Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Links - 27th April 2022 (2 - Trans Mania)

Man Becomes Jeopardy's Top 'Female' Earner - "The ability of men to erase women has now expanded to game shows.  On Friday, Jeopardy! champion Amy Schneider became, according to NBC News, “the highest-earning female contestant in the game show’s nearly 57-year run.”...   Unlike sports, where men have multiple physical advantages over women, men don’t have an innate advantage over women in Jeopardy!, but Schneider being dubbed the highest-earning female in Jeopardy! history nevertheless erases the achievements of actual women who have competed in the show, like Larissa Kelly, the true highest-earning female in Jeopardy! history."
Proving once again that men are better than women
Comment: "Remember when TRA's stole the word woman because "woman" refers to gender and not biological sex? They're about to do the same thing to female."
So much for there being a distinction between sex and gender. It's a bait and switch, as usual

Trans Woman Breaks Jeopardy Record, Proving Once And For All That Men Are Smarter Than Women | The Babylon Bee

Colin Wright on Twitter - "Yes, it’s possible for men to become pregnant and give birth to children of their own. In fact, it’s probably a lot more common than you might think. In order to explain, we’ll need to break down some common misconceptions about how we understand the term “man.”"
"Can pigs fly? Is it possible? Yes, it's possible for pigs to fly. In fact, it's probably a lot more common than you might think. In order to explain, we'll need to breakdown some common misconceptions about how we understand the term "pigs.""

Anita's Hall of Social Justice & Intersectional Feminism - Posts | Facebook - "Why do so many, like, people in poor countries like Africa & things totally not realize they are non-binary? Colonialism!"

Giving new meaning to ‘brave and stunning’ - ""West Midlands PC Skye Morden is determined to blaze a trail for other transgender police officers. Skye knew that though she was assigned male at birth and had lived as a man for many years, she was, in fact, female."... this chap, who advises Amnesty, is allowed to perform intimate body searches on women, and Amnesty International has called for the silencing of women who complain. What a time to be alive."

Trans history month - Posts | Facebook - "Being trans is as much a journey as it's a goal, and it's a journey that has led me to many destinations. I first came out as transgender 5 years ago, and I've had an absolutely wild trip. I regret nothing and I'd do it all over again if I could. Along the way I've discovered many more trans identities. I've discovered facets of myself I never even knew existed after joining the otherkin community.  For those of you who don't know, otherkin are folk who identify as not entirely human. Some of us identify as existant entities like tigers or horses. Other identify as undiscovered or incompletely understood entities like elves or dragons or vampires. Finally, the most spiritual of us may identify as simply concepts. I knew a kin who identified as empathy itself. I strongly identify as a canid. The exact canid can differ. Sometimes I'm a grey wolf. Other times I'm a crafty fox or a loving Husky. I've even been a chihuahua, but in general I identify as larger canids. Otherkin are not just seen as weirdos my mainstream society, but many transgender folk also don't fully get us. I've been told by a trans man that my identity is a mockery of the transgender community, and that genuinely hurt me.  My kin accept my transgender identity for the most part, but some have been dismissive. I've once been told that I was confusing my 'true identity' as an elf priestess with that of a woman! That's why I love dogs. I'm partnered with two lovable boys and one girl (I say 'partnered' and not 'own'. The term 'ownership' comes with a very problematic master-slave dynamic that I want nothing to do with). They accept me exactly for who I am and have never questioned any of my identities (and in case you're wondering, yes! Dogs can reject your identity). I've formed more intimate bonds with my canid partners than I've ever formed with any human. They've fulfilled every emotional and spiritual need I had, and some needs I never even knew I had. I know this term is thrown around a lot, but they're my soulmates. I'm Emma and this is my story. Thank you #transhistorymonth for sharing it."
When I first read this, it made me positive that Trans History Month was satire mocking trans mania. But their more recent posts seem to indicate the opposite

Meme - Reed Anderson @reedandersonsex: "I'm dating a trans girl and I am a trans man. We're somehow so queer as to become heterosexual again"

