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.

I stand by my previous comments, she was an adult when she took testosterone and had surgery. She went to the Tavistock, the Tavistock didn't go to her. Her parents will have had to give their ok too, but so far, no mention of those adult(s).

Stop trying to debate something when you're so uninformed. There IS mention of her parents. Please read what she has written. Her parents split up, her father was very worried and deeply upset after her mastectomy. It's not as though Keira has written reams for gods sake, at least read what it is you're trying refute.

The memorandum of understanding means all the healthcare professionals will have been affirming Keira. Likewise everything she would have seen on the Internet, YouTube, tumblr, mermaids, stonewall, etc.

Victim blaming Keira and her parents in order to shore up the validation of adult men is one of the most selfish aspects of this ideology.

The Tavistock themselves have said that puberty blockers cement gender identity disorder. She was given those as a child, a legal child. Her path was set then. The basis for the judicial review. Please be accurate.

Transition is, in some cases, the "razor blade to the arms" cutting and anorexia of this generation of girls. Sadly, this generation has cheerleaders telling them they're doing the right thing

What's very apparent is that the medical professionals who are at the fore of 'gender therapy' have no/little insight or experience of child development, working with/understanding adolescent distress/impact of trauma or standard Safeguarding good practice.
Particularly for girls.

That's aside to their lack of basic knowledge about recognising & responding appropriately to indications of possible abuse, autism, eating disorders etc

I spoke to several professionals at the Manchester detransitioners event and they all said the same thing, it’s incredibly hard to work in a inquisitive, non-prescriptive, in depth way at GIDs. There are a number of staff who are ‘true believers’ in gender identity ideology and if you are not one you have two choices, keep your head down and do the best you can or leave. Most people do the former as long as they can manage, then the latter.

I’ve been advised not to have DsD referred because you don’t know who you’ll be assigned to, despite there being a handful of decent, GC sympathetic clinicians still in the job.

DuLANGMondeFOREVER this is not my experience, this is not the experience of pretty all of the people I know who've attended the Charring Cross GIC. They're hesitant at best to proceed you through the process, it's all "wait and see". You don't turn up to your first appointment and they're busy writing you a prescription for hormones. It took 3 years for me to get an initial appointment with them after seeing local therapists for months. I first went to see my GP in 1997, and didn't get to see a GIC till 2001. Apointments we're a minimum 5 months apart due to the number of patients they we're seeing, and there was an 18 month period where I didn't see anyone as the person I was down to see wasn't available, holiday or similar was what I assumed at the time but I was never told. I was 22 when I first went to my gp for help. Up until that point I had only told one person as I was too scared to talk to anyone. There was no internet, and I was too scared to go look in a library.

What I'm saying is, this process from start to finish takes years, but so many times I read things by people who obviously have no idea and think you can just walk into a doctors surgery, take some pills and bam! that's it.

Keira's parent or parents or legal guardians will have had to consent to treatment before Keira was old enough to do so. Do none of you think that they will have been talking to her, challenging her about her gender identity? My mother did after I came out to her, she came up with all things, that's what people do, they ask questions, some that seem silly and little, and others serious. If you think otherwise then you're lying to yourself.

Keira did what she thought was right at the time, the medical people we're trying to help her and did what they thought was the right thing at the time. There is no one to blame in this situation. Whatever Keira thought she would achieve or how she thought she'd feel has prompted her to believe that she's made the wrong choices. That's the thing about hindsight though, it's brilliant but it comes too late.

I’m not saying they would give a 13 year old hormones on a first visit, that would be ludicrous.

I am saying it is a step on a pathway that leads only in one direction, no forks, no meandering off in the bushes.

And GIDs and the adult service are not the same anyway.

You have no experience. Of GIDs or paediatric transition, Oopster.

None.

Maybe it used to take years, Oopster. That’s your experience from 20 years ago. It looks like things have changed, wouldn’t you agree?

What I'm saying is, this process from start to finish takes years, but so many times I read things by people who obviously have no idea and think you can just walk into a doctors surgery, take some pills and bam! that's it.

This is an account from last year of the group lectures at Charing Cross GIC.
Young people just after their 18th birthday are called to attend (parents are not allowed to accompany their children)

www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/85masl/notes_from_the_charing_cross_gic_information_day/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body

Keira did what she thought was right at the time, the medical people we're trying to help her and did what they thought was the right thing at the time.

Professor Carl Heneghan (Oxford Evidence Based Medicine )was interviewed last year on Panorama & as a consequence of his analysis concluded that 'informed consent is not possible'

BMJ EBM Spotlight paper:
'Gender-affirming hormone in children and adolescents – Evidence review'
Posted on 25th February 2019

(extract)
"Gender dysphoria occurs when a person experiences discomfort or distress because of a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity. Gender dysphoria can arise in childhood and adolescent which raises many questions about how best to handle the condition. This post sets out the current evidence for gender-affirming hormones in adolescents and children to aid decision making. (continues)

"Conclusions

There are significant problems with how the evidence for Gender-affirming cross-sex hormone has been collected and analysed that prevents definitive conclusions to be drawn. Similar to puberty blockers, the evidence is limited by small sample sizes; retrospective methods, loss of considerable numbers of patients in follow-up. The majority of studies also lack a control group (only two studies used controls). Interventions have heterogeneous treatment regimes complicating comparisons between studies. Also adherence to the interventions are either not reported or at best inconsistent. Subjective outcomes, which are highly prevalent in the studies, are also prone to bias due to lack of blinding, and many effects can be explained by regression to the mean.

