In 20 years we'll look back on the rush to change our children's sex as one of the darkest chapters in medicine, says psychotherapist BOB WITHERS

Let me be absolutely clear: I am in no doubt there are people who feel they are one gender while having the body of the other.

Living with such constant, internal conflict is horrifying for many of those affected, and it should never be ignored.

No one should seek to suppress another person’s genuinely held sexual orientation or gender identity.

But the question we must ask ourselves today is this – how do we decide whose needs are genuine? And how, then, should we treat them?

I have been a psychotherapist for more than 30 years and, in that time, I have worked with a small but significant number of patients who wished to change gender.

For everyone’s sake, I believe that surgery – which is irreversible – should only ever be a last resort. We should always begin by working to help the mind fit better with the body before we start altering the body to fit the mind.

Yet in today’s NHS, professionals are enabling hundreds – possibly thousands – of teenagers to have major surgery to change their gender.

It is being done, almost unchallenged, in the name of transgender rights. But in 20 years’ time, I believe we will look back on this folly as one of the darkest periods in the history of modern medicine.

We will question why we failed to challenge their belief that they were born in the ‘wrong’ bodies.

We will ask why we so readily ignored the clanging alarm bells that many were autistic, or had mental health problems.

What we are faced with today is extremely worrying. While 17 children are transitioning in one secondary school, be in no doubt – it is almost certainly being repeated in other schools. What is happening is this: we are bringing up a generation of children who have quite complex mental health issues.

Identifying as trans can feel like a way to explain that suffering. Rather than understanding where it might be coming from – feeling lonely or isolated, being bullied, having an autistic spectrum disorder or struggling with any number of issues from sexuality to abuse to self-harm – we are allowing them to change sex.

It’s a lazy and damaging solution and one which NHS professionals, teachers, politicians and the law are all too eager to embrace to signal their progressive views.

In 2015, I published a prize- winning but controversial paper examining whether therapy could replace some patients’ perceived need for surgery.

Personally, I believe that as a society we should celebrate gender variance. Some of my patients have been able to live creatively with the mismatch between their mind and body. Where that isn’t possible – and where a patient is obviously suffering – we should always do something about it.

Yet the debate on this issue has been silenced by transgender activists who label as ‘transphobic’ anyone who dares to challenge their dogma.

This blind adherence to ideology has real, dangerous consequences.

In my field, for example, many psychotherapists are now afraid to properly question a patient who identifies as trans: afraid to explore their past, ask questions of their sexuality, or look into their mental health. They won’t go there, for fear of being struck off.

One major problem in today’s blinkered reality is that, if you don’t ‘affirm’ a patient’s claim to be transgender, you can run the risk of being accused of practising ‘conversion therapy’.

Conversion therapy is the practice of trying to convince a homosexual person that they are really straight. It’s abhorrent, and is rightly banned. Now, powerful bodies including the NHS and major counselling organisations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding – an agreement on how to practise – which extends the definition of conversion therapy to cover patients who might be transgender.

And this well-meaning memorandum is being used by trans activists to stop therapists, psychologists and others from asking rigorous questions about whether or not a patient does, in fact, have genuine ‘gender dysphoria’.

A therapist might have good cause to believe that the trans-identifying teenage boy in front of them hates his body because he was abused as a child and feels vulnerable. But they can’t explore that possibility.

They might spot a pattern of several schoolgirls saying they are trans, after witnessing a peer transformed from social non-entity to social butterfly after identifying as a trans-boy.

The attraction of popularity should not be overlooked.

Yet none of these possibilities can now be safely raised by psychotherapists, psychiatrists or teachers. Recently, 650 trans activists signed a letter published in Therapy Today, the house magazine of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy, calling on anyone not practising ‘affirmation therapy’ to be booted out. If the Government presses ahead with plans to allow people to ‘self- identify’ as whatever gender they like, without external validation, I fear that would strengthen the hand of those arguing for trans-affirmative therapy.

But in my view, to avoid asking such probing questions of patients who claim to be trans – especially teenagers – is a cowardly dereliction of our duty.

We abdicate our responsibility if we simply become their Yes men, just passing them on to the next stage of the sex-change process.

The danger is that, once on the medical pathway which leads to a sex change, it’s very hard to get off.

Youngsters referred to the Gender Identity Development Service run by The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in London undergo just six sessions to assess whether or not they are trans. Several members of staff have told me they are quietly appalled that, too often, no psychotherapy is offered before they start medical treatment.

They are then given ‘puberty blocker’ drugs which halt physical developments – powerful medicines not even licensed for transgender treatment which we know can weaken the bones, perhaps for life. There is little long-term data on their safety yet the NHS routinely hands them out.

Then most will receive cross-sex hormones, which carry their own risks. Giving testosterone to females, for instance, can raise the risk of ovarian cancer.

Exactly how many make the full surgical transition to the ‘opposite’ sex is unclear. Whether it brings lasting happiness is even less so. Short-term studies, usually conducted soon after surgery, suggest patients are immediately happier. But the few long-term studies that exist paint a different picture.

One, which followed men who had transitioned to be women for 15 to 20 years after surgery, showed they had a 20-times higher risk of suicide than others matched for age, social class and mental health problems.

On YouTube, some transsexuals are now posting videos warning young people not to go ahead with reassignment.

The backlash has begun.

