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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Really well written article in Australian mainstream media

16 replies

LuluBellatrix · 13/12/2020 02:02

The Sydney Morning Herald has published an anonymous piece from a mum of a ROGD adolescent. It covers a lot of issues and is really worth a read. I feel for her, such a difficult position to be in on so many levels.
www.smh.com.au/national/my-child-is-transitioning-gender-but-i-feel-the-system-makes-it-too-easy-20201211-p56mqe.html#comments

Apologies if there is a thread already, I looked but didn't see one

OP posts:
highame · 13/12/2020 07:58

Eyes seem to be opening, and I thought there was no hope for Australian, glad I might be proved wrong Smile

Malahaha · 13/12/2020 08:38

Great article, and the comment also seem appreciative.

Interesting though that in the case of teenage rebellions in the past, the adults in the room were always in opposition to the movement, These days, the adults are not only applauding the movement, they are facilitating it!
In my case, it was the hippie movement that caught me. I went the whole hog: tuned in, turned on, AND dropped out. The parents of all my friends, who also "dropped out" (quit jobs, went to live off grid in some remote are or foreign country) were up in arms, fighting us and the movement, thought we were in the grip of a devil drug (marijuana).

My mother however was very progressive; she informed herself, and tried to get on "our side". I remember how disappointed I was. I WANTED to fight her, I WANTED her opposition. Having her be supportive (she also financed my trip to India on the overland Hippie trail across Europe and Asia!) was totally not cool.
Though in the end I appreciated it...

I wonder how today's teens really feel about their parents buying in to their cult instead of opposing it? It's a completely new phenomenon. Teens and parents NEED to be fighting about boundaries!

BreatheAndFocus · 13/12/2020 09:02

Interesting article but how I wish we could hear from the teenager as well. They could answer so many questions eg why the need to start testosterone? Is this to prove to other peers they’re ‘genuine’ or committed? Because it’s ‘just what you do’?

I do think there’s a cultura/rebellion aspect but a very weird one. When I was a teen, the thing was to push boundaries - to dress ‘like the opposite sex’, to dress androgynously, to show there really weren’t ‘boy clothes’ and ‘girl clothes’ or ‘boy things’ and ‘girl things’.

Now some teens seem to be reverting to gender stereotypes from decades ago. I find it depressing and so conservative. I read and try to understand but I don’t. The idea that this can suddenly grip a teen is terrifying. Not because there’s anything wrong with being trans but because the percentage of these who are actually trans must be much lower. So my fear is that quite opposed to teens becoming who they really are, they’re being diverted away from who they actually are, with the path back much more difficult.

DodoPatrol · 13/12/2020 09:24

‘I do think there’s a cultura/rebellion aspect but a very weird one. When I was a teen, the thing was to push boundaries - to dress ‘like the opposite sex’, to dress androgynously, to show there really weren’t ‘boy clothes’ and ‘girl clothes’ or ‘boy things’ and ‘girl things’.

Now some teens seem to be reverting to gender stereotypes from decades ago‘

Well, I guess if your parents were all about breaking the stereotypes, one way to rebel against that is to embrace all the stereotypes.

lionheart · 13/12/2020 09:46

Unfortunately, not allowed to stand (due to the apparent suicide of a transwoman who had been missing):

Dr Yves Rees
@YvesRees
·
7h
'I am horrified and appalled that a media organisation I chose to publish with this week is now peddling transphobic nonsense at a moment when the Australian trans community is in mourning. This is not ok.'

Gay Alcorn
@Gay_Alcorn
·
6h
'I apologise Yves. The piece was commissioned in Sydney - generally, we share online opinion - but given the sensitivity in Melbourne due to the recent death of a young trans woman, I am having it removed from our site.'

BlackWaveComing · 13/12/2020 09:48

Oh ffs.

BlackWaveComing · 13/12/2020 09:53

This is how mothers are treated. Not as people who intelligent enough to question a dominant narrative carrying significant chance of harm ( see Bell vs Tavi) because they care about their kids, but as 'peddlers of transphobic nonsense'.

Yes, the male's recent death is very distressing for family and friends. However, this notion that the nation must put its thinking on hold as a result is bonkers.

BlackWaveComing · 13/12/2020 09:54

*who are intelligent enough

LuluBellatrix · 13/12/2020 11:31

They followed it up today with this offering
www.google.com/amp/s/amp.smh.com.au/world/europe/cruel-ruling-shows-importance-of-caring-for-trans-youth-20201213-p56n2z.html

I hadn't heard of the author before, but (having now googled) her model of care is apparently an 'informed consent' model, without 'gatekeeping':

*Model of Care
Dr Bisshop practices an informed consent model of care for trans and gender diverse people. This means that there is no “gatekeeping” approach or prolonged assessment process in order for people to access treatment for gender transition.

If you are a new patient wishing to access assistance with transition, you will need to make a long appointment. This first appointment is an introductory chat to help Dr Bisshop clarify with you your issues and goals, and to work out a collaborative plan for how to help you on your journey. There is no requirement for you to have had any formal assessment prior to this appointment, and you do not need a referral to see her. If however you have seen other medical or mental health professionals, it would be useful to bring along a letter or information from them if you have this.*

www.holdsworthhouse.com.au/doctors-practitioners/dr-fiona-bisshop/

OP posts:
DisappearingGirl · 13/12/2020 11:57

Excellent article. Really hope they allow it to stand.

