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Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)

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I used to have some connection to psychotherapists at the Tavistock who came into psychotherapy in the 70s. They were heavily connected to the Oxford New Left and Cultural Studies. I remember in the 90s having conversations with a couple of them about the challenge of testing psychoanalytic theories. Effectively the majority view was remarkably similar to the kind of opinions expressed by homeopaths and chiropractors on this forum... the treatments were so personalised and dependent on the relationship between therapist and patient, that they couldn't be tested. My impression is that much of what the Tavistock is built on is actively opposed to the idea of evidence based medicine. Many of the same people were connected to similar debates on the New Left about the privileging of theory.


That is interesting. Before all this my only reference point for the Tavistock was a short scene in my favourite TV show of all time, "A Very Peculiar Practice" (1986-88). In this scene the senior GP partner Jock, who was drunk, was accusing the young and idealistic Stephen of being "one of these Tavi chaps", obviously having no good opinion at all of the pie-in-the-sky trendy leftie mindset of the Tavistock practitioners.
 
That is interesting. Before all this my only reference point for the Tavistock was a short scene in my favourite TV show of all time, "A Very Peculiar Practice" (1986-88). In this scene the senior GP partner Jock, who was drunk, was accusing the young and idealistic Stephen of being "one of these Tavi chaps", obviously having no good opinion at all of the pie-in-the-sky trendy leftie mindset of the Tavistock practitioners.
Well it only took three decades for the NHS to start turning the ship around by clarifying the need for an adequate evidence base.
 
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You don't have an argument that it makes things better, though.
I mean, I do.

But what I'm objecting to is idea that this should be an adversarial affair, where we do not impartially look over the evidence but accept every account of an adverse effect, no matter how implausible or unevidenced, and then wait for someone else to come along to catalog any potential benefits, no matter how implausible or unevidenced. This is obviously not the way to proceed.
 
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That is interesting. Before all this my only reference point for the Tavistock was a short scene in my favourite TV show of all time, "A Very Peculiar Practice" (1986-88). In this scene the senior GP partner Jock, who was drunk, was accusing the young and idealistic Stephen of being "one of these Tavi chaps", obviously having no good opinion at all of the pie-in-the-sky trendy leftie mindset of the Tavistock practitioners.
It started out in the interwar period. You've got different periods of intellectual development that mirrors the Left in the UK. You've got an early period where it is quite aristocratic. People connected to Freud, the treatment of survivors of WW1. You might want to check into Bion an his daughter Parthenope, just to get an idea of the kind of people in the early Tavistock.

You then have Freud coming over and dying in Hampstead. All that got absorbed by the NHS. In the 60s/70s things shift over to the New Left. In the 2000s things then shifted to a new generation. I think it maybe became more managerial. Gender dysphoria became the big growth area for them.
 
I mean, I do.

But what I'm objecting to is idea that this should be an adversarial affair, where we do not impartially look over the evidence but accept every account of an adverse effect, no matter how implausible or unevidenced, and then wait for someone else to come along to catalog any potential benefits, no matter how implausible or unevidenced. This is obviously not the way to proceed.

The thread runs along libertarian lines. Nothing stops you from doing exactly what you propose, if you believe the thread needs more of that and less of the other thing.

Honestly I was a lot less polarized at the beginning of this discussion. I kinda figured that transwomen were women pretty much across the board. I had some misgivings about certain areas of sex segregation, and I looked forward to seeing the more informed and invested trans-inclusionists address those concerns with the best reasoning and science they could muster.

Instead, though, their response has only deepened my concerns, and led me to the conclusion that there is very little science and reasoning at all, behind the trans-inclusionist view of those concerns.

If you don't like the adversarial mode, stop being adversarial. If you think we should take a more balanced approach, and you have a more balanced approach in mind, lead the way. If you have science that says prescribing puberty blockers to prepubescent children diagnosed with gender dysphoria does more good than harm, cite it.

As far as I know, there is no good science that says that it's helpful to diagnose prepubescent children with gender dysphoria, that it's better to intervene than to let normal puberty progress, and that the long-term benefits of such treatment outweigh the long-term detriments. So for me it's less a matter of being "adversarial" and more a matter of thinking there's only one really rational way to look at it. If you have another rational way to look at it, that would greatly lessen my "adversarial" position on the subject.
 
I thought he was just another across-the-pond journo until just now.

He is the Wokiest of the Woke with a capital W, morally grandstanding 'speech has consequences' bully, questioning the narrative is literal violence, JK Rowling is evil etc. I would probably agree with his opinions on many social issues, but he has gone way down the authoritarian Critical Social Justice cult path.

