Ben Hunte BBC article about puberty blocker ban

[risefromyourgrave]

Not biased at all maybe they’re trying to appease the people upset by big meanie Amol Rajan....

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55369784

Puberty blockers block sexual feelings and prevent sexual functions. It’s why they are used on (Male) sex offenders.

Will we ever truly know the cause of gender dysphoria for sure?

Not if it is considered transphobic to research it, no. Not when people like James Caspian have to take the issue to the European court lift the censorship on his research.

What matters are practical solutions. Sometimes that means the least worst option.

It doesn't matter what the option is, when children are deemed unable to consent to it.

I don’t tell children they can change sex. I was talking about someone going through adolescence and not being able to start having some of the experiences their peers do because of dysphoria.

The end result for these children as they will never, ever have the experiences of their peers. For fifty, sixty, seventy years.

There’s likely lots of reasons it’s happening. The fact that there is currently a cultural phenomenon driving 100s of girls to present with some sort of dysphoria (unrelated to transsexuality) doesn’t mean within that there isn’t a much smaller group of genuine gender dysphoric children who will never grow out of it and for whom transition might be the only treatment at some point.

'Likely lots of reasons' it's an absolutely shit justification for depriving loads of children of a sex life, fertility, and health.

Also if you have no idea what causes gender dysphoria, how can you even use the words 'genuinely gender dysphoric'? As opposed to what? Lying?

A young woman sought to transition, in order to eliminate every trace of her vagina. Because her father was raping her, in her vagina. She was genuinely gender dysphoric.

Ignoring her trauma and accommodating her wish resolves nothing.

Fortunately, she realised the cause of her gender dysphoria and addressed it.

Adult men who struggle with toxic masculinity and wish to opt out of it and into an imagined version of girlhood have no business opining on, or judging, the experience of actual teenage girls.

Some people who are gender (sex) dysphoric about their bodies don’t have any sexual relationships at all

Correction: some adults who are dysphoric don’t have any sexual relationships at all. That does not mean children ages 10-16 can choose and consent to being this way, by consenting to being on puberty blockers.

Adults are condemning children to this outcome automatically. These children aren’t given the option of a different outcome and can’t consent to this outcome because they’ve no idea what it entails. That some dysphoric adults struggle with sexual relationships doesn’t mean we endeavour should send kids that way FFS.

*should endeavour to

@NotBadConsidering

Some people who are gender (sex) dysphoric about their bodies don’t have any sexual relationships at all

Correction: some adults who are dysphoric don’t have any sexual relationships at all. That does not mean children ages 10-16 can choose and consent to being this way, by consenting to being on puberty blockers.

Adults are condemning children to this outcome automatically. These children aren’t given the option of a different outcome and can’t consent to this outcome because they’ve no idea what it entails. That some dysphoric adults struggle with sexual relationships doesn’t mean we endeavour should send kids that way FFS.

It's mind boggling to me that someone can even have the nerve to say that. It was the same with the Tavistock saying that the children may be asexual.

There is a remote possibility that somebody might not feel like having a sex life so it's ok to remove any chance they have?

Especially as the vast majority of kids showing up would appear to be gay. Last time I looked, homosexuality doesn't equate to asexuality.

Why would it even be something to consider?

Are they doing the same with sterility? 'Well some people don't want children'.

Some people who are gender (sex) dysphoric about their bodies don’t have any sexual relationships at all

Removing the capacity for normal sexual function from gender dysphoric children is not a solution to this.

If some people still hate their bodies as adults they can make the changes then. In males, as I'm sure you know, the surgery is much more straightforward if they have gone through puberty.

There is a remote possibility that somebody might not feel like having a sex life so it's ok to remove any chance they have?

I too am permanently gobsmacked at the fact that there are adults out there so wedded to this ideology that they believe this - that because they have a fantasy (and it is a fantasy) about how wonderful their lives would have been had they been given puberty blockers as children (without thought to the fact that their lives would have been dramatically different, not enough tissue for "vaginoplasty", no sex drive, various other downsides), it is perfectly okay to offer children "treatment" which will destroy their future fertility and sex lives on the tiny, remote chance that "hey, they might have turned out to be asexual anyway."