It surely can’t be long before more difficult questions will be asked by a new generation. They will ask why nobody stopped them, told them treatment could destroy their sex life – or warned them that it would make them infertile and might not make them happy after all. They might also have lawyers asking the same questions, eyeing millions of pounds in compensation.

We need some honesty now, free from political correctness.

Otherwise, we are heading towards catastrophe.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-6402003/Well-look-rush-change-childrens-sex-one-darkest-chapters-medicine.html

An astonishing 17 pupils at a single British school are in the process of changing gender, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Most of the youngsters undergoing the transformation are autistic, according to a teacher there, who said vulnerable children with mental health problems were being ‘tricked’ into believing they are the wrong sex.

The whistleblower says few of the transgender children are suffering from gender dysphoria – the medical term for someone who feels they were born in the wrong body – but are just easily influenced, latching on to the mistaken belief they are the wrong sex as a way of coping with the problems caused by autism.

Earlier this year, The Mail on Sunday revealed that a third of youngsters referred to the NHS’s only gender identity clinic for children showed ‘moderate to severe autistic traits’.

It means that 150 autistic teenagers were given puberty blocker drugs which stop the body maturing.

The teacher says she felt compelled to speak out to protect pupils, many of whom she believes could already be taking the powerful drugs and may go on to have life-changing surgery.

She believes schools and some politicians have swallowed ‘hook, line and sinker’ a politically-correct ‘fallacy’ peddled by a powerful transgender lobby.

Pupils who say they were born the wrong sex mimic transgender YouTube stars Carol believes are partly to blame for convincing vulnerable children they have gender dysphoria.

Last night, Conservative MP David Davies said: ‘I congratulate this teacher for coming out and telling us what I have long suspected has been going on in schools. It is horrendous that children are being encouraged by other pupils to identify as transgender, particularly if they have autism.

The teacher, who has her own child, also believes many of those who say they are the wrong sex are simply gay but would face bullying if they were to ‘come out’. By contrast, she says, transgender children at the school are idolised by other pupils.

She has also raised concerns that many teachers are now too scared to challenge students’ claims they are transgender because they fear being sacked or sued for being transphobic.

The 17 pupils now identifying as transgender are following in the footsteps of a teenager who has now left the school and is planning a double mastectomy.

That student, who was born female, told Carol she wanted to identify as non-binary-a person – with no specific gender – in January 2014, at the age of 16 and two years after being diagnosed as autistic.

After consulting with her parents, the school agreed to change the student’s name on the register to one that was gender neutral. Teachers also agreed to use both male and female pronouns depending what gender the student identified as on any given day.

‘These pronouns could change from hour to hour depending how the student was feeling,’ Carol said.

Carol put the pupil in contact with a transgender support group but now says she bitterly regrets her handling of the case. ‘That child was diagnosed as autistic at the age of 14 and certainly was not transgender,’ she said. ‘She had other complicated mental health problems. It is a tragedy her claim was accepted so readily. Now she is going to mutilate her body.’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6401593/Whistleblower-teacher-makes-shocking-claim-autistic.html

I do feel that very young kids shouldn't be changing gender until well after puberty and when their minds have actually matured more? It's one thing to believe you're transgender and quite another to have radical physical surgery.

I think it's very worrying because young teens are very susceptible to what is in trend at any given time.

I don't know too much about all this and I don't have your clinical insight but what you're saying makes a lot of sense. I also think that the living as the gender you wish to transition too is a good idea.
I read the other day about a young man who wanted to transition to female, I don't know if he had lived as a women for any length of time but after his treatment and surgery and lived for a year afterwards in what he thought was the correct gender, he went back to his doctors and begged to have surgery and treatment to return to his male body, he could not cope with living in his woman's body,
so I would say there was something else going on here.

Vintage wrote:I don't know too much about all this and I don't have your clinical insight but what you're saying makes a lot of sense. I also think that the living as the gender you wish to transition too is a good idea.
I read the other day about a young man who wanted to transition to female, I don't know if he had lived as a women for any length of time but after his treatment and surgery and lived for a year afterwards in what he thought was the correct gender, he went back to his doctors and begged to have surgery and treatment to return to his male body, he could not cope with living in his woman's body,
so I would say there was something else going on here.

Imagine the horror of this though? Having your male parts taken and then realising it was a mistake? It's horrific. I'm not sure how long they have to live as a trans before the op, but even the taking of hormones seems wrong on the really young ones.

Society wouldn't let a 12 year old have a baby by choice. The body is capable, as has shown in cases where kids this young have given birth, but the body and mind are not mature enough. So why let kids of this age have hormones that will change their bodies? I fear this world is getting worse and worse, and kids are having more and more mental health problems that are snowballing towards the out of control.

I think counselling in those young years would be better, in order to make the mind and emotions stronger and more resolved to the later choices that would be permanent.

All people are degrees of female and male some more than others, in whichever body you inhabit, it doesn't mean you are in the wrong body, sometimes I think young people get confused by this and by feelings of attraction to others who maybe are the same gender as them while they are finding their place in the adult world.
Growing up can be confusing and difficult at the best of times.

You two Ladies talk a lot of sense !

Vintage wrote:All people are degrees of female and male some more than others, in whichever body you inhabit, it doesn't mean you are in the wrong body, sometimes I think young people get confused by this and by feelings of attraction to others who maybe are the same gender as them while they are finding their place in the adult world.
Growing up can be confusing and difficult at the best of times.

Lots of kids go through a phase thinking their homosexual, it's part of finding out who you are. Nothing wrong with that. But let it all go naturally with not so much emphasis on things.

