Abigail Shrier - Marci Bowers - critical of puberty blockers

[ArabellaScott]

Well, this seems potentially very important.

Marci Bowers, well known surgeon who has treated many 'trans children' is critical of the usage of puberty blockers in this interview with Abigail Shrier. Bowers and a fellow medic call the treatment of 'trans children/young people' reckless and sloppy.

Bowers is slated to lead WPATH as of next year.

bariweiss.substack.com/p/top-trans-doctors-blow-the-whistle

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I'm just got to the bit about the 'farewell to penis' party. For a child. It sounds like a scene from a 1970s John Waters movie but it's really happening and a nation just sits there and watches it on TV like it's entertainment.

I'm stunned at some of the things in that article.

In January 2019, Jeanette Jennings threw her famous daughter a “Farewell to Penis” party. Over a million viewers looked in on guests feasting on meatballs and miniature wieners in the Jennings’ Mediterranean-style Florida home. Family and friends cheered as Jazz sliced into a penis-shaped cake.

She served meatballs and sausages at a party to celebrate her child having their penis removed. I can't even compute the thinking behind that; it's a weird mix of macabre, bizarre and downright David Lynch.

It's like having a tumour surgically removed, and your mum bringing round a cake in the shape of metastatic cells that she then expects people to eat.

You know what? All this shit is pure David Lynch. I feel like I'm stuck in fucking Eraserhead. Someone has changed the programme on the world to "surreal dystopian nightmare with added ghoulishness and madness", and we seem to be the only people that have noticed. And it keeps ramping up.

Some of the things in that article: you'd have to be a psychopath not to ask questions in some of those scenarios.

Maybe it was the only way for her to get those two to spill the beans. Stroke their egos and paint them in a good light, in return for their admission of guilt (that they project onto others). Probably she is thinking of the bigger picture - ok these arseholes will get away with it but at least it blows the issue wide open and might put an end to this madness a bit more quickly.

Yeah, maybe. I've never really thought surgeons should have much involvement in any of this apart from their technical role, so to some extent, yeah, it wasn't their job to be making the decisions around drugs or mental health stuff, any more than the people who should have been on those things should be doing surgeries.

Jazz Jennings mum always seemed very odd to me. Not in a nice eccentric way.

Marci Bowers is one of Jazz’s surgeons, seen here arguing with another surgeon about what’s normal and what’s not while operating on Jazz:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=-bCVA9q3RBc

I haven’t read the link in the OP yet, but at any stage Dr Bowers could have refused to proceed with any surgery for Jazz, foreseeing the problems everyone else did, but Dr Bowers didn’t.

Women here couldn't watch those programmes without going "wtf? This is abuse",

It's so bizarre to be told we're the baddies for not wanting children to have healthy body parts removed.

I keep hoping that some enterprising journalists will do a major investigation into the reality of what's happening to children and how responsible adults have abandoned them. Not just this scandal of unethical medical treatment, but the extreme social pressure that's been put on those who normally protect children to persuade them to remove boundaries, ease safeguarding or just turn away while children are gaslit into believing in all this. Education, medicine, social care, government. All complicit - whether through fear, ignorance or something more sinister.
Safeguarding is tough and difficult. But I never thought I would see so many organisations and individuals that I respect, cravenly back away and leave children to navigate their way through this - just as adults did in the Rotherham , Oxford etc abuse scandals. Seeing children as mini adults making bad decisions and standing by watching rather than make collaborative difficult decisions to safeguard them, even when they professed to love their abusers.

I find myself wondering whether there are mutterings of a Jennings lawsuit. It would make sense that Bowers would want to be distanced, presumably by claiming that the puberty blockers were entirely to blame for the disaster that’s unfolding, rather than the dashing surgeon, who did everything they could, but ultimately isn’t to blame for the mess other doctors had made of the case.

Wow. I wonder if she can lead wpath if she’s saying that? Or is she about to get howled out of the building?

@AnyOldPrion

I find myself wondering whether there are mutterings of a Jennings lawsuit. It would make sense that Bowers would want to be distanced, presumably by claiming that the puberty blockers were entirely to blame for the disaster that’s unfolding, rather than the dashing surgeon, who did everything they could, but ultimately isn’t to blame for the mess other doctors had made of the case.

When Dr. Bowers asked, “Did it get anywhere?” Jazz admitted, “Well, there hasn’t been much change. My libido’s still basically nowhere.”

According to Dr. Bowers, people that “are able to orgasm pre-surgery, they’re very highly likely to be able to orgasm afterwards.”

“Jazz does not know what an orgasm is and it’s very important when expressing intimacy,” said Dr. Bowers. “And although it is not something that’s going to delay surgery, it’s not going to be any easier for her to have an orgasm after surgery.”

people.com/tv/jazz-jennings-talks-sexual-stuff-orgasm-libido-doctor-before-gender-confirmation-surgery/

Dr Bowers’ own words state that despite knowing that there was an absence of sexual function beforehand, and that it wouldn’t get better after, Dr Bowers had no issue with continuing with the surgery. So a lawsuit would likely explore these issues, were it to eventuate.

