Cont: Transwomen are not women - part 13

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I'd've thought the goal was to alleviate the symptoms of gender dysphoria...?

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theprestige said:
There's a huge begged question there, that the goal of transitioning is to successfully pass as the opposite sex, in everyday conditions.
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d4m10n said:
I'd've thought the goal was to alleviate the symptoms of gender dysphoria...?
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The argument is probably that being able to pass is what will alleviate the dysphoria. And that might be true for some people, but yeah, it's worth examining that in detail, and on a case by case basis too, rather than simply assume it.
 
theprestige said:
It occurs to me that alleviating the symptoms of gender dysphoria makes a transwoman not a woman by definition.
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I don't think you can escape the definitional games that easily. The counter-argument is probably that if you take a cis woman and make her look like a man, that will induce distress.

I still favor a definition where a transwoman isn't a woman, but you can still make definitions where they are. I don't think they are good definitions, and often the ones on offer are simply circular, but it's not impossible to make one that's not.
 
There is a new analysis of the Tavistock study on puberty blockers, which originally found no change in mental health based on averages scores in the sample over one - three years.

The new analysis looks at the mental health trajectories of individual participants in the sample using standard measure of reliable change and clinically significant change. According to this BBC article, 34% saw their mental health deteriorate, while 29% improved.

The research is available here (not yet peer-reviewed).

I'm having a look through it because it's a bit more complicated that the BBC article suggests, since they used too different indices of improvement and multiple outcome measures. I can't immediately reconcile the 29% improvement mentioned in the BBC article with what's in the paper but haven't had time to read through it carefully yet. The authors state "....this secondary analysis of Reliable and Clinically Significant Change of the UK GIDS data indicates that, broadly speaking, for Internalising and Externalising Problems, 56%-68% experience no reliable change in distress across time points and although there is some variation, proportions do not appear markedly different between self-report and parent-report. Between 15% and 29% deteriorate; and between 9% and 20% reliably improve. The Total Problems scale shows higher proportions deteriorating (20%-34% depending on time point). "

None of this seems very meaningful because there is no way to distinguish any treatment effects from variation in mental health due to other factors with this design or analysis. However, the authors seem to be suggesting that this approach is useful for addressing studies that have low sample sizes like this one, and therefore low power to detect effects.
 
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d4m10n said:
New polling shows minority support for political intervention in gender medicine

https://twitter.com/AmandaBecker/status/1704122599180038310



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At least in the US, the tail is wagging the right wing dog. Anti-abortion and anti-LGBT policies are proven losers for the general public, but that's the litmus test all right wing politicians must pass to thrive in their chosen political party.
 
d4m10n said:
New polling shows minority support for political intervention in gender medicine

https://twitter.com/AmandaBecker/status/1704122599180038310
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Seems kind of a stretch to tie the two issues of abortion and puberty blockers for kids together under the "bodily autonomy" label. And some of the responses make me question whether this is just people expressing a (sensible) distrust of politicians to understand medical issues. Consider this from the linked article:

Marc Haughaboo, 51, a Republican who lives near Anchorage, Alaska, said he is a retired psychologist who worked with some children who identified as trangender. Haughaboo said he believes these children should receive “follow-up and psychiatric help,” but shouldn’t have access to treatment that could have life-long implications. He said he was distrustful that politicians would make informed policies. “They just don't educate themselves,” he said.
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So he's squarely against the puberty blockers, he just doesn't trust politicians to craft the right legislation.

Here's a Democrat:

Allison said she somewhat opposes gender-affirming care for minors but also strongly disagrees that politicians have enough information to make fair policy on the issue.
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Keep in mind, these are examples that supposedly prove how unpopular the current crop of bills (which are mostly aimed at minors) are going to be with the voters. Even though they generally agree with the thrust of the bills.
 
Brainster said:
Seems kind of a stretch to tie the two issues of abortion and puberty blockers for kids together under the "bodily autonomy" label. And some of the responses make me question whether this is just people expressing a (sensible) distrust of politicians to understand medical issues. Consider this from the linked article:



So he's squarely against the puberty blockers, he just doesn't trust politicians to craft the right legislation.

Here's a Democrat:



Keep in mind, these are examples that supposedly prove how unpopular the current crop of bills (which are mostly aimed at minors) are going to be with the voters. Even though they generally agree with the thrust of the bills.
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Allison went on to say:

Allison said that after answering the poll she started researching gender-affirming care for minors and was “crestfallen” to discover high suicide rates among transgender youth. “I would much rather it be unrestricted and have them have this surgery and still be alive,” she said.

So there must have been a suicide epidemic amongst youth for the 50,000 years before treatment was available that went unnoticed.
It must go something like:
Let us find a new mental health condition that is treatable, then snatch the treatment away, and watch the suicide rate among youth soar.
I know that sounds cynical, but it should be easy to extract youth suicide data to prove it has reduced since gender affirming "care" was discovered.
 
