The judgment in Keira Bell's case will be given tomorrow

[MaudTheInvincible]

The judgment of the Tavistock's appeal of the case will be given at 2pm.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/royal-courts-of-justice-cause-list/royal-courts-of-justice-daily-cause-list

Brave Keira. You have done so much to protect children from ideologically driven healthcare around the world. Your integrity and courage is inspiring and rare in this ridiculous day and age. 💚🤍💜

@MrsOvertonsWindow

So many good posts. Especially the recent insightful post from Sophoclesthefox .

To think we're allowing children to be groomed into this extreme level of narcissistic thinking is frightening for their future. We'll have (already have?) generations with limited critical thinking, an avoidance of science and facts and an overwhelming belief in their own self importance allied with a contempt for anyone who doesn't kowtow to their demands.

If you force people to spend years of their lives justifying and 'proving' the authenticity of their experiences from the ground up, and then every time they try to do so, you accuse them of narcissism, then what you're doing is using the same set of tactics that have historically been used to shut down and disregard the experiences and perspectives of feminists throughout the 20th century.

The last decade has seen the embarrassing fall of the towering champions of New Atheism. What happened? They became part of the establishment after forging identities based on, well, challenging the establishment, descended into dogmatic thinking, and then slowly drifted rightwards until they'd become reactionary mockeries of their former selves ranting about SJW's and political correctness.

The disastrous effects of this on online discourse are still being felt today. What they've given birth to is a corrupted fetishisation of 'rationalism' that attempts to enshrine the nebulous and overused concept of 'common sense' (i.e. 'things I've never thought critically about which ought to be true') as incisive, critical thought, and then sticks a label on it and calls it 'science'.

It's nothing of the sort. It demands evidence as a rhetorical tool, and then ignores it, while 'citing' earnest studies out of context.

We'll have (already have?) generations with limited critical thinking, an avoidance of science and facts and an overwhelming belief in their own self importance allied with a contempt for anyone who doesn't kowtow to their demands.

@Helen8220 provided a link to a recent extensive, well-known set of peer-reviewed studies, of which 97% found that transitioning improved the overall wellbeing of transgender people and the rest presented a neutral or null hypothesis.

You're welcome to disregard the evidence that transition has a positive effect on people's quality of life, but doing so demonstrates that you're just using citation needed as a rhetorical tool.

[quote Datun]@ButterflyHatched

I was wondering if you had any thoughts as to why you had gender dysphoria in the first place?

If you've already answered that, apologies, I must've missed it.[/quote]
Many! Can I answer this in another thread? I don't want to turn this into another round of 'discuss how one person's subjective experiences of gender incongruence may not be valid' and I think it's subject to a bit too much Newton's Flaming Laser Sword to be anything more than a philosophical musing.

It doesn't have to be a novel, or even a paragraph.

Helen8220 provided a link to a recent extensive, well-known set of peer-reviewed studies, of which 97% found that transitioning improved the overall wellbeing of transgender people and the rest presented a neutral or null hypothesis.

I've skim read quite a lot, but i'm pretty certain even I managed to read, several times, that those studies do not include the cohort constituting the overwhelming number of children showing up at gender clinics today.

If you force people to spend years of their lives justifying and 'proving' the authenticity of their experiences
Authenticity of experiences? Absolute straw man. Whether your personal experiences are authentic (to you? to someone else? Who judges?) is irrelevant.
You've been asked to justify other things, not the authenticity of your own experiences. What you can't say is that your experience is authentically female, because you aren't female. You might have experiences identical to mine, (I doubt it but bear with me) but not all females have the same experiences and those that we tend to have in common with each other are shaped by our physical bodies, because all we have in common as individuals are our physical bodies and the treatment we get because of them. If you pass 100% (and you say you do) then perhaps you will have encountered sexism, but to suggest that makes you somehow more authentic is just Pulp's Common People but less catchy.

every time they try to do so, you accuse them of narcissism
If you're equating womanhood with being pretty then that's on you, isn't it?

