This post is written by overwhelmed, a 4thWaveNow community member and mother who recently wrote about her own daughter’s desistance from trans identification. Her personal experience inspired her to submit this piece about the current effort by some activists and gender specialists to discredit decades of peer-reviewed evidence that most children with gender dysphoria do indeed change their minds.
Stay tuned for an upcoming post by 4thWaveNow that will take a closer look at the anti-desistance meme being propagated by proponents of pediatric “transition.”
by overwhelmed
There should be regulations in place to protect our children from harmful medical interventions. I think most people would consider this statement a matter of plain common sense. But unfortunately, common sense seems to fly out the window when “trans kids” are involved. More and more gender dysphoric children are being treated with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and even surgeries at young ages.
Trans activism has been busily exerting political influence on the medical field. Being closely tied to LGB has given the T legitimacy (even if the aims of T conflict with those of the LGB). Trans activists have helped convince the public that gender identity is comparable to sexual orientation. They insist that helping children become comfortable with their birth sex is as abominable as conversion therapy is to homosexuals; that it is bigoted to want a child to avoid being transgender, just as it is bigoted to not accept a person as gay. But, the thing is, unlike the T, the LGB doesn’t require all of these medical treatments. And, unlike the T, the LGB just want people to accept their sexual orientation. Besides political gain, there really is no good reason to conflate gender identity and sexual orientation.
Recently, trans activism forced the closure of the CAMH Gender Identity Clinic in Toronto. In response to this closure, sexology researcher Dr. James Cantor posted a compilation of childhood gender dysphoria research going back many decades on his site Sexology Today:
Following the closure of the CAMH Gender Identity Clinic for children, I have been receiving requests for what the science says. Do kids grow out of wanting to change sex, or does it continue when they are adults?
In total, there have been three large scale follow-up studies and a handful of smaller ones. I have listed all of them below, together with their results. (In the table, “cis-” means non-transsexual.) Despite the differences in country, culture, decade, and follow-up length and method, all the studies have come to a remarkably similar conclusion: Only very few trans- kids still want to transition by the time they are adults. Instead, they generally turn out to be regular gay or lesbian folks. The exact number varies by study, but roughly 60–90% of trans- kids turn out no longer to be trans by adulthood.
Cantor shared his post on the the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Facebook page. Although WPATH supposedly promotes evidence-based care and research, the vast majority of WPATH Facebook commenters appear to have strongly held opinions that contradict WPATH’s professed mission. Many state that once someone identifies as transgender, they will be transgender for life (regardless of the age of realization). Some commenters say it is a right for anyone (gender dysphoric or not) who wants to have these medical interventions.
When confronted with Dr. Cantor’s research compilation, there were many attempts to discredit the information. Some commented that the studies were old, flawed, invalid, and called them “junk science.” But others were more confrontational:
Another commenter, Colt Keo-Meier, trans activist academic and recent (2013) psychology graduate from the University of Houston, is currently the co-chair of the Committee for Transgender People and Gender Diversity, Division 44 of the American Psychological Association (APA). This committee issued guidelines a few months ago that effectively put a damper on the clinical judgment psychologists and social workers can use when treating their gender nonconforming and trans-identified clients (more on these APA guidelines shortly). Keo-Meier apparently believes that a child’s persistence in a transgender identity is to be desired.
The last commenter on Cantor’s thread I will mention is Jenn Burleton (of “In a Bind” fame), who here discounts the research compiled by Dr. Cantor (referred to by Burleton as “Mr. Candor”) as flawed, while bragging about the 0% desistance rate of the over 200 kids seen at Burleton’s TransActive Gender Center.
Jenn Burleton seems to celebrate the 0% desistance rate, but the fact that it contradicts decades of prior desistance research should raise alarms. What approach do they use at the TransActive Gender Center to obtain these “impressive” results?
Here are TransActive Gender Center’s “Best Practices” :
So gender-confused children seen at TransActive are affirmed as the opposite sex, socially transitioned, and treated to the “empowerment” of pubertal suppression, cross-sex hormones and surgeries. Is it any wonder these kids don’t desist? They are literally being conditioned to keep believing something is wrong with their bodies. Additionally, these socially transitioned children, even if they did start to have doubts, will likely feel tremendous pressure not to go back to their birth sex. Adolescence is already challenging enough without these complications. Just imagine how difficult it would be for a child in public school to start out as Jennifer, but later change to John.
As it turns out, the American Psychological Association (APA) recommends the affirming and accepting approach that Jenn Burleton has put into action. (As an aside, it should be noted that five of the ten members of the Task Force responsible for the guidelines were transgender themselves.) The APA Guidelines mention two different approaches for working with gender dysphoric children, but only one of them is deemed ethical. As you read, please keep in mind that “TGNC” has been defined as Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming people, in effect, conflating these two groups of children:
One approach encourages an affirmation and acceptance of children’s expressed gender identity. This may include assisting children to socially transition and to begin medical transition when their bodies have physically developed, or allowing a child’s gender identity to unfold without expectation of a specific outcome (A. L. de Vries & Cohen-Kettenis, 2012; Edwards-Leeper & Spack, 2012; Ehrensaft, 2012; Hidalgo et al., 2013; Tishelman et al., 2015). Clinicians using this approach believe that an open exploration and affirmation will assist children to develop coping strategies and emotional tools to integrate a positive TGNC identity should gender questioning persist (Edwards-Leeper & Spack, 2012).
Notice how there isn’t any warning about possible negative consequences of the affirming and accepting approach? Just keep validating these kids and telling them it is possible to become the opposite sex. There seems to be no concern from the APA that all of this affirming will condition the child into believing they are transgender (when they may have desisted).
The APA guidelines do mention a second approach, though:
In the second approach, children are encouraged to embrace their given bodies and to align with their assigned gender roles. This includes endorsing and supporting behaviors and attitudes that align with the child’s sex assigned at birth prior to the onset of puberty (Zucker, 2008a; Zucker, Wood, Singh, & Bradley, 2012). Clinicians using this approach believe that undergoing multiple medical interventions and living as a TGNC person in a world that stigmatizes gender nonconformity is a less desirable outcome than one in which children may be assisted to happily align with their sex assigned at birth (Zucker et al., 2012). Consensus does not exist regarding whether this approach may provide benefit (Zucker, 2008a; Zucker et al., 2012) or may cause harm or lead to psychosocial adversities (Hill et al., 2010; Pyne, 2014; Travers et al., 2012; Wallace & Russell, 2013). When addressing psychological interventions for children and adolescents, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health Standards of Care identify interventions “aimed at trying to change gender identity and expression to become more congruent with sex assigned at birth” as unethical (Coleman et al., 2012, p. 175). It is hoped that future research will offer improved guidance in this area of practice (Adelson & AACAP CQI, 2012; Malpas, 2011).
The APA felt the need to add on some warnings to the “embrace their given bodies” approach–just as WPATH members scolded Cantor that encouraging a child to align with their natal body is UNETHICAL. Seemingly defying common sense, we have literally come to the point that it is considered immoral (and in some areas illegal) to help a child feel comfortable with their body.
Yes, I said illegal. In more and more places, legislators are making the “embrace their given bodies” approach unlawful. Since 2012, the United States has banned gender identity “conversion therapy” in California, New Jersey, Illinois, Oregon, the District of Columbia and the city of Cincinnati, Ohio. And, in Canada, the practice has been banned in Ontario.
As parents who haven’t bought into the truth of our children’s sudden trans self-diagnosis, we have found ourselves in the position of going against the advice of WPATH and the APA. We want our children to realign with their bodies, to once again be whole, to be healthy. Desistance is our goal. We are not being transphobic, we sincerely care about the health of our children. We don’t want to “affirm” them as the opposite sex and validate that there is something so wrong with them that it leads to cross-sex hormones, surgeries and becoming lifelong medical patients. Transitioning should be a last-ditch effort, something to be used only when all other options have been thoroughly exhausted.
These guidelines and legislation, however, have made it difficult, and in some areas impossible, for parents to find mental health professionals willing to help their children (many of them with pre-existing mental health issues) feel comfortable in their bodies. Trans activists are using their influence to change medical guidelines and legislation to align with their strongly held beliefs, despite the scientific research that contradicts them. Instead of having desistance as a goal, they are working hard to make it a myth.
