Trans women are not women (Part 8)

[Meadmaker]

And, background to the above, it sure would make things easier if there was a way to determine that someone is "really trans".

 

[Meadmaker]

Oh...and one more thing. I mentioned ST's position in a previous post. I'm not trying to single out ST. It's an honest position, honestly stated. I'm encouraging others to do the same. In addition to arguing about whether or not this anecdote or that case demonstrates something, what would you like policy to be? How much "gatekeeping" should there be?

 

[Ziggurat]

How much "gatekeeping" should there be?

I'd really like to know this too. I believe Boudicca basically wanted none. Most trans "advocates" won't go that far, at least publicly, but they often refuse to say what they do want.

 

[TomB]

Oh...and one more thing. I mentioned ST's position in a previous post. I'm not trying to single out ST. It's an honest position, honestly stated. I'm encouraging others to do the same. In addition to arguing about whether or not this anecdote or that case demonstrates something, what would you like policy to be? How much "gatekeeping" should there be?

Like most issues in this or practically any topic, these things aren't black and white. That is to say, there are more possible answers than "years and years of evaluation" and "little to no evaluation."

I think, from anecdotal evidence, that it is likely that historically the process required to access treatment and/or legally change genders was excessively long, tedious, and expensive. I also think, again, from anecdotal evidence, that, at least in some cases, the pendulum has swung too far the other way, and some doctors are too fast to give out medical transition treatments.

What we are seeing now, in some of these court cases concerning doctors who gave medications with little consultation is a bit of a correction. It's true that these cases suggest there are standards that are being enforced when brought to the attention of the authorities. It also appears to be true that people on both sides seem to doctor shop for practitioners that will give them what they want.

I guess I would say that the best available diagnostic practices should be used in the most expeditious manner possible. A few minutes, or even a session or two is likely too little to make a good diagnosis in most cases. But stringing someone along for years is likely excessive.

Unfortunately, psychology is hard. You can't (usually) make a diagnosis based on empirical physical evidence. But you should be as thorough as reasonably possible. A non-diagnosis is bad, but so is a wrong diagnosis.

At the same time, given the non-empirical nature of psychology, it's not reasonable to expect perfection in diagnoses.

I don't like the term gatekeeping, but I think the process should be thorough, but not to the point of being burdensome.

 

[LondonJohn]

And, background to the above, it sure would make things easier if there was a way to determine that someone is "really trans".

I would venture to suggest that the vast majority of people who identify as transgender are "really trans".

Furthermore, I'd suggest that in the case of people born male who subsequently identify as transwomen, almost all of them have a sincere desire to do so.

Why do I think this? Well, because societal males in "westernised" nations are culturally conditioned to consider males to be generally more dominant and powerful than females. As such, I believe that it would be extremely uncommon for a heterosexual male in particular to wish to identify as a transwoman.

And I believe this also informs the whole "cismen masquerading as transwomen in order to do hideous things to ciswomen" issue. Heterosexual males who assault/rape/kill females typically do so precisely in order to fulfil a warped sense of Alpha-male domination, power and control over the ciswoman they're attacking. And I'd strongly argue that this - by definition - means that only an extremely small number of males who potentially pose danger to females would ever wish to emasculate themselves by masquerading as a transwoman.

I don't know whether any qualitative or quantitative research into this issue has been conducted and published - but even if there's currently no such research, it won't be long until we're able to get valid data from the real world acts (or absence of acts) of transwomen (and transmen). I hope my hypothesis is right... but if it's not correct, and attacks by transwomen against females in women-only spaces started becoming more than mere statistical outliers, then obviously there would then need to be a pretty urgent reconsideration of policy in this area.

 

[LondonJohn]

If things were working the way we would like them to, I would agree with you.

The problem is that schools are actively teaching gender ideology, indoctrinating children to believe that they can choose what sex they want to be, telling them that it's safe and normal for children to switch sexes, and creating confusion among them. Keeping it secret from parents reinforces that distrust of parents across the board and entrenches this ideology.

I - and almost all clinicians and lawmakers - disagree with your rather loaded evaluation.