Then he said something that wasn't quite ideologically pure. I think it started when Helen Joyce said that we should try to reduce the number of people medically transitioning, and was immediately accused of advocating eugenics (which a lot of people seem to be conflating with genocide - somebody who was advocating eugenics would surely encourage medical transition because it sterilizes people).

OJ said something about not over-reacting and mentioned detransitioners, and then got a massive pile-on accusing him of being a Nazi and literally condoning eugenics/genocide etc. Then he complained about being frustrated at false claims being accepted as truth on social media, with a total lack of irony or self-reflection.

Some of us find it amusing. These people will always end up turning on each other.

ETA. I think he did actually condemn Helen Joyce, just not strongly enough. He said it was 'chilling' but denied that it was advocating genocide or something. Big mistake. Always use words like 'genocide' 'fascist' etc to be safe.

That's just my rough understanding. I haven't bothered looking up exactly what he said. Everyone will eventually fail to be ideologically pure enough no matter how safe they think they are.
 
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I can't avoid associating this abbreviation with someone else.



"Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children" - Jacques Mallet du Pan

I think comparing twitter squabbling to a revolution would be sin serious enough for the French to feed you into a guillotine.

Getting into tedious debates and working yourself into a furor is why Twitter exists. Gonna have to play the "touch grass" card on this one. Twitter slapfights aren't real life*

*Unless you're Graham Linehan and decide to piss away your whole personal life over it. I guess if you try hard enough, you can make it real.
 
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Getting into tedious debates and working yourself into a furor is why Twitter exists. Gonna have to play the "touch grass" card on this one. Twitter slapfights aren't real life*

You say that like this dynamic is confined to Twitter. It isn't. And for some reason (well, probably because they're largely immature narcissists), journalists in particular seem to treat Twitter as if it was real, so there can in fact be significant real-world consequences for journalists to what happens on Twitter. Maybe there shouldn't be, but there often are.
 
I think comparing twitter squabbling to a revolution would be sin serious enough for the French to feed you into a guillotine.

Getting into tedious debates and working yourself into a furor is why Twitter exists. Gonna have to play the "touch grass" card on this one. Twitter slapfights aren't real life*

*Unless you're Graham Linehan and decide to piss away your whole personal life over it. I guess if you try hard enough, you can make it real.

The revolution and its failure modes are fractal.
 
You say that like this dynamic is confined to Twitter. It isn't. And for some reason (well, probably because they're largely immature narcissists), journalists in particular seem to treat Twitter as if it was real, so there can in fact be significant real-world consequences for journalists to what happens on Twitter. Maybe there shouldn't be, but there often are.

Well, is this one such time?

We can all cite twitter weirdos aggravated about this or that topic until the cows come home. My point is that pointing to a bunch of weirdos slapfighting on twitter is not very instructive.

Perhaps this twitter spat is a reflection of something happening in the broader world, perhaps not. Seems like something that ought to be demonstrated before going any further.
 
If you don't like the adversarial mode, stop being adversarial.
I haven't been, at least not in the sense I mean. I have not played the part of the "trans activist", and I don't intend to.

As far as I know, there is no good science that says that it's helpful to diagnose prepubescent children with gender dysphoria
Why would you expect a diagnosis to be helpful?

that it's better to intervene than to let normal puberty progress, and that the long-term benefits of such treatment outweigh the long-term detriments. So for me it's less a matter of being "adversarial" and more a matter of thinking there's only one really rational way to look at it. If you have another rational way to look at it, that would greatly lessen my "adversarial" position on the subject.
Here's a recent overview of the evidence commissioned by Florida's AHCA:

https://ahca.myflorida.com/letkidsbekids/docs/AHCA_GAPMS_June_2022_Attachment_C.pdf

Here's a relatively recent longitudinal study that looks at the mental health consequences of puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2789423
 
Here's a relatively recent longitudinal study that looks at the mental health consequences of puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2789423

Funnily enough, that is one I was meaning to use as an example of a study in this area that misrepresents findings - only I am still working though it and the critiques.

Anyway, here is Jesse Singal's take:
Researchers Found Puberty Blockers And Hormones Didn’t Improve Trans Kids’ Mental Health At Their Clinic. Then They Published A Study Claiming The Opposite.
 
...journalists in particular seem to treat Twitter as if it was real, so there can in fact be significant real-world consequences for journalists to what happens on Twitter. Maybe there shouldn't be, but there often are.
Dave Weigel has joined the chat.
 
Funnily enough, that is one I was meaning to use as an example of a study in this area that misrepresents findings - only I am still working though it and the critiques.
Haven't finished Singal's take, but yeah, I agree they're misrepresenting their findings.
 
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