#myths about gender affirming surgery

[answersfromzestual]

Many patients mistakenly believe that the longer the operation, the better the healing results, and that short surgery is a sign that the surgeon is in a hurry or is not meticulous.

These myths can be a major source of anxiety for patients. However, the opposite is true: the longer the surgery time, the more the healing time and the risks associated with the intervention increase.

While it is true that operating time is an important indicator of risk factors and possible complications, the type of surgery and procedural complexity are also determining factors. Although often independent, these risk factors can sometimes be interrelated.

Infections and complications

The link between wound infection and operative time has been known for a long time. Every additional minute of surgery has a direct impact on the rate of wound infection.

As proof, a study on breast reconstruction with implants published in 2019 clearly demonstrated that the possibility of medical complications or wound infections increases when the surgery time goes beyond three hours. There would be a direct causal link between complications, preoperative health conditions, and longer operative time.

While the complication rates vary little for surgeries of less than 3 hours, the risks multiply by 1.6 times after 3 hours. Each successive operating time interval is accompanied by an associated growth in complications, with rates increasing 3-fold after 4.5 hours and almost 5-fold for a 6.8 hours procedure.

When surgery lasts longer than 6 hours, every additional hour increases the risk of cardiovascular, kidney and pulmonary complications. The same goes for the increased rate of infection. Surgeries lasting longer than 3 hours increase the risk of erythema and bruising, and often involve slower healing of the wounds.

Morbidity

The main issue regarding the risk of morbidity is the complexity of the procedure, not the duration of the operation. Indeed, according to a study published in 2014, complications can vary between two surgeries of more or less equal duration. For example, surgeries to the head or neck cause more complications than breast or limb surgeries, although the duration is similar, due to the complexity of these procedures. Delicate procedures on smaller surfaces requiring less manipulation cause less morbidity than reconstruction or dissections or excisions of body contouring procedures. On the other hand, studies indicate that operating times of more than three hours also increase the risk of morbidity. All these factors must be taken into account by the surgeon during the preoperative preparation.

The duration of the operation is therefore a key factor in the recovery of patients and in the severity of postoperative complications. It would be an indicator of complications, with a marked increase in risks if the surgery lasts more than three hours.

Surgeons are highly trained professionals. Although an experienced surgeon works quickly, other factors can contribute to the length of the operation, some of which may be beyond his control, such as excessive bleeding which can slow down the procedure. However, speed of execution does not necessarily guarantee better results, as operating time is not the only factor to consider in the event of complications.

So patients don’t have to worry if the surgery is shorter than expected. This does not indicate shoddy work. Longer surgery will not necessarily give better results. Surgery time is an important factor in recovery, but so too are the type of surgery and procedural complexity. Above all, be sure to ask questions before surgery so that you are fully aware of the risks.

Source

[femanthropy]

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༄ general radfem resources

༄ Radfem arguments/ w sources (compiled by pronoun-fucker)

༻❁ᴛʀᴀɴꜱɢᴇɴᴅᴇʀ ɪᴅᴇᴏʟᴏɢʏ ʟɪɴᴋꜱ༺

༄ the video that started my radical feminism

༄ myth of the gendered brain

༄ the dangers of gender ideology

༄ transgender murder rates / (white transgender individuals using the violence and murder of Black and brown transgender individuals to push a narrative that benefits/absolves/ victimises themselves as white people.

༄ gender statistics on everything

༄ research into transgender medicine has been manipulated / transgender studies are not based on very reliable research

༄ suicide risk and gender dysphoria~ debunked suicide risk and puberty blockers. on suicide and gender dysphoria

༄“Black Women Are Touted as Political Props for the Trans Movement” (linked with permission ♡) check out the rest of her work!

༄ a deeper look into transgender ideology history and propaganda “Wrong Bodies”. Massive content warning for some disturbing content including AGP, gr0om1nG, cult tactics, and paraphelias.

༄ Risk of Suicide and Self-Harm Following Gender-Affirmation Surgery

༄“The puberty blockers song” (check out this dudes channel also. Tackles some of these heavy topics with some lightheartedness we need at times.

༄ Long term follow up of transsexual people following surgery

༄ trans widows, on abuse

༄ https://donoharmmedicine.org/research/2024/major-pediatric-gender-studies-major-flaws/ (not sure why tumblr won’t let me link it nicely

༄ working on the erasure of women’s spaces/bodies (birthing bodies, uterus-owners, bleeders)

༄ working on female socialisation/ how women and girls are raised differently to men and boys. Why rapid onset gender dysphoria is exponentially higher in young girls.

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༄ Femicide census (UK)

༄ female genital mutilation general info

༄ males punch significantly harder

༄ bitch is a slur

༄ working on links for awareness of FGM

༄ working on links for awareness/ critique of islam and “Islamophobia” resources. why do leftists support islam/ Islam at its core and Islamic countries

༄ working on links for awareness of femicide/honour killings, hate crimes

༄ working on links of violent crime statistics.

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༻❁ᴍᴇᴅɪᴄᴀʟ ᴍɪꜱᴏɢʏɴʏ/ ɢʏɴᴀᴇᴄᴏʟᴏɢʏ༺

༄ The lack of pain medication, diagnosis, knowledge of female bodies and health in medicine.

༄ Abortion, every day”, reporting on the horrors post Roe

༄Why pregnancy/ giving birth is exponentially more dangerous for Black women.

༄ working on links for awareness of medical misogyny

༄ working on links for awareness gynaecology at its root being at the violent expense of Black women

༄ Working on links about how gynaecology is so backwards/barbaric/ medieval.

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༻❁ʀᴀɴᴅᴏᴍ ᴜɴᴄᴀᴛᴀɢᴏʀɪꜱᴇᴅ ᴛᴏᴘɪᴄꜱ ༺

༄ Lesbian radical feminist discussion, 1970

༄ Black women and feminism | Phil Donahue show (1989)

༄ who is Amber Heard

༄ when women went on strike (unpaid invisible labour)

༄ Fourth wave feminism news/discussion/ articles website

༄ Reduxx (similar to “theysaythisneverhappens”, as well as other news and commentary)

༄ Fairplayforwomen~ resources/info on female sport, prisons, refuge shelters and more

༄The 2024 boxing incident explained

༄ petition against including trans identifying males in crime statistics.