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Samson said:
Allison went on to say:

Allison said that after answering the poll she started researching gender-affirming care for minors and was “crestfallen” to discover high suicide rates among transgender youth. “I would much rather it be unrestricted and have them have this surgery and still be alive,” she said.

So there must have been a suicide epidemic amongst youth for the 50,000 years before treatment was available that went unnoticed.
It must go something like:
Let us find a new mental health condition that is treatable, then snatch the treatment away, and watch the suicide rate among youth soar.
I know that sounds cynical, but it should be easy to extract youth suicide data to prove it has reduced since gender affirming "care" was discovered.
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You're joking, right? Teens and young adults are notorious for high risks of suicide specifically.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
Teens and young adults are notorious for high risks of suicide specifically.
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Should we expect lower rates among OECD nations which provide exemplary access to the endocrine treatment pathway?

Brainster said:
So he's squarely against the puberty blockers, he just doesn't trust politicians to craft the right legislation.
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This strikes me as a reasonable position; lawmakers cannot be expected to keep up with research results, whether those are trending towards more and earlier medical interventions or trending the other way.

Elaedith said:
There is a new analysis of the Tavistock study on puberty blockers, which originally found no change in mental health based on averages scores in the sample over one - three years.
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Thanks for the link to this one; love me some preprints. :)
 
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TurkeysGhost said:
You're joking, right? Teens and young adults are notorious for high risks of suicide specifically.
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If teens in generally are at a high risk of suicide, then what's special about trans teens? Are they really at higher risk?

I keep seeing those plots of left handedness over time being used to suggest that the true rate of trans identity hasn't changed, only our willingness to recognize it. If that's true, if trans identity isn't induced by environmental factors, then what happened to all those trans teens in the past? Were large numbers of them really killing themselves? If trans teens have a significantly higher rate than teens in general, and treatment alleviates that risk, then do we see a drop in suicides as treatment has become widely available?
 
d4m10n said:
Should we expect lower rates among OECD nations which provide exemplary access to the endocrine treatment pathway?
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Doubt it, the trans population is tiny and the issue of poor mental health and suicidality in teens is a general one.

I was merely laughing at Samson's seeming ignorance of the issue of teen and young adult mental health problems.
 
With teens having a higher rate for suicide, seems the worst we can do is tell them they were born in the wrong body.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
Doubt it, the trans population is tiny and the issue of poor mental health and suicidality in teens is a general one.
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"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."

And we see that in action here. Poor mental health and suicidality is indeed a general problem among teenagers. Given how many trans teens have comorbidities, how much of their elevated suicide risk actually comes from being trans and not medically transitioning? How much does medical transition lower that risk, and how much would therapy instead lower it?

There's no good data showing that medical transition is the appropriate treatment for kids. And the oft-repeated suggestion that parents should medically transition their children or risk them dying isn't supported by evidence.
 
Trausti said:
With teens having a higher rate for suicide, seems the worst we can do is tell them they were born in the wrong body.
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It's worse than that. We're telling them that killing themselves if they don't medically transition is the appropriate response.
 
Ziggurat said:
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."

And we see that in action here. Poor mental health and suicidality is indeed a general problem among teenagers. Given how many trans teens have comorbidities, how much of their elevated suicide risk actually comes from being trans and not medically transitioning? How much does medical transition lower that risk, and how much would therapy instead lower it?

There's no good data showing that medical transition is the appropriate treatment for kids. And the oft-repeated suggestion that parents should medically transition their children or risk them dying isn't supported by evidence.
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This is the problem with the affirmation model. Nothing else is ruled out. Nothing else on the differential diagnoses. It’s malpractice.
 
Teens living in rural communities have almost twice the suicide rate of teens living in the city and liberals aren't crying any tears for them.

Men die by suicide at substantial greater rates then women and this is not being treated as a problem to be solved.

"Suicide Rates" is another red herring/selective caring thing.

It's not NOT an issue, "Nobody should be killing themselves just because they don't feel like they belong" is hopefully not a controversial statement even among this cast of colorful characters, but it's not the "Mic drop" it's being treated is.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Teens living in rural communities have almost twice the suicide rate of teens living in the city and liberals aren't crying any tears for them.

Men die by suicide at substantial greater rates then women and this is not being treated as a problem to be solved.

"Suicide Rates" is another red herring/selective caring thing.

It's not NOT an issue, "Nobody should be killing themselves just because they don't feel like they belong" is hopefully not a controversial statement even among this cast of colorful characters, but it's not the "Mic drop" it's being treated is.
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The focus on suicide and poor mental health of trans people generally is directly related to the question of whether nor not trans affirming care is medical care vs something more akin to entirely optional cosmetic surgery. As far as I can tell there's not exactly a consensus on whether medicalizing the issue is really the correct way to view the larger issue of trans rights, even among good-faith, non-bigoted people. I would say it's only one facet of a larger issue.

A lot of this is very context dependent, like in the UK where a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria is a necessary precondition for gender recognition, thus casting the entire issue in a medical light, vs other countries that do not gatekeep trans right in this way.

Edit: thanks Darat, an important correction.
 
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