Meme - "I'm going to explain to you why Peterson is right to not use your preferred pronouns. I understand that for people suffering with gender dysphoria, using pronouns that signify traditional gender stereotypes (he, her, she, him) can contribute to that dysphoria. I am aware of that and sensitive to that (based on what my trans-friends and acquaintances have told me). Nevertheless, it is still ludicrous to ask the vast majority of the human population that are not trans to change their common parlance in order for you to not suffer this dysphoria. Why? Let me speak from my own experience as somebody with Asperger's syndrome. Some of the problems I encounter include having a sensitivity to loud noises, not understanding sarcasm and linguistic cues, and not being able to look people in the eye. These things have made it difficult for me to get jobs and get along with other people. If people, plus the world around me, were to change the way they interact with me to benefit my existence, that would be helpful, sure. If they don't, that doesn't make them disrespectful, bad people. It doesn't mean they hate people with autism. Sometimes people with autism don't fit as well into certain societal but do in others. Now... If I were to go around telling normal people to change their normative way of life... to keep things quiet, to change the way they speak, and to change their work dynamics to suit my issues... and if they don't, call them a prejudiced, ignorant, terrible person... that wouldn't make me a socially conscious, moral person. That would make me a cunt."

'Genderbread Person' training for civil servants branded 'unscientific nonsense' - "The gingerbread-man-style diagram is in use across government departments to illustrate gender identity, sexual attraction and biological sex as sitting on a spectrum of zero to 100.  New trans-inclusion workshops are being run by a:gender, a trans and intersex group that has expanded from the Home Office to become a cross-government membership network.  It says it wants officials to go beyond current equality legislation and use “appropriate language/names/pronouns” and “challenge inappropriate language or behaviours”... It describes anatomical sex as “male-ness” or “female-ness”, a notion refuted by gender-critical academics who insist it is simply binary or could distort statistics"

‘Absurdity’ of police logging rapists as women | Scotland | The Sunday Times - "Police have been criticised for saying they will record rapes by offenders with male genitalia as being committed by a woman if the attacker “identifies as a female”. Police Scotland said that they would log rapes as being carried out by a woman if the accused person insists, even if they have not legally changed gender... MacAskill, who is the Alba party MP for East Lothian, having defected from the SNP, said: “As a lawyer for 20 years and justice secretary for almost eight, I’ve seen some legal absurdities. But this tops it all and is dangerous. It’s physically impossible and is about dogma overriding common sense. Women prisoners are being harmed by this and vital crime statistics rendered useless.”... The policy analysis group MurrayBlackburnMackenzie is campaigning for Police Scotland to be required to accurately record the sex of people charged with rape or attempted rape. Lisa Mackenzie, a member of the group, warned: “For such offences, it will only take a few misclassified cases to skew the statistics.”"

Meme - "WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
TRANSWOMEN ARE WOMEN
INGSOC"

There is no such thing as a ‘trans kid’ - "One of the great myths of the new, identitarian left is that the transgender movement is the political and spiritual heir to yesterday’s gay-rights movement. It isn’t. At all. To begin with, the old gay-rights movement did not win the effusive backing of Tories, cops, CofE bigwigs and the entire educational establishment, as the trans movement has.   Stiff Tories were not falling over themselves to institute laws that would heap ‘recognition’ on gay people, as they are today with trans people: see the Gender Recognition Act, an eccentric, reality-defying proposed tweak to the law that would allow anyone to change sex as casually as they change their hairstyle, which is being championed by Theresa May of all people. Also, the old gay-rights movement agitated against the idea that their sexuality was a mental disorder, as it was horribly defined by American psychologists up to 1972. In contrast, the trans-rights movement craves medical diagnosis, in particular of the mental malaise ‘gender dysphoria’. Warriors for gay rights demanded autonomy, from medical paternalism, state policing and moral-majority approval; the trans movement seeks these things. It wants validation rather than freedom. State backing rather than state absence. And the approval of every social and cultural institution instead of not giving a fig what these people think... it’s an inescapable fact that gender-confused young people are today being shoved towards diagnosis and treatment.  It’s happening more and more. The number of kids being referred to the NHS’s gender-service unit has risen by 2,500 per cent over the past nine years. It is reported that autistic children are particularly prone to reinterpret their confusions through the gender lens, the more it becomes socially sanctioned to do so. Young teenage girls are binding their breasts in the belief that they are really boys; young boys are increasingly being allowed to turn up to school in girls’ clothes; and more teens are being prescribed drugs that hold back puberty, that essential, natural progression to adulthood. This is all quite depressing. There is nothing positive in teenage girls being horrified by their developing bodies. Or in probably gay boys being convinced by social-media stars and trans-friendly celebs that maybe they’re really girls. What happened to gay being okay? There’s a streak of both misogyny and homophobia in the great trans medical experiment: it tells certain girls to feel shame at their bodies and it pushes the idea that effeminate boys should become girls. In short, correct that camp kid, fix him, sort him with drugs and surgery.   It isn’t only the still small number of kids who are trans-diagnosed who are impacted upon by the transgender ideology. All kids are. The problem here is not some all-powerful trans lobby – it’s the unwillingness of institutions to withstand the transgender worldview. Schools are embracing the new religion of gender-neutrality and are encouraging their charges not to prejudge people’s gender and to believe that sex at birth is irrelevant in comparison with what you feel. The binary that has traditionally allowed children to negotiate an otherwise confusing world – between female and male, mother and father, girl and boy – is being erased, leaving kids socially bereft, uncertain, and re-engineered to think in the way the new elite thinks they should. It feels like children are being experimented on. Both morally and physically. Morally in the sense that they are having every traditional‍, anchoring view of sex erased from their minds, and physically via drugs and hormone interventions. In order to give more weight to their own preferred lifestyles, some trans activists seem determined to hold up confused children as ‘trans kids’, and, by extension, as proof that transgenderism is perfectly normal and can manifest in early years. They seem to view the disorientation of children as a price worth paying to add the legitimacy of nature to their way of life. Future generations will surely wonder why we behaved like this with children."