Reblogged this on There Are So Many Things Wrong With This.
Thank you! I keep hoping that more public support will start a revolution for helping these children rather than convincing them to transition.
The only thing you omitted was, besides political gain, this push is motivated by money. These kids are starting life with a promise of constant debt and dependence upon pharmaceuticals, medical doctors and therapists for life.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find that most of these adults who are part of the angry pro-trans push also started out on Tumblr, Reddit, etc. as young, impressionable young people and now may yet be stirring the pot, as I write this, in some fashion on the internet. After all, they are the ones who will benefit from the destruction of innocent human beings.
There is definitely a lot of money being made on puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries (not to mention binders, packers and even hair removal). It seems like a whole gender industry has formed in response to this trend.
I posted this on another area of the 4thWaveNow blog, but am desperate for some help…
I too have a 15-year-old who recently came out as transgender. My child is not a liar or crazy attention seeker. I do believe my child truly believes that she is a transgender male. I on the other hand know my kid very well. And again, I want to mention that she is 15, an extraordinarily impressionable age.
She came out as being gay and then a few months later transgender. I do believe she is on the gay spectrum. Give me a flag and I will march in any parade!
I am not against transgender or the options surrounding transition. Whatever makes a person feel good about themselves, do what you gotta do! But I can tell you, I know my child is not.
That being said, for the purpose of showing our child our support and the possibility that we are wrong, we are on board (as far as she thinks) calling her “him.” We have given our permission for her to change her name. (not legally) We took her to get a boys haircut. She wears relatively androgynous clothing. Even ordered her two binders online.
She has been seeing a therapist for the past year. She started off at a regular adolescent therapist as a girl with anxiety issues. It was during that time that she “discovered” she was transgender. Not in a theropy session… ONLINE!!! Once my daughter told me of her revelation that she was transgender, she asked me if she can switch to a sex therapist. Being in an absolute panic, I searched one out. Without going into too much detail, after a few sessions with the sex therapist, my husband and I felt that the therapist might have an agenda. Probably not the case, but when you are trying so hard to believe and understand what is going on with your child, you have to truly believe in the source that is providing you information. After many phone calls, I found another sex therapist. Again, she seemed quick to jump into the idea that my kid should join some transgender youth groups, etc. I didn’t need anything else to fuel my kids fire. After a few sessions with her, I was frantic!!! I started interviewing various therapists and doctors. How was it possible that psychiatrists, as a whole, knew so little about transgender??? How was it possible that not one sex therapist would say that the Internet and media (along with us parents allowing our kids to be subject to it all) could be the cause and not true body dysmorphia?
After interviewing about 10-15 psychiatrists and sex therapist… Might I add, none on my insurance, I stumbled across our current therapist based on a conversation with a friend I ran into at the grocery store.
While interviewing him, he was the ONLY sex therapist to mention what I was thinking…this could be a phase.
My daughter has met with him a handful of times now. Luckily, I too have had the opportunity to confide and speak to him privately. He is a professional and does not tell me personal things they spoke about. He did however agree that she might be a (wording is not to offend) “lipstick lesbian.” He said we are lucky because she does not seem to be in a rush to start any hormones. The fact is, my husband and I had already explained to her that hormones were not an option in the near future. That much theropy and “living” had to take place.
So why am I writing this? I believe that my daughter has been somehow unconsciously mirroring the behaviors and speech of the people she has been watching online. Her script is the same as so many teens that showed NO signs prior to the coming out day. Gay probably… Male… No!
Now that the Internet/media mirroring (unintentional brainwash) has set in and taken over my teens head and body, what do I do to get those words out of my kids head? She is so convinced that this is her truth.
We will continue with this therapist… But I need more!! Theropy is only one hour twice a month. The media and web have 24/7!!!
Also, do you believe that by my husband and I going along with her transgender revelation, that we are inadvertently empowering her and allowing her to think something is in fact wrong with her body? If yes, please give advice on what to say to her so she knows we are a safe place to fall.
Sorry to hear that you are going through this with your daughter. It is so difficult to know what to do/say. In my own situation with my daughter, I didn’t use male pronouns or let her wear a binder, but she was/is free to wear “boy” clothes and maintain a short haircut.
I think all of us parents are muddling our way through this as best as we can. We love them deeply and want to support them, but also want to protect them from toxic messages. We don’t want our children to be conned into unnecessarily altering their bodies.
As for you and your husband “inadvertently empowering her and allowing her to think something is in fact wrong with her body?” You are following the advice promoted by the vast majority of therapists/healthcare professionals. Please don’t blame yourselves, tacking on guilt to an already extremely challenging situation. The professionals pushing this are the ones to blame.
I wish I had specific advice on how to engage with your daughter. I know that if you radically change how you interact with her (ex: stopping use of male pronouns/name, taking away her binder, etc.) it could make her pull away from you. But on the other hand, continuing your current approach may have problems as well. There isn’t one right way to parent in this situation. It is incredibly stressful, hard to navigate and likely depends on the personalities of each individual child.
Although, I am glad that you have found a skilled therapist who isn’t blindly accepting your daughter as transgender. I hope the therapist will be able to work on underlying reasons (like internalized homophobia) and help your daughter accept herself as she is.
I wish you all the best in navigating this with your daughter and all the strength you need to get through this yourselves.
Very fine post. Worth remembering, too, about the money angle, that strenuous efforts are being made to have Medicare and Medicaid pay for all these trans medical treatments. Your tax dollars at work, reifying gender roles and turning children into medical experiments.
I was reading a comment made on GenderTrender a while back from (if I remember correctly) a gay male. He had planned to transition and had saved up a significant amount of money for it. Something happened, however, and he ended up giving his money to someone in need. This gave him time to thankfully change his mind.
My point in sharing this story, is that if Medicare and Medicaid (and other insurance) start covering these treatments, it will likely speed up the process–which is already fast enough–and there could be an even higher incidence of regret. It is definitely concerning.
There is another, darker, reason aside from money that I see in this. This is just *lesbian and gay* conversion therapy, in a shiny new “progressive” suit of clothes. If you can’t keep the kid from being a dyke by making her a straight woman, why not keep her from being a dyke by turning her into s straight “man”?
Call trans what it is: genocide directed against lesbians and gays. Say it loud, everywhere: this is conversion therapy, and it is genocide.
It is terrible that gays and lesbians are the majority of those that don’t fit into our current rigid gender boxes and feel pressured into transitioning.
I hope our voices will eventually be heard and this practice of trans-ing our kids will stop.
Yep. The trans activists like to ask “well, you can change the body or you can change the brain, and we don’t know how to change the brain so we change the body.”
But it’s a false dichotomy. There IS no such thing as “proper” “matching” of brain/personality to genitalia, any combination you have is a valid one realized in you, a valid individual person, and there is no need to change either one!
This is very well written Overwhelmed. Thank you for taking the time to carefully put this together.
Thanks! I’m doing my best to get the word out. I see you have been busy as well, and not just on 4thwavenow. I saw a retweet from Alice Dreger earlier today highlighting a wonderful comment you made on Retransition.org. Glad to have you on board.
It’s bizarre they frame only two approaches when a third one should be just as clear. Why not affirm a child’s expression (mannerisms, hobbies, haircut, clothes, etc.) without a transition? Or are gender roles so rigid in 2016 that a child can only act certain ways and like certain things if they are one gender or another?
Yes, fabmind, that was my reaction to that, as well.
The restrictive gender roles that “transition” seeks to confirm are actually the very source of the dysphoria/dysmorphia to begin with. Rather than these all-out attempts by WPATH and the APA to indoctrinate us with the need for “normalization” of hormonal and surgical interventions on our children (and adults, for that matter) which transform them into life-long medical patients, efforts *should* be aimed at deconstructing the rigid social sex roles and stereotypes that are obviously not representative of the human condition.
The APA and WPATH choose to represent our options as either/or (ethical/unethical) in order to prop up the gender industry which they have created and in which they have become the self-appointed experts. There’s no money or prestige in promoting self-acceptance, and those of us who have overcome these issues *without their interventions* provide an inconvenient counter to the need for that “expertise.”