The whole point of teaching school-age children about this sort of stuff (starting at an age that's deemed appropriate & proportionate by the experts) is 1) to (try to) ensure that the teens of today take an inclusive, kind & accepting view of everyone's gender identity (and sexuality as well); and 2) to (try to) assure any pupils who might be struggling with gender dysphoria, especially if they're keeping it a secret, that it's OK to feel that way and that professional assistance is available. And the name of the game is most certainly not to "indoctrinate children to believe that they can choose what sex they want to be" (though your words here are interesting and telling, in and of themselves...)

I think that the only people who are trying to make your argument - along the lines of "teaching this stuff in school either confuses the pupils or somehow incites them to question their own gender identity" - are espousing yet another Reefer-Madness-style Domesday scenario. And as I said, the actual experts in this field disagree. I remember similar howls of protest when schoolchildren first started getting taught about sexuality. Hmmmm, I wonder if the mini-apocalypse ("you'll indoctrinate our fine upstanding straight children into turning gay!!") came true then as well.........?

 

[Rolfe]

Twitter thread about another medical practitioner cashing in on the trans craze - Sidhbh Gallagher.

https://twitter.com/Lorna9100M/status/1514713591701725185

 

[Emily's Cat]

I must agree with Darat on this one, at least partially. (Don't be concerned. I'll get to the disagreement soon enough.)

He's right, though. The examples presented show that in the UK, there are at least some standards, and there is at least some enforcement of the standards.

The question is what happens in a "regular" case. Is the screening adequate? I think the answer is that there is a lot of study of this issue and a lot of places have concluded that people are way too quick to decide that someone is really trans and to begin life altering medical treatment.

The standards are relatively new, and have come about after the Tavistock suit. That some people are just now FINALLY being held accountable for gross negligence as doctors isn't somehow support for the assertion that these are outlier events. All you need to do is look at the Tavistock case, and the recent CASS review, as well as the findings from Finland and from Sweden's Karolinska Institute to understand that the rapid escalation to affirm rather than evaluate has been wide-spread and is not clinically sound.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I - and almost all clinicians and lawmakers - disagree with your rather loaded evaluation.

The whole point of teaching school-age children about this sort of stuff (starting at an age that's deemed appropriate & proportionate by the experts) is 1) to (try to) ensure that the teens of today take an inclusive, kind & accepting view of everyone's gender identity (and sexuality as well); and 2) to (try to) assure any pupils who might be struggling with gender dysphoria, especially if they're keeping it a secret, that it's OK to feel that way and that professional assistance is available. And the name of the game is most certainly not to "indoctrinate children to believe that they can choose what sex they want to be" (though your words here are interesting and telling, in and of themselves...)

I think that the only people who are trying to make your argument - along the lines of "teaching this stuff in school either confuses the pupils or somehow incites them to question their own gender identity" - are espousing yet another Reefer-Madness-style Domesday scenario. And as I said, the actual experts in this field disagree. I remember similar howls of protest when schoolchildren first started getting taught about sexuality. Hmmmm, I wonder if the mini-apocalypse ("you'll indoctrinate our fine upstanding straight children into turning gay!!") came true then as well.........?

First question: What age do you think is appropriate for children to be taught about sexuality? Let's assume this is more in depth from "Tommy has two daddies and that's okay".

Second question: At what age do you think children have a concrete understanding of the differences between the sexes?

Third question: Exactly which "clinicians and lawmakers" are you referring to? Do they include clinicians and lawmakers from Sweden or Finland or the UK by chance?

 

[The Atheist]

It's probably worth asking why trans care in the NHS is in such shortage that so many patients are relying on such sketchy online clinicians.

What do trans children whose families are too poor to access care do in USA?

 

[Darat]

How can you separate these two aspects? They "help and support kids" into irreversible body-altering medications and surgery. They are not interested in helping children talk through their issues and perhaps decide that transitioning is not for them, they are only interested in pushing every child they come in contact with into social transition, puberty blockers, breast binding, genital tucking, wrong-sex hormones and mutilating surgery.

That's the help and support they offer. That's what you're supporting?

