Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy of LA Children’s Hospital is one of the better known “gender specialists” in the United States. She has achieved notoriety amongst gender critics for her controversial advocacy of early cross-sex hormone treatment and “social transition” of young children.
Her latest efforts to push the envelope on child transition are on display in a post she made two days ago on the public WPATH Facebook page, wherein she lobbies for the next WPATH Standards of Care (SOC 8) to support lowering the age of consent for “bottom” surgery (officially recommended to be 18 or older in the WPATH SOC 7).
To date, Olson’s post has garnered 52 “likes,” with plenty of enthusiastic responses. Only one clinician has raised a shadow of doubt.
What does Dr. Olson-Kennedy want? Nothing more than for immature preadolescents to be allowed to undergo–with full insurance coverage–major genital surgeries so they can impersonate the opposite sex at an earlier age.
Because of the upside-down activist-driven reality we live in today, rather than helping gender dysphoric young people come to terms with their healthy young bodies, Dr. Olson-Kennedy and her colleagues socially transition children to believe they are the opposite sex. By “affirming” a child’s (by definition, childish) idea that they are born in the “wrong” body, pediatric transgenderists like Olson-Kennedy condition the child to reject and even abhor their “wrong” body, thereby making natural puberty an enemy to be “blocked” at its onset—in the example Olson-Kennedy cites in her post, as early as age 11. Everyone in the child’s life is “supportive” and “affirming” of the fiction that one’s sex can be changed, so it’s not surprising that 100% (the figure cited most often by these gender specialists) of socially transitioned, puberty-blocked children desperately want to move on to full medical transition (and into the waiting arms of surgeons and endocrinologists). Carving up, sterilizing, and drugging a child’s body is becoming more and more normalized.
It’s worth noting that the WPATH Facebook page is not only frequented by doctors and psychologists. Comment threads are often dominated by trans activists, whose views are typically received as expert opinion. One such activist is trans woman Kelley Winters, a PhD. in electrical engineering who has presented to WPATH and is deferred to as an authority on matters of pediatric transition. Winters is not the only one; typically these individuals have no training in medicine or child psychology, with their only claim to authority on pushing for mutilating surgeries and hormones for other people’s children being their own transgenderism and conviction that turning other people’s children into lifelong medical patients is the right thing to do.
So Olson-Kennedy and others have created a medical condition that can only be treated by massive infusions of cross-sex hormones and surgeries. The children are blocked early, and now we have a self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course these “girls” are not going to want to stop feminizing hormones. Of course they feel their lives have been “put on hold,” and they are all going to want “functioning vaginas.” The gender specialists have quite successfully crafted a situation where these young people will long for a surgically-engineered body as young as possible. How could they not want that? And how difficult would it be to desist from these longings once the train has started down that road, with all their friends, their families, and a prostrate media cheering them on?
Just to establish (and for my regular readers, review) a few simple facts:
- “Bottom” surgery aside, puberty blockers followed by cross sex hormones results in guaranteed lifelong sterility. This is a fact that is never disputed by any specialist, but which is downplayed and seldom mentioned by anyone. Sterilization of children in any other context would be considered a human rights abuse, not a social justice triumph.
- There is no research or clinical evidence that gender identity is innate. On the contrary: There is decades of research showing that gender identity is a matter of identification with gender stereotypes and parental modeling. It is impossible to find a story about a “trans child” that does not include anecdotes about these children preferring typical gender-stereotyped activities, clothing, and hairstyles of the opposite sex.
- Frontal lobe development—in particular, sound judgment, the capacity to understand and care about future consequences, and impulse control—is not complete until the mid-20s.
- Young brains are highly plastic. It is patently obvious that the very act of “socially transitioning” young children to believe they are “born in the wrong body” conditions them to continue on to full medical transition, with all the attendant risks and consequences.
Olson-Kennedy’s thread is ongoing, with many enthusiastic commenters and supporters. I encourage readers to see for themselves and then inform others about what the leading lights of pediatric transition are doing and saying. This is the future for gender nonconforming children and preteens, and the public deserves to know.
Reblogged this on Butch in "The County" Maine.
I am disgusted and horrified by what these people are encouraging being done to children and teens who have no way of fully understanding the magnitude of what they’re signing up for. For what other psychological condition do we condone chopping off HEALTHY, normal body parts and cheer people on for doing it?
Sadly, there is a movement of people who view one of their limbs as not being part of their bodies trying to get surgeons to remove a healthy limb so they can supposedly be happier in a wheelchair (some even take it to the point of using dry ice, or getting on train tracks or staging an “accident” to force doctors to remove a now-damaged limb)
I wonder if the next thing will actually be installing fur on Tumblrettes who think they are trans species.
Back in the 1850s, mental institutions were full of people who claimed to be Napoleon or Jesus or Joan of Arc (there seems to be a certain trend-driven quality to the format of the delusions of the mentally ill). People didn’t hand over the government, the church or the army to such people….
I agree, Trish. I can’t imagine what my doctor would say if I went in and said that I wanted my arm cut off because I didn’t feel like it was part of my body. I also don’t see a lot of gynecologists agreeing to do hysterectomies on healthy women who just don’t want children. Why not? Because removing healthy ovaries actually causes harm. I had to have a hysterectomy due to health issues, and I still kept my ovaries. There are health risks for women who go through early menopause. But a 16-year-old girl should be able to have this surgery because they say they want to be a man? Why can’t the 25-year-old healthy, non-trans person have this surgery because they want it, for whatever reason?
The Mom,
Your mention about doctors not removing healthy uteruses reminded me of a friend in my 20s, who didn’t want to have kids, and married an older guy who also didn’t want kids. She couldn’t find a doctor who would agree to tie her tubes – even thought there’s tech that could be back up in case she did change her mind (freeze eggs, IVF, even adoption)
It’s amazing that these people are advocating for performing surgery on children’s genitals. It seems pretty obvious to me that cutting up a child’s genitals is sexual abuse. Also, boys will never have a “functioning vagina.” Trans women can get a surgical wound that needs to be dilated and cleaned daily but this is not a functioning vagina at all.
All I see is a bunch of kids saying “but I want it!!!!” And a bunch of adults enabling them in response. A total failure of the morality that adults are obligated to exercise in regard to minors.
