Is this going to end? If so, when? What will be the catalyst?

[SybillTrelawney]

Sorry if these are pointless questions — I realise no one really knows the answers. But I need some hope, because I'm feeling so fed up. The attitude many of my colleagues have to gender and sex scares me, and the way that all diversity initiatives at work now revolve around gender ideology (while ignoring women) leaves me in a constant state of low-level anger. I just can't see an end to it, and I'm wondering what it will take for there to be a big shift in attitude amongst the sort of people who are sustaining the current climate of fear.

I think it is quite clear in my full post that sections of society are going along with women's erasure and the rollback of their rights because they have been persuaded that women are basically fine these days and indeed very privileged compared to trans people.

I would not have blinked at this myself a few years ago, when I had seen misleading statistics about violence against trans people, yet was oblivious to the weekly massacre of women.

That's my final word on that for this thread.

I agree SmokedDuck that postmodernism and critical theory need challenging. There is hope if the academic world can grow beyond them.

My fear really is that by the time the masses fully understand what is going on it will be too late as fear of authoritarian sanctions will keep them silent. Then we’ll be stuck for generations until some kind of revolution can happen.

The fact that this is simultaneously happening all across the world is particularly worrying. It will be even harder for common sense to prevail once more.

jj1968 The thread has moved on a bit so you might have missed my question above, but I really am interested to know so I'll repeat.

You said, about detransitioning, all that's happened since that story broke is that quite a few of the first wave of detransitioners have retransed - as you would expect if you are familiar with the research
I admitted that I was not familiar with this research and asked for a link. Do you have one?

Whilst I appreciate with young people it's different. Indeed it is.

When adults transition, they have developed sexual maturity, they have sexual desire, their body is capable of sex and probably fertile. Their brains have finished developing from a child to an adult. Their bones have completed the period of laying down extra bone that happens in puberty.

When a child transitions, if they start taking blockers at the start of puberty, then their bodies and minds may never develop adult sexual function (see Jazz Jennings, for example). Is passing privilege REALLY worth risking trading a functional sex life as an adult for?

Child transitioners also risk brittle bones, infertility (or sterility) and no one knows the long term effect of blockers on the brain as there have been no large studies, but what little evidence there is suggests a possible limitation in brain function (a small study on sheep).

Are you aware, also that transitioners of all ages risk heart issues? Plus stroke and blot clots if MTF? And the risk gets larger the longer you take hormones for, so almost certainly a greater risk if you start young.

Are children and young people really aware of these risks? Or, do they perhaps have older people they trust telling them transition is no big deal, really?

I honestly can't cope with feeling angry like this all the time. I keep coming on here, reading articles, watching YouTube vids, FB groups... looking into it all and getting more and more frightened. I think it's a lost battle. I was on Twitter last night, looking at an article a TW had written about her periods and I think that's done it for me. Last straw. I'mI'm fed up now. The TRA movement is too powerful. Most of my friends don't care. My sister doesn't care. Maybe the only thing I can do is make sure no Stonewall (or similar) organisations get their mitts on my DD when she's a teen. That's what I'm worried about after reading Irréversible Damage. I just have to keep an eye that. It's so depressing.

You keep saying the number of detransitioners is small. What actual proof do you have of this?

Every piece of research ever carried out has found the number of people who detransition or regret medical transition is very low. The studies are easily found on google.

And more importantly where are they all? The number of detransitioners who actually medically transitioned rather than just socially are very small. The number who transition to the point of surgery even fewer. The number who began treatment as kids even less than that. And there must be thousands of people now across the world who are now in their late 20s/30s/40s who underwent puberty suppression and transitioned and yet there hasn't been one law suit so far. The idea that there are going to be huge number of court cases, in the UK particularly, is without any foundation unless your assumption is that trans people don't really exist and everyone will regret it once this madness ends. In reality most will be like this person, followed up 22 years after they began transitioning with puberty blockers in the 1990s:

This case report is on a 22-year follow-up of a female-to-male transsexual, treated with GnRH analogs at 13 years of age and considered eligible for androgen treatment at age 17, and who had gender reassignment surgery at 20 and 22 years of age. At follow-up, he indicated no regrets about his treatment. He was functioning well psychologically, intellectually, and socially; however, he experienced some feelings of sadness about choices he had made in a long-lasting intimate relationship. There were no clinical signs of a negative impact on brain development. He was physically in good health, and metabolic and endocrine parameters were within reference ranges. Bone mineral density was within the normal range for both sexes. His final height was short as compared to Dutch males; however, his body proportions were within normal range.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21503817/

Every piece of research ever carried out has found the number of people who detransition or regret medical transition is very low. The studies are easily found on google.

