Doesn't self-ID only benefit non-genuine cases?

[UpfieldHatesWomen]

I'm trying to figure out if there are actually any benefits to self-ID at all for people with gender dysphoria. The arguments for self-ID are that it costs money, and it's 'humiliating' to have to present your case to a panel of experts. First of all, a GRC only costs £140. Doesn't seem like a staggering amount of money, if you follow the narrative that people will kill themselves in their masses without it. Are there other costs that I'm missing here? The NHS covers hormones and medical procedures in the UK. I also fail to see what's humiliating about a psychological/medical assessment, to see if you actually have gender dysphoria or whether you have a sissification/autogynephelia fetish. Unless, of course, you're never going to get a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, because you don't have it and simply get off on invading women's privacy/have a fetish etc. Self-ID benefits those who want to keep their penis - but if you have gender dysphoria, why would you want to keep your penis? TV propaganda such as the ITV series 'Butterfly' would have us believe that those with gender dysphoria hate their genitals so much they'll try to cut them off with pieces of broken glass. It seems like self-ID only benefits fetishists and misogynists, so why are politicians never challenged on how exactly self-ID is supposed to benefit transgender people, why are they so insistent on self-ID as the only possible route to trans rights? Are they just woefully ignorant about autogynephelia/transvestism/sissification etc? These fetishes are as old as the hills, why is everyone pretending they suddenly don't exist? Or for that matter, pretending that predatory men don't exist? Female politicians are subjected to the very worst kinds of misogyny on social media, so how can they be so incredibly naive about how misogynistic men and opportunists will use self-ID as a vendetta against women? It doesn't seem that self-ID actually help genuine cases, only those who would normally be refused a GRC because they have shown they're insincere/have other mental health problems/trolling etc.

I'm finding it hard to believe you are actually a GP.

Yup. Never heard a colleague refer to 'bottom surgery'

That is something we are trying to eradicate because it's been found to lead to premature death, especially in poor and BAME women whose medical symptoms are often dismissed as psychosomatic or psychological.

Advocating for something that is psychological to be treated with hormones and surgery instead of psychotherapy doesn't fix the sexed health gap, and will in fact make that gap worse for some conditions such as autism that can be misdiagnosed as gender dysphoria or be masked by it. Gender dysphoria in women and girls can be a response to sexual assault, yet no one in all my years in CAMHS ever asked me about sexual assault. (They should as standard IMO.) Using phrases like "menstruator", "cervix haver" on smear test materials excludes the least educated women and those who speak little or nor English. Trans advocates are increasing the sexed health gap here.

The NHS says quite clearly that GPs will refuse to refer a woman for tubal ligation if they think it's not in her best interests and that women over 30 with kids are more likely to be accepted. It's not poor care for my GP to refuse a referral on those grounds, even if I disagree with that decision.

Good care is not a synonym for giving the patient everything she asks for.

Either way, what you're all doing here by trying to persuade a GP to block referral to a specialist and convince a trans person they are not trans and do not need to transition would be completely unprofessional and I would never treat any patient in that way.

Elsewhere in this thread @GEEpEe you've said that you don't have the expertise to diagnose someone with gender dysphoria, so how would you know that a person who says that they have this condition actually does, and that they are therefore a 'trans person'?

You've also said that some 'trans people' are perfectly happy with their bodies and/or have interests stereotypical of their own sex and/or present as someone of their own sex. What makes such a person 'trans' in your view?

You used the example of a heterosexual woman who wears stereotypically female clothing and has stereotypically female interests and is not distressed by her female body, but 'identifies as' a homosexual man, and you accept this self-identity. Other than her own declaration that she is a gay man, what is there about this person which indicates that she is a gay transman rather than a heterosexual woman? Do you not find this denial of reality troubling in any way and feel the need to help her to discover why she is denying reality?

bd67th I'm glad you made this point about women with autism, I meant to say something similar but lost my train of thought. Autism is chronically underdiagnosed in women and gender-biased criteria for diagnosis is all a part of that. As such, autistic women and girls have no role models to affirm that it's OK for them to be gender and otherwise non-conforming and it seems many are seeking to fix their social discomfort via transition to becoming transmen. This is massively regressive, what autistic women need are more clinicians trained to recognise the ways they present, which is usually different to male presentation, and generally more visibility and support for autistic women in society. Instead, trans ideology tells them their bodies are wrong and they need to be converted.

Bottom surgery is what many trans people say. I adopted the language from them.