Yes. Adults are supposed to protect children from harm. Not promote unnecessary surgeries and destroy their fertility when they’re too young to understand. These gender specialists promote the lie that kids with the brains of kids can make permanent decisions like this. They use suicide as an emotional blackmail tool against frightened parents, conveniently not telling anyone that there is no evidence that “transition” is going to fix self harming thoughts or behavior. If anything, these “treatments” would increase dysphoria and despair. How can anyone feel good when they are conditioned to feel disgusted about their own body, and that the only answer is a lifetime of painful surgery and injections? There is no historical record of children insisting they are the wrong sex, and committing suicide. You can bet we would have heard about it as we have about every other psychological issue in history. What these people are doing, driven by the demands of adult trans activists, is so immoral. I truly believe the general public would be horrified if they knew the true extent of this.
So what part of the life is “on hold,” exactly? They’re girls at school and everywhere else, they’re using girls’ facilities, they’re totally supported in being girls, and they don’t have to worry about the “disaster” of male puberty now. Is the doc just saying they are impaired by not being able to have sex in high school? Are the kids SO gender-focused (cos how could they not be) that they can barely stand to live in the world until they are “finished?”
How can these kids possibly concentrate on the work/fun/growth that should be happening in high school with this mess going on? How is piling a bunch of medical stuff on top of the psychosocial issues going to be helpful to these kids? This is not minor surgery. When is Dr. Jo proposing they do it? Summer before high school when the kids are, like, 13 or 14? Some other summer in the middle of high school when they could be taking service trips, having jobs, having fun, looking at colleges, planning for the future?
Of course the moms will be there helping with the aftermath of recovery and the complicated “after care.” (You know the dads are not gonna be doing this. It will be the longsuffering moms. Some of whom are going to be grieving and heartbroken and forced to stuff all those emotions down because they are not acceptable. Only celebration of your kid’s bravery is acceptable.)
Is there no one in the entire med/psych/pharma world with the guts to make some noise and protect these kids? Can’t all those professionals who signed the Zucker petition get organized? Seriously?
Do you know why I stood against my kid’s demands and protestations and insistence that she was a boy and I HAD TO DO SOMETHING NOW? Why I listened to therapists and then walked away and said, “Not on my watch”?
Because I know about child development and also, this kid has put on elaborate and intense and crazed arguments and protestations for a pair of shoes and then NEVER WEARS THEM. Had to have braces and then refused to wear the retainer and essentially set fire to the money we’d spent. TRUE STORIES.
Why would I EVER agree to something this complex and expensive and serious when I’ve got a kid who goes all in on completely stupid stuff and has shown a propensity for terrible judgment? I feel badly for kids whose parents are so wishy-washy and spineless and can’t say, “You can do this when you’re an adult and on your own dime. You are a kid. You might be surprised how differently you’ll feel in even a short while.”
And, again, fuck these mental health professionals and doctors and “gender experts.” If they aren’t explicitly saying that kids should be kids and that they are going to first look for mental health concerns and then provide actual, real therapy instead of rah-rah trans-supportive therapy for minors, I’ve got no time to waste on them. Same with doctors. Kids are kids. They aren’t tiny adults. These people who are going along with this are evil. They would have sliced and diced and shot up my kid full of hormones and we know for sure that they misdiagnosed her actual mental illness. Forgive me for having ALL THE SKEPTICISM.
I don’t know that my kid is going to hop off the train, either. I just know that everyone BUT ME AND MY HUSBAND was determined that all my kid’s problems were related to her trans self-identification and that turned out to be an enormous mistake. With a better diagnosis and medication, she’s happier and calmer and not depressed or suicidal. The experts almost killed her. I believe that with all my being — they cared more about an idea of identity than an actual teenager in front of them in crisis and accepting that the adults who know her best were telling the truth. They were so invested in the concept of transness that they were willing to allow her to kill herself. And I got to pay — with money, with time, with energy, with tears, with heartache — for the privilege.
Fuck every single God-damned one of them.
I think that the community here should encourage letter writing to experts that misdiagnosed their kids. Every one of them needs to be alerted that they were wrong. They might not believe it until a whole bunch of people tell them that they nearly made a grave error. It seems better than letting them think that it ‘never happens’.
You have seen this horrifc story in the UK, I suppose: “Court rules transgender teenager can cut off contact with adoptive parents” (http://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/mar/10/high-court-transgender-teenager-cut-off-contact-adoptive-parents). Can the parents appeal to the UK Supreme Court to regain parental rights? Failing there, to the European Court of Human Rights? This is about everyone’s human rights: theirs as parents and their child’s human right to a childhood!!
In a few short years there will be a spectacular case: a twenty-something “sex change regreter” will sue the NHS, his “lunatic” parents, the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK and WPATH in the USA for utterly ruining his or her life. I hold the psychiatrists most at fault: they have promised in their Hypocratic oath to “do no harm”. As scientists and medical practitioners they are intellectually lazy and arrogant in their claim to appraise and then endorse the deluded beliefs of confused children. Once the child is 18 it is a different matter…..just.
This is such a sad case. The adoptive parents were before the High Court in the UK. The child had been placed in local authority care following a suicide attempt in January 2015. Whilst in care the child (born female) had started to attend the Tavistock hospital and changed name by deed pole at the age of 16.
The child wished to break all ties including informing the parents of any treatment received whilst at the Tavistock Gender Identity Clinic. The European Court of Human Rights has already established that where there is a tension between the rights of the parent and that of the child under Article 8 the rights of the child prevail. The parents had accepted this and they were merely requesting at the high court hearing that they be allowed a 3 monthly report on the child’s life and welfare.
In law the parent’s rights to medical information only over-ride those of the child when the child is not considered to be ”Gillick competent”. Over the age of 16 a child is deemed to be competent unless otherwise shown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillick_competence
“As a matter of Law the parental right to determine whether or not their minor child below the age of sixteen will have medical treatment terminates if and when the child achieves sufficient understanding and intelligence to understand fully what is proposed.” Lord Scarman
Gillick was important initially in allowing doctors to prescribe contraceptives to under 16 year olds.
If nothing else this case shows how out of step the law is. Prescribing contraceptives is one thing, but drugs which lead to permanent body modifications and infertility are another. Will we really have to wait for the law suits when these children realise what has been done to them, when they say that ”I didn’t undrstand”?
Surgery at a young age worked out so well for David Reimer.
True of the circumcision, which caused his original problem. Once that harm was done they did need to do something to repair the damage. They took it way too far though. Sad part is that we now have surgical techniques to create a new penis with tissue the guy already has if he loses his, and they could have fixed him later. He didn’t have to live as a girl.
I hated that story because conservatives used it to “prove” that gender is innate. You know, they’re all howling about transgenderism now. I want to take each one and punch them in the head and yell at them, “YOU CREATED THIS.” But I’d break my knuckles. Need my hands. No good.