Yes, and all the ones I've found can be easily debunked, that's why I would like to know specifically where you are getting your info from. I'm pretty sure it doesn't say what you think it does.

@7catsandcounting

I honestly can't cope with feeling angry like this all the time. I keep coming on here, reading articles, watching YouTube vids, FB groups... looking into it all and getting more and more frightened. I think it's a lost battle. I was on Twitter last night, looking at an article a TW had written about her periods and I think that's done it for me. Last straw. I'mI'm fed up now. The TRA movement is too powerful. Most of my friends don't care. My sister doesn't care. Maybe the only thing I can do is make sure no Stonewall (or similar) organisations get their mitts on my DD when she's a teen. That's what I'm worried about after reading Irréversible Damage. I just have to keep an eye that. It's so depressing.

7cats, you need to practise self care. It can be soul destroying, but this is going to be a long haul, lots of issues that have to be dealt with in sometimes painstaking detail. It won't be solved overnight. Take a break when you need to. There are plenty of us who will take up the slack

more importantly where are they all?

Well, for a start, they're here. 17.5k members on this sub.

www.reddit.com/r/detrans/

I must be mistaken here and I apologise.

I thought we were getting peer reviewed research on the rate of detransitioning (or lack of) and I think I saw a single case study of one person who was very happy.

Could someone please tell help me to decipher the research report. It must be my lady brain playing up.

Sound advice ArabellaScott

Hugs to you 7catsandcounting.

We are not alone. After lockdown I am predicting that more local women’s groups will appear meeting in each other’s homes perhaps, to make it easier to choose attendees carefully. We’ll be able to offer support to one another and encourage one another and laugh together too.

Thank heavens that the women on this board are bothered about the 4,000 plus increase in girls (usually with co morbidities) being unhappy about their sex during puberty. Too many of these girls will be the detransitioners of the future due to the "surprising" lack of research and evidence into their condition and the "experimental" (according to the High court) nature of their medical treatment alongside the systematic lack of therapy and support for their usually complex mental health conditions.

jj1968 when talking about the effects of blockers on young people, what do you think a single case study proves? Nothing much. Surely, you are aware of The Tavistock's more recent (and long awaited) full study of 44 children aged 12-15 given puberty blockers?

Results: Height stunted, bone mass density impaired, no improvement in psychological function, no alleviation of gender dysphoria, all but one progressed to cross-sex hormones.

journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0243894

Also, you say:

And there must be thousands of people now across the world who are now in their late 20s/30s/40s who underwent puberty suppression and transitioned and yet there hasn't been one law suit so far. Well no, not really, as the numbers have exploded in recent years. There are very few people in their 30s or 40s who took blockers from a young age.

[quote fastwigglylines]more importantly where are they all?

Well, for a start, they're here. 17.5k members on this sub.

www.reddit.com/r/detrans/[/quote]
That majority of whom are not detrans but joined the group because of an interest in the subject. And that site includes everyone, who might be questioning and having doubts, who only socially transitioned for a short period, and who all have a wide range of experiences and opinions. It's an important space, but it doesn't provide any evidence that any day now huge numbers of detrans people who began treatment in puberty will be launching court actions. And given many are in the US, where if something can be litigating on it inevitably will be, the fact that no-one has yet gone to court suggests one of two things (or possibly both) - the numbers are very small and they probably wouldn't have a case.

Results: Height stunted, bone mass density impaired, no improvement in psychological function, no alleviation of gender dysphoria, all but one progressed to cross-sex hormones.

