I find a lot of this fascinating, because when I was in graduate school, my focus was on the development of late adolescence between 18 and 24 years old. I worked in a college setting and spent most of my career in a career services type office. There is a whole body of literature that shows the marked development into an independent being that occurs in that timeframe. And it seems like we’ve just let that fall out of our heads.
The change between an 18-year-old college freshman for example to a 22-year-old college senior can be fairly dramatic and how they view themselves and interact with the world. The sheer number of students I worked with that wanted to change majors or careers in their junior year or even senior year, because they finally sorted out their voice from their parents voice was not a small number. And we’re only talking about jobs here. Not complete identity for the rest of your life.
It’s a strange social justice movement that arrived, pretty much fully formed and backed by millions in financial terms and with the backing of global corporations, health services, businesses, governments and local governments, police services… in fact anyone and everyone with any degree of power. Considering that we are told that this is about a tiny number of people, one might wonder what the motivation is for all these organisations.
Considering that trans is a modern social identity, the first question should always be, why are we even using medicine at all to validate a faulty concept and self declaration of gender identity in the first place? The whole field of medicine is flawed from the outset, there should be NO gender clinics, anymore than we would have any clinic based on a religious dogma. This is all cosmetic medicine based on zero evidence of need apart from its own self fulfilling prophecy.
Please do click on the 30% discontinuation study, which takes you to an April, 2022 study. Once again, they hide the rate of detransition for natal females, which is 100%-64.4% = 35.6% detransition of those who did "masculinizing" treatment. The study data is structured in such a way as to highlight the "continuation," which is (they claim) about 81% in natal male mean age 19 subjects for a few years, only 64.4% in natal females. Again, the study does not cover the magic 7 years and later term; Dr. Az Hakeem, now working solely with detransitioners in the UK, observed that 7 years later appears commonly to be the time frame of regret onset. Dr. Stephen B. Levine noticed the same phenomenon. The "Dutch Protocol" researchers, Annelou De Vries and Thomas Steersma could only come up with 50% of the 2014 cohort for follow up. Do they have any paper published telling us how many this was? The original study started with 70 "transitioning" youth, lost 15, then one died after the surgery, 1 committed suicide after "affirmation" --leaving only 53 subjects as the foundation for a policy that is widely practiced in the US. For a practical window into why the cross-dressing and "transitioning" does not succeed long term, a guide to identifying how men look and behave while cross-dressing, why it's never fully convincing. From Trans Widow Ute Heggen YT channel:
Good article. One issue not being discussed is that an in depth psychological evaluation over time is not really occurring in the process. There is much to explore there about current vs past standards of care. I hope you can dig in and interview some professionals in the field and write about this.
Speaking as someone who has taught medical ethics in medical schools, social justice and civil rights considerations have never been ethical principles relevant to making medical decisions. There is something more sinister going on to have influenced medical societies in this way. Infiltration by activists? Bribery? Threats and intimidation? Conflicts of interest by the decision-makers? Or all of the above.
No reasonable person could argue with the cautionary principle being applied to stop the surgical mutilation of children to achieve "social justice." The problem is that this "debate" is actually a matter of religious faith instead of scientific reason. The social justice, trans/queer, Democrats are preaching their message of hate and genital mutilation from their pulpits on television and in the White House.
They encourage acts of perversion against children, and have turned medical universities into lunatic asylums. They have converted hospitals into charnel houses, law courts into circus shows, and scientific laboratories into weapons of mass destruction. Scientific reason does little to shame or dissuade religious zealots who have the full backing of a morally depraved President. Scientific arguments mean nothing to them. Only a change in political power can end the carnage.
I doubt that transitioning provides any long term happiness outcomes. Transitioning has no effect on the underlying cause of the gender dysphoria. The mental disconnects still exist no matter what someone does to their external body. So someone who is severely depressed as a man will likely end up severely depressed as a "woman". Because the depression is the issue not their gender.
Unless we make large strides forward in psychiatric treatment I doubt there is a cure for these issues.