༄ link to tumblr post on self defence tips for women

༄ radfems- stay safe online (link to tumblr post)

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༻❁ ɢᴇɴᴇʀᴀʟ ᴛᴀɢꜱ (ᴡɪᴘ): ༺

#male violence #femicide #islam #honour killings #FGM #middle east #Iran #radical feminism #gender critical #female erasure #sex based oppression #abortion #medical misogyny #gynaecology #rape #domestic violence #female socialisation #prostitution #sex work #anti kink #statistics #anti sex work (anti)#biological essentialism #surrogacy #racism #Misogynoir #female sports #female prisons #lesbian erasure #intersex #DSD #menstruation #pro choice #abortion

“# off topic” is for posts that aren’t radfem related

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༻❁ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ɢᴇɴᴇʀᴀʟ ɴᴏᴛᴇꜱ༺

♡ I do not post nsfw outside the context of education/commentary. under 18s are free to follow but be mindful of this. I’m not gonna be posting p0rn (obviously).

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ؘ ؘ

[zinniajones]

These "expert" pediatricians were paid by a far-right legal group to come up with evidence to attack the WPATH transgender standards of care

What this is: Leaked documents show the anti-LGBT legal group Alliance Defending Freedom paying manufactured experts to attack WPATH’s transgender standards of care, asking them to find evidence for harmful anti-trans myths that they knew were baseless and unsubstantiated. This is an original finding and report by Zinnia Jones (she/her), a transgender Florida resident of 11 years whose access to HRT is now jeopardized by the enactment of state law and policy based on work from these same experts.

Detailed summary: From 2019 onward, states across the US have been faced with an intensely active wave of reused anti-trans experts, recurring characters who keep repeating the same spurious arguments against gender-affirming care in court cases, legislatures, and other policy bodies. Where did they come from, and why did this start happening?

Due to the Florida-based anti-LGBT hate group American College of Pediatricians choosing to set one of their Google Drive folders to be publicly viewable by anyone, files were released this month showing the contents of their staff’s communications and other working notes over several years.

These documents included records of the Alliance Defending Freedom - another hate group who are also responsible for bringing the mifepristone case with ACP as a plaintiff - approaching ACP's leaders in 2018 and 2019 to offer them a grant of $10,000 or more. The ADF wanted the pediatricians “to draft a white paper that refutes the WPATH Standards of Care”, “for use in litigation and should also benefit many other allies at State and Federal Level”.

ACP’s president Quentin Van Meter and executive director Michelle Cretella promptly got to work on this “Special Project”, and the ADF hosted expert witness workshops at ACP's conferences. ACP members including Van Meter went on to present anti-trans testimony in several ADF-litigated cases and ADF-involved trans youth care bans.

In May 2022, Van Meter authored a sham report for Florida Medicaid to justify their trans coverage exclusion, mostly drawing from previous ACP position statements; court filings later revealed Michelle Cretella was recommended by the Florida governor’s office, and she pointed the way to all the other anti-trans experts hired by Florida in 2022 to support the Medicaid exclusion of transition care.

One notable document found in the ACP’s drive contains “Transgender Research Requests”, with the ADF asking Cretella and other ACP leaders to “substantiate” now-commonplace anti-trans talking points. These included bizarre claims by the ADF such as “it is normal during adolescence for children to go through a phase when they identify (to some degree) with the opposite sex”, and “For those who have undergone hormone therapy and genital change surgery, a paper that says they are no happier (and perhaps worse off if the research supports it)”.

The ADF was asking this anti-trans group to come up with anything that could support the arguments they were already planning to make.

This appears to be one of the very sites where those baseless myths about suicide, social contagion and other supposed harms, now regularly repeated in court cases and testimony and uncritically accepted by the mainstream right wing, were conceived and gestated.

These same experts then substantially reused these work products in their reports for Florida Medicaid, a public health agency whose accepted standards determination process is supposed to be a transparent and open-ended evaluation of peer-reviewed medical evidence.

Altogether, these documents appear to demonstrate a paid smear by a hate group and right-wing law firm against a leading professional transgender healthcare organization following the best available evidence and medical practices, as well as misconduct on the part of ACP experts who reused this work in their reports for a Florida public health agency.

(asks are open)

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

could you clarify your thoughts/feelings on trans people?

Because I have a feeling I've gotten a lot of new hate followers recently I'm so tempted to post a gif of that scene from UHF where Weird Al guns down an entire army single handedly just to make them squeeze out a little pee into their pants, but I'll actually answer this seriously even though I have before, and for the exact same reason too.

If you have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria by a reputable psychologist then you are trans. Trans people are individuals, and because being trans is something that happens to you, like all metal illness, and not something you choose, I try to judge them as individuals and not a faceless mass. Some are awful, some are wonderful, most I've never met or interacted with.

But there are a lot of "trans" people who don't fit the above criteria. They haven't been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, or they got rubber stamped by some gender "clinic"'s go-to agenda driven quack. These trenders tend to be the loudest voice in the room, and they latch onto all the worst aspects of the so-called trans community. They see themselves first and foremost as a political entity, and they perpetuate harmful myths like the "trans genocide" and "if your parents/friends/etc don't affirm your identity then you need to cut them out of your life" and the like. They operate as a cult, targeting children and young adults and indoctrinating them. And they're backed by politicians who have a vested interest in destroying the family and raising their own social justice stock by supporting the newest trendy "oppressed" minority, as well as a sub-section of the medical industry that sees great profit from pushing expensive lifelong hormone treatments and expensive sex change surgeries. These people absolutely choose to be what they are. And they will gleefully tell you all about it if you ask. These people are the enemy, and they should be treated as such by everyone who wants to protect children and families from this insidious ideology.

[what-even-is-thiss]

most myths are meant to explain things about the world so little me thought the part of adam and eve where god took a rib from adam was supposed to explain why men had one less rib than women. then I learned we all have the same amount of ribs and I was kinda disappointed

Imagine getting a rib removed as a gender affirming surgery.

[uchidachi]

Watching the news on my lunch break and they’re talking about how some states are trying to block gender-affirming care up to age 21 or 26 even…

[Virginia] State Sen. Mark J. Peake, who is behind the bill, told ABC News that he wants to restrict gender-affirming surgeries until patients are 21 because “juvenile brains really are not developed as a teen."

Because of this, he believes people should have to wait for surgery until they are older.

To everyone who ever quoted the myth that “your brain doesn’t stop growing til 25” in order to win a ship war or excuse themselves from bad behavior: You are partly responsible for this. You moved the Overton window and now young trans adults will suffer.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Prisha Mosley

Published: Apr 4, 2023

The transgender community of today is built upon its cult-like tactics of brainwashing, information control, and deception. It has grown so big because of these lies and the control they can take over young minds, and the minds of the mentally ill.

I hope that by discussing some of these lies I can shed light upon them and allow people to see more truth and a different narrative than what is being pushed by the media and transgender community.

