How did the Scandi countries get there before us? What happened? And how did it happen?

[loveyouradvice]

I hadn't realised until the recent CASS coverage that Finland and Sweden had already made hormones the treatment of last resort, and led with psychotherapy - I think I've got that right....

If so, HOW did this happen and how did they avoid the chaos and groupthink that we have plunged into as a nation?

I would love to know more so all resources and thoughts VERY welcome!!

I don't think they have 'avoided it' but I think that like here their medical system is state funded and so they are more accountable? (I think?)

A Swedish series called the trans train was very influential there, helped I think by leading trans people being interviewed and also agreeing

Sweden was actually ahead of the UK in implementation, I suspect. The NHS was castigated for being so slow to adopt affirmation and medical transition from minors.

From various things I’ve watched, they had a massive wake-up call when one of their puberty blocked patients started to have major problems, I think with bone density.

It’s a small enough country and a small enough medical community for a single issue to massively pull on the brakes and then trans train was made. I suspect their media and journalism are less captured as well. Social mobility is better, the media is not so dominated by moguls.

I think there are many factors, but I suspect wanting to be at the forefront of social justice and modern ideas means they rush in and then find out, relatively early on, the problems that arise. Being small means hiding things is more difficult. And having rushed in, reversing is sometimes easier. In the UK, it took time to come to pass, those against the idea had to be pushed out and those remaining were more likely activists. When activists predominate, reversing becomes near impossible as they have no interest in noting and responding to negative evidence.

Yes and a particular Swedish journalist went to the heart of the hospital and confronted those in charge iirc on camera about that very situation.

Don't start praising too soon. A law of basically self-ID is due to be voted through soon here in Sweden unless we manage to influence politicians to break the official party line and vote against. There are many reports that say that many MP:s are against the proposed law, but there is a strong tradition of sticking to the party line and it is by no means certain that they'll break it when it comes to voting. I'm concerned that they might take the coward's way out and just not come to parliament that day.

Let's not get too carried away with the praise, Finland has been right about puberty-blockers, but unfortunately has a self-ID law that came into force in 2023 that basically allows any man to change gender to a women by filling in a form. Here is what I wrote about Finland on another thread about the German self-ID law:

The German self-ID law is indeed bonkers! And it is astounding that countries like Finland and Norway, countries that I have considered to be beacons for women's rights and equality, also allow self-ID and have thrown women's rights under the bus in such a spectacular way! In Finland the self-ID law only applies to adults, but it has been badly thought through. Finland is a country with mandatory military service for men, so this law could be misused by men wanting to avoid military service. When politicians were asked about this, the response was that they trust the citizens not to abuse this law. Also no clear guidance on trans-women's access to women's prisons and sport and female quotas in workplaces. A lot of grey areas on such important matters for women.

What is infuriating is that the biggest advocate for the self-ID law in Finland was Sanna Marin, the former PM and a female! So much for sisterhood...

Thankfully Theresa May had opposition to her plans to implement self-ID in the UK. Many countries have managed to get self-ID approved through the back door without women understanding what it actually means for them. In the UK too much light has now been shed on this harmful ideology, so will be very difficult to get a self-ID law approved through the back door. As much as I don't like the current Conservative government, I am pretty sure had we had a Labour government in power in the past 10 or so years we would probably now have a self-ID law in place. So thank God for the conservatives for getting something right and I am saying this as someone who has never voted Conservative and I consider myself to be a lefty.

Theresa May and Sanna Marin- classic examples of adults putting their own desire for social approval above anything else.

That is really weird, Banivani. They’ve seen the harms, done the research, recognised the problems. And then going full steam ahead to self-ID???

Or are they only worried about the medicalisation of children?

No problem ditching women’s rights, increasing male sex predators’ access to women and children, and erasing women as a sex class. That’s disappointing.

another point about the Nordics- when Brexit happened and Boris became the PM, my friends in Finland, Norway and Sweden were shocked of what had become of the UK. My northern European friends always wanted to talk about the terrible state that the UK is in and they had a great sense of pride in how things are running in their own countries I was at times quite embarrassed to be British and have other Europeans openly laugh at the terrible state of our politics! I'll never forget when my Norwegian friend said "here in Norway we can trust our politicians to do what's right and we can get on with our lives and let politics happen in the background without having to constantly worry about dishonest politicians like in the UK". I was quite envious that in some countries people have such trust in their politicians and how blissful it sounded to just be able to get on with ones life without having to think about politics!

I am no longer envious of this trust. Looks like having too much trust in your politicians allows an environment where laws such as the self-ID are passed and majority of the country don't understand it's implications or don't bother to question it because they trust that the politicians will have their best interest at heart. I wonder how many women in countries with self-ID truly understand what it means for women?

The fact that in the UK nobody trusts our politicians may actually be a good thing- any law that they try to implement will be scrutinised because there is no trust in any law being in the best interest of the citizens.

They don't see the connection between self-ID and medical interventions. Rather, there are arguments that self-ID protects vulnerable people (children) from medical interventions. Of course the law isn't called "self-ID", the idea is that it's easier to change your "legal sex".

Also agree with the above that we in general are very trusting of our authorities etc.

On the plus side there have been a lot of balanced articles about it, so there isn't completely the feeling that opposing opinions are being squashed. But it does skew towards opposition being right-wing. Sadly our own little UKIP party are roaring loudly about it. I am not that surprised that people who aren't thinking beyond "be kind" have a gut reaction to be for a change that the right wing Sweden Democrats oppose.