But that's exactly what you'd expect puberty blockers to do, all that demonstrates is that they work. And that almost everyone went onto hormones suggests the Tavistock's diagnostic criteria was robust.

Very few, regret is very rare

You don't know that!

Someone fully transitioned, many, many years ago, on my husband;'s side of the family ( MTF) when transitioning was still referred to as transsexualism. They say they regret it. Not much can be done about the physical consequences now, though.

Transitioning may provide short term relief, but longer term it doesn't offer a solution for intractable mental health issues; and what is more, full transition narrows down the relationship pool - which makes matters far more difficult for people.

Seriously jj1968? Why are you so intent on denying the existence of detransitioners?

Go look at r/detrans and read the stories for yourself. It's full of detransitioners who regret transition.

Why do you think the law firm I linked upthread is advertising their services to detransitioners? Are they just doing it for a laugh?

@jj1968

Results: Height stunted, bone mass density impaired, no improvement in psychological function, no alleviation of gender dysphoria, all but one progressed to cross-sex hormones.

But that's exactly what you'd expect puberty blockers to do, all that demonstrates is that they work. And that almost everyone went onto hormones suggests the Tavistock's diagnostic criteria was robust.

"bone mass density impaired" leads to brittle bones, this is not what puberty blockers are "meant to do".

Also, I thought they were supposed to alleviate gender dysphoria and stop DC wanting to take their own lives, aren't we told time and again, that's what they're for?

Detransitioners deserve support, their story should be told, and most importantly the stigma around detransition should be reduced. But the idea that there's hundreds of them just waiting to bring law suits that will destroy the trans forever is a fantasy I'm afraid

Whether or not the court cases increase is irrelevant to the stories that people will tell about how transitioning seemed at the time, to be the only answer to personal distress; of how convinced and certain they were, but how it actually did not really offer the place of peace and self realisation it initially promised.

Why do you think the law firm I linked upthread is advertising their services to detransitioners? Are they just doing it for a laugh?

No, they're doing it because they knew it would draw lots of attention, be linked on every gender critical site in the world and that would whack up their google page ranking. It was a very nifty piece of search engine optimisation but they don't appear to have announced any legal cases yet.

Every piece of research ever carried out has found the number of people who detransition or regret medical transition is very low. The studies are easily found on google

Given that the Tavistock, for one, did not even compile follow up research, where exactly is your research coming from?

Also, I thought they were supposed to alleviate gender dysphoria and stop DC wanting to take their own lives, aren't we told time and again, that's what they're for?

No-one expected them to alleviate gender dysphoria, cross sex hormones do that. They are supposed to allow people to buy time to think before choosing to take hormones.

I find poetry cheers me up when I am feeling down

Sigh no more ladies, sigh no more
Men were deceivers ever
One foot in sea
And one on shore
To one thing constant never
Then sigh not so
But let them go...

Shakespeare

jj1968 if medical transition for kids is so great, how come the following clinicians have whistelblown (and mostly resigned) over their grave concerns about what's going on at GIDS / The Tavistock?

Marcus Evans, Governor at the Tavistock (he ended a 35 year association with the Trust to resign over his concerns).

Kirsty Entwhistle, Clinical Psychologist at GIDS. Here is her open letter to Polly Carmichael after her resignation.

Sue Evans, Psychologist and former nurse at GIDS. She started the case with Keira Bell, taking GIDS to court over her concerns.

Five further anon GIDS clinicians resigned and went to the press: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c4343502-5981-11e9-b371-613f81256d20

And Dr David Bell has been raising concerns about the practice at GIDS for a few years now. I highly recommend watching his recent interview on Channel 4 News on the Keira Bell case and the Tavistock.

And then, there's the High Court Judgement in the Keira Bell case which found blockers to be experimental, that there is no evidence that they are beneficial and that it was unlikely children would be able to understand the long term consequences of taking them.

Why do all these serious and extremely experienced professionals, - either High Court Judges or senior clinicians with first hand experience of working directly with young people with dysphoria - have concerns about giving kids blockers? Transphobia, is it? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

@mnhq why have you hidden my post?

It was a list of the GIDS whistleblowers. How is that not allowed?