Doctors Call for Withdrawal of Psychiatry Textbook Promoting ‘Gender-Affirming’ Care - "Nearly 170 health professionals have signed an open letter to the American Psychiatric Association (APA) condemning its new “gender-affirming” care textbook as “unacceptable, unethical and unsafe.”... The signatories demand that the APA “explain why it glaringly ignored many scientific developments in gender-related care and to consider its responsibility to promote and protect patients’ safety, mental and physical health.” The letter calls for the APA to suspend publication of the textbook, “Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care,” released on Nov. 8. The textbook is intended to be used as a teaching tool for doctors in training... The tome’s foreword declares it to be “the first textbook dedicated to providing affirming, intersectional, and evidence-informed psychiatric care for transgender, non-binary, and/or gender-expansive (TNG) people.” Its 26 chapters are written by 56 authors, 50 of whom either identify as transgender or don’t identify as male or female, according to the foreword. But other health professionals are questioning the wisdom of relying on the authors’ personal experiences, just because of their gender identities. They also object to backing up those testimonies with limited scientific studies, some with heartily disputed results. The textbook also presents neo-Marxist critical theories focused on calling out the so-called oppression of particular identity groups, critics point out. Yet the textbook will be seen as a gold standard of care because it comes with the considerable clout of the APA behind it... That’s despite the fact that the textbook presents as evidence some studies that have come under fire for being flawed. Those include the famous Dutch protocol study that became the basis for recommending puberty suppression, the use of cross-sex hormones, and other “gender-affirmative” procedures for people who identify as the opposite sex. Transgender activists say puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery can save the lives of gender-confused adults and children who may feel suicidal. Others dispute that idea. And new research backs up that way of thinking... The signature of Dr. Lauren Schwartz, a psychiatrist in Oklahoma, appears first on the letter. She worries that using the textbook to train doctors could lead to harming millions of children... She and fellow professionals hope their letter will raise awareness among parents and providers on “how radically the American Psychiatric Association has shifted away from medicine and science in the publication of this book,” she said. “There are so many false, harmful statements—ones rooted not in medicine or science, but in an inconceivable ideological foundation and medical misinformation, both of which will harm patients and their families,” she wrote in a text message. Other professionals who signed the letter include psychiatrists Miriam Grossman and Az Hakeem. Both have written books denouncing transgender ideology. Dr. Grossman, a childhood and adolescent psychiatrist, wrote “Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist’s Guide Out of the Madness.” Her book excoriates gender ideology as a repudiation of reality and a mockery of basic male and female biology. She has been outspoken against transitioning children. Dr. Hakeem, a London psychiatrist, formerly worked at the Tavistock gender clinic. He is the author of “Detrans: When Transition is Not the Solution,” which argues that no one is born in the “wrong body.” He maintains that transitioning becomes a “false solution to a different problem” at a time of increasing pressure to affirm a person’s belief that he or she was born the wrong sex. The idea of affirming gender confusion and medically altering a person’s body to fit a new gender identity is under scrutiny from clinicians and scientists worldwide. Yet, those methods are recommended by the book’s authors. Critics of the textbook argue in their letter that reviews of gender-affirming care in Sweden and England also did not support the idea that transitioning improves the mental health of patients. They point out that the textbook relies on“evidence-informed” information, instead of the scientific standard that typically requires evidence-based information. And they question why the textbook dismisses the idea of scientific neutrality and depends, instead, on the “lived experiences” and “community impact” of authors who identify as transgender. Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, board chairman of the Do No Harm organization, said he signed the letter because his organization is concerned about potential harm to children. New evidence out of Europe indicates that medically “transitioning” children to help them try to resemble the opposite sex is doing more harm than good... “We don’t have any study that shows that this is long-term beneficial,” he said. And the Dutch studies finding that “gender-affirming” care helped people with gender dysphoria or confusion were not successfully duplicated by researchers in England, Dr. Goldfarb said. The newest studies coming out of Europe suggest that what’s best for children with gender dysphoria is intensive, long-term psychiatric care before any medical intervention, he said. The lack of acknowledgment of the latest scientific research in the textbook is, he said, “quite extraordinary.” While adults can make their own