Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
ABSTRACT: Gender dysphoria (GD) of childhood describes a psychological condition in which children experience a marked incongruence between their experienced gender and the gender associated with their biological sex. When this occurs in the pre-pubertal child, GD resolves in the vast majority of patients by late adolescence. Currently there is a vigorous, albeit suppressed, debate among physicians, therapists, and academics regarding what is fast becoming the new treatment standard for GD in children. This new paradigm is rooted in the assumption that GD is innate, and involves pubertal suppression with gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists followed by the use of cross-sex hormones—a combination that results in the sterility of minors. A review of the current literature suggests that this protocol is founded upon an unscientific gender ideology, lacks an evidence base, and violates the long-standing ethical principle of “First do no harm.”
Gender Dysphoria in Children: This Debate Concerns More than Science
Gender is a term that refers to the psychological and cultural characteristics associated with biological sex.1 It is a psychological concept and sociological term, not a biological one. Gender identity refers to an individual’s awareness of being male or female and is sometimes referred to as an individual’s “experienced gender.” Gender dysphoria (GD) in children describes a psychological condition in which they experience marked incongruence between their experienced gender and the gender associated with their biological sex. They often express the belief that they are the opposite sex.2 The prevalence rates of GD among children has been estimated to be less than 1%.3 Sex differences in rate of referrals to specialty clinics vary by age. In pre-pubertal children, the ratio of boys to girls ranges from 2:1 to 4.5:1. In adolescents, the sex ratio is close to parity; in adults, the ratio of males to females range from 1:1 to 6.1:1.2
The debate over how to treat children with GD is primarily an ethical dispute; one that concerns physician worldview as much as science. Medicine does not occur in a moral vacuum; every therapeutic action or inaction is the result of a moral judgment of some kind that arises from the physician’s philosophical worldview. Medicine also does not occur in a political vacuum and being on the wrong side of sexual politics can have severe consequences for individuals who hold the politically incorrect view.
As an example, Dr. Kenneth Zucker, long acknowledged as a foremost authority on gender identity issues in children, has also been a lifelong advocate for gay and transgender rights. However, much to the consternation of adult transgender activists, Zucker believes that gender-dysphoric pre-pubertal children are best served by helping them align their gender identity with their anatomic sex. This view ultimately cost him his 30-year directorship of the Child Youth and Family Gender Identity Clinic (GIC) at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.4,5
Many critics of pubertal suppression hold a modernist teleological worldview. They find it self-evident that there is a purposeful design to human nature, and that cooperation with this design leads to human flourishing. Others, however, identify as post-modernists who reject teleology. What unites the two groups is a traditional interpretation of “First do no harm.” For example, there is a growing online community of gay-affirming physicians, mental health professionals, and academics with a webpage entitled “First, do no harm: youth trans critical professionals.” They write:
We are concerned about the current trend to quickly diagnose and affirm young people as transgender, often setting them down a path toward medical transition…. We feel that unnecessary surgeries and/or hormonal treatments which have not been proven safe in the long-term represent significant risks for young people. Policies that encourage—either directly or indirectly—such medical treatment for young people who may not be able to evaluate the risks and benefits are highly suspect, in our opinion.6
Advocates of the medical interventionist paradigm, in contrast, are also post-modernists but hold a subjective view of “First do no harm.” Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, an adolescent medicine specialist at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and leader in pediatric gender transitioning, has stated that “[First do no harm] is really subjective. [H]istorically we come from a very paternalistic perspective… [in which] doctors are really given the purview of deciding what is going to be harmful and what isn’t. And that, in the world of gender, is really problematic.”7 Not only does she claim that “First do no harm” is subjective, but she later also states that it should be left to the child decide what constitutes harm based upon their own subjective thoughts and feelings.7 Given the cognitive and experiential immaturity of the child and adolescent, the American College of Pediatricians (the College) finds this highly problematic and unethical.
