BBC 3 DIY Trans Teens

[Imnobody4]

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p093wyx7
The BBC isn't even attempting to be responsible. They are deliberatly targeting young people. They disgust me.

In the UK, many young trans people are taking matters into their own hands, getting unregulated hormones online and starting their transitions themselves.
This film follows Charlie Craggs, influencer and author, as she meets teenagers across the country who have been waiting years for a first appointment at an NHS gender identity clinic, to find out the risks and sacrifices they are undertaking to start their transitions.
With the average wait in England for a gender identity clinic appointment currently between 33-36 months, many young people feel as if they have no other option than to begin their transitions without medical intervention. With statistics showing that the attempted suicide rate amongst young trans people is almost double that of cis young people, Charlie Craggs asks what more can be done to support trans teenagers during transition.
This topic is not without controversy – Charlie meets a doctor who has been struck off in relation to her work with trans patients, and a lawyer who is launching a case in the high court on behalf of a 14-year-old who has been waiting over a year for his first appointment with the NHS. And in the light of a recent high court judgement stating that teenagers are no longer able to give informed consent to hormone blockers, Charlie meets a teenager who changed their mind and detransitioned to find out what went wrong.
In this film, Charlie uncovers a system which doesn’t seem to be working for the young people in it and looks at what’s needed for young gender non-conforming people.

I hope the narrative isn't going to be 'look at all these poor children, forced to get their drugs online from dodgy doctors, all because of the nasty bigoted meanies who think children need to be safeguarded'. Susie Green was banging on about this being ''discrimination'' after the Bell judgement, so I fear that this will be the way it goes, framed as an attack rather than protecting vulnerable kids.

They'll be speaking to a detransitioner to find out 'what went wrong'. Which is great, but from what I've seen, detransitioners still have to stick to the script if they want to keep their platform. It's ''fuck terfs'', ''trans is the best thing evah, it just wasn't for me'' and ''even though I irreversibly damaged my body, there's no reason 12 year old shouldn't be allowed to make the same decisions I did.'' (not all of them obviously, many are sensible, but I see a lot of the above online.) So I wonder if the detransitioner will offer balance, or tread very carefully, especially after seeing the venom for Keira.

So yeah...I'm not very optimistic, but maybe I'll be surprised.

I hope the narrative isn't going to be 'look at all these poor children, forced to get their drugs online from dodgy doctors, all because of the nasty bigoted meanies who think children need to be safeguarded'.

It almost certainly will be. Which rather begs the question - given its woeful history on safeguarding, why has the BBC not organised safeguarding oversight on its contacts with vulnerable young individuals and encouraging them to go on record to purchasing controlled drugs? Are referrals being made to safeguarding agencies on their behalf?

I found this when looking for information about Charlie Craggs.

www.thelondontransgenderclinic.uk/case-studies-london/charlie-craggs/

Charlie underwent facial feminisation surgery with LTC in 2017 and then breast augmentation in 2019. Here you can follow her surgical journey from pre surgery consultation to post op success.

Post-op used to mean genital surgery. It now means facial and breast surgery.

@OldCrone

I found this when looking for information about Charlie Craggs.

www.thelondontransgenderclinic.uk/case-studies-london/charlie-craggs/

Charlie underwent facial feminisation surgery with LTC in 2017 and then breast augmentation in 2019. Here you can follow her surgical journey from pre surgery consultation to post op success.

Post-op used to mean genital surgery. It now means facial and breast surgery.

Not to be confused with 'photo op' which this show is for Charlie.

@OldCrone

I found this when looking for information about Charlie Craggs.

www.thelondontransgenderclinic.uk/case-studies-london/charlie-craggs/

Charlie underwent facial feminisation surgery with LTC in 2017 and then breast augmentation in 2019. Here you can follow her surgical journey from pre surgery consultation to post op success.

Post-op used to mean genital surgery. It now means facial and breast surgery.

Gosh those prices are eye watering! They’ve opened a new clinic recently as well so business must be good.

I am surprised to see that they have a ‘Nurse Prescriber’ in charge of the hormone therapy - would that be a usual level for such a position? (If such a position would exist anywhere other than in a trans clinic?)

It is hugely disturbing that they appear to be enabling and endorsing kids to figure out how to self medicate.

