Transitioning or therapy as the treatment for gender dysphoria

[FairHippopotama]

Most trans rights activists will tell you that all who claim to have gender dysphoria are valid in their feelings and the best treatment for gender dysphoria is always transitioning--both socially (e.g. pronouns, clothing) and medically (e.g. hormone therapy, mastectomy). These transitions should be accepted by society.

As far as I can tell, the typical gender-critical view is that while gender dysphoria may be a genuine condition, in all cases therapy or some such is a much preferred treatment to transitioning. Accepting transitioning is seen as requiring society to affirm certain falsehoods and harming women's interests. Am I right about this though? What are your thoughts?

Personally, I think the truth is slightly more moderate: gender dysphoria is a real condition, but should only be treated with transitioning in some cases--transitions which society should accept (but not be forced to do so). It depends on whether the cause is neurological and unchangeable (a sort of brain-body mismatch) or social and able to be treated with therapy (in my opinion).

Apologies if this is worded poorly and doesn't make sense.

So what. Kids say horrible things and meaningless pointless things to other kids all the time. I means nothing. You smell, you have ratty hair, you're spotty, you're fat, you've got no friends, you live in a poor house, I hate you, no one wants to be your friend.

They'll pick any old thing if they want to be nasty. What a good parent does is counter that and encourage resilience.

Trousers is such a stupid thing. I dont think I ever wore a skirt out of school and I dont own dresses or skirts now.

All the other kids would have been “what are you on about…. As if boys only wear trousers 😆 “

Yes you're right.

If its a separate issue, why bring it up?

We're all born a sex, some spaces are segregated by sex.

There are patterns of behaviour loosely or strongly based on sex. Not performing these patterns does not make someone the opposite sex.

Some men want to be seen as women and use the incorrect single sex spaces.

These men cant control how others see them, and cannot use women spaces because once they do, the spaces are no longer single sex and are no longer fit for purpose.

If a man want to conceal his sex and use surgery and drugs to do so, hes still male. He knows hes male, most people will identify him as male.

Is surgery or drugs a good treatment for gender identity? Probably not if the individual expects to be the opposite sex, use facilities of the opposite sex and be seen as the opposite sex.

This is one of the HUGE downsides to social media! It can make ridiculous, extreme, or harmful ideas seem sensible by distorting social norms, rewarding outrage, and creating isolated echo chambers.

As evidenced by some posters on this thread sadly… sucked into hours upon hours of SM

Thank you.
My apologies OP for misrepresenting you.

Yes, sometimes it simply offers a special, unique and quirky 'identity' which has currency in the individual's social circle.

And then the social group move on and stop paying attention to it… so they either let it fizzle out or they find something else to be quirky about

I have a child who was told stuff like this just before Covid. That because my child had an interest in something, they must be the opposite sex. It was very unsettling for them and it happened more than once. Luckily, I was able to point out that I did things that some people considered was not ‘what women’ do and I was no less female for doing so.

It happens still I believe from listening to parents with younger children. Peer criticism in these cases can be distressing and that is if your child even tells you what is being said to them.

On detransitioning, a good summary of the current state of knowledge here:

https://benryan.substack.com/p/how-common-is-detransitioning

On psychiatric needs and gender reassignment:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.70533

Conclusion
Severe psychiatric morbidity is common among gender-referred adolescents and appears to be more prevalent in those referred after the recent surge in referrals. Psychiatric needs do not subside after medical gender reassignment.

Summary
Gender-referred adolescents show high psychiatric morbidity, yet gender differences and mental health trajectories after medical gender reassignment remain poorly understood.
These adolescents had markedly higher psychiatric morbidity than controls before and after referral, with treatment needs often persisting and even intensifying after medical interventions—on some, they might even have a negative impact.
Findings emphasise the need for thorough psychiatric assessment and ongoing treatment throughout medical gender reassignment.

