The kind of “girl” that a boy who identifies as a girl thinks he is

[MyAmpleSheep]

How do people who celebrate the transitioning of five year old children know that the kind of girl a boy who identities as a “girl” identifies as is the same kind of girl that a girl who identifies as a “girl” is?

Other than than from what he sees girls doing, how can a boy “know” what being a girl is, to be sure he is one?

is it posited that there is an innate sense of boy:girl that exists outside of the experience of seeing and being the presence of others?

If a child was “raised by wolves”, could they be trans? If that child had a male body and reached the age of 20 never having seen or met or known of the existence of women is it possible for them to grow up with dysphoria? When eventually discovering the other sex would they suddenly recognize “they had been born in the wrong body”?

I think I agree that we shouldn't "normalise" treatment, but nor should we deny it to those who might desperately need and want it.

A range of different evidence based treatment options should be available, on the basis of careful assessment, informed consent, and careful clinical consideration of the benefits, risks and harms in each individual case. As we would with any other condition.

Read some Piaget please! @prof_curiosity1 on X has been mentioned on threads recently.

Book coming out soon (wait for pic to load):

For the shooter example to be meaningful, you need to compare rates proportionally.

Whatever your strong feelings on this, it isn’t any sort of argument to say “cis people are most of the shooters”.

Given trans people are about 0.5% of the population, we’d expect about 199 cis shootings to every trans shooting.

When you have the stats on that, a meaningful comparison could be made.

careful assessment, informed consent, and careful clinical consideration of the benefits, risks and harms in each individual case

From what you've come to understand, through news reports, tribunal evidence, online, and other sources, do you feel this has been generally been done satisfactorily up until now?

Health authorities in different countries all of whom would say they agree with the same principles have come to wildly different outcomes. Who's right?

No, I don’t think it’s been done well. I think the Tavistock provided a woeful service. One of its problems was the failure to systematically collect robust data on the patients it was treating. The service was also riddled with confused and inconsistent theory and practice, as well as lacking transparency and being difficult to access. Reform was definitely needed. But I think we’re going in entirely the wrong direction for the most part.

Having said that, I welcome the PATHWAYS trial. Although it has its flaws and limitations—some of which I see as the product of politics—I hope it will produce important, robust new evidence to inform better clinical practice.

Aren't a lot of the same people involved with this trial?

Where is good practice being demonstrated?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/09/disturbing-leaks-from-us-gender-group-wpath-ring-alarm-bells-in-nhs

I don't believe so, no.

This person, as they say, was raised as a girl. Many people with CAIS are also raised as female because that’s the easiest option. That doesn’t mean they are female. They say they ‘feel like a woman’. They may well have F on their birth certificate and passport. That’s not negating the fact that they are male.

PS - I could claim to be an Olympic sprinter - that doesn’t mean I actually am one.

I'm not going to engage with this argument further, as it is deeply, deeply harmful to people living with this condition. It's really not ok.

I accept responsibility for bringing CAIS up in the first place - I understand it was me who did that; it was a derail and unhelpful.

I see we are again seeing a poster arbitrate who is and is not a genuine transgender person. While also speaking for transgender people when they have said they are not transgender themselves

It is actually really concerning to see.

It is reminiscent of Helen Webberley and Peter Tatchell. I don’t think it actually occurs to people who put themselves in that situation that all they are doing is speaking for people with transgender people but only the ones that they, personally, define as transgender.

Once you see it, you cannot see it.

“As we would with any other condition” so you are now describing being trans as a being a condition rather than an intrinsic state of being- which is it? Having a patient who “desperately need(s) and want(s) it “ isn’t a reason to provide a certain pathway of treatment when the reason they might want hormonal /surgical treatments is dysphoria/dysmorphia….it makes the case for psychological input.

Or a fairy, or a mermaid, or a unicorn, believing in Santa etc.

A 5 year old boy who wants to wear dresses and sparkles and grow his hair, and plays with dolls is just a boy who wants to wear dresses and sparkles and grow his hair, and play with dolls, not a girl.

Its nonsense. All if it.

The biggest flaw in the Pathways Trial is the willingness to medically alter the healthy bodies of children. It’s child abuse condoned by the Government.

I think you come back to confusion about what is being treated - A psychological condition similar to something like anorexia, or being 'born in the wrong body'.

There are many alternative approaches to treating the first, and the second lacks a scientific evidence base.

Something can be both a condition and an intrinsic aspect of someone’s experience. Those aren’t mutually exclusive categories.

There are some people who want to prevent anyone from being able to describe what being 'trans' is . They insist that any attempt to offer a definition is "gatekeeping". That's plainly absurd.