I have ADHD. I was diagnosed as a kid and on meds at one point. Then my parents decided it wasn’t a real disability and I was just too lazy to properly try and they withheld my meds. This is without doubt medical abuse and ADHD is most definitely a real disability with a huge amount of accepted research to support the benefit of using medications. Now if my experience were wide spread and the bbc did a program basically telling kids to trot off to their local drug dealing and start self medicating with illegal stimulants imagine the out roar? And that would be in a situation parents are entirely abusive for withholding the NICE guidelines first line of treatment for a diagnosis that has been agreed upon and in at least the last 4 or 5 editions of the DSM. ADHD meds are controlled substances for a reason and need supervised by a psychiatrist. No way would the bbc dare suggested it’s ok to ignore that and self medicate. Even those who believe medicating is a great thing for kids with gender dysphoria (wrongly obviously) they can’t think this is ok.

NICE guidelines first line of treatment for a diagnosis that has been agreed upon

Would we be correct to expect to see some NICE guidelines for the use of puberty blockers in young teens for the express purpose that they are currently being used? I am surprised that there appear to be none.

I was referring to the NICE guidelines for ADHD treatment.

There should be NICE guidelines for any treatment presumably? I was under the impression there was some kind of official guidelines for gender dysphoria- which is wait and see as a first line with therapy iirc - but I could be mistaken and it’s maybe some other official guidelines rather than NICE ones. (I seem to remember that some of the complaints against nhs treatment of gender dysphoria was that it wasn’t following its own official advice, but I haven’t checked).

NICE guidelines are technically ‘just’ guidelines not rules that must be followed, but if hcp aren’t following them they need to have a valid reason why. For example I know it’s common adult ADHD assessment requests can be refused. It’s rare, but it does happen. Mainly because not all ccgs have an adult Adhd service set up. They can choose to pay for a patient to go to another ccg for assessment and diagnosis, and supervision of meds, but they tend to do so for those of us who have a childhood diagnosis. It’s not fair of course, but there are various reasons like that the guidelines aren’t set in stone rules. The expectation is that they should be followed wherever possible though I think. And certainly the likes of controlled substances like Ritalin can’t be prescribed without following the guidelines around that. Although the follow up guidelines can be ignored frequently (I find this beneficial personally so I don’t complain, as it’s really hard to access appointments due to caring duties, and I’ve been on these meds most of my life with no problems, but I don’t think I’ve seen the adult ADHD service in a decade, which is hugely negligent if you looked at anyone with problems with these meds).

But yes there should be guidelines for assessment diagnosis and treatment of gender dysphoria as there is for everything else. For compassion to the stories of kids being given testosterone on their first visit to the doctor I have had 4 separate ADHD assessments-1 as a child, 3 as an adult, because I moved areas and the new area won’t prescribe without their own service confirming diagnosis. (Oncology just wouldn’t treat cancer in a patient new to the area so check themselves first is the reasoning I’m always given ........) and assessment requires at best a gp appointment to request, a long questionnaire to fill in at home, a first visit with a mh nurse to see if I should see the diagnosing psychiatrist, an assessment appointment with the psychiatrist, then med appointments - if I’m off meds going back on these are every two weeks initially to titrate up, then should be every 6 months to review, which they were initially. There can be huge waits within this, and I’ve had situations where the psych from a previous area writes to advise gps to continue prescribing in the meantime. My kids are also diagnosed with ADHD and several other disabilities. It took years of assessments to get their diagnosis (despite it being a severe one) and still haven’t accessed medication appointments nearly decade later than the initial diagnosis, and 4 years after us requesting they look at meds. Admittedly we haven’t pushed much as it’s more that we want meds to be an option come gcse ages, but still in light of camhs sending kids straight to clinics that will prescribe testosterone on a first visit it’s a joke. Either side.

Hi Squeaky yes that’s what I was meaning. I’m sure i have heard of people dying of cancer for eg because a new/repurposed drug hadn’t yet been approved for the purpose in time by NICE (which seems to take years).

I was under the impression that any NHS treatment has to go through NICE and wondered why the use of puberty blockers for this new purpose of ‘pausing puberty’ or preventing development of secondary sex characteristics (or whatever they are trying to persuade us of now).

I wonder what process of testing they go through in order to approve the use of the drugs for the given purpose and whether this is happening or has just been forgotten.

Cue sound of activists going off to write some blurb for NICE to pop on their website to explain how great pbs are for the kiddies.

Thanks gut the useful detail for comparison btw Squeaky it just helps to demonstrate what may be missing here.

Charlie meets a teenager who changed their mind and detransitioned to find out what went wrong.