Britishness is a construct, it's a respected construct, with laws and enforcement to restrict group entry. It's open to those not born British, but there are hoops to jump through, and not everyone who wants to be British is going to be able to achieve it.

Do I claim to have authentically British experiences because I have a British passport? Would it not be seen as either a lame joke at best or at worst outright offensive if I suggested a British hivemind? If I get rained on, on a Bank Holiday picnic, is that an authentically British experience or just a stereotype?

a corrupted fetishisation of 'rationalism' that attempts to enshrine the nebulous and overused concept of 'common sense' (i.e. 'things I've never thought critically about which ought to be true') as incisive, critical thought, and then sticks a label on it and calls it 'science'
You're just pissed off that thumping a phone book sized tranche of studies on the table didn't work, because the women here have read them, and found they don't say what you think they say. Maybe next time just thump the table with your fist or something.

@Datun

Helen8220 provided a link to a recent extensive, well-known set of peer-reviewed studies, of which 97% found that transitioning improved the overall wellbeing of transgender people and the rest presented a neutral or null hypothesis.

I've skim read quite a lot, but i'm pretty certain even I managed to read, several times, that those studies do not include the cohort constituting the overwhelming number of children showing up at gender clinics today.

Yes datun. It is like some posters on this thread are now invisible.

Yet, we know very well that those reading along have seen and noticed.

I repeat what I said up thread.

These studies do not have much relevance (and I am being kind here) to the current cohort of young (under 18) transitioners! I have read them.

They are a lazy ‘go to’ because they are easy to find on google.

From notes:

I did not look at the any prior to 2014 as it is really not applicable to the current spike of young FEMALE transitioners.

Studies 1, 3 & 8 are male only

Study 5 looked at only older people, study 7 had only 18 respondents so I doubt the robustness of any conclusions drawn there, Study 9 looked at surgery only (so not pbs) , study 10 set in Australia ( but unclear what age the females were, and it is self selected. I doubt it relates in-depth to children and teens for the date of the study, but again 200 self selected. And it seems that initially giving T to any female has an uplift in mental health.

Happy to see any other analysis. I think that data from 2014 may be too far back for relevancy.

I'll repeat some of the insights from Sophocles for the benefit of Butterfly - I like hearing women's voices amplified in this very male dominated ideology:

If your conception of yourself relies entirely on other people uncritically endorsing and supporting your view of the world, then it’s going to fail. It’s going to fail often, and painfully. When people fail the test and thereby become the enemy, then pretty soon, the whole world will be the enemy.

It’s a way of thinking that I associate very much with the “child” role and ego state of transactional analysis. It is all about the felt experience and the emotion. It expresses as “I want” and “it’s not fair”. It’s quite amazing to me to see this kind of thinking take hold on front bench politicians, medical professionals and goodness knows where else. There is something about this issue that causes people to jettison everything they know about politics, psychology, medicine, ethics, safeguarding, parenting and many other domains.

Women here are “failing” because most of us are in adult mode- rational, thinking, analytic, problem solving. The “child” ego state wants an interaction with the “parent”- nurturing type - who will soothe and support, comfort and care for. it’s like being drenched in psychological cold water that a site called Mumsnet is full of adult ego states who won’t parent any passing child ego

The TRA mantra moved very easily from 'no debate' to 'no evidence' didn't it? Evidence and actually backing up statements with facts is now seemingly derided as a 'corrupted fetishisation of 'rationalism'. TRA's hate it because gender ideology is essentially an enforced religion which doesn't stand up to scrutiny. It relies on enforced belief.

I'm always rather in awe of the intelligence of the regular posters here.

I’m afraid I haven’t read any studies on this, but a quick Google brought up this, and I would be interested to know your take on it. Apologies if you’ve already addressed this up thread.

It's been addressed on lots of other threads. Basically a lot of the studies are methodologically flawed for what is claimed of them.

Agreed Waitwhat23 The quality of posts on this thread (and all over this board) is superb. As is the remarkable patience and tolerance of numerous posters.