How bonkers do you have to be to say this with a straight face?

A young woman sought to transition, in order to eliminate every trace of her vagina. Because her father was raping her, in her vagina. She was genuinely gender dysphoric.

That’s someone trying to escape abuse and the trauma of abuse, not genuine gender dysphoria. That’s the point of differential diagnosis. Genuine gender dysphoria is caused by an underlying cross-sex core gender identity.

'Likely lots of reasons' it's an absolutely shit justification for depriving loads of children of a sex life, fertility, and health.

Likely lots of reasons is the justification for not doing that in the vast majority of cases. I’m not sure why you’ve misinterpreted there.

The end result for these children as they will never, ever have the experiences of their peers. For fifty, sixty, seventy years.

Yes if it’s done too early as in certain well known cases.

That’s someone trying to escape abuse and the trauma of abuse, not genuine gender dysphoria. That’s the point of differential diagnosis. Genuine gender dysphoria is caused by an underlying cross-sex core gender identity

How, then can you separate the two out, when the criteria for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria itself contains an element -distaste or distress relating to one’s genitals- that is equally likely to apply to a child or young person being sexually abused?

TypesofCatalogue "It’s possible many people want to move on from their past both those who do and those who don’t transition. Either way they probably don’t want to be reminded about what they went through, or didn’t go through and moved on from (people like Stella O’Malley being the exception as she talks about it)."

On the contrary, hundreds of women on here have described how uncomfortable they were with their developing bodies and, had they been teenagers today, feel like they would have leaped at the opportunity of escaping from the unstoppable march of puberty.

But those voices are not heard because they don't prop up the argument. I have seen people say that detransitioners - including Keira Bell - were never really trans and lied to access PBs and CSHs.

If some people still hate their bodies as adults they can make the changes then. In males, as I'm sure you know, the surgery is much more straightforward if they have gone through puberty.

Yes so the question is at what point is it safest to intervene medically. How much do they have to go through before we say, ok this person is likely not going to change? Mid adolescence, late adolescence 16, 17,18, 20?

Genuine gender dysphoria is caused by an underlying cross-sex core gender identity.

What does this mean? And how is it diagnosed?

All I've ever seen in answer to these questions is a lot of regressive and sexist stereotypes. Do you have anything better?

How, then can you separate the two out, when the criteria for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria itself contains an element -distaste or distress relating to one’s genitals- that is equally likely to apply to a child or young person being sexually abused?

The answer has to be a decent length of exploratory psychotherapy. Which requires funding properly.

@OldCrone

Genuine gender dysphoria is caused by an underlying cross-sex core gender identity.

What does this mean? And how is it diagnosed?

All I've ever seen in answer to these questions is a lot of regressive and sexist stereotypes. Do you have anything better?

OldCrone a look through this forum will show you’ve been asking the same question over and over for years and even when the answer isn’t about stereotypes you go on asking it regardless. Not sure what the point is really.

Human brains don't mature until 25. No one should go through irreversible surgery before then.

Ben Hunte has a degree in neuroscience. No excuse at all.

From his website:

^One of the BBC's youngest correspondents, since being appointed to the role in April 2019, Ben Hunte’s journalism has already been nominated for prestigious national and international awards:

Winner - Journalist of the Year - One Young World, 2020

Finalist - Specialist Journalist of the Year - British Journalism Awards, 2020

Finalist - Young Talent of the Year - Royal Television Society, 2020

Finalist - Journalist of the Year - PinkNews and British LGBT Awards, 2020

In 2019 Ben was awarded an ‘Alumni Laureate Award’ by the University of Nottingham, where he studied a Neuroscience degree on an all-expenses-paid scholarship in Malaysia.^

I know of some really good young journalists. Yet this uncritical and under researched approach seems to be the stuff you need to write to win the prizes.

