Cass Report

[d4m10n]

If you want to make the case that "reality wasn't clearly explained ahead of time" to some young patients please feel free, but I don't think imprecise language is necessarily the culprit you think it is compared to omission and wishful thinking. I think what it happening here is that people just enjoy policing wrongthink, and one way to do that is to demand they use politically correct phrases.

 

[theprestige]

If you want to make the case that "reality wasn't clearly explained ahead of time" to some young patients please feel free,

That was never my claim.

but I don't think imprecise language is necessarily the culprit you think it is compared to omission and wishful thinking.

I never claimed it was a culprit. It's now clear that you've been misunderstanding my thesis this whole time. And it's also clear that you've chosen to continue to misunderstanding it, even though I already explained that my position is one of proactive risk avoidance.

I think what it happening here is that people just enjoy policing wrongthink, and one way to do that is to demand they use politically correct phrases.

And I think you're just too in love with that predetermined conclusion to consider alternative interpretations.

 

[d4m10n]

I already explained that my position is one of proactive risk avoidance.

The context of the discussion matters here.

If you were trying to avoid risk at Tavistock or some other purveyor of gender medicine, I might well take your point.

As it stands, you are policing language on a skeptic discussion board, which an obvious attempt to tilt the playing field in your favor rather than anything resembling a practical attempt to mitigate risks to actual patients.

 

[Rolfe]

This detransitioner doesn't say anything about being told she would go through male puberty, but it is a damning indictment of the failure to gain informed consent.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2032080545648091188

It's also notable that she says the usual time for detransitioning is five to eight years after transition. Before that, the patient still feels they did the right thing. But the "pathways" trial only proposes a two-year follow-up period.

 

[Ziggurat]

If you were trying to avoid risk at Tavistock or some other purveyor of gender medicine, I might well take your point.

As it stands, you are policing language on a skeptic discussion board, which an obvious attempt to tilt the playing field in your favor rather than anything resembling a practical attempt to mitigate risks to actual patients.

Wait, what?

Your previous objection was that nobody had provided evidence that a female minor trans patient had been deceived by the term "trans puberty". So YOU were the one trying to restrict the context to only gender medicine providers. Now you're saying that the context is broader, but if the context is broader, the standard you previously tried to apply doesn't make sense.

At this point, it looks a lot like you're just making excuses. The only reason you've given that makes any sense is that you've learned this terminology and don't want to have to learn other terminology. Which isn't a very good reason, but at least it makes sense.

 

[d4m10n]

So YOU were the one trying to restrict the context to only gender medicine providers

The topic of the thread is youth gender medicine, so yes. When @theprestige asked "What are the consequences if even one person is deceived?" I took it to mean the consequences to young patients rather than, say, the consequences to those arguing about this topic online.

Your previous objection was that nobody had provided evidence that a female minor trans patient had been deceived by the term "trans puberty".

I doubt whether anyone, anywhere has ever been deceived by that language but I'm happy to consider evidence—rather than speculation—to the contrary.

The only reason you've given that makes any sense is that you've learned this terminology and don't want to have to learn other terminology.

This is a mischaracterization of what I wrote: I've already had to learn both sets of terminology just to get by in culture war threads, and all I ask is that wokescolds and anti-woke scolds don't continually try to police my language here at ISF by demanding their own preferred phrasing over the other phrasing for every damn concept touching on gender. It is tiresome, counterproductive, and drives out diversity of ideas.

 

[Ziggurat]

This is a mischaracterization of what I wrote: I've already had to learn both sets of terminology just to get by in culture war threads, and all I ask is that wokescolds and anti-woke scolds don't continually try to police my language here at ISF by demanding their own preferred phrasing over the other phrasing for every damn concept touching on gender. It is tiresome, counterproductive, and drives out diversity of ideas.

Except that's NOT all you're asking for. You're moving your own goalposts again. Let's recall how this started. Rolfe was arguing with someone else (not you) and made the statement:

It is not possible to go through a "trans puberty"

You then quoted Rolfe and cited an academic article using similar (but not identical) language.

Some citations would be really helpful here, it seems to me that experts disagree.

https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/102/11/3869/4157558#99603316

Scroll down to Table 8 “Protocol Induction of Puberty” to see now they intend to implement the impossible.