That was superb, fightingunreality! I tried to ‘like’ it but the like button isn’t working for me again. This happens whenever I clear my cache. 😧
Yep, the banal evil of the self-appointed expert’s holding onto their status. 🙄 The lobotomy “experts” were just the same. And when the shit finally hits the fan and this is all closed down people, investigative reporters hopefully, will look at this and say ‘But they just decided on their own that they were the “experts”! How could that have failed to go horribly wrong?’ And everyone will tut-tut. We need to get to tut-tut day faster.
Also Jenn Burleton is an asshat. In many ways not least of which is claiming the published research is wrong because it’s “oversampled” then claiming his research is great because it’s “first person, direct interview”. Those are two completely different research techniques. Oh and means Burleton is admitting that all he has is the group at his clinic and that none of them desisted. If there’s a normal desistance rate, even if it was only 4% (it’s way more) this would just mean that nobody at this one clinic stops believing they are transgender, or they leave the clinic before they do that. Like it’s not OK there. Desist and we take you out of the statistics. Good to know.
Very well said, fightingunreality!
“Oversampled” jumped out at me too. A common criticism of research that does not stand up to scrutiny is that the sample sizes are too small. So what exactly is “oversampled?” Something that interferes with the confirmation bias Burleton has going? The begging the question involved in saying “Everyone in my clinic who said they are transgender still say so?” Hello teleology.
I looked up “oversampled”. That’s what Burleton claims all the good published studies that show some people desisting have wrong with them. Oversampling is a technique in social sciences to make sure that you get accurate information about a small subgroup. You don’t then WEIGHT the subgroup’s results more in the final statistical analysis. you do some statistical thing that makes the oversampled subgroup re-integrated into the overall group you’re looking at. Sampling and statistical weighting are two different things. Plus this is for demographics like the census. So it could be that oversample mean something else in these medical research papers. Or it could be that it only applies to demographics and Burleton is full of crap. Anyway here’s a link and it’s only two paragraphs to get the sense of it.
http://www.people-press.org/methodology/sampling/oversamples/
I don’t know how one can oversample when assessing a completely subjective condition. I would think it necessary to do so, in fact.
Sorry, that didn’t make sense. My point is just that when dealing with a subjective self-defined condition, how would one even define a study involving oversampling? Wouldn’t you have to work it from the other direction, take a large random sample and assess the cohort for different things and look for trends?
Oh, I see what it is! Oversampling is about trying to minimize the margin of error that comes up when you are dealing with relatively small cohorts. Example: the cohort you are studying involves one person out of ten thousand. You want to compare them to the other 9999 people out of ten thousand, but you’re not in a position to evaluate millions of people, so instead you evaluate much larger numbers of the one-out-of-ten thousand cohort, and then take an average, and compare that numerically to the 9999 out of ten thousand cohort at the actual ratio of occurence.
I’d never heard of that before. Thank you. That’s fascinating. What it should do is generate more reliable data. I would love to hear Burleton’s explanation about how better scientific techniques generate worse data.
I know exactly what Burleton meant by that. Totally misuses the term “oversample” because Burleton is no researcher. What Burleton means is that they conflated merely gender nonconforming children with “truly transgender” children. It’s the new thing they’re all saying to try to discredit decades of peer reviewed studies. I have a post in draft addressing this. They think they have a “gotcha”. You can probably guess that I don’t agree.
Really, the only legitimate argument he could make would be that the oversampled desister cohort was being artificially expanded in some biased manner, but that just gets back the same problem of there being no identification for gender identity other than as self-defined. I would myself argue that cohort definition is an enormous problem here, one of the very biggest ones.
This is interesting: http://www.wired.com/2015/06/big-problem-outlawing-gender-conversion-therapies/
Wow, there is so much going on here it makes your head spin. I wonder how many of these trans pushers have children? Because they exhibit a total lack of understanding of children and child rearing. But also a hatred of parents, an attitude that parents know nothing about their children. It is beyond insulting, it is pure and simple hatred and yes, misogyny, as women are still the central care givers. The trans cult and their pushers are trying to dictate to parents, to take their decision making, their love and care, away from them. This is leading to criminalization of parents who don’t push their woman hating, child hating agenda. A patriarchal example of “we know best.” This is patriarchy gone mad. And patriarchy is why the male driven trans cult is getting such acceptance in all the patriarchal institutions, from legal to education, to mental health and medical. There is nothing in the trans cult that challenges the patriarchy: it is the patriarchy. Thank you for this important post.
Reblogged this on Stop Trans Chauvinism.
Thank you so very much for this post – it is exactly the explanation I was looking for.
I just can’t figure out how proponents can simultaneously assert that declaration/feelings of being the other sex is “a normal variation on a spectrum” but also assert that this “normal variation” (which they believe is not a pathology) needs to be treated with body modifications that are covered by taxpayer funding (in situations where that’s available for healthcare) or by private insurance.
How can it make sense? If it’s “normal” and not pathological, then modification is ELECTIVE, and my insurer should pay for Botox if I want it, too. (God knows these worry lines on my face have only gotten deeper since the day my teen announced she might be trans.)
I’m no kind of rad feminist — I don’t know that I’m any flavor of feminist, in fact, though I’ve read a ton in the past couple of years. I don’t have a deep understanding of the whole patriarchy thing.
But I’m at least smart enough to know that this push to allow transition in kids and teens is largely driven by natal males who wish they could pass better and think that would have happened if they’d been able to avoid male puberty, and would love to see their state completely normalized from a social acceptance standpoint. (Yeah, there are some radical young FTMs who are strong spokespeople for early transition too, but they’re not driving the bus. Older people like Jenn Burleton and Jennifer Pritzker are driving the bus, aided by the media-star clinicians and some political allies.)
The dearth of research of long-term physical/psychological outcomes for kids and teens who are transed early is acute, but anecdotal evidence indicates that natal men’s bodies take less of a catastrophic hit from spiro and estrogen than natal women’s bodies do from testosterone. So yeah, I think it is true, and terribly ironic, that a young, socially awkward female’s ideas of wanting to transition are being greatly influenced by a trend championed by middle-aged, late-transitioning natal males.
And then there’s the availability of this novel ‘treatment’ — the blockers followed by the hormones. Before the Dutch started using blockers this way, where was this vast ‘transkid’ phenomenon? Absent. There were obviously always gender-nonconforming kids, but this early labeling of kids as trans, and the push for absolute acceptance of any self-labeling on the part of minors, is a recent phenomenon. It looks like cure that created a “disease,” yes? (Or a disease that’s not a disease? Wait, I’m confused….)
Anyway, now not just transness but also any flavor nonconformity needs to be medically treated. Because we can. Treatment for “nonbinary” and “genderfluid” and “demiboi” and all the rest has to be the next agenda. Just a LITTLE estrogen or T, just some tweaky adjustment till I think I look perfect. Because endless pursuit of the physical ideal puts money in a lot of pockets. Unlimited expansion of the conditions that need “treatment” can only be a good thing, right, in the evolution of the species? Ai yai yai.
Sorry, all, Just ranting, just wandering. Just banging my head against the wall.
Any movement that doesn’t think such a radical and risky course of action, requiring lifelong medication, many doctor visits, surgeries on healthy body parts, corrections of the surgeries when they don’t quite work as planned, sterilization, and on and on — shouldn’t be a LAST RESORT is a movement that’s not thinking straight. Any movement that can’t admit that it’s possible to find peace with a natal body, even for people who are radically “nonconforming,” and that this would be a preferable situation IF AT ALL POSSIBLE, is a movement that’s not remotely grounded in common sense, or compassion, or understanding of child/adolescent brain development, or actual social justice. Any movement that can’t admit that people change their minds, and is hell-bent on suppressing the narratives of people who DO — that’s something else altogether. Something that looks a lot like a cult.
Thanks, Overwhelmed, for your writing and especially for that telling exchange between Cantor and Burleton. Ugh.
Trans “logic” has never made sense to me. And I have a difficult time understanding why there aren’t more people questioning it.
You’re welcome for the Burleton-Cantor exchange. I thought it was worth sharing with a wider audience.
Definitely. Burleton (and others who dismiss the prior persistence research) insist that ‘trans’ and ‘nonconforming’ are two completely different populations. She implies that she has a perfect method of sorting them, so ALL her ‘trans’ clients have persisted. 200 kids, zero desistance. (The path of the kids she terms ‘nonconforming’ is unknown.) Ergo any studies that have mixed these populations are useless. All ‘truly trans’ kids persist, is the transactivists’ contention.
