The Gender Debate

[carpetmonster]

1 hour ago, f_c_dundee said:

They're really isn't plenty of good evidence though. What there is really doesn't point to successful usage.

 

Knowing someone directly in this situation is unfortunately irrelevant to the quality of evidence and research, even though it hurts to see them unhappy and wishing for change. 

 

In any other field of medicine I can think of, if other scientists questioned the safety of a treatment, research to validate it or to prove that the concern isn't valid would be welcomed. 

 

That's not what's happened here. Scientists proposing studies have had the applications rejected and blocked, they have been called transphobes and even lost their job if they spoke out.

Can you cite this please? I searched for 'scientist loses job transphobia' and 'medic loses job transphobic' and all I got was Maya Forstater, who's neither a scientist or a medic, and neither did she lose her job; she just didn't have her contract renewed. 

1 hour ago, f_c_dundee said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's not good practice and not good for the patients.

 

It's not delay for the sake of it, it's holding off on an unproven treatment until proper evidence is available in order to avoid further harm. So I don't understand how you think that makes people "look culpable". Culpable of what?

 

The full risks and potential problems with medical treatment is not always shared either. Both here and in the US, getting proper consent - especially for children and young people - has been a particular problem. It's clear that they can't make the decision at 14 or even 19 that they'll never want to have breasts, or to risk never having children. 

We're steering very close to Allison Bailey's tremendously creepy proclamation 'Up and down the country, and around the world, girls are removing breasts that have never known a lovers caress' here. 

1 hour ago, f_c_dundee said:

 

"Bottom surgery" is quite frankly a dangerous and surely unethical horror for both sexes. Such high risk of it going wrong  and of the patient being unhappy with results. Huge risk of infection due to the areas being operated on.

 

So for both medication and surgery, the benefit to the patient really has to be clear imo.

 

There doesn't seem to be a huge risk of the patient being unhappy - A total of 27 studies, pooling 7928 transgender patients who underwent any type of GAS, were included. The pooled prevalence of regret after GAS was 1% (95% CI <1%–2%). Overall, 33% underwent transmasculine procedures and 67% transfemenine procedures. The prevalence of regret among patients undergoing transmasculine and transfemenine surgeries was <1% (IC <1%–<1%) and 1% (CI <1%–2%), respectively. A total of 77 patients regretted having had GAS. Twenty-eight had minor and 34 had major regret based on Pfäfflin’s regret classification. The majority had clear regret based on Kuiper and Cohen-Kettenis classification - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8099405/

Also, for the GC lobby - it's frequently cited they have no issue with those who are described as some sort of variation of 'true transgenders'. They're always very cagey about what this means, however from what I can decipher it's nods and winks to bottom surgery - hence the constant gotchas of 'can a woman have a penis', Helen Staniland being the physical manifestation of sea-lioning etc. It's also frequently cited that there's no problem with 'transgender folks', just 'gender ideology' - which in itself is a term coined by ultra-conservative Catholic circles fairly recently. If trans folks cannot be trans if they haven't had surgery, and surgery is a minefield that you wouldn't want anyone to go thru, isn't this just an attempt at delegitimizing trans people altogether?

 

 

[f_c_dundee]

1 hour ago, carpetmonster said:

Regardless, puberty blockers have been widely prescribed for precocious puberty since the 1980s and were FDA approved for such in the 1990s. The rationale being that going thru puberty too early would be mentally damaging for kids. 

 

It's already been mentioned that that is a very strictly limited, short term "off label" use for an unusual condition. And the idea is that the child will go through puberty as normally as possible after the treatment. 

 

It's not comparable to completely blocking any development of brain or body during a child's puberty, then giving opposite sex hormones which is another added level of risk. 

 

The benefit must be clearly shown to outweigh the risk, which it hasn't yet.

[carpetmonster]

6 minutes ago, f_c_dundee said:

It's already been mentioned that that is a very strictly limited, short term "off label" use for an unusual condition. And the idea is that the child will go through puberty as normally as possible after the treatment. 

 

It's not comparable to completely blocking any development of brain or body during a child's puberty, then giving opposite sex hormones which is another added level of risk. 

 

The benefit must be clearly shown to outweigh the risk, which it hasn't yet.

https://www.cedars-sinai.org/blog/puberty-blockers-for-precocious-puberty.html

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, carpetmonster said:

Also, for the GC lobby - it's frequently cited they have no issue with those who are described as some sort of variation of 'true transgenders'. They're always very cagey about what this means, however from what I can decipher it's nods and winks to bottom surgery - hence the constant gotchas of 'can a woman have a penis', Helen Staniland being the physical manifestation of sea-lioning etc. It's also frequently cited that there's no problem with 'transgender folks', just 'gender ideology' - which in itself is a term coined by ultra-conservative Catholic circles fairly recently. If trans folks cannot be trans if they haven't had surgery, and surgery is a minefield that you wouldn't want anyone to go thru, isn't this just an attempt at delegitimizing trans people altogether?

