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.

Datun when I was going through the system and attending a local supper group and online groups. The one thing that kept coming up was to be totally honest with the psychiatrists. I went through charring cross gic which had, maybe still does, a horrible reputation in trans circles, and the the temptation was to just tell them what they wanted to hear. It was a running joke that you should turn up in your best "Laura Ashley" frock and pearls to appointments, abs that would go double for the transwomen.

That's because, historically, men with AGP, or a cross dressing fetish, were refused treatment. The decision to be honest, lie, not lie, was all wrapped up around that. Coupled with the sexist idea that to live as a woman, meant wearing a dress.

This isn't news.

Children have been told, in no uncertain terms, that their preferences for toys, activities, clothes and behaviour dictates their sex. And for teenagers that includes their sexual orientation.

The head of mermaids, who educate children about this everywhere, removed all her child's toys, because they were girls' toys and she was very upset, because, he was a boy. She says in her TEDTalk, well of course, I'm sure you know the next bit, I took him to the doctor.

This is how entrenched her sexism was and is. She genuinely thought a toy preference indicated an underlying issue.

And this is the world that Kiera Bell has grown up in.

You say she should be honest. That's a fucking joke, right? There is no honesty in an ideology that says cutting your breasts off makes you a man, ffs.

The same way that cutting your penis off, or inverting it, doesn't make you a woman. The sexism that concludes a woman is not a female human being in their own right, as a notion and an identity, is breathtaking.

I've recently met two really pleasant young people, both late teens. One M to F, the other F to M. Both with all sorts of issues, past and current - neglect, behavioural and leaning difficulties, mental health issues. They found/find interaction with their peers and planning their future life difficult enough without the added complication of transitioning. It's not clear at all how this is helping them, or why it's been sanctioned.

A "gender critical" group is bringing the legal action. Oh they don't have any kind of agenda they're using this young woman for are they.

The "agenda" of any gender critical group interested in childhood transition is protecting and safeguarding children's bodies and psychological health.

re Keiras age this is a relevant read:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-51657466

Fewer people under the age of 25 should be jailed because their brains are not fully mature, new draft guidelines say.

The guideline follows research saying imbalances in brain development explain risk-taking and emotionally driven behaviour which can lead to illegal activity.

"Generally speaking a young person's cognitive function will be less developed than an adult person and their life experiences will be different," he said.

The Scottish Sentencing Council's research into cognitive maturity was carried out by the University of Edinburgh, which found that the brain continues to develop well into adulthood and does not reach maturity until about 25 to 30.

Datun AGP is a badly researched and thoroughly debunked theory. How another person chooses to live their life has no bearing on anyone else. The way you describe these surgeries shows his little you know about them. These are life saving surgeries for some people, me included.

They are cosmetic surgeries, not ‘Life saving surgery’.

That’s propaganda sloganeering. I know some people sincerely believe that a trans surgery saved their life, but that doesn’t make it a ‘life saving surgery’.
Words have meanings.

This is a life saving surgery:
www.gosh.nhs.uk/medical-information/clinical-specialties/tracheal-service-information-parents-and-visitors/patient-stories/life-saving-surgery

oopster

Of course AGP isn't debunked. There are threads on here that run to thousands of posts from women who are married to or divorced from AGP individuals. AGP forums and websites are strewn across the Internet from one end to the other. Although, some of them of course are called different names. We were told off on here a few weeks ago for calling it AGP when it should be called female embodiment fantasy.

If you're going to go down the road that it's been debunked, then afraid your credibility for everything else is pretty much shot to bits, for me.

Along with imagining that it doesn't affect other people! Involving other people, even unwittingly, in a sexual fantasy absolutely has an impact on them. Try reading about transwidows.

Keira was interviewed on the World at One on Radio 4 today. It was very interesting to hear her speak on the subject. She has my sympathy.

This press round seems relentless. I hope she is well supported.

Some comments on this thread (and elsewhere) about Keira so clearly demonstrate how children / young people are being cynically used by adults and adult organisations. All the "she only has herself to blame" demonstrate a chilling lack of understanding of childhood and child psychology / development. The desperation to use children to validate adult wishes is horrifying and the lack of empathy predictable.

Datun AGP says that being trans is a fantasy for trans people, a fetish. A fetish doesn't lead you to taking medication or having surgery. The author of the study researched using about 6 trans people all in 1 gay bar who were most likely fetishistic transvestites, not transsexual women. The study may suit those individuals he spoke with, but his methods were flawed and do not apply to the majority of trans people who actually transition.