decisions, children lack the maturity to make life-altering changes to their bodies, Dr. Goldfarb said. And the risk of harm for children taking puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones is real and serious. Puberty blockers stop the development of the sexual reproductive system, meaning children who don’t go through puberty would never fully develop sexuality. They’re also likely to lose the ability to have children, he said. “It sort of depends on how far into puberty they are before they start blocking its progression,” he said. “It depends on how many hormones they take and for how long they take it.” Dr. Goldfarb and other health professionals objecting to the textbook take issue with the authors’ assertion that puberty blockers for children are “fully reversible.” And the textbook is “disturbingly nonchalant,” the letter states, about the high rate of mental and behavioral health issues simultaneously affecting people with gender dysphoria. Autism, ADHD, anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and suicidal thoughts often coincide with gender dysphoria in youths. The textbook is “disturbing,” said Alan Hopewell, a prescribing neuropsychologist in Texas with experience treating transgender-identifying patients... “This is nonsensical gibberish which has no foundation whatsoever in science.”"
Finnish Study: Mental Health Issues Remain After Transgender Medical Procedures - "“This confirms that you don’t go around thinking that you’re going to change your sex unless something’s wrong mentally,” he said. “It doesn’t fix the underlying mental problems,” he said... a person feeling confused about his or her sexual identity may assume that it has to do with gender, especially in light of the current climate of gender affirmation. “It’s a false solution to a different problem,” said Dr. Hakeem, an author on transgenderism and fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and honorary associate clinical professor at University College London Medical School... Dr. Hopewell said studies like the Finnish one aren’t likely to be conducted in the United States because transgender activism has silenced scientific inquiry, he said. Anyone attempting a similar study in the United States would likely be attacked or suffer a career loss, Dr. Hopewell said. He compared it to the “Sauber Reinigung” tactic used by Nazi Germany to eliminate “undesirable” educators and professors from education systems."
Have the psychiatric needs of people seeking gender reassignment changed as their numbers increase? A register study in Finland - "When index period and psychiatric treatment before contacting GIS were accounted for, GR patients who had and who had not proceeded to medical GR had an equal risk compared to controls of needing subsequent psychiatric treatment."
More evidence that sex change surgery doesn't help patients. We already know from elsewhere that gender affirmation surgery doesn't reduce the suicide rate, since the post surgery suicide rate doesn't change. Clearly the lack of a dose-response relationship doesn't mean anything, and stigma and transphobia are responsible
120 Medical Professionals Sign Letter Opposing Gender-Neutral Language - "A large contingent of Australian medical professionals are pushing back against attempts to create gender-neutral and diverse medical language over concerns that it may distort data and lead to severe errors in conducting procedures. One hundred and twenty medical researchers, doctors, midwifery professors, and senior clinicians signed a letter addressed to peak funding body the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) on Jan. 1. The letter warns that such ambiguous language will blur the lines between biological sex and gender identity. They suggest this exacerbates the female data gap—a theory suggesting that medical data is skewed due to its reliance on research predominantly involving biological men... The letter was prompted by a consultation paper from the NHMRC on the ethics of conducting medical research on pregnant women. Another of the letter’s warnings is that medical professionals nationwide are facing institutional pressure to introduce gender-neutral language in research, practice, and policy despite their genuine beliefs on the topic... The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)—one of Australia’s most prominent health bodies—notes on its website the official distinction between sex and gender. The research agency defines sex identity as derived from a person’s biological characteristics, including their chromosomes, hormones, and reproductive organs. Conversely, it defines gender identity as linked to a person’s social and cultural identity based on their life experiences. The organisation asserts that both gender and sex identities are malleable and can change over the course of a person’s lifetime. The AIHW also acknowledges that usage of the terms male and female in its research reports will vary depending on where the data is sourced from. This implies that the organisation’s definition of the terms male and female may change depending on whether the data provider classifies individuals based on gender or sex identity. As for AIHW, their reports use both. “In many of these instances, male or female may refer to either sex or gender, depending on the data source,” AIHW said. “Most current data sources do not record sex and gender as separate concepts so it can be unclear which is the focus.”"