Trans ideology is part of the postmodernist project of destroying the concept of truth as understood by most people. It denies the very existence of truth as an external, verifiable reality and insists there is nothing but expressions of power. The most vivid and succinct expression i have found was in an article in "National Review" on a current controversy in Canada over teaching math:
<<Laurie Rubel, an associate professor of mathematics education, explaining that proponents of “2 + 2 = 4” are grounded “in white, Western mathematics that marginalizes other possible values.”
<<Rubel argued that supporters of math’s political neutrality were oblivious to a deeper point: “It’s about truth: who holds the truth, who decides what is true, and how open we are as a society to multiple truths.”>>
Other possible values? Multiple truths? Would you want to drive your children over a bridge designed by engineers educated in a math that yields other possible values or multiple truths?
The trans movement and its propaganda is primarily political. The roots lie in post war philosophy, such as Jacques Derrida’s concepts of deconstruction; the “rejection of the common sense idea that words refer straightforwardly to things in the real world” as Puckrose and Lindsay put it. And in the postmodernist paradigm of ‘cultural constructivism’- there’s no objective truth, just relative cultural context; science is but one cultural construct.
The political tool is manipulation of language - new truths mean new definitions of words that have previously had clear meanings since the Sumerians first wrote them down. Mao and Lenin both understood the importance of indoctrination of the young. The focus on primary school age children’s education is right out of their playbook.
Science, and particularly biology, are useful tools for them only in as much as they can cherry pick data that suit their political purpose- eg in redefining what is meant by biological sex and gender, or as in this instance what constitutes good medical evidence.
Data, facts and words that don’t suit the political narrative are either simply ignored, or refuted with the emotive vigour that extremists always employ. Children harmed by radical interventions will be treated in the same way. Collateral damage is acceptable to fanatics - be it terrorists shooting hostages or eco-nuts defacing works of art, or allowing men in drag to populate women’s spaces even if it means the occasional assault or rape, or academics losing their jobs.
To disagree is to be the enemy. A Nazi even. So a lot of their behaviours are about signalling their zeal and commitment to their fellow collaborators - a bit like the youth in China denouncing their parents or contemporaries during the Cultural Revolution.
In Trans-Wonderland "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."
Up until now the trans lobby have been the masters, and those on the Left their willing acolytes.
One hopes the type of scientific rational argument advocated in this article and on this site can win out. Maybe the tide is turning. But in politics truth is often subverted to the cause. I don’t see the Left capitulating on this any time soon.
Yesterday I finished reading Hannah Barnes' book "Time To Think" which chronicles the issues and failures at the GIDS clinic in London UK. The bar for intervention appears to be that if you are referred, you are trans. No real assessment taking place in the vast majority of cases. Between a quarter and a third of staff working there went to their administrations "safeguarding" service to express their concern that children were being harmed. The safeguarding lead reported these concerns and had them consistently dismissed. The CEO of the trust overseeing this clinic seemed unwilling to do anything to destroy the income stream it brought in, and issued press releases trashing the reputation of senior clinicians who authored reports suggesting changes. It got to the point where anyone asking a question was deemed transphobic and advised to seek work elsewhere, whilst many of the unhappy staff referred to the enthusiasts as homophobic, given that they refused to entertain the possibility that some referred kids were actually gay. At the root of it all was ideology, and a far too close link between the advocacy groups like Mermaids, that felt able to request particular interventions, or a change of clinician if a patient felt they weren't being put on the medical pathway quickly enough. Requests that were routinely acceded to. It's worse than a scandal: it's a tragedy.
I believe the book still hasn't found an American publisher, but you can find it on the Canadian or UK Amazon sites. Beware that there are dozens of look-alike titles designed to make you order the wrong book!
Google John Hopkins former chief psychiatrist, Paul McHugh MD.
First read his work before you read the nonsense desperately attempting to refute his scientific observations regarding the dangers of this surgical and chemical intervention
I find a lot of this fascinating, because when I was in graduate school, my focus was on the development of late adolescence between 18 and 24 years old. I worked in a college setting and spent most of my career in a career services type office. There is a whole body of literature that shows the marked development into an independent being that occurs in that timeframe. And it seems like we’ve just let that fall out of our heads.