You can doubt I'm a GP all you want. I am just interested to hear how far you will go to obstruct someone's healthcare based on your opinions.

@UpfieldHatesWomen

Again, you're mistaken about what happens after referral. Of course they work out what if any other conditions may be relevant. But just because someone is autistic, it doesn't mean they won't also benefit from some form of transitioning.

Taking people are face value is what every GP should be doing. Just because I've been to medical school, it doesn't mean I'm better placed to tell you if there's something wrong with you or not. A GP not taking you at face value means you turning up with a problem, me not being able to identify it so assuming there is no problem, it's all in your head and sending you home with nothing.

You cannot do that to people.

Autistic women have lots of examples of role models who are not stereotypical. What the fuck are you talking about? You all just sit here and make things up to each other.

Exactly what we are concerned about..people's treatment being restricted because of other peoples opinions,

Whilst in probably the vast majority of cases involving children, the best treatment may well be mental health support they are instead being steered into a physical treatment path.

If you are of the opinion that everyone with a particular mental health disorder is able to self diagnose, and you have no clue what "affirmative care" really means, we suggest you are a danger to these patients' health.

Curious to know who are the none sterotypical role models for autistic girls?

@OldCrone

I do not have the expertise to decide if someone is trans and if they are trans, whether physically transitioning would be beneficial for them and M if so, how. That's not up to me. What I can say is that the person's issues seem to be around gender identification which they can tell me themselves and I can refer to people who can help them with the rest.

There is no way I would ever obstruct that process because it is more likely that I would compromise the mental health of my patients than help anyone. If it was found that I attempted to block the process by not making the right referral in fear it might lead to physical transitioning, I'd be rightly struck off for incompetence amongst things like allowing my social or political opinions to influence the medical care I provide.

It would be seen like me refusing to refer a women for an abortion and not taking the steps I need to if I refuse on grounds of conscientious objection (which you cannot do for gender based issues anyway).

What you're proposing is illegal and cruel and most importantly, lacks any factual basis.

@midgebabe

Completely untrue. I've checked since and most children who enter these services do not take any medication and of course cannot have any gender confirming surgery. A small amount of the children who are in these services go into puberty blockers as they are known. Many of them never go into request a change of name or pronouns. All this fear is based on hysteria.

How can I tell an adult woman whether not being able to conceive is in her best interests?

If she is there, and asking for it, ASSUME IT IS IN HER BEST FUCKING INTERESTS TO STOP BEING ABLE TO GET PREGNANT.

Gosh I cannot believe youd advocate for ignoring and dismissing patient needs for your own silly agenda.

Times today:
WEEKEND ESSAY
Giving puberty blocker to ‘trans’ children is a leap into the unknown
A landmark legal review will examine claims that confused young people are being subjected to a giant medical experiment,
says Janice Turner
(extract)
These are the ethical issues which make puberty blockers the most controversial of medications. On one side are “affirmative” clinicians and trans activists who believe that halting the onset of natal puberty is the only way to alleviate the distress of gender dysphoria, a sense of being “born in the wrong body”. On the other is a growing number of psychotherapists, doctors and endocrinologists concerned that blockers are administered too readily and, since they are prescribed “off-label” with no research into the long-term outcome for patients, amount to conducting a medical experiment on children.

In recent months these brewing worries have crossed into the public sphere. A landmark judicial review is being brought by Susan Evans, a former psychiatric nurse at the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Services (GIDS), a woman known as Mrs A who is the mother of an autistic 16-year-old girl referred to the clinic, and Keira Bell, a 23-year-old woman who as a child was enabled by GIDS to transition into a male and now regrets it. The plaintiffs argue that prescribing hormone blockers to under-18s is illegal because, unable to understand their far-reaching consequences, children cannot consent to take them. They say the Tavistock is “materially misleading” child patients and their parents, omitting to say that “nearly 100 per cent of children who commence hormone blockers go on to take the irreversible cross-sex hormones”.

Meanwhile, in the light of a 3,000 per cent increase in referrals to GIDS in the past decade, the government has announced a long-awaited independent review, chaired by Dr Hilary Cass, a former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, to assess children’s gender services and make “evidence-based recommendations about the future use of these drugs”. (continues)

Yet her views are echoed by GIDS clinicians, 35 of whom have resigned in the past three years, many alarmed by the rush to medicalisation and the way Mermaids, Instagram trans influencers and the CBBC programme I Am Leo present transition as uncomplicated. They say they are seeing girls with a panoply of other issues — anxiety, depression, self-harm, undiagnosed autism, victims of homophobic bullying and sexual abuse — for whom transition to a male body was presented online as the universal panacea. Often a normal, tom-boyish disgust at their new breasts, eliciting sudden and unwanted sexual attention from men, is interpreted as a certainty that they are in the “wrong body”. Yet instead of interrogating these underlying issues, clinicians are told to “affirm” a young person’s “trans identity” and prescribe the puberty blockers that trans campaigners fiercely insist are their right.