The Swedish and Finnish children’s services were presumably both significantly smaller and less well-established than GIDS?

GIDS had been billing itself as one of the top pioneering paediatric gender services in the world for decades (along with the Dutch Clinic, Kenneth Zucker’s Canadian clinic and Norman Spack in Boston - where Susie G took Jackie for blockers).

GIDS was a massive money spinner for the Tavi and Port trust, not only were they getting more GIDS budget from NHS England than they could spend (ending each financial year with a surplus because they couldn’t hire enough clinicians to use up the wages budget) but they were also using the fame of GIDS to get student bums on seats for the Tavis teaching courses.

The non-clinical CEO fella (I forgot his name) was bragging about it in the yearly reports. T&P even co produced the 3 part Channel 4 ‘Kids on the Edge’ series - it was supposed to be an ad to bring in more funds for the teaching and research parts of the institution but the 1/3 episodes that was about kids in the gender clinic added to the social contagion and thus the ever growing waiting lists (and thus the NHS England money increased too). GIDS also provided paediatric services for NHS Wales & NI and for the Irish health service.

TLDR, GIDS was just a bigger ship to turn around than the Paeds services in Sweden and Finland.

Sweden were the first to realise that the airing of TV shows that featured kids who identified as trans caused spikes in referral numbers, when they started airing the excellent Trans Train documentary series, referrals went down, so the social contagion aspect became obvious.

I believe all 4 parts of Trans Train are on YouTube with English subtitles.

Self ID has similarly proved easier to push through in small and/or sparsely populated countries. Lots of citizens = more chance that someone notices the legislation in the early stages and less chance of getting enough of the population on board.

Pretty sure Sweden has blocked Gender GP from doing business there (or perhaps that’s Norway? Off to check)

Edit: looks like GenderGP have been scuppered in Sweden, Finland AND Norway.

https://www.gendergp.com/disruption_imported_medication_sweden_finland/

Slight correction: of the Self ID countries the European and English speaking ones are generally pretty small in terms of population size, not true of Pakistan or Brazil!

I wonder if there is a reason for what looks like a bit of a pattern re: Spain/Portugal and Spanish and Portuguese speaking South American countries?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_self-identification#:~:text=As%20of%20March%202023%2C%2011,a%20court%20permission%20is%20required.

From various things I’ve watched, they had a massive wake-up call when one of their puberty blocked patients started to have major problems, I think with bone density.

When I watched the Swedish Trans Train documentary it was clear they had much more rigorous monitoring in place for kids on PBs. They started seeing the bone density changes on the regular DEXA scans these kids were having. The deterioration was so stark they had to act. No such monitoring here. 😞

GIDS definitely did DEXA scans before prescribing blockers and I thought they then did them yearly while the blockers continued.

Not sure where I got that from, maybe the BBC 3 programme about the Welsh farming family trans identifying teen, Lily?

Anyway I went off to look it up and found this, which I personally haven’t seen anywhere before now - it’s a 2014 leaflet written by Gary Butler’s Paeds endocrinology team at UCH and wow, it’s bad:
https://www.advicenow.org.uk/sites/default/files/1.GIDS%20Introduction%20Booklet_0.pdf

(no mention of DEXA scans in the tiny bit about follow up appointments)

Of course, even if GIDS kids did all get yearly DEXA scans no one was keeping proper data so no one would be able to identify any patterns!

This is SO interesting ... and so makes sense.

I do agree about the disconnect about medical transing of children and Self ID....

Going away to look up Trans Train....

Sweden was strong on unflinching affirmation of gender identity for a long time, and there are definitely tensions around debate as to whether TWAW etc. Kajsa Ekis Ekman has had quite a bit of pushback for talking about sex. Transphobic hate crime is recorded annually. The RFSL (the National Society for Sexual Equality) reports on transphobia in politics and media.
But Swedish detransitioners are not holding back and are leading strongly on safeguarding, therapeutic intervention as opposed to medicalisation of minors and supporting the likelihood of later desisting if left.

I think I originally encountered Trans Train via PeachYoghurt on YouTube..

I don’t know if she’s still active but her videos were a big influence on me when I was a mere baby terfling!

PeachYoghurt ❤️

Aw, no new videos for 3 years.

PeachYoghurt, I hope you are well wherever you are - I’m glad your cheeky face is still available to view on YouTube (your Riley Dennis video is one of my absolute faves);

http://www.youtube.com/@Perzikyoghurt

❤Peach Yogourt ❤ Yes loved her as a baby terfling too... sad to hear she's not posted recently ... Hope you are okay Peach Yogourt and your life is full of wonderful things

Sorry/not Sorry for this short musical interlude:

Inbuilt country level misogyny?

According to someone on Twitter, Gender GP are advertising for a Swedish doctor:

https://x.com/RoisinMichaux/status/1780331310122152353

That makes sense, they probably need someone with a Swedish license to practice in order to be able to restart peddling testosterone to Swedish teens.

Surely no one is stupid enough to risk their professional licence for a freelance, piecework, commission only job at GenderGP?

Welp the debate is ongoing in parliament as we speak, and the voices against are the facist light Sweden Democrats and the Christian Democrats. So that feels just great. I emailed all the MP:s with my opinion anyway, I hope they get lots of emails from ordinary women.