Gender dysphoria as the result of an innate internal sexed identity
Professor of social work, Dr. William Brennan, has written that “[t]he power of language to color one’s view of reality is profound.”8 It is for this reason that linguistic engineering always precedes social engineering — even in medicine. Many hold the mistaken belief that gender once meant biological sex. Though the terms are often used interchangeably they were never truly synonymous.9,10 Feminists of the late 1960’s and 1970’s used gender to refer to a “social sex” that could differ from one’s “biological sex” in order to overcome unjust discrimination against women rooted in sex stereotypes. These feminists are largely responsible for mainstreaming the use of the word gender in place of sex. More recently, in an attempt to eliminate heteronormativity, queer theorists have expanded gender into an excess of 50 categories by merging the concept of a social sex with sexual attractions.9 However, neither usage reflects the original meaning of the term.
Prior to the 1950s, gender applied only to grammar not to persons.9,10 Latin based languages categorize nouns and their modifiers as masculine or feminine and for this reason are still referred to as having a gender. This changed during the 1950s and 1960s as sexologists realized that their sex reassignment agenda could not be sufficiently defended using the words sex and transsexual. From a purely scientific standpoint, human beings possess a biologically determined sex and innate sex differences. No sexologist could actually change a person’s genes through hormones and surgery. Sex change is objectively impossible. Their solution was to hijack the word gender and infuse it with a new meaning that applied to persons. John Money, PhD was among the most prominent of these sexologists who redefined gender to mean ‘the social performance indicative of an internal sexed identity.10 In essence, these sexologists invented the ideological foundation necessary to justify their treatment of transsexualism with sex reassignment surgery and called it gender. It is this man-made ideology of an ‘internal sexed identity’ that now dominates mainstream medicine, psychiatry and academia. This linguistic history makes it clear that gender is not and never has been a biological or scientific entity. Rather, gender is a socially and politically constructed concept.
...
We have here a situation where an individual is physically attacked because she belongs to a group that does not accept an ideology that fails to stand up to scientific scrutiny. The State then directs her to accept and repeat the ideology as her own and to do so by verbally displaying her submission to her attacker. I find this scenario to be hideous and evil and worth fighting against.
Heaven Swan wrote: the endgame of the billionaire social programmers who are behind the trans movement is artificial intelligence and human engineering.
guruilla » Sat Jul 07, 2018 10:53 pm wrote:Great article, thanksWe have here a situation where an individual is physically attacked because she belongs to a group that does not accept an ideology that fails to stand up to scientific scrutiny. The State then directs her to accept and repeat the ideology as her own and to do so by verbally displaying her submission to her attacker. I find this scenario to be hideous and evil and worth fighting against.Heaven Swan wrote: the endgame of the billionaire social programmers who are behind the trans movement is artificial intelligence and human engineering.
Which might have something to do with the preponderance of military & ex-military trans-(wo)men?
Teen Vogue Contributor Permanently Suspended From Twitter Over Tweet Directed at TERFs
Frida Garza
Friday 5:20pmFiled to: TWITTER
Danielle Corcione—a freelance journalist who writes for Teen Vogue, ReWire, and other outlets—had their Twitter account permanently suspended on Thursday after the writer posted a tweet about TERFs. (Corcione uses they/them pronouns.) Emails, which Corcione provided to Jezebel, show that Twitter suspended Corcione for “violating rules against posting violent threats.”
The tweet in question, which can be seen in screenshots circulating on Twitter reads:
“If any TERFs like or retweet this, I’m shoving my foot up your ass.”
According to the emails Twitter sent Corcione, the above hyperbole amounts to a specific threat of violence against a group of people. But that singular tweet leaves out the crucial context: Corcione was preparing to handle a potential barrage of hate speech from individuals ready to mock trans people—ironically, perhaps without repercussions from Twitter. Twitter’s decision to permanently suspend Corcione’s account raises a bigger question about what kind of speech is protected on social media platforms, and which groups of people are considered worthy of protection from threats.