It happened to my DD’s. In London.

girls can’t have short hair. By adults and children alike. Boys can’t dance- school set up a dance club and not one boy signed up. Several expressed interest, but the parents would not sign the permission slips because it’s a girls activity.

think about how many boys you see in your DD’s ballet classes. How many girls you see playing football. Think about how many primary age girls you see with short hair.

my DD’s have actually been asked when buying a blue version of something in a shop if they know there’s a girls one/pink one in the next aisle, and the blue is the boys one. A shop assistant once steered dd away from the pirate watches and redirected her to the pink ones, without even asking what she liked. Just “oh the girls watches are over here”.

the stereotypes persist. You only need to read thread here- posters adamant that girls “naturally” like pink and crafting, and boys are like labradors, need food and exercise. Mums having gender preference because they visualise themselves shopping and going for pamper days with their girls, doing their hair and buying pretty outfits. Not wanting boys because they don’t want to be stood in the cold every weekend watching football.

it’s a massive issue IMO and I think we’re going backwards from when I was a child in the 70’s.

I'd like to hope that there's some space in the school history curriculum for pictures of pit brow lassies, Amelia Bloomer, women from the last century and bit wearing trousers for sports, factory work and leisure, and since WW2 as normal female fashion. Even if just pinned up on the school display boards, it would put that nonsense back in its box.

Here's a Dutch one, from more than 70 years ago.

100% agree with all of this.

The pink and blue aisles of clothes and toys didn’t exist when I was a child in the early 80s. There were just toys. There were girls’ and boys’ clothes but not the extreme pink princess vs blue tractors we see these days. Photos from the time show my friends of both sexes wearing orange, brown, green, red… a whole range of colours and hardly any slogans. The haircuts were interesting too; pudding bowls, pageboys, ‘Lady Diana’ and all sorts- most of them terrible, especially when they were done at home by mum, but a lot of it was pretty androgynous.

When we were buying DS’s uniform to start reception, he chose the cardigan instead of the sweatshirt, but by the end of the first week had announced he no longer wanted to wear the cardigan because they’re ’for girls’. This was not stipulated in the uniform rules- any child could wear a jumper or a cardigan. The same thing happened with the school choir which he wanted to join but then didn’t because it only had girls in it. I obviously tried to encourage him to follow his own preferences regardless, but at 4 years old, he understandably didn’t feel able to be the odd one out.

I too grew up in the 70s and Ive been amazed at this change, I dont understand where its come from?

Historically, girls and boys were often significantly more likely to play with similar or identical things than they did in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

The aggressive, hyper segregated "pink vs. blue" toy aisles we recognise today are a modern retail phenomenon.

Nothing more complex than ‘marketing’ really.

Having gendered clothes/toys helps sell more stuff.

In the 70s, most people couldn’t afford to be fussy about what was for girls/for boys. There were a lot fewer toys overall. Clothes needed to be handed down, so neutrals were preferable.

I know it’s a cliche to say this, but late stage capitalism is behind a lot of this.

I rather agree
ans also the capitalist element to proscribing lifelong “treatment “

Exactly. A world in which everything can be bought.

Including babies!

The pink/blue thing seemed to really get going around the 2000s. I remember liking ELC because their toys were generally much more androgenous in primary colours. It was frustrating when they were bought up by mothercare and their USPs was thrown out of the window.

I was going to put that in my post.

A truly horrific outcome

It should be banned worldwide!

Hi @FairHippopotama , I'm sorry to hear that about your DSis. To be honest it doesn't matter what we say here, nothing is going to convince her. For what it's worth you're not the only poster here with trans-identified relatives, quite a few of us come here for a space where we can discuss ideas and feelings that we can't express openly in the family.

I do hope she's not crushing her breasts, or doing cross-sex hormones, or planning surgery. The outcomes of medical transition for women are even worse than they are for men.

Like I say, I used to believe that there were some people who were better off as a result of medical transition. I don't any more. It's a shite situation when someone we love is heading for the edge and there's nothing we can do.

(edited for a clearer word)