If Burleton has discovered an accurate system for parsing out which kids are ‘truly trans’ vs ‘merely nonconforming’ — and which will/won’t desist OVER THE LONG TERM, especially if the treatment is simply acceptance of the kid’s preferred gender performance without social transing or medical intervention — she ought to be sharing that diagnostic info with the world posthaste, don’t you think? Has she discovered a blood test or some such, that can accurately differentiate A from B, to prevent misdiagnosis? Would that it were so.
I have a gut feeling that it’s simply the persistent/insistent/consistent trope that Dr. Olson loves to repeat. (The fact that kids/teens with autistism/Aspergers, OCD, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, or other mental health comorbidities can be plenty stubborn, obsessive, simplistic, short-term oriented, and unrealistic is irrelevant, right?)
What I think Burleton and her allied clinicians and those Dutch pioneers (some of whom now seem a little worried about what they’ve created) actually HAVE discovered is a method for conditioning persistent/insistent/consistent kids to stick with the trans self-identification and the experimental medical path. The parents and extended family, school administration/teachers, peers, med/psych providers, EVERYONE is schooled regarding how these fragile kids must be treated. Including wholesale alterations of language and behaviors and permissions, and the annihilation of the ‘dead name.’ Then there is the regular round of doctor’s appointments, shopping for clothes, coaching on how to act like a stereotyped example of the non-natal sex, the constant affirmation, sometimes media affirmation, too. The planning for surgeries and the fight to get financial assistance. The sense of being the center of concentrated adult attention, and the heady feeling (among both the kids and their parents and allies) that they’re crusaders for social justice, people firmly on the right side of history, leaders in the quest for a better, kinder, more enlightened world.
This is powerful stuff. No wonder the kids aren’t desisting. It’s a strong behavior-mod system, practiced on immature and plastic brains. (The fact that some of these kids choose suicide even when everyone around them does everything “right” ought to be raising some eyebrows. Alas, this is rarely discussed. Only ‘Do it our way or your kid will suicide’ is discussed.)
But hey, it’s GOOD if 0% of putative transkids desist, yeah? So much better than that old majority desistance pattern. So much better to have the kids married to the med/psych/pharma complex for the rest of their lives. So much better than having most of them deciding, after some months or years, that they’re simply gay men or lesbians.
We, like Cantor, all just need to educate ourselves and get with the program and stop abusing our kids.
o_O
I am pulling out puzzled’s parenthetical comment:
(The fact that kids/teens with autistism/Aspergers, OCD, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, or other mental health comorbidities can be plenty stubborn, obsessive, simplistic, short-term oriented, and unrealistic is irrelevant, right?)
We have finally had a couple of psychiatrists confess that we might be on to something and that we definitely need to focus on treating our daughter’s serious and deadly MENTAL HEALTH CONCERNS and, that her conditions could be leading to her identity issues. Of course, it’s taken three hospitalizations, professionals witnessing her inability to even seem to understand anything which goes against her own preconceived obsessions (not regarding identity, BTW), and her sliding back into physical violence. Sadly, these are trauma shrinks — working in a locked ward setting. The ones out in the wild seem to think that telling our kid we think she’s a boy will fix her right up. You know, even though she’s doing that at school, with psychiatrists, in the hospital.
If we are having this much trouble with a kid who is a danger to herself and others, I fear there isn’t any hope for families whose kids aren’t completely melting down.
I am afraid my kid is going to die because these professionals can’t see the forest for the enormous misgendered-tree.
just a note of solidarity to katiesan, because ‘reply’ didn’t appear under her comment. my heart goes out to you all. I can’t believe you’ve had to fight so hard to get professionals to actually agree to address your daughter’s comorbid mental health issues. hoping things will stabilize soon, or become less stressful somehow. People always say ‘take care of yourself,’ and I know that must seem impossible. but do what you can.
all the best.
Katiesan, I am so sorry you and your daughter (and husband) are going through this. Clearly this would be horrible in any era, in this one with the gender madness it is dangerous for your daughter. My heart aches for all of you.
OMG, puzzled, this is superb! This should be in the Intro Pack that I keep imagining should exist for people brandnew to this phenomenon. You’ve got all the most important points. And the fact that this makes absolutely no sense.
I believe it’s a cure that created it’s non-disease. O-o
“Emo is not a gender” as somebody commented on cheki’s blog. I just thought I’d throw that in apropos genderfluid, genderqueer and demiboi.🙄 yep it was all invented for the autogynephiles. And it’s obviously a couple different subcultures. A subculture is not a diagnosis. 😡
Ai yai yaiyaiyaiyai! Indeed. 😠
I’m still so confused and searching to figure out what all of this means for a young adult in the State of California (like my child) who may wish to get hormones and start living ftm. Can a parent still count on that young adult still needing to get some psychological review first…which should give whoever is handing out T a good reason to pause based on that child’s own mental health history? what is the current process in that state? now no more questions of anyone…as long as one self-professes, then here’s some T, go live as your “true self”? What is the legal definition of “conversion therapy” anyway? why is it that the parent is the one told to seek counseling…which I have done btw.
Sorry to hear that you are in this situation.
The original definition of conversion therapy strictly dealt with attempting to convert homosexuals to heterosexuals, sometimes by amazingly awful methods like lobotomies. There is good reason to ban conversion therapy based on this definition.
Recently, though, trans activists have rebranded conversion therapy to include gender identity. Basically making it illegal to try to convert a trans-identifying person to a non-trans person. Unfortunately the law in California is not going to be in your favor.
I hope you are able to find a therapist willing to work on any underlying mental health issues your daughter may have.
If you search for “Tips for parents” in the upper right corner it will bring up an excellent post recommending what to look for and what to avoid in a therapist.
Best wishes.
California has made it illegal for therapists to use reparation therapy. However, as a parent, you still have the right to refuse treatment and therapy if you feel it is not in the best interest of your minor child. This means that you (for now) can not be punished for refusing puberty blockers, hormones, surgery, or pro-trans therapy.
If you feel your child has pre-existing mental health concerns, make that known to any professionals you come in contact with. I have found a lot more understanding from professionals when I acknowledge that I am looking for my child to WAIT and make up her own mind, AS AN ADULT, for something so serious as hormones and surgery.
Good luck to you and your child. It’s hard enough to have a mentally ill child and try to help them and then also be attacked by the people you are seeking help from.
Head on over to Dear Abby’s column on transgender youth today on uexpress dot com today and read the comment section. Nearly all of the people commenting drink the transgender Kool*Aid. These are the people who need to hear the “other side” and they are a perfect example illustrating why it is so hard to fight for our kids. The commenters think they are all SJWs, so liberal and progressive, so self-satisfied that they are supporting mutilation of a prepubescent girl who just within the past few weeks or so has expressed interest in being trans. Unbelievable! Shows what lack of counter-narrative leads to.
good morning
When the LGB ditch the T, the militant T’s political muscle will atrophy.
as much as I empathize with the “kool-aid” reaction, I feel it is disempowering. At Jonestown, the situation was final, fatal, beyond reach, beyond repair, as the death of Leo Ryan and many of his delegation and the ultimate “kool-aid” mass suicide document.
Not so here.
Inoculation, yes. kool-aid, no.
A misguided choir, yes. A sequestered cult compound, no.
Media hype, yes. News black-out, no.
We can gain clarity and cut through the semantic obfuscation.
Example: transgender is not a sexual orientation, not race, not a religion, not a nationality and so on.
Example: T is anti-gay by way of funneling potential gay and lesbian youth into a eugenics- type physical conversion.
We can and must inform, especially the LGB community.