Couldn't agree more, there's so much emphasis on labelling the slightest thing these days. Obviously people with ongoing problems need professional help, others can find out they aren't so different if only people will talk to them and they realise we've all been there with doubts and problems of fitting in and that fitting in isn't always the be all and end all. Acceptance of quirks is a good thing as long as the quirks are harmless to yourself and others.

this is hideous imo

i remember a while back a psychologist wrote a paper raising concerns about this and the powers that be blocked it from being released.

i think its child abuse, pure and simple, just social experimentation

I agree with everything that's been said here.
There is too much emphasis on sexuality from a very early age now....it's all taken far too seriously, it has to confuse kids when adults are banging on about it all the time.

Many kids have same sex crushes, it's almost a rite of passage, it has always been so. It may mean that some of those those kids are gay, but in only a small percentage will it mean those kids are born into the wrong body, they are experimenting with their emotions....which is natural.

For so many kids to be convinced they are transgender it's like some sort of mass hysteria going round, encouraged by adults who dont (it seems to me) understand children and young adults at all.

Re the OP... I totally agree, and I have said much the same in previous posts on the subject too!

and ...

which side of the political spectrum is pushing this

which side of the political spectrum is so fond of social engineering

even to the point of flooding the country with unsustainable numbers of immigrants in order to change the political landscape?


Anyone wishing to undergo "gender reassignment" at any level should and must undergo a deep and searching mental and psychological assesment, and NOTHING should be done, even then, until the person concerned is over 18 UNLESS the assesment shows an immediate and imminent danger.

and any of these lefty luvvie trans rights types that start spouting should be sent to the gulags (which as we ALL know, are holiday camps, according to the "new left history of the world")

+1

Dr. Withers wrote:But the question we must ask ourselves today is this – how do we decide whose needs are genuine? And how, then, should we treat them?

Despite Dr. Withers professional credentials, this is after all merely a judgement piece. Though he is an investigator into psychotherapeutic matters, it remains that he is educated in medical science and is no better equipped to render value judgments than you or I. Medicine is an empirical science; Dr. Withers is not offering empirical evidence, but opinions.

@Vic: all original thinking comes from the left. Conservatism, by definition, is opposed to original thinking.

Lord Foul wrote:and ...

which side of the political spectrum is pushing this

which side of the political spectrum is so fond of social engineering

even to the point of flooding the country with unsustainable numbers of immigrants in order to change the political landscape?


Anyone wishing to undergo "gender reassignment" at any level should and must undergo a deep and searching mental and psychological assesment, and NOTHING should be done, even then, until the person concerned is over 18 UNLESS the assesment shows an immediate and imminent danger.

and any of these lefty luvvie trans rights types that start spouting should be sent to the gulags (which as we ALL know, are holiday camps, according to the "new left history of the world")

+1

No quill...bull shit comes from the left...in spades full

your "original thinking" is both muddy and fails to visualise the ramifications of your ideas.....

the left is repeatedly guilty of harebrained confused and faulty idealisation, resulting in huge messes that need clearing up, this applies especially in two key areas, education and politics.(though other areas are not exempt)

you are NOT the doyens of original thinking, you are however guilty of the grave sin of needless interference.

Lord Foul wrote:No quill...bull shit comes from the left...in spades full

your "original thinking"  is both muddy and fails to visualise the ramifications of your ideas.....

the left is repeatedly guilty of harebrained confused and faulty idealisation, resulting in huge messes that need clearing up, this applies especially in two key areas, education and politics.(though other areas are not exempt)

you are NOT the doyens of original thinking, you are however guilty of the grave sin of needless interference.

This was never more glaringly apparent in the case of the Pakistani grooming gangs. Nobody dared speak the unspeakable and target or challenge that particular ethnic group for fear of being labelled 'racist'. So, those poor girls got raped over and over again because of that.

Dr. Withers wrote:For everyone’s sake, I believe that surgery – which is irreversible – should only ever be a last resort.

I am in full agreement with this. I have argued this in another context: circumcision, or genital mutilation should never be performed unless the need is clinically imperative and immediate. The same with prophylactic mastectomies.

In fact, any cutting without immediate, clinical necessity is a violation of the Hippocratic oath. This leaves open to question such surgeries as cosmetic surgery and sex-change operations.

In the end, Dr. Withers is confronted with the question: how much should the decision be left up to the individual, and how much should doctors (or society) interfere?

Ultimately, we have free choice. Same as if people want eat junk or sugar.

HoratioTarr wrote:Ultimately, we have free choice.  Same as if people want eat junk or sugar.

you raise an interesting question

should medical treatment be 'free' for those who deliberately make bad choices?

gelico wrote:

HoratioTarr wrote:Ultimately, we have free choice.  Same as if people want eat junk or sugar.

you raise an interesting question

should medical treatment be 'free' for those who deliberately make bad choices?

That's another can of worms, isn't it?

Lord Foul wrote:No quill...bull shit comes from the left...in spades full

your "original thinking"  is both muddy and fails to visualise the ramifications of your ideas.....

the left is repeatedly guilty of harebrained confused and faulty idealisation, resulting in huge messes that need clearing up, this applies especially in two key areas, education and politics.(though other areas are not exempt)

you are NOT the doyens of original thinking, you are however guilty of the grave sin of needless interference.

The simple point I made was that no originality came from the right. I would not be silly enough to try to defend every original thought.