There were two threads on the Cornell study here on MN when it came out in 2018 so we've been discussing it for over three years. It's been explored on countless other threads since then.

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3218027-Huge-new-study-of-trans-people-releasedd_

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3264356-Huge-meta-study-finds-that-transition-helps-trans-peoplee_

Both threads posted by pro trans posters, but there are some other interesting perspectives, from posters who do this kind of research for a living.

It is also remarkable to see the reframing of ‘authentic’ being consistently argued by those missing the meaning of what is their ‘authentic’ life experience. As a trans person living how they expect the sex they have identified as lives perhaps, rather questionable to use such a word while claiming to be living as the opposite sex. So, yes authentic in the case of an individual living their life as they want. But it doesn’t work in a analysis by class at all.

Yet, we see that word pop up time and time again.

until they'd become reactionary mockeries of their former selves ranting about SJW's and political correctness.

What about the ones like David Gorski, PZ Myers etc, who embarrassingly adhere to the pseudoscientific magical thinking of gender identity ideology and similar "progressive" dogma, merrily trampling on the "sceptical" spirit of intellectual enquiry based on scientific method as they do so?

They seem to have gone one of two ways, individually.

You're welcome to disregard the evidence that transition has a positive effect on people's quality of life

Imagine that we have not read them... please point out exactly which of these 51 studies, Butterfly and Helen, that you think provide clear and robust conclusions that puberty blockers and CSH improve the mental health of young female transitioners. Those under 18. Where the long term influence of testosterone (once the euphoria has settled) has been taken into account.

And then please point out the studies that conclude that there is not a significantly higher risk of long term side effects that are life limiting or even life shortening in the case of the type of dementia that has been identified with hysterectomies before a certain age.

You have the chance to actually provide some evidence to us and to the thousands that will actually read this thread, hundreds probably have been lurking if the figures from MN FWR threads of the past are correct.

Or... is it simply going to remain as self-focused rhetoric?

And.... why should we allow our daughter's lives to be influenced in any way by someone's self-focused rhetoric that has been proven to be empty of evidence applicable to anyone transitioning at this time?

That is a really interesting post, Sophocles. Yes, a lot of that makes very good, clear sense.

Clearly 'gender identity' as some innate, immutable or even relatively stable state is highly questionable - I agree with OldCrone that it seems akin to a belief in a soul-like 'thing'. When so much research and so much thinking has consistently pointed to the self as being something conditioned and conditional - it's really odd to me that this belief bubbles up and is taken seriously, apparently by medical establishment as well as politicians etc.

What I would like to know is how and why this mode or state of being has become one that people pander to?

It’s a way of thinking that I associate very much with the “child” role and ego state of transactional analysis. It is all about the felt experience and the emotion. It expresses as “I want” and “it’s not fair”. It’s quite amazing to me to see this kind of thinking take hold on front bench politicians, medical professionals and goodness knows where else. There is something about this issue that causes people to jettison everything they know about politics, psychology, medicine, ethics, safeguarding, parenting and many other domains.

Yes. WHY?!

Is it reasoning backwards from a desired conclusion?

Is it trying to fill the vacuum of a largely post-religious world?

Individualism gone awry?

Egotism mistakenly elevated to the status of self-actualisation?

By the way, how many regulars have seen this study?

Baker, K. E., et al, (2021) Hormone Therapy, Mental Health and Quality of Life Among Transgender People: A Systematic Review. Journal of the Endocrine Society.

academic.oup.com/jes/article/5/4/bvab011/6126016

It has some very interesting conclusions to draw about the studies that focus on adolescents. I posted it on another thread, but to make it easy for everyone to find.

Quality of Life

Among adolescents, a mixed-gender prospective cohort (n = 50) showed no difference in QOL scores after a year of endocrine interventions, which included combinations of GnRH analogues and estrogen or testosterone formulations [30]. No study found that hormone therapy decreased QOL scores. We conclude that hormone therapy may improve QOL among transgender people. The strength of evidence for this conclusion is low due to concerns about bias in study designs, imprecision in measurement because of small sample sizes, and confounding by factors such as gender-affirming surgery status.

