Gender affirmation ruins mental health, leads to the pain of transition regret which haunts people

[FindTheTruth]

Moving thread by Watson
twitter.com/ImWatson91/status/1388645286495412224

If my gender clinic hadn't affirmed me, and instead investigated my mental health issues, properly assessed me and questioned me, there's a chance I could've avoided the pain of transition regret.

That my situation could have been avoided still haunts me, all these years later.

Her words are powerful, just as all voices from actual detranstioners are.

Watson's message that detransition in many cases is due to transition regret, is important.

This is a really good piece

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/02/tavistock-trust-whistleblower-david-bell-transgender-children-gids

ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.1778correction

yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/study_aims_to_chart_transition_regret_in_finland/11108311

That interview of David Bell is well worth reading.

BBC News - 'How do I go back to the Debbie I was?'
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-50548473

Here's an interview Benjamin Boyce did with Watson last year. It's long but well worth the time

Watson

Blaire White interviewing a detransitionner

From the guardian article about Dr Bell.

Whatever the outcome of the appeal, he believes more questions must be asked, particularly about the rise in the number of girls presenting at the clinic (three-quarters of patients are now girls; the gender balance used to be closer to 50:50). “We do not know why this is happening.” He worries that too much emphasis is placed on gender and not enough on sexuality – “the children are often gay” – and he continues to be anxious about co-morbidities such as anorexia, autism and history of trauma in its patients. “Some of the children are depressed. It’s said that it’s their gender that is the cause of this, but how do we know? And why don’t we try to treat that first?”

Bell is not against puberty blockers per se – “a doctor should never say never” – but he believes that halting puberty only makes it more frightening to the child: “The child will never want to come off the hormones and 98% do now stay on them. This could be a dangerous collusion on the part of the doctor. The body is not a video machine. You can’t just press a pause button. You have to ask what it really means to stop puberty.”

But, he says, not all children with gender dysphoria are trans. The two have been elided. More work needs to be done locally. “Gender dysphoria clinics should be part of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) and available nationwide,

When he raised questions, among other things, he was sent threatening and hostile letters, people went 'ballistic', they interfered with his emails to stop him talking to others, they accused him of bullying.

In the US, a journal that published a paper about the effect of puberty blockers on suicide risk recently had to disclose that one of its co-authors received a stipend from the manufacturer of another drug.

Ffs

Yes, this needs to be read in conjunction with the David Bell threads.

Thanks for the links @FlyPassed @334bu I've bookmarked them. Did anything stand out for you when you saw/read them?

@Fernlake that's some eyeopening article and brings up things about GIDS actions that weren't covered in the original Keira case. So... he'll be an intervenor in the appeal in June. Does anyone legal know if the court can act on the new evidence around what GIDs did?

from quotes in the thread, it's good to see she's helping other young girls - this is huge

This is a thread containing a handful of individual cases. Interesting, but hardly a valid reply to a survey of 20,000 trans people:

www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/gender-affirming-surgery-linked-better-mental-health-study-finds-n1266033

As for David Bell, you do know that he never worked at the Gender Identity Development Service in a clinical capacity, right?

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/dr_david_bell_employment_at_gids

"Thank you for your request for information which has been handled under the Freedom of Information Act. We apologise for the delay in our response."

"Dr Bell has now retired from the Trust. Dr Bell did not work in our GIDS service."

"Kind regards"

"The FOI Team"

@Shizuku

This is a thread containing a handful of individual cases. Interesting, but hardly a valid reply to a survey of 20,000 trans people:

www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/gender-affirming-surgery-linked-better-mental-health-study-finds-n1266033

As for David Bell, you do know that he never worked at the Gender Identity Development Service in a clinical capacity, right?

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/dr_david_bell_employment_at_gids

"Thank you for your request for information which has been handled under the Freedom of Information Act. We apologise for the delay in our response."

"Dr Bell has now retired from the Trust. Dr Bell did not work in our GIDS service."

"Kind regards"

"The FOI Team"

That's right. He worked at the Tavi. Everyone knows that. It doesn't need an FOI!

Bell, a distinguished psychiatrist and practising psychoanalyst, is the doctor who in 2018 wrote a controversial report about the activities of the gender identity development service (GIDS), a clinic at the Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation trust in north London, where he worked in adult services from 1995 until his retirement earlier this year.

'adult services'.

GIDS wasn't answering his questions. And he was contacted by over a third of the clinician workforce who were increasingly concerned about the issues.