HecatesCatsInXmasHats · 13/12/2020 12:01

The article has triggered a lot of TRAs on Twitter. It's straight out of the MN playbook apparently Hmm They say how can GC feminists claim they're being silenced when they can get articles like this in the newspapers and then immediately try to get it taken down via moral outrage over an unconnected incident.

Defaultname · 13/12/2020 12:07

Given that the replacement pro-trans article states that "Gender diversity is not pathological." I'm surprised that it argues at length for medical intervention.

Manderleyagain · 13/12/2020 20:51

The article has stayed available on the online version. I believe it's the Melbourne print version where the article won't appear (just from what people have said on twitter). The response on twitter really backs up what the author said about no one being allowed to question. They obviously are horrified by the mother's pronoun choice, but they are also claiming it's fake & asking whether it's been fact checked. But none of the complaint tweets actually state what they think is factually wrong. It sounds like the teen started on testosterone about a year after telling their mum, so doesn't sound impossible at all.
I really hope the editor stands by the article. The response is very much like we saw here when only one or two journalists were writing about this.
I don't think the fact the paper have published a v different article the next day undoes the usefulness of getting this voice heard where readers won't have heard it before.

NotBadConsidering · 14/12/2020 00:25

So many things wrong with that article by Fiona Bisshop:

We know young people who are prescribed puberty blockers get immediate relief from their gender dysphoria and distress

No we don’t know this, the data from the Tavistock suggests nothing changes and there is no evidence as to how long any relief lasts, if at all.

Yet a young trans person in Britain must now go to court and let a judge decide whether they can start such treatment, even if their doctors and parents agree to it – a judge who is not a doctor and who has no training in the medical care of trans and gender diverse youth.

No, a judge will decide if the child understands the treatment and is able to consent to what they’re signing up for long term. It’s a crucial difference.

This fear leads to anxiety, school refusal, social phobia, self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

Which is hugely common in children around Australia and needs to be appropriately managed with emotional support, psychology, therapy and safety planning. No one can explain why children with anxiety, school refusal, self harm etc etc from gender issues needs to be managed with puberty blockers, different to a similar child who has the same symptoms for other reasons.

By the time they are adult, many will develop severe depression or post traumatic stress disorder and some will have died by suicide.

This just highlights the failure of mental health support. At least the suicide here is a vague “some” rather than the usual overblown high number, but it again plays into the myth that if we don’t stop puberty for these kids then “some” will kill themselves.

My adult trans patients all agree that preventing changes during puberty would have been life-changing for them

This is THE most frustrating thing people claim about this. These adults don’t know
this would have been life-changing for them. It’s retrofitting an ideal and assuming things would have been better. They have also experienced sex, sexual desire, libido and some are even parents. Do these adults honestly say they would have given all that up so they could pass better? Adult regret shouldn’t be used to determine treatment for children overriding consent.

Most trans children will not regret their decision to take puberty blockers

Again this lie, no one has any idea how many regret or will regret because it’s only in the last 5-10 years this has taken off. These people are only just in their late teens or early 20s at best.

Yet the British court partly based their ruling on evidence that 85 per cent or more of trans youth will stop being trans once they have gone through puberty. This notion is profoundly wrong and based on very old data.

Because no one could present any evidence to the contrary despite the judges’ request.

It’s not the only thing the court got wrong. It referred to gender dysphoria as a psychological condition when the World Health Organisation now accepts that being transgender is not a mental health condition. Gender diversity is not pathological. It is part of the normal human spectrum of existence. Trans kids are not disordered.

So why the hell do they need such extreme treatments then FFS?!

They went on to make the incorrect deduction that blockers always lead to GAHT, when they should have instead realised that this fact meant the right group of children were being treated with blockers in the first place.

This is the latest false narrative and it’s a complete lie, because no one has any idea if they’ve selected the right children or not because there has never been a control group. And I know for a fact there are children on PBs who have questionable diagnoses.

Then it just descends into idiocy completely disregarding the fact that consent was the key elements to the judges’ decision.

Honestly, I despair sometimes. Consent for children being disregarded because adults complain they don’t pass as well as they’d like. And WE are the ones failing to safeguard the wellbeing of these children? Give me a break.

LuluBellatrix · 14/12/2020 23:07

Great analysis NotBadConsidering, thank you.

As you show, there are so many assertions in that article presented as fact without any attempt to demonstrate a basis for them. It really distresses me that, as she is a Dr, many people reading the article who are new to all of this will just assume that what she is saying is part of accepted medical knowledge.

OP posts:
zanahoria · 15/12/2020 08:11

I do think there’s a cultura/rebellion aspect but a very weird one. When I was a teen, the thing was to push boundaries - to dress ‘like the opposite sex’, to dress androgynously, to show there really weren’t ‘boy clothes’ and ‘girl clothes’ or ‘boy things’ and ‘girl things

It was about mocking the values of a rigid worldview by having a bit of fun

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