The thing about Reimer is that he was male, but raised as female – he had XY chromosomes. He wasn’t going on feelz alone.
Reblogged this on The truth about AUTOGYNEPHILIA and commented:
Psychopaths in white coats.
I just discovered this very useful blog recently, after fairly suddenly becoming much more interested in this topic. In the past I have mostly had a reflexively supportive attitude toward transgender individuals. I’ve never had moral objections to people wanting to having sex change operations (or otherwise presenting themselves as the opposite sex). Until recently, it also was such a rarely appearing phenomenon that it was easy to just accept it.
However, the aggressive nature of transgender activists’ insistence that everyone else not only use the “right” language but also think the prescribed way (e.g., that a transwoman is really a woman, and on the mere say-so of any given transwoman; that transgender is not a trend/fad/etc.), has quickly gotten my attention. We are not brains in vats, we are embodied subjects, moving through time. We have bodies and we have histories; and we do not have a right to demand that the rest of the world considers us according only to our self perceptions. We have a public existence, beyond our existence as subjects.
On top of that, I was largely unaware of the pre-adult interventions with puberty blockers and sex hormones (let alone surgery), which is very troubling.
I will say I had already become increasingly suspicious of the relatively recent obsession (in the media and elsewhere) with transgender, without having a firm opinion about it.
As I mentioned, I appreciate the work this blog is doing in presenting alternative views. I think there will be some sort of backlash to the push by transgender activists. While I have mostly considered myself a (left) liberal until recently, I find myself recoiling from much of the identitarian left. I think it would be valuable for people on all points of the political spectrum to think more about how the consensus on various issues is formed in a top-down way.
There isn’t anything inherently leftist in transgenderism, and in fact most of the support for it comes from the political center. Leftists who support transgendered people tend to do so in the context of opposing institutional discrimination against them (i.e., jobs, housing, etc.). Actual leftism is a class-based politics and any honest leftist would understand the threat transgenderism poses to the political class of females. There’s a difference between a political philosophy and the people claiming to adhere to that philosophy. I know it’s fashionable to point out that “no true Scotsman” is a fallacy, but so often it really isn’t.
No true Scotsman is greatly misused anyway. If you have a particular definition of what an ideology means, it’s not a fallacy to exclude people who don’t fit the definition. The way I like to say it, No true Scotsman applies only when the sets(definition of leftist, beliefs of a person calling themselves leftist) are non-intersecting. Leftist beliefs of a person intersect with what leftist actually means. If that leftist refuses to wear white after labor day, it would be a fallacy to exclude them for that reason- the sets don’t intersect, as one has nothing to do with the other.
Anyway, just a pet peeve, as internet persons misuse logical fallacies way too often.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m steeped enough in political theory to argue about what is really leftist or not, but my view is that that there is more than one left. (I don’t feel I’ve even got a handle on Marx yet, which at this late stage in my life is disappointing; but there have been a lot of obstacles for me in the last decade or so. Also, was not nearly as interested in any of this when I was younger.) My impression, not at all adequately fleshed out by reading, is that there is, among other things, a left that draws more heavily on poststructuralism and postmodern theory in general, and that the transgender movement fits with this strain of the left. Also, I’ve seen some pretty strident transgender rhetoric from anarchists, though perhaps they were just self-describe anarchists.
At any rate, I don’t mean to suggest that all of the left has thrown its support behind this.
Political support for transgenderism may come from the center now, but I could swear I heard the most about these issues from (some segment of) the left until recently. It’s not something I’ve watched closely though, so maybe the involvement of the left was always along the basic anti-discrimination lines you describe.
Apologies for a wordy answer basically saying I disagree but I’m incompetent to argue the point.
I saw referenced elsewhere — maybe it was Schwartz’s piece, or somewhere else — that one issue of ‘blocking’ and circumventing male puberty is that the surgery is actually going to be less successful because genitalia of these boys who’ve not experienced puberty are necessarily smaller. This (augh, cannot remember exactly) writer opined that there were going to be definite implications for making a satisfactory neo-vagina if there was insufficient penis to work with. I’m kind of surprised they’re not talking about this.
As for moral reasons why all this should not be done — you’ve covered that all so well, 4thwave, so many times.
We just get closer and closer to sci fi, IMO. Particularly the picture of the extreme body modifications in the Capitol in the Hunger Games. “How can we do this” appears to be the only question applicable. “SHOULD we do this” … eh, these docs aren’t asking. They already think they know.
I remember reading this as well. Not sure who the author was either. My brain doesn’t recall things like it once did.
But there was a mention about this on the WPATH Facebook discussion. A doctor commented on the “limited tissue availability” and how it affects constructing a neo-vagina:
Bec Drakenhall “My youngest client was on blockers for 1 year, then went on E2, spiro, progesterone for 3 years, then had orchi at 15.5, GCS at 16.0. She was upset that she couldn’t have it at 15 – her choice was stealth from day one. No issues with bone density, but several issues with expanders, avoidance of grafts, etc. when operating on someone with limited tissue availability to create depth.”
Seth Marlow “i was wondering how surgery goes when you start w pre pubescent genitals… it does seem more complicated technically.”
Bec Drakenhall “They aren’t prepubescent, even if the individual has been on hormones. The individual grows and the organs enlarge normally – including the genitals. But there’s a “sweet spot” for which you have to wait – if you do it too early, you’ll need flank grafts, which most girls don’t want. The flip side is that if you operate on someone that young, you will have to use tissue expanders – that’s another story in itself.”
This is barbaric, seriously.vI can only imagine parents consenting to this for their kids because they have been absolutely convinced that the choice is this, or suicide. Like parents of a kid with an intractable variety of cancer, getting onto an experimental protocol because the only alternative is death.
This is how the “experts” have convinced them to view the situation, since professionals with opposing views have been demonized and shouted down and (in Zucker’s case) fired.
I notice no one is advocating for phalloplasty for minor FTMs, though. Apparently there is SOME grotesqueness level they’re wary of crossing? Ai yai yai.
Re some of the other discussion here, though — Olson-Kennedy’s not a surgeon; she wouldn’t be doing this herself, regardless of the kid’s age. Recruiting a colleague to do it is another matter.
This is effing disgusting. I cannot imagine how horribly painful this series of procedures must be. I can’t imagine putting a teenager through this. I think we need to go back to the days when sex change operations were ONLY done in the most extreme cases on consenting adults who understand the long-term consequences of their decision.
That’s fucking horrifying! I guess these children will even have worse results than adults. I doubt they will feel much after the surgery.