The idea of new thought is an anathema to conservatism. Indeed, the root word--to conserve--comes from Latin conservatus, past participle of conservare, "to keep, preserve, keep intact, guard." And as used modernly:

etymonline wrote:As a modern political tradition, "antagonistic to change in the institutions of a country," often especially "opposed to changes toward pure democracy," conservatism traces to Edmund Burke's opposition to the French Revolution (1790), but the word conservative is not found in his writing. It was coined by his French disciples (such as Chateaubriand, who titled his journal defending clerical and political restoration "Le Conservateur").

https://www.etymonline.com/word/conservative

quill.....if it aint broke...dont fix it

and IF it does needs fixing for heavens sake dont bugger it entirely

the left lack the ability to distinguish between what needs fixing and sticking tits on a bull

gelico wrote:

HoratioTarr wrote:Ultimately, we have free choice.  Same as if people want eat junk or sugar.

you raise an interesting question

should medical treatment be 'free' for those who deliberately make bad choices?

That's a very good question, because it raises the point that society is already involved. But in the end it's another case of 'the rich get whatever they want, others get nothing...or, at least, get questioned.'

Lord Foul wrote:quill.....if it aint broke...dont fix it

I know. That's the conservative mantra. But it leaves open the question, what is broke?? Methinks conservatives conclude nothing is broken, because it might involve taxes.

Victor wrote:and IF it does needs fixing for heavens sake dont bugger it entirely

the left lack the ability to distinguish between what needs fixing and sticking tits on a bull

The question of need or demand ("what needs fixing") is open to all. It's not the responsibility of the left to determine we need a cure for cancer.

Any problem of needs isn't with the left, but with the right...and it generally involves asking, how much is it going to cost me?

I joined Stella O’Malley to talk about the issue of transitioning our children and young people, and of the sheer violence that can occur if anyone even suggests there may be a safeguarding issue. In my view we are morally obliged to discuss ALL aspects of this topic.

This talk will be screend on C4 on the 21st November 2018 at 10pm

channel4.com/programmes/trans-kids-its-time-to-talk

FFS, all this transgender stuff is getting boring. It's not normal, and yet it seems to be everywhere!

Academics are being harassed over their research into transgender issues

It is not transphobic to investigate this area from a range of critical perspectives, say 54 academics who are also concerned about proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act

We represent a newly formed network of over 100 academics, most of whom are currently employed in UK universities. We are concerned, from a range of academic perspectives, about proposed governmental reforms to the Gender Recognition Act, and their interaction with the Equality Act.

Our subject areas include: sociology, philosophy, law, criminology, evidence-informed policy, medicine, psychology, education, history, English, social work, computer science, cognitive science, anthropology, political science, economics, and history of art. This week, following an opportunity offered to us by Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, we have submitted to the consultation a number of letters, outlining, as individuals, concerns about the introduction of self-ID for gender reassignment.

We are also concerned about the suppression of proper academic analysis and discussion of the social phenomenon of transgenderism, and its multiple causes and effects. Members of our group have experienced campus protests, calls for dismissal in the press, harassment, foiled plots to bring about dismissal, no-platforming, and attempts to censor academic research and publications. Such attacks are out of line with the ordinary reception of critical ideas in the academy, where it is normally accepted that disagreement is reasonable and even productive.

Many of our universities have close links with trans advocacy organisations who provide “training” of academics and management, and who, it is reasonable to suppose, influence university policy through these links. Definitions used by these organisations of what counts as “transphobic” can be dangerously all-encompassing and go well beyond what a reasonable law would describe. They would not withstand academic analysis, and yet their effect is to curtail academic freedom and facilitate the censoring of academic work. We also worry about the effect of such definitions on the success rates of journal submissions and research grant applications from governmental bodies such as the AHRC and ESRC.

We maintain that it is not transphobic to investigate and analyse this area from a range of critical academic perspectives. We think this research is sorely needed, and urge the government to take the lead in protecting any such research from ideologically driven attack.

