Keira Bell

[MarieIVanArkleStinks]

I'm not sure whether this issue has been debated on this board, as I haven't been posting/reading here for a few weeks. But the story is here:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/22/former-transgender-patient-tells-court-sex-change-clinic-putting/

and here:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7926675/Witness-court-battle-against-gender-clinic-reveals-happened-cry-help.html

TLDR: The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, which runs the UK's only gender identity development service (GIDS) for children, is being sued over concerns that youngsters are being given "experimental treatment" without adequate assessments.

Keira's view as to her symptoms, and lack of warning about them:

I had symptoms similar to the menopause when a woman's hormones drop. I had hot flushes, I found it difficult to sleep, my sex drive disappeared. I was given calcium tablets because my bones weakened.

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.

And as to now:

'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.

That poor woman. This is unconscionable, and the mere idea of the opposite side of this view even having a case to answer in court is so frightening it seems to be bordering on dystopia. In the meantime (and not directly applicable to FtoM transition) I know someone who is currently experiencing hideous, debilitating menopausal symptoms, and is unable to get HRT. There just isn't any available. Instead, her GP has prescribed her with ... Prozac.

I'm curious to know whether MtoF transitioners are experiencing the same issue.

Agree, Datun.

I like it when we get visitors, it gives us a chance to show the readers that a) we aren’t a hate group and b) we do actually know what we are talking about.

We do seem to be getting an increasing number of late, mind you.

Keira Bell is not alone in challenging the legality of NHS Tavistock GIDS treatment protocols:

'Mother sues Tavistock child gender clinic over treatments'
(extract)
"The mother who is bringing the case says she opposes the treatment that doctors at the clinic plan to give her daughter, who has autism and is awaiting assessment for reassignment therapy. She says her daughter is among many children with autism being treated at the clinic. She wants the treatment of all children to stop until the clinic’s practices are reviewed and more is known about the effects of hormone blockers." (continues)
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mother-sues-tavistock-child-gender-clinic-over-treatments-r9df8m987

'Tavistock clinic: My daughter can’t understand the risk, says mother'
(extract)
The mother whose daughter wants to start taking puberty blockers has “deep concerns” that the clinic allowed her child, who has autism and other mental health problems, to self-identify as transgender and said it had not considered the complexities of the child’s condition.

She wishes to remain anonymous to protect her daughter’s identity and is referred to in a letter setting out her case as Mrs A.

The mother has described her perspective in supporting her daughter through this “distressing experience” in a statement and is seeking support for a crowd-funding appeal to support the legal action.

Her 15-year-old daughter is going through a time of gender confusion. She has agreed that her daughter, referred to in the case as Child B, can join the waiting list for assessment and treatment at the trust’s gender identity development service but said that she had “significant reservations”.

Mrs A said: “I have deep concerns that the clinical approach at Gids [the gender identity development service] means that my daughter will be subjected to an experimental treatment path that is not adequately regulated, where there are insufficient safeguards, where her autism will not be properly accounted for and where no one, let alone my daughter, understands the risks and therefore cannot ensure informed consent is obtained.” (continues)

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tavistock-clinic-my-daughter-cant-understand-the-risk-says-mother-jr59vz0ck

Without doubt. But I, for one, am not really speaking to oopster.

I for one too, so for two?

greatwave you misunderstand me, that's the thing that people tend to or tended to say about tomboys, that they'll grow out of it, maybe I didn't phrase it as well as I could have.

I'm not trying to waste anyone's time here, I'm simply putting my experience over and putting my 2 cents in.

I see a mix of people debating here, some being objective in how they putting their points over, and some not. I'm trying as best I can to be objective, to challenge what I see as not being right. When I hear people say "big pharma", that just makes me think they're being paranoid, as the numbers just don't add up for that, i.e. There's no great profit to be made from encouraging people to be trans, and you're either trans or you're not, you can't be encouraged to be what you're not.

Keira was.

Why do you think her experience is less relevant than yours?

I struggle to understand how someone can have so much concern for those who want to transition and yet be so dismissive of the detransitioners who feel that they've mutilated their bodies. One group cannot just be accepted as collateral damage for the other.