I say it again: This is gay reperation therapy. I’m so disgusted.
“Orchi at 15.5” means medical castration at 15 1/2 years old. Orchiectomy.
People on this site I have a disturbingly sophisticated understanding of genital surgery. So maybe you guys all knew that already. But it never hurts to say it plain.
‘Very early use of puberty suppression impairs penile growth and consequently makes certain surgical techniques impossible.’
Vrouenraets, Fredriks et al, ‘Early Medical Treatment of Children and Adolescents With Gender Dysphoria: An Empirical Ethical Study’, Journal of Adolescent Health, xxx, 2015, p. 4 (2nd col.).
Available at http://www.transgendertrend.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/J-Adolesc-Health-1-s2.0-S1054139X15001597-main-1.pdf
I am disgusted at the sheer depravity of people who would push to mutilate other people’s CHILDREN to validate their own choices.
My guess is that she’s ALREADY doing these surgeries on younger children. Consider this statement from a pseudo-ethical 2014 analysis about “how young is too young” for drastic surgical mutilations of children.
“In addition, anecdotal reports and personal communication with surgeons in the United States who wish to remain anonymous confirm that genital surgeries in female-affirmed patients under 18 have been performed, thereby contravening the Standards of Care and thus prompting physicians, therapists, and other clinical professionals who otherwise adhere to the WPATH criteria to maintain official silence in the matter. From a treatment perspective, this is no surprise—if social transitioning and administration of hormones are sliding toward younger ages, the request for surgical procedures among younger individuals will follow.”
Milrod C. How young is too young: ethical concerns in genital surgery of the transgender MTF adolescent. J Sex Med. 2014 Feb;11(2):338-46.
https://www.mediafire.com/?v1wspcfmwd1p2p6
Johanna Olson and the author of this paper, Christine Milrod, both live in Los Angeles. They have also chaired panels or presented their “research” at the same major transgenderism conferences. It seems likely that they know each other.
Although Milrod pretends to an “ethical” analysis, she is apparently a fixture in the LA transgenderism industry.
Thank you very much for the link. I know that Olson-Kennedy often works outside recognized guidelines, and this is no exception. But many in the world of WPATH have been arguing for relaxing age-of-consent limits for some time, so she’s not alone. They have reified the idea that a child of any age has “agency” and knowledge of their innate gender identity (an unproven and unprovable concept that is the basis for everything activists and gender clinicians do). To question even a 2-year-old’s judgment is considered transphobic nowadays, with the parents in need of education to learn how to “affirm” their toddler’s demands. How many of these people have actually raised children? It’s amazing that society at large has basically chucked decades 0f settled knowledge about child developmental psychology and swallowed this trans-activist-crafted narrative whole.
Oh–and if you noticed in Olson-Kennedy’s post, she wants WPATH to approve these surgeries in the next version of the Standards of Care so that insurance will consider them legit and pay for them. You’re likely right that she’s already doing it, but parents are currently paying out of pocket.
And as always I’ll argue there’s no such thing as gender identity, innate or otherwise. It’d be like saying there’s such a thing as racism identity. “Gender” has come to mean both “one’s physical sex” and “what sex one feels one is”. It’s neither.
Dana,
ITA agree – “gender identity” is a made-up thing. Each human has a biological sex. “Gender” is part of linguistics not biology. Gender determines which endings for things like verbs, adjectives & adverbs go along with which noun.
In Italian, a human hand has a gender of male (even if the person whose hand it is happens to be a woman), & the gender of a window is female. In English, our adjectives, verbs & adverbs only have to agree in singular or plural, so the gender of our nouns are not as obvious. A man, a stallion and father are male-gendered nouns. A stallion can run to town, and a mother can run to town (in other languages the word “run” would have different endings depending on the gender of the noun doing the running)
The word gender was hijacked from language arts and is being misused to apply to humans.
The problem these teens have isn’t that they feel like their life is on hold because they haven’t gotten the genital surgery yet. They feel like their life is on hold because they’ve been funnelled into this long duration complex, kind of horrifying, process. And completing it has been set out as a necessity achievement for them to not be a failure. Sort of like you have to go through high school and graduate and get into a good university. But 1 million times more intimate. Any distress they’re feeling has been created by Dr. bloody Olsen. 😠
Can someone please help me? I’ve been going through these blogs trying to find someone who is going through this too. I’ve felt so alone for the past 4 yrs. trying my best to understand and how to accept my child but it’s against everything in me. My daughter started the same as a lot of what I have read she was 17 sucidal cutting in and out of hospitals. They had her on so many medications that only made things worse. It’s her birthday this week and I’m having such a hard time and grieving for the daughter I had. She had been on T and now looks completely male and every time I see her it just kills me inside. I just need someone who is going through this to talk to and see how other mothers are getting through this.
Sheila, I’m so sorry for your situation with your daughter. I think many of the parents here are in a similar situation and trying to stop the train before it destroys our kids. We don’t really have answers, but please know that we can relate and we’re here to provide support.
Thank You for your reply and I’m glad I found this site! I have felt alone for so long.
Sheila, the ‘about’ section here serves as kind of an unofficial ‘forum’ — you could share your thoughts over there as well.
Sheila, in many ways I think what I feel in relation to my ex, and how it has affected me, is similar to what you are going through; although I can only imagine that to experience this in relation to a
child is many times worse. In fact I have recently been thinking about my own psychological reaction when I have to see my ex, Every time I have to see him, for example when he has visits to the children, it triggers a whole array of emotions. I know I will never come to terms with what he has done to himself, and consequently to our family. I have never used his new name. Sometimes I can hardly bring myself to check my emails in case there is a message from him which signs off in his new name.
I’m beginning to think that what is happening is unresolved or blocked grief. I desperately want to move on, but without closure, without some aknowledgement that my ex is no more I am finding it very hard. It is extremely distressing to go through all the stages of normal grief and loss when your loved one is anxious to move on at a seemingly break-neck speed with their transition.
I was looking at this page today http://sfhelp.org/grief/symptoms.htm and I recognise a lot of the symptoms there, particularly repressed anger, denial and, curiously, under the heading ”addictions” that of ”endless” education. I sometimes feel like I’ve been studying for a PhD in transgender issues!
I’m not surprised that in 4 years you have found nothing that helps. The mental health of those so close to people who come out as trans has been totally ignored. Our role is to be ”supportive” and ”affirming”, nothing else. If we are unable to ”accept” then we are branded as transphobic. When I left my comment above about the case of the child in the UK who has
severed all ties with her adoptive parents, because they would not or could not use her new name, I wrote matter of-factly, talking about the decision purely from a legal point of view, but my heart was breaking for those parents.