Some people who are gender (sex) dysphoric about their bodies don’t have any sexual relationships at all.

Do you think childhood is the best time to set that expectation in stone?

@Typesofcatalogue

If some people still hate their bodies as adults they can make the changes then. In males, as I'm sure you know, the surgery is much more straightforward if they have gone through puberty.

Yes so the question is at what point is it safest to intervene medically. How much do they have to go through before we say, ok this person is likely not going to change? Mid adolescence, late adolescence 16, 17,18, 20?

18 is the age of majority and the age we allow other elective surgeries like breast implants and nose jobs. So probably 18.

OldCrone a look through this forum will show you’ve been asking the same question over and over for years and even when the answer isn’t about stereotypes you go on asking it regardless.
Not sure what the point is really.

Maybe that's because no other answer is ever forthcoming. Most recently we have been told that trying to explain 'gender identity' to someone who doesn't have one is like trying to explain the colour red to a blind person. That still does not describe what constitutes a gender identity. What would you expect someone whose gender identity is female to be like? How would that gender identity manifest itself? How would it differ from someone who had a male gender identity?

OldCrone asks these questions so that we can consider the answers. If no answer is forthcoming, we consider that too.

An important article from James Kirkup on this. I hope the BBC takes note:

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-bbc-should-be-ashamed-of-its-reporting-on-trans-teenagers

Great response from James Kirkup in The Spectator. Cannot believe it's still on the website frankly.
www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-bbc-should-be-ashamed-of-its-reporting-on-trans-teenagers

I think that gender identity doesn’t necessarily exist - the reason male people feel male is because they are male and have been raised knowing that. Gender dysphoria is a condition where you believe or wish you were the opposite sex. That doesn’t mean that all persons have a gender identity that either does or does not match with their sexed body.

a look through this forum will show you’ve been asking the same question over and over for years and even when the answer isn’t about stereotypes you go on asking it regardless. Not sure what the point is really.

The point is that when it's not about stereotypes, it's about 'feelings' about 'gender'. 'Feelings', by definition, cannot be explained objectively to another person.

Here are the criteria for diagnosis of gender dysphoria in children from DSM 5:

A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
In boys (assigned gender), a strong preference for cross-dressing or simulating female attire; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong preference for wearing only typical masculine clothing and a strong resistance to the wearing of typical feminine clothing
A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play
A strong preference for the toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender
A strong preference for playmates of the other gender
In boys (assigned gender), a strong rejection of typically masculine toys, games, and activities and a strong avoidance of rough-and-tumble play; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong rejection of typically feminine toys, games, and activities
A strong dislike of one’s sexual anatomy
A strong desire for the physical sex characteristics that match one’s experienced gender

-------

Stereotypes and waffle about 'gender' (with no definition of what 'gender' means - stereotypes perhaps). A couple of points about dislike of the sexed body, which could point to the child having experienced abuse or trauma.

None of this is a good reason for sterilising children.

I keep asking if you have anything better than this in the (futile) hope that there might be something other than stereotypes behind this movement.

It seems there isn't.

There’s likely lots of reasons it’s happening. The fact that there is currently a cultural phenomenon driving 100s of girls to present with some sort of dysphoria (unrelated to transsexuality) doesn’t mean within that there isn’t a much smaller group of genuine gender dysphoric children who will never grow out of it and for whom transition might be the only treatment at some point.

I agree with you here, Types but if any form of treatment other than blockers is considered transphobic how do we meet the needs of ALL the children, not just the few that will not regret transition?

[quote Mollyollydolly]Great response from James Kirkup in The Spectator. Cannot believe it's still on the website frankly.
www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-bbc-should-be-ashamed-of-its-reporting-on-trans-teenagers[/quote]
A clear and succinct summary of the problems with the article. It is still on the BBC news site, however as was predicted earlier in the thread it has been toned down slightly. It now mentions the fact that HW was struck off and gives a link to the Samaritans. Too little too late I would say - the original will no doubt have been shared countless times by those whose agenda is more important than child safeguarding.