I saw someone's twitter the other day from an adult in the process of transitioning. They are in their early twenties and from what I can tell have fast tracked their transition.
His comment was "Why would doctors perscribe hormones if there was a better way to deal with gender dysphoria?"
It breaks my heart. The level of trust here is alarming. Especially in the context of knowing the scandal of detransitioners now coming through who were treated in the Tavistock.
The point is he trusts these doctors and thinks they are infalliable - despite there being zero evidence of it actually being clinically appropriate or safe. Indeed we know there is evidence being withheld deliberately. And we know medical scandals involving big pharma are not without precident.
It seems like he is so unbelievably naive and trusting that anyone could do something involving drugs which could be motivated by money, by sex or by any other nefarious motivation that doesn't centre the wellbeing of the trans person concerned.
To get to your early 20s this untouched by reality and the possibility of unscrupulous individuals and still be this trusting is just alien to me. Maybe this says something of my life but I find it so hard to believe even then - the whole point is the level of waking up and realising the world isn't so nice for so many teenage girls.
Of course this level of naivity is part of black and white thinking. Its part of immaturity and its part of a lack of awareness of the world.
As someone who really mistrusts HCP and never treat them as infalliable because of so many recognised abuses of power and malpractice I find it bewildering.
I can't help but fear, he and so many of his peers who were sucked into this cult, will one day wake up and realise they were lied to. Or defend this until the end when the evidence does come that these drugs do harm and they were lied to precisely because the alternative is to wake up and realise how much self harm you have gone through seeking the magic bullet solution rather than taking the harder routes of councilling that take a lot longer. Then what?
Lindsay Watson is currently having a meltdown about the prospect of children not being medicalised. In part no doubt because it starts to chip at the legitimacy of adults being medicated. If it is indeed found these drugs do just harm and are no more than a placebo at best, its going to raise a hell of a lot of issues. These men and women essentially will become recognised as NHS funded junkies addicted to these drugs. Then what?
Its all so frightening and heart breaking.