TERFs—trans-exclusionary radical feminists who do not believe that the rights of trans people should be included in discussions of women’s rights—seem to qualify as one such protected group, per Twitter’s policies. This protection mirrors growing insistence from conservative circles that “TERF” is a slur—a talking point that is creeping into mainstream discourse. Last year, the Guardian ran an opinion column in which the author refers to TERF as a “as a bullying tool” that has “already succeeded in repressing speech.” Last week, in the guidelines for an essay series on trans issues, The Economist referred to “TERF” as a slur “which may have started as a descriptive term but is now used to try to silence a vast swathe of opinions on trans issues.” (The series includes an essay warning that trans rights should not be won at the expense of women’s “fragile gains.”)
Speaking over the phone, Corcione told Jezebel on Friday that the tweet that got them suspended was not an out-of-the-blue threat, but a response to an earlier tweet that was meant as a joke. “The original tweet was actually kind of funny,” Corcione said. “It was part of a meme. I [tweeted]: ‘My pronouns are Yee-haw.’” (The tweet, which Jezebel verified, is no longer accessible because Corcione’s account is suspended.)
Corcione said when they saw the number of retweets on the first tweet, they figured it would go viral, and thought: “I don’t want any fucking TERFs. You know, I didn’t want them to mock trans people because it’s a meme that was obviously created by a trans person just to be goofy.”
In anticipation of harassment, Corcione then posted the tweet in question: “If any TERFs like or retweet this, I’m shoving my foot up your ass.” Corcione’s decision to tweet to pre-empt anti-trans trolls speaks to the nearly ever-present threat of abuse that trans and non-binary people face when speaking to large audiences on Twitter.
“This is absolutely political,” said Corcione.
Corcione first received noticed their account was suspended on Monday, June 25, and appealed to have it reinstated; Corcione told Jezebel that, as a journalist, they need Twitter to report on stories. More than a week later, on Thursday, July 5, Corcione received an email from Twitter stating that their account was still suspended and would not be restored.
Corcione had been covering demonstrations against ICE in Philadelphia since this Monday, July 2. On Wednesday, they wrote a post on Facebook asking followers to apply pressure to Twitter to bring back their account, and included the hashtag #OccupyICEPHL. Here’s the post in full:
My Twitter account is STILL SUSPENDED going on nine days. If you know any folks who have had their account suspended in a similar way as mine was, please let me know. In the meantime, please tag my handle (@decorcione) as well as @jack and @twittersupport and TWEET that this independent journalist can’t tweet and report live on the platform, despite being on the ground at#OccupyICEPHL. (Post is public, please share.)
Corcione believes it’s “no coincidence” that their appeal was rejected after they asked people to share a post with a hashtag created to protest the federal government. “It shows who’s in power, who’s in control in Silicon Valley, and it’s also indicative of our political climate,” said Corcione. “We’re living in fascism, and people aren’t afraid to repress people’s voices of influence, especially journalists.”
Jezebel has reached out to Twitter for comment and will update this post if we hear back.
https://jezebel.com/teen-vogue-contribu ... 1827393516
"And if you'd asked me a few years ago if anyone would be arguing that women don't really exist and can't be defined [as a category of people], I would not have understood what you were talking about," Chart added. "If you'd asked me a few years ago if I thought that the minor sex trade was a good idea, I would have said, 'Of course not, nobody supports that, right?'"
"At the very least, on these two fundamental issues, women exist and children should not be sold for sex. I can't even fathom that there are people who have decided that these things are up for discussion. It's bizarre to me and unsettling."
The gender identity movement and the sex industry want everyone to agree with them, she continued, and they will talk to anyone who will listen in order to get there, because that means they win.
"And if this movement proves successful it means that males will win the absolute right to be naked in front of women in public accommodations or to watch us undress, for male sex offenders to be incarcerated with women, for the sex industry and its clients to degrade and exploit women in every way without any fear of accountability," she said.
"This stands in contradiction of principles of women's human rights that were widely supported less than 20 years ago and portends the erasure of very old rights everyone has come to take for granted. I think this is an emergency. And yes, I am interested in talking with people of different ideologies and faiths who also think it is an emergency."
Sounder » Mon Jul 09, 2018 6:03 pm wrote:I'm sure people here fully support Trans and non gender binary folk, but a question remains as to whether these folk and others are being 'used' to achieve bad intentions.
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 51 guests