And this under Depression

Among adolescents, 2 mixed-gender prospective cohorts (n = 50 and n = 23, respectively) showed improvements in depression scores after 1 year of treatment with GnRH analogues and estrogen or testosterone formulations (both P < 0.001) [30, 38]. Another prospective study reported that BDI scores improved almost by half among adolescents (n = 41) after a mean of 1.88 years of treatment with GnRH analogues to delay puberty (P = 0.004) [34]. The overall improvement after several subsequent years of testosterone or estrogen therapy in this cohort (n = 32) was smaller, however, resulting in no significant change from baseline [35]. No study found that hormone therapy increased depression.

Anxiety

Among adolescents, 1 prospective study saw mean anxiety scores in a mixed-gender group (n = 23) improve from 33.0 ± 7.2 to 18.5 ± 8.4 after 1 year (P < 0.001) [38], but another reported no changes in anxiety after approximately 2 years of puberty delay treatment with GnRH analogues and 4 years of hormone therapy (n = 32) [35].

Suicide

The risk of bias for this study was serious due to the difficulty of identifying appropriate comparison groups and uncontrolled confounding by surgery status and socioeconomic variables such as unemployment. We cannot draw any conclusions on the basis of this single study about whether hormone therapy affects death by suicide among transgender people.

If anyone has seen it before, I'd love to know where you saw it mentioned.

For those who will not read these paragraphs or look at the original source from which they are copied...

It seems there is no conclusive evidence among 20 studies (albeit the studies were all age groups so not that many focused on adolescents) that adolescents who are given hormone therapy (puberty blockers or testosterone) had improved long term mental health across the four areas reviewed. One may be showed a positive effect in depression but it was not supported in another study which was of longer term.

Happy to see another viewpoint of the study.

Remember though, it is evidence some of us would like to see, for those positive effects of puberty blockers and CSH on adolescent girls and children - short term and long term that we are being told are well supported with over decades of evidence.

Remember though, it is evidence some of us would like to see, for those positive effects of puberty blockers and CSH on adolescent girls and children - short term and long term that we are being told are well supported with over decades of evidence.

Yes, it would be excellent to see such evidence. Evidence that NICE couldn’t find when it looked at puberty blockers:

arms.nice.org.uk/resources/hub/1070905/attachment

Or when it looked at the lacking evidence for wrong sex hormones:

arms.nice.org.uk/resources/hub/1070871/attachment

Because at the moment, despite the legal position, the medical decision making pathway seems to be based on such weak positions as “Helen did a quick Google search” and “Butterfly got better, therefore the thousands of teenage girls who have followed 20 years later will also get better”, neither of which are a sound position from which to base irrevocably harming these girls’ bodies.

Here is a recent Australian study into adolescent gender treatment.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/26344041211010777

Published April 22, 2021
Kasia Kozlowska, Georgia McClure et al

Australian children and adolescents with gender dysphoria: Clinical presentations and challenges experienced by a multidisciplinary team and gender service

It also advocates for a range of treatments other than affirming only. And also notes something picked up by UK clinicians. That children and teens are coming in with preconceived notions from the Internet that affirming only is the only treatment option to accept (because lobby groups and activists) which then interferes with treatment.

Recently, The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists have now updated their guidance.

They are now warning that there is NOT ENOUGH evidence to recommend affirming only treatments or indeed any particular treatment plan. They now say that underlying health issues should be treated at the same time. And warn that medicalisation of children and teens be very careful and thoroughly explored considering the ‘paucity’ of evidence at this time.

www.ranzcp.org/news-policy/policy-and-advocacy/position-statements/gender-dysphoria

1st May 2021

Dr Michael Biggs (an advisor to SEGM) has been calling for the release of data from the Tavistock’s experiment since 2019. A subset of the data were finally released following the judicial review into puberty suppression at the Tavistock clinic. Biggs’ reanalysis has just been published in the Journal of Paediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism. It finds that after two years on GnRHa, the Z-scores for a significant minority of the children had declined to a level that should trigger clinical concern.

segm.org/the_effect_of_puberty_blockers_on_the_accrual_of_bone_mass

This links directly with the effects documented in the USA from the women who were prescribed Lupron for precocious puberty. Including jaw issues and teeth falling out not just brittle fragile bones and all associated issues with that.