A Trans Pioneer Explains Her Resignation from the US Professional Association for Transgender Health - "Dr. Anderson read Abigail Shrier’s 2020 book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, which many transgender activists have denounced as transphobic. But Dr. Anderson was open to Shrier’s concerns about girls being swept up by trans identification—often resulting in medicalization—for social and ideological reasons, and she agreed to be interviewed by Shrier about the poor care that some children who identify as transgender have been receiving. Dr. Anderson—who transitioned to living as a woman after growing up as a boy scout and church group leader in suburban Minnesota—told Shrier that she’d submitted a co-authored op-ed to the New York Times “warning that many transgender healthcare providers were treating kids recklessly.”  “That is going to earn me a lot of criticism from some colleagues, but given what I see [in regard to teenage girls transitioning without proper safeguards], my experience as a psychologist treating gender-variant youth makes me worried that decisions will be made that will later be regretted by those making them,” Dr. Anderson added. The better approach was one that “evaluate[d] the mental health of someone historically … and to prepare them for making such a life-changing decision.”... while many writers who make this kind of argument are routinely dismissed as transphobic “TERFs,” Dr. Anderson should not be dismissed in this ad hominem manner. As the credit line of the article noted, she is not only a clinical psychologist, but also a member of the American Psychological Association committee writing the guidelines for working with transgender individuals, a former president of the US Professional Association for Transgender Health (USPATH), and a former board member of the influential World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which self-describes as a “non-profit, interdisciplinary professional and educational organization devoted to transgender health.”... Dr. Anderson had not only been president of USPATH for two years, but also had been its first transgender president. In 2021, she quit the organization’s board, and the position of Past-President, after voicing (by her account) solitary dissent against a proposed six-month moratorium on speaking to the press while USPATH awaited public comments on the eighth iteration of its Standards of Care.  In conjunction with the joint letter issued in October, WPATH and USPATH were making a clear statement that no one involved with them could comment in the press on issues that Dr. Anderson had dedicated her career to studying... EA: I’m worried that gender minority identities have become a bit trendy, and that with the weird circumstances of the last two years of pandemic, adolescents who are notoriously susceptible to peer influence have found it necessary to have their communication and their social relationships online. They’ve gotten more information, and more social support online than ever before, and they’re reliant on it.  I’m worried there’s a new group of adolescents who have pre-existing mental-health problems, and they’re looking for solutions, and they’re looking for an explanation for who they are … And there’s a bit of, I would say, fantasy about seizing upon an identity that to them may explain their distress. They may believe and verbalize that: “Okay, the solution to my problem is to transition. And then I won’t have these other issues—eating disorders, depression, anxiety, social problems.” That is misguided. As far as I know, gender transition doesn’t cure depression, doesn’t cure anxiety disorders, doesn’t cure autism-spectrum disorder, it doesn’t cure ADHD. [But] it can [provide] help for the right person. What I want always is individualized evaluation and a comprehensive bio-psychosocial evaluation. That’s the language in the Standards of Care. For professional people, whether they’re medical or mental-health [specialists], to say, “Just accept what the kid says and then make your decisions accordingly” ignores the long history we have of issues in child and adolescent development, and it is a disservice to the patient.  How many patients present for diabetes and just go to their doctor and say, “I’m diabetic, so give me insulin.” And the doctor says, “Oh, okay, you say so. It’s true.” No, they do some testing. They want to confirm that that’s actually true. That’s actually what the patient needs. And that’s all I’m asking for. I’m just asking for a reasonable evaluation of what every kid needs...
If you look at the diagnosis of gender dysphoria, the key phrase that I always point to is reflected in a marked incongruence between one’s [experienced/expressed] gender and one’s sex assigned at birth. Now ask yourself: How do you measure a “marked incongruence”? … Who decides, and does it have to be an enduring incongruence? In the diagnostic criteria, it says such a marked incongruence has to be present for a minimum of six months... Earlier today, I talked to some parents who brought their child to a health [professional]. The child was seen three times by a therapist and then recommended for hormones. The therapist never talked to the parents … I keep hearing these stories, and I believe them. And they’re plentiful. I hear from people who say, “We took our child to a therapist who said, ‘Your child is trans. I recommend hormones.’” And this is happening all over... [One] irony is that the people who say every trans kids should be affirmed want to invoke the research that says trans kids who are affirmed do well. But that research is typically based on the methodical, careful approach taken in the Netherlands, Sweden, and other places where they use the same approach I’m advocating for, which is the comprehensive, bio-psychosocial evaluation of issues, and the inclusion of parental advice."
You either die a liberal or live long enough to see yourself become a bigot