The development of these interventions should, therefore, occur in the context of research. Treatments for under 18 gender dysphoric children and adolescents remain largely experimental. There are a large number of unanswered questions that include the age at start, reversibility; adverse events, long term effects on mental health, quality of life, bone mineral density, osteoporosis in later life and cognition. We wonder whether off label use is appropriate and justified for drugs such as spironolactone which can cause substantial harms, including death. We are also ignorant of the long-term safety profiles of the different GAH regimens. The current evidence base does not support informed decision making and safe practice."
blogs.bmj.com/bmjebmspotlight/2019/02/25/gender-affirming-hormone-in-children-and-adolescents-evidence-review/

You're right Dodopatrol, it takes longer now. The fact still remains that the majority of the people commenting here have no experience of the GIC system, so all you can do is speculate. I couldn't even get painkillers for a condition I've had for 40 years as my GP says doctors aren't so willing to hand out "powerfull addictive meditions" nowadays, nevermind the fact I've lived with the condition since I was about 4 and know nothing else but what I'd asked for works (before anyone asks it's severe leg aches, I've been to the doctors with it for years).

It took only 10 months for my young adult daughter to be prescribed testosterone from Charing Cross. That's 10 months from first going to see the GP.

She'd only started calling herself non binary 4 months prior to that.

In our experience as long as you say the right things, conform to script and sound convincing, you are good to go.

I'm not saying this is the speed that everyone is seen at but I do know that if you are determined enough you can get there very quickly.

Oh, and her prescribing clinician told her he'd never had anyone change their mind in all his many years of practice.

This is the reality of what we're dealing with here.

The fact still remains that the majority of the people commenting here have no experience of the GIC system, so all you can do is speculate.

Which is why we are in favour of Keira’s judicial review and the proposed government inquiry in ROGD, which is a new phenomenon, so we parents of ROGD are far more likely to be informed than transsexuals of 20 years or more standing.

The world is different now.

I've not seen this before and currently I've read down as far as Social Transitioning. This attitude from them seems better, more open than when I attended round about 2001-2007, but you'd hope that things would have improved in that time. The main thing that seems to have gotten worse is waiting times, but that is down mainly to the increase in patients seeking help I pressume. Let me tell you a little something else though. Not everyone who attends a GIC as a patient will transition or have any surgery, because not everyone that attends wants or needs that. Some may just need to talk to someone about how they're feeling, and that's simply one thing the GIC's do.

I know that everyone's getting up in arms about someone who's regretted transitioning and having surgery, but based purely on numbers, that's going to happen. I'm sorry that it does happen to some I really am, but remember or realise this, I'm in a positiion where I'm going to know a lot more trans people than the average commentator on these threads, off the top of my head I can name at least 20 people in the UK and a dozen more round the world. My ex is trans, believe me when I tell you that our lives we're a lot more about the normal mundane things than being trans.

AGP has been discussed on this thread, and while I think it's a load of rubbish about transsexual people, it could be assigned to those who are transvestites instead in some cases, but there is a big difference between someone who is a transsexual and someone who is a transvestite, the language keeps changing and evolving which can confuse the issue whether you keep up with the changes or not.

Your post is very clear SisterWendy but I am unclear with some of the other posts whether the lengthy process refers to long waits before the first appointment, long waits between appointments once in the system or long periods during which there are regular appointments? These are all different things.

ROGD isn't a thing, it just seems like it. Being trans isn't "trendy" either, I hope it never will be, then people that are going to transition will be doing it for the right reasons and not the wrong ones.

The language keeps changing because of gender politics. This is a massive red flag.

My youngest daughter’s medical condition was Identified in the 1950s and given a Latin name of 14 syllables. It’s not changed since.

SisterWendyBuckett can I ask you how old your child was before being prescribed testosterone? I would assume they're 18 or over.

ROGD isn't a thing, it just seems like it.

You are going to have to explain that if you want us to take you seriously.

We’ve done our homework:

www.parentsofrogdkids.com/junk-science

ROGD isn't a thing, it just seems like it.

Words fail me.

DuLANGMondeFOREVER it's not gender politics, come on. I prefer the older terms like transsexual etc, as they're more specific, but times change, words change, how we refer to things changes. We don't call people with cerebral palsy, "spastics" anymore. If you're reading that word and thinking I'm bad for using, that's why we don't use the word anymore. It was an acceptable word, it was the right word at one point, but then it stopped being the right word, mainly because it was missused, the same reason that the charity "the spastics society" changed it's name to "scope", why "scope" though I'll never know, a quick google search may answer that one.

Of course it’s politics! Harry Benjamin > WPATH

Transsexualism >Gender Identity Disorder >Gender Dysphoria >Gender Incongruence.

Let me tell you a little something else though. Not everyone who attends a GIC as a patient will transition or have any surgery, because not everyone that attends wants or needs that. Some may just need to talk to someone about how they're feeling, and that's simply one thing the GIC's do.

Really.
You think that we wuld be unaware of such a thing?

The problem with the NHS protocol is that many (all?) of the people who wait to attend GIC/GIDS would do better if they had the opportunity to meet with trained generic counsellors/therapists/mental health workers who were not required to follow the affirmation approach but explore (openly) the sources/causes of distress.

ROGD isn't a thing, it just seems like it
There speaks someone who isn't a parent, knows nothing of teenage girls, their struggles with puberty and female socialisation.
Unbelievable ignorance and arrogance.

I couldn't even get painkillers for a condition I've had for 40 years as my GP says doctors aren't so willing to hand out "powerfull addictive meditions" nowadays

Doctors have changed their practice because it’s now recognised the long term damage done from opioid prescriptions in terms of addiction now outweighs the short term gain a patient believes they may get at the time, with no thought to those long term consequences.

Now which other medications could that be applied to, I wonder....puberty blockers maybe?