Canada - Judge delays double mastectomy

[Dimpsey]

Saw this on twitter and thought I would share: vancouversun.com/news/b-c-supreme-court-judge-orders-surgeon-to-deny-trans-teens-mastectomy-wish?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1604974077

Mother of the child asking the surgeons to provide evidence of the protocol they have followed to demonstrate that the operation is in the child's best interests.

DidoLamenting - there is a difference between abortion, contraception and masectomies.
First contraception is reversible. Second the risk of physical harm is greater for carrying on a pregnancy compared to terminating it (or indeed preventing it happening) with a masectomy the risk of greater physical harm is having the procedure rather than not. I think proper counselling and healthcare is very important before any surgery- particular if a child has a troubled childhood. My sister was sexually abused and had breast augmentation as part of her way of dealing with it. It didnt help. Shes now had 3 surgeries due to complications before finally accessing the righg support for the sexual abuse.

If surgery is being offered as a treatment for a condition, then failure of that treatment usually informs research into the efficacy and future use of that treatment.

Detransitioning people are an indication of the failure of transitioning 'treatment'. In most medical situations, failure of drastic treatments such as amputation and a lifelong requirement for medication with many associated life limiting risks/side effects would surely be treated very seriously and would lead to at least suspension of such treatment pending further research as the harms appear to far outweigh any potential benefits.

In this case, there appears to be so little evidence of the success of this treatment - as pps have pointed out, it seems to be seen by transitioners as an ongoing (never ending?) process which from Scullys excellent analogy, never addresses the real problem. The person in the Guardian article on the other thread seemed to report a move from 'gender dysphoria' to 'chronic paranoia' - that doesn't sound like a successful outcome to me.

Is it a case that the grass is always greener? 'I will be ok if I can just get x or x or x, then I will be fixed' but never addressing the underlying issues.

We get told frequently to educate ourselves on the experience of transgender people, but when we ask questions, the majority of the time we are told to stfu so thank you for coming on here Daddy to start to explain your experience but I would be very grateful if you could answer some of the specific questions above to help our understanding (and please don't dismiss us as being 'in bad faith', I don't generally spend time asking questions unless I want an answer).

I must say I do have major concerns about the idea of treating all gender questioning children with affirmation inevitably leading to transition when the research indicates that the vast majority of children will desist and settle to live happily in their correctly sexed bodies.

That means that the majority of the group are being sacrificed for the possible gains of a minority. These possible gains are by their nature theoretical and impossible to quantify. Based on a view made in hindsight by adults that think if they'd done things differently, their lives would be better but with no evidence or anything more than an 'if only I had....'

@ByGrabtharsHammerWhatASavings

Still no definition of what a trans child actually is I see. There never is. As other have said, we'll believe trans kids (and indeed trans adults) exist when you can define the word "trans/transgender" and are also prepared to explain the terms used within that defintion. You won't do it because no such definition so possible, but I keep asking in hope. Or you could just admit that "being transgender" is a state of males or females having dysphoria and/or a preference for cross sex stereotypes and/or a desire/delusion of being the opposite sex, then we can all move on and start discussing if and why "transition" is an appropriate treatment.

We're never told what it is, only ever what it is not:

Being trans is not a choice. It is not dysmorphia, it is not being GNC, it is not an illness or a paraphilia. It is not 'being trapped in the wrong body'. It is not an escape from social constraints. We are born like this, and it never goes away. Ultimately, the best treatment is transition.

And yet, this 'what it is not' is contradicted by some of the authorities who try to define it, like the DSM V criteria for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria in children posted earlier:

In children, gender dysphoria diagnosis involves at least six of the following and an associated significant distress or impairment in function, lasting at least six months:

1. A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender
2. A strong preference for wearing clothes typical of the opposite gender
3. A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play
4. A strong preference for the toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender
5. A strong preference for playmates of the other gender
6. A strong rejection of toys, games and activities typical of one’s assigned gender
7. A strong dislike of one’s sexual anatomy
8. A strong desire for the physical sex characteristics that match one’s experienced gender

I'm still waiting for @MadBadDaddy to come back and explain how we can know that a child is trans and the objective criteria for making that diagnosis.

I'm still waiting for MadBadDaddy to come back and explain how we can know that a child is trans and the objective criteria for making that diagnosis.

and how clinicians might be able to avoid a misdiagnosis which has potential to be a major problem as the stakes are so high.

Keira Bell may not be alone in her regrets, but she is most certainly in a minority of transitioning children

What evidence do you have for this statement @MadBadDaddy?

The only statistics I've seen for detransition show that around 80% of children who identify as trans before puberty, but are not treated with puberty blockers, no longer identify in this way as adults.

Is there any evidence of low rates of detransition amongst the very new and almost exclusively female cohort of ROGD transitioners? Isn't it too early to tell? Especially as research in this area, like James Caspian's proposed research, has been hampered by TRAs. Why would they do that if they thought it would show that detransition rates are extremely low?