If any person is in doubt, I can find another study that I have read that also indicates young females on blockers NEVER recover their bone density when moved to CSH. Whereas some males do.

Happy to dig it out if anyone is in doubt as to the voracity of this one posted and who doubts the Lupron reports.

So, it is well established that bone density is an issue for young female transitioners for the rest of their life.

This link is regarding surgery. Not adolescents but may be interesting for those reading along.

www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2020/09/71296/?fbclid=IwAR1qhY36S81bxLIL-Gm04MemcwA8R0OBpG5iCy_CrUM6tGttrO98Un-WLTE

Correction: Transgender Surgery Provides No Mental Health Benefit

SEPTEMBER 13, 2020

ANDRE VAN MOL, MICHAEL K. LAIDLAW, MIRIAM GROSSMAN AND PAUL MCHUGH

The American Journal of Psychiatry has issued a major correction to a recent study. The Bränström study reanalysis demonstrated that neither “gender-affirming hormone treatment” nor “gender-affirming surgery” reduced the need of transgender-identifying people for mental health services. Fad medicine is bad medicine, and gender-anxious people deserve better.

www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-bulletin/article/sex-gender-and-gender-identity-a-reevaluation-of-the-evidence/76A3DC54F3BD91E8D631B93397698B1A

Sex, gender and gender identity: a re-evaluation of the evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 July 2020

Lucy Griffin, Katie Clyde, Richard Byng and Susan Bewley

A paper discussion conversion therapy and the needs of transgender patients.

But also covers mental health including suicide rates. And the incredibly high rates of young lesbians presenting for treatment.

There is lots in this paper.

@Sophoclesthefox

I think butterflys position illustrates quite nicely the worryingly solipsistic, self oriented nature of the problem, and how this thinking is societally endorsed in a way and to a degree that it never has been before. I was set on this train of thought this morning by fitts post upthread about the pressure and grief in the families of transitioners.

The hyper focus on the self as the primary locus of identity is a very modern phenomenon. It completely ignores the social contract- I perceive myself to be this therefore so must everyone else. Society at large is conceptualised solely as a threat. This ignores decades, hundreds of years of research and philosophical enquiry into how the self is shaped in negotiation with society, how we only exist and think and feel and act as we do and are as a result of the society and the people we grew up in and around. It’s a negotiated, mutual state.

Nobody exists in a vacuum, “no man is an island”.

Taking this amount of credit/responsibility for ones self is a recipe for dislocation, poor relationships and unhappiness. If your conception of yourself relies entirely on other people uncritically endorsing and supporting your view of the world, then it’s going to fail. It’s going to fail often, and painfully. When people fail the test and thereby become the enemy, then pretty soon, the whole world will be the enemy.

It’s a way of thinking that I associate very much with the “child” role and ego state of transactional analysis. It is all about the felt experience and the emotion. It expresses as “I want” and “it’s not fair”. It’s quite amazing to me to see this kind of thinking take hold on front bench politicians, medical professionals and goodness knows where else. There is something about this issue that causes people to jettison everything they know about politics, psychology, medicine, ethics, safeguarding, parenting and many other domains.

Women here are “failing” because most of us are in adult mode- rational, thinking, analytic, problem solving. The “child” ego state wants an interaction with the “parent”- nurturing type - who will soothe and support, comfort and care for. it’s like being drenched in psychological cold water that a site called Mumsnet is full of adult ego states who won’t parent any passing child ego

No wonder we get so much grief.

This