Note though that this wasn't YOUR language, this was language in an academic journal. This created some back and forth, particularly with EC who objected to that language as inaccurate. In that exchange, EC said this:

I want the clinical practice guidelines to not be fraught with lies and minsinformation.

It doesn't seem like to much to ask.

EC wasn't talking about YOUR language here. She's talking about the language used by clinical practitioners. You defended that language us by others, based on your belief that nobody was deceived by it. But note: neither of you talking about YOUR language, the exchange at that point was entirely about the language of clinical practitioners.

So for you to turn around and complain now that anyone is trying to police your language is to misrepresent what this was about. It has never really been about your personal choice of terminology.

 

[d4m10n]

@Ziggurat — Policing anyone's language is an attempt to police everyone's language. I'm going to keep pushing back on this every time you all attempt to create an atmosphere of gender critical orthodoxy by scolding posters for using gender affirming language, just as I would push back on those attempting to create an atmosphere of gender affirmative orthodoxy by scolding posters for using gender critical language. The main virtue of a forum like this is to allow people of varying views to interact outside of their ideological bubbles and you are undermining that function whether you mean to or not whenever you complain that people are using phrases from the other side.

 

[d4m10n]

EC wasn't talking about YOUR language here.

As I said to EC at #486, I'm going to keep using relevant terminology from practitioners of gender medicine as I see fit.

 

[theprestige]

As I said to EC at #486, I'm going to keep using relevant terminology from practitioners of gender medicine as I see fit.

Going back over the recent debate, I don't see anywhere that the terms "trans puberty" and "cross-sex puberty" have been attributed to practitioners of gender medicine, except perhaps by you.

 

[d4m10n]

I also reserve the right to use phrases from the TRA side of this debate, no matter who originally coined them.

Teenagers trapped in the wrong body | New Scientist

Growing up is difficult enough without the agony of feeling that your body is the wrong sex

www.newscientist.com

ETA: https://web.archive.org/web/2016041...6002-100-teenagers-trapped-in-the-wrong-body/

 

[Ziggurat]

@Ziggurat — Policing anyone's language is an attempt to police everyone's language.

What exactly do you mean by "police" here? Nobody in this thread has actually tried to prohibit language. The ONLY language actually being prohibited on this forum specifically in regards to trans issues is "wrong" pronouns, and I don't see you jumping up and down about that. What was happening in this exchange wasn't any effort to prohibit language, but merely criticism of language.

And if you think criticism of language is categorically bad, well, first, I don't believe you, second, good luck, and third, that's just wrong. Some language is bad language: not because it's offensive, but because it's deceptive or wrong.

I'm going to keep pushing back on this every time you all attempt to create an atmosphere of gender critical orthodoxy by scolding posters for using gender affirming language

Ah. NOW we finally get to the truth of it. It was never actually about the accuracy of the term. You just don't like that we're not being "gender affirming".

just as I would push back on those attempting to create an atmosphere of gender affirmative orthodoxy

There already is an atmosphere of gender affirmative orthodoxy. It's even part of the rules of the forum. And I don't see you pushing back on that at all. So I don't believe you for a second.

The main virtue of a forum like this is to allow people of varying views to interact outside of their ideological bubbles and you are undermining that function whether you mean to or not whenever you complain that people are using phrases from the other side.

I'm not complaining because someone is "using phrases from the other side". I object to this specific term because the term is deceptive. For example, I don't object to the term TERF (which the TRAs use all the time) when it's properly applied (you can't be a TERF if you're not a radical feminist).

And you seem awfully put out by criticism of a term whose accuracy you aren't actually even trying to defend.

 

[Ziggurat]

I also reserve the right to use phrases from the TRA side of this debate, no matter who originally coined them.

Nobody disputes your right to say that. We are disputing the propriety and accuracy of some very specific phrases. Your right to say them does not immunize those terms from criticism. You're acting like it does, which is foolish.

Teenagers trapped in the wrong body | New Scientist

Growing up is difficult enough without the agony of feeling that your body is the wrong sex

www.newscientist.com

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with that article, but it's disturbing as hell, and not for the reasons I suspect you intended. No 5 year old child says “God has made a mistake, I should have been born a girl” unless they were basically taught to say that.

 

[theprestige]

These days it sometimes seems that all you need to be a radical feminist is to be trans-exclusionary. While I don't identify as a classical radfem, I do identify as a TERF. Trans privilege ideology is antithetical to feminism in all its forms.

