Teenagers and young adults who are not gender non conforming as children, do re-write their history. They feel they have to if they want to be believed and to 'prove' they have always been transgender.
agreed
They are told they should do this by peers, by 'mentors', in real life and on social media and YouTube. I know this is true, from our own experience and the experiences shared by many other parents.
agreed
there is exactly the same situation re the SRA claims. There is a network of “survivor” groups coexisting with a network of dodgy professionals and “experts by experience”. Some vulnerable adults and children access the professionals first and some access the social media and peer groups first, the networks overlap and exist in a symbiotic relationship IME. Also the SRA promoting networks have to some extent a symbiotic relationship with child abuse lawyers. We need to be alert to the same sybiotic relationship occuring with the trans issue.
I don't disagree that the Tavistock has been involved in other 'therapeutic' practices where false memory has played a part, and that the results for some people have been devastating. I just think it's not the same with GIDS, and the service young adults access at 18+, because these children and teens are coming to them saying this in the first place.
I’m not sure I understand.
They have to convince GPs in order to get a referral, and it would be a brave young person who said I haven't always felt this way but started feeling like this a few months ago. Of course the GP is going to ask why, what precipitated this feeling. And that's the hardest thing for this cohort to explain.
One of the problems here is that of CPD accredited training courses for GPs and other health and mental health professionals. There are a profusion of such training courses themed on transgender issues and on SRA and trauma related issues that means that when a child or vulnerable person consults their GP there is a chance that the GP will have been indoctrinated in the woo woo via a training course. I have significant personal experience in this respect.
The history and culture of the Tavistock no doubt makes the affirmation pathway easier to follow for some clinicians. But there are and have been many thoughtful and courageous Tavi clinicians who have always rejected 'born in the wrong body' and the repositioning of history as part of this.
The Tavi is a curate’s egg in this respect. Like pretty much every organisation there are good people and bad people and a significant percentage of well-meaning useful idiots who have consumed the Kool Aid.
The affirmation issue is raised in the latest newsletter of the British False Memory Society’s newsletter which is long but well worth a read as it explores the affirmation issue in some detail.
The article on page 7 of the below document is well worth a read, a sample section:
Catastrophic outcomes of blind affirmation, lack of scrutiny and regulation and confirma- tion bias in modern day coun- selling and psychotherapy
By Lisa Blakemore-Brown
(this section starts at the bottom of page 12)
As well as the scandal of false recall of abuse within therapy, a new storm is brewing in the Tavistock within their GIDS (Gender Identity Disorder) Clinic, set up after staff attended semi- nars at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore in the 1960’s and 70’s. In 1975 Dr Paul McHugh was made director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Johns Hopkins and thehospital’s chief psychiatrist. Johns Hopkins was famous for pioneering sex-reassignment surgery: In the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs, Dr Hannibal Lecter, played by Anthony Hopkins, refers to Johns Hopkins as one of the ‘three major centers for transsexual surgery.’ [Shrier A. (2019) Standing Against Psychiatry’s Crazes, Wall Street Journal]
Dr John Money, a psychologist/sexologist led the way at Johns Hopkins. He coined the terms ‘gender identity’ and ‘Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy’ and preached that girls could be turned into boys and vice versa through psychotherapy, social engineering, drugs and surgery. David Reimer was treated to such ‘therapy’ which John Money claimed to be highly successful in academic circles. Once David Reimer knew what had been done to him, he spoke out so no other chil- dren/young people would have to endure such experimentation. In 2004 he ended his tragic life by shooting himself in the head.
Shrier writes:
Dr McHugh encouraged a colleague to conduct follow-up research on patients who had undergone sex-change opera- tions. The results disturbed him. Although most of the patients “were reasonably satisfied with the change, they hadn’t any improvement in any of their psychosocial issues that were the whole reason for doing it in the first place.”
Worse, some of the patients became “suicidal and depressed and regretful.” There was not enough good evidence to determine before the fact which candi- dates for surgery would fall into either group. With no way to predict which pa- tients would be hurt by the operations, Dr McHugh decided he could not allow them to continue. [In 1979 Dr McHugh closed the clinic. My italics.] He says shuttering the clinic was a matter of adhering to the Hippocratic Oath and the scientific obliga- tion to ground conclusions in empirical evidence.
“Everybody should agree” that sex- reassignment surgery is “an experiment right now,” he says. “We’re doing an experiment. We have lots of publications that are telling us that the evidence base for these treatments is very low-quality.” There are “not enough subjects, not enough good results—not enough any-thing. Not enough comparisons . . . that would make it evidence-based.” He says the Institutional Review Board should oversee all such surgery. It doesn’t.
Dr McHugh believes the Johns Hopkins clinic’s reopening (in 2017 and renamed The Center for Transgender Health) was motivated by economic and political fac- tors, not scientific evidence. The complicated operations are big money-makers for hospitals. That the new department’s name uses the politically correct designation “transgender,” not the clinical term “gender dysphoria,” and refers to the surgeries as “gender affirming,” seems to support the view that the doctors have formally embraced transgender ideology.
This ‘affirmation’ approach operates within The Tavistock in London UK and it is currently facing mutiny within its own ranks within the GIDS Clinic; many therapists with integrity are leaving; there is mounting criticism of its methods which it will have to defend in a number of upcoming court cases when it used ‘affirmation therapy’ with confused people who had come to believe they were ‘transgender’. These young people now regret the irreversible medical transition and consider that the psychotherapists did not explore other reasons for their expressed anxieties and difficulties, but simply believed, validated and affirmed what they were told. Dr McHugh spoke of this, warned of this, incredibly, over 40 years ago.
