Surely Gender Affirming Care is the worst, not the best, approach to resolving gender dysphoria.

[TWANBW]

Thinking about how, until recently, it was an almost universally accepted truth in some circles and some institutions (the Tavistock Gender Clinic being a prime example) that immediately placing a patient on the gender affirming care pathway was the only medically and socially acceptable response to a patient expressing gender dysphoria, I'm wondering whether, post Cass Review and other developments, we could ever reach the stage where, conversely, that approach is deemed the worst way to proceed.

Given all the risks inherent in hormone therapy and surgery, and the potential for devastating transition regret, I cannot see how focusing, at least initially, on resolving issues with the mind rather than the body isn't a far more prudent approach with a potentially far more positive outcome.

With GAC you either end up with someone who has a mutilated and endocrinologically fucked-up body but perhaps an improved psychological state, or someone who has a mutilated and hormonally fucked-up body in addition to ongoing psychological distress which has not been resolved by medical intervention.

Yes. Judging by the drop in popularity of trans identities among young people reported on another thread and the SEGM report on the German study that found at least 2/3rds desistance after five years, there are going to be significant numbers of kids waking up and wondering wtaf has happened and what has been done to them.

Widespread cases of permanent medical harm in the name of trans will be met with growing horror at what well meaning but lazy thinking parts of society waved through in their sometimes wilful ignorance.

I think the beginning of the end has definitely started. Some people are very hard of thinking and will take a while to understand.

What will the parents who allowed or were blackmailed into allowing medical harm to their kids do?

Yes, some parents have nightmarish times ahead of them navigating their relationship with their offspring for whose mutilation, infertility and lifelong medical issues they are largely responsible.

Yup. As the qualified clinician said:

x.com/Psychgirl211/status/1808825717204922755

Yes, the Cass report found this

Yes, people with gender dysphoria deserve care that is evidence based. By evidence based, I mean that the options presented for the person will be the result of properly controlled trials with strong ethical oversight.

As a society we need to hit pause when we see a new ideology come along. If it is contradictory and nonsensical then society needs to say no.

Are some people born in the wrong body or in possession of a wrong-sex, gendered soul? Maybe, but only if you believe a particular version of the trans religion. Certainly not cause for medication.

Do some people really want to be what they can't be due to paraphilia or mental illness? Yes. Mental illness is not a reason for wrong sex hormones or surgeries, ever, and if we call trans surgeries and hormones cosmetic then I say mentally ill people cannot consent to cosmetic surgeries.

Medicalizing paraphilias is a massive no no, with the possible exception of castrating paedophiles and other dangerous perverts... but that should be a punishment that societies decides to impose, not one that a paraphiliac volunteers for.

I actually think part of the success of trans ideology is that it just put forward so many ideas, at the same time... perhaps if they'd just released one new idea a year (some people are born in the wrong body, some kids should have their puberty blocked so that they pass better as adults if they go on to choose to transition etc) then society might have had the time to look at the idea and laugh it out of the room... but we were too bust being overwhelmed.

Every day that passes I get more militant.

Ultimately my position is "men are not women, ever, in any way at all. Women's and LGB rights matter, no medical transition for anyone, full mental health support for those who need it, and a combination of shame, the criminal justice system and mental health support to ensure paraphilias are never ever seen in public, ever."

The OP is right.

And it's not just about evidence. It's about applying basic common sense, basic decency and basic scientific principles. Helen Joyce wrote an article about this a while back - thinking about it as a problem of "what does the evidence show?" is to misunderstand the nature of the problem. We all know humans can't change sex. We all know some kids are troubled and hold deluded views about themselves (eg body dysmorphia). We all instinctively understand that pumping kids full of harmful drugs is morally wrong. You don't need a research trial to understand that, you just need to have a functioning brain and a functioning moral compass.

I find it mind-blowing that the Tavistock got it so catastrophically wrong when their very job is to think deeply and carefully about psychological issues.

There is no other body dysmorphia syndrome in which the clinicians and family involved actively assist the sufferer to harm their body.