1. Transition or Suicide

“Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?” This is what my WPATH certified therapist asked my parents in front of me on my very first appointment. This is the narrative among doctors and the community. However, research has shown that rates of suicide actually increase in transgender patients after they receive treatment. Nonetheless, the idea that if anyone, particularly a child, does not receive “gender-affirming care” they will kill themselves.

This is a myth. A lie. No one will die if they are denied access to experimental, mutilating, sterilizing surgeries and drugs.

We can rebut this argument with simple facts. If transgender people have always existed, which is another narrative the trans community pushes, then there would have been droves of child and teenage suicides throughout history we would be able to look back at and refer to. These children would be killing themselves because they didn't have access to “gender affirming care, because it did not exist.” But this did not happen. This is a brand new medicine, which people have never wanted or needed before now, because it was never accessible before.

Transition is not a cure for suicidality, anyway. It won't make suicidal thoughts or ideation go away. In fact, as mentioned above, suicide rates actually increase after transition.

Suicide is a multifaceted issue, and multiple factors are required for a completed suicide. There is no such thing as “trans children not given hormones will kill themselves.” “Misgendering” someone will not cause them to kill themselves. Suicide requires four things, including hopelessness and a lack of support, and will not happen without all four factors being present.

Sources are below.

Finally, the effects of hormones, especially testosterone, can increase suicidality just like completing surgery does.

2. Trans Genocide

Another common with being pushed is that a transgender genocide is going on right now. This is also false.

Claiming that there is a genocide happening when there is none is incredibly disrespectful to people's who are victims of genocide.

Genocide is defined as the purposeful killing of a large group of people with the purpose of erasing that group or people.

No one is going out in droves killing transgender people, at least not in Western society where the ideology is being pushed.

Being denied access to women's spaces will not kill any trans-identifying male. The same goes for their sports. Hearing your birth name will not kill a person either.

I have also heard claims that the laws being rolled out to protect children are genocidal, and will cause people to kill themselves, a part of the genocide… This is also false, and as mentioned above, the CDC made a statement about the four factors required for suicide. None of them included “anti-trans bills.”

3. It's Reversible

This is one of the biggest lies they tell, most commonly to naïve, impressionable children. Trans-influencers even make videos saying that you can just go on “T” (testosterone) for a little while and essentially pick and choose which side effects you would like to experience. This is false. Testosterone effects everyone, and every woman, differently. You don't know what side effects will come first, you don't know what will happen when you stop, and there is no way to know until it happens. At that point, the effects are irreversible and unchangeable.

This goes the same for estrogen abuse in males. The effects, such as atrophy, and the growth of male breasts, will not go away. They are irreversible side effects, and they are life-lasting.

When I am testifying on bills, I often hear that puberty blockers are reversible, too. This is another lie for more reasons than one. Puberty blockers have not been studied for their use in completely ending puberty in a young person. Their use has only been studied for things like cancer, sterilizing pedophiles, and use in children with precocious puberty. In the case of precocious puberty, they are used for a very short period of time, and are not meant to completely stop puberty, but rather simply delay it so it can be experienced at a normal time.

Everything that is meant to develop and change during puberty will stop when puberty blockers are in use, and time is not reversible. You will never get back the time you lost when you were supposed to be growing your bone density, and developing your brain. And there is no information about what happens mentally to a child who is on puberty blockers, and if there is irreversible damage to mental health and the development of the personality.

Surgery, of course, is irreversible. There is no going back once you have lost body parts, or put in fake implants, or destroyed your sexual organs.

Reconstruction is almost impossible, will not be covered by insurance, and cost tens of thousands of dollars. It is also difficult to have follow-up surgeries after such mutilating procedures. It is traumatic on the body, and mentally and emotionally as well.

For myself, breast reconstruction will consist of at least three surgeries, and I may lose my nipples altogether. They have to be grafted once again, and are not extremely likely to survive the procedure.

First, I have to endure a tissue expander. An implant-like bag will be placed in my chest, and I will have to go to the surgeon every week for a period of at least 6 months to have the bags injected with saline through my skin. This is so that I will grow more skin, because my flesh was taken during the surgery and my chest is tight.

After my skin has regrown, I will have to remove the tissue expanders and heal for a while. After that, the implants as well as some fat, which will be taken from my stomach and thighs with liposuction, can be put into my chest beneath the loose skin. Once this is completed, after I have healed again, we can attempt to surgery to graft my nipples again, but there is a chance they will not survive. I may lose my nipples completely.

The cost of these procedures is an estimated $35,000, and is not covered by insurance. Even still, I will never be able to breastfeed. I lost that ability forever as a teenager.

4. Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria isn't Real

This is another lie which I hear when I'm testifying. I remember in Texas, a doctor laughed when she was asked about ROGD.

Rapid on set gender dysphoria is gender dysphoria which is experienced suddenly and usually at the onset of puberty or right after a trauma.

Most common patient seen at a gender clinic is experiencing rapid onset gender dysphoria. According to the Journal of Adolescent Health, many parents are reporting that their parents are experiencing ROGD.

I experienced ROGD after a sexual assault. I became disconnected from my gender, and I blamed all of my problems on it. I believed that only girls were sexually assaulted, and believed that if I remained one, it would happen again.

Another common reason youths, particularly girls, experience ROGD, is porn. Porn shows girls a sexualized version of femininity which is degraded and abused for the sake of men. My early exposure to porn also contributed to my ROGD. I have seen many young “trans-men” claim that they are transitioning to escape sexualization.

My story is not uncommon.

6. Gender Euphoria

“Gender euphoria” is advertised by the trans community a lot, but it's another lie.

No one experiences euphoria about their sex. Autogynophiles experience sexual euphoria and gratification when they are perceived as women, and wrong sex hormones have steroid-like effects, but that is all. The high that trans-identifying people are chasing is either sexual gratification or a literal high from drugs.

There is no such thing as gender euphoria. You can be comfortable and satisfied in your sex, and experience sex based pleasure, but gender euphoria isn’t real. Despite its non-existence, however, people suffering with gender dysphoria are set on the path to chase this high. This is how life-long medicalization happens.

7. The Male and Female Brain

There is talk within the trans community about “female vs male brains” and the claim that transgender people have the brain of the opposite sex.

According to a study written about my ScienceDaily, (linked below), "Men and women's brains do differ slightly, but the key finding is that these distinctions are due to brain size, not sex or gender," Dr. Eliot said. "Sex differences in the brain are tiny and inconsistent, once individuals' head size is accounted for."

