A Transchild, the Tavistock, Mermaids and GenderGP

[Thingybob]

Has anyone seen this:

www.gendergp.com/raising-a-trans-teen-podcast/

A quick synopsis is that Arthur first identified as male when they were six to seven years old. They did this by drawing a man and a woman then stating they weren't the "girl" but couldn't be the other and it couldn't be put right. Mum assured him it could.

Arthur had his first appointment with the Tavistock at seven and a half and after what Mum describes as "a battle" were prescribed puberty blockers at nine and a half (supposedly the youngest person to be prescribed by the Tavistock)

At about the same time Arthur, still nine years old, went to a Mermaids residential (presumably with Mum) where they met Helen Webberley and many older trans people. He left the residential constantly asking his mother "Have you rung GenderGP? Have you rung Norman Spack? When are we going to America?"

At some point, it's unclear when but Arthur was between ten and thirteen years of age, their relationship with the Tavistock broke down. The Tavistock had sent a letter saying that Arthur was too young to be making these massive decisions presumably in response to Arthur's request for testosterone. This led to a private appointment(s) being made with GenderGP where Arthur got his required medications put in place.

I would love to know how often Mermaids contact social services and others in response to any worrisome things that come out.

Worrisome things like uncooperative parents...

I think the mother is saying that they heard about GenderGP via Mermaids Itsallgoingtobefine.

So the NHS tells a mother it is not right to trans their daughter. So Mermaids send them to a now struck of GP instead

Full disclosure- I read the transcript rather than listening. But it seemed very much as if Arthur's mother talked over him and interrupted a lot. This may simply be nerves from being on s podcast but I wonder if that is the case in real life?

Fucking. Hell.

That is all.

You did the right thing thank you, I dont hear that a lot.

My experience of joining mermaids was answering literally a couple of questions, pretty much my name and the name and age of my child and my number.

Someone called me back within a day, and, before knowing any details at all started saying I was doing the right thing, they didn't know anything about our situation.

Being on there brought threads and threads about how to con doctors into giving medication faster, 4 year old boys who liked barbies being called she and trans and lots and lots of advice about constant affirmation, all the time, almost brainwashing really.

It's not good.

DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult I’m glad your child had the time to navigate their own path through this with their eyes wide open. You did right.

My experience of them was almost identical. Immediate push to start socially transition my son, suggested I should make demands that my son should be allowed to use the girls toilets and wear a dress to school, and strongly urged me to insist on a referral to the Tavistock, “just in case we needed it when he got to the top of the list”. He was 6 at the time. We backed off sharpish and are grateful to have listened to our gut instinct. The cheerleading from other parents already committed to this path, and the secrecy surrounding the whole thing is frightening.

If young girl socially transitions from the age of six or earlier, goes onto cross sex hormones at puberty and grows up among teen age boys, then grows into adulthood with them, finds her peer' lives as male adult humans grow and change and diverges from hers, then she may find herself in a no man's land of no longer fitting in with her peers, but not socialised as her female peers. Like people brought up in a culture or country away from their origins find that rather than have feet in two camps, they don't quite belong in either. Only on lifetime medication.

It’s a national shame and a scandal all of this. It doesn’t bear thinking of how fundamentally and damagingly, kids and parents are being taken advantage of. everyone affected by this.

Last month I noted some tweets which show that Helen Webberley is looking to get the Webberleys suspended license to practice medicine lifted.

mobile.twitter.com/GenderGP/status/1278321633946734597

“At GenderGP when we put telemedicine at the heart of our service we broke the mould - now everyone is doing it!”
@ MyWebDoctorUK on GenderGP's role in pioneering telemedicine for the trans community.
Watch the Liveatream here, facialteam.eu/blog/ffs-surgery/livestream-facialteam/

mobile.twitter.com/stephenwhittle/status/1278363363760889857

History 1: 1975 Manchester GP barred after providing hormones to trans man. 2018 @ GenderGp has licence to practice removed for providing a service to those who were waiting years, not months, to see a specialist. Thank you for still here and leading from the front today

mobile.twitter.com/MyWebDoctorUK/status/1278388996473794560

One simple reason. It’s a very worthy cause!! I am still fighting for the suspension on my license to practice medicine to be lifted, I haven’t been able to work in my profession for three hard years. However, I keep on campaigning, fighting and advocating. 💪

@ArabellaScott

How is this legal in the UK?

Is it legal, though? GenderGP has been struck off and has moved abroad, afaik. Now I believe there is some other arrangement for supplying their clients with medication.