Chronicling courage | Edward Lucas | Standpoint - "Any wild accusations of hateful prejudice for raising these issues will prove our point. For the record, we make no accusation of wrongdoing by those named explicitly or implicitly in this edition. We just disagree with them. Because these matters are complicated, they must be discussed freely, and the outcomes negotiated. We need more than obfuscation and evasion, as illustrated by Stonewall’s response to questions arising from Kathleen Stock’s reporting. Worse is when dissenting voices are silenced by verbal (or physical) mob rule. The chant of “transwomen are women” may be considered a sympathetic affirmation of those who have happily transitioned, but used to drown out opposing voices it becomes Orwell’s “Four legs good, two legs bad!”, with lipstick. Those who stand up to this pressure are brave; they deserve support."
Civil servant given warning after ‘inappropriately’ saying there are two sides to the trans debate - "A civil servant was told by a Whitehall investigator that it was inappropriate to say there are two sides to the trans debate. An official in the Department for Work and Pensions was reprimanded over a series of comments made during a discussion around transgender issues, including for saying “I think it’s useful to hear both sides of a subject”... One civil servant was subsequently investigated and found guilty of breaching the department’s behaviour policy and rules on harassment for their comments on the call. Among the remarks made by the civil servant, and branded as “inappropriate comments relating to trans women” by a DWP investigator, were the comments: “One of the things I struggle to understand as a lesbian myself is, how can trans women be lesbian as lesbian is same sex attracted, not gender?”, “I find the term cis very offensive”, “Sport is segregated because there is a difference” and “What if you don’t believe in gender? I don’t”... Responding to the investigation, Kate Harris, co-founder of LGB Alliance, a gay rights charity, told The Telegraph: “The Civil Service was once renowned around the world for impartiality and integrity. Now the DWP believes it is sensible to discipline an employee for a thought crime... The civil servant who was investigated by the DWP replied “drink the kool aid” in response to those arguing for trans women to participate in women’s sports. The investigation found the phrase was not appropriate and likely to cause offence “as the origin of the phrase is linked to a mass suicide”. While the phrase originated from a mass murder suicide of over 900 people in Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978, it is commonly used to refer to those who display obedience to a cause or cult-like behaviour. The DWP found that by using the phrase the civil servant was harassing colleagues on the call. The civil servant’s comment that “I think IWD should centre [on] women really” was found “to exclude trans women from the relevance of International Women’s Day” and was therefore inappropriate. When the civil servant was accused on the call by fellow officials of displaying “Terf [Trans exclusionary radical feminists] behaviour”, the civil servant responded by saying: “STOP BEING INSULTING”. The investigation found the latter comment to be “not the appropriate manner in which to raise concerns about others behaviour/language as writing in all Caps letters is interpreted as aggressive and shouting when read out”."
Meme - "I have permanently fucked my life up
VENT
"I’ll never have fully functioning genitals again. I can never have blood children. I’m the antithesis of impulsive, but the one time I act too swiftly, I end up fucking my life up. I am an outcast. I am unloveable. What was done to me as a child isn’t to blame for my choice to transition and neither is anyone/anything else. The blame is on me because I walked into that clinic and made my decision. And I made a horrible fucking decision. How can I ever trust myself again? How can I be certain about anything if I felt so certain about that? I’m a fucking nutcase. What am I living for? I just have drifted through my life so far. The only place I belong is a jail cell because it feels like a matter of time before I hurt someone. I’m just so damn angry at everything and I want revenge against the whole fucking world."
Meme - Treebeard @queercryptoid: "Just saw another LGBTQIA+ thing where the "A" was clarified to mean "Ace/Ally" and I just want to make it clear that while I love my ally friends SO MUCH, ally is nowhere in that acronym."