There is not only no evidence that trans-identifying people have the brain of the opposite sex, but actually, evidence to the contrary. Despite this, the trans community, and even doctors, will tell gender dysphoric people that they actually have the brain of the opposite sex. This is diabolical, as differences between the brains of the different sexes do not exist.

8. There is no Social Contagion

The presence of ROGD and the 4400% increase in minors who with trans-identifying, this myth is easy to blow out of the water. Many trans-identifying people are minors, specifically girls, the most demographic most vulnerable to social contagions. According to a study done by the UCLA, “Nearly one in five people who identify as transgender are ages 13-17.”

The social contagion theory was first suggested by concerned mothers of ROGD teens. ROGD is a subset of gender dysphoria specifically picked up and shared by teens, and as mentioned previously, usually at the onset of puberty of following a serious trauma.

The moms have gotten together and created support groups wherein the parents come up with other solutions for gender dysphoria than drugs and surgery. They have been touted as “hateful” and “anti-trans",” however, and face a lot of backlash. Despite the success the mothers have had with helping their gender dysphoric kids, WPATH says that “-all persons— especially adolescents—are deserving of gender-affirmative evidence-based care.”

9. No Surgeries are Happening on Minors

This is yet another false claim. I won’t horrify you with photos of nude minors with their breasts cut off, mostly because I think it is wrong and exploitative to share those photos, but I will tell you that it happens, and is continuing to happen.

If you would like to find this information for yourself, search for gender clinics near you, tell them that you have a 15 or 13 year old trans-identifying daughter and that she needs “top surgery” and see what happens.

Many lawsuits are beginning to come out by detransitioners, most of whom were minors when they were medicalized. Chloe Cole is a shining example of one of these young children.

Finally, WPATH has lifted all age restrictions on surgery for trans-identifying minors under their gross and negligent guidelines.

10. Informed Consent

“Informed consent,” is a form of gaining consent on paper which is signed by the patient to verify that they fully understand all of the consequences and side effects of the treatment which they are being given. This is another delusion, however, and for two reasons.

The first reason is that children cannot consent. Children do not have the mental or emotional capacity to consent to sterilization, or understand what life long medicalization means. I could not even grasp the meaning of the words “vaginal atrophy” when they were said to me, and without being trauma informed, my doctors did not know that I said yes because my understanding of atrophy made me believe that it would make it impossible for me to be raped again. This is the way a child thinks. Children cannot conceptualize what will happen to them if they undergo puberty blockers, wrong sex hormones, or undergo surgery.

The second reason is that the doctors cannot give proper informed consent because they do not know everything that happens when a patient takes wrong sex hormones, or what complications they may have from surgery. This is brand new and experimental medicine which has not been researched in the long term.

Puberty blockers have only been studied for their use in things like precocious puberty and their long term use remains unstudied. Wrong sex hormones have almost never been studied, and the studies that we do have are short term, not peer reviewed, and abysmal. Brand new surgeries seems to be coming out every month or so, like experimental clavicle shortening for trans-identifying males. There is no way for any research or long-term follow up to have been done on this.

11. “Trans Hate” is at an All Time High

At a time when the president is visiting with newly trans-identified men and writing them personal letters of congratulations, and trans-identifying people are all over the media with sponsorship deals and being influencers, and with acceptance higher than it ever has been before, there is the claim that “hate” is at an all time high.

This is said usually in response to the recent bills to protect children from “gender affirming care.” These are not anti-trans bills, but they are pro-women and pro-children bills.

In fact, with the rate of acceptance, there are more trans-identifying people than ever, and the trans community will tell you this themselves. This is how they defend against the social contagion argument. Their theory is that there have always been this many trans-identifying people throughout history, and that it is because of acceptance that they are able to come out and be public about their identities. I thought there was a genocide happening, though? So is acceptance high or low? They can’t keep the narrative straight.

--

Sources:

Suicide:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00031539.htm

https://twitter.com/LeorSapir/status/1631030625397252101

ROGD:

https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(16)30765-0/fulltext

https://www.parentsofrogdkids.com/

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202330

Male/Female Brain:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210325115316.htm

Social Contagion:

https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/

https://thepostmillennial.com/new-study-supports-social-contagion-theory-for-surge-in-teen-girls-identifying-as-transgender

Surgeries on Minors:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/health/top-surgery-transgender-teenagers.html

https://mercatornet.com/chloe-cole-gender-transition/80073/

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2022/09/age-restriction-lifted-for-gender-affirming-surgery-in-new-international-guidelines/?fj=1

==

Prisha Mosley is suing the doctors and therapists who pushed her through the transition conveyor belt. She has testified at several hearings about her ongoing medical problems resulting directly from this medical malpractice.

Reminder: suicide is itself a socially contagious phenomenon.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/reckless-and-irresponsible

Decades of research suggest that suicide is a socially contagious behavior, especially in youth. In 1994, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a document titled “Suicide Contagion and the Reporting of Suicide: Recommendations from a National Workshop.” In a section titled “Aspects of News Coverage That Can Promote Suicide Contagion,” the CDC cautioned against “[p]resenting simplistic explanations for suicide.” Suicide, it explained, “is never the result of a single factor or event, but rather results from a complex interaction of many factors and usually involves a history of psychosocial problems.”

Those pushing the narrative should already know this, and those reporting it already do know this. It almost seems like they want it to happen to justify their activism...

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mira Lazine at LGBTQ Nation:

In its latest attack on transgender youth, lawmakers in Tennessee passed a bill to stop the nonexistent problem of adults kidnapping kids and taking them to other states for gender-affirming care.

The bill, S.B. 2782, was passed by the Tennessee House of Representatives on Thursday and is on its way to the governor’s desk. It amends a 2023 gender-affirming care ban, adding civil penalties for any adults who aid an unemancipated minor get out-of-state gender-affirming care without their parents’ consent. The bill passed along party lines 63-16 in the Tennessee House of Representatives and previously passed the state’s Senate 25-4. This would be the first state to pass a law of this kind, according to the Associated Press. S.B. 2782, is headed to the governor’s desk. Gov. Bill Lee (R) is expected to pass the legislation, as he previously advanced anti-LGBTQ+ bills, such as one that would allow LGBTQ+ foster children to be placed with foster parents who are opposed to LGBTQ+ rights. It was introduced by state Sen. Janice Bowling (R), who has been introducing anti-trans legislation since at least 2020, and contains exemptions for parents, guardians, those with the consent of parents and guardians, and common carriers like bus drivers, airline pilots, and ride share app drivers. An earlier version of S.B. 2782 reportedly had criminal penalties for adults; however, this was removed in committee. [...]