Well, I didn’t know this - if I understand the follow tweets, UK GPs are referring patients to Gender GP. So what’s the point of suspending their licence to practice? Or is only one Webberley suspended? 😬

(MyWebDoctorUK is Helen Webberley)

mobile.twitter.com/MyWebDoctorUK/status/1294579048950243329
But is this actually happening 🤔 ”GMC advice states that GPs must co-operate with gender identity clinics and specialists to provide effective and timely treatment for trans and non-binary people.”
bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/gp-practices/gp-service-provision/managing-patients-with-gender-dysphoria… via @ TheBMA

mobile.twitter.com/SaoirseWilliams/status/1294598561565413377
But GP’s don’t recognise Gendergp

mobile.twitter.com/StephDale68/status/1294630129180737542
I think you'll find they do. They might initially question the whole process, but it quite clearly states in GMC & BMA guidelines, that ALL GP's should be required to put patient wellbeing first & foremost. Even, to the extent of, taking on prescribing bridging prescriptions.

But GP’s don’t recognise Gendergp

Some GPs don’t, but enough do. It’s a very grey area and that the Webberley’s can continue to operate in this way is abhorrent. I personally think GenderGP is a bigger and more dangerous problem than Mermaids.

Even to the extent of working with suspended GPs? Gosh.

What I would like as a first step is for GenderGP to be forced to release the numbers of U.K. children/adolescents they have OK’d for puberty blockers and/or cross sex hormones. I could be wrong but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s higher year on year than the Tavi.

Also worth bearing in mind that sometimes GPs are put in a difficult position where a young person is self medicating or threatening to. Estrogen is fairly easily bought online.

”GMC advice states that GPs must co-operate with gender identity clinics and specialists to provide effective and timely treatment for trans and non-binary people.”

It doesn't say GP's can refer to organisations with suspended licences though. I would have thought GP's going against that are in danger of being suspended. Otherwise what's the point of sanctions for GP's

Can't be right

I was really hoping I’d misunderstood - bloody hell!

rogdmum you must get so frustrated and I better understand why some people think GenderGP are more of a concern than Mermaids. I would agree now too. It’s all so unremarked upon, and they just quietly continue processing children onto a lifelong medical pathway, and they’re bloody suspended. What’s the point of sanctions.

You’d only need your GP to work with GenderGP if you wanted the NHS to cover the cost of treatment. If you’re paying privately, your GP does not need to be involved. I think GenderGP works with (or owns?) Gender Heathcare, a nursing service here in the UK, who can administer the injections and carry out the necessary blood tests privately for you and you can send the results on to GenderGP.

Not sure how struck off doctors living abroad can write prescriptions for presentation here in the UK though, unless someone here is signing them off? Or doesn’t that matter if it’s private?

I outlined my mermaids experience to the teacher recommending this and she was horrified, they get given some leaflets and don't research it themselves, but she said that she was told this is the advice they have, so she has to keep recommending mermaids to anyone who asks for help.

This should be a national scandal. Has anyone complained to the Department for Education?

GenderGP’s Working with Your Doctor page:

www.gendergp.com/working-with-your-gp/

There’s a bit about the “barriers” some people have encountered with their GPs so they now use a better model! Making it even easier to get early teen girls in testosterone! Hurrah!

“GenderGP is a platform through which people can access all manner of support including medical support, where appropriate. We work with a network of doctors who have all been carefully selected due to their training, qualifications and passion for gender-affirming care. It has been necessary to adapt our model due to the significant barriers which can face doctors wanting to work with gender variant people.”

Whole page here with info on 'collaboration'

www.gendergp.com/collaboration/

In addition to being suspended, Helen Webberley has a criminal conviction for running an illegal clinic.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3385789-Helen-Webberley-found-guilty

Some more threads about the Webberleys

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3598778-Dr-Helen-and-Dr-Mike-Webberley-matters-of-public-record

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3588654-dr-mike-webberley-suspended

@TorkTorkBam

Doesn't really matter if it is a free for all in sports for Arthur's olympic dreams does it?

Arthur was assigned female at birth so I would be very surprised if at eighteen years old Arthur will be beating people assigned male at birth in a martial art men's category, even if Arthur is allowed to take loads of performance enhancing drugs to compensate for being afab.

Based on that transcript Arthur seems to be being told that Arthur is transitioning to being a man.

