Jump to content

BBC - "NHS gender clinic 'should have challenged me more' over transition"


Homer

Recommended Posts

Quote

A 23-year-old woman who is taking legal action against an NHS gender clinic says she should have been challenged more by medical staff over her decision to transition to a male as a teenager.

A judge gave the go-ahead for a full hearing of the case against the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.

Lawyers will argue children cannot give informed consent to treatment delaying puberty or helping them to transition.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51676020

 

Disclaimer - I haven't read the article yet and I don't know shit about gender. Just thought that this might be interesting for some of you.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Janus the Fox

Just 3 hours of total gender assessment at a GIC in England?  Given to a 16 year old, that feels pretty short to me, even with my case, I’ve explored gender formally for over 5 years now through the Psychotherapy route first with a referral to a GIC sometime in the near future.  I’ll have to take this note in mind when I do get the GIC appointment letter.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I've just read this. It does seem rather abrupt. 

Trouble is that it's one of these "rock and a hard place situations". The earlier treatment is started the better, and the more complete the level of transitioning which can be achieved. Hence the early prescription of puberty blockers. If the end result of this case is "no treatment until you're eighteen" it would, in my view, be a retrograde step 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Honestly I agree with them that there should be more therapy and guidance available for those who go to gender clinics. I'm still on the waiting list myself (for the Dutch one), but I do already have info from them on what the process is like. The diagnostic phase consists of one hour-long appointment per month for six months. So that's six hours in total. Not a lot. They're just severely underfunded and understaffed. That's the real problem. 

 

I'm just hoping that when the person in the article says they'd have liked to be challenged more on their assertions about their own gender, they mean more therapy and guidance, not more judgment, more asking for proof and more rejection.

 

I know two enbies irl (as in, randomly met them and befriended them), and both got rejected from the gender clinic, one for still wanting to give birth at some point, the other for not wanting testosterone.

 

To put this into perspective, one of them is Muslim and went through familial rejection in order to get a referral for the gender clinic from their GP, then waited for two years on that damn waiting list while socially transitioning, and the gender clinic just rejected them after talking to them for 1 hour. Yo that shit makes me so angry. 

 

The other one got rejected twice, but kept fighting, and has only just had top surgery after a process of over ten years.

 

Getting rejected from the gender clinic is one of my biggest fears. I genuinely wouldn't know how to cope (though that second nb friend promised they'd stomp over there and make a scene if that happens, so that helps lol), but I know it's likely to happen. So when this person in the article says they want gender clinics to be more critical of their applicants, I really truly think that would do more harm than good.

 

Puberty blockers don't leave any permanent effects after you stop taking them. Whether or not to give people those shouldn't be a hard decision. It just pauses things so you can have more time to make a decision. Testosterone on the other hand, much bigger deal. I do think people need more therapy and guidance, but not more rejection. We need more gender specialized therapists, so they can spend more than an hour with applicants before rejecting them.

 

Obviously this applies to the Dutch gender clinic at the VU, but I understand the process at the NHS to be pretty similar.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't think the NHS can win either way. I do however feel that people shouldn't start reassignment until their body has finished growing which could be 18-21 ish. I know that's not ideal if you feel trapped in the body you're in, but it must make things easier as far as surgeries are concerned and being solid in your feelings of your body/gender/identity.

Link to post
Share on other sites
everywhere and nowhere
42 minutes ago, Lisa Smith said:

I do however feel that people shouldn't start reassignment until their body has finished growing which could be 18-21 ish. I know that's not ideal if you feel trapped in the body you're in, but it must make things easier as far as surgeries are concerned and being solid in your feelings of your body/gender/identity.

But it gives people much worse starting conditions. Particularly trans women develop a male silhouette with broader shoulders, large hands and feet - sometimes it "gives them away" later, is difficult to hide (or rather, to make less noticeable). Being able to start the preliminary phase before 18 - just the puberty blockers - allows them to avoid it.