Shrier continues:
Dr McHugh does not believe surgery cures gender dysphoria. He thinks that condition is a “disorder of assumption,” characterized by an “overvalued idea,” or a ruling passion that “fulminates in the mind of the subject, growing more domi- nant over time, more refined, and more resistant to challenge.”
The primary goal of the psychiatrist ought to be to help the patient change behavior. The prevailing standard of care for suffer- ers of gender dysphoria—“affirmative care”—is the opposite: It calls for mental- health professionals to accept both a pa- tient’s self-diagnosis of gender dysphoria and the corresponding behavior. [Shrier M. Standing Against Psychiatry’s Crazes (4th May 2019) Wall Street Journal]
It is also of concern that, yet again, as with those who developed memories of abuse in childhood which never happened, once in therapy, there is a preponderance of girls being referred to the Tavistock GIDS clinic and within that group, a preponderance of girls with autism and other developmental and mental health disorders who are likely to be highly suggestible and susceptible to ‘powerful and dangerous methods of persua- sion.’ [Brandon 1998]
In less than a decade there has been a 1,460% increase in referrals of boys and a 5,337% in- crease in girls. The youngest patients were 3 years old [Transgendered Trend 2019 and An- drew Gilligan The Times 2019)].
Marcus Evans, a Psychotherapist who left The Tavistock over these methods and the failure to properly scrutinise them and supervise staff, wrote:
However, as in all contexts, the therapist must resist the temptation to suspend curiosity, uncritically accept the patient’s presentation at face value, and then act as an “affirming” cheerleader for life- changing acts of transition. Rather, the goal of exploratory therapy should be to understand the meaning behind a patient’s presentation in order to help them develop an understanding of themselves, including the desires and conflicts that drive their identity and choices.
When doctors always give patients what they want (or think they want), the fallout can be disastrous, as we have seen with the opioid crisis. And there is every possi- bility that the inappropriate medical treat- ment of children with gender dysphoria may follow a similar path. Practitioners understandably want to protect their pa- tients from psychic pain. But quick fixes based only on self-reporting can have tragic long-term consequences. And al- ready, a growing number of trans “desistors” (also known as detransitioners) are seeking accountability from the medi- cal professionals who’d rubber-stamped their trans claims. [Marcus Evans (21st July 2020) Freedom to think: the need for thorough assessment and treatment of gender dysphoric children. Cambridge University Press]
The Sunday Times revealed that a report had been leaked within which it was written that
page14image2166663680
‘some staff at the Tavistock’s gender identity development service (GIDS) said it was expos- ing young patients to “long-term damage” because of its “inability to stand up to the pressure” from “highly politicised” campaigners and families demanding fast-track gender transition.’ [Andrew Gilligan (February 16th, 2019) Sunday Times]
The report, compiled in 2018 by David Bell, a clinician and former governor at the trust, said the staff had “very serious ethical concerns” that children were making life-changing deci- sions with “inadequate” examination and con- sent.
Marcus Evans [Marcus Evans (2020)] refers to David Bell’s report and says:
In his report to the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust Board, Dr. Bell cited the high percentage of patients suffering from gender dysphoria who also suffer other complex problems, such as trauma, autism, a history of sexual abuse and atten- tion deficit disorder. This finding is con- sistent with a growing body of knowledge that connects the development of gender dysphoria with psychological factors. Since resigning my position at Tavistock, I’ve been contacted by many parents ask- ing advice about trans-identifying children who often tend to exhibit one or more of these factors. Typically, the parents were concerned that services such as Tavistock encouraged the idea that their child’s problems could be comprehensively ad- dressed merely by changing gender.
A proper assessment process involves two parts. Firstly, an extended psychothera- peutic approach should be used to assess and attempt to understand the meaning of the patient’s presentation. Importantly, this includes an understanding of the fami- ly and social context in which any disor- der emerged. Further, it involves an appreciation of the less conscious factors that underlie gender identity. This difficult psychological work can feel threatening, as it often challenges an individual’s, often strongly held, conviction that only a change in sexual identity can bring relief to their problems.
It is striking to observe how certain mem- bers of the pro-affirmation lobby seem to be about their approach, despite a lack ofhigh-quality data.
“First do no harm” should be the least we expect from those who treat our children. Yet in 2019, it was revealed that the GIDS program at Tavistock clinic had lowered the age at which it offers children puberty blockers on the basis of a study that—it later was revealed—concluded that “after a year of treatment, ‘a significant in- crease’ was found in patients who had been born female self-reporting to staff that they ‘deliberately try to hurt or kill myself.’ ” The fact that Tavistock officials ignored such evidence suggests they have bought into the idea that transition is a goal unto itself, separate from the wellbe- ing of individual children, who now are being used as pawns in an ideological campaign. [Marcus Evans 2020]
Yet again we can see the potential for profound damage to patients and the public through blind affirmation and confirmation bias and limited assessments amongst mostly unregulated psycho- therapists and counsellors, despite indisputable evidence against their position, and indeed increasing evidence of harm to children and susceptible young people. The Letter to the Guardian from Valerie Sinason et al after Carl Beech was sentenced after months of shocking evidence that he was a fantasist, his ‘scenarios’ a set of provable elaborate lies, is a startling example; the denial of the Sater psychotherapists, despite over- whelming evidence that they were wrong and Thomas Quick was a fantasist and a liar; the Tavistock GIDS therapists who refer children and young people for permanent mind and body alter- ing experimentation on the basis of limited assessment, failure to accept dissonant opinion and research, and blind belief in ideologies which aggressively resist scrutiny.
The entire article is here:
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201004083825/bfms.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/BFMS_Newsletter_September_2020.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20201004083825/bfms.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/BFMS_Newsletter_September_2020.pdf