Trans teen ends their life after not receiving gender affirming care

[DysonSpheres]

Article in the mail

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12282819/Noah-OBrien-teenager-committed-suicide-denied-gender-affirming-care-Westmead-Hospital.html

It's a tragic story. I feel very very sad for the young person in question and obviously his parents are in great pain. It seems his dysphoria was dismissed and not specifically treated, but this is phrased as not receiving 'gender affirmation' and I'm not sure what it means in this context it's a bit obscure in the article. In any case, sadly on this occasion the teen did resort to suicide.

Stories like these must be scary to parents with children experiencing gender dysphoria as 'suicide' has been said to be a risk of non-medical affirmation, delaying of puberty blockers etc.

This happened in Australia so I'm not sure what, if any support is available for trans identifying children and/or parents there. Specifically, it seems the child's care was dictated by having gone through puberty. That's the central part.

The central part was probably mental health related as the poor child was hospitalised with anorexia.

Agree. This child desperately needed mental health support

Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental health disorder. The portrayal of this poor child’s tragic death as solely due to delay in getting “gender affirming care” is disgraceful.

I agree.

Anorexia plus gender dysphoria in a teenaged girl is a very bad mix.

@NotBadConsidering hit the nail on the head

Oh really? I didn't know that about anorexia.

Very sad that the teen took their life but the focus needs to be on mental health care.

Very sad. Anorexia is also one of the hardest mental health conditions to treat unfortunately.

That poor child, and her family. The teens are such a vulnerable age. And god damn the lies that persuaded her she was in the wrong body, instead of helping her love and accept herself.

Agreed.

anorexia and identity issues in girls is often linked to ASD too

Such irresponsible reporting. Suicide is rarely down to one factor and implying that it is is harmful.

Also the implication that if gender confused children get drugs and surgery they don't need any mental health support and it will magically solve their problems is harmful. There is plenty of evidence this is not true ( detransitioners and those speaking up about the realities of pbs and surgery even for those who remain transitioned)

The poor kid, and poor parents. A relative of mine was on an adolescent psychiatric ward and 80% of the children there at that time were struggling with anorexia. One poor little girl was being force-fed, and the other children were required to go in their bedrooms while she was fed as it was so distressing to witness.

The body dysmorphia from anorexia could well have contributed to poor Noah's gender confusion as well. Itsnot a "gotcha" for anyone, it's just a bloody tragedy.

That poor child. Why did they think, how did they come to believe that affirmative care would solve everything? This is why the online crap is so harmful. Too many people indulge the already vulnerable kid in what they " need" but aren't there 24/7 like their family and friends. They dont have to deal with the after math. They just get to play " good cop"

And this also begs the question why would we treat one delusion, ie the fact they think they are fat, but indulge the other. Neither is true. How does one separate whats the anorexia talking and whats the GD.

Such irresponsible reporting. Do they not have guidelines re suicide? Simplifying it to one factor was a huge no I thought?

Tying this to gender dysphoria is very poor reporting.

Westmead children’s hospital has been released several papers over the past years from their gender treatment specialists. They were up front in stating that parents and overly involved support groups had been responsible for prepping children attending sessions to demand particular treatment paths and how this impeded proper diagnosis. They also pointed out that appropriate care of co morbities was being hindered by this also.

The specialists there have been raising alarms and seem to be largely ignored.

What a tragedy though.

I do wonder though how much mental health support this poor child got. For either issue. That wasn’t touched on at all.

Poor kid.
'Gender affirming care' is such a loaded term. I feel that so many TRAs have blood on their hands as they have terrified so many kids into thinking that if someone doesnt believe what they believe about gender, its because they hate them and want them dead. It is a terrifying state to be in as an autistic teenager who already is struggling with their body and feelings of identity in the world.
I am assuming they didnt receive fatness affirming therapy and starvation advice for their anorexia treatment either?
Poor child.

Managing expectations really doesn't seem to be a thing does it.

What other " treatment" is given so much credit. Theres little thats an instant problem free fix. Much requires the patient to also help themselves and a lack of mental or physical capacity to do so can prove to be an obstacle in obtaining treatment. Surely drs would be extremely wary of any patient walking in claiming if they don't get X Y Z they will kill/hurt hemselves or demanding specific treatment with such a high dependency placed on something that may not work ?

This is why the myth of the transexual child is so harmful. There is no exact way to diagnose that a child is a transexual....they may be on the autistic spectrum, be gay, have an eating disorder, be being abused so wish to escape their lived reality etc etc. Some will suffer body dysmorphia but we know that the majority grow out of it after going through puberty.