Professor Kathleen Stock, Philosophy, University of Sussex
Chetan Bhatt, Professor of Human Rights, Sociology, London School of Economics
Professor Rosa Freedman PhD, LLM, LLB, Professor of Law Conflict and Global Development, Director Global Development Division, Co-Director United Nations and Global Order Research Programme, University of Reading
Professor Sophie Scott, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL
Professor Alice Sullivan, Sociology, University College London
Professor Jo Phoenix, Chair in Criminology, The Open University
Professor Jackie Cassell, Head of the Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Brighton and Sussex Medical School
Kathleen Richardson, Professor of Ethics and Culture of Robots and AI, Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, De Montfort University
John Gardner FBA, Professor of Law and Philosophy, All Souls College, Oxford
Professor Judith Suissa, UCL Institute of Education
Professor Michele Moore, Patient Safety Academy, University of Oxford
Professor Sian Sullivan, Centre for Environmental Humanities, Bath Spa University
Professor Debbie Epstein, Professor of Cultural Studies in Education
School of Education, University of Roehampton, London
Richard Byng, Professor in Primary Care Research, University of Plymouth
Professor John Collins, Philosophy, University of East Anglia
Professor PM Higgins, Honorary Research Fellow, Royal Holloway University of London; former Professor of Music, University of Nottingham; former Käthe-Leichter Visiting Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Vienna
Sheila Jeffreys, Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne
Professor Leslie Green, Philosophy of Law, Balliol College, Oxford
Dr Michael Biggs, Associate Professor in Sociology and Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford
Dr Diane Brewster (Retired. ex University of Sussex and Open University)
Dr Susan Matthews, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, Department of English and Creative Writing, University of Roehampton
Dr Clare Chambers, Reader in Philosophy, University of Cambridge
Dr Stephen Cowden, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, Coventry University
Dr Catherine Butler, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of Bath
Dr Mary Leng, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of York
Ms Georgia Testa, Teaching Fellow, School of Philosophy, Religion, and History of Science, University of Leeds
Dr Rosalind Barber, English & Comparative Literature, Goldsmiths, University of London
Dr Sophie Allen, Lecturer in Philosophy, Keele University
Dr Paul Sagar, Lecturer in Political Theory, Department of Political Economy, King’s College London
Dr Julia Jordan, Department of English Language and Literature, UCL
Dr David Pilgrim, Honorary Professor of Health and Social Policy, University of Liverpool
Dr Rosie Dias, Associate Professor, History of Art, University of Warwick
Dr Maureen O’Hara, Senior Lecturer in Law, Solicitor, Coventry University
Dr Eva Poen, Lecturer in Economics, University of Exeter
Sian Hindle, Senior Lecturer, School of Jewellery, Birmingham City University
Dr Holly Smith, UCL Institute of Education
Dr Lesley Semmens, Senior Lecturer (retired), School of Computing, Leeds Beckett University
Richard Garside, Director, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Senior Visiting Research Fellow, Open University
Dr Jane Clare Jones, independent scholar
Dr Jo Waugh, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, York St John University
W Burlette Carter, Professor of Law Emeritus, The George Washington University Law School, Washington, DC
Professor Alex Byrne, Head of Linguistics and Philosophy Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr Ruth McGinity, Lecturer in Educational Leadership and Policy, Institue of Education, UCL
Professor Emeritus Robert Jensen, School of Journalism, University of Texas at Austin
Dr Kathryn Oliver, Associate Professor of Sociology and Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Dr Sophia Connell, Philosophy, Birkbeck College London
Dr Liz Guy, School of Computing, Engineering & Mathematics, University of Brighton
Dr H. Susana Marinho, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry, University of Lisbon
Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans, Academic, Writer and Political Commentator
Dr Laura McGrath, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of East London
Dr Mike Hannis, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Humanities (Ethics and Sustainability), Bath Spa University
Doctor Emma Hilton, University of Manchester (honorary)
Dr Holly Lawford-Smith, Senior Lecturer in Political Philosophy, University of Melbourne
Dr Rupert Read, Reader in Philosopher at UEA, and Chair of Green House
Dr Patrick Turner, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Bath Spa University

Appeared in the Guardian 16th October 2018

Raggamuffin wrote:FFS, all this transgender stuff is getting boring. It's not normal, and yet it seems to be everywhere!

So is war "not normal". But there are many RW'ers who are happier then sheit when war is declared.

Lord Foul wrote:
quill.....if it aint broke...dont fix it

and IF it does needs fixing for heavens sake dont bugger it entirely

the left lack the ability to distinguish between what needs fixing and sticking tits on a bull

"the left lack the ability to distinguish..".

I do wish that when you give such ridiculous personal opinions, you would qualify them as something more like : "the far left in todays' Britain.." , Victor..

As down here, that kind of behaviour more normally comes from far-right wing troublemakers like Tony Abbott, Eric Abetz, Pauline Hanson..

While over in the USA, genuine "left wingers" have very little influence over public policy.

Worldwide, far more bad policy making comes from conservative "right wingers" with their "no change" mindset and corporate backers, than from the more socially-responsible 'centrists' and moderate-left combined..

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:
quill.....if it aint broke...dont fix it

and IF it does needs fixing for heavens sake dont bugger it entirely

the left lack the ability to distinguish between what needs fixing and sticking tits on a bull

"the left lack the ability to distinguish..".

I do wish that when you give such ridiculous personal opinions, you would qualify them as something more like : "the far left in todays' Britain.." , Victor..

As down here, that kind of behaviour more normally comes from far-right wing troublemakers like Tony Abbott, Eric Abetz, Pauline Hanson..

While over in the USA, genuine "left wingers" have very little influence over public policy.

Worldwide, far more bad policy making comes from conservative "right wingers" with their "no change" mindset and corporate backers, than from the more socially-responsible 'centrists' and moderate-left combined..

I think it's fair to say that awful policy and ideas can come from both the Hard Left AND Right, wherever they may be.

Some are just more inclined to highlight the problems with one side than the other.

The idea of surgery altering the gender of ANYONE under the age of 18 should be obviously disgraceful and not given a second hearing.

I will openly admit that the more clueless sentimentalists on the Left ARE to blame for nonsense like this. But Quill makes a good point when says no new thinking comes from the Right.

The Left are responsible for civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, trans rights and others and all the progress they have made due to their more open persuasion to new ideas.

If the Right had their way we'd never have progressed beyond Victorian era morality.

This story IS, however, a hideous side effect of over liberalising everything.