Legally, yes, Arthur will most likely become a man at adulthood. The legal document won't make a difference to the physical impact made by an amab punch landing on Arthur's afab skeleton in a couple of year's time though.

Okay, not watched this show, but this here sounds like the inter-generational consequences of a sexist culture. Girls don't do sport as much as boys pre-puberty, and statistically, they drop sport during puberty, and I think Arthur's mum was one of them.

I have been doing karate since I was Arthur's age. Never been Olympics material, but I enjoy it and I love sparring. Arthur's mother plainly doesn't do karate. Even without mumsnet and feminism chat in my life, if I had a female child who wished to live as a boy and who had athletic ambitions, I would be telling them they couldn't have physical transition and follow their Olympic dreams. Arthur will not be able to compete against the best natal males later, and hormones will make him ineligible to compete on the women's team, because it counts as doping.

I see this easily, because I actually spar men. Post puberty, as an adult woman against other adults, I can only win in casual practice matches against men if they hold back their punches, to let me win on technical skill alone. No-one is going to do that in official matches with medals and sponsorship at stake. They will just overwhelm a physically weaker opponent through brute force.

It's as fair as sending a featherweight boxing champion in to fight a heavyweight champion.

In the past I have been literally sent flying across sports halls by teenage boys by accident during
karate classes because they didn't know their own strength yet and they assumed their fellow teen was still a match for them. To be fair, it rarely happened more than once because like most martial arts clubs, my club was run by instructors who didn't tolerate loss of control in classes. But for this reason, official competitions were strictly separated by sex, as otherwise, no girl would have got a look in.

I would love to know what proportion of families are advised by Mermaids that the child is not trans, that something else is going on.

I would guess at never. Seriously...seems parents often say it might be something else going on, not 'trans identity' or something, and parents told this view is abusive and wrong and child knows and better to have a trans id than a dead one, etc etc.'

Manipulative abusers, mermaids are tbh.

Scare the shit out of parents, to get kids drugged for life because they like the wrong toys, and WHY?

Makes me so angry.

At least the NHS has stopped lieing now though and they actually tell parents blockers are not a 'harmless stop gap' like they used to say...that they ever sold them as that is just vile.

@rogdmum

What I would like as a first step is for GenderGP to be forced to release the numbers of U.K. children/adolescents they have OK’d for puberty blockers and/or cross sex hormones. I could be wrong but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s higher year on year than the Tavi.

Also worth bearing in mind that sometimes GPs are put in a difficult position where a young person is self medicating or threatening to. Estrogen is fairly easily bought online.

I lurk on the Transgender U.K. subreddit and there has been an absolute rash of 15 year olds being prescribed cross sex hormones by GenderGP over the last 6 weeks or so.

With wait times being what they are for all NHS gender services (adult and paediatric) and the NHS rule of blockers for a year before cross sex hormones, I would have almost no doubt that GenderGP prescribe hormones to more adolescents (male and female) than the NHS does.

Without ever meeting these children, without any psychiatric or psychological assessment, without proper oversight.

That they can get away with it by moving abroad and allegedly employing some unnamed Spanish doctors to sign the actual prescriptions is beyond me. Where is the point in a register of doctors if you can carry on your private business when professionally suspended?

It was the sport thing that finally got my dd to realise that the whole rosy gender be who really want thing was tosh. For about three or four years (puberty, funny old thing) she has consistently pushed back against her sex. I get it - I pointed out to her that I had short hair, wore combats and DMs and went by ‘George’, but my status as a mother of 3 made it impossible to believe that this could be a transitory phase for her. She’s on an athlete training program. It eventually came to a head when I pointed out that her transitioning and taking T would make her faster, (she’s shit scared of doping), and she sort of realised that transitioning would be the end of her career - but that wasn’t the killer. The nail in the gender woo coffin was that ANY of her male team mates could wake up and decide they were girls, and race as such. Definitively in juniors, and we all know Rachel/ Ivy (who has been alarmingly quiet of late) is campaigning for no corrections to natural testosterone to be needed for male ‘women’ athletes.
I am extremely honest with dd. Arthur’s parents need to be just as bloody honest!!!

@DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult

My child was offered puberty blockers at 11/12, we declined and then we were told we wouldn't get further help.

I asked on Mermaids what I should do to get further help and was told I was abusive for not allowing my child to have blockers.

The whole system is geared towards permanently medicalising very young children.

The law sees them as legally old enough to effectively sterilise themselves, but not old enough to get a tattoo

That’s shocking, but well done for sticking to your guns on the use of PBs.