oldwomanwhoruns - thanks for the link!
On the issue of whether GIDS put children on a "trans pathway" in the absence of "gender dysphoria", this crops up time and again in references to interviews with the whistleblowers and also to David Bell's Internal Investigation, which was suppressed by the Tavistock & Portman NHS Trust, eg.
"Calls to end transgender ‘experiment on children’"
Staff quit NHS clinic over ethics and safety fears
The Times, Monday April 08 2019
Extracts
"The Times has spoken to five clinicians who resigned from the service because of concerns over the treatment of vulnerable children who come to the clinic presenting as transgender.
They believe that some gay children struggling with their sexuality are being wrongly diagnosed as “transgender” by the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) clinic."
"The specialists expressed concern that many children decided they wanted to change gender after suffering homophobic bullying. Yet these young people were still referred down the route of hormone treatment, they claimed, without clinicians always exploring the possibility they may simply be gay. One clinician said that she feared the use of hormone therapy for such children could result in a scandal."
Archived: archive.is/GwcJq
There are also people outside GIDS expresseing concerns that diagnosis of "gender dysphoria" is seen as unimportant as long as a child reports that they have a "trans identity", eg.
"School has SEVENTEEN children changing gender as teacher says vulnerable pupils are being 'tricked' into believing they are the wrong sex"
Daily Mail, 17 November 2018
Extracts
"An astonishing 17 pupils at a single British school are in the process of changing gender, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Most of the youngsters undergoing the transformation are autistic, according to a teacher there, who said vulnerable children with mental health problems were being ‘tricked’ into believing they are the wrong sex.
The whistleblower says few of the transgender children are suffering from gender dysphoria – the medical term for someone who feels they were born in the wrong body – but are just easily influenced, latching on to the mistaken belief they are the wrong sex as a way of coping with the problems caused by autism.
Earlier this year, The Mail on Sunday revealed that a third of youngsters referred to the NHS’s only gender identity clinic for children showed ‘moderate to severe autistic traits’. "
"The teacher says she felt compelled to speak out to protect pupils, many of whom she believes could already be taking the powerful drugs and may go on to have life-changing surgery.
She believes schools and some politicians have swallowed ‘hook, line and sinker’ a politically-correct ‘fallacy’ peddled by a powerful transgender lobby.
She has asked The Mail on Sunday to conceal her identity for fear of dismissal after almost 20 years as a teacher, But in a shocking interview, the woman, who we shall call Carol, tells how:
- She was advised to keep parents and other teachers in the dark if a pupil claimed to be transgender;
- Older pupils at her school who changed gender ‘groomed’ younger, mainly autistic students to do the same;
- One autistic teenager is soon to have a double mastectomy;
- Pupils who say they were born the wrong sex mimic transgender YouTube stars Carol believes are partly to blame for convincing vulnerable children they have gender dysphoria."
"‘Parents are not told about this and there is no way of challenging these pupils who are convinced by others that they have a problem they almost certainly do not have. Tragically the end result could be irreversible surgical procedures. This is scandalous.’
The teacher, who has her own child, also believes many of those who say they are the wrong sex are simply gay but would face bullying if they were to ‘come out’. By contrast, she says, transgender children at the school are idolised by other pupils.
She has also raised concerns that many teachers are now too scared to challenge students’ claims they are transgender because they fear being sacked or sued for being transphobic."
Continued at - archived: archive.is/ohBdb
This is an interesting and relevant article by a young teacher with ASD in the UK. Many insights but some misinformation too, such as that the growth in facial hair caused by taking testosterone is fully reversible.
"Autism, Puberty, and Gender Dysphoria"
The view from an autistic desisted woman
4W March 31 2020
Extracts
"After six years of identifying as a trans man as a teenager, I desisted (stopped identifying a trans) at the age of 21. Since reclaiming my womanhood, I have been thinking long and hard about what exactly happened in my 15-year-old brain that made me feel I would only be stable and fulfilled if I took testosterone, changed my name and pronouns and socially became a man. The conclusion I have come to is that thinking I was trans was completely inseparable from my autism.
For most of the time I identified as transgender, I was not yet diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). Looking back with the knowledge that my diagnosis has given me, it’s obvious that I was unwittingly dressing up my Autism in the more fashionable clothing of Gender Dysphoria."
"When I was 15, undiagnosed autistic, and surrounded by trans culture online, it was easy to conclude that I must have a male brain because I had typically male patterns of thinking. I also struggled with body image issues, and I felt totally at home in the insular trans community that I had found online. Factor into that my tomboyish childhood, the fact I grew up with entirely male friend groups, and that I had been getting mistaken for a boy throughout my life (even with hair down to my hips), and I had all the evidence I needed that I was a boy in a girl’s body. I came out as trans at 16 and stayed that way until I was 21.
I didn’t medically transition, unless you count the medicine I bought online that made me grow facial hair, which I don’t as its effects were so easily reversed. My social transition consisted of me legally changing my name, changing pronouns, and trying in every way that I could to pass as a teenage boy. Because I couldn’t buy a binder, I bound my chest in extremely unsafe ways, including (to my current self’s horror) with duct tape and gaffer tape."
"It was my ASD diagnosis in 2017 that made me begin to put all the parts together and realize I had made the wrong decision about transitioning. My ASD diagnosis explained the non-normative behaviors I had been showing my whole life in a way that the Gender Dysphoria diagnosis never quite could. It truly changed my life and saved me from doing something I would certainly have regretted. After I got diagnosed I began researching autism in females, which was what opened a whole Pandora’s box of doubts and second thoughts about transitioning, which eventually led to me desisting.
I began, for the first time, to question the entire philosophical basis of gender ideology, and to critically examine the transgender community. Before then I had never truly questioned any of the things I was reading about gender online, probably because I was so consumed by it. Once I stepped outside of that bubble, I began to realise that I had been sold a false step-by-step guide to self-actualization, and I think that’s what was so intoxicating to me about transition. It presented an opportunity to turn myself from this awkward, self-loathing autistic girl into a cool and confident man, and I couldn’t resist it. It’s not that I was being pressured into altering my body exactly, but I was always itching to take the “next step” up the ladder to eventually become that cool confident man I wanted to be.
After you’ve changed your wardrobe, then your haircut, then your name, then your pronouns, then after you’ve started binding and packing and voice training, the natural next step is hormones and then surgery. I don’t think I ever truly felt I needed those medical interventions, they just felt like the logical next steps in this process I was undertaking to make me eventually feel “normal”. Here I would like to note that autistic people love to follow a clearly laid out step-by-step process. It’s logical and linear, and it makes the world easier to understand for us. Could this linear thinking, and being presented with a step-by-step path to happiness be another aspect that is driving autistic people to transition in their teens?"
Continued at: 4w.pub/autism-puberty-gender-dysphoria-view-from-an-autistic-desisted-woman/