Gender Discussion #22

[judgejohndeed]

Straight from the NHS website here:

"Little is known about the long-term side effects of hormone or puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria. Although GIDS advises this is a physically reversible treatment if stopped, it is not known what the psychological effects may be.

It's also not known whether hormone blockers affect the development of the teenage brain or children's bones. Side effects may also include hot flushes, fatigue and mood alterations."


Anyone who seriously thinks something as fundamental to biological development as puberty can simply be switched on and off like a lightbulb is clearly mentally deficient in some way. The argument is just not worth entertaining.

 

[weeweegie]

It is not at all irreversible as this article states. It pauses puberty and if they change their mind, can stop the blockers and puberty will resume. What about that is irreversible?



I actually commented on this thread thinking it was a balanced discussion. I read a bit further and then ‘screamed transphobia’ because it is.

that argument is like saying, how can you know you’re straight if you’ve never been with someone of the same sex? How can you know you’re female if you’ve never been a male?

Look at your body, it will tell you. I am a woman and I do not have a gender identity. I’m a woman and that is that. There is no special inside feeling or male/female souls. It’s a nonsense. Also, conflating sexuality and ‘gender identity’ makes no sense as they are not in any way the same.

 

[bcfc999]

It is not at all irreversible as this article states. It pauses puberty and if they change their mind, can stop the blockers and puberty will resume. What about that is irreversible?



I actually commented on this thread thinking it was a balanced discussion. I read a bit further and then ‘screamed transphobia’ because it is.

that argument is like saying, how can you know you’re straight if you’ve never been with someone of the same sex? How can you know you’re female if you’ve never been a male?

I really strongly recommend you look on twitter or r/detrans because I thought the same as you and was absolutely shocked to read the first hand accounts from so many people who have suffered health problems as a result of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.

Re sexuality - you're basically asking "how can a woman know they're attracted to women if they're not attracted to men" and I'm not sure that's what you were going for as it makes no sense.

Also - think I speak for everyone here when I say a balanced discussion would be welcomed, but every few weeks someone pops up, screams "Transphobes!!! Terfs!!! " and then vanishes without addressing any of the valid questions/responses put to them.

 

[CookieZippy]

Hateful cis bigots etc etc

 

[SILKWORM]

that argument is like saying, how can you know you’re straight if you’ve never been with someone of the same sex? How can you know you’re female if you’ve never been a male?

It's not really. There's a lot more to it than that. Children do not understand the impact of puberty blockers or even what trans might mean for them in the future. Kids who say they are trans rely on the adults around them to guide them and what chance do they have if the adults around them are googling conversion therapy for their 3 year old son because he's a wee bit effeminate.

Plus, if someone thinks they're gay at a young age, comes out young but later realises they're bisexual, then.... there's nothing irreversible about that.

I can't mince my worse here - I think what is being done to the majority of trans kids is shocking. And I absolutely cannot stand the mother of Kai Shappley. Anyone who would defend a parent like that, doing what she's doing to her son because she bleeping shat herself at the prospect of him being gay are just as insidious as she and all the parents like her are. What is being done to kids like Kai because of their parents homophobia is an absolute injustice.

 

[Sglodion]

Someone mentioned BIID - I read an interesting article by a psychiatrist many years ago, while the trans stuff was growing but before it really took off. He speculated that both BIID and gender dysphoria might be neurological issues with the same underlying cause, where the brain contains a map of what it thinks the body should look like, and for whatever reason a small number of men accidentally get the 'woman' map and vice versa. I don't think there was any evidence to support this but it's the only explanation I've heard that makes any kind of sense to me as to how you can 'feel like' the opposite sex. If it is true then this could account for the minority of people with actual dysphoria, as opposed to AGPs, NBs, people with body issues from trauma and abuse, non-dysphoric trans people (whatever the duck that's supposed to mean) and so on.

In the same article he suggested that in that case it would make sense to treat it with surgery, because while ideally we would treat it by fixing the brain so it matches the body, we currently have no idea how to do that. So the options are basically 1) leave these people to suffer mentally for their whole lives, or 2) do a crude 'fix' where you change the body to match the brain, which seems to make people who have this problem more content even if it comes with a whole lot of side effects.

I still think this all sounds potentially plausible, and maybe there really are people who benefit from SRS. However, the problem at the moment is that we're not doing enough to make sure we're filtering those people - who must surely be a very small minority - from the ones who have different body image issues and mistakenly think that surgery is the answer. I also don't think enough discussion is allowed of the consequences - for example, there seems to be a widespread view (which I believed myself for a long time) that puberty blockers are completely harmless and reversible, and simply give children more time to consider what they want before secondary sex characteristics kick in and make medical intervention more diffficult. When in fact the long term side effects are completely unknown. If I wasn't aware of that as an educated adult, how are we expecting twelve year olds to make decisions about this, who have no real grasp of the emotional weight of things like infertility even if they are given all the facts? It is an absolute dereliction of duty on the part of all adults who are validating and even pushing for this for the sake of their own ideology.

 

[smellyfootballboots]

It is not at all irreversible as this article states. It pauses puberty and if they change their mind, can stop the blockers and puberty will resume. What about that is irreversible?



I actually commented on this thread thinking it was a balanced discussion. I read a bit further and then ‘screamed transphobia’ because it is.

that argument is like saying, how can you know you’re straight if you’ve never been with someone of the same sex? How can you know you’re female if you’ve never been a male?

What is your definition of 'transphobia' exactly?