Trans kids don’t get the mental health care they’re entitled to - The Washington Post - "At 13, Patricia told her parents she was a transgender boy. She had never experienced any gender dysphoria — distress at a disconnect between gender identity and the sex assigned at birth — she said. But a year earlier, she’d been sexually assaulted by an older girl. Soon after this trauma, she met another older girl who used they/them pronouns and introduced her to drugs, violent pornography and the notion of dissociation from her body. Her lingering psychic wounds, coinciding with a raft of new and unsettling ideas, plunged her into depression and anxiety. Patricia’s parents took her to a therapist so she could talk through her shifting identity and acute mood swings.  The job of a mental health provider here should have been clear: Perform an assessment, ask how long she’d experienced dysphoria and investigate how mental health issues and any other changes in her life might be contributing to it. Instead, on first meeting, the therapist simply affirmed her new identity, a step that can lead to hormonal and eventually surgical treatments. Was Patricia ready for these next steps — or, her parents wondered, was this a normal bout of teenage confusion stemming from a recent trauma? The therapist instructed them to “support” their child’s trans self-diagnosis and to socially transition her. If they didn’t, Patricia might end her own life: 41 percent of unsupported children commit suicide, they were told. Would Patricia’s parents rather have a dead child or a trans one?  They sought another therapist, one who was more curious and less certain, one who listened closely. After a year of exploring who she was, Patricia no longer felt she was a boy. She decided to stop binding her breasts and wearing boys’ clothes. We are both psychologists who have dedicated our careers to serving transgender patients with ethical, evidence-based treatment. But we see a surge of gender dysphoria cases like Patricia’s — cases that are handled poorly. One of us was the founding psychologist in 2007 of the first pediatric gender clinic in the United States; the other is a transgender woman. We’ve held recent leadership positions in the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which writes the standards of care for transgender people worldwide. Together, across decades of doing this work, we’ve helped hundreds of people transition their genders... the number of adolescents requesting medical care is skyrocketing: Now 1.8 percent of people under 18 identify as transgender, double the figure from five years earlier, according to the Trevor Project. A flood of referrals to mental health providers and gender medical clinics, combined with a political climate that sees the treatment of each individual patient as a litmus test of social tolerance, is spurring many providers into sloppy, dangerous care. Often from a place of genuine concern, they are hastily dispensing medicine or recommending medical doctors prescribe it — without following the strict guidelines that govern this treatment. Canada, too, is following our lead: A study of 10 pediatric gender clinics there found that half do not require psychological assessment before initiating puberty blockers or hormones... some clinicians don’t even believe in [comprehensive assessment], contending without evidence that treating dysphoria medically will resolve other mental health issues... the field has moved from a more nuanced, individualized and developmentally appropriate assessment process to one where every problem looks like a medical one that can be solved quickly with medication or, ultimately, surgery. As a result, we may be harming some of the young people we strive to support — people who may not be prepared for the gender transitions they are being rushed into... Providers may also be afraid of being cast as transphobic bigots by their local colleagues and referral sources if they engage in gender exploring therapy with patients, as some have equated this with conversion therapy... When working in gender clinics, we’ve also both received letters from therapists who had “assessed” patients they were referring to us. An astonishing number of these were nothing but a paragraph that stated the youth identified as trans, had dysphoria and wanted hormones, so that course was recommended... In professional circles, we hear from pediatric endocrinologists and others who prescribe hormones for trans youth. Many openly discuss how they use the adult informed-consent model of care with their teen patients, which almost always means no mental health involvement and sometimes no parent input, either. “If you are trans, I believe you,” says A.J. Eckert, the medical director of Anchor Health Initiative in Connecticut. Eckert is wary of psychologists who follow the guidelines by completing a comprehensive assessment before recommending medical intervention for youths. “Gender-affirming medicine,” Eckert holds, means that “you are best equipped to make decisions about your own body,” full stop. These providers do not always realize they’ve confessed to ignoring the standards of care. (Contacted by The Post for comment on this essay, Eckert said that “no medical or surgical interventions are provided to anyone who has not started puberty” but added that, as Anchor Health sees it, “Therapy is not a requirement in this approach because being trans is not a pathology.”)... A handful of studies supposedly showing the suicide risk of gender minority youth who are not supported are also not entirely conclusive. The term “support,” for instance, is defined differently across studies, and it is never defined as “starting medical interventions.” Supporting trans youth may include using the correct name/pronouns or allowing the young person to present in a way that aligns with their affirmed gender (e.g., clothing, hairstyle). These studies also show correlations between teen-transition hurdles and suicidality, but not causal relationships. Suicide is a horrifying outcome for too many gender-diverse youth, but its specter should not be used to push forward unrelated medical treatment without professional care or attention for each patient."
Transphobia!