The rats are leaving the sinking ship.

I think Shier is being wise treating the two of them so politely and with kid gloves. If she can set herself up as a kind of friendly safe space for more of these dissenters to voice their concerns, all the better. They condemn themselves without Shier having to engage in any gotchas.

As for Jazz Jennings, I do get the sense that they are going to be in the forefront of something major in exposing the abuse of children in trans “healthcare”.They are very intelligent and articulate and I can’t help feeling that they may view their treatment somewhat differently as time passes and their mum’s hold over them weakens.

That said, I genuinely wish Jazz Jennings a happy, peaceful, regret-free life.

Bloody hell that's massive.

That last para - exactly what Professor Michele Moore has been saying and for what she's been no platformed for. (I know a lecturer who knows of her and told me other academics she knew were really worried about doing anything with her.)

What horrifies me is that there's an unspoken indication that bowel has been tried on some poor person somewhere; they've experimented on vulnerable people as they go.

In many ways this is why self id and non surgery is popular. It's so barbaric.

Linking this thread here. I've not been able to bring myself to watch it

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4364606-The-Phalloplasty-Philes-You-tuber-documents-trans-surgery-realities

Also can't believe the numbers - 1 in 20 young women on campus? And ROGD isn't a thing?

I've noticed in fb parenting groups there's more and more primary age girls Id as male than a few years ago.

Why do people think they spoke to Shrier? I suppose I feel the natural approach would be to find someone who has been historically friendlier, more of an ally.

I'm afraid "follow the money" springs to mind.

Lawsuits. Jump ship.

Good news but leaves a nasty taste. How many childre have been harmed since?

Dissent was silenced, you dont say.
A key feature of most abuse scandals i suspect

This has been picked up by the Daily Mail. I hope more media outlets cover it.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10058951/amp/Leading-transgender-medics-warn-children-given-gender-reassignment-surgery.html?__twitter_impression=true

@timeisnotaline

Why do people think they spoke to Shrier? I suppose I feel the natural approach would be to find someone who has been historically friendlier, more of an ally.

I’m speculating wildly here. See, I think they have been getting emails from former patients asking why they did the surgeries on them. Desperately seeking answers as to why they are so damaged as young adults. Why do they have open, weeping wounds on their bodies. Why is sex so miserable. Where is their happiness. Why does hardly anyone want to date them. They don’t feel brave and stunning at all. Maybe just one or two emails a year a few years ago. Easy to ignore. Now, maybe 5 or 6 a month. They speak to each other and realise they both are getting these emails. They know they will eventually translate to lawsuits and they suits will be difficult to defend.

So what better way to pre-empt this than trying to entrench the narrative early on that it wasn’t them. It was the endocrinologists, psychologists and all the other so-called health professionals who threw all medical ethics and caution to the wind. They were the heroic and competent surgeons who tried to fix things.

Now they also need to show they weren’t in the cult. So they talk to Abigail Shrier, one of the preeminent voices in the gender critical movement. Align themselves with her and her forensic, highly-researched book. Get out early. Look like whistleblowers. Nothing else to see here!

BTW, I don’t think for a minute they have pulled the wool over Shrier’s eyes. She has snookered them beautifully.

Bowers has a nerve. I've seen clips from I am Jazz where Bowers argues with another surgeon mid-procedure. Neither of these supposed experts seemed to know what they were doing.

The experimental surgery that has been carried out on that child because Jazz wanted to play with dolls and wear a sparkly swimsuit as an infant is shocking. (If I said what I really thought, this post would get deleted.)

Jazz seems like a genuinely likeable caring person. I hope Jazz can find health and happiness.

I think they have made their money (I saw 1600 ops mentioned somewhere) and this mission hasn't lived up to expectations (no surprises there), so they are backing out and protecting what they have.

It's a bold divorce from Susie Green who I believe has WPATH membership.

Why do people think they spoke to Shrier? I suppose I feel the natural approach would be to find someone who has been historically friendlier, more of an ally.

Anderson has previously spoken to other "non-allies" critically, like Andrew Sullivan and Jesse Singal. This is only new ground for Bowers.

I'd say it's partly because Shrier is open-minded and would listen, and willing to bear the flak of those not liking what they're saying. Would an "ally" be prepared to publish a "transphobic" piece?

The New York Times rejected Anderson, as the piece says. They presumably didn't want the flak. (And it's Bari Weiss publishing Shrier, not any real outlet).

I also wonder if there's a deliberate attempt to reduce the "partisanship" of the debate. They possibly agree to some extent with "Irreversible Damage" and want to help publicise Shrier's work.

Note that at least Bowers' speciality is male genital reconstruction. Both the entire field being discredited due to female ROGD+detransition, and young males getting puberty blocked, potentially interfere with that work...