This type of legislation comes as a reaction to conspiracies that there is a ploy from transgender adults to kidnap kids and “turn” them transgender. A recent bill in Maine made headlines in the right-wing press for supposedly being a “transgender trafficking” bill. A recent bill in Maine made headlines in the right-wing press for supposedly being a “transgender trafficking” bill. The bill, L.D. 1735, makes Maine a safe state for trans people, protecting refugees from other states. Anti-trans advocates like Chaya Raichik (of Libs of TikTok) and Riley Gaines opposed this, arguing that it promoted the alleged kidnapping and trafficking of youth across state lines to give them gender-affirming surgery, something transgender youth almost never get. This culture of fear about children transitioning behind their parents’ backs has been promoted by anti-LGBTQ+ Republicans like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who alleged that there are states that want to take kids away from their parents and make them transition. There is no evidence to support any of these assertions.

Tennessee passes anti-trans bill SB2782 that is based on the "transgender trafficking" myth spouted out by anti-trans extremists. The bill has several exemptions: parents, guardians, those with the consent of parents and guardians, and common carriers like bus drivers, airline pilots, and ride share app drivers.

[itskindofareallyniceday]

Trans Resources/Info Masterpost

I dedicate a lot of time to helping fellow trans men, answering their questions, etc. and I've noticed a few very common questions in every trans group I'm a member of. I want the information within these resources to become common knowledge in our community. This information has been extremely helpful to me, my friends, and/or other people in the community, and they're things that everyone should be aware of...

Changing your name and/or gender marker: -The National Center for Transgender Equality will tell you exactly how to change your name and/or gender marker in each state.

HRT: -This map shows organizations that offer HRT following the informed consent method. -Testosterone HRT changes and timelines: source 1, source 2 -Testosterone myths -Bottom growth info (CW: this resource contains illustrations of the anatomy that will grow, before and after growth)

Injections/Syringes: -Syringes and needles can be annoying to buy at the pharmacy. Before I started buying in bulk, I had to go from pharmacy to pharmacy searching for ones that were the right size (they always ran out or didn't buy enough or something). This is a problem that many people experience, so a lot of us buy our medical supplies in bulk online. It's cheaper, easier, and you never have to worry about the pharmacy running out of your syringes. Here are a few popular websites that people buy syringes from: allegromedical.com, westendmedicalsupplies.com, bulksyringes.com, healthykin.com, https://www.vitalitymedical.com, https://www.gpzmedlab.com, etc. -Trans Needle Exchange is currently on hiatus, but they provide needles/syringes to people who can't afford/access them for free. -Search relevant subreddits for more, if those websites don't meet your needs.

Surgery: -topsurgery.net has the answer to almost any top surgery question you might have (the process, finding a surgeon, insurance, before and after pictures, etc.) -There are top surgery grants that you might qualify for. -The GALAP (Gender Affirming Letter Access Project) is a group of independent medical professionals dedicated to providing free letters of support to people seeking gender affirming surgeries. Make sure these medical professionals meet the requirements of your insurance/surgeon though, since they all have different requirements. -Plume also provides letters of support for gender affirming surgeries. Letters are included for members, but they can also be provided to non-members for $150 and one appointment. (Note: they are provided by a medical professional, not a behavioral health or mental health professional. Each insurance has different requirements about who the letter needs to be written by) -The Gender Confirmation Center has a lot of information about gender affirming surgeries, how to take care of yourself before/during/after surgery, a huge gallery of before and after pictures for different incision types, etc. -T4T Caregiving is a group of "traveling trans caregivers for all of your post-op needs". I know how hard it is for some people to find someone who is willing to take care of them after surgery. The caregivers at T4T Caregiving will provide you with care 24/7, with prices on a sliding scale that ranges from $150-250 per day. -You can find information about different surgeons here (top surgery - search by location, whether they accept informed consent, insurance, etc.) and here (several different kinds of surgeries - search by procedure, location, insurance, etc.)

WPATH's Standards of Care: -It's also a good idea to be familiar with the WPATH's (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) Standards of Care! Here is the most recent version, SOC8

Other: -Refuge Restrooms is a database of gender neutral bathroom locations. You can search for, add, and rate different locations.

Unfortunately, a lot of this information is only applicable to trans men (or AFAB NB people wishing to transition) in the US. That's what I have the most experience with (and knowledge about), as I'm a trans man in the US. Feel free to add your own favorite resources (especially for trans women) if you want!

[hanszoe]

not sure if amab hansi anon is still out there but i'm thinking more about it today. i have read only very little original language material for the series and haven't read the manga so it's really difficult for me to say, but i was reminded of their childhood character profile written for that online game (反撃の翼?) around 2014 that i translated.

in canon as far as i know no one ever refers to hans with gendered terms. this is much more possible in japanese where gender neutral honorifics are used almost all of the time otherwise the subject or object is inferred. i've translated the panels where levi and eren talk about them in third person and あいつ is used, which is gender neutral (but is really informal, especially since levi talks about them in a rude way here).

however i remembered in that game class material, other characters' profiles refer to them with gendered terms, but hansi's uses 子供, "child".

i've heard what im not sure are myths or not about original japanese language material, such as original text being edited or revised, so i really cant affirm one way or another since i just don't have the money to research it honestly (old 別冊マガ serializations are resold for like $200 per volume).

i don't know what isayama's said about this actually, i don't know what's hearsay or not. i know he requested they not be gendered in translations after the kodansha usa issue, but he's also gendered them himself in quite a misogynistic way in volume 5 bonus, so who knows what exactly the originals look like or if something escaped popular notice that i just don't know about, or when exactly isayama has had to make these decisions about gendered language with them or what he communicated to other publishers, since in initial volumes it seems unlikely to me he would have explicitly avoided gendering them as female.

but anyway, assuming the publishers of that online game genuinely did receive instruction not to gender them, they used a neutral word here. now you have to consider what is "natural" in the sense of the language, which i am definitely also not able to say on my own, but in a group of children being called "girl", or "boy", it reads to me as strange, from an in universe perspective, to arrive at hansi and suddenly omit gender by saying "child".

obviously at 10 years old hans would have expressed some form of gender identity. but children are also very powerless, and only really have the knowledge and language that they have been taught. so much of intersex related trauma is being forcibly categorized. most of the world, japan included, does not view a child's consent as relevant before coercively assigning them a sex through surgery or hormones. it thus reads unusual to me that considering the context of eldian society, adults would avoid gendering hansi.

in meta, explained by isayama probably instructing them not to. in canon, interestingly implicative of something else making it difficult for them to. i'm not sure why adults in eldia would be any less childist than they are in our world, so why would what hansi said about their own gender identity matter? adults forcibly assign sex to children based on their primary sex characteristics. that is unless hansi genuinely was intersex, and at birth adults were unable to categorize them because there was no precedent for intersexism or medical assignment.

it wouldn't make them amab, since at that age i think they would have still been forcibly gendered that way, but does provide an interesting potentially canon intersex reading of them.