We can send the “Why the Equality Act – in its present form – Hurts Women” to
our political rep’s. List of sponsors and co-sponsors is available, and email lists sort-of.
to be continued
I think you missed the point completely. Do you really think any of your elected officials give a fig about what hurts women? Male whims trump women’s concerns at every turn. Men want access to our private spaces and that trumps the security and privacy of women and girls. People coo at and coddle transgenders because they are trying to be good, liberal SJWs protecting a vulnerable minority group. They are parroting a position that they think they know something about, but actually don’t. Yes, they are Kool*aid drinkers. Transgender is a cult and people who go along with the “trapped in the wrong body” scenarios unquestioningly are very much the equivalent of cult members. Think for yourself and you will be eaten alive by these SJWs!
good morning . . just glancing over all this reminds me of the months and months of digging through the maze of charged shtuff on the trans lobby side and the diligent effort on the part of “Sanity & Co.” to sort out the extremely lawyerese shell games of misnomer and assumption & such. (Not to malign ALL attorneys – I know a handful from whom I would not cross to the other side of the street if I encountered them) Bottom line is that we cannot leave the playing field to extreme activists, profiteering pharma, medical and administrative “profe$$ionals”, and the politicians in their pocket or who are too busy to really read what they are promoting. We need the public to see past the propagandist snow job. But we need to supply the public with clear information. We are the ones to cut through the scrim of projections and assumptions and deception and reveal the previously known, but now obstructed view of common sense, true compassion . . . bla bla bla.
To this end, please avail yourselves freely of the information at the top of the latest Zen Itch issue ” To Wage Sanity”. (https://thezenitch.wordpress.com/2016/01/23/to-wage-sanity/)
A powerpoint presentation with accompanying script will also be made available soon.
This is a war on women on all levels. Our answer must be to wage sanity.
Wage sanity. Very appropriate.
Thanks for being on board!
It’s as though all these people drinking the transtrender Kool-Aid have forgotten how much everyone changes, develops, evolves, and grows during youth. Even if you don’t have kids, you surely have watched other people’s children grow up, or remember how you were at different stages of your life. It doesn’t even have to be as serious as claiming to be in the wrong body, but as simple as a crush, favorite band, or dream job. Behavior itself can also change, like a child with an attitude problem growing into a sensitive, thoughtful teenager. I can’t believe we live in a world where many people just immediately, unquestioningly accept a claim to be trans out of the blue, or “fully transition” a 2-year-old who demands she go by a male name. My parents would be considered so old-fashioned these days for insisting I wait until I was 18 to join the religion I wanted, instead of converting underage. And if I’d changed my mind since then, it would’ve been as simple as joining another faith, not undergoing corrective surgeries and coming down off of years of cross-sex hormones.
I’ve become so upset and frustrated about this exploding trend, I actually wrote a 12-part series about it on my blog, scheduled to run from 8 February through 7 March. It’s sad how I felt the need to affix a warning to the start of each post, saying any abusive, threatening, or violent comments will be deleted and the commenters blacklisted.
I love that you are writing about this trend on your blog. Thank you for helping to get the word out there!
unfortunately, common sense seems to fly out the window when “trans kids” are involved
What we are confronting is a tangle of mutually reinforcing collective delusions.
To begin with the transgender activists: their whole understanding of themselves, not to mention their public presentation, is founded on a delusion, that they are, or have transitioned to becoming (they are typically rather cloudy as to which of these applies), members of the other sex. They cannot tolerate anything that threatens their delusional understanding of themselves.
To preserve their bubble they seize on and propagate other delusions, like the ‘brain sex’ theory. But of course, they didn’t invent the pseudo-scientific notion that male and female brains are radically different. That is one element in the ancient and powerful collective delusion that women as a class are inferior to males and should rightly be subordinated to them. Related to this is the at least equally powerful delusion that children will conform naturally to the behaviours socially mandated for their sex, and that if they decline to do this, there is something wrong, which needs fixing – whether by reason, chastisement, castration…
As for the therapists and doctors: the theory of pathological altruism makes more sense of their collective role in this than anything else I have seen to explain it. (That does not rule out the possibility that some of the doctors are motivated by money, and a few are motivated, partly at least, by professional vanity.) Pathological altruism is a term for ‘behavior in which attempts to promote the welfare of another, or others’ but ‘results instead in harm that an external observer would conclude was reasonably foreseeable’.*
The notion that altruism is necessarily positive is another very powerful collective delusion. As is the assumption that trained scientists will always take an objective view of the evidence…
* http://www.pnas.org/content/110/Supplement_2/10408.full.pdf; see also http://4thwavenow.com/2015/07/27/two-recent-survey-studies-by-dr-johanna-olson-biases-assumptions-and-the-medical-transitioning-of-young-people/
“This includes endorsing and supporting behaviors and attitudes that align with the child’s sex assigned at birth prior to the onset of puberty”
Well there’s your problem, APA. The elephant in the room, as it were. THERE ARE NO BEHAVIORS AND ATTITUDES THAT ALIGN WITH ANY SEX. The word you are looking for is “personality”, and EVERYBODY’s got one.
While we’re at it, it’s so cute to see transgenderists accuse gender critics as killing transgendered people and yet, last I checked, using cross-sex hormones carries an early death risk (especially for FTMs), and getting surgery DEFINITELY carries a death risk. If anyone is killing trans people, it’s those who advocate for trans people. I’m over here telling people to be happy with their bodies and to get therapy if they just can’t be happy. They’re over there drugging people up and carving people up and cooing on about how wonderful it all is. Also the suicide rate for trans people goes up after drugs and surgery. So who is actually advocating for trans people here? The ones who want the trans people to stay alive. DUH.
It can never be said enough, anyone who uses the phrase “sex assigned at birth”. can not be taken seriously. Including, especially, the APA. 🙄 Only a very small proportion of the very small number of intersex people have to have a sex “assigned” to them. For everyone else it’s obvious. This is basic biological reality. It is time for people like the transgenderists and their medical and psychological handmaidens who make a fetish of refusing to acknowledge this biological fact be regarded appropriately. In other words if they’ve made up fake facts and pat little phrases that everyone has to repeat they are a subculture. And an unusually weird and noxious one. That’s how the media should cover them.
(This all makes me so effing angry.) 😡
People are always mixing up Gender Non Conforming Only children, GNC Only, (usually first defined by their parents) and transgender children (those who show strong cross gender desires and associated Gender Dysphoria, GD, if thwarted).
Now GNC Only (little or no transgender desires and the associated GD) will fairly often, but not always by any means, end up bi-sexual, gay or lesbian as adolescents and adults and be happy with their gender (maybe after some exploration).
GNC with strong GD will nearly always retain that into adolescence and adulthood and at some stage transition or die.
So it is important to separate them out, which to be fair for a very young child can take a few years to work out, hence the WPATH ’support and wait and see’ approach.
The longer a child expresses transgender desires and has GD then the more likely they are really transgender. But, an important but, a child with strong GD may not be a ‘typical’* ‘sissy boy’ or ‘tomboy’. though they will almost certainly show GNC behaviour of some kind and strongly express transgender wishes.
A lot of that depends on how introverted or extroverted they are. The quiet, shy, sensitive and introverted child suffering terrible GD may not express themselves much in public as very GNC even though they may want to. Everyone forgets this point…… not every kid is a blazing extrovert and public performer. This explains the common issue of the child only expressing their transgender feelings at early adolescence, before that they were simply too shy and sensitive and hid it carefully.
The other issue is the treatment of some GNC Only kids, who if you do the ‘drop the Barbie’ stuff to them means you are making them act ‘straight’, which is cruel and if not actual SOCE** it is pretty close.
GNC Only behaviour by itself will not ‘make’ someone transgender, which seems to be the fear by some.
GD plus GNC means they are almost certainly transgender and almost never will change and if you try then you are playing Russian roulette with their lives. There is only one treatment for GD that works, transition***.
So the issue is selection and it is not that hard, although it will never be perfect. A 2012 study on CAMH children showed the only statistically significant factor (logistic regression) in their ‘persistence’ was the strength of their combined GNC/GD scores. So their own tests showed good measures to predict outcomes, which were a lot higher that the commonly stated ‘80% desist’ (based on lumping the two groups together).
A rough ‘back of the envelope’ calculation shows that maybe only 5% of GNC Only diagnosed kids are really transgender (diagnosis is never perfect). BUT, maybe as much as 80% to 90% of GNC + strong GD ones are (based on CAMH published numbers).
The majority, by far, are of course GNC Only with transgender children being a minority. CAMH’s own numbers (awhile back) stated that 70% of the kids they saw were GNC Only.
*And what is a typical ‘sissy boy’ or ‘tomboy’ anyway? This is usually just parent paranoia and absurd social ‘norms’.
**Sexual Orientation Change Efforts = sexuality reparative therapy.
**transition can mean socially or fully medically to the opposite gender, it can also mean becoming ‘gender queer’ or similar.