The change between an 18-year-old college freshman for example to a 22-year-old college senior can be fairly dramatic and how they view themselves and interact with the world. The sheer number of students I worked with that wanted to change majors or careers in their junior year or even senior year, because they finally sorted out their voice from their parents voice was not a small number. And we’re only talking about jobs here. Not complete identity for the rest of your life.
It’s a strange social justice movement that arrived, pretty much fully formed and backed by millions in financial terms and with the backing of global corporations, health services, businesses, governments and local governments, police services… in fact anyone and everyone with any degree of power. Considering that we are told that this is about a tiny number of people, one might wonder what the motivation is for all these organisations.
Considering that trans is a modern social identity, the first question should always be, why are we even using medicine at all to validate a faulty concept and self declaration of gender identity in the first place? The whole field of medicine is flawed from the outset, there should be NO gender clinics, anymore than we would have any clinic based on a religious dogma. This is all cosmetic medicine based on zero evidence of need apart from its own self fulfilling prophecy.
This can all be dispensed with by simply recognizing reality.
There is no such thing as "I was born in the wrong body."
There is no such thing as a "transgender child."
If you can't bring yourselves to say this simple truth directly, you're wasting time.
Please do click on the 30% discontinuation study, which takes you to an April, 2022 study. Once again, they hide the rate of detransition for natal females, which is 100%-64.4% = 35.6% detransition of those who did "masculinizing" treatment. The study data is structured in such a way as to highlight the "continuation," which is (they claim) about 81% in natal male mean age 19 subjects for a few years, only 64.4% in natal females. Again, the study does not cover the magic 7 years and later term; Dr. Az Hakeem, now working solely with detransitioners in the UK, observed that 7 years later appears commonly to be the time frame of regret onset. Dr. Stephen B. Levine noticed the same phenomenon. The "Dutch Protocol" researchers, Annelou De Vries and Thomas Steersma could only come up with 50% of the 2014 cohort for follow up. Do they have any paper published telling us how many this was? The original study started with 70 "transitioning" youth, lost 15, then one died after the surgery, 1 committed suicide after "affirmation" --leaving only 53 subjects as the foundation for a policy that is widely practiced in the US. For a practical window into why the cross-dressing and "transitioning" does not succeed long term, a guide to identifying how men look and behave while cross-dressing, why it's never fully convincing. From Trans Widow Ute Heggen YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y777OY1CxnU
Everything science related must stop considering social justice concepts: the two are diametrically opposed.
Michael Mohr
‘Sincere American Writing’
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
Good article. One issue not being discussed is that an in depth psychological evaluation over time is not really occurring in the process. There is much to explore there about current vs past standards of care. I hope you can dig in and interview some professionals in the field and write about this.
Speaking as someone who has taught medical ethics in medical schools, social justice and civil rights considerations have never been ethical principles relevant to making medical decisions. There is something more sinister going on to have influenced medical societies in this way. Infiltration by activists? Bribery? Threats and intimidation? Conflicts of interest by the decision-makers? Or all of the above.
No reasonable person could argue with the cautionary principle being applied to stop the surgical mutilation of children to achieve "social justice." The problem is that this "debate" is actually a matter of religious faith instead of scientific reason. The social justice, trans/queer, Democrats are preaching their message of hate and genital mutilation from their pulpits on television and in the White House.
They encourage acts of perversion against children, and have turned medical universities into lunatic asylums. They have converted hospitals into charnel houses, law courts into circus shows, and scientific laboratories into weapons of mass destruction. Scientific reason does little to shame or dissuade religious zealots who have the full backing of a morally depraved President. Scientific arguments mean nothing to them. Only a change in political power can end the carnage.
I doubt that transitioning provides any long term happiness outcomes. Transitioning has no effect on the underlying cause of the gender dysphoria. The mental disconnects still exist no matter what someone does to their external body. So someone who is severely depressed as a man will likely end up severely depressed as a "woman". Because the depression is the issue not their gender.
Unless we make large strides forward in psychiatric treatment I doubt there is a cure for these issues.
