non-conforming within hegemonic frameworks like heteronormativity

Two things are conflated here. Bodily dysphoria and people that are unhappy with societally-ascribed sex-roles. These are two different groups of people.

What we are talking about here is an inexplicable rise in the number of the first. Heteronormativity does not ascribe a physical sex, biology does.

Psychological unease is rising all across the world. There is currently no one explanation for this.

The human mind cannot cope with uncertainty and when a person in a metaphorical white coat affirms that this could be because a condition exists in which the inner person has effectively been born in the wrong body then the more vulnerable the person, the more likely they are to believe this.

What is even worse is when a parent identifies this dysphoria when the child is still a toddler and that person, who has no free will of their own, is subjected to psychological preparation for an inevitable medical intervention.

There is, in fact, no scientific evidence to say that the 'inner' person can be born into the wrong body.

There are no clinicians who are qualified to diagnose this condition. The whole psychiatric profession has been hijacked by the pharmacological and (now) surgical interventionists. Most psychological qualifications are not worth the paper they are written on in terms of the actual understanding that they impart about the human mind.

The whole of the Western world is marked by a spectacular failure to understand the human mind.

So, these people in white coats are giving life-altering (and sometimes destroying) drugs and taking the scalpel to healthy (and often young) flesh based on what?

The worry is that they are responding to a societal-construction called transgenderism. This 'idea' is being spread through social and social-media contagion to young people faced by a world that is now so complex and changing so fast that they could at best be described as disorientated.

Any person that gives a life-altering drug or surgical intervention to a disorientated young person needs to examine their conscience.

I do not understand how the people who work at Tavistock live with themselves when they have caseloads of over 100. They must know that they are not responding adequately to the sea of psychological distress with which they are confronted.

What we need are options for people- not gender conforming ones, necessarily, but options, and good clinical discussions with well trained clinicians that transcend the idea of specifically gendered bodies.

What are 'specifically gendered bodies'? Gender is the set of cultural and social norms imposed upon people due to their sex. Bodies are not 'gendered' they are sexed.

A nonconforming body might be the result, for some. The idea of a trans person who ends up after treatment with a body that doesn't fully conform to binary ideas of sex might feel very uncomfortable to some people, but it's not your body, is it?

This looks like an argument for extreme cosmetic surgery. You will find a lot of different opinions about that on here. I tend to take a fairly libertarian view that what adults do with their own bodies is their own business, but we need to be mindful that we are not encouraging those with mental health issues that cosmetic changes to their bodies wil cure their distress.

A less charitable reading would be that you are advocating for some sort of frankensteinian experiment on children.

And this is another reason why I think gender rather than sex is a useful concept. I think gender allows for some variation in bodies, feelings and presentations.

But gender is a social and cultural concept, while sex is a fixed, biological, physical reality. The way you look, whether through clothing or cosmetic surgery will never alter your sex.

I'm assuming you're too young to remember the 80s. If you don't know what I'm talking about google 'androgynous 80s' and have a look at some of the images you get.