Former Research Director of Boston Children's Gender Clinic Discusses Her Concerns Re Gender Medicine

[UtopiaPlanitia]

"Amy Tishelman has been near the center of the field of youth transgender health for more than a decade.

A clinical psychologist, Tishelman was the director of research at Boston Children’s Hospital’s gender clinic for eight years. She was a lead author of the international standards of care for treatment of gender-diverse children.

She has also become a critic of the field she has helped shape. During courtroom testimony in late October, she called Boston Children’s Hospital’s process for assessing minors for medical transition treatments “reckless.”

The clinic, she and other clinicians testified, had shortened its in-person evaluation to determine a patient’s readiness for hormone treatments to two hours. That’s far too little time, Tishelman said, to evaluate a patient’s needs, as well as their mental health, and determine whether it is appropriate to recommend medical interventions."

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/12/20/metro/boston-childrens-transgender-clinic-former-director-concerns/

https://archive.is/HrnIK

Has she become a critic because she smells a change doesn't want to go to jail perhaps?

I had the same thought.

I haven’t read the article, but would assume that she is still advocating for the medication of some children? Still wrong, as far as I am concerned as no children should be medicated for hating their body.

Who can tell which medics are genuinely coming to terms with what they might have been involved in and feeling horror, and which are merely backing away as they can see the end is approaching for their grift? My cynicism over this has grown to the point where it’s hard to imagine any doctor couldn’t have been aware, but I do know that sometimes when you’re a long way in, it can be difficult to stand far enough back to regsin perspective.

Well worth reading the article. This is someone who knows the class in research and as she was sueing her employers (since 2021) she presumably has not been able to speak up until that was over. Yes she believes there can be trans children (it seems) but she also thinks that it's not anti-tras to ask about why so many, why so many girls, why late onset etc. and the research does not know what TRAs would like to claim. Bold= interviewer:

'You’ve been a leading researcher in the field for more than a decade. How do you assess the current state of the research?
I feel really concerned about the current state of the research, to be blunt about it. Hindsight is 20/20, but it’s so unfortunate that clinics around the country sprung up without a priority on collecting data and conducting research.
When I was at Children’s, I was trying to get research together so we could follow up the earliest kids who were seen in GeMS who would be in their 30s now, or older. We should know more about what the medical outcomes are, what the satisfaction is with care, how much detransition there has been. People often say there’s very little detransition, and hopefully that’s true, but we don’t really know that if we haven’t followed up the patients.
We don’t know how those early patients are doing?
No, we don’t.'

Looking at her court case against Boston I wonder she would be speaking out if they had not tried to throw her under the bus on another matter.

www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/11/12/boston-childrens-must-pay-nearly-2-million-in-retaliation-lawsuit/

I wonder whether other research directors in the field will be invited to comment on this and what they might say. I also think that her comments reinforce the concerns underpinning the Cass Review. (Hoping the BMA investigator - cannot recall his name - takes note).

Presumably this will become more common as the medics who are not self invested & pushing a personal agenda start to back away from all this. Her comments on the complete lack of data and evidence are telling.
Fear of being sued - hopefully.
Late onset compassion for the victims - possibly
Realisation that the whole medical edifice is a crock of shit - definitely.

My take on the interview is that she is a believer in the Dutch Protocol and is critical of US gender clinics for not properly following that protocol in their work.

She acknowledges that there has been a change in the population presenting at gender clinics and in the number of detransitioners but she seems to think that this will be solved by strictly adhering to the Dutch Protocol. She also seems reluctant to be a gatekeeper and doesn’t want patients to feel as though they have to prove they need treatment so, in my view, that seems to be a confused way of thinking.

To my mind, she’s recognising there are problems but she doesn’t seem to be able to adapt her mental model of gender identity enough to realise the full extent and meaning of these problems she’s seeing.

I find it odd how many people like her, who seem to have reasonable approaches to research and evidence, ever accepted the whole "need a sex change" model - especially in children.

It's not just that the evidence is poor, it seems like the whole model of the problem doesn't fit with any other similar types of conditions with body dysphoria, or identity problems?

I think people got swept away with a 'movement'. But she is essentially telling a new familiar story. The profile of children who accessed the services changed, from pre pubescent boys to teenage girls and not enough research or questioning was undertaken