 

[d4m10n]

Your right to say them does not immunize those terms from criticism.

If your criticism is that people have could hypothetically by deceived by a phrase, and you have provided no evidence that anyone has been thus deceived, you are probably just policing language in order to manipulate the terms of debate.

Some language is bad language: not because it's offensive, but because it's deceptive or wrong.

You have yet to show that anyone was deceived, either in this discussion itself or in the field of medicine that this discussion is about.

You just don't like that we're not being "gender affirming".

I don't like that you are policing other people's language for daring to borrow gender affirming phrases. Can you see the difference?

There already is an atmosphere of gender affirmative orthodoxy. It's even part of the rules of the forum. And I don't see you pushing back on that at all.

I've literally switched up my pronoun usage to get around this interpretation of the rules of the forum, and defended @Emily's Cat for doing the same.

 

[d4m10n]

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with that article

It was the earliest instance of "trans puberty" I found in a publication focused on science.

The Dutch team have found that when their patients get trans sex hormones, bone density increases, and in female-to-male patients there is a growth spurt. They also plan to investigate the effects on the brain of going through an artificial trans puberty.​

I wonder if they actually performed that investigation and whether they published the results.

 

[theprestige]

I also reserve the right to use phrases from the TRA side of this debate, no matter who originally coined them.

Teenagers trapped in the wrong body | New Scientist

Growing up is difficult enough without the agony of feeling that your body is the wrong sex

www.newscientist.com

ETA: https://web.archive.org/web/2016041...6002-100-teenagers-trapped-in-the-wrong-body/

A lot of trans affirming language is misleading at best, dishonest at worst. Its use should be deprecated, and instances of its usage denounced.

In general, mainstream trans affirmation has proven itself to be anti-science, anti-social, generally toxic, and bad for women, dysphorics, and everyone else.

When you say "trans puberty", what you are referring to is deranged puberty. It is anti-social of you to insist on using the softer language that masks the reality of what is being discussed. When you say "cross-sex puberty" you're just flat-out lying about scientific facts in the name of trans affirmation. Do you understand why people might be reasonably opposed to how you prefer to frame things, with your trans-affirming language?

 

[d4m10n]

It is anti-social of you to insist on using the softer language that masks the reality of what is being discussed.

I'm not the one asking other people to adopt my own preferred pronouns phrases here.

When you say "trans puberty", what you are referring to is deranged puberty.

Pretty sure you won't find that phrase in any of the scientific literature about gender, but I'll add it to my decoder ring.

Do you understand why people might be reasonably opposed to how you prefer to frame things, with your trans-affirming language?

I think it would make a good deal more sense for us to talk about whether cross-sex puberty has specific beneficial or detrimental effects than to attempt to get everyone on the same page regarding linguistic pointers to the process.

 

[d4m10n]

A lot of trans affirming language is misleading at best, dishonest at worst. Its use should be deprecated, and instances of its usage denounced.

So long as you don't mind driving off people willing to argue for gender affirmation, I say go for it.

Personally, I think these threads are much better off with a diversity of viewpoints.

 

[Ziggurat]

Going back over the recent debate, I don't see anywhere that the terms "trans puberty" and "cross-sex puberty" have been attributed to practitioners of gender medicine, except perhaps by you.

The paper that he cited before often uses the term "pubertal induction" or similar. It does not use the terms "trans puberty" or "cross-sex puberty". That's somewhat beside the point, though. The more important part is whether or not the response to cross-sex hormone treatment can accurately be described as "puberty" at all.

I do not think it can. d4m10n's defense of "trans puberty" is that the process produces the secondary sex characteristic developments we commonly associate with puberty, and that people are not being deceived into thinking that it produces cross-sex fertility. The reasoning here seems to be that secondary sexual characteristics and fertility are the sum total of the puberty process.

This is incorrect. While these may be the outcomes most commonly associated with natural puberty, they are not in fact the only outcomes. Mental development is another major outcome of natural puberty that does not happen the same way with cross-sex hormone treatment. The fact that many people don't associate mental development with puberty isn't a reason to excuse the use of the term "puberty" for something that isn't puberty. It is in fact a reason to NOT excuse it, because that difference must be made explicit. The response to cross-sex hormones isn't just "secondary sexual characteristics minus fertility".