Individuals Treated for Gender Dysphoria with Medical and/or Surgical Transition Who Subsequently Detransitioned: A Survey of 100 Detransitioners - "Reasons for detransitioning were varied and included: experiencing discrimination (23.0%); becoming more comfortable identifying as their natal sex (60.0%); having concerns about potential medical complications from transitioning (49.0%); and coming to the view that their gender dysphoria was caused by something specific such as trauma, abuse, or a mental health condition (38.0%). Homophobia or difficulty accepting themselves as lesbian, gay, or bisexual was expressed by 23.0% as a reason for transition and subsequent detransition. The majority (55.0%) felt that they did not receive an adequate evaluation from a doctor or mental health professional before starting transition and only 24.0% of respondents informed their clinicians that they had detransitioned"

Tabletop Simulator caught up in competing review bomb campaigns over transphobic moderation complaint - "Tabletop Simulator has found itself at the center of dueling review-bomb campaigns on Steam following complaints from a user who was kicked and temporarily banned from the game's global chat channel for stating that they are gay and trans... Xoe then went to the Tabletop Simulator Discord, where she was told that the global chat channel was primarily for players looking to join games, and "not a place to discuss sexuality, festishes, [or] politics."... Berserk Games issued a statement saying that the whole thing was a misunderstanding: Xoe had been kicked from the channel not for expressing her identity, but "for what was deemed disruptive behavior by spamming different key words in an attempt to get flagged.""
Identity politics ruins everything. Of course this will be taken as evidence of "transphobia" when really it's just resisting the urge to force trans shit into everything

Tabletop Simulator removes global chat amid allegations of transphobic, homophobic moderation - "a third moderator, tyam, explained that the team employs keyword bans because “almost every instance of that kind of language in global chat” is used as a derogative or insult, and not as an expression of personal identity. They further clarified that most of these bans are “temporary and moderated”."
Of course, they capitulated to the mob

Transgender street crossing could cause chaos for guide dogs and blind Londoners8 - " A new Camden street crossing celebrating trans pride risks causing chaos for guide dogs, campaigners have warned.  The crossing on Tavistock Place defies a "pause" on new colourful crossing demanded by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan... Inclusion expert and wheelchair user Mik Scarlet said he faced accusations of being "anti-trans" after criticising the Camden crossing.   "[I'm really saddened that by trying to highlight how colourful crossings exclude disabled people after another 4 have been rolled out in Camden has been turned into my being anti-trans," he said. "If your equality comes at the cost of another's it isn't equality. You've just gained privilege.""
Virtue signalling isn't free. Too bad the blind need to be thrown under the bus to "support" trans people with something that will "literally" "save trans lives"

Meme - "Remember the girl from my previous "DIE CIS SCUM" video? Well this is her now She came out as "cis" and admitted that her being trans gender was just a phase and she has grown out of it."