I do feel sorry for those women who find themselves married to men like this, but again, if we had a more open and honest society these situations wouldn't occur because people could address and deal with their issues openly and honestly.

Let me just clarify something because the language is constantly evolving. I'm simplifying it as much as I can.

A transvestite wears clothing and makes themselves appear as the opposite sex for pleasure but has no want to actually seek medical help.

A transsexual person believes themselves to be the opposite sex / gender and may or may not seek medical help to transition or not.

There's more "groups" but they're the main ones that I think can get confused, and although they may appear similar on the surface, they are very different.

The author of the study researched using about 6 trans people all in 1 gay bar

You are confusing Ray Blanchard with Michael Bailey.

Talking about adult experiences of transitioning in a thread about a judicial review to explore the medical evidence, ethics and legality of transitioning children is coming across like derailing to me, however sincere oopster is in discussing their adult experience. Not the subject of this judicial review, not relevant to this thread IMO.

I, too, hope Keira is well supported. It is a brave step to put yourself in the firing line at such a young age to protect other children. If you are reading Keira, I wish you luck.

How another person chooses to live their life has no bearing on anyone else.

This is where maybe you actually need to really take in what you read on these threads. When it is women’s rights and even the meaning of the very language describing women and their biology that is being changed, the bearing on other women is clear.

I am sure as a transperson, you have your own experiences of discrimination and harassment.

However, when it is women who have to make way and lose single sex toilet access (when the men’s remains unchanged), and loss focus on ensuring women actually get equal access to employment and educational opportunities by ‘budging over’ and having those opportunities reduced. And this will continue to diminish because the protections are being erased.

Reduced because males who have never not been offered that job or promotion because they either have potential for taking maternity leave or actually have children, are now women. Or that those women missing out have taken a more circuitous way to get the education and qualifications due to lack of access or encouragement to achieve those qualifications. Or women’s sports and any sport scholarships.

No, You have accused GC groups of an ‘agenda’. It seems the people insisting that women ‘make way’ have really failed to give an alternative remedy for these realities - because they deny they are either still needed or that they deserve them without extra provision being made to make up the opportunities taken if that is even possible.

After all, when labour says their women’s shortlists would be acceptable to be 100% taken by transwomen as they are women, obviously women are NOT being harmed.

Oopster I agree, that many men with AGP don't have genital surgery, but they certainly have surgery. And yes, it's different to men who have gender dysphoria without AGP.

But in neither case are they women.

And Ray Blanchard has 30 or 40 years experience with gender dysphoria - HSTS and AGP.

But, perhaps we shouldn't derail further.

The area where the two issues intersect is where middle-aged men are encouraging children down the path of transitioning, in order to legitimise the 'always been this way/born in the wrong body' narrative.

The biggest push back Keira will get is from these men. The idea that she has made a mistake, based on society's intolerance to gender nonconformity and backed up to the hilt by GIDS, undermines their narrative.

So it must be stopped or discredited.

But yes, this thread is about the transitioning of children not adults.

buttmonki and others who shared experiences of being a tomboy who may have thought they were trans if it was a "thing" back then - did you see the documentary by psychologist Stella O'Malley who had the same experience? Very interesting:
www.stellaomalley.com/trans-kids-time-to-talk

So a young person is believed when she says she feels male and wants certain bits of her body removed to make her feel more male, yet we still get headlines like this:

Women with endometriosis 'finally being believed' www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-51708887

I taught a girl who had to give up a sport she loved and was very good at because of endometriosis. At least, I knew what it was - symptoms were classic. I told her to ask her GP if it might be the problem. He thought not, and it wasn't properly treated (at one point she was given antidepressants). She wasn't properly diagnosed until after she finished University, and had seen a number of GPs.

She has been damaged, However she was 20 when she signed the forms to have her Breasts removed.. Hardly a Child.

But a young person who had been persuaded down a medicalised pathway when she was a child, treated with drugs that had a profound effect on her development, and with surgery as a standard expectation, reinforced by the dogma of transgenderism.
Coercion pure and simple.

She has been damaged, However she was 20 when she signed the forms to have her Breasts removed.. Hardly a Child.

The judicial review is solely focused on whether a ‘competent minor’ can legally give informed consent for a particular type of drug.

The Tavistock and Mermaids say yes, but a bunch of other experts say ‘we don’t really know what the consequences are for this particular group of patients, so ‘informed consent’ may not be possible. A judge will now decide if the Tavistock is correct or not;

A judge will now decide if the Tavistock is correct or not

And given the potential and very serious lifetime side effects of the drugs involved, who would argue with that?