[some-eldritch-bats]

Queer Healthcare As We Age

If you are a cis lesbian, please continue to get your STI checks if you're having unprotected hookups or are having sex with non-monogamous/fidelious partners. Cis lesbians can transmit STIs to each other and one of the most frustrating myths I run into in queer circles is that lesbians are "cleaner". Sadly, this is also used as a means to bully bisexual women by biphobic lesbians, which is both ethically horrific and ALSO factually complete horseshit.

If you are transmasculine and have been on testosterone therapy for more than a year, it is highly likely that you have started to develop prostatic tissue within your vaginal canal (click for source). This is a phenomenon we're only just beginning to understand, but it will have health implications for transgender people for many, many decades to come. In the future, it may become necessary for us to recommend that all AFAB recipients of gender-affirming testosterone therapy (as it involves much higher levels of T than non-GAHRT) receive semi-regular checkups of their vaginal canal if they have not had complete resection of the vagina (i.e. "total bottom surgery") to check for possible prostate cancer. Until then, please just remember that, as you age, it may become advisable to lower your levels of T to match those of a same-age cis man, or stop taking T if you feel comfortable doing so, as this massively reduces the risk of prostate cancer.

If you are transfeminine and have a prostate then, while oestrogen and anti-androgen HRTs do lower the rate of prostate cancer, they ABSOLUTELY DO NOT make prostate cancer impossible. There have been several cases of advanced prostate cancer identified in trans women who had spent years on HRT and, as noted by this paper (click through), there were SUBSTANTIAL alterations to the cellular structure of the prostate as a result of HRT that could potentially cause a pathologist looking at a cancerous biopsy specimen to NOT RECOGNISE IT AS CANCER. If you are transfeminine and have been on HRT for a long time, then please make sure you're familiar with the signs and symptoms of prostate disease and that you tell your doctor about them. If your doctor says they aren't sure it's a concern for you due to being on HRT, please insist that they test you anyway. As a medical student who is CURRENTLY learning this shit, I have NOT BEEN TAUGHT that trans women can get prostate cancer and I needed to research it separately to discover that they could. Older doctors have a very, very, very high chance of simply not being aware that this is even a concern.

If you're a person whose partner is currently pregnant and you want to be able to help in breastfeeding your child, please be aware that it's actually possible to induce lactation! You may need to seek out a specialist midwife or other medical professional for advice and support in how to initiate lactation, but it IS possible for you to co-nurse your baby together. This process DOES NOT have to involve domperidone and, as someone who is trained in using and does know how to use herbal medicines, I would strongly advise not using herbal supplements unless you are specifically given permission to do so by your doctor.

Hepatitis B is sexually transmissible and is more easily transmitted via penetrative anal sex. Please get vaccinated against hep B. This isn't a long one, just get vaccinated. In Australia, a full course of hepatitis B vaccines will currently set you back $90 (not including the doctor's administration if you didn't see a bulk billing doctor), which you will pay in three instalments of $30 each. You will get your first injection immediately, then another 4 weeks after the initial dose, then a third and final vaccination between 4 and 6 months after the initial dose. The vaccine is very well-tolerated and extremely widely available in all developed nations.

PLEASE ADD TO THIS POST!

[bisexualamy]

it literally blows my mind that we as a community can agree that trans surgeries are unfairly vilified and stigmatized by transphobes and cis society in general, that the basis for this unique vilification of these specific surgeries is transphobia, but that idea goes out the window when it comes to phallo or meta. it hurts so much more when your own community is spreading misinfo and propaganda against well-practiced surgeries that save lives.

there’s s a lot of misinfo online about phallo and meta. much of it is spread intentionally to ward transmasc people off from having these surgeries. phallo especially takes a long time to heal, and so showing off results mid-stages or a few months out will still look raw. the idea that lifelong complications are common is a myth. all surgeries carry risks. it’s up to the patient to decide if the risks are worth it. but framing phallo and meta as these awful, grueling sacrifices transmasc people have to make is just preventing dysphoric transmasc people from seeking out an option that very well may be the answer to their dysphoria.

please do your due diligence picking a surgeon and be clear about what you want, like any other gender affirming surgery. that’s honestly the only caution i think is fair to spread about phallo and meta. it is a specialist surgery that requires a specialist surgeon. stop carrying water for transphobes and spreading their propaganda. please exercise critical thinking when warning other trans people off gender affirming procedures. consider your source.

and please, please stop saying such nasty things about people’s results, especially if they’re not fully healed. why are you body shaming another trans person for their transition choices? when did we decide that was okay? we as trans people are already shamed enough by cis society for our bodies. we don’t need our own community doing it too.

[itsawritblr]

"The Harry Potter brats owe JK Rowling an apology."

Jo Bartosch, 12th April 2024, via Spiked:

The Cass Review has cast the gender activism of celebs like Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson in a very different light.

JK Rowling is furious. And who can blame her? The recently published Cass Review has proven what she has been saying – and demonised for – for years. On Wednesday, the author and philanthropist posted on X to suggest that she wouldn’t forgive the actors-cum-activists she made famous for turning on her.

Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe (who played Harry in the blockbuster films) and Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) have both previously condemned the franchise’s creator for daring to point out the dangers of gender ideology. Now, in light of Dr Hilary Cass’s damning report, Rowling has said: ‘Celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single-sex spaces.’

Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that Watson or Radcliffe will be apologising to anyone. The pair have been committed to pushing gender ideology ever since they publicly broke with Rowling in 2020, issuing robotic soundbites in support of trans rights.

This came in response to an essay that Rowling published, in which she outlined her concerns about the threat to women’s rights and children’s health from trans activism. It was powerful, personal and compassionate. Not that any of this mattered to the celebrity set, who turned on the once-beloved children’s author immediately.

Luvvies are as one in their tendency to pick up luxury beliefs like fashion accessories. And for the past few years no cause has been more on-trend than protecting ‘trans youth’. This newly discovered group are, apparently, at unique risk from an evil cabal of haters. Trans lobby groups like Stonewall and Mermaids push the myth that gender-confused kids are at risk of committing suicide unless we unconditionally affirm their identities. By this logic, anyone who disagrees is a guaranteed villain. And so Rowling, a woman who wants to stop kids from being given experimental drugs, and to help them get the support they so clearly need, has been cast as a witch.