In Poland no treatment is oficially possible before the age of 18, but at least my friend went to the specialist a few days after her 18th birthday (and was in contact with gender clinics before - but earlier they can only diagnose, can't offer any treatment). She was at least lucky to have rather slow puberty - had some problems with her voice, but was still quite short, with little facial hair... If she went to the clinic where they expect 1,5 year "real life test" without hormones (!!!!!), the changes which would have happened in the meantime would have been much harder to undo.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Uhh, no.  You make the choices and you deal with the consequences.  Don't blame others for "not challenging" you enough.  These people are supposedly adults too, which is even more embarrassing for them -- fucking act like one and take some damn responsibility for your own actions.

 

Society "challenges" and denies trans people rights enough as it is.

 

Quote

I do however feel that people shouldn't start reassignment until their body has finished growing which could be 18-21 ish. I know that's not ideal if you feel trapped in the body you're in, but it must make things easier as far as surgeries are concerned and being solid in your feelings of your body/gender/identity.

I really don't think that's necessarily true, as indicated in the post above mine.  If anything that usually makes things harder.

Link to post
Share on other sites

This is a very interesting topic, and I wish I knew more about it. Definitely something I will be looking into more as time passes by. 

I study psychology, and in one of my courses we briefly touched on the theme (the class was about something else entirely) and my professor said that the amount of people asking for transitions is bigger than what we should expect statistically. like, that it’s no longer illegal/classed an illness in many countries  can’t on its own explain why so many people say they are trans. I don’t really know what exactly that statement was based on, but apparently some leading researcher in the field had said it in a conference. And if true, it means that (likely young) people that aren’t actually trans are going through transitions (likely they have other mental health issues) and might later want to change back. 
 

and it feels like a loose-loose situation, because as described above, the process is long and not to mention the judgement from society etc for those in need of it, and it doesn’t help at all that in the mix there’s people getting the “wrong treatment” and then later regretting it (cause the solution would be an even slower and longer process). So, making it easier to transition is a “bad option” but so is making it harder. 
 

has anybody else heard about this? I mean, the aspect my professor mentioned? 

Link to post
Share on other sites
Winter-Cattle

Keira's story, and stories like hers, have personal relevance to me. I was diagnosed with Asperger's as a young adult, and it made me completely question reality. I grew up thinking I was completely normal, but then it turns out I was not - I had autism my whole life and was completely unaware of this. Wanting to know more, but there being nothing but diagnostic services for high functioning adults where I live, I ended up finding internet communities for autism. This is where I first came across transgender people (I have never knowingly met a transgender/nonbinary/etc. person to this day, only come across them online). I was in many ways a tomboy, I have a STEM background and have been the only woman in the room more times than I can count, I have never been comfortable with my self image, etc. If I thought I was normal my whole life but was not, it would also be possible that I thought I was female my whole life but was not.

 

Finding out that I could be a man in a woman's body made, what I would self-describe as dysphoria, worse. While I had never been pleased with my secondary sex characteristics, I was even more resentful of them. Reading anecdotes from transgender people, there was definitely a sense of urgency - that the sooner you transition, the better you will pass. I saw my body, and saw how there was no way someone so small and feminine would pass, which again made, what I think would be dysphoria, worse. There was also promotion of the idea that if you think you are transgender, you are transgender, because only transgender people would even question their identity in the first place and feel dysphoria.

 

I kept this all to myself, and spent about 2 or 3 years identifying, secretly, as a man. Really not the best time of my life, but I was somehow able to come to terms with being a woman again once I removed myself from everything transgender related. It is apparently something (relatively) quite a lot of girls and young women experience if they don't fit into society, such as those with autism, aren't straight, have a difficult family life, etc. I was "lucky" in that I have always kept to myself so much, so didn't talk to anyone about the pain I was in. Otherwise, I fear that her story could have been mine. I wish her story, and stories from other women, were talked about more often outside of "gender critical"/TERF spaces. I don't agree with a lot that is said in those communities, but I am thankful that they discuss the topic in the first place, and also do not talk so dismissively and unemphatically of people who formally identified as transgender, but do not anymore. It is understandable that I see almost nobody talk about this outside of those spaces, when we are blamed for what happened or told that our experiences are not real. I understand wanting to defend the rights of transgender people, but I wish that didn't come with attacking those who desist or destransition.

 

I don't want to quit this site unless I have to, and I don't feel very comfortable about sharing my story in such an unaccepting space, but I do feel the need to defend Keira, perhaps because I am glad she is sharing her story so publically. 

Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

I understand wanting to defend the rights of transgender people, but I wish that didn't come with attacking those who desist or destransition.

I don't think most people get "attacked" for doing that (I certainly wouldn't, at least); they get attacked for doing the sort of thing as mentioned in the article.  The people who do this (blame the clinics/society for not "challenging them more" or whatever) only contribute to making things harder for actual trans people.  Like, it's not their damn responsibility to challenge you; that's YOUR responsibility.

 

Navigating gender is a personal journey and it isn't always easy, but that doesn't mean you get to blame others every time you might make a misstep.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Winter-Cattle
12 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

I don't think most people get "attacked" for doing that (I certainly wouldn't, at least); they get attacked for doing the sort of thing as mentioned in the article.  The people who do this (blame the clinics/society for not "challenging them more" or whatever) only contribute to making things harder for actual trans people.  Like, it's not their damn responsibility to challenge you; that's YOUR responsibility.

 

Navigating gender is a personal journey and it isn't always easy, but that doesn't mean you get to blame others every time you might make a misstep.

I don't know how much as changed, but at the time both she and I would have first identified as transgender, it was very explicitly repeated that there was no reason to challenge yourself or have self doubt about your identity. Only transgender people questioned their identity, I was told. Only transgender people felt negative feelings about their body. Only transgender people felt resentment for their sex, for their gender roles, and so on. I was told I needed to accept that I was transgender, because there was no way I was not with the feelings that I had. Even the thought of challenging whether someone was "actually"/"truly" transgender was a very taboo, unspoken topic.

 

She received medical treatment that should have helped her. That's not just her own "choice" or "actions". I strongly believe that should bring into question the process that occurs from start to finish. She should not be blamed for "making things harder for actual trans people" if there are serious shortcomings in the systems currently in place. The things that make things harder for transgender people, such as transphobia and issues with access to therapies and medical help, are not her fault, and I strongly believe that your anger is misplaced by blaming her.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

She received medical treatment that should have helped her. That's not just her own "choice" or "actions".

Unless someone is receiving transitioning treatments/procedures against their will (in which case that would obviously be criminal and we don't even need to have a discussion over its ethicality), it is ultimately their own choices and actions that determine whether or not they go through with such things.  They don't just tie these people up and force them to do it.

 

I'm not sure you realize how difficult it is in many areas of the world to actually receive such treatments, even among those who actually are 100% certain they want them.  In many places, you need to provide suitable "evidence" that you're trans; they don't just hand them out willy nilly -- and not only can these processes take years, what constitutes as "suitable" evidence can be excessive to the point of ridiculousness already.  Whether you accept that all of that is actually the case or not, it does not change the fact that people like those covered in the story (who are, essentially, clamoring for even more restrictiveness on who receives these treatments just because they messed up and ended up getting something they didn't want in the end) are only contributing toward making things even more difficult for actual trans people to get the treatment they need.

 

And honestly, even if they weren't contributing to that... I would still think they're chicken shits anyway for trying to pin the blame on others for their own mistakes.  Again, these people are adults; they should start fucking acting like it, trans or not.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Meanwhile in the United States, a majority of trans people can't get treatment for a common sniffle without dealing with harassment, and a majority don't have access or funding for the gender-affirming treatment they want. 

 

But what do I know, my support group is majority non-transitioning for a wide variety of reasons. 

Link to post
Share on other sites
4 hours ago, Winter-Cattle said:

I don't know how much as changed, but at the time both she and I would have first identified as transgender, it was very explicitly repeated that there was no reason to challenge yourself or have self doubt about your identity. Only transgender people questioned their identity, I was told. Only transgender people felt negative feelings about their body. Only transgender people felt resentment for their sex, for their gender roles, and so on. I was told I needed to accept that I was transgender, because there was no way I was not with the feelings that I had. Even the thought of challenging whether someone was "actually"/"truly" transgender was a very taboo, unspoken topic.

I think you are right that this is something that happens in online trans communities, for example tumblr. I do not think this is something that happens at the actual gender clinic. We can hardly blame the gender clinic for what a bunch of kids did on tumblr.

 

We need more funding for more gender clinics, so that trans people don't have to get their guidance and support from these types of communities, or at least, so that that's not their only source.