Crush Bundicoot @dumbusernamebro: "It's all labels anyway, why does anyone care?"
Treebeard: "If you're not queer, you don't need to try and claim a seat in a community of people who need the seats for actual queer people."
h i b a @tiny_squirrel: "And allyship can be a gateway for some of them to come in terms with their own queer identity, nd there was a time where ace wernt even considered in, sure some r weirdo who r desprate for attention but i blv we have to be more open.. happy pride month"
yozo @franicman: "This makes it sound like we have an LGBTQ parliament where we vote on queer issues "Sis, was that new Lady Gaga single a yass? Or a slay?"(The congress mutters)"
h i b a @tiny_squirrel: "I totally agree with u that the A should be for Ace, but I do not agree with this reasoning u gave, there r no limited seats in the community and u made sound like it is.. we r about inclusion (im ace) not exclusion... after all they r all just labels"
gítchørr líchbåch @crtrdwrdjysn: "well anyone can be queer, they just have to say so and no one can really disagree lol"
Artem Klimashin @artooom123: "Yes let's remove the people who support us because we are so insecure that we need our own club. Nah f that shit"
完全感覚Dreamer 🍥 @Itsukushimi777: "There's a limited number of seats?"
The circular firing squad of the left! "Inclusiveness" isn't always good and "gatekeeping" isn't always bad
fiona on X - "why the fuck would you want straight people to have a claim in a community that isn’t theirs? also they’re not doing us a favor by being allies, it’s basic human decency, it’s not about needing our own club, it’s about queer history and oppression"
Disagreeing with a left winger means you don't have basic human decency. Liberal logic strikes again!
Meme - ">it's professor x and the ex-men"
This is from Alok Vaid-Menon and the "International day against homophobia, biphobia, intersexism, and transphobia", with @travisalabanza (UK), @eddiendopu (South Africa, Zimbabwe), @katkkolkes (Botswana)
Trans woman’s Ohio house candidacy challenged under decades-old law - "Both Joy and Childrey are accused of violating a 1995 Ohio statute that requires political candidates to disclose any legal name changes within five years of the election."
No one is above the law - except trans people and other "minorities"
2015: Stonewall extends remit to become LGBT charity and begins journey to trans inclusion - "Ruth Hunt became Stonewall’s Chief Executive in 2014. One of her first steps in her new role was to try to understand what, if anything, Stonewall could do in the fight for trans equality. On 30 August 2014, a meeting was set up with trans professionals, campaigners and activists to discuss the possibility of Stonewall becoming trans inclusive. It was one of many meetings that would start a conversation that was well overdue. Until this point, Stonewall had been firm about not campaigning for trans equality and many in the trans community didn’t trust Stonewall. Some believed Stonewall's stance was actively holding back trans equality. The meetings were therefore also about building bridges. As well as establishing if Stonewall could do trans campaigning, the charity had to also understand how it could contribute to the fight for trans equality. The consultation ended up involving more than 700 organisations and individuals. At the end of the process it became clear that the trans community wanted Stonewall to be fully trans inclusive and share the power that the charity had established in its 25-plus years of campaigning. There had been discussion of Stonewall simply giving grants to trans organisations rather than becoming completely trans inclusive but this was rejected. Not only was it seen as a waste of time due to the bureaucracy for everyone involved, trans people highlighted that cis people are ill-equipped to make decisions on where money should be spent on furthering trans equality. Following this consultation, Stonewall announced in February 2015 that it would now be campaigning for all of the LGBT community and was beginning a path to trans inclusion."