I have a telephone appointment with my therapist this evening. Maybe I can start to find a different way forward. I’m sorry that I can’t be of much help, but there is a wonderful community of parents that gather here on this blog, whom I admire so much and draw strength from.
Dear Atranswidow,
Do your children actually want to see the person which your ex-husband has become? If not, I would discourage it and allow the relationship to wither away. I say this with the authority of the Medical Director for Mental Health Services for NW London, who advised me to distance myself and my children from my transgender ex-husband. I was going to discourage contact anyway. Fortunately s/he lives 60 miles away and I insisted that any visit be supervised by a mutual friend. No friend was willing and available to invigilate. So they did not see their “father” once in 10 years and they never missed him/her.
My ex-husband is immature, blinkered, narcissistic, devious, manipulative and extremely mean. The psychiatrist even said he was a psychopath. What exactly would he have contributed the raising of his children? Answer: nothing, just huge emotional disruption and confusion because it is damaging to try to love (as children must!) a profoundly dishonest and selfish person. I took responsibility. Our two children have entered good universities and are pursuing their studies confidently. Their older half-brother, Rupert, who kept contact with him after my ex-husband left us, changed courses and universities three times, has not passed his professional exams and is unable to understand that his father controls him and gives nothing.
I am a physical scientist by training. I accepted that my ex-husband’s behaviour towards me had been utterly irrational and destructive – he persecuted and taunted me for 10 years without respite! I did not mourn his departure, except for a short time. And there was no way that I would expose to that influence the most precious creatures in the world to me. Finally I was not going to let him drive a wedge between us – as he most certainly would have done and has done between Rupert and Rupert’s mother.
I did need 5 sessions with a psychotherapist about 18 months after he left, to overcome panic attacks.
Una, I loved hearing your story. I am so glad that you had the strength to remove this person from your life and your children’s lives. It makes me think of the fact that my father while not trans was an alcoholic and drug addict and extravagantly manipulative. And abusive. Once I grew up I started wondering if he wasn’t a psychopath too. I’m not sure how precise that concept is. But we certainly need a concept for these very manipulative, utterly selfish using you, type people who cause so much harm in peoples lives.
Anyway it gladdens my heart to hear about a mom success successfully keeping the psychopathic dad away from the kids. And especially pleased that you got some good psychological care. And that the psychiatrist was willing to say ‘yeah this guys a psychopath’. How often do they think that and not say anything? About abusive husbands. About other ‘trans’ husbands. Good for you. Well done.
Thank You for your thoughts and I’m sorry for all you have gone through. I read the link you provided
And it was very helpful Thank You. I also believe it has impacted my daughter through her own grief or not grieving properly, unfortunately she went through a very bad breakup back then and I believe it broke her heart beyond repair then she had to go through my divorce from her stepdad and the only home she had since she was 4 yrs old. I truly believe after reading that she was under so much grief she couldn’t bare it and to top it off I believe the last straw was she went and was put on the
Depo-Provera birth control shot and she lost it mentally. I’m not sure if the hormones or exactly what but she started cutting herself and was put into the hospital. They diagnosed her with every possible mental illness possible. They had her on so many medications. She went from calling herself bisexual, lesbian, pan sexual then to transgender. I stayed in a total state of confusion for year. When she turned 18 the hardest thing I ever had to do was send her away to live with my brother. Now it’s been 3 yrs and she has been on T for a year and looks nothing like my daughter. I guess just the male version of herself. She wants to remove female body parts and my worst fear is she will and then regret it. She legally changed her name. And it’s so hard to call her by that name. I avoid it and just call her baby or sweetheart. I’m sorry I ranted on. I just have no one to talk to about this. Thanks again for sharing the link!
Sheila– my heart breaks for your daughter. It sounds like she is another lesbian claimed by the trans cult.
Sheila – im so sorry you’ve been put through this… i cant imagine the loss, confusion and frustration you must be feeling, you are in the right place to connect with people who can help you find a way through your grief with kindness and understanding. I wish you fortitude.
Ty Kaypasser I appreciate your kindness it feels better just to have talked about it with others that understand my pain. My only prayer is my daughter will wake up one day and realize before it too late.
Dear Sheila,
Thank you for sharing your story. I was having the impression that I am the only parent who has a problem accepting transgender child. Every such parentsyou encounter in the media is always “fully supportive” and “happy” for his/her child.
I am in your situation – a year ago, my thirty-something son declared he is transgender, removed his facial hair, and started estrogen. He is my only child, so I’ve tried as hard as I could to be accepting and understanding; however, it is not working. I don’t think I will ever get over this. I am as supportive as I can, but I am not happy, neither for him nor for myself. I don’t think I can experience happiness ever again. Both his father and I are devastated.
So, despite the fact that I have nothing helpful to offer you, I thought that you may like to hear that you are not alone. Probably, there are a lot of parents who feel like we do, but don’t dare say anything.
Thank you once again. You take care.
I read the entire discussion on the WPATH Facebook page and found it appalling there were so many cheering for lowering the age of consent.
The one person who wanted to have a more nuanced discussion had significant experience with teenagers and mentioned that their identities are often in flux. And that their brains had not finished maturing yet. It looked like most of the commenters dismissed her, even though she fully buys into transitioning and is a strong supporter for ending gatekeeping. If the transgender movement is causing this woman concern, surely it has shifted too far.
There are so many things wrong with this!
Has this been reblogged yet on “There Are So Many Things Wrong With This?” It belongs there, pronto!
It should be pointed out that unlike the American Diabetes Association or the American Academy of Sleep Medicine or legitimate organizations that write clinical guidelines and standards, WPATH is not an organization of expert physician-researchers dedicated to evidence-based care. The president of WPATH, Jamison Green, has an MFA and a self-designed PhD in “Transgender Law.” Other members have similar credentials. The U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality maintains a collection of evidence-based guidelines at http://www.guideline.gov/. WPATH’s guidelines are not included there. Given that this “guideline” was assembled by non-professionals, I think it is safe to assume that the reason is that it did not meet their criteria.
I know this is true and I wish that it mattered. I have spoken with a number of psychiatrists and therapists and social workers and they all cite WPATH. When I pointed out what you just said to one therapist, she stared at me and then changed the subject as best she could.
