Personally, I think that self declared experts from both sides of this debate often get far too easy a ride when expressing their opinions often without question in the MSM.
Child Safeguarding principles & frameworks should apply to all children.
Professionals' panel at Manchester 'Dentransition' event:
(extract)
"[Dr Hannah] Ryan introduced the panel by referencing “the fraught field that exists in regards to evidence and the use of evidence,” in terms of how youth are diagnosed with gender dysphoria and subsequently treated. She stressed that “gold standards” of research practices were not being implemented on existing and past transgender patients. Bell added that even far lower and basic standards are not being met, such as follow-up procedures to check in with transitioned individuals over time.
Hutchinson revealed that GIDS and gender clinicians across the UK rely on data that is no longer relevant to the type of patients they see now. In the past, 75 per cent of dysphoric patients were male, however, these numbers have since reversed and tipped the scales to 80 per cent female. Referrals have additionally rocketed by 4,500 per cent to 5,000 per cent in the last decade, and now encompass younger children than before. The NHS is also contending with an influx of patients with new identities, such as “non-binary.”
As if that’s not enough, children are arriving into the care of gender clinics having already socially transitioned with the help of schools and parents, a process that usually involves adopting new pronouns and superficial gender stereotypes generally attached to the opposite sex (e.g. clothing, hairstyles, etc.). Yet there are conflicting views around whether this approach is a positive method of support or if it is ethical to allow vulnerable patients to socially transition without professional advice. Hutchinson referenced a paper by Dr. Ken Zucker that found social transition can decrease the likelihood that an individual will “desist” (go back to living as their actual biological sex) further down the line.
The medical establishment appears blind to the long-term impacts puberty blockers may have on children, which Bell says are often prescribed without warning parents or caregivers about the lack of research and experimental way in which these drugs are being used. Referencing research from her Dutch sources, Hutchinson said almost 100 per cent of children on puberty blockers progress to taking cross-sex hormones, while, in the past, before puberty blockers were introduced to kids, around 80 per cent of children would decide against pursuing transition.
“We are literally in the void of discovery here,” O’Malley said.
Bell even finds the terminology “puberty blockers” to be “targeted,” as it sugar-coats what he describes as “potent drugs” that are inevitably accompanied by additional consequential effects.
“The body isn’t like a video recorder that you can just put on pause,” he said.
Medical professionals feel stifled in their ability to to talk about these issues. O’Malley’s documentary, which aired in November 2018, was pivotal in exposing this reality, as therapists and a handful of other medical professionals voiced their concerns anonymously to escape being labelled “transphobic.”
Ryan expressed empathy towards her fellow researchers. She said they are battling “immense pressure” to alleviate the suffering of patients struggling with dysphoria and affirm patients’ gender identity without question or intervention. Hutchinson, who worked in GIDS for five years, noted that clinicians can be accused of transphobia for merely “talking about evidence.”
“But how can it be transphobic to ask for better standards of care for this client group? I want better standards of care for kids with gender dysphoria,” she said, to loud applause.
Another former GIDS employee in the audience claimed that medical experts face both external and internal pressures. Most feel prohibited from talking about the possibility of desistence and detransition entirely. Bell agreed: manoeuvrability to investigate and conduct research on desistence seems almost impossible when the trans movement “has penetrated into clinical services,” and cannot be questioned, challenged, or exposed. Bell said the extent to which gender ideology has “the ears of politicians right up the highest level” as well as control over much of the media was remarkable. “It has sort of gone through unquestioned,” he said. O’Malley considered that this has only served the best interests of “non-experts” with a lot of social media followers, essentially allowing them to “lead the room” and act with impunity." (continues)
www.feministcurrent.com/2020/01/09/detransitioners-are-living-proof-the-practices-surrounding-trans-kids-need-be-questioned/