Clearly, their wholesale pivot to trans issues had nothing to do with gay marriage being legalised in 2013 and their losing their cause (as OutFront Minnesota admitted in 2015)
The 'myth' of the slippery slope strikes again
Stonewall is at centre of a toxic debate on trans rights and gender identity - "Since its 1989 inception in response to a ban on the “promotion of homosexuality” by schools and councils in section 28 of the Local Government Act, Stonewall has been a part of every major struggle for LGBT rights in the UK. But in the past few weeks it has become embroiled in a toxic row. A founding member has accused it of taking an “extremist stance”, a report accused it of giving incorrect advice on equality law and a cabinet minister was reported to be pushing for all government departments to withdraw from its Diversity Champions programme, which the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) quit last month... Matthew Parris, one of Stonewall’s 14 founders, wrote in the Times that the charity had been “cornered into an extremist stance” on the subject of trans rights. He argued that Stonewall should stay out of the issue, sticking to LGB rights without the T, which stands for trans... Prof Kathleen Stock, a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex who has written a book criticising theories of gender identity, said Stonewall had encouraged a definition of transphobia that was far too wide. “Through its Diversity Champions scheme it’s disseminated this very widespread idea that an attack on the theory – or an attack on the particular interpretation – of identity is an attack on trans people. And that has really made the whole discourse incredibly toxic, given its enormous reach within national institutions,” she said. She added that as a gay woman she had benefited from advances in equality achieved by Stonewall in the past, but it had now overreached. “They got what they wanted in terms of gay marriage and many other of their original goals so they needed a new agenda, they needed new revenue, new streams and a rationale, and they found one through what is now being called trans rights – but it is a tendentious interpretation of what trans rights are."
Naturally, a founding member of Stonewall is a bigot
Stonewall should stay out of trans rights war - "What is the charity I helped to found doing, getting entangled in attempts to deny free speech at a university? This column should avoid getting into the trans debate itself. My single, tight focus is on this question: why Stonewall? There’s something perversely 20th-century about linking gays to trans. Gay men do not want to be women. We like being men. I doubt that being a lesbian is about not wanting to be a woman. Our issues have nothing to do with identification or changing our bodies: we know what we are and nobody disputes it. Most gay men would strongly resist the suggestion we’re boys who want to be girls. I can’t think of anything I’d like less. The whole history of the gay liberation movement is inseparable from what people do rather than what they are. Central to trans concerns is being, not doing. The one thing that links gays and lesbians with trans people is empathy with anyone excluded, oppressed, marginalised or rejected. Indeed this was what influenced some gay groups into supporting the 1984-5 miners’ strike, and Stonewall was perhaps drawn into the trans arguments because a group was fighting for what it considers to be its rights. But this has led it straight into a confrontation with another such group: feminists. Stonewall should have stood clear. Now it seems to have dived into the judicial issue of whether would-be trans children can consent to chemical or surgical intervention. This is not something on which gays, lesbians or bisexuals can speak with greater authority than any other citizen. I repeat: it has nothing to do with us... Perhaps the truth is that, after success in our great 20th-century drive for equality, Stonewall was left with bricks and mortar, an admirable staff, a CEO and a fund-raising team and, unconsciously, craved another big, newsworthy cause. Well, sometimes a big army with only small battles to fight does best simply to scale back. I know many gay men have become embarrassed by Stonewall and see (as I do) the paradox that some of its activities are actually damaging the standing of the gay community. We don’t want to be associated with sallies in the trans wars. We want to feel proud, not hurt, not victims. Trans people cannot yet feel that: they need a support group. But that’s for them. Gays (to use the lingo) should not be colonising their issues. I’ve mentioned on these pages before a new Stonewall initiative, entitled “Decolonising Queer Leadership Programme”, a “3-part programme for LGBT people of colour, who want to develop their skills in creating lasting change in their communities and build collective power through challenging society’s constructed power norms”. Ye gods, how did we get here?"
After Supreme Court win, LGBT activists look beyond marriage - "In the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling on Friday, though, the fight for marriage equality is over, notwithstanding a few isolated pockets of resistance. Now, activists who have poured themselves into the fight for years are confronting a simple question: What's next? The short answer: Quite a bit...
Where do you think the movement goes from here? What's the next frontier?...
a top priority for our movement needs to be passing a federal civil rights law that would prohibit discrimination broadly on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity...