I responded to your comment with this post:
http://4thwavenow.com/2016/01/28/5894/
To LisaM: I am writing a response to your detailed comment and will be posting within the week.
Gay “conversion therapy”, it has the religiony name for a reason, was an existing, well-known thing before anyone tried to ban it. Its purpose was to take gay people (a type of person that has been known to exist for millennia) and make them not gay. Whether or not the people, some of whom sought this for themselves, were gay was not in doubt. They were. With transgender we’re talking about something that during its short history has always been recognized to be a medical condition. And the thing that is being called transgender “conversion therapy” is being done as part of diagnosis and medical treatment. It’s not the same kind of shabby fly by night, unaccredited outfits as in the anti-gay therapy. It’s not fake psychotherapist who try to convince transmen and transwomen who’ve had years of hormones and had the surgery that they “ought” to desist. That is what it would have to be to be like the anti-gay ‘therapy’ thing.
First and foremost the anti-gay thing is clearly not real therapy. It’s just using creepy things that psychiatry has subsequently rejected to try to psychologically force gay people into not being gay. And it doesn’t work. Comparing medical work by real doctors and accredited psychologists that attempts to determine if someone is transgender or if they are any of these other things (gay, gender nonconforming that straight, depressed or suffering some other emotional difficulty and latching onto transgender as a magical thinking based ‘fix’) is in no way comparable to the loony gay hating fly-by-night crap that it is appropriate to outlaw. Bear in mind the good anti-gay “conversion therapy” laws are not outlawing anything that bona fide, accredited psychotherapists would ever do. If it’s applied to the kinds of discussions Elizabeth Bradley and Kenneth Zucker wanted to have with possibly transgender patients it’s moved on from banning fly-by-night garbage and into banning something that is a normal part of medical practice ie making a diagnosis. There’s no one on earth more critical of medicine than me. But even I don’t want the government to start banning normal things that doctors do.
There seems to be two ideas going around here:
(1) There is no such thing as a transgender child at all.
(2) The right ‘treatment’ can stop them being transgender.
Both are wrong.
Though transgender children are rare (there is a bigger likelyhood of type 1 diabetes) they do occur. Here in Australia we have a massive 100 children (out of a population of 23 million) being seen at our ONE child gender centre.
A child that is strongly transgender (has strong cross gender desires and suffers gender dysphoria, GD, if thwarted in this) will usually (80% to 90% chance) end up becoming transgender or die by suicide at some stage in their life. The longer transition takes to happen the greater the risk of successful suicide. Those 40%-50% rates of repeated suicidal thoughts and 10-20% suicide attempt rates are REAL as studies from all over the world show (US, UK Australia, Canada, etc).
Unless you have experienced it personally is almost impossible to understand just how horrible and debilitating gender dysphoria really is. I suspect many who are so dismissive of it would quickly change their minds if they had to endure it for even a week.
I am concerned though at the unabashed support for the CAMH GIC which Dr Zucker headed. Zucker throughout his career put forward the position that using a combination of Freudian therapy on the parents and behavioural modification techniques (all very SOCE like) would achieve the goal of “the prevention of transsexualism” and gender non conforming behaviour.
In fact these very same ideas and techniques were first developed to ‘stop male homosexuality’. Gender Non Conforming Behaviour (GNC) was seen as ‘pre homosexuality’ and the original work in the 70s on this was to prevent male children becoming homosexual by making them ‘act straight’..
This failed.
SOCE = Sexual Orientation Change Efforts = sexual reparartive therapy…
This ‘treatment’ regime then morphed into being used for two things:
(1) Eliminating GNC behaviour in children so they acted with stereotypical gender behaviour. Little Jonny would stop drawing and play football and little Jenny would stop climbing tress and learn to knit.
This was claimed to be a good alternative for the child to prevent them being bullied or suffering social ostracisation . However few believe this was the reason.
(2) Stopping children from becoming transsexual. This also fails like SOCE, though it could delay when they transition and increase the chance of them dying though direct and indirect suicide.
The CAMH treatment for both types of children, GNC Only with no symptoms of Gender Dysphroia, and transgender children who did …… were the exact same.
Children were to be forced to play with same gender peers.
GNC behaviour, toys and clothing stopped.
Stereotypical gender behaviour encouraged and rewarded.
For males, the father to become engaged with the child doing ‘masculine’ things.
A female doing ‘feminine’ things with her mother. The mother to become distant from the male child, the father to stop doing ‘masculine’ types of things with a female child.
There was no ‘letting them find their own way’ or ‘exploration’. This was forced on the children without their consent.
The parents were to present stereotypical masculine/feminine father/mother behaviours.
The mother to have therapy to find out why she was (1) too clingy or (b) too ‘masculine’. and ‘dominant’. Sorry feminism was NOT seen as a good thing, traditional gender roles for the parents were the aim. In fact the primary cause of both GNC behaviour and ‘transsexualism’ was seen to be the fault of the mother.
Thus, though many of you may applaud the idea of ‘stopping transsexualism’ (some with a bullet I suspect) I do find it strange why you also want GNC Only behaviour to be stopped as well.
This would mean, for example, that a female child (GNC Only) and masculine acting and dressing would be stopped from doing that and forced to act in a feminine manner.
This eliminates butch lesbians or strong masculine acting straight women. It eliminates feminine boys (gay or straight). Though their sexuality will be unchanged they will forced to be straight acting. They will end up with terrible hang ups about their presentation and behaviour. Borderline SOCE.
In the 2015 GOC Review there was a case shown, 5 years of age, GNC Only (hence at very little risk of being transgender). Reparative comments on the file. Toys stopped…BEFORE assessment. 104 sessions, some would call that child abuse and attempted SOCE.
Then there is the toll on the child of all this behavioural modification, which no one seems to care about one little bit.
There was no assessment of suicide or self harm risk done by the GIC, that was not a treatment goal, criteria or metric, success was measured only by the ending of GNC behaviour. In all the many variables they measured (race, IQ, class, etc, etc) suicide/self harm risk was not one of them.
In fact a literature search of Dr Zucker’s papers show not a single one on the assessment of their ‘treatments’ on suicide risk, whether it increased or decreased it.
This was not as important as things like research into GNC children’s speech patterns…..
Now we know the toll both SOCE and gender reparative therapy has on children, the graveyards are full of them. Making children deny their own inclinations, drives and feelings and forcing them to behave unnaturally never turns out well, as Leelah Alcorn showed.
This omission by the Zucker and the GIC amazes me.
Sadly the ‘better dead than trans’ attitude that many hold does not surprise me at all, no other group in society is so challenging to the beliefs of socially conforming and conservative people. Transgender adolescents have very high homeless rates due to parents rejecting them from the family home. Family love sadly is far too often conditional on gender conforming behaviour. Nearly every person that transitions has stories to tell of family rejection.
But ‘better dead than a masculine girl or effeminate boy’? I think that comes from the also very common attitude ‘better dead than gay or lesbian’ and effeminate gays and butch lesbians are the most visible types and thus bear the lions share of parental and societal prejudice.
I suspect that some who comment here, who state that they would not mind their child becoming gay or lesbian as long as they are not ‘trans’, are being disingenuous and that in reality that horrifies them just as much, especially if they are visible and challenging ones like butch lesbians or effeminate gay men.
I also find it ironic those butch lesbian radical feminists (very anti-trans) who support Zucker and the GIC, despite the fact it was their policy to eliminate such butch behaviour and that they were NOT supportive of feminism one little bit. Women (mothers and girls) were to conform to stereotypical gender norms.
Look I understand why so many of you agree with Zucker’s concept of ‘preventing transsexualism’ and making kids ‘straight acting’ and that any means of achieving that and any risks taken are fine with you.
Socially conforming and conservative people have little tolerance of non conforming behaviour in their children, especially gender and sexuality related. Trans women, trans men, effeminate men and butch women deeply challenge such strong prejudices and supporting efforts to prevent/eliminate them is natural for such people (though there will be all sorts of torturous rationals and mystical thinking used to justify it as something ‘logical’ rather than just unreasoning prejudice).