Katiesan, ::gasp::
My God, we need to take all the bizarre experiences with shrinks etc that you have had and make like a documentary composed entirely of reenactments. OK that’s not a thing that really exists. But if it was it would be so eye-opening! They don’t know what they’re doing. And they don’t care. 😠
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While looking for the article I linked to in my comment above, I stumbled across an interesting and important paper by Rona Knight, a highly experienced psychoanalyst in the Boston area: ‘Free to Be You and Me. Normal Gender-Role Fluidity—Commentary on Diane Ehrensaft’s “Listening and Learning from Gender-Nonconforming Children”, in The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, vol 68, 57-70, 2014 [2015]. I do not think it has been noticed here before.
Abstract: ‘This paper suggests that gender role fluidity is a normal self state throughout development. It discusses the nonlinear progression of gender role identity that is constantly fluid and reactive to biological, environmental, and psychological changes. Given the normal fluidity of gender role identity, it argues that giving puberty blockers to young children is against the best interests of the child’s development.’ – http://bpsi.org/free-to-be-you-and-me/
Knight’s article, together with the article by Ehrensaft and three other articles on ‘gender dysphoric’ children, can be downloaded free of charge from the journal’s own website: http://www.psotc.com/transgender.pdf
Ehrensaft believes that children have a ‘True Gender Self’. She is an advocate of puberty blockers for ‘transgender’ children, to be followed by cross-sex hormones. (For a quick introduction to her views, see this piece: https://theconversation.com/we-trust-children-to-know-what-gender-they-are-until-they-go-against-the-norm-42093.)
Knight takes the transgender claptrap apart thoroughly and incisively, and she lays some killer blows on Ehrensaft and the other child-transing therapists. Here’s a sample:
‘Children before middle adolescence have concreteness to their thinking (Piaget, 1967), which does not seem to be taken into account by gender professionals. Like the children they are treating, endocrinologists and mental health professionals who recommend puberty blockers to children before the onset of puberty assume concrete solutions to what are very deeply embedded and constantly changing concrete senses of self and gender and gender role identifications.’ (p. 65)
Yes, Dr Ehrensaft, she did say that you are thinking like a child.
Excellent source material, Artemisia. Thank you so much!
I’m so horrified and disgusted at how these people keep lowering the age for everything. Someday a lot of these kids are going to wake up and be numb with horror at the irreversible things they did to their bodies before they were even old enough to vote. So many parents these days want to be their children’s best friends instead of actual parents who institute normal, healthy boundaries, rules, and limits.
There really is valid comparison with other things minors are known to change their minds about. No parents in their right minds would smile and roll over when their 12-year-old came home announcing how she was going to marry someone she’d been dating for all of two months, because they were in wub and going to be together forever and ever and ever. My parents let my kreatyv spylyngz phase run its course as I went through goofier and goofier spellings of my real name, until I finally landed on Aiynah. They didn’t fill out paperwork for me to legally change my name to that monstrosity only a 12-year-old would find cool.
This post is being discussed on the LGBVoice forum: http://www.lgbvoice.org/discussion/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=698
There’s a particularly informative comment here: http://www.lgbvoice.org/discussion/viewtopic.php?t=698&p=3170#p3174
‘So called bottom surgery is gruelling and often consists of 24 hours of anaesthesia, and a 12-24 hour operation. It is extremely dangerous. I watched a documentary once at the London LGBT Film Festival … It was one of the most extreme things I’ve ever seen on film.’
That would be ‘The Cookie Project’, director Stephanie Wynne (2003), reviewed here: http://socialistreview.org.uk/285/identity-crisis
Basically the Trans cult with the aid of the medical community who they duped and conned is going to get kids as young as 11 on the horrific SRS, hormones and traumatic surgery. All to prove their fetish and mental illness at the expense of kids. This is nothing more than Child abuse on the Grand scale and this would make the Roman catholic Church sex abuse pale in comparison the abuse the Trans cult slings at people.
the Trans cult with the aid of the medical community who they duped and conned … [Nicky, above]
I have come to think that there is more going on than that. I think that among the key figures in ‘transgender’ medicine there are some who, in one way or another, are fetishizing these children. How much any of them understand that they are doing this, I do not know. But I think this is one of the dirty secrets behind what is taking place.
To be clear: I don’t think this goes for all of them, by any means. I think other motives also play a part: wrong-headed compassion, a hope to do ‘cutting edge’ research work…
OK, this is really interesting Artemisia. I certainly think there’s something weird going on with some of the doctors. Just because what they’re doing is so extreme. And unwarranted.
What do you mean by fetishizing? Like in a sexual way? Or as some kind of super great medical experiment that shows they, the doctors are geniuses and/or Super Compassionate. Or something else?
I’ve been trying to get my head around why they’re doing what they’re doing. Further thoughts most welcome.
I think *using* children might be closer to it than “fetishizing”. I think creating “trans” children is a second-best way to “prove” that people who suddenly drop the transition bomb on their wives & kids really, really were women all along.
In the 1980s-90s, when gay people starting coming out, but it was still fraught, the person who was coming out might find some/most of their loved ones shocked, but there were always a few people who suspected the person was gay for quite a long time (often siblings or long-term close friends). The pattern I notice with people coming out trans is that there’s none of that – everyone seems absolutely gobsmacked and nobody saw it coming.
So since these people can’t convince people who know them that x,y,z events/preferences in earlier life make the transition make sense, the next best thing is to use other people’s children as “evidence” that feelz of being the opposite sex manifests so early in life that their “feelz” are truly a lifelong way they are/have always been, just like gay people.
Trish, excellent analysis. And where you said “drop the transition bomb on wIves and kids” it made me see what other people have meant by that same idea. The adult trans want the children function at some weird kind of evidence. Oh that makes sense inside of transes confused a little heads. Got it.
Your description of the dynamic with gay people of some suspected and with trans nothing, very useful. Thank you.
How exactly does one become a “gender specialist”? Who are these people? It was mentioned earlier in this thread that many (or most) members of WPATH are not actually medical professionals, or pediatricians, etc. so why would anyone take any of their recommendations seriously? How did these people get to be so powerful, and why aren’t more in the medical community questioning their origins and motives for this protocol?
There are some MDs and psychologists in the organization. However, their general strategy is driven by trans activists, many of whom are very keen on transitioning children. WPATH is also organizing its own training and certification programs, and has a powerful voice in influencing ICD international codes for diagnoses, as well as lobbying for public and private insurance coverage of all transition-related services. In addition, some of the more activist medical providers are pushing for “cultural humility” workshops, designed to indoctrinate skeptical clinicians. See here for more information.
http://4thwavenow.com/2015/12/27/activist-clinicians-tout-cultural-humility-surgery-on-demand-for-nonbinaries-genderfluids/
We need someone to go into the future and get a hold of the expose book that’s going to be written about WPATH in about 15 years.😆 It would tell us about its origins with the disturbing Harry Benjamin, and how it developed from the just transsexuals thing in the 70s to the craziness now.