 

So yeah, it should be easier to get therapy for this, and in order to do that, we need more specialists and they need to actually know their shit. If it wasn't this hard to get in, we wouldn't need to rely on faulty information from online communities. The solution is not to make it harder to get in to a gender clinic process.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Ms. Carolynne

Just because a minority of people are mistaken and detransition doesn't mean we need to make it harder for transgender people. Medical care for the trans community is already abysmal in a lot of places as is, and this will only exacerbate the situation. If we had better care and resources, we probably could decrease the number of people who detransition without denying access to the people who need them.

 

I'd also like to point out we probably will never get rid of detransitioners, this is something that is going to happen. You also can't just get trans people to not exist. We aren't going anywhere. We need to be able to access healthcare.

 

I agree with @Philip027 though, at some point personal responsibility has to come into the picture. Unfortunately that's too controversial these days, and everyone else needs to be screwed over to amend for personal fuck ups.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Winter-Cattle
21 hours ago, Philip027 said:

Unless someone is receiving transitioning treatments/procedures against their will (in which case that would obviously be criminal and we don't even need to have a discussion over its ethicality), it is ultimately their own choices and actions that determine whether or not they go through with such things.  They don't just tie these people up and force them to do it.

 

I'm not sure you realize how difficult it is in many areas of the world to actually receive such treatments, even among those who actually are 100% certain they want them.  In many places, you need to provide suitable "evidence" that you're trans; they don't just hand them out willy nilly -- and not only can these processes take years, what constitutes as "suitable" evidence can be excessive to the point of ridiculousness already.  Whether you accept that all of that is actually the case or not, it does not change the fact that people like those covered in the story (who are, essentially, clamoring for even more restrictiveness on who receives these treatments just because they messed up and ended up getting something they didn't want in the end) are only contributing toward making things even more difficult for actual trans people to get the treatment they need.

 

And honestly, even if they weren't contributing to that... I would still think they're chicken shits anyway for trying to pin the blame on others for their own mistakes.  Again, these people are adults; they should start fucking acting like it, trans or not.

People are not exactly getting treatments/procedures against their will, no. I am very far from the best person to explain this, but because people do not exist in a vacuum, there are social factors that lead to people becoming... deceived? Misled? People "choose" to enter and stay in abusive relationships for example, but I would not call them "chicken shits" or similar. Many of us can accept that even though they are adults, they are very likely to be at the fringes of society and more vulnerable to having a distorted view on what is and isn't normal. The way you are speaking about her is incredibly callous.

 

Of course I realise how difficult it is for transgender people to access healthcare. I spent years following discussions very closely, when I considered myself to be transgender. But I believe this is two sides of the same coin. The same inadequacies that are preventing transgender people from getting access to treatments, which would be best for them, are the same as those letting people like the woman in the article transition, when it is not what is best for them. It should be in the transgender community's best interest to prevent not only false negatives, but also false positives. There needs to be better, more efficient, screening to prevent both of those from happening. They are not mutually exclusive, they both come from the same ignorance.

 

The current thought is that the younger you transition, the better you will pass, so it is better to transition at a young age. But I believe very strongly that creates a sense of urgency that is harmful. It doesn't help people questioning their gender to hear that unless they take immediate action they will not pass in the future. It doesn't help people unable, or afraid, to access the appropriate healthcare to hear that. It doesn't help people who only begin transition in adulthood. The sense of rush or hopelessness adds a lot of pressure to someone already in distress, and in my case, caused suicidal ideation.

 

We should naturally be allies. But repeatedly people like me are dismissed as something that almost never/never happens, as TERF concern trolls, or as traitors/enemies that are making things harder for the "true" transgender people. I feel very uncomfortable in LGBT spaces because of this and would not self-describe myself as LGBT, despite being asexual.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Winter-Cattle
17 hours ago, Laurann said:

I think you are right that this is something that happens in online trans communities, for example tumblr. I do not think this is something that happens at the actual gender clinic. We can hardly blame the gender clinic for what a bunch of kids did on tumblr.

 

We need more funding for more gender clinics, so that trans people don't have to get their guidance and support from these types of communities, or at least, so that that's not their only source.