It's quite clear to me that what was happening in GICs 20 years ago has almost no bearing on what is happening now. When 35 members of the Tavistock have resigned in protest at the overdiagnosis of children over the last 3 years then I think it's important that we pay attention. I can't see any reason why someone would dismiss such information unless they are pushing an agenda.

you're either trans or you're not, you can't be encouraged to be what you're not.

So is Kiera trans or not? If it’s as binary as that, what is she then?

The way I see it oopster, I and the multitude of women who were ‘Tom boys’ of the past are also telling you that the current affirmation path is flawed. many of us have the shared experience of not wanting to go through puberty for reasons that you, as a male bodied person, do not share. A life of periods, having to deal with sexual harassment and discrimination that we’d already had or at least witnessed, fighting the effect of male privilege to name a few.

Who is to say that we, as these girls today being affirmed, would not transition too. That is why perhaps we do know something about what these girls are feeling.

Why don’t you believe that ROGD is happening?

On one hand, you are right- there were plenty of girls in the 70 & 80s who felt this thing now being called gender disphoria. But we also were not led to believe that we could actually change sex to identify out of being women. So we grew into the women we are. Ones that recognise there is a problem, whatever name it is given.

you can't be encouraged to be what you're not.

You can, when you are a child. You can be encouraged to be all sorts of things and try on all sorts of looks and beliefs for size, while you are trying to work out who you really are. All part of growing up.

And Keira Bell, at 16, was a child.

That's why it's so important to watch and wait, and to exercise caution before you take a child at their word about who and what they are.

Which is surely the whole point of this judicial review.

big pharma

That was me and I used it as an ironic device to demonstrate I am not anti medicine, in the context of explaining that my youngest child is an oncology patient

So using it to infer I am paranoid is either disingenuous or demonstrates a massive lack in your reading comprehension.

Also, if Kiera has already started down the path of being affirmed as a child, with puberty blockers, and not being told time and again of the side effects of the procedures she is expecting in the future, don’t you think this would significantly lower the chance of her desisting as a brand new adult?

After all, if you have focused your whole being on making it to 18 to get those procedures so you can start life as you want it to be and are not being constantly reminded of the health risks, as soon as you get to 18 that is what you are going to do.

No. The process issues that Kiera has pointed out are that changes are needed. That the health risks (mental health as well) need to be very clearly repeated throughout. She has stated she was not informed.

If it also means that much more work is done with mental health before the affirmation process is done, and well before pumping children with puberty blockers, this case will have positive results for the next generation.

you're either trans or you're not, you can't be encouraged to be what you're not.

Tell that to the 76 children all identifying as trans in one school in Brighton - coincidentally the epicentre of trans ideology.

Or perhaps you subscribe to one theory we had here that the pregnant mums had all consumed some contaminated water simultaneously?

Oopster, do you have autism? Honest question. It’s the writing style, which is very reminiscent of my teenage son.

you're either trans or you're not, you can't be encouraged to be what you're not.

I was told from a friend on the weekend, her daughter has two girls who have transitioned to boys in past 6 months? Really, what are the chances of that if there is no social element at work.

you're either trans or you're not, you can't be encouraged to be what you're not.

How can you believe that to be true, on a thread about a women who thought she was trans, who the doctors diagnosed with gender dysphoria, who now knows she isn’t trans at all?

Something encouraged Keira into believing she was trans.

DuLANGMondeFOREVER I wasn't aiming that at you, I've seen it elsewhere where it was blatantly paranoid talking.

Keira thought she was trans at one point. My point, if I can put it another way, is that someone is either trans or there not, is the same as defining someone's sexuality, you either are or you aren't.

Dodo no I don't have autism. I wanted to be a computer programmer growing up, and learned that you can't assume things, or take them for granted. A computer doesn't know anything, it has to be preprogrammed with anticipated responses. It's hard to explain and I'm not sure I'm doing a good job of it, but it can lead some to thinking I'm patronising them when that's the last thing I'm wanting to do.