Gender incongruence describes a particular psychological experience, recognised in the scientific and clinical literature. We can describe it—and we must. It is not the same as being gender non-conforming or uncomfortable with gender stereotypes. People cannot simply describe their own very commonplace experience of the latter and assume it is qualitatively the same as gender incongruence. That appropriates someone else’s experience rather than trying to understand it, and it’s inappropriate.

I absolutely think a patient’s views about their own treatment should carry very serious weight. I think it's deeply problematic to suggest otherwise. Psychological support may help someone manage distress or other difficulties, but that does not establish that it can resolve gender incongruence itself. There are many neurological, psychiatric and psychological conditions for which psychological therapy alone is insufficient, and medication or other interventions may be needed. The fact that an experience is psychological does not mean that psychological therapy is necessarily an effective or sufficient treatment.

This is why I've asked @Lacksie and others supporting this treatment exactly what it is that they think is being treated.

I'm not asking 'what do you think gender incongruence is?' because I don't know and think they can tell me. It's because I want to know what is going on in their minds that they think this so-called treatment is appropriate.

Is it a natural state of being like being gay? If so, why does it need any medical treatment at all?

Is it a mental health condition in which the sufferer thinks their body should be different? If so, why are sufferers being 'affirmed' rather than given psychological help to accept their bodies?

Is it a condition similar to BIID? If so, why is it seen as appropriate to perform surgery on a healthy body if it's the penis or the breasts which are the body parts they can't accept, but not if it's one of their legs?

Or is it 'born in the wrong body'? How does that work?

Do you have an example of it being 'done well'? GenderGP maybe?

@Lacksie so if you had research evidence or studies showing that amongst those who received medical and surgical interventions , those individuals showed an increase in psychiatric morbidity ( ie, the Finnish study) would you consider that those physical treatments are helpful or unhelpful? Why would we give hormonal and surgical treatments that have the potential to cause physical harm ( incontinence, sexual dysfunction, fertility loss, bone and joint changes) to people when the evidence so far is not showing a reduction in psychological distress but actually indicates worsening mental health? Indeed “Finland was among the first European countries to conduct systematic evidence reviews of “gender-affirming” care for minors.”

I'll try again.

Maybe you will consider reading my reply?

Gender incongruence is a neurocognitive/psychological condition whereby a person’s internal recognition or representation of themselves as male or female does not correspond with their physical anatomy. The person is not deluded about what anatomy they have, but despite this anatomy, they continue to experiences a persistent incongruence between those bodily sex characteristics and the representation of self constructed in the brain.

This may seem counterintuitive, but it is entirely compatible with our understanding, drawn from neuroscientific literature, of how the brain represents and experiences the body and self.

It is a natural condition. There is no evidence that it occurs as a consequence of social rearing, and it is entirely independent of whatever stereotypes about gender a person may hold, their intellectual beliefs or political ideologies about sex and gender, and their personal preferences regarding activities, clothes, etc.

For some people, the experience of gender incongruence can be deeply disorientating and distressing. It can result in severe clinical psychological distress and therefore require healthcare intervention and support. Those interventions may include a range of psychological, hormonal or surgical interventions. Decisions about healthcare should be based on clinical evidence, thorough assessment, informed consent, and the balancing of benefits and harms in each individual case.

You are deluded in so many directions at once that I don't know where to start.

So I won't bother.

I think that is an interesting question. We've previously had raised the fact that other psychiatric and psychological conditions are treated with medication but I'm not sure how useful or appropriate that parallel is.

When someone is treated with medication for a psychological or psychiatric condition the rationale is broadly this. (and I'm simplifying). The brain is causing the individual to experience hallucinations or mania or depression or anxiety or lack of focus, so medication is given to prevent the brain from causing the experiences in the individual (or to reduce them). We alter the brain chemistry. The site of the disorder.

In gender dysphoria, we seem to be saying (if it is psychological or psychiatric) that the brain is causing the individual to believe they are not, for example, female despite having a female body. Rather than medicating, as in the other examples, to stop them believing this, we medicate the body to conform to their beliefs. We alter the endocrine system.

@Lacksie I’ll re-quote my own post that you didn’t respond to about the neuro-cognitive argument.

It is entirely independent of whatever stereotypes about gender a person may hold, their intellectual beliefs or political ideologies about sex and gender, and their personal preferences regarding activities, clothes, etc.

And yet the only way they can describe this dysphoria is by reference to female body structure and female gender stereotype.

So that can't be true.

So if it's a psychological condition that causes distress, why is there so much opposition to a cure?