 

So yeah, it should be easier to get therapy for this, and in order to do that, we need more specialists and they need to actually know their shit. If it wasn't this hard to get in, we wouldn't need to rely on faulty information from online communities. The solution is not to make it harder to get in to a gender clinic process.

I agree with you, but I feel the need to point out that I have never been on tumblr, and this attitude is present to some extent in every single transgender community I have been on. I also, as far as I am aware, was not speaking to children, but to other adults.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

The way you are speaking about her is incredibly callous.

I don't have a lot of respect for people not only unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions and choices, but unfairly shifting the blame upon others.  So, too damn bad, basically ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

If they had instead made an article of someone who was just saying "I later found out transition wasn't for me; here was my journey" and they didn't try to blame other people for their "misfortune" (especially to the point they're pursuing legal action), I might have actually had something resembling sympathy for them.  Here though, nope.  They're getting all the callous.

 

Quote

It should be in the transgender community's best interest to prevent not only false negatives, but also false positives. There needs to be better, more efficient, screening to prevent both of those from happening.

Hard disagree.  Fuck "screening" in general when it comes to this stuff, honestly.  (It's typically just an excuse to ostracize people and deny them rights for not being "trans enough".)  That is nobody else's responsibility to determine anyway; that is the responsibility of the individual person questioning their status.

 

Sometimes in life, people are wrong about things.  Sometimes they will make the wrong choices for themselves.  That's just life.

 

Quote

The current thought is that the younger you transition, the better you will pass, so it is better to transition at a young age. But I believe very strongly that creates a sense of urgency that is harmful. It doesn't help people questioning their gender to hear that unless they take immediate action they will not pass in the future. It doesn't help people unable, or afraid, to access the appropriate healthcare to hear that. It doesn't help people who only begin transition in adulthood. The sense of rush or hopelessness adds a lot of pressure to someone already in distress, and in my case, caused suicidal ideation.

The thing is, that thought is more or less true.  It sucks that it creates urgency for some people, but you can't really shoot the messenger over it.  Many medical procedures result in less overall difficulty if done earlier in life.

 

Urgency is, also, just another fact of life when it comes to certain aspects.  Women might feel urgency when it comes to child rearing, but that's because after a certain point, pregnancy becomes less and less advisable and feasible, and then after that, menopause hits which will stop it altogether.  You can't exactly blame someone in, say, their 30s, starting to feel like their time to have a biological child is running out.

 

Quote

We should naturally be allies. But repeatedly people like me are dismissed as something that almost never/never happens, as TERF concern trolls, or as traitors/enemies that are making things harder for the "true" transgender people.

All of the reasons you said are not by themselves reasons that I cast scorn upon the people mentioned in the OP's article.  I do it because, as I said, they are unwilling to accept responsibility for their own choices.

 

The fact that they are taking their situations and using them to try to make it harder for actual trans people to get the help they need (and that you are seemingly unable to see, or willing to ignore, that that's what they're ultimately doing by making a spectacle out of their own choices and pursuing a legal case over it) is just extra puke on top of the shit sundae.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I can't prove that these kinds of cases never happen. 

 

I can quite confidently say that I've been in gender therapy for three years and hormones are still not on the table. I don't know anyone who has done surgical intervention without a fuckton of work and consideration, and the facilitator for our group has not had the full set of gender confirmation surgeries after a full decade of legal transition. The focus in all the trans spaces I've participated in has been to figure things out at your own pace, with reasonable concern for health, wellbeing, and safety. I just don't see this claimed urgency. 

 

So I'm like, highly skeptical of claims to a hive mind of LGBTQ people pushing full transition in a matter of months as the only true treatment. Especially when standards of care for minors are designed to give teens more time to make long-term decisions. 

Link to post
Share on other sites
51 minutes ago, KiraS said:

The focus in all the trans spaces I've participated in has been to figure things out at your own pace, with reasonable concern for health, wellbeing, and safety. I just don't see this claimed urgency. 

 

So I'm like, highly skeptical of claims to a hive mind of LGBTQ people pushing full transition in a matter of months as the only true treatment. Especially when standards of care for minors are designed to give teens more time to make long-term decisions. 

This. It is always "take your time", "do small steps" where I went to in offline communities.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Soooo here's this as well

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/ftm/comments/fcyoqe/to_the_woman_whos_detransitioning_and_sueing_the/

 

Quote

To the woman whos detransitioning and sueing the nhs (Keira Bell)

Thank you for adding pressure to the service that so many of us have to wait so long for.