I came back to this after reading what a pp wrote:

detransitioners still have to stick to the script if they want to keep their platform. It's ''fuck terfs'', ''trans is the best thing evah, it just wasn't for me'' and ''even though I irreversibly damaged my body, there's no reason 12 year old shouldn't be allowed to make the same decisions I did.'' (not all of them obviously, many are sensible, but I see a lot of the above online.) So I wonder if the detransitioner will offer balance, or tread very carefully, especially after seeing the venom for Keira.

"What went wrong" seems quite loaded. It seems to imply that transitioning was and always is the correct outcome but something 'bad' happens to stop this. You don't ask "what went wrong" when the end result is right. Therefore the implication is that detransitioning is always wrong and always the fault of an external factor.

BBC3 is very below the radar, now that it is not transmitted as a channel.

@TheGreatWave

Charlie meets a teenager who changed their mind and detransitioned to find out what went wrong.

I came back to this after reading what a pp wrote:

detransitioners still have to stick to the script if they want to keep their platform. It's ''fuck terfs'', ''trans is the best thing evah, it just wasn't for me'' and ''even though I irreversibly damaged my body, there's no reason 12 year old shouldn't be allowed to make the same decisions I did.'' (not all of them obviously, many are sensible, but I see a lot of the above online.) So I wonder if the detransitioner will offer balance, or tread very carefully, especially after seeing the venom for Keira.

"What went wrong" seems quite loaded. It seems to imply that transitioning was and always is the correct outcome but something 'bad' happens to stop this. You don't ask "what went wrong" when the end result is right. Therefore the implication is that detransitioning is always wrong and always the fault of an external factor.

I read it a different way. That 'what went wrong' was about why someone was treated by the health service as though they were transgender when they weren't (because if they were 'really' transgender, they wouldn't have detransitioned).

But reading it again now, I see what you mean. 'What went wrong' could be 'why couldn't this person continue with their transgender identity?'

Spot on. This is a worrying trend and as a youth worker I'm seeing this come from nowhere this past 2 years. I don't believe for a moment that 100s or 1000s of teens before this struggled quietly with identity. It's usually the vulnerable kids coming to me to tell me they're trans.. Never the confident happy kids

I tried to click on the link again and thus seems to have gone. Dare we hope that this has been pulled??? I’m yet to see any fury from certain quarters so we can’t be sure.

fingers crossed

Details here:

"The documentary is not finished so will be broadcast at a later date. It’s not unusual for there to be late changes to the BBC Three schedule.”

conservativesforwomen.org/the-bbc-s-reporting-on-gender-ideology-is-reckless-this-can-t-be-allowed-to-continue

Hmmm. Wish I'd taken a screen shot. They must have pulled back or been told to by senior staff. I'll take it as a good sign.

Or a grown up reviewed the content and said it needed changes?

I was just double checking on sm to see if it is cancelled and made the mistake of looking at the presenter of this proposed programme on insta

With statistics showing that the attempted suicide rate amongst young trans people is almost double that of cis young people

That's disingenuous - the rate generally is considered no different to other teens with mental health issues IIRC.

Oh - and fuck off with the 'cis' please - indoctrinating teens that this is the accepted way to describe non-trans.

if they were 'really' transgender, they wouldn't have detransitioned

Ah yes - I call this the "No True Transman" argument:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

I find it so amazing that the BBC - or anyone with any influence or authority at all - is able to just accept young people with these beliefs as genuinely trans in some kind of innate way, when there has been such a massive and clearly culturally influenced increase in cases. It is so obviously along particular age, sex and class demographics and influenced by peer groups.

if they were 'really' transgender, they wouldn't have detransitioned

This is the argument, but in itself that argument means that no young "trans" person should be encouraged, or allowed, to transition medically or physically until the age of majority (at LEAST, ideally 25 when the brain matures) - because of the obvious possibility, acknowledged by all, that they might not be "really trans"!

That's what that argument obviously leads to. So why does anyone still support affirmation? It's bizarre.

they might not be "really trans"!

And what does 'really trans' actually mean?

I know, the whole concept of trans makes no sense to me anyway - or “transgender” at least. I recognise you can be “transsexual” with full surgery, but still not actually be a different sex.

But I suppose what would count as really trans - in as far as someone might see that as a thing - is a genuine lifelong dysphoria that is genuinely helped by transitioning in some way, and isn’t the result of a misunderstanding about what gender is..