Politicised trans groups put children at risk, says expert

School counsellors and mental health service providers are bowing to pressures from ‘highly politicised’ transgender groups to affirm children’s beliefs that they were born the wrong sex, a leading expert has warned.

Marcus Evans, a psychotherapist and ex-governor of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, whose Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) is the only NHS clinic to provide gender counselling and transitioning, said many experts were living in fear of being labelled transphobic, which was having an impact on their objectivity.

“I believe the trans political agenda has encroached on the clinical environment surrounding and within the Gender Identity Development Service,” Evans told the Observer. “Young people need an independent clinical service that has the long-term interests of the patient at heart. To some extent, this requires a capacity to stand up to pressure coming from various sources: from the young person, their family, peer groups, online and social networking pressures and from highly politicised pro-trans groups.”


https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/27/trans-lobby-pressure-pushing-young-people-to-transition?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1564257964

What is the risk?

Original Quill wrote:What is the risk?

The majority of these children are being misdiagnosed through gender affirming

Being that the majority of children that have been diagnosed with gender dysphoira. Grow out of this by their teens. By a ratio of around 60-80%. In fact every study confims this

https://www.psypost.org/2017/12/many-transgender-kids-grow-stay-trans-50499

So the risk is this quill. Using "affirming gender identity methods" Many children can be and will be misdiagnosed. Even worse when this happens to a gay child confused over their gender identity. That they are made to fell they are trapped in the wrong body. When the reality is they are gay. Then the conversion therapy begins. They are placed on puberty blockers. Which other studies show, these then all go on to take hormone treatement. Leading to surgical changes. That is the risk. Kids being diagnosed and medicated on the medical experts having to take the word of a child. As being the ultimate decision maker on diagnoses.

The risk is the harm this will cause to many, who would have simple grown out of this and now find themselves really trapped. Being medicated. The treatment method is open to flaws and even worse. A form of gay conversion therapy. I hope you would  join me. In being against any form of conversion therapy for gay people?

OK, so the risk is misdiagnosis. Sounds like one of those self-validating theories that can't be proved wrong.

It reminds me of those recovered memory cases that were going down about 20-years ago. Once again because the patient was not rationally involved, the diagnosis could not be proven wrong. The courts put an end to those by rejecting as a matter of law the evidence based on the theory.

I guess the lesson is: When a discipline needs oversight, some higher body must intervene.

Original Quill wrote:OK, so the risk is misdiagnosis.  Sounds like one of those self-validating theories that can't be proved wrong.

It reminds me of those recovered memory cases that were going down about 20-years ago.  Once again because the patient was not rationally involved, the diagnosis could not be proven wrong.   The courts put an end to those by rejecting as a matter of law the evidence based on the theory.

I guess the lesson is: When a discipline needs oversight, some higher body must intervene.

The risk is misdiagnoses and diagnoses as well. Again many kids grow out of this, when diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Hence medicating them. Which studies show will near a 100% lead them to take hormone treatement. Often leading to surgery. That is irreversible physical and mental damage created through such a method.

If the view of a child is to be taken as valid from the earliest ages of 4. With gender confirming. Then why not reduce the level of competance for people to the age of 4? In fact further more pass a law that states that parents and others have to abide by the temper tantrum reasoning of a 4 year old

I guess the lesson here is, that some people will ignore valid reasoning and evidence

phil wrote:The risk is misdiagnoses and diagnoses as well.

I agree. Psychology, like music or games, goes through fads as well.