 

Theres such a blame culture these days. You chose to take the hormones at an age people can decide to make children (16). Someone couldn't baby you and sit with you for hours on end about your decision, you needed to do research.

 

Yes it is horrible having made a mistake but the fault is not on doctors who cannot read your mind.

I was given hormones after a 45 min consultation and did all the research myself.

 

Do you understand the impact you will have if you win money on future people your age being able to get hormones.

 

Hoping you see this.

 

I am a transgender medical student fyi.

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 3/2/2020 at 3:00 PM, Laurann said:

Dutch gender clinic at the VU

Stepwork (The one I'm at), is more open to the gender spectrum. And what you want. Compared to VU... :)

 

Have you looked into that one?

 

(They used to have a shorter waiting list too... but idk their status right now)

Link to post
Share on other sites

@Phoenix the II I had initially looked into that yes, the waiting list was 'only' 72 weeks back then, but then I got bogged down in insurance stuff and other paperwork they were asking from me and I never replied back to their email and now I feel kind of bad about that. I think it'd look pretty bad to reply a year later like 'Hey hi sorry for the late reply, I was depressed, here's the paperwork and I hope you still have a spot for me on that waiting list that's probably grown exponentially.' Don't think that'd be received too favorably.

 

But thank you for the suggestion :) 

Link to post
Share on other sites
Cheshire-Cat

It sounds like she was prescribed puberty blockers at 16 and testosterone at 17. I think for more 'tomboy' females puberty can be hard. You may mostly hang out with males and then things like breasts and periods start coming into play and you can just wish you didn't have to deal with these things like your male friends. So you might start to resent being a female. You know about transgender or you google it and you think 'wow that could be me' and the more you think about it the more you believe it is you. You may decide to join an online forum and they encourage this viewpoint. So you start to think about transitioning. It's only once the hormones have settled down, the teenage angst is gone, and you've gotten used to the body you're in that you realise you weren't transgender after all.

 

When I was a teenager if all this internet stuff had been around I quite possibly could have gone down this path. I was always more tomboy and whilst I'm now perfectly happy being female I did want to be male as a teenager. 

 

I would imagine that with teenagers it's very difficult for gender teams to determine whether or not a person is trans or whether they just dislike their developing body for a different reason. Whilst I don't mind puberty blockers given to teenagers I have to admit I'm not a fan of hormones or major surgery. Theres a student I was teaching last year who was 17 (about to turn 18) and after less than a year of living as a male they were going to be having a hysterectomy. That is some major and irreversible surgery to be having so young. Imagine if once they'd matured further they realised they actually identified as female. There would be nothing they could do.

 

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure for truly transgender people the process, the waits, and the rejections must be immensely frustrating. But the irriversibility of some of the treatments isn't something that should be taken lightly by the person themselves or medical staff. And being around 16, 17, and 18 year olds frequently at the moment many still haven't fully developed that sense of the consequences of their actions long term enough yet to be making life changing decisions. I only have to look back at myself at that age as a 'mature' person for my age to see how immature I really was in my thinking.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Theres a student I was teaching last year who was 17 (about to turn 18) and after less than a year of living as a male they were going to be having a hysterectomy. That is some major and irreversible surgery to be having so young. Imagine if once they'd matured further they realised they actually identified as female. There would be nothing they could do.

The problem here is, the number of people who fall in this group (the ones who transition and regret it) is far less than the number of people who actually are correct in wanting this stuff but aren't able to get it (many of whom are living in anguish or even actively harming/killing themselves over it; but hey, god forbid even just a few people in comparison realize they might have made the wrong choices regarding their transition...), due in part to people in the former group like the ones in the article who think more policing, more scrutiny, more "challenge" is needed, and thereby make things more difficult for everyone else in the latter group.

 

What gives the smaller group the right to screw over the larger group like that?