^^^This. Plus the constant scouring of the internet for examples of criminal trans people to vilify the whole trans community, a very old tactic for disparagement. 

Edited April 12, 2023 by welshbairn

[carpetmonster]

15 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

^^^This. Plus the constant scouring of the internet for examples of criminal trans people to vilify the whole trans community, a very old tactic for disparagement. 

The aforementioned Forstater is doing her level best to try not to say she simply wants trans people removed from public life. Her org wants the EA to define sex as biological sex assigned at birth (excepting the cases of some intersex people where she’d allow birth certificates to be changed in later life). 
 

However in the case that a facility doesn’t have an all-gender bathroom, trans men shouldn’t  use the men’s facilities because they’re biologically women, but can be excluded from the women’s facilities because they’re men. Guess they’ll just all need to get fitted with colostomy bags. 

[andyg83]

2 hours ago, carpetmonster said:

Can you cite this please? I searched for 'scientist loses job transphobia' and 'medic loses job transphobic' and all I got was Maya Forstater, who's neither a scientist or a medic, and neither did she lose her job; she just didn't have her contract renewed. 

We're steering very close to Allison Bailey's tremendously creepy proclamation 'Up and down the country, and around the world, girls are removing breasts that have never known a lovers caress' here. 

There doesn't seem to be a huge risk of the patient being unhappy - A total of 27 studies, pooling 7928 transgender patients who underwent any type of GAS, were included. The pooled prevalence of regret after GAS was 1% (95% CI <1%–2%). Overall, 33% underwent transmasculine procedures and 67% transfemenine procedures. The prevalence of regret among patients undergoing transmasculine and transfemenine surgeries was <1% (IC <1%–<1%) and 1% (CI <1%–2%), respectively. A total of 77 patients regretted having had GAS. Twenty-eight had minor and 34 had major regret based on Pfäfflin’s regret classification. The majority had clear regret based on Kuiper and Cohen-Kettenis classification - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8099405/

Also, for the GC lobby - it's frequently cited they have no issue with those who are described as some sort of variation of 'true transgenders'. They're always very cagey about what this means, however from what I can decipher it's nods and winks to bottom surgery - hence the constant gotchas of 'can a woman have a penis', Helen Staniland being the physical manifestation of sea-lioning etc. It's also frequently cited that there's no problem with 'transgender folks', just 'gender ideology' - which in itself is a term coined by ultra-conservative Catholic circles fairly recently. If trans folks cannot be trans if they haven't had surgery, and surgery is a minefield that you wouldn't want anyone to go thru, isn't this just an attempt at delegitimizing trans people altogether?

 

 

Jings. This is some rant.

You don't there is an ideology at play alongside the obvious public health and wellbeing aspects?

The trouble with the whole debate is that there are so many facets and nuances to it. It's really not simple.

You can label folk "GC" and make them go away. People have legitimate concerns on this subject. 

[DeeTillEhDeh]

So legal challenge is going to go ahead.

I've been a consistent supporter of trans rights on these threads but politically think this is not the right move.

They should have kicked it back to the UK Government to sort out.

[carpetmonster]

1 minute ago, andyg83 said:

Jings. This is some rant.

You don't there is an ideology at play alongside the obvious public health and wellbeing aspects?

The trouble with the whole debate is that there are so many facets and nuances to it. It's really not simple.

You can label folk "GC" and make them go away. People have legitimate concerns on this subject. 

Not really, it’s a statement and a couple of questions that haven’t as yet been answered. 
 

I don’t think trangenderism is an ideology, no. Trans people have existed for centuries, if not millennia, whereas ‘gender ideology’ was coined by a conservative Catholic journalist in 1997. 
 

I know.

I’m not labeling anyone - ‘GC’ is what the gender critical lobby rebranded themselves after some of them decided they didn’t like TERF anymore (some of them still wear that proudly) so I’m actually giving them the respect they feel they deserve here. Some have moved on to ‘sex realists’ however GC still seems to be vastly the common parlance. 

[carpetmonster]

4 minutes ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

So legal challenge is going to go ahead.

I've been a consistent supporter of trans rights on these threads but politically think this is not the right move.

They should have kicked it back to the UK Government to sort out.

It could be taken just as easily as the overriding principle rather than trans rights under the logic that pulling S35 out once will embolden Westminster to think of it as a new toy. There were Tories in the Commons calling for an S35 on the bottle deposit scheme a few weeks back I’m sure. 

[andyg83]

There's definitely an ideology surrounding it though and it's not good for anyone. 