Do you think the fight for rights for transgender people will absorb a lot of this activist energy?...
There is an opportunity, though, for the needs of trans people to be at the center of the LGBTQ agenda moving forward, but the only way that will happen is for the folks who have been leading the movement thus far to take a step back. They need to recognize that who they are, and what they view as the LGBT community, cannot be the dominant narrative, because it leaves out so many other folks who are in desperate need of access and support...
so much of LGBT work over the last few years has been defined by the marriage fight. It's kind of difficult to have to reimagine what LGBT activism looks like without this unifying rallying cry... The next phase of the fight for LGBT equality is an omnibus, full nondiscrimination bill that extends the same protections in the Civil Rights Act to the LGBT community. I would say the push for religious freedom laws on the right should be the foil for our work - ensuring nobody has a license to discriminate against LGBT people seeking housing, jobs, or equal treatment in the public sphere.
Do you think the fight for rights for transgender people will absorb a lot of this activist energy?
If we're really serious about nondiscrimination, we have to need to develop winning messaging around trans equality and put that at the center of our activism. That's gonna be a huge, long-overdue shift for a community of activists that's been rightly criticized for marginalizing and sidelining trans issues. It's a big moment of cultural reckoning, but I have faith that LGBT activists have awakened to the reality that there is no LGBT equality if trans equality isn't at the forefront of it...
One of the great strengths of this movement is that we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We're also a movement that recognizes progress on one issue leads to progress on other issues...
Where do you think the movement goes from here? What's the next frontier?...
what's ahead of us now is securing the two-pronged push for legal equality and social equality. Legal progress doesn't always mean people receive equal treatment in their own lives. The Human Rights Campaign believes that the epidemic of anti-trans violence in this country is a national crisis, for example, and tackling that kind of violence doesn't come through passing new laws alone. It comes from tackling the root causes of that kind of discrimination - economic inequality, questions of race and other intersectional issues, law enforcement training, to name a few."
From 2015. Of course, many people who are pro-gay marriage but anti-trans mania refuse to accept the link that these activsts make between gay marriage being rammed through and the pivoting to trans mania. Indeed, we have a tacit admission here that the trans agenda comes at the cost of lesbians, gays and bisexuals, as well as a proclamation that gay marriage being rammed through helps push trans mania
There's also a lot of talk about laws against "discrimination", which as we know led to attempts to compel speech (the gay cake lawsuits)
Richard Hanania on X - "Regarding trans, no one talks about how unfair it is to masculine looking women. It's probably harder to find dates when people suspect you might be a man. Usually women who look like men are unattractive anyway, but some can be masculine and attractive in a heterosexual way."
Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 on X - "A doctor in Quebec has been suspended for 3 months for correctly telling his patient that she is a woman. She came in seeking testosterone, but what she was really doing was trying to get the doctor in trouble as she secretly recorded the appointment."
Radié trois mois pour avoir mégenré un patient trans - "Le Dr Raymond Brière a répété au patient qu’il était biologiquement une femme... À un moment, le Dr Brière mentionne que la prise d’hormone mâle peut entraîner des comportements agressifs. Le patient répond que ces affirmations semblent basées sur des stéréotypes... Le Dr Brière explique que, pour une femme, les gels peuvent être appliqués à l’aide d’une pompe. Le patient indique qu’il refuse d’utiliser une pompe. Le médecin insiste. Le patient rappelle alors au Dr Brière qu’il est un homme trans. Le médecin réplique qu’il est « génétiquement une femme ». Le patient réitère qu’il se considère comme un homme trans. Le Dr Brière répond que « si une analyse chromosomique est réalisée, il sera démontré que ses chromosomes sont porteurs des gènes XX et non XY ». Le patient répète qu’il est un homme trans... Le patient reproche au médecin son comportement agressant"
Weird. We are told that sex and gender are different and only ignorant people don't know them. Of course, we will still be told that "transphobia" is why trans people have worse medical outcomes, even though biological sex is a very important variable in medicine
