Teenage transgender row splits Sweden as dysphoria diagnoses soar by 1,500%

[stumbledin]

(Badged as an Observer article it is still written with a Guardian slant ie the concern for trans health - nothing about anyone else. And of course calling it a backlash rather than say a more measured response to an unproven process. )

For several days this week the veteran Swedish journalist Malou von Sivers will cover the same topic in every episode of her nightly TV chat show: the extraordinary rise in diagnoses of gender dysphoria among teenage girls.

Lukas Romson, one of the country’s leading trans activists, is prepared for the worst. “There will be no serious trans activists in the show, because none of us trusts Malou at all,” he says. “I’m afraid she’ll just use us.”

But the fact that a mainstream programme is devoting so much time to the issue demonstrates just how much the debate has shifted in Sweden over the past year. “It’s been a very big change and very sudden,” Romson adds. “Everyone – but especially young people – feels worse because of what they perceive as the media’s hatred of them.”

The immediate trigger for Von Sivers’s themed week is a report from Sweden’s Board of Health and Welfare which confirmed a 1,500% rise between 2008 and 2018 in gender dysphoria diagnoses among 13- to 17-year-olds born as girls .

But it also reflects a rapid change in public opinion. Just a year ago, there seemed few official obstacles left in the way of young people who wanted gender reassignment treatment.

In the autumn of 2018, the Social Democrat-led government, under pressure from the gay, lesbian and transgender group RFSL, proposed a new law which would reduce the minimum age for sex reassignment medical care from 18 to 15, remove all need for parental consent, and allow children as young as 12 to change their legal gender.

Then in March last year, the backlash started. Christopher Gillberg, a psychiatrist at Gothenburg’s Sahlgrenska Academy, wrote an article in the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper warning that hormone treatment and surgery on children was “a big experiment” which risked becoming one of the country’s worst medical scandals.

More at www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/22/ssweden-teenage-transgender-row-dysphoria-diagnoses-soar

Wow, the observer have been doing some serious reports on all this.

Sametti was in the Swedish documentaries on all this.

"Trans Train"

1st documentary

2nd documentary

On 20 December, the Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment, which the government had asked to review the scientific research into the recent surge in teenagers reporting gender dysphoria, reported that there was very little research either into the reason for the increase or the risks or benefits of hormone treatment and surgery.

And yet they've been performing double mastectomies on 14 year olds.

The insane recklessness of medical professionals in this field is jaw dropping. I can't imagine children with any other health problem being treated like this. Where the fuck are these people's medical ethics (or any other type of ethics)?

I think that’s a remarkable volte face from the Guardian. It definitely is an article which makes the reader question things!

I don't agree with you, OP. I think there was a lot of good stuff in there questioning the medicalisation of children. Most remarkably, you can see exactly the same trend in Sweden as over here: mass, uncritical acceptance of the transification of kids (to the extent of allowing double mastectomies, which is even worse than what is happening here) to a sudden awakening in which the whole population rouses from its slumber and asks: what the fuck is going on?

Also, isn't it fascinating that they've had exactly the same trend whereby it's teenage girls who have been showing signs of ROGD?

because of what they perceive as the media’s hatred of them.

This is such a messed up way of thinking about people asking questions when clearly something is going badly wrong.

Accusing your opponents of hatred is the only recourse of an ideology bankrupt of logical arguments.
If they had any scientific, objective or reasonable points to make, they’d have done so by now.

Sametti, a former trans man who now identifies as a woman,

I think they mean "Sametti, a former trans man who no longer identifies as a man".

I haven't read the article yet.

But its heart breaking to think of what those girls have been put through.

I was one of those years ago on thread where many of us spoke of the same experiences of growing up Tom boys/hating our bodies at times, but miraculously are now just women who get on with life, and how we feel we would have been caught up in the whole trans thing.

I often wonder if its because we haven't had a space in past to talk about just woman stuff, until coming onto a forum which is mainly women, that these come to light. As else where, who really cares or wants to know about women's shared experiences?

Why did/does medical staff/psychologists never join the dots, that teenage girls have for a very long time had MH and body issues. anorexia, bulimia, self harming ect... Why have they never thought being trans is another new way for girls to escape their bodies/life/minds?

I just find it so unbelievable that professionals have been so utterly blind, and happy to be led around by a ring in their nose.

Sorry for the rant. it's the double mastectomies on 14 year old girls, has made me so angry.

'For several days this week the veteran Swedish journalist Malou von Sivers will cover the same topic in every episode of her nightly TV chat show'
Coverage like that is gona make an impact on public acceptance of all this, we could really do with someone doing that here.
Also Sweden is always pulled up as the example to show how ok it all is, it they drastically reverse track, and it looks like that is what is happening then it will surely make a differenct to policy makers here.

But its heart breaking to think of what those girls have been put through.

Out of all of this, it really is the saddest part.
I understand why these girls do it, I probably would have too.

Breasts at 12 -a man leering at me when I was with my man at a bus stop.
12-a group of boys pulling up my t-shirt
Imagine it now with the Internet.
It must be unbearable.
Imagine having an out, and a out that puts you in the popular category with social media, schools and famous people saying you are so brave and special.
But then you have and hormones,mastectomies and maybe infertility.

RoyalCorgi - my point was that didn't just cover the issue from the point of view of why is theres an increase, what is the long term health challenge, and of course 14 year olds having double masectomies.

They had to put in having the discussion is a threat to trans people. If trans people are sure they are right about the diagnosis of how they feel, then they should be more than willing for it to be put under scrutiny.

And some referred to the Guardian, but as I said it is badged as the Observer which has always had a slightly more open attitude than the Guardian.

And it could help that the author of the article is based in Sweden so not under the Owen Jones, Guardian editor daily scrutiny.

The sudden, simultaneous explosion of teenage girl transitioners in Sweden, the UK and other countries should be an enormous red flag. This is so clearly a social phenomena. Thank you Malou von Sivers.

It’s really important that this issue gets a wider audience in the mainstream media because people have swallowed the identity politics message, hook, line and sinker.

I was called transphobic the other day, for saying that treating young girls with hormones which would render them sterile, lacking in sexual pleasure and with health issues for the rest of their lives. And this from someone who I’d have thought wouldn’t be particularly interested in the issue.

That society will allow the mass medicalising of children while simultaneously disallowing open discussion about it, astonishes me.

Maybe it’s cultural nihilism - in our hearts we believe we’re doomed, so we figure it doesn’t matter what we do to children, they don’t have a future to worry about?

How exactly can some aspect of human existence go from tiny to massive in a short time?

This is something that just wasn’t on radars very much a few years back - even to those of us who spent our student years in the gay bars and clubs. It was a rare thing to meet a transsexual - you’d meet the odd m2f transvestite in the clubs (never said they were female) and even fewer f2m (butch lesbians but again they never said they were men).

It’s a tribe - like we all had when we were young - but this one definitely seems to be being orchestrated (pharma, lobby groups, social media, business marketing...?). At least we only ended up with maybe too many piercings and an embarrassing tattoo.

My hope is that as Sweden is seen to be more socially advanced the fact that a radio show is giving over 5 shows in a week will make other countries start to think.

Though of course it depends on the conclusions reached. Would be great to be able to tune in with simaltaneous translation!