If you think that is all they do and all they advocate then you are mistaken about the organisation.

 

[Darat]

I must agree with Darat on this one, at least partially. (Don't be concerned. I'll get to the disagreement soon enough.)

He's right, though. The examples presented show that in the UK, there are at least some standards, and there is at least some enforcement of the standards.

The question is what happens in a "regular" case. Is the screening adequate? I think the answer is that there is a lot of study of this issue and a lot of places have concluded that people are way too quick to decide that someone is really trans and to begin life altering medical treatment.

In the US, there is effectively no impediment to medical transition once someone reaches their 18th birthday, and trans rights activists want it that way....snip...

Don't you want it that way as well? The only way I can see not having it that way in anything like a country with the usual human rights is to declare all adult trans people incompetent of making decisions for themselves. And that really would worry me, I know people, rather I knew they are now dead, who that happened to because the majority of folks considered them mentally ill.

Whilst I think there should be regulations, ethics and controls for all medical practitioners and their treatments I can't think of any way of removing self-determination for adults who consider themselves trans that doesn't make a mockery of the idea of self-determination.

 

[Darat]

I'd really like to know this too. I believe Boudicca basically wanted none. Most trans "advocates" won't go that far, at least publicly, but they often refuse to say what they do want.

Apart from the starting of "puberty blockers" in children (which albeit is meant to be an exception in the guidelines but I don't think we have the research in place to make such a gross intervention in a child's maturity) I do think NHS England has a good roadmap. See:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/treatment/

(Obviously, that is the ideal and given the years of damaging cuts to our NHSs I bet hardly anyone can access the full range of treatment but that's a different point.)

 

[Darat]

And, background to the above, it sure would make things easier if there was a way to determine that someone is "really trans".

Agreed.

I although I absolutely despise and detest the new "Q" added to the older LGBT (that word for me has so much emotional baggage and to see it being used by people who are not homosexual really punches me in the gut) I think it may be helpful to kids. I do believe gender dysmorphia is real, but I also know that many kids are confused about their gender/sexuality/and-everything-else-as-teenagers and giving them a way to identify as different without any other expectations attached to it is probably useful.

 

[Meadmaker]

Don't you want it that way as well? The only way I can see not having it that way in anything like a country with the usual human rights is to declare all adult trans people incompetent of making decisions for themselves. And that really would worry me, I know people, rather I knew they are now dead, who that happened to because the majority of folks considered them mentally ill.

Whilst I think there should be regulations, ethics and controls for all medical practitioners and their treatments I can't think of any way of removing self-determination for adults who consider themselves trans that doesn't make a mockery of the idea of self-determination.

All good points, but the short answer to your first question is "no".

Now for a slightly longer answer.

People don't always like hearing this, but "gender affirming" procedures take perfectly functional human organs, and turn them into non-functional organs. I think any time that happens, there needs to be at least some form of constraint on the doctors to ensure that there is a medically justifiable reason for performing the procedure.

I understand that this applies to all sorts of other procedures as well, so let's take two other situations where this principle could be applied. If someone comes into a doctor's office and says he wants to have a leg amputated, I think it's reasonable to say that a doctor is simply not allowed to perform that surgery unless there is some genuinely medically necessary reason for the surgery. The burden of proof needs to be on the doctor to show that this procedure has medical benefit. "I want it", doesn't cut it.

On the opposite extreme, a vasectomy renders an organ inoperable, too. Using my principle, the doctor would have to ensure that there is a medically justifiable reason for performing the procedure. In that case, though, a statement that "I don't want kids." might be enough.

As it turns out, there are no restrictions (that I am aware of) for performing a vasectomy on an 18 year old, but doctors may refuse to do so based on their judgement.

A sex change operation (as they used to be called) is somewhere in between a vasectomy and a voluntary leg amputation. As such, the restrictions on performing the procedure should be somewhere in the middle as well. Voluntary leg amputations are pretty much completely prohibited, with no regard for self determination or patient desires. Vasectomies are pretty much unrestricted for anyone 18 or older, although doctors may refuse to do the procedure on young people. The "somewhere in the middle" that I would think ought to be required for "gender affirming" medical treatment is some sort of psychological evaluation that determines there would be medical improvements that justify the procedure. I'm ok with the fact that this is a limit on self determination, just as I'm ok with the fact that we restrict voluntary leg amputation, or voluntary life termination. I think there are some times when it's ok to make patients jump through some hoops.