Raggamuffin wrote:FFS, all this transgender stuff is getting boring. It's not normal, and yet it seems to be everywhere!

because it sells Paper to Dullards 

those that were homophobs like Thor etc have had to socially adjust, so now target trans because they can 

it is a Minuscule issue with minuscule proportions of the population effected 
if You listen to eh Brainless Ball-less right whingers like Thor and LF 
it All over everywhere 
it's some Huge dilemma it so Great generational tragedy 

the reality is they just can't mindlessly hate gays any more to they have subconsciously switched to trans rather than Confront the root cause of their irrational hatred

The very idea of forcing non-essential "gender change" onto minors, who are by definition unknowing and unwilling victims of such stupidity, does seem to be a British-centric problem with a small minority of hard-left LGBTQI agitators stirring up trouble...

The problems being alluded to in the O/P probably wouldn't even get off the starting blocks in Oz, the USA or many other countries..

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

The very idea of forcing non-essential "gender change" onto minors, who are by definition unknowing and unwilling victims of such stupidity, does seem to be a British-centric problem with a small minority of hard-left LGBTQI agitators stirring up trouble...

The problems being alluded to in the O/P probably wouldn't even get off the starting blocks in Oz, the USA or many other countries..

Two stories, one from Australia, one from the USA. This isn't just a British problem, and the US story is three years old...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-16/children-wanting-surgical-gender-change-no-longer-need-court/9557444

https://www.medicaldaily.com/gender-reassignment-surgery-now-available-oregon-minors-without-parental-consent-342670

veya_victaous wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:FFS, all this transgender stuff is getting boring. It's not normal, and yet it seems to be everywhere!

because it sells Paper to Dullards 

those that were homophobs like Thor etc have had to socially adjust, so now target trans because they can 

it is a Minuscule issue with minuscule proportions of the population effected 
if You listen to eh Brainless Ball-less right whingers like Thor and LF 
it All over everywhere 
it's some Huge dilemma it so Great generational tragedy 

the reality is they just can't mindlessly hate gays any more to they have subconsciously switched to trans rather than Confront the root cause of their irrational hatred

Well there is a load of extremist made up crap and unfonded accusations. Its you spouting the hate to me and Me Lord and based off lies

As nobody is promoting any hate to transgenders or to deny them equal rights

What is rightly being questioned, is whether kids with mental health problems are wrongly being disgnosed. Even more so when every study shows that 60-90% of children with gender dysphoria grow out of this. Thus if groups are wrongly telling someone with Austism, they are gender dysphoria. It could have life changing consequences to that child. To the degree its wrong to make children guinea pigs to social experiments, espcially when they already suffered mental health problems. To offer surgery to children is simple madness. When no child is allowed to vote, smoke, drink, drive a car etc, but we are allowing them to disfigure their bodies, on a whim, before they are mentally mature enought to actually decide. That is utterly dangeroeus. Like anything they should be offered guidance and councilling, but in no way should a decision on surgery should come until they are adults. What needs to be investigated, is whether austic children are being groomed. As then this could have as seen life changing effects to that child, which could lead to further mental health problems and suicide. So to discount this shows what is ignorant coming from you.

You do not know what you are talking about and do what you always do, scream transphobic. Just as some within the Trans community try to shut down anything that may be critical of unscientific claims being promoted by them.

You are not the first to wrongly accuse others of hate, which has no bases or foundation. You are simple another extremist trying to shut down genuine debate I have never expressed hate to homosexuals, I just once was catholic and believed it was wrong. I however saw myself it was wrong to believe this, by challenging the beliefs. I thus saw how wrong I had been and thus became an athiest. For you to then claim I want to hate someone else, based on my former religious beliefs. Shows the extrent of hate that is peddaled from left wing extremists like yourself. There is no genuine discourse from you but lies. You try to deligitimize others, in the hope people will not listen to them. Its  nasty lef wing trait we soo too often today. Where the left cannot handle health debate, but try to shut down anyone they disagree with and class them as people of hate

Its sheer bullshit from you and you will be called out on this for what you are

Now here is an educational video in order that you learn

Eilzel wrote:

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

The very idea of forcing non-essential "gender change" onto minors, who are by definition unknowing and unwilling victims of such stupidity, does seem to be a British-centric problem with a small minority of hard-left LGBTQI agitators stirring up trouble...

The problems being alluded to in the O/P probably wouldn't even get off the starting blocks in Oz, the USA or many other countries..

Two stories, one from Australia, one from the USA. This isn't just a British problem, and the US story is three years old...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-16/children-wanting-surgical-gender-change-no-longer-need-court/9557444

https://www.medicaldaily.com/gender-reassignment-surgery-now-available-oregon-minors-without-parental-consent-342670

Aarrgghhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We're all doomed, doomed I say...

The world's going to hell in a handbasket ..

My greatest worry - genuinely - is that gender change is in danger of becoming like deciding to have a tattoo or a nipple piercing...fashionable.

A psychotherapist has described the heartbreaking experience of treating a transgender patient who 'regretted losing his penis'.

Bob Wither says the reason he is so concerned about the increasing numbers of people being referred to clinics with gender dysphoria is one man he treated 25 years ago.

He told Good Morning Britain: 'The reason why I'm so concerned is... the very first person I saw 25 years ago had been living as a woman for nine years and had fully transitioned.

'At which point she realised it had been a big mistake. Sorry I know it's breakfast television, but he'd lost his penis, it was really a deep tragedy for him.

'He was very suicidal and very depressed. He recovered, But he really wish he'd had psychoanalysis before he surgically transitioned. That's why I'm so passionate about this.'

Lee Harries, 60, of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, was born Debbie Karemer but underwent gender reassignment surgery at the age of 44.