I say this as someone who once dabbled in comedy:
Q: How do you become a gender specialist?
A. Stick your head up your ass until there is no more oxygen reaching your brain.
(sarcasm!)
I would say hormonally altering rather than drugging children because most reasons that kids need drugs is to treat real physical and mental health problems,
I am confused by this comment. “Hormonally altering” makes it sound like no big deal. Maybe say “hormonally altering children through the use of injected drugs”? Or one that I think is better is “destroying a child’s endocrine system through the use of injected drugs.” The fact is that children (people under 18) are being treated with drugs that will likely cause permanent physical damage to treat a mental health issue.
I didn’t mean to minimize it. Its definitely destructive and a big deal.
Wow, that’s funny. I thought of “hormonally altering” as wildly horrifying and Frankenstein’s monstery. Language, so slippery. Especially because of the word “altering”. 😖
One of my Tumblr readers just sent this to me:
Could you post this to your recent article: What does Olson mean their genitals are non-functioning? Are they unable to have orgasms? Trans women on estrogen who haven’t had surgery can have orgasms. Does preventing puberty stop the kids from being able to have orgasms? This is an incredibly important question that affects their ability to decide what they want to do about their body. But if they are having orgasms, are they ready to risk losing that? Do they get that?
Also, is it possible that it might be a more acceptable way to put out feelers for therapists and doctors who aren’t swept up in the trend to transition under-18s by phrasing it, “I’m looking for treatment from clinicians who will only contemplate FDA approved interventions.”
What does Olson mean their genitals are non-functioning? Are they unable to have orgasms? Trans women on estrogen who haven’t had surgery can have orgasms. Does preventing puberty stop the kids from being able to have orgasms?
Evidently the answer is yes. ‘In the absence of pubertal blockers, biological males with affirmed female identities may experience significant growth, permanent facial hair and vocal changes, and intolerable erections.’ – Serving Transgender Youth: Challenges, Dilemmas and Clinical Examples by
Amy C. Tishelman et al. Published in final edited form as:
Prof Psychol Res Pr. 2015; 46(1): 37–45.
Full text available at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4719579/
Websites and papers about the use of GnRH agonists for the treatment of prostate cancer call this ‘medical castration’: see for instance http://www.cancer.gov/types/prostate/prostate-hormone-therapy-fact-sheet:
‘Treatment with an LHRH agonist is called medical castration (sometimes called chemical castration) because it uses drugs to lower androgen levels in the body to the same extent as surgical castration (orchiectomy). But, unlike orchiectomy, the effects of these drugs on androgen production are reversible. Once treatment is stopped, androgen production usually resumes.’ [and from higher up the page: ‘LHRH is also known as gonadotropin-releasing hormone or GnRH, so LHRH agonists are also called GnRH agonists.’]
I note (i) that the passage I have just quoted says that ‘androgen production usually resumes’ and (ii) that this relates to male adults, not boys at puberty. Is it, perhaps, the case that the effects of so-called ‘puberty blockers’ are not always as reversible as its advocates have claimed? If so, I think they should come clean, and quickly.
I hadn’t even considered that. The reader is correct that it’s an important question to ask. For girls or boys, how could their genitals possibly be non-functioning unless they weren’t able to have orgasms? I assume they’re still functioning to eliminate waste. The ability to get pregnant or impregnate is not, strictly speaking, controlled by the genitalia. So whether Olson is twisting words to support a political agenda, outright lying, or revealing an undisclosed side-effect of these treatments, that’s definitely something to find out.
I sort of feel like maybe she just says “non functioning” when she means “they are not the sex of genitals that they are supposed to have.” I.E. the “transgirls” don’t have the functioning vaginas they’re “supposed” to have; instead, they have penises. You know? I feel like she really believes the natal boys’ penises are just irrelevant to who they are — like they are truly GIRLS and they’re supposed to have vaginas and they don’t.
Again, I don’t think she can possibly be advocating phalloplasty on minor natal females, though obviously they do not have “functioning genitals” by her standards either. so — this is all about the natal males. as far as I can tell.
I thought when they say “trans girls” have “nonfunctioning genitals” they mean that they have perfectly normal teenage boy penises and testes. And it’s just their bullshit language use.
But yeah, that shouldn’t just be assumed. And if the puberty blockers or whatever are suppressing these 12 to 16-year-old sexuality, then what the fuck? In general. Plus how can they make decisions about what they want to do with their bodies.
She said these boys have non functioning genitals because they “had the opportunity to avoid male pubetal maturation”. In other words the penises and testes of these boys don’t work like healthy male genitals at this age. I guess these boys are basically dead down there since puberty blockers do a lot more to male genitals then just stopping them from maturation. Adult men who used gnrh agonists suffer from urination problems, testical pain, dead of libido, genital shrinkage and so on. So we can assume these boys have to deal with similar problems.
Another thing is that in order to have a “sucessful” genital surgery men not only need a good doctor but functioning healthy genitals. Something these boys will never have. As Olson said: their genitals are non functioning. So we can assume that the outcome of these surgeries will be terrible.
Perhaps these boys will end up completely numb.
Oh my god, you are right! Cross sex hormone treatment (post blockers) would not sexually mature the genitals, whereas I was bizarrely just looking at this superficially and not considering that whole libido/sexual awakening that occurs during adolescence would be happening with undeveloped or unresponsive genitals. I.e. I was thinking more in terms of surgical difficulty than erogenous function beforehand. I am not sure how taking cross sex hormones would affect sex drive in bodies that have never experienced their own natural sex hormones, only the kind made in a factory.
You can’t surgically make sexually immature genitalia become mature, and my guess is you throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak.
“Bec Drakenhall “They aren’t prepubescent, even if the individual has been on hormones. The individual grows and the organs enlarge normally – including the genitals. But there’s a “sweet spot” for which you have to wait – if you do it too early, you’ll need flank grafts, which most girls don’t want. The flip side is that if you operate on someone that young, you will have to use tissue expanders – that’s another story in itself.””
Correct me if I’m wrong but growing bigger and taller as you get older is not sex specific, but intentionally blocking the hormones that will mature your genitalia certainly is. It’s not like your genitalia are just whatever size your body is. There are grown men with micro penises, who have every other male sex characteristic. (This might be a bad example, but maybe not) I have no reason to believe a male child on blockers then cross sex hormones would ever have sexually mature genitalia. Why would you need tissue expanders if the organs enlarge normally?