Thankfully, the Cass Review has vindicated everyone who sought to raise the alarm about the growing numbers of gender-confused children seeking a medical answer for their growing pains. As Rowling put it on X:

‘And if I sound angry, it’s because I’m bloody angry. I read Cass this morning and my anger’s been mounting all day. Kids have been irreversibly harmed, and thousands are complicit, not just medics, but the celebrity mouthpieces, unquestioning media and cynical corporations.’

Perhaps unsurprisingly, ‘celebrity mouthpieces’ like Watson and Radcliffe have been noticeably silent on any of this. The lives of these privileged brats, elevated to stardom by Rowling’s creative genius, could not be more different from those of the young people who have come to regret taking cross-sex hormones and undergoing surgeries.

To take one example, at around the time Watson was appointed as a visiting fellow at Oxford University’s Lady Margaret Hall in 2016, the then 19-year-old Keira Bell had been taking testosterone for just over two years. In 2017, the year that Bell had her healthy breasts surgically removed, Watson was getting hers out for a risqué Vanity Fair photoshoot. There is a gulf between the smug celebrities who parade around chanting about ‘trans rights’ and the vulnerable young people at the sharp end of these trendy crusades.

Generations of children have grown up immersed in the fantasy world of Harry Potter, where impossible things are true. While it’s charming when kids lose themselves in harmless make-believe, it is downright disturbing when influential adults do the same. Watson and Radcliffe really think that chanting magic phrases like ‘I identify as’ can change reality. And now that the harms of the trans experiment on children are being revealed, their continued silence is shameful.

Watson and Radcliffe would do well to remember that outside the worlds of Hollywood and Hogwarts, their actions have real consequences. Rowling is right: they owe the people harmed by trans ideology an apology.

Jo Bartosch is a journalist campaigning for the rights of women and girls.

Then:

Now:

[so-i-did-this-thing]

hi. i have two questions. firstly, is awesome to see you're a professional oboeist- i also play the oboe (and flute.) my teacher is the former first oboe and cor anglais from the lso (it's him on star wars!) and i wanted to ask what your favourite piece to play is.

secondly, i am a young trans person, and i came out to my mother (it's just us) when i was 11. she thought it was a phase then, and still does now i think, despite a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a serious related eating disorder, depression and attempts at my life. i'm just turning 16 in a month, which means i might be able to start considering hormones (by the way. you give me hope). however, she constantly says things like, trans activists are causing gender clinics to be shut down, and harassing people for not conforming, and...a lot about the mysterious militant trans activists. how true is this? should i give up hope on her ever respecting my identity and pronouns, despite her organising my appointments with the gender clinic?

Heya! I know so many trans oboists, welcome to the club! Super cool about your teacher -- my own brush with fame is I used to attend John Mack's oboe camps for many years before he passed.

1) My favorite symphonic pieces are the Hindemith Symphonic Metamorphoses and the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra. My favorite chamber would be the Poulenc Trio for oboe, bassoon, and piano.

2) Militant trans activists asserting the gender binary and closing the very clinics that serve trans people... yeah, that is a myth.

But what is happening in many places is a legal effort to severely restrict, and even ban, gender affirming care for trans people, especially minors. And this is coming from conservative, cisgender parties, with the occasional trans person or detransitioner in their pocket. (Sad, but true.)

3) If you want to see what the path to medical transition could look like for you, see what gender affirming care looks like in your area, look for local news stories, and get a feel for what laws are being proposed. It is not an easy road -- you will be open to a lifetime of risk (moreso from transphobes than medical complications), and only you can decide what is best for you.

4) As for moms turning around -- my own mother set my transition back 11 years with her initial and constant disapproval, but she's now the sort of mother who paid for my top surgery and is helping me flee Florida’s transphobic laws. So, folks absolutely can change, and being firm with your identity and boundaries helps a ton here, as does picking your battles (my mom still struggles to remember my new name).

Glad I could help in some way! :)

[coochiequeens]

Another surgery for the same people that insist that there is no real difference men men and women when it comes to sports

https://thepostmillennial.com/shoulder-reduction-surgery-latest-trend-in-gender-affirming-care?fbclid=IwAR1pXSfsPaWplEieqpMFXlLY216270tm2khcxHHo9HAStbD6fORmpXzhkDM

NEWS ANALYSIS

Nov 22, 2022

Shoulder reduction surgery latest trend in 'gender affirming care'

Shoulder reduction is available for males who identify as women who wish to appear more feminine. The procedure involves a part of the clavicle bone being removed and the remaining ends being reconnected with either a metal plate or screw.

In the world of "gender-affirming" medicine, there appears to be nothing that is off-limits. Gender surgeons will happily chop the healthy breasts off teenage girls, fashion cavities out of amputated penises, and sew vaginas shut while adding appendages constructed with the skin and flesh of a patient's forearm. But the list doesn't end there. Along with facial feminization surgery and trachea shaving, surgeons also offer shoulder width reduction.

Shoulder reduction surgery is available for males who identify as women who wish to have a more feminine appearance. According to one website offering the procedure, it involves a small part of the clavicle bone being removed and the remaining ends being reconnected with either a metal plate or an intramedullary screw.

Anyone unhappy with their shoulder width is encouraged to consult with an experienced plastic surgeon. Prospective clients are warned that clavicle shortening requires a lot of technical skill, and the function and mobility of the shoulder may be compromised if the surgery isn’t done well.

It takes on-average three months to recover from the surgery, including a two-week period of near-complete immobilization.

Journalist Brandon Showalter questioned the ethics of such a procedure, saying that surgeons should not be harming the body in this way, but this is, after all, a field of medicine that performs gender nullification surgeries to create a smooth, sexless appearance for those who identify as neither male nor female, as well as “bigenital” surgeries for individuals who want both sets of genitals as a way to affirm their gender identity. 

Others raised concerns about the limitations of the surgeon's ability to modify the anatomy surrounding the bone.

"Shoulder width reduction surgery faces the same flaws as other elective reduction surgeries. A surgeon can lengthen or shorten a bone, but they cannot lengthen or shorten the accompanying anatomy -- muscles, nerves, blood vessels. This is a violation of a doctors first oath," they write.

Another Twitter user pointed out how different this “civil rights movement” is compared to those of the past. 

“Face, Adam's apple, breast implants, ribs removed, hip implants, shoulders, penis and testes, toes cut down, hormones, testosterone blockers, puberty blockers--all to be the women they 'already are'. This doesn't look like an organic civil rights movement.”

Many who embark on the medical transition pathway find themselves seeking out one invasive procedure after another. For the young women who find themselves in this world, when testosterone doesn’t make them feel better, they fixate on a bilateral mastectomy as the solution to all their discomfort. But when the mastectomy fails to make them feel like men, many turn to phalloplasty as the answer, a surgical procedure with an extremely high complication rate.