 

[nothanksbabes]

Is there any other field of medicine where you can say, "give me the exact treatment I want or I'll kill myself" and it works?

 

[FrannyGallops]

It is not at all irreversible as this article states. It pauses puberty and if they change their mind, can stop the blockers and puberty will resume. What about that is irreversible?



I actually commented on this thread thinking it was a balanced discussion. I read a bit further and then ‘screamed transphobia’ because it is.

that argument is like saying, how can you know you’re straight if you’ve never been with someone of the same sex? How can you know you’re female if you’ve never been a male?

If I’m being generous, I’d say that nobody knows whether puberty blockers are irreversible or not or what the long term effects are going to be. At the moment, they’re conducting a mass experiment on children who are unable to consent. Is this the road we really want to be going down? Children as collateral? So you ‘pause’ puberty for girls, for example. What then if they decide they want to continue ‘living as a man’? If you had early menopause as a teenage girl, you would need HRT for the rest of your life because estrogen is an essential hormone for all sorts of things. Replacing it with testosterone is not the same, and there are reports of trans men having huge problems because of it already, and these are mostly women who have gone through female puberty already.

This is going to be a huge scandal down the line and we’re going to look at the adults who have sanctioned this and wonder WTF they were thinking.

 

[Kittypops]

Just wondering, if toilets just for trans people became a thing, would the trans users object if men used them?

 

[SILKWORM]

Just wondering, if toilets just for trans people became a thing, would the trans users object if men used them?

I'm not sure about this exact scenario but one of the arguments they make against trans only toilets is it makes them more vulnerable/easy access to those who would commit hate crimes against them. Majority of those who would do this are men. Sooooo of course they wont entertain women's concern for men gaining easier access to our spaces tho.

 

[Notworthy]

As a Peri menopausal woman I'm continuously surprised by the myriad of symptoms affecting most of my body. Hormones have an impact on nearly every bodily function so the idea that using hormone blockers has no long term impact is, quite frankly, ludicrous

 

[sheleg]

Th

Unfortunately this thread shockingly reeks of transphobia. Some of the views on this page are deplorable. I thought this was a place for sharing opinions but to my mistake, I didn’t quite get the context of this thread.

delaying puberty is imperative for those with gender identity issues. Those that go through puberty for the ‘wrong’ gender experience immense dysphoria.

as for ‘men born men should use men’s bathrooms’ and vice versa as quoted further up this page - wow. I hope none of you on this thread ever experience the loss of a relative from gender identity issues as a consequence of these ignorant views.

(also to add, quoting someone else’s opinion does not add to your argument at all.)

Oh, honey. No. The time for accusing women of transphobia is over. The tide is turning. Look at the news over the weekend. Lia Thomas. The grape by a transwoman being denied. Tavistock whistleblowers. People are wising up. You’ve yelled “bigots! Transphobes!” for too long now; the scales are finally falling from the general public’s eyes.

 

[Sglodion]

That argument is like saying, how can you know you’re straight if you’ve never been with someone of the same sex? How can you know you’re female if you’ve never been a male?

Any gay person could tell you exactly how they know they're only attracted to people of the same sex, and understand that straight people feel the same but about the opposite sex. Most people who aren't trans couldn't tell you what it means to 'feel like' their biological sex, we just know what we are based on our genitals. If I had a sense of what it meant to 'feel like a woman' other than having a female body and having been raised as a woman with the relevant societal values and expectations, I would fully accept that some male-bodied people could also feel the same way. But I don't, so I don't understand how trans women can know that they feel like women either.

It's like if an Asian person (say) said they felt like they were white. Being white doesn't inherently 'feel like' anything, it just means you look a particular way, but it comes with certain privileges and stereotypes because of history and the way our society is structured. So I would assume that what the person actually meant was "I feel like I fit the stereotype of a white person better than the stereotype of an Asian person", because... well, what else could they mean?

 

[smellyfootballboots]

Just wondering, if toilets just for trans people became a thing, would the trans users object if men used them?

Currently, trans identified males refuse to use these toilets because it is stigmatising and segregating them. No thought to the trauma of women having to suffer men in our bathrooms because of them.

 

[nothanksbabes]

Earlier today I saw a tweet from a TiM saying how "validating" it is to get the (automated, presumably) letter inviting him for a cervical screening.

I just bleeping despair, honestly. The ideas that an invasive (and for many, traumatic) medical procedure unique to women is a vehicle for validating the fantasies of deluded men is bleeping gross.

 

[skronkywildcat]

One side effect of puberty blockers is males having atrophied penises. They are so small that there’s not enough skin to create a fake tina if they decide to have surgery. Surely, @Pawpaw365 that would concern you?

 

[Kittypops]

Currently, trans identified males refuse to use these toilets because it is stigmatising and segregating them. No thought to the trauma of women having to suffer men in our bathrooms because of them.

Aha, a possible loophole here, in that us women could therefore use the trans toilets as they'll be Tim and man free!

 

[petitspois]

Ruth Hunt has got a hell of a lot to answer for. Stonewall used to be a charity gay and les rights but, since gay marriage was legalised, they decided to add trans to their mission. Ruth was unbelievably successful in this and has done a huge amount of damage.

 

[smellyfootballboots]

Aha, a possible loophole here, in that us women could therefore use the trans toilets as they'll be Tim and man free!

If the horror show continues women will self exclude. I've already heard of a grape crisis centre outside London that takes care of women suffering from domestic violence and grape etc. It's a private network. This is great that women are organising away from males but really, we shouldn't have to.