They wanted to treat the anorexia before the gender issues. Both have high rates of suicide. But this poor kid and their issues suits the narrative and is being used as an example of how puberty blockers save lives. I hope their parent somehow find some peace eventually.

”Gender issues” in children do not have a high rate of suicide.

This article breaks Samaritans guidance on reporting of suicide.

Attributing suicide to being "because of" something someone did or failed to do is wrong, untrue, unhelpful and encourages other people in similar situations to believe that suicide is an appropriate response.

People commit suicide because of mental illness. That illness should have been treated and it is a tragedy that this teen didn't.

To illustrate with an unrelated scenario. Say that there was a suicide by someone who developed a serious depression following dire financial trouble that left them penniless. People do sometimes get into dreadful financial trouble but they don't all commit suicide. Many of them sort themselves out, rebuild their lives and are eventually fine again. If another person teetering on the brink of suicidal depression after bankruptcy reads a news article about someone else who killed themselves apparently "because of" bankruptcy that could push them towards doing likewise. Responsible narrative around reporting of suicide should never attribute the suicide to external "reasons" like this. The real reason is that they were mentally ill and didn't get help. If someone's brain is malfunctioning to that extent then solving the apparent external "cause" doesn't give them a stable and rational mind - you could give the bankrupt person £500,000 and they would still have an unbalanced mind, rich people can commit suicide too.

In the case of this teen, the suicidal feelings needed a totally separate treatment to the gender dysphoria issues. There's no evidence that "gender affirming" treatment would have helped, there have also been many suicides among trans people who have received treatment, because the gender-related actions do not deal with the fundamental issue of the unstable suicidal mind. There are also plenty of people who identify as trans and who don't experience suicidal thoughts, because they aren't experiencing a suicidal mental illness at the same time as dealing with their gender issues. However, for those teens on the cusp who are experiencing traumatic suicidal thoughts, headlines like this make it less likely that they will get the right treatment.

@NotBadConsidering pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32345113/

pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/why-have-nearly-half-of-transgender-australians-attempted-suicide

Medical articles and rhetoric would say otherwise.

"Noah was again treated for anorexia at Westmead Children's Hospital and was assessed by a social worker who suggested he needed to be seen by staff who could help with his gender dysphoria."

"But that was halted by a senior staff member outside the gender clinic who said clinicians needed to focus on dealing with his anorexia in isolation."

I can't help but wonder how much of Noah's distress was down to the fact that all of the people assigned to help them kept telling Noah and the family that they aren't qualified to handle gender dysphoria, as if it sits outside the realms of mainstream psychology.

In any other scenario, someone who is clinically qualified to help inpatients with anorexia would be confident to deal with a child's other psychological and body issues, but with gender, practitioners have been trained to view it as a separate magical layer of existence in a class of its own and unfathomable to psychologists. (And of course they're understandably concerned about their own liability and about being able to administer effective psychological support while also pretending that gender distress has no link to psychology whatsoever.)

This was touched upon in the interim Cass report - that CAMHS, GPs and social workers were unwilling to help children as they saw gender issues as outside of their area of expertise, which led to no-one being willing to help children until they saw a gender specialist, And then CAMHS would be unwilling to support kids with gender distress for other mental health issues too, even in cases where common sense would dictate that lowering a child's overall distress would likely be beneficial to the child even if some or all of the gender distress remains.

What I feel this very sad story illustrates, is the inevitable distress caused to children and young people when health professionals essentially tell them "you have something wrong with you that I'm not qualified to treat because it's so complex and I don't really understand it myself, but the waiting list to see the people who are qualified to help you is several years long, so you're basically screwed until then".

Dr Cass has the right idea shifting the responsibility for these cases back to their local mental health teams and directing them to take a holistic approach, and the obvious solution is to empower GPs and CAMHS and social workers to handle the psychological issues the accompany gender distress, instead of following the non-medically trained trans lobby's advice that "no-one can possibly understand gender distress apart from the individual experiencing it".

This case is very sad, but I can't help wondering if this child might still be alive if medical professionals hadn't capitulated to the trans lobby and agreed that people suffering with gender distress know better than doctors how to handle gender distress.

This child's death is a stark warning that the trans lobby's advice to medical professionals that gender distress and psychological distress are completely unrelated is absolute nonsense, and that the medical profession should be taking the lead on psychological care, and not letting unqualified gender identity ideologues call the shots on child mental health.

Yes. I think you are right about this.

Trans lobby groups have twisted trans health care so much that I believe that we are definitely seeing the repercussions here.

In Australia, there is also the added fear of clinicians for prosecution for ‘conversion therapy’ in some states (I cannot remember if NSW has passed that yet, maybe someone can clarify).