Good grief!! Thank you for that link miri1985 !
Just a few quotes from the Daily Mail interview with Keira Bell, which BTW does not include a single mention of "gender dysphoria" :
(my bolding)
". . .Keira blames the treatment that began at the Tavistock in North London when, at 16, she no longer wanted to be a girl and asked for help.
After three one-hour appointments, she was prescribed hormone blockers to halt the development of her female body.
Put on what she calls a 'roller coaster' journey, she was soon being given the male hormone testosterone to change her appearance. Three years ago, she had her breasts removed, in an operation paid for by the NHS."
"At 14, I was pitched a question by my mother, about me being such a tomboy. She asked me if I was a lesbian, so I said no. She asked me if I wanted to be a boy and I said no, too.'
But the question set Keira thinking that she might be what was then called transsexual, and today is known as transgender.
'The idea was disgusting to me,' she tells me. 'Wanting to change sex was not glorified as it is now. It was still relatively unknown. Yet the idea stuck in my mind and it didn't go away.'
Keira's road to the invasive treatment she blames for blighting her life, began after she started to persistently play truant at school.
An odd one out, she insisted on wearing trousers — most female pupils there chose skirts — and rarely had friends of either sex.
When she continually refused to turn up at class as a result of bullying, she was referred to a therapist.
She told him of her thoughts that she wanted to be a boy. 'I felt I was not being listened to at school and blamed it on being a girl,' she explains.
'I did not feel respected as a young woman compared with young men. I thought life would be better for me if I changed my sex.'
Very soon, she was referred to her local doctor who, in turn, sent her to the child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) near her home. From there, because of her belief that she was born in the wrong body, she was given treatment at the Tavistock "
"At the Tavistock, she says, there was 'no resistance' to her dream, even though she was little more than a child."
"Keira claims she was not warned by the Tavistock therapists of the dreadful symptoms ahead. 'My female hormones had been flushing through my body and, suddenly, a curtain came down on them. It felt pretty bad,' she recalls ruefully.
Worse for her was the disappointment that her body did not suddenly change from female to male. "
"Yet back she went to the Tavistock, where tests were run to see if she was ready for the next stage of her treatment after nearly a year on blockers.
'I was prescribed regular injections of testosterone to make me physically change sex,' she says."
"She was referred to the Gender Identity Clinic in West London, which treats adults planning to change sex.
After getting two 'opinions' from experts there, she was sent to a hospital in Brighton, East Sussex, for a double mastectomy.
'I was 20 and excited,' she says. 'I had been binding my breasts for years. I did not like their appearance. I wanted to get rid of them.'"
"I went in one night and was operated on the next day by a top consultant. My breasts were gone.
'No one at the clinic sat me down beforehand and said: 'Are you certain you want this?' It was all very quick.'
Keira now believes she wasn't thinking straight' "
" When I went online to social chat rooms to talk about it, the pro-transgender lobby kept saying: 'Oh, it's normal to have doubts.'
Finally, she took action. In January last year, soon after her 22nd birthday, she had her final testosterone injection. They were always given every few months by a nurse at her GP surgery. 'I decided never to go again,' she says."
" 'I don't know if I will ever really look like a woman again,' she admits. 'I feel I was a guinea pig at the Tavistock, and I don't think anyone knows what will happen to my body in the future.' Even the question of whether she will be able to have children is in doubt.
She has started buying women's clothes and using female loos again, but says: 'I worry about it every time in case women think I am a man. I get nervous. I have short hair but I am growing it and, perhaps, that will make a difference.'
"By law she is male, and she faces the bureaucratic nightmare of changing official paperwork back to say she is female.
'If I committed a crime, I would be put in a male prison,' she explains. 'I want to get the gender recognition document annulled.'"
"The Government has also launched an inquiry into the explosion in the number of children wanting to change sex.
In 2009/10, 40 girls under 18 were referred to doctors for gender treatment in England.
By 2017/18, the number had soared to 1,806. Over the same period, annual referrals for boys increased from 57 to 713."
" . . . in the High Court this week Keira's barrister, Jeremy Hyam QC, explained: 'What is challenged is the clinic's current and continuing practice of prescribing puberty-suppressing hormone blockers and, subsequently, cross-sex hormones, to children under the age of 18.'
Keira herself said: 'The treatment needs to change so that it does not put young people, like me, on a torturous and unnecessary path that is life-changing. I feel like I've been lied to because it did not make me feel any better.'
As she struggles to return to life as a woman, she adds, with feeling: 'I don't want any more kids to suffer like me.' "
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7926675/Witness-court-battle-against-gender-clinic-reveals-happened-cry-help.html
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While it is undeniable that some people are 100% certain that transitioning was the right thing for them, it is also blindingly obvious that the ban on anything other than an affirmative approach amounts to enforced clinical negligence. The professional bodies and the NHS bear responsibility for that travesty but GIDS is solely to blame for any failure to ensure that consent is actually informed consent.
No wonder there is such a high staff turnover at GIDS - what was it - 35 psychologists leaving in three years? It would be useful to know how that compares with other NHS "flagship" specialist psychology services. This is a national centre of excellence where you would expect people to be fighting tooth and nail for a job there.
Again and again the same themes when detransitioned "ROGD girls" talk about their experiences, not all in every case but they keep coming up:
-
transitioning because of how women are treated as second class citizens
- "gender non-conformity" (or "dissent from sexual stereotyping?")
- an adult suggestion about "being trans" puts the idea into their head and it then becomes "fixed"
- online pro-trans advocates reassuring that doubts about being trans are normal if you are trans, or even proof that you are trans
- failure by clinical services (psychologist, CAMHS and GIDS) to explore glaringly obvious indicators that there are other reasons for unhappiness than "being trans"
- failure of GIDS and the adult service to adequately inform and discuss risks and benefits of proposed interventions.
How long could an inquiry into the explosion in the number of children wanting to change sex take when most of the answers are already staring everyone in the face??
How long before the Government joins the dots and stops schools (and the sodding BBC!) teaching impressionable kids that "being trans" is likely as not if a child is the teeniest bit "gender non-conforming" and is a fast-track to "added-value" in terms of adult attention, protection from bullying and enhanced status amongst their peers??
It's hardly bloody rocket science!
My heart goes out to Keira! What an awful situation to be in, medically, psychologically and socially. Yet she and all the other detransitioners who have come out all seem so strong and resilient. Their bravery and stoicism is astounding! 