[carpetmonster]

Just now, andyg83 said:

There's definitely an ideology surrounding it though and it's not good for anyone. 

It’s good for Matt Walsh. He makes lots of money by screaming about it. 

[Boo Khaki]

16 minutes ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

So legal challenge is going to go ahead.

I've been a consistent supporter of trans rights on these threads but politically think this is not the right move.

They should have kicked it back to the UK Government to sort out.

That would have gotten absolutely nowhere, as Jack has already said, as far as they're concerned it's up to the SG to resubmit the bill in a format acceptable to Westminster, yet Westminster has no inclination to indicate what format that might take.

It would have sat in limbo indefinitely. The only way to have any chance of progressing this before there is a change of government in London is to challenge the S35.

[f_c_dundee]

1 hour ago, carpetmonster said:

https://www.cedars-sinai.org/blog/puberty-blockers-for-precocious-puberty.html

That's about precocious puberty and incidentally clearly points out that they advise stopping it by age 12 and not for a prolonged time. 

 

It answers nothing. No one is arguing about using it for <checking your article> 1 in 5000 to 1 in 10000 kids with precocious puberty. 

 

And it's a hospital blog

[carpetmonster]

8 minutes ago, f_c_dundee said:

That's about precocious puberty and incidentally clearly points out that they advise stopping it by age 12 and not for a prolonged time. 

 

It answers nothing. No one is arguing about using it for <checking your article> 1 in 5000 to 1 in 10000 kids with precocious puberty. 

 

And it's a hospital blog

It points out that they’re prescribed as young as 6, and 6 years seems fairly prolonged to me. 
 

They’re not, no. So why are they arguing about using it on gender dysphoric kids given the physical outcomes will be the same and the stated objective - that of improving mental health - is also the same? 
 

ETA - and I’m 99.9% sure you’re being deliberately disingenuous but I’d take publications from Cedars-Sinai as a wee bit more than ‘a hospital blog’. Wee bit of context just in case - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedars-Sinai_Medical_Center

Edited April 12, 2023 by carpetmonster

[DeeTillEhDeh]

26 minutes ago, carpetmonster said:

It could be taken just as easily as the overriding principle rather than trans rights under the logic that pulling S35 out once will embolden Westminster to think of it as a new toy. There were Tories in the Commons calling for an S35 on the bottle deposit scheme a few weeks back I’m sure. 

They said their objections were not against the principle but conflict with the EA.

I personally think asking them to sort it out puts the ball firmly in their court - no excuses then.

 

[Iain]

Can't wait until this becomes another "show us the legal advice" case.

[TxRover]

5 hours ago, virginton said:

If an adult wishes to undergo treatment (including surgery) to transition gender, then that's not an issue. 

You're discussing children being given puberty blockers without the need for their legal guardian's consent or any serious psychological scrutiny into the case first to approve their suitability for use. That's not ethical - that is tantamount to child abuse for the inevitable set of cases where the patient recognises at a later date that they have made a terrible mistake and have had consequential damage done to their lives. 

Your 'two wrongs make a right - fight suppression!' approach to ethical medicine is utter nonsense. 

Never suggested children be treated without adult involvement, but I will draw a line at requiring it to always be the/a parent. There are a number of case where requiring parental consent is tantamount to automatic denial, there has to be a means to allow a bypass, with appropriate controls and monitoring.

[Boo Khaki]

13 minutes ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

They said their objections were not against the principle but conflict with the EA.

I personally think asking them to sort it out puts the ball firmly in their court - no excuses then.

 

What makes you think the Westminster government would do anything more than shrug and move on?

They are not about to go altering the EA to accommodate a Scottish Government Bill, when the likes of Badenoch are already agitating for the EA to be amended to effectively render transpeople legally non-existent.

As I said, Jack made it clear at the point of announcing the s35 in the HoC that as far as they were concerned, this was the end of the matter, and it's entirely up to Holyrood to resubmit the bill in a format that is agreeable to WM even though no such format exists. It's entirely unrealistic to expect the Westminster govt to amend a UK Act pertaining to reserved matters just to facilitate a bill pertaining to devolved ones. Isn't going to happen in a million years, even if the WM government of the day wasn't already utterly hostile to the aims of the SG Bill in the first place.

[Theroadlesstravelled]

What about the families that can’t afford the thousands of dollars required for puberty blocker treatment? Or the ongoing cost of medical treatment into adulthood?

A large percentage of trans people are white, middle class and it’s apparent why.

[Trogdor]

1 hour ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

So legal challenge is going to go ahead.

I've been a consistent supporter of trans rights on these threads but politically think this is not the right move.

They should have kicked it back to the UK Government to sort out.

Aye, another expensive defeat beckons.