After years of struggling with his sexual identity, he had his breasts, uterus, ovaries and fallopian tubes removed, before doctors made a prosthetic penis for him.

But years later he said: 'I'm not meant to be a bloke' and believes he is not transgender.

Mr Harries, who married his partner Alan before he transitioned, has undergone counselling, where experts have told him he has PTSD as a result of being sexually assaulted by his father.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6404961/GMB-transgender-debate-Bob-Wither-psychotherapist-India-Willoughby-transgender-journalist.html

Fred Moletrousers wrote:My greatest worry - genuinely - is that gender change is in danger of becoming like deciding to have a tattoo or a nipple piercing...fashionable.

The sudden rise in youngsters deciding they are not the sex they want to be sounds like some weird cult has gotten into their psyche.
One cant pick up a paper nowadays without reading something about transgenders or gender neutrals, it's like a form of bloody brain washing for vulnerable kids who may just be experiencing normal confusion about where they fit into the world.

gelico wrote:

HoratioTarr wrote:Ultimately, we have free choice.  Same as if people want eat junk or sugar.

you raise an interesting question

should medical treatment be 'free' for those who deliberately make bad choices?

But then the opinions of what is a bad choice would be debatable.

Why is it they constantly give air time, to this racist transwoman?

Oh and for the record, the claim by stonewalls on suicide rates, has been seen as poor research and not a very good aspect of the number of trans people that are suicidal and yet trans activists continually spin this yarn all the time

fullfact.org/health/young-trans-people/

I mean we only have to see in sweden. That since they have made schools gender neutral and basically denying scientific facts. Where even worse its being taught that masulinity is somehow evil That boys are taught only to be feminine. That is only going to lead to more and more mental health problems.

This its easy for me to understand why there has been a dramatic rise in mental health issues in Sweden in adolescents. Many children are boys and girls and to confuse many children on this by making them into a social experinment is beyond child abuse. Its abhorant.

Yes help children that have gender dysphoria, but then dont try to erase biological factors in the vast majority of children

She then plays the card that a trained physchologist who has spent years helping children with this, is some how irresponsible and yet she has zero training on this. She plays the bigot card, as if to try to deligitimize him

Quelle surprise

HoratioTarr wrote:I do feel that very young kids shouldn't be changing gender until well after puberty and when their minds have actually matured more?   It's one thing to believe you're transgender and quite another to have radical physical surgery.  

I think it's very worrying because young teens are very susceptible to what is in trend at any given time.  

Yep I agree. I am sure I read somewhere that the decision-making part of our brain isn’t fully developed until we are in our twenties?

eddie wrote:

HoratioTarr wrote:I do feel that very young kids shouldn't be changing gender until well after puberty and when their minds have actually matured more?   It's one thing to believe you're transgender and quite another to have radical physical surgery.  

I think it's very worrying because young teens are very susceptible to what is in trend at any given time.  

Yep I agree. I am sure I read somewhere that the decision-making part of our brain isn’t fully developed until we are in our twenties?

This is true, it takes that long for the prefrontal cortex to fully develop, which is why teenagers have such a hard time grasping that risky behaviors could hurt them.

New research on gender identity disorder (also known as gender dysphoria, in which a person does not identify with their biological sex) questions how best to handle the condition when it arises in children and adolescents. Should biological treatments be used as early as possible to help a young client transition, or is caution required, in case of complicating psychological issues?

Melanie Bechard of the University of Toronto and her colleagues examined the prevalence of “psychosocial and psychological vulnerabilities” in 50 child and teen cases of gender dysphoria, and writing in a recent issue of the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, they argue their findings show that physicians should be considering these factors more seriously when deciding on a treatment plan. Salting the situation, one of the paper’s co-authors is Kenneth Zucker, an expert on gender dysphoria who was last year considered too controversial for Canadian state television.


As recently as 2013, Zucker headed the American Psychiatric Association’s group deciding the diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria, but he fell from grace in 2015 when he was fired from his clinic at the Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health for failing to follow the now prominent “gender-affirmative” approach that places a clinical emphasis on smoothing the process of gender transition for children and adolescents who say they no longer identify with their biological sex.

Zucker’s approach, in contrast, was more hesitant and he questioned the ease with which young people can draw conclusions about their gender identity during a universally tumultuous stage of life. He also placed more emphasis on the costs that transition may bear upon an individual. To say that he considered transition a last resort would be as much of a caricature as saying the gender affirmative approach considers it a first resort, but they clearly represent different points on this spectrum.

To Zucker’s critics he was a transphobe, his approach analogous to gay conversion therapy (the now widely condemned use of psychological therapy to attempt to alter a client’s sexual orientation) – for example, he reportedly advised some parents to discourage their younger children from behaving in ways that contradicted their assigned gender.

Last year, hostility toward Zucker’s views was substantive enough to lead the Canadian broadcaster CBC to pull a BBC documentary that reported his perspective. For his part, Zucker continues to maintain that his priority has always been the wellbeing of his clinical charges. The recent article that he co-authored with Bechard and others puts into the scientific record one of the concerns of his clinic, that gender dysphoric youth are a psychologically vulnerable population.

The paper examines the case files of 17 people assigned a male gender and 33 people assigned a female gender, at birth, based on their biological sex. Following their experience of gender dysphoria, the clients had been referred to a specialist gender identity service for young people, at which time they were aged 13 to 20. Sixty-four per cent of the clients were homosexual with respect to the gender they were assigned at birth.