Trans ideology is part of the postmodernist project of destroying the concept of truth as understood by most people. It denies the very existence of truth as an external, verifiable reality and insists there is nothing but expressions of power. The most vivid and succinct expression i have found was in an article in "National Review" on a current controversy in Canada over teaching math:
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/22white-supremacy-how-woke-ideologues-corrupted-canadas-math-curriculum/
<<Laurie Rubel, an associate professor of mathematics education, explaining that proponents of “2 + 2 = 4” are grounded “in white, Western mathematics that marginalizes other possible values.”
<<Rubel argued that supporters of math’s political neutrality were oblivious to a deeper point: “It’s about truth: who holds the truth, who decides what is true, and how open we are as a society to multiple truths.”>>
Other possible values? Multiple truths? Would you want to drive your children over a bridge designed by engineers educated in a math that yields other possible values or multiple truths?
The trans movement and its propaganda is primarily political. The roots lie in post war philosophy, such as Jacques Derrida’s concepts of deconstruction; the “rejection of the common sense idea that words refer straightforwardly to things in the real world” as Puckrose and Lindsay put it. And in the postmodernist paradigm of ‘cultural constructivism’- there’s no objective truth, just relative cultural context; science is but one cultural construct.
The political tool is manipulation of language - new truths mean new definitions of words that have previously had clear meanings since the Sumerians first wrote them down. Mao and Lenin both understood the importance of indoctrination of the young. The focus on primary school age children’s education is right out of their playbook.
Science, and particularly biology, are useful tools for them only in as much as they can cherry pick data that suit their political purpose- eg in redefining what is meant by biological sex and gender, or as in this instance what constitutes good medical evidence.
Data, facts and words that don’t suit the political narrative are either simply ignored, or refuted with the emotive vigour that extremists always employ. Children harmed by radical interventions will be treated in the same way. Collateral damage is acceptable to fanatics - be it terrorists shooting hostages or eco-nuts defacing works of art, or allowing men in drag to populate women’s spaces even if it means the occasional assault or rape, or academics losing their jobs.
To disagree is to be the enemy. A Nazi even. So a lot of their behaviours are about signalling their zeal and commitment to their fellow collaborators - a bit like the youth in China denouncing their parents or contemporaries during the Cultural Revolution.
In Trans-Wonderland "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."
Up until now the trans lobby have been the masters, and those on the Left their willing acolytes.
One hopes the type of scientific rational argument advocated in this article and on this site can win out. Maybe the tide is turning. But in politics truth is often subverted to the cause. I don’t see the Left capitulating on this any time soon.
Yesterday I finished reading Hannah Barnes' book "Time To Think" which chronicles the issues and failures at the GIDS clinic in London UK. The bar for intervention appears to be that if you are referred, you are trans. No real assessment taking place in the vast majority of cases. Between a quarter and a third of staff working there went to their administrations "safeguarding" service to express their concern that children were being harmed. The safeguarding lead reported these concerns and had them consistently dismissed. The CEO of the trust overseeing this clinic seemed unwilling to do anything to destroy the income stream it brought in, and issued press releases trashing the reputation of senior clinicians who authored reports suggesting changes. It got to the point where anyone asking a question was deemed transphobic and advised to seek work elsewhere, whilst many of the unhappy staff referred to the enthusiasts as homophobic, given that they refused to entertain the possibility that some referred kids were actually gay. At the root of it all was ideology, and a far too close link between the advocacy groups like Mermaids, that felt able to request particular interventions, or a change of clinician if a patient felt they weren't being put on the medical pathway quickly enough. Requests that were routinely acceded to. It's worse than a scandal: it's a tragedy.
I believe the book still hasn't found an American publisher, but you can find it on the Canadian or UK Amazon sites. Beware that there are dozens of look-alike titles designed to make you order the wrong book!
Google John Hopkins former chief psychiatrist, Paul McHugh MD.
First read his work before you read the nonsense desperately attempting to refute his scientific observations regarding the dangers of this surgical and chemical intervention
Nicely done, balanced, practical, for those of us with views but also EARS its a starting place for folks to discuss a workable answer
Males have penises. Females have vaginas. You have a mental disorder. “Biologist” lol