Do a very small minority of children need medical and surgical intervention for gender dysphoria?

[ATeamAmy]

Whilst watching an otherwise excellent interview on GB news, where Andrew Doyle interviews barristers Sarah Phillimore and Dennis Kavanagh about the Conversion Therapy Bill, SP said something that concerned me. At 15.40, she says:

"A very small minority of children may need medical and surgical intervention."

Says who, which medical experts have decided any child needs medical and surgical intervention for gender dysphoria and can they be trusted not to be shills for the trans lobby and pharmaceutical companies seeking to capitalise on this trend? On what criteria will this happen? Who are the gatekeepers of this? What about Gillick competence with respect to these cases, will the loophole achieved by the Good Law Project allow parents to impose this on their children? What is to prevent these exceptional rules being exploited once again by the trans lobby?

My view is that nobody as a child (i.e. under 18) should be given any hormone/surgical intervention, and that the only medical intervention they should receive is talking therapy and treatment for any co -morbidities that may be at the heart of the dysphoria. I'm quite concerned about throw away remarks like this being made by the GC side, because the slope is a slippery one, and it does tend to suggest that some children may indeed be affirmed as having been born "in the wrong body"; for why else then, would surgery (no matter how exceptional) be advocated for any child?

She may have misspoke re surgery as in the U.K. no one is doing transsexual surgery on children. Cross sex hormones may sometimes be appropriate in a small number I would agree. But that’s adolescent age. I presume that’s what she meant.

unless someone comes up with proof that gender identity can be innate, and is able to test for that.

I don’t think people are born with a gender identity but with a set of factors that influence its development, genetic, biological, environmental, cultural. Once core gender identity is set it doesn’t seem amenable to change. So far anyway. How do you test for any issues of identity or sexuality or mental health? It’s only really by talking to people.

She may have misspoke re surgery as in the U.K. no one is doing transsexual surgery on children

This is always so disingenuous. Surgery is not routinely done on children in the UK, but it IS done on children around the world, and organisations are campaigning for it do be done on children. And if you consider 16 and 17 year olds children (which I do when it comes to life changing irreversible surgery) then it’s been done on this age in Scotland.

Once core gender identity is set it doesn’t seem amenable to change. So far anyway.

What is gender identity? And what is fixed, if all the detransitioners think differently to how they thought when they were given irreversible treatments?

What is gender identity? And what is fixed, if all the detransitioners think differently to how they thought when they were given irreversible treatments?

I've never even seen the slightest evidence that "gender identity" is fixed. On the contrary, people seem to change them all the time.

It's one of those random things people say that seems to be 100% opposed to basic everyday experience. It's up there with "children know who they are".

As far as I can see it's just a statement made to justify treating "gender identity" like social orientation.

I mean, maybe there's a sort of statistical truth in that most people don't change their "gender identity", like most don't change their religion.

But lots of people do change religion. Majority of people not doing so is not sufficient to say that religion is "fixed", or that it's harmful to change someone's religion.

And I would define 'young' as under 25, as the brain is not fully developed until then.

I spoke to a GC transexual (their term for themselves) and they said they wouldn't before the age of 25, for the same reasons. They themselves spent years looking at it. Unfortunately after learning more from them, I felt it was obvious how damaging homophobic bullying was to them as a child and also from close family members.

Personally I don't think anything should be done before 25 but I can't see that being possible in practise until the issues are well balanced against the rainbow glitterati spin.

After reading Trans and around 6 years really looking at this thing, I feel the whole idea of Transgender is an entirely socially and medically "invented" condition. But it's here now and is a "condition" as a result of the quackery. What needs to be analysed more is whether dysphoria must be "treated" with drugs.

I don't believe that gender identity is actually a thing. It seems to me to simply be the term used for knowing which kind of body you have - female or male. Any female who thinks she has (or should have) a male body, is wrong.

I don't see why this is any different from someone with two legs believing they are (or should be) an amputee. Their thinking is wrong. We don't chop of their legs and send them out into the world to live as their true, authentic zero-legged self.

So why the hell are we changing bodies when we should be helping people see the truth of which type of body they have? It is utter madness.

@Fieldofgreycorn

She may have misspoke re surgery as in the U.K. no one is doing transsexual surgery on children. Cross sex hormones may sometimes be appropriate in a small number I would agree. But that’s adolescent age. I presume that’s what she meant.

unless someone comes up with proof that gender identity can be innate, and is able to test for that.

I don’t think people are born with a gender identity but with a set of factors that influence its development, genetic, biological, environmental, cultural. Once core gender identity is set it doesn’t seem amenable to change. So far anyway. How do you test for any issues of identity or sexuality or mental health? It’s only really by talking to people.

How are we supposed to square the push for trans identified people to access surgery to achieve an outward appearance of this "core identity", when the very same movement is saying that gender is fluid and that people can change gender by the day, hour, minute?

That doesn't sound like a stable enough foundation on which to campaign for children (children for fuck sake!) to have access to medical "treatment" for their dysphoria.

The waters have been more than muddied by this ideology. We're struggling through the bloody swamp now.