The researchers looked for evidence of 15 factors that can signify or contribute to psychological issues, from self-harm to a previous outpatient therapy visit, and found that over half their sample had six or more of these factors. The majority had two or more prior diagnoses of a psychological disorder, the most common being a mood disorder such as depression. More than half had reported thinking about suicide, a third had dropped out of high school, a quarter had self harmed. A history of sexual abuse was rarer, observed in ”only” 10 per cent of cases.

All these measures are likely to be underestimates because they depended on the clients’ own descriptions during their initial interview at the gender identity clinic. Without a control group, it’s hard to say whether these rates of psychological distress are higher than for other client groups. Certainly though, the findings are consistent with the sense that these individuals were already in a state of psychological vulnerability when they were referred for gender dysphoria.

Bechard’s team present in-depth examples of two clients, both assigned as female at birth, that bring these psychological complexities to life, demonstrating the kinds of situations these cases often involve.

The first individual was very intelligent but struggling socially, especially around girls. They were fixated on emphasising their femininity in selfies, leading the parents to suspect body dysmorphic disorder (a troubling belief that there is something wrong with one’s body). This individual’s boyfriend then came out as gay. Sometime following this, the client disclosed that they identified as a boy. This change in identity happened “overnight” with no developmental history of cross-gender identification.

The second client’s history is more convoluted: at around age 14-15 this individual had disclosed that they were transgender (now identifying as male), and had felt this way for a while. This individual also had a history of anxiety, social problems interacting with girls, and extreme anxiety about sexuality. From the point of disclosing their gender dysphoria, they also reported that they were gay (oriented towards men) but had no interest in romantic/sexual relations.

In both these cases, after an initial assessment the individual was given testosterone treatment by a physician against the wishes of the parents – in the first case, the physician actually refused to meet the parents, and in the second, the physician recorded that the issues raised by the parents regarding anxiety, sexual and social problems weren’t relevant for the course of action. Sadly, in the case of the second individual, a few months after the start of the hormone treatment, they made a suicide attempt that required hospitalisation; the reasons for this were not reported.

Are the indicators of psychological vulnerability identified in these case histories the consequence, cause or simply coincident to gender identity disorder? If they are all solely a fall-out from the gender dysphoria, then the decisive approach of the physicians described above has a certain sense to it. But if some of the psychological complications pre-dated the gender dysphoria, or were separate from it, then at the very least this would suggest that the consulted physicians should have considered a broader treatment plan, and considered the psychological complications when judging their clients’ “readiness” to commence biomedical treatments.

The possibility that disclosure of gender dysphoria may in some cases be driven by earlier psychological vulnerabilities and social problems seems likely to be greater than zero. This is a controversial idea among many online trans activists, but actually it isn’t among health practitioners, even those who espouse the gender affirmation philosophy, who recognise that some young gender identity referrals may be transiently mixed-up individuals.

The issue of pre-existing or concurrent psychological vulnerabilities also speaks to the fact that a substantial proportion, perhaps even the majority, of children who experience some form of gender identity challenge, later come to endorse the gender they were raised as (further commentary and discussion); the new findings may also be relevant to the experience of detransitioning individuals, who reach similar conclusions, but often after a much greater investment in the process of transition – a phenomenon that is struggling to get scientific attention.

However, when a child with gender dysphoria is “insistent, persistent, and consistent” over an extended period, then (under the gender affirmative approach) this is typically treated as a good indicator that it is appropriate to begin facilitating the transition process. The trouble is, psychological vulnerabilities can also be persistent, and if a young person feels like they’ve found the solution, it’s understandable that they might not want to let go.

Life can sometimes feel as complicated as the Gordian knot, the legendary challenge that was seemingly impossible to disentangle. It’s understandable to weigh up a radical solution, like Alexander the Great cleaving the knot with a single sword-stroke: to abandon your external environment for a new home, to step outside of the confines of an identity that may be the source of the myriad issues plaguing you.

This research from Bechard, Zucker and company provides preliminary evidence about the psychological vulnerabilities of children and teens with gender dysphoria, extending previous work that’s shown high rates of self-harm and suicidal ideation in this group, but more research is required to give us the full clinical picture. As such, this new paper represents just the latest sally in a difficult, complicated conversation that’s far from over: a conversation about how we can most compassionately treat those who feel out of step with where they find themselves in the social world.

digest.bps.org.uk/2018/01/17/most-children-and-teens-with-gender-dysphoria-also-have-multiple-other-psychological-issues/

Also just to keep you up to speed and this shows the militant campaign by some trans activists. Dr Zucker, an expert in this field for over 3 decades, that they managed to get shut down, from his clinic, through a multitude of lies made against him. 

Has now won a lawsuit against his former employers, for wronful dismissal and defamation of character. So badly was he targeted, that as seen a BBC documentary was banned, due to again trans activists.

This really shows how experts are being hounded and having smears made against them, when they clearly have the best interest of children at heart. This has been happenning in this country also, as I have posted articles where experts in the field, are being denied the ability to study further this condition. This to me is deeply troubling and even more if practices are being put in place, where children have mental health problems. Of which are being cast to one side



cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/camh-settlement-former-head-gender-identity-clinic-1.4854015

nationalreview.com/2018/10/transgender-orthodoxy-kenneth-zucker-vindicated/

What the hell is happening to THIS country ?

nicko wrote:What the hell is happening to THIS country ?

It has a population of over 65,000,000, and one or two hundred thousand of them are transgender.