It would be unthinkable to assist someone with Anorexia to maintain a damaging low calorie diet or excessive exercise.
Surgeons don't generally agree (there have been exceptions!) to do amputations for those who demand them.

Yet, want your genitals mutilated or breasts chopped off, game on. It's madness.

I've recently suggested that a friend who is the throws of psychology profession driven affirmation with a child starts responding "better a functioning body, than one damaged by surgery/ hormones" to their incessant parroting of "better a live daughter, than dead son".

And yes, even post Cass and the Appleby review this is still being said by NHS clinicians.

Exactly.

The incessant slogans are infuriating:
"Trans People Exist!" And don't we know it.
"Trans Women Are Women!" No they're not.
"Trans Rights Are Human Rights!" Ok, can you name a single human right that trans people don't have?

I thought all the claims about suicide rates had been thoroughly and comprehensively debunked?

@TWANBW yup. The appleby review debunked suicide risk and the recent (draft) paper looking at psychological benefits of hormones showed that gender affirming care didn't improve psychological morbidity.

But the transmaidens haven't updated their mantras. It's really disappointing as a fellow NHS clinician.

As far back as the '90s, I never thought surgery etc was a sensible answer to so-called gender dysphoria. I admit I wasn't very interested or informed back then but I did wonder on occasion why people who were nutty enough to think they were the opposite sex were being "cured" by plastic surgery. It always seemed mad to me. And see where it has now led us. It was NEVER the answer. For anyone.
I wonder where we'd be now if a different road had been taken back when this all started.

Affirmation, Gender care, puberty blockers, trans kids... it all stems from the normalisation of "transitioning" via surgery and hormones that adults did to themselves decades ago. What we are seeing now became a natural next phase.
Because of the idea of a "transsexual" being a real thing, there was less horror than there should have been at the idea that kids needed to be drugged and mutilated because they said they were the "wrong sex" or, worse still, because SOMEBODY ELSE said it. In some cases their own parents.

What these (mostly men) in the early days needed was some intense psychotherapy not a surgeons knife and a new identity. Perhaps if they had got that, we wouldn't be seeing this horrible tragedy playing out now.

Ive been comparing this to anorexia for years on this site. Many of my posts have been deleted.

Its true.

Not to mention cross sex hormones causing a drop in sex drive. Also, the dating pool shrinks, most lesbians want a real woman.

Its like the meme/sign that says "if genitals don't define gender, how does removing them affirm it?".

I wonder how long it will be before there is class litigation in the US against the clinics carrying out this surgery? It can't be long surely.

Unfortunately they've moved away from gender dysphoria, I think you don't even need the diagnosis to get a grc now.

Because they're not mentally ill, they are genuinely born in the wrong body.

This is going to be a huge scandal, I hope we can afford it.

There are some cases being brought by a small group of women harmed by this. It’s been made much more difficult because of the extremely short Statute of Limitations on medical malpractice suits.

Some states are currently considering changes to the law to cap compensation awards. I wonder why that would be?

The medical companies, one or two run by men who call themselves women have profited by $billions and billions from the trans industry.

That’s a big simplification of what happened at the Tavistock. Quite simply we would not be where we are if the Tavistock didn’t exist. It was the whistleblowers and clinicians there that made the Cass report happen and that published warnings and articles that gave a basis for change. One of the ‘problems’ there was that there was a huge difference between how individual clinicians were practising, to the point that Mermaids criticised by name individuals they felt were taking much too careful an approach (one of the many dangerous things Mermaids did).

Decades of clinical work found that hormones and surgery made a group of people happier, in a way that nothing else did. I still criticise the incredible sexism and disregard of women’s lives that underpinned that entire world view, both from doctors and patients. I still think that there was a massive contagion element that we are dealing with. It is still mad that this informed paediatric circles in a way separated from child development clinics and expertise. But they weren’t going on nothing at all.

It's also very apparent that the majority of men who "transition" as adult men have no surgery whilst children and teenagers are told its a great idea. Mutilating children to justify the right to display your fetish in public is a wild form of activism.