LisaM, I am publishing all four of your comments (submitted on different posts), but will just reiterate the 4thWaveNow comment policy. This blog exists as a place for parents and others as an alternative to the thousands (millions?) of sites that are in accord with the trans activist point of view. I deliberately set up this site because there was nothing like it in existence at the time. In fact, you have a platform all over the Internet, and the regular contributors and commenters here are very well acquainted with views like yours. May I suggest that you read a bit more deeply into our point of view? Because apart from this site, there are very few other places where you’ll have that opportunity, apart from rabidly conservative, homophobic outlets.
If “transgender children” are as rare as claimed, there are an awful lot of children and adolescents being directed on a path towards transition. For example, as of today, there are 14,542 members on a single FTM Facebook page alone, populated primarily by American adolescent children and young adult females either in the process of transitioning or receiving encouragement or advice on how to do so, and all claiming to have the *extremely rare* “gender dysphoria.”
The depathologizing, informed-consent policies being promoted by WPATH and other trans activists remove ALL SAFEGUARDS: no therapy for probable comorbid disorders, no etiology, no questions permitted whatsoever. People suffering from dysphoria or dysmorphia REGARDLESS OF THE CAUSE and REGARDLESS OF THEIR MENTAL STATE at the time will be permitted to make decisions that affect the rest of their lives on the basis of their own self-assessment. This is not care, this medical malpractice.
There is no evidence that transition prevents suicide, and the fact that suicide is even linked to “trans” suggests that there are serious underlying comorbidities that are not being addressed by gender specialists who focus on the presenting problem of gender, and neglect these serious underlying issues. None of the studies that are cited even consider the prevalence of child sexual or physical abuse which frequently backgrounds GD. Further, it is just as likely that trans suicides are linked to the disappointment that many feel after having been convinced that the need for transition would fix their social difficulties or transform them into the fantasy person that they envisioned, only to find out that their problems are not only still there, but exacerbated by the additional social burden of being trans. One need only briefly scan the trans Reddit subs to read of men describing the idealized women they think that they will become –and more importantly, be perceived by others as being.
Many do not consider unverified Internet surveys to be “real” studies. People with a political agenda who leverage suicide as a means by which to attain their goals are at best, biased. Further, rates of suicide are higher for all sexual minorities. Since many of those who have “identified” as trans are in fact, homosexual and bisexual, the results of this self-reporting is incapable of making any real distinction in this regard. Further, the sloppy inquiry into reports of sexual abuse (which is also a contributing factor to PTSD and depression, sometimes severe) among these self-selected cohorts renders them somewhat meaningless with regard to trans-ness. No one bothers to determine WHEN the abuse took place, be it prior to feelings of being “trans,” or afterwards, or whether the abuse had been sustained within the transgender community, itself.
MANY OF THE PEOPLE SPEAKING OUT AGAINST TRANSITIONING CHILDREN ARE PEOPLE WHO EXPERIENCED BOTH DYSPHORIA AND THE RESULTING DYSMORPHIA. There are those who have noted that their dysphoria/dysmorphia was WORSE after transitioning. Stop ignoring this fact.
As it is with religious cult members, it is common for those who “see the light” to present their pasts as having been much worse prior to their newfound belief system. Trans is no different. Cognitive dissonance theory explains this phenomenon quite well: the more difficult the decision made, the more likely one is to overrate the positive factors of the choice that was made and forget its negative considerations while at the same time forgetting all of the positive aspects of the choice not made while giving much greater relevance to the negative aspects of that which was not chosen. This is human nature. Doing so helps us feel comfortable with our decisions, as it reduces regret, helps us more easily come to terms with the negative consequences of what we have done. Considered in such light, it becomes no surprise that those who have transitioned would rate their experience as positive, for to do otherwise is to immerse oneself in the anguish of regret.
http://www.uncommon-knowledge.co.uk/articles/stop-lying.html
Trans narratives as seen through the doctrine of genderists often include references to typical childhood behaviors, such as trying mommy’s nail polish or daddy’s suit coat, as having been significant as an indication of their transsexed nature, and as some sort of “proof” of a life-long condition. Being made fun of for gender non-conformity equally becomes evidence of the “true transsexual” nature of the person making this claim. Being called “girly” or being told that you act “just like a boy” really means something when viewed through this lens.
Those promoting this idea act as if those of us who made different choices couldn’t possibly have suffered as badly because they made different choices. By their definitions, the only people who are trans are those who trans and stay transed, because everyone who didn’t choose transition was obviously “just” gender nonconforming if they took any other route regardless of when. And at the same time, someone who is “truly trans” was ALWAYS trans, regardless of (for example) if they transitioned at 65 after having fathered several children. The narrative is made up as it goes along.
As to the controversy at the Toronto GIC clinic, those of us who criticize child transition have no problem with GNC behavior. We think that humans have different personalities and should be free to express their talents, likes and dislikes without the limitations of gender and gender roles which tie behaviors unrelated to basic sexual reproduction or sexuality to our sexed bodies. We do not believe that children who do not perform culturally assigned gender or sexuality need to change at all or be led to believe that something is wrong with them by either forcing them to conform to social stereotypes or by affirming the idea that something is wrong with their bodies which must be “brought into alignment.” The idea that one should encourage children to believe that in order to “be themselves” they must surgically and hormonally alter their bodies to conform to such archaic social beliefs is an outrage.
Where we do support Zucker is in his total commitment to helping the children explore why they have come to such beliefs, giving them more time to mature and experience love and sex in their own unaltered bodies. We further appreciate his attempts to identify and deal with comorbid disorders that these children might have. We have also noted that with regard to research, he has demonstrated a much higher adherence to scientific method than those clinics advancing SRS and hormone replacement as the default treatment for children in distress. Further, we acknowledge the fact that parents are a significant part of a child’s life, and should be participants in any total therapy administered on children, given the fact that the children need their support and understanding, and also because they are often contributors, in various ways, to children’s feelings of wrongness. A childhood history of sexual and other forms of abuse are frequently cited by those experiencing dysphoria or dysmorphia, and therefore, assessment of parent’s mental health is imperative in understanding these children.
The “gender confirmation” model which WPATH promotes is in fact the ultimate “gay conversion therapy, and even though in the past children who displayed “pre-homosexual” behavior were subjected to behavioral therapy, at least it was a therapy from which they could recover intact.
“I do find it strange why you also want GNC Only behaviour to be stopped as well.” The rest of your comments are premised on this false idea. If you did even a little bit of reading here, you would understand how wrong your assumptions are. Everyone here is well-versed on transsexualism and on GNC. You have said nothing we haven’t heard before. You further make false assumptions about what people commenting here believe, since you haven’t bothered really digging into it. Instead, you rely on your own biased and preconceived notions to tell us what we believe (and you are wrong, dead wrong.) You are not even close to understanding. Please educate yourself before commenting further. When you increase in wisdom, you will follow the adage to “Seek first to understand, and only second, to be understood.”
Yep I certainly was..thank goodness I grew up and came out before surgeries and hormones were fashionable answers to an age old bias…and Feminism came in questioning ALL sex roles
LisaM, I think you missed the whole point of this post.
I am highly doubtful that my attempt to convey my perspective will sway you, but here I go anyway.
I am first and foremost a mom. Just trying to protect my daughter. My views about transgenderism are not based on conservative or religious dogma. I am actually pretty middle of the road when it comes to politics and religion doesn’t influence my beliefs. I have no problem with anyone’s sexual orientation. And I have no problem with those that are gender nonconforming since I, myself, reject many conventionally feminine things.
I’m not about spreading hate. I do believe that you and many others experience(d) severe gender dysphoria. From what I have read it is sounds absolutely miserable and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
What I would like to discuss is how transactivism has/is pressuring therapists to only offer the affirm and accept approach. I think this is a disaster in the making. Patients like my daughter need to be evaluated for the underlying reasons they consider themselves transgender. In the case of my daughter it was found that some traumatic experiences (coupled with depression and anxiety) led her to believe women were weak and subhuman. After exposure to certain social media (more about that later) she was convinced that becoming male was not only a viable option, but that it would alleviate her distress.
As her mother, I just knew that this sudden trans identity was likely due to confusion. Most mothers know their kids very well. And I am tired of people (not you necessarily) telling me that I’m abusive for getting my daughter help so that she could again feel comfortable in her body. I believe that being whole is the best way to be and I try to keep medical interventions (of any kind) to a minimum. This isn’t being bigoted, it is being a good parent.