This is really screwed up. When will we learn that we never learn? I just feel immensely sad for these kids and their parents.
My initial reaction to Dr Olsen pushing this was that she would advise them to have surgery at an age where their male proportions would be suited for the surgery I.e. Very young. Having produced a “proportionate”, externally normal pre pubertal female, she can wash her hands of the matter.
When all else fails, I suppose there’s usually a bit of colon that can be repurposed. That’s probably the ace up their sleeves, or maybe a little of column a, a little of column b…
As an adult woman, I was having some endocrine problems and had to take testosterone for a little while (women’s normal level of T is not zero, but at the time mine was. Fortunately the underlying cause was determined and my hormone problems were straightened out).
My experience of this was that it massively magnified my emotions – especially anger. It also made me hornier. I can’t imagine that either of these side effects would make the situation better for a tween or teen unhappy with her physical sex and relations with parents who are not going along as enthusiastically as tumblrettes…
Interestingly, testosterone didn’t make me feel like a man. When I had to take it, I looked into the side effects, some of which reverse if T is stopped, some, like male pattern baldness, do not. None of what I read listed really, really feeling like a man as one of the side effects. I think people who sell T as a way to “be” a man are selling it like a magic potion or snake oil. It’s the “believing” that gives T its supposed power to turn teen girls into males.
I know this is an old posting, but I do feel compelled to respond. You may disagree with the views of Dr. Winters, but as time advances so does the available medical data/reports regarding the existence of trans people. I understand many of the comments here. Some of the comments are well thought out, some not so much. Many others make assumptions.
We are all aware of our gender at a very young age. How old were any of you when you determined your gender? Were you preschool, grade school, high school age? I was preschool. It was in the 50’s. Time period is important. I lived most of my life as a man. When I was old enough, I joined the military. What many of you don’t understand is that our career paths are directly related to our being trans, in my case a trans woman. Back in the day being trans was not exactly mainstream. I joined the military to force myself to align mind with body, as I did throughout my life. You can’t do it. Imagine yourselves trying to live your lives as the opposite gender. You can’t do it. You can change your physical appearance, but you cannot change what your brain is telling you. Gender is not determined by what is between your legs, but rather by what is between your ears, before you are born.
I am, in my later years, on hormone replacement therapy, beginning my transition after so many years. When I was growing up there was no transgender related material that described what being trans means. Now, with the advent of the Internet, there are volumes of medical data from the National Institute of Health, the World Health Organization, Johns Hopkins University, and a multitude of other medical and educational entities. All it takes is some earnest research without reading documents on sites like this one we’re commenting on, or even on websites that promote trans existence. Go to the established and recognized medical sites or institutions for your research. If you think being trans is just a choice, you’re wrong. If you think it’s just a whim or a fad, you’re wrong. Nobody chooses to go through the physical and mental abuses being trans entails. Nobody spends literally thousands of dollars to conform body to mind on a whim, or just because you “feel” feminine or masculine. If you don’t think there is a large degree of mental anxiety when one is trans and unaccepted by family, friends, etc., you’re wrong again. I don’t own a gun because of the intolerance of others who would rather make my life more difficult to bear than it already is when forcing myself to be who and what I am not. Gender Dysphoria is real.
You certainly don’t have to agree, accept, or even acknowledge the possibility of trans people. You don’t have to believe I have even a modicum of sanity. However, we are real and have existed for thousands of years, something you’d learn if you took the time. We are a minority. What we want is to be left alone to live our lives. What we want is for you to listen to your children. Not all children who crossdress, not all boys who play with dolls or girls who play with toy soldiers are transgender children. Many will grow out of it and fall in line with gender expectations in varying degrees. Some are genuinely trans and paying attention while the child is very young will be your clue. We are aware of our gender before we are even old enough to attend school, just as you were, if you care to take the time and seriously think about it. Your acceptance or lack thereof will determine the mental well being of your child. If you truly think ignorance or denial is beneficial, you will be wrong again, and at what price?
Oh, the concern trolling. And, how is it that every single thing is always about the M2T?
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I am a mature psychologist planning a move to NYS soon and when applying for participation in BCBS products I was required to sign a contract agreeing that I would not practice “conversion” therapy. I was initially alarmed because I did not understand the meaning of the term However, with just a bit of research I was relieved to discover that this was actually a pro choice policy. Whew!
I’m all for cross dressing, (and I”ve been told this term is no longer PC – but I’m assuming you get my drift).and I am all for gender and sexual choice, and wholly gay/transgender rights generally, and I’m all for hormone blockers to delay the emergence of secondary sexual characteristics that can be so distressing for adolescents and pre-adolescents,,often resulting in self-hatred and suicidal feelings.
However, I am concerned about lowering the age of consent for reassignment surgery – even with parental consent And this includes the early surgery of hermaphrodite individuals (again, probably no longer a PC term – but I can’t keep up!).
It is my clinical experience that individual identity (in all aspects) is often not solidified until the child/adolescent comes of age – often until they have reached a some degree of individualization from the parental influence – granted some achieve this this earlier earlier than others. But take the case of Munchhausen’s by proxy in a child who is mentally challenged – and I mean one who does not have the cognitive cognitive abilities and wherewithal to challenge parental attitudes. This is a real thing! . I know there is an extensive screening process and I wholehearted applaud parents who support the inclinations and decisions of their child from an early age. But I have also encountered individuals who regret the choice, are burdened by the responsibility of upkeep. Can a young child really give informed consent – and by that I mean truly understand the long-term medical implications of cuch a choice?
BTW I am am a registered nurse as well, with considerable critical care experience and I can for see the risks. In my experience top surgery and hormones blocking and replacement hormones offer few risks but bottom surgery is more invasive and I fear that many children simply do not/can not/cannot understand stand the long-term life long implications of bottom surgery I am a neuropsychologist as well, in fact a child neuropsyhologist, an thus expert in child cognition and familiar relationships. It has always been my aim to provide appropriate education based on my experience as a duly licensed professional. I take the same tack with individuals seeking gastric surgery for weight loss that is not life threatening.
Can we nor provide support. understanding. validation, and hope to kids that this can be their choice once they reach the age of legal maturity and support the choice of transgender identification and hormone blockers in the interim?
I admit that I have not read through this entire blog to date but I will. I consider myself a strong advocate for human rights for all but I must follow my moral compass and the primary mandate to “do no harm.”
I sincerely welcome come any comments, and I’m sure reading this entire blog will no doubt be educational.
LIsa,