In the documentary Detransition Diaries, Grace Lidinsky-Smith tells how after her mastectomy at age 23, she began to focus on the width of her hips. The surgery didn’t resolve her dysphoria, it just displaced it.Many activists call such body modification surgeries “life saving” and “medically necessary” as a way to ensure that the cost is covered by insurance. Earlier this week, an Ontario MPP tabled a Private Member’s Bill asking that facial feminization surgeries and trachea shaving be covered on the province’s health care plan calling them “life saving” despite the fact that the transition-or-suicide myth has been thoroughly debunked.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Azeem Ibrahim

Published: Aug 23, 2023

We cannot allow activists masquerading as experts to have the final word any longer. An open letter sent to the Wall Street Journal last month came and went without the public attention it sorely deserved.

Signed by 21 leading experts on paediatric gender medicine from nine countries, they wrote to take issue with the US Endocrine Society’s statement that so-called ‘gender-affirming’ care is best for minors presenting with gender dysphoria.

Gender-affirming care is code for the belief that hormones and surgery is the best and primary treatment for gender dysphoria since it purportedly “reduces the risk of suicide”.

The experts minced no words – the belief is “not supported by evidence”. Rather than cherry-pick studies which fit the narrative, the experts used far deeper meta-studies which found evidence of mental health benefits to be of “low or very low certainty”.

The risks for minors of puberty blockers and surgeries, including permanent sterility, regret, and lifelong dependence on repeat surgeries and medication are very real. Furthermore, the experts wrote that the claim that gender transition reduces suicides is contradicted by every systematic review. Even the Endocrine Society’s review found no reliable evidence that hormonal transition prevents suicide, yet they have no qualms promoting it.

This is something that every parent across Scotland, deep in their hearts, knew already to be true. That surgery and hormones are unlikely to resolve the underlying mental unwellness that troubles their children.

We live in a world where gender distress has increased in prevalence by several thousand percent in the last two decades – but to question the longevity of these feelings or to describe them in the context of mental health is denounced as transphobic and as provoking suicide. Parents face ultimatums about the suicide of their children despite their being no good reason to believe that puberty blockers will help them.

As Dr Paul McHugh noted all those years ago, “when children who reported transgender feelings were tracked without medical or surgical treatment at Vanderbilt University and London's Portman Clinic, 70%-80% of them spontaneously lost those feelings.”

In the vast majority of cases, the best approach is to love your children and take no medical intervention. Yet, according to The Telegraph, figures show that 98 per cent of children who were given puberty blockers went on to be given cross-sex hormones.

Blockers are dangerous and irreversible in their own right, but they also 'lock-in' children to even more devastating outcomes when they would likely have recovered from the dysphoria without intervention – if only doctors had let them. It is not reality that is causing most of these young people to commit suicide, is it collaborating with a mental disorder with body and mind-altering drugs.

Doctors are supposed to advise treatment on the basis of evidence and fully inform their patients. The Tavistock Clinic scandal shows that even the most (formerly) prestigious institutions were letting children down.

In court, the Government’s Gender Identity Service (GIDS) couldn’t even provide data on the outcomes and consequences of puberty blockers on the minors who were given them. Even if the children were old enough to consent, the consent wouldn’t have been informed.

In order to skirt around questions of consent, we are told convenient myths. Puberty blockers are described as a “physically reversible treatment if stopped” by GIDS. This is an improvement, as until 2020 the claim had been that “treatment with GnRH analogues are considered to be fully reversible”, but it is still scandalously misleading to my mind.

The new definition tacitly concedes that the puberty blockers are not and have never been psychologically reversible – they had been promoted as harmless despite little research having gone into finding out whether this was the case. It also allows the words “if stopped” to do an inordinate amount of linguistic legwork.

The fact that the GnRH drugs shut down large parts of the hypothalamus – the hormonal structure of the brain that regulates our perception of the world around us – should have given clinicians pause for thought before allowing them into the developing brains of children. Indeed, these same GnRH analogues are used for chemical castration. But ideology comes first and children come second.

In many cases, the children affected are girls – now around 75% of them – and many also suffer from autism and other issues which are known to affect socialisation. There are strong correlations between such mental disorders and gender dysphoria.

Parents who attempt to remove vulnerable children from suggestive environments, offer a counter-message, or even attempt to make children more comfortable in their natural sex in the meantime are condemned as transphobic. So are those who insist that minors are not capable of consenting to use chemicals which impact their future so profoundly.

In Canada, a father has been jailed for opposing his child’s gender transition. He insisted that his child, who was 13 at the time, was still a ‘she’ – an utterance which is (quite literally) considered criminal violence in Canada.

He refused consent for her to be given puberty blockers. Dragged through the courts, fined thousands, and imprisoned, the father was unable to stop his child being given not just puberty blockers, but cross-sex hormones, causing them to go through puberty with testosterone and changing his child’s life forever.

In Scotland, children as young as nine have been prescribed puberty blockers. Despite activists' best efforts, minors who want surgery and cross-sex hormones in the UK must wait until the frail old age of 17. This is still a child, but it could be so much worse.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s (WPATH) insist that children as young as nine years old can be given cross-sex hormones. Their ‘guidelines’ also permit mastectomies, implants and prosthetic genitals once these children have been on hormones for 12 months, with no mental health assessment.

Tragically, after 12 months, the risk of cancers, infertility and negative psychoactive effects are already high. It is barbaric to do this to children. Doctors who endorse this course of action should not be trusted. In fact, only a third of WPATH’s ethics committee are medical doctors. As with the Endocrine Society, we cannot allow activists masquerading as experts to have the final word any longer. We need our ethics to be based on compassion and understanding rather than politics.

Paul McHugh's seminal 2014 essay should still serve as a critical point of reference on the use of puberty blockers. McHugh, a distinguished former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital (an institution which was an early pioneer of such surgeries), wrote candidly at a time before the transgender issue became the cultural powder keg it is today.

McHugh identified three subgroups of transgender people who might be given surgery or medication. The first is the opportunist, such as Isla Bryson, who have obvious motives to change sex. The second group are internally and externally suggestible, similarly to anorexia nervosa patients, who are convinced that a physical surgery will fix their psycho-social problems. The third group are often prepubescent children who, in the process of naturally exploring how they fit into the world, begin to imitate behaviours of the opposite sex.

Puberty blockers are obviously not the solution for any of the groups above. It’s too late for the first, inappropriate for the second and unethical and premature for the third. Puberty blockers must be banned.