@OldCrone

I'm still waiting for @MadBadDaddy to come back and explain how we can know that a child is trans and the objective criteria for making that diagnosis.

As I said in my first post as well as my last, I don't claim to have all the answers, I leave that to the pros. I'm just here to be the fly in your otherwise perfect ointment of judgemental ignorance. There's little else to say. We exist, deal with it.

... but denying their existence...

How are we denying their existence? We are talking about them right now for gawd's sake!

Can't you see how daft that sounds?

Keira Bell may not be alone in her regrets, but she is most certainly in a minority of transitioning children..

Early days yet, I fear.

That said, if I knew from around the age of 6 that I was trans (despite having literally no words for any of it) and, by the time i left my teens, that it was never truly going to go away, then I also know that there will always be other children like me, and they shouldn't have to go through the blind torment and distress that i did.

This is an argument which I have seen often from adults who identify as transgender. You need to stop extrapolating your own experience to the rest of the world.

You are making the mistake of saying 'I felt this way, therefore every child who appears to be like I was as a child will benefit from childhood transition because I believe I would have'. The evidence (what little there is) says that around 4 out of 5 children who experience gender dysphoria in childhood will grow out of it, so they would not benefit in the way you believe you would have.

It's possible that all transgender adults were once 'transgender children', but it's not true that all children who identify as transgender as children will grow up to be transgender adults.

Do you really believe that it's in the best interests of the 80% who would grow out of it to commit them to a transgender identity for life for the benefit of the 20%?

[quote MadBadDaddy]@OldCrone

I'm still waiting for @MadBadDaddy to come back and explain how we can know that a child is trans and the objective criteria for making that diagnosis.

As I said in my first post as well as my last, I don't claim to have all the answers, I leave that to the pros. I'm just here to be the fly in your otherwise perfect ointment of judgemental ignorance. There's little else to say. We exist, deal with it.[/quote]
So you don't know what 'trans' is, or you won't tell us.

Do you understand why your arguments appear a little weak?

Women don't want penises in their single sex spaces.

Deal with it.

fly in the ointment

Judgmental ignorance accusations from someone in such a blind rage they could not even read a news report sentence properly, and based a unfounded tirade on a misreading including speculating about parents abusing a child, don't really wash I'm afraid.

We exist, deal with it.

Nobody has said you don't exist. My concern is that children are being unnecessarily medicated for a psychological condition.

I for one am finding it hard to differentiate my response to double mastectomies in teenage girls from my response to fgm in five year old girls. Just because the older girls are asking for surgery doesn't make it right to enable it.

My own DD was prone to asking me "Why did you let me do that? Why didn't you stop me?!" about things she did up to and including age 20!

I would most certainly have thrown every obstacle I could legally lay my hands on in her path had she signed up for a double mastectomy at age 17. By 18 there would be no stopping it, so why not wait another year - it's not long - and use the time to access high quality psychological support.

I'm just here to be the fly in your otherwise perfect ointment of judgemental ignorance.

Do you realise how ridiculous you sound? People are asking for information and trying to understand a complex medical condition which is affecting more and more young people.

All you can say about this condition is what it is not. If you can't define the condition with what it is, does it exist at all? Perhaps it's you saying that 'trans' doesn't exist.

Medical conditions need criteria to identify them. This is has to be describing what it is or it's useless.

Being blind is not having a hole in the heart.
A broken leg is not having a hole in the heart.

Is deafness and a broken leg therefore the same thing?

Blindness, not deafness!

BTW - good for that judge, in Canada of all places!

And yeah, mate, we know you exist because you've made this thread all about you.

@OldCrone

We exist, deal with it.

Nobody has said you don't exist. My concern is that children are being unnecessarily medicated for a psychological condition.

"...you don't exist..." I'm sorry if it sounds melodramatic to put it that way, but this thread is chock a block with comments that boil down to exactly that.

"My concern is that children are being unnecessarily medicated for a psychological condition."

I share that concern, which isn't difficult to glean from my comments on this thread. My larger concern is that children are being denied appropriate treatment b/c of loud and often ignorant campaigning.

And regarding my lack of positive statements about what "trans" is, I fail to see the need for me to say anything like that, unless I fancied making a rod for my own back. All the information is freely available, anyone is free to take it or leave it.

What are the protocols followed by a cosmetic surgeon for surgery to remove healthy breasts from a 17 year old? I will be interested to see if this makes the press.

"We exist, deal with it" sounds like the new version of "you're not the boss of me" from my twelve year old.

And no, you do not seem to share that concern. If you did you would agree "first, do no harm" and only allow adults to decide to alter their healthy body parts.

"first, do no harm" and only allow adults to decide to alter their healthy body parts.

Absolutely. I don't see how cutting breasts off teenage girls can be considered anything other than harmful.

MBD, correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think you had extreme surgery as a teenager did you?

Why do you not worry about physically healthy teenagers damaging their bodies?