Meme - "8. Danny's penile implant is about to burst. There is beauty in the pain of a trans dad in labour that proves their love for their child."

Doctor who operated on Jazz Jennings says children are 'not as functional' after transitioning | The Post Millennial - "Two prominent providers specializing in transgender medicine slammed the new orthodoxy surrounding transitioning for children which has resulted in doctors rushing people through medicalization without extensive evaluation. Dr. Marci Bowers and clinical psychologist Erica Anderson blew the whistle in an exclusive interview with writer Abigail Shrier. Both specialists are biological males who identify as transgender and they have seen thousands of patients over the course of their careers.  They are also on the board of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which sets the standards worldwide for transgender medical care, Shrier reports.  However, the two question WPATH's current health guidelines, such as putting children on puberty blockers at a young age.  Dr. Bowers is a world-renowned vaginoplasty specialist who operated on Jazz Jennings, a reality-tv star that transitioned from male to female at age 16 but reportedly had gender dysphoria from the age of two. On the effects of puberty blockers, Dr. Bowers said, "When you enter a field like this where there's not a lot of published data, not a lot of studies, the field is in its infancy, you see people sometimes selling protocols like puberty blockers in a dogmatic fashion, like, 'This is just what we do.'"  Dr. Bowers said once a child begins the transition process, it's nearly impossible to return to normal. "You're going to go socially to school as a girl, and you've made this commitment. How do you back out of that?" Bowers said.  In response to Shrier asking Bowers what her stance was on puberty blockers, Dr. Bowers said, "This is typical of medicine. We zig and then we zag, and I think maybe we zigged a little too far to the left in some cases."  "I think there was naivete on the part of pediatric endocrinologists who were proponents of early (puberty) blockade thinking that just this magic can happen, that surgeons can do anything," Dr. Bowers said.  Erica Anderson, a clinical psychologist at the University of California San Francisco's Child and Adolescent Gender Clinic, said she is "not a fan" of puberty blockers. Anderson said there's not enough data regarding the psychological effects puberty blockers have on adolescents, Shrier reports.  Dr. Bowers said it's difficult to have an opinion different from the board at WPATH, which she considers to be problematic... According to Shrier, Bowers said puberty blockers result in the lack of sexual stimulation, referred to as puberty blockade.  "If you've never had an orgasm pre-surgery, and then your puberty's blocked, it's very difficult to achieve that afterwards," Bowers said. "I consider that a big problem, actually. It's kind of an overlooked problem that in our 'informed consent' of children undergoing puberty blockers, we've in some respects overlooked that a little bit.""
Clearly dangerous transphobes who should lose their licences