The gic' are there to help with gender identity issues. They're part of the NHS so can refer their patients to other relevant services within the NHS. There's safeguards in place to ensure patients are doing what they believe is the right thing. You're looking for someone to blame here and I'm sorry but there isn't anyone to blame. Keira realised too late that she'd made the wrong choices, and I have all the sympathy in the world for her, but she is a tiny percentage of the patients treated at these places. Medical treatment is not exact, its estimation, observation, research. If the child gender services weren't there, then kids with gender issues would be a lot worse off than they are now. I felt alone, scared, depressed throughout the majority of my childhood, I'm not the only one that went through this situation. Do you really want a return to that?

You're looking for someone to blame here and I'm sorry but there isn't anyone to blame.

I am glad that you got the help that you needed. However, you do seem to continuing to ignore that this has grown into a much more complicated issue than it was, even last decade. And you seem to be unable to understand that maybe the girls who are using this service, may have a completely different set of needs than a male teen.

Plus you are continuing to ignore that Kiera has said she was not told of the medical risks. Whether she was an adult or a child, this is actually rather significant and quite sinister.

And that the system as it stands now needs to be completely reviewed.

Does anyone else feel uncomfortable when non-female posters make comments about female bodies in the context of 'transition', hormones and surgeries?

I do.

The differences in complexity between male bodies and female bodies is immense. Male hormone and reproductive systems are really quite simple. Female hormone and reproductive systems are astonishingly complex because we grow and feed babies. Every month for the lifetime of our fertility our body prepares to grow a human. That's a big ask.

I don't think most men (however they identify) get this at all.

Growing a baby isn't like laying an egg in your womb, where it all happens in a sealed cocoon, independent of the mother who's just providing a warm nest.

Girls and women who take hormone blockers, cross-sex hormones and undergo surgery have considerably more side-effects and lasting health problems because of the Increased complexity of our biology.

It is impossible for a man (however he identifies) to truly understand the way the female body works.

We know that men struggle to locate and identify the clitoris, that many men think women urinate out of our vaginas, that few men understand menstruation and menopause.

Changes to female bodies as a result of cross-sex hormones are more dramatic and more permanent than the equivalent on male bodies.

A man who pursues hormones and genital surgery can bank his sperm and protect his ability to be a father. Apart from not physically impregnating the mother, his future role as father, physically and legally, is unchanged.

A woman who pursues hormones, breast and genital surgery will almost certainly need a hysterectomy. She can bank her eggs, but without a womb she can no longer gestate, without beasts she will never breastfeed. Her future role as a mother who bears her own child is gone.

The impact on men's and women's bodies and futures is incomparable.

Children cannot and should not be making decisions that will or might have such profound effects on their futures.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child accords those rights to all those aged under 18.

There is good evidence that the brain and its ability to make decisions is not fully matured until 25.

Keira should never have been allowed and enabled to 'make those choices'. She was seriously let down by those who should have protected her.

Clitoria

Yes... Changes to female bodies as a result of cross-sex hormones are more dramatic and more permanent than the equivalent on male bodies.

This.

And the way GD manifests itself and why has to be acknowledged to be different. But then I guess if you take the belief that TW AW first, you completely obliterate these differences don’t you? And to talk about them in regards to policy making decisions is irrelevant and hurtful.

Keira thought she was trans at one point. My point, if I can put it another way, is that someone is either trans or there not, is the same as defining someone's sexuality, you either are or you aren't.

This is the 'no true trans' position?
Anyone who detransitions wasn't trans in the first place.

It is also used when (for example) a transwoman sexually abuses women in prison/female homeless shelter etc

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3266198-No-True-Transwoman-transadvocates-question-whether-TW-is-genuine-after-said-TW-sexually-harasses-women-in-homeless-shelter

cf 'no true Scotsman' fallacy

I felt alone, scared, depressed throughout the majority of my childhood, I'm not the only one that went through this situation. Do you really want a return to that?

I don’t thing anyone wants that Oopster. What worries me is that Keira describes having just three sessions before she was prescribed puberty blockers. CAMHS services are ridiculously over stretched and I wonder if many of the young people referred to GIDS would have been more suited to a service in which they could properly explore their gender identity along with other factors such as eating disorders, depression and body dysmorphia. I do think that some of the increase in GIDS referrals is due to better societal acceptance of being trans but I don’t see how the better recognition argument accounts for all the increase.