 

[Darat]

...snip.... I'm ok with the fact that this is a limit on self determination, just as I'm ok with the fact that we restrict voluntary leg amputation, or voluntary life termination. I think there are some times when it's ok to make patients jump through some hoops.

You seem to have missed my second paragraph:

Whilst I think there should be regulations, ethics and controls for all medical practitioners and their treatments I can't think of any way of removing self-determination for adults who consider themselves trans that doesn't make a mockery of the idea of self-determination.​

All you are saying is that there "should be regulations, ethics and controls for all medical partitioners" - which is what I said....

 

[Meadmaker]

In the US, there is effectively no impediment to medical transition once someone reaches their 18th birthday, and trans rights activists want it that way.

Don't you want it that way as well?

All good points, but the short answer to your first question is "no".

You seem to have missed my second paragraph:

Whilst I think there should be regulations, ethics and controls for all medical practitioners and their treatments I can't think of any way of removing self-determination for adults who consider themselves trans that doesn't make a mockery of the idea of self-determination.​

All you are saying is that there "should be regulations, ethics and controls for all medical partitioners" - which is what I said....

I'm glad we agree.

 

[Ziggurat]

Apart from the starting of "puberty blockers" in children (which albeit is meant to be an exception in the guidelines but I don't think we have the research in place to make such a gross intervention in a child's maturity) I do think NHS England has a good roadmap. See:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/treatment/

(Obviously, that is the ideal and given the years of damaging cuts to our NHSs I bet hardly anyone can access the full range of treatment but that's a different point.)

This doesn’t really answer my question. In particular, there is no description of how evaluations are actually done and what standards are used. Who gets denied treatment, if anyone, and on what basis? How do they try to weed out people who actually need something other than transitioning?

I am glad that it states the long term effects of hormone treatment are unknown, but I see that your source also repeats the lie that the effects of puberty blockers are reversible. No, they are not. There is no evidence for this widely told lie. And it absolutely is a lie. The effects are small if only taken for a short time, but almost everyone put on them stays on them for a long time. And the effects are permanent. Normal puberty does not resume if you take puberty blockers from 13 to 16.

 

[Matthew Best]

A transgender psychologist has helped hundreds of teens transition. But rising numbers have her concerned [LA Times]

In early 2021, Anderson logged into a Zoom meeting with a team of experts at UC San Francisco to meet a new patient and his family.

He was 13, and about two months earlier he had started identifying as male. According to his parents, it wasn’t until puberty that he had shown any sign of distress over gender.

A pediatrician had already put him on testosterone, even though he had not met with a psychologist.

“Why is this kid on testosterone so precipitously?” Anderson asked her colleagues.

“Being trans or gender diverse is not a mental illness, and compulsory psychotherapy is not the standard of care in the gender-affirming medical model,” said Dr. AJ Eckert, medical director of the Gender and Life-Affirming Medicine Program at the Anchor Health Initiative in Stamford, Conn., and the state’s first out nonbinary trans doctor.

“Forcing transgender and gender diverse youth through extensive assessments while their cis peers are affirmed in their identity without question conveys to [them] that they are not ‘normal,’ ” they said.

 

[Elaedith]

A transgender psychologist has helped hundreds of teens transition. But rising numbers have her concerned [LA Times]

Yes, Anderson is the same transgender therapist linked to little over a month ago, although a different article: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=13746635#post13746635

Note I provided evidence in response to a similar claim already in the post above. It was ignored. Over and over again, the arguments and claims made by gender identity ideology enthusiasts are refuted, the evidence is ignored, then the same assertion is made again a few weeks later. It's like they think if you just keep repeating stuff over and over again eventually it becomes true. Unfortunately, it is true that you can make people believe something without evidence just by repeating it over and over. Not something one expects to find on a sceptical site though.