Top Trans Doctors Blow the Whistle on ‘Sloppy’ Care - "The widespread use of puberty blockers can be traced to the Netherlands. In the mid-1990s, Peggy Cohen-Kettenis, a psychologist in Amsterdam who had studied young people with gender dysphoria, helped raise awareness about the potential benefits of blockers —  formerly used in the chemical castration of violent rapists. Pharmaceutical companies were happy to fund studies on the application of blockers in children, and, gradually, what’s called the Dutch Protocol was born. The thinking behind the protocol was: Why make a child who has suffered with gender dysphoria since preschool endure puberty, with all its discomforts and embarrassments, if that child were likely to transition as a young adult? Researchers believed blockers’ effects were reversible — just in case the child did not ultimately transition.   Cohen-Kettenis later grew doubtful about that initial assessment. “It is not clear yet how pubertal suppression will influence brain development,” she wrote in the European Journal of Endocrinology in 2006. Puberty is not merely a biochemical development; it is also “a psycho-social event that occurs in concert with one’s peers,” Doctor William Malone, an endocrinologist and member of the Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine, told me. Hormones do not merely stimulate sex organs during puberty; they also shower the brain. But at the very moment when Dutch researchers were beginning to raise concerns about puberty blockers, American health providers discovered it... Cohen-Kettenis and other researchers noted that, in natal males, early blockade might lead to “non-normal pubertal phallic growth,” meaning that “the genital tissue available for vaginoplasty might be less than optimal.”   But that hair-raising warning seems to have been lost in the trip across the Atlantic. Many American gender surgeons augment the tissue for constructing neovaginas with borrowed stomach lining and even a swatch of bowel. Bowers draws the line at the colon. “I never use the colon,” she said. “It’s the last resort. You can get colon cancer. If it’s used sexually, you can get this chronic colitis that has to be treated over time. And it’s just in the discharge and the nasty appearance and it doesn’t smell like vagina.”... Bowers can build a labia, a vaginal canal and a clitoris, and the results look impressive. But, she said, if the kids are “orgasmically naive” because of puberty blockade, “the clitoris down there might as well be a fingertip and brings them no particular joy and, therefore, they’re not able to be responsive as a lover. And so how does that affect their long-term happiness?” Few, if any, other doctors acknowledge as much. The Mayo Clinic, for instance, does not note that permanent sexual dysfunction may be among puberty blockers’ risks. St. Louis Children’s Hospital doesn’t mention it, either. Oregon Health & Science University Children’s Hospital and University of California at San Francisco don’t. Nor was there any mention of sexual dysfunction in a recent New York Times story, “What Are Puberty Blockers?”   Jack Turban, the chief fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine, wrote, in 2018: “The only significant side effect is that the adolescent may fall behind on bone density.”   But lack of bone density is often just the start of the problem. Patients who take puberty blockers almost invariably wind up taking cross-sex hormones — and this combination tends to leave patients infertile and, as Bowers made clear, sexually dysfunctional. On an episode of “I Am Jazz,” Jazz revealed that she had never experienced an orgasm and may never be able to. But she remains optimistic. “I know that once I fall in love and I really admire another individual that I’m going to want to have sex with them,” Jazz said at 16, in an episode that aired in July of 2017... Bowers told me she now finds early puberty blockade inadvisable. “I’m not a fan of blockade at Tanner Two anymore, I really am not,” she told me, using the clinical name of the moment when the first visible signs of puberty manifest... In 2007, the year the U.S. began implementing the Dutch Protocol, the U.S. had one pediatric gender clinic, and it overwhelmingly served patients like Jazz: natal males who expressed discomfort in their bodies in the earliest stages of childhood... Today, the U.S. has hundreds of gender clinics. Most patients are not natal males, like Jazz, but teenage girls... When public health researcher and former Brown University Professor Lisa Littman dubbed this phenomenon “rapid onset gender dysphoria” in 2018, the university apologized for her paper and ultimately pushed her out. Activists called the hypothesis of a social contagion among teen girls a “poisonous lie used to discredit trans people.”  But Littman’s research about the sudden spike in teen girl trans-identification has become increasingly difficult to deny: A recent survey by the American College Health Association showed that, in 2008, one in 2,000 female undergraduates identified as transgender. By 2021, that figure had jumped to one in 20.
What the PM article is about
A lot of lawsuits are going to come up in the next decade

Are puberty blockers reversible? The NHS no longer says so - "GONE is the claim that puberty blockers are considered to be fully reversible... NEW is the admission that long-term effects are unknown...   GONE are these references to self-harm and suicide... GONE is this statement that creates an association between gender dysphoria and having the ‘wrong’ interests as a very young child... GONE is the list of common behaviours which were previously linked to gender dysphoria.  Although the older version does emphasise that most children will grow out of these feelings, it begins by describing normal behaviours as ‘gender dysphoria behaviours’... NEW are more careful statements that don’t associate a child’s interests with gender dysphoria and instead emphasise the rarity of the condition and the societal influences... NEW is the acknowledgment of desistance and the suggestion that your feelings may be an indication of your sexual orientation... GONE are the lists of cosmetic changes to your body that hormones will produce and gone is this strange statement about the benefits of hormones... GONE are the claims that surgery has a high rate of satisfaction... GONE also are the suggestions that hormones and surgery actually change your sex...        NEW also is an acknowledgment of the reality, the risks and the limitations of surgery... GONE is the claim that biological sex is “assigned at birth”"

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