Have I forced my daughter to conform? NO. She gets to present how she likes and have the interests she likes. And I would never advocate forcing anyone else to conform to stereotypes either.
I wanted also to point out the influence of social media on our children, teens and young adults. Maybe many youth would not be affected by it, but there is a group of kids that are more susceptible to it. They are often the kids that feel different from others. Those that may be homosexual, have co-morbid mental health issues like ASD, OCD, depression, anxiety, have been bullied, and/or are socially awkward.
If you search Tumblr for “FTM” this is what you will come up with:
https://www.tumblr.com/search/ftm
If you search Youtube for “FTM transition” this is what you’ll get:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ftm+transition
And also please stop by the Transgender Reality Blog to see some conversations where confused kids/young adults are led to believe they are transgender because they don’t conform to stereotypes:
http://transgenderreality.com/about/
Please notice the vast amounts of young people. Identifying as transgender has become a trend. There is a lot of encouragement to join in. This has great appeal to our kids that have never felt like they have fit in.
It is dangerous to advocate for laws and guidelines that don’t take this trend into consideration.
I am all for children embracing the bodies they are our naturally born into, but NOT the “assigned gender roles”. THE ROLES ARE THE PROBLEM.The roles are the WHOLE reason so many want to transition, especially girls. Transitioning merely reverses these roles, not eliminating them altogether. That is a conservative Christian point of view “boys will be boys and man up” and girls must learn to be submissive to males and God, wear feminine clothes and not imitate men. There is almost no tolerance for effeminate boys.
By eliminating roles, boys could dress in pink play with dolls and grow their hair or at least not have to constantly be macho proving themselves all the time, learning to fight and compete. They could bake and hang out with girls like so many young gay guys did, or develope musical and artistic abilities, not stay on sports teams if they didnt want to.
Little tomboy gurls like myself could reject dresses, play ice hockey and do maral arts, protect her smaller brother like I did in the mean streets of New York and dream one day of being tn astronaut..or ANYTHING else she wants to be.
If these kids want to be fluid…adopting this trait or that, soft and gentle and vulnerable one day and fierce the next so be it.
I do NOT trust the Medical industry in ANY of these. For YEARS I saw a psychologist as a kid, my family NEVER told me why..but you can but the fact I rejected dolls and dresses and feminine roles and was a hardcore tomboy had somethibg to do with it….but I found something else to feed my true questioning fierce female young Amazon self: FEMINISM!!!
I agree; trans does nothing to challenge gender roles, trans merely chooses to reinforce them.
Personally I dont like either approach. As a hardcore tomboy who hated being female and pressured to.wear dresses and skirts, rejecting dolls at age 7, dresses by age 10 and announcing at age 12 I never wanted a baby or to marry (a man), how did I know these things?
Through the budding Feminist movement and my experiences being treated as “less than” as a girl, I wanted to be a boy and do boy things.
In other words: sexism. And NO I DID NOT WANT A PENIS.
I am ALL FOR girls and women learning to love and accept our bodies. I struggle everyday with it as a large woman. Too often girls and women are victimized in their female bodies, and I was at age 9 when a man attacked me when walking my dog in NYC at Riverside Park. It was one reason I rejected dresses, maybe the MAIN reason. I never felt safe in dresses after that and fought with my family when they pressured me to wear one.
Part of the desire for at least some if not many butch/genderqueer/ftms to transition is BECAUSE of such violation upon their female bodies and Beings. THIS needs to be addressed. The otger aspect is the extreme gender roles which have only gotten more polarized. Observing the toy and vlothing departments in a large retail store I just got done working in for 3 months, the gender divide is alive and well FROM.A VERY YOUNG AGE. Girls get toys, backpacks and clothes that are pepto bismol pink with lavendar and maybe a smattering of turquoise, boys harsher colors, one channeled into cars, adventures, sci fi characters and play at war, the other to domesticity, vanity, dress up and unicorns/fantasy.
So as a girl I rejected dolls, girls clothes, and girls activities. Instead I played ice hockey and entered the martial arts…thos was in the 70d far more taboo then than.now.
Does that mean my ENTIRE ROOM should be changed to reflect MALE LEANINGS, my hair automatically cut short and EVERY vestige of girlyness taken away? To me that is as extreme as my parents DEMANDING I choose a doll for Chanukah even though I hated them, and a dress in a shop for girls and women. Forcing those feminine gender roles ONTO me.
What happened is feminine clothes ended up not getting worm and the dolls ignored in my closet. Instead I played with my spirograph which I loved, made candles with my candle making kit, played piano and still did ice hockey with the boys and then martial arts which became a lifelong niche. Martial arts also greatly helped my self esteem and gave me the ability to physically protect my body which had been violated by that man at 9 years old.
I would like kids to have options and be given gender neutral toys or the toys they prefer. Sierra club sells MANY gender neutral toys. I LOVED my stuffed animals, books and stories.
The sex roles are what needs to be eliminated, the expectations, the training automatically of little girls as Suzy homemaker and boys as GI Joes….we are ALL so much more than that…now little girls can dream.of actually BEING President, or an Astronaut or Construction Worker or Race Car driver.
These kids CHAFE against these imposed roles and girl and boy children are NOT treated equally. Is it any surprise they want to run to the opposite sex because they have different proclivities and dont fit in? And girl children ESPECIALLY when like me, they sense and observe that for the rest of their lives they will be treated as second class citizens just because they are FEMALE. Their opportunities will be limited, much less their power and ability to act in a MALE DOMINATED World.
So LEAVE the kids alone, dont change their bodies or drastically rearrange their rooms or do ANY KIND of reparative therapy, whether putting them.on hormone blockers, opposite sex hormones or slating them for surgeries
BECAUSE they dont conform to societal expectations for a girl or boy. Psychiatry, religion, sexism and social pressures all impinge onmthese kids, as well as parents terribly fearful their children may end up Lesbian or Gay. Just let them BE, and explore and become THEIR OWN persons. Dont force them into EITHER role. Biological sex is REAL…but gendered expectations are all a social construct that lessens ALL of us from developing OUR FULL POTENTIALS, feelings, emotions and creativity.
The rest is ALL reparative therapy, whether shaming them around homosexual feelings, or forcing or pressuring them into EITHER sex role, or to go the route of hormones, hormone blockers or surgeries. Let them develope into their own unique full selves, bodies intact, and at the age of majority, they can then legally make THEIR OWN DECISIONS!!!
These gender clinics, docs and pharmeceuticals are looking to maje a fast buck off all this misery. DONT LET THEM!!
Hear, hear, Feisty Amazon! Thank you for your excellent comment. It is especially moving and powerful because it comes from someone who has been through all of this.
I agree, the fact that Dr. Zucker’s treatment involves taking away opposite gender toys makes me very uncomfortable. I get the idea behind it, exploring the other side I guess but I think children should be allowed to play with whatever toys interest them and parents need to talk about those interests in just a conversational non-gendered way.
My oldest (son) wanted a doll stroller at age 3 because he saw Daddy pushing the stroller just as often as Mommy. (He wheeled his favorite stuffed dog around in it.) I had an old Barbie that ended up in the toybox and Barbie ended up riding around in the Tonka Truck. He liked my nailpolish, but only blue. Not because that’s a boy color but it was his favorite color. He wanted a toy kitchen because he liked helping me at dinnertime. He also wanted a toy lawnmower because he liked helping Dad with yardwork. For him these were just things people around him did and he wanted to do them too.
When people make a big fat deal out of stuff like that then it becomes a big deal. Leave it alone and the kid can just enjoy playing.
Your welcome!!!
I found this very little known, but incredibly well spoken, YouTuber called MiriamAFloat who’s posted about 5 or so vids about his detransition as a former MtF. He says that once you desist WPATH not only has no help to offer but they don’t even know your name. You are no longer trans and therefore they cannot give you (a now cis-person) any further help.
His one video that really gave some good insight to AGP, and why some men transition “CSA, AGP, self-degradation & disphoria among male trans” was both eye opening and heartbreaking. It’s a disgrace that these so called “medical professionals” tout transition as some panacea for everything from Aspergers to childhood abuse.
How have WPATH and other trans organizations managed to bully the medical community into negligence like this? It’s ming boggling!