The former psychiatric nurse Susan Evans, in her statement to the judicial review, says she saw triptorelin prescribed after just three or four sessions. One ex-GIDS psychotherapist tells me that getting a blockers prescription is seen as an end in itself, a sign you are truly on your trans journey. Even if a young person has already gone through puberty — so the side-effects for girls are akin to sudden menopause — they must take triptorelin for around a year before being allowed cross-sex hormones. Although this period is supposed to be a pause for reflection, young people then receive less therapy not more: “They are told, ‘Go away we’ll see you in three months’.” (continues)

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/giving-puberty-blocker-to-trans-children-is-a-leap-into-the-unknown-x3g37sb7f?wgu=270525_54264_15823125031641_208501e3fb&wgexpiry=1590088503&utm_source=planit&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_content=22278

Did I not see that 800 children are receiving hormone treatment?

800 out of how many? I mean, let's say if 8000 children have approached services with issues around gender, and 10% of them actually go on to some form of physical transitioning with medication, is that a lot? What about if it is out of 80'000?

Keira's story is very interesting. She just wanted to wear trousers and avoid dresses and an overbearing mother with archaic views of gender forced her into traditionally female clothing and when she expressed reluctance, asked her if she was homosexual or trans.

I hope the other woman whose son wants to wear dresses outside reads that story. That's an example of how your archaic opinions can encourage your child to wrongly make decisions about transitioning physically based on how your opinions make them feel about their sex.

This is a running theme with detransitioners. It always starts with "I thought I was a girl because I liked pink and everyone else I knew agreed so I decided life would make more sense for me if I transitioned".

I think this attitude is more of a risk to people regretting permanent change than simple access to services.

from Times today
That such controversial drugs will come under the scrutiny of a judicial review and a public inquiry should be welcomed. Dr Hilary Cass proved herself a fearless whistleblower in 2013 when working at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, exposing how poor management was endangering patients. She will need to be robust to deal with the inevitable vicious accusations of transphobia which greet anyone probing gender ideology and medicine.

GEE No doubt Harriet Cass will be askng such questions & demanding evidence based answers,

800 ( and growing rapdily as it becomes normalised ) compared to how many in previous decades?

And the outcomes in previous decades? Outcome this decade, at least 800 children who will be infertile , have weakened bones and reduced mental capacity and possibly on a pathway to major surgery ?

There was another thread recently where someone used a word I had to look up, but basically it was reporting a doctor who was questioning whether the current approach was actually causing the problem //rise in cases

This is a running theme with detransitioners. It always starts with "I thought I was a girl because I liked pink and everyone else I knew agreed so I decided life would make more sense for me if I transitioned".

Its a 'running theme' with all childen identified as transgender:

Pink, hair length, clothes & toys.

Not in my experience.

Antivaxxers point towards the rise in autism diagnosis to suggest vaccines are to blame.

Greater awareness and acceptance leads to increased incidence in most diseases. Even purely physical conditions. There was a time when asthma was stigmatised FFS.

midgebabe iatrogenic?

GEEpEe are you really suggesting we have archaic ideas about gender now? I can't argue with someone who's making such an accusation at a bunch of feminists, pointless, you sound deranged. Would like to know where all these female autistic role models for young girls are though, you say there are plenty then don't mention any. Greta Thunberg, that's it. 30% of kids were found to have autistic traits at the Tavistock according its own report. Among the general population it's about 1%. These healthy young autistic women are being allowed to be sent down a pathway of lifelong medical interventions, because of the consequences of having a gender gap in the data for autistic women, and because society f*ing hates women who don't conform. People would actually prefer to deal with the fantasy of a trans man than the reality of an autistic woman, because the existence of autistic women is a genuine challenge to sexist notions of male and female brains, and of gendered behaviour being innate. Society still isn't ready to deal with that and would rather allow already vulnerable young women to be trimmed into a male shape through the most brutal means to make them more acceptable, all the while selling the lie that they're in the 'wrong body'. I can only hope in more enlightened times people will look back in horror.