Of course, he was vindicated entirely by the Keira Bell enquiry.

As for David Bell, you do know that he never worked at the Gender Identity Development Service in a clinical capacity, right?

Bell, a distinguished psychiatrist and practising psychoanalyst, is the doctor who in 2018 wrote a controversial report about the activities of the gender identity development service (GIDS), a clinic at the Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation trust in north London, where he worked in adult services from 1995 until his retirement earlier this year.

Writing the report was, he says, a matter of conscience. In 2018, 10 GIDS staff brought their worries to him unsolicited, a figure he estimates to be around a third of those then working there.

“I was often the person people came to when they had problems,” he says. Having worked as a consultant at the Tavistock for more than 25 years, he was one of its most senior doctors: for 10 years, he was in charge of its scientific programme; in 2018, he was also an elected staff governor of the trust, for the second time.

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/02/tavistock-trust-whistleblower-david-bell-transgender-children-gids

What point are you trying to make @Shizuku?

What point are you trying to make @Shizuku?

Not reading the article in order to be in possession of the facts, presumably.

He is often portrayed as someone with first-hand experience of dealing with trans kids at the Tavi. He isn't.

Another thing that is often claimed is that disgusted psychiatrists were walking out in droves. Actually the staff turnover was about average for the trust:

clareflourish.wordpress.com/2021/01/20/tavistock-gender-identity-development-service-care-quality-commission-report/

"The service employed 66.3 clinical psychologists and psychotherapists, 6.6 assistant psychologists, 1.8 consultant psychiatrists, 1.8 specialist nurses and 15 administrators. There were vacancies for 9.2 psychologists or psychotherapists, six administrators and three assistant psychologists, and staff turnover was 23.5%, which is similar to the total turnover for the trust, which provides adult and child mental health services for several London boroughs."

He is often portrayed as someone with first-hand experience of dealing with trans kids at the Tavi.

Read the article. It's quite clear this isn't true.

He's not portrayed as anything other than who he is.

Ten clinicians have expressed concern. Ten. Nearly a third!

Sonia Appleby, the safeguarding lead, is going to court on the basis that safeguarding was not adhered to.

All in the public domain. No FOIs required.

Interesting timing for whatever the last comments were.

Surely, when you collaborate in taking an organisation like the Tavistock and GIDS to court, the one thing you are absolutely certain about is that everything you say or do will be instantly subjected to the brightest sunlight possible.

It's kind of the point.

@Fernlake

He's not portrayed as anything other than who he is.

Ten clinicians have expressed concern. Ten. Nearly a third!

Sonia Appleby, the safeguarding lead, is going to court on the basis that safeguarding was not adhered to.

All in the public domain. No FOIs required.

@Fernlake

If you get chance, would you mind clarifying/fleshing this point out for me and any lurkers? Thank you

Leaf

Bell working for the Tavistock, which is the adult part, and not GIDs, which is the children's part, is in the article.

As is the fact that 10 clinicians came to him with their concerns.

Sonia Appleby is the child safeguarding lead at the Tavi. She was concerned about the lack of safeguarding, as she understood that clinicians were being advised to bypass her in certain circumstances.

This is what she says on her crowdfunding page. Easily googleable

"My Claim

I lodged a whistle-blowing claim in November 2019 at the Central London Employment Tribunal. Since then I have made 2 applications to amend my claim as new information came to light.

In my claim, I allege that because I made "protected disclosures" to my line manager regarding concerns raised by GIDS staff ( that the health or safety of patients was being, had been or was likely to be endangered), I was subjected to detriments.

I allege these detriments are:

i) the Tavistock misused it's own procedures to besmirch me and therefore jeopardize the role of safeguarding within the Trust;

ii) there was an unwritten but mandated directive from the Tavistock management that safeguarding concerns should not be brought to my attention despite being the Trust Safeguarding Children Lead;

iii) and, clinicians were discouraged from reporting safeguarding concerns to me.

I also allege various other detriments.

Further to disclosures made to Newsnight by former staff, BBC Newsnight produced a programme focusing on the allegation that the Trust did not want to report any concerns to me. www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51806962

and you can watch it here"

Which seems to tally with the experience of David Bell. Who received hostile and threatening letters, accusations of bullying, and refusal to respond to his questions, along with interfering with his emails.

Here is the article again, interviewing David Bell, for anyone who missed it.

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/02/tavistock-trust-whistleblower-david-bell-transgender-children-gids