 

Again, sometimes people fuck up, sometimes they get things wrong about themselves, sometimes people do things they end up regretting later.  That's life.  Everyone goes through that in some form or another, even if they never transition.  The people who are coming in and essentially saying "we should be doing more to prevent people from screwing up like I did" might seem like they have a noble goal at first, but in this case they don't realize (or don't care) how much collateral damage they are causing in the process, and it stems from them not realizing that in this case they are the exception, not the rule.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Lonemathsytoothbrushthief
On 3/2/2020 at 10:20 PM, KiraS said:

Meanwhile in the United States, a majority of trans people can't get treatment for a common sniffle without dealing with harassment, and a majority don't have access or funding for the gender-affirming treatment they want. 

 

But what do I know, my support group is majority non-transitioning for a wide variety of reasons. 

Detransitioners are so hard to believe in their criticism of the nhs BECAUSE most of us waiting for treatment know we're going to struggle to get access. There are trans kids who wait for two years to be assessed by tavistock only to age out in the process, miss any chance of puberty blockers, be shifted to adult waiting lists and wait another two years to be seen there. People have committed suicide while waiting. My own dysphoria has become much worse, but I've read of people being rejected HRT because they're not mentally stable enough after attempting suicide because of dysphoria and waiting times. UK trans people are dealing with PLENTY of shit, and it makes these cynical fucking detransitioner stories the biggest shitty form of gaslighting to deal with when most of the trans people in this country struggle to be given ANY treatment for free and are likely self medicating, or transitioning on private healthcare if they're rich enough. Those two year waiting times I brought up earlier? That's the best case. There are trans people who have waited ten years. There are trans people who have given up because their gender clinic's waiting list hasn't even moved for years. And again. We have mental illness and disability held against us(and weight for fat trans people) which can create more gatekeeping(this isn't informed consent, doctors can refuse to agree to a surgery and it can get delayed then because half the time you need multiple people to agree to let you have surgeries). In this climate, when autistic detransitioners are weaponising shit like that it makes it harder for autistic trans people who DO want to transition. And then when people go to private clinics because they're able to do that, TERFs can lobby against them and damage their reputations, get doctors fired, make the NHS unwilling to take patients who've seen them etc so people who've transitioned for years privately and want to get prescriptions through the nhs are still told to get in the waiting list so they can be diagnosed with gender dysphoria...it's a ridiculous shitty system and the UK media is full of TERFs so don't believe them when they spread these stories.

Link to post
Share on other sites

 

I don't agree with everything he says and it's biased interview but it's a viewpoint that must be heard. Having very young children on hormones is a tough deal. At 14 I was still figuring out what the fuck was going on. Yes I would have loved to have testosterone at that age however I was still just a kid. I feel for this guy because it's very possible his kid is cisgender and hadn't untangled her own mental mess. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

@KrysLost 

I do understand how it can be hard on a parent who truly doesn't understand that their rejection is what hurt their kid the most. They feel like they are fighting for their kid's life.

But for an entire court to take decisions like this, more must have been going on than we're shown in this video.

Oddly we never hear the kid's perspective.

 

There's a famous story about a little trans girl (Luna/James, you've probably heard of it) whose father is doing the same thing. The media twisted that beyond recognition too.

Here's somebody who got angry at the mother, the psychologists and the judge in this case, then did his own research and read the court files for himself, and then found out it was presented all wrong. The little girl was afraid of her dad, her mother wasn't forcing anything on her etc.

Spoiler

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
anisotrophic

That parent illustrates some incredibly unhealthy attitudes that is exacerbating the risks.

 

1. Refusing gender neutral treatment of a child they're concerned about

2. It's further exacerbated by the journalist doing the same thing, which is completely unacceptable

3. T does not prevent children

4. T renders someone biologically male in many respects, it's a falsehood to say "still biologically female"

5. Facial hair can be removed with laser hair removal

 

Refusing gender neutral treatment and refusing to make truth-based statements of concern regarding risks make it impossible to have a careful and considerate treatment of gender dysphoria. It contributes to escalation and polarization.

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 3/2/2020 at 4:06 PM, Philip027 said:

Uhh, no.  You make the choices and you deal with the consequences.  Don't blame others for "not challenging" you enough.  These people are supposedly adults too, which is even more embarrassing for them -- fucking act like one and take some damn responsibility for your own actions

Agree!

If then NHS staff challenged then they'd be accused of being transphobic. If they don't challenge they get sued.

The NHS can't win as someone has said already.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...