“We Told You So” Moment: Britain’s NHS Rethinks Pushing Forward with Gender Transition for Teens
[guest post by JVW]
National Review Online points us to The Telegraph, which provides the latest news from our overseas cousins:
Most children who believe that they are transgender are just going through a “phase”, the NHS has said, as it warns that doctors should not encourage them to change their names and pronouns.
NHS England has announced plans for tightening controls on the treatment of under 18s questioning their gender, including a ban on prescribing puberty blockers outside of strict clinical trials.
The services, which will replace the controversial Tavistock clinic, will be led by medical doctors rather than therapists and will consider the impact of other conditions such as autism and mental health issues.
Imagine that: letting people who have studied anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry make this sort of determination over those who have studied Freudian analysis presented through a Foucaultian lens, all washed with the latest craze in LBGTQ theory and systems of hierarchical oppression. The article goes on:
The proposals say that the new clinical approach will for younger children “reflect evidence that in most cases gender incongruence does not persist into adolescence” and doctors should be mindful this might be a “transient phase”.
Instead of encouraging transition, medics should take “a watchful approach” to see how a young person’s conditions develop, the plans state.
When a prepubescent child has already socially transitioned, “the clinical approach has to be mindful of the risks of an inappropriate gender transition and the difficulties that the child may experience in returning to the original gender role upon entering puberty if the gender incongruence does not persist”.
For adolescents, social transition will only be considered when it is necessary for preventing “clinically significant distress” and when a young person “is able to fully comprehend the implications of affirming a social transition”, says NHS England.
It adds that before medics change a young person’s name and pronouns, a teenager should have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
In other words, we should go back to considering gender dysphoria as an actual mental illness that might need counseling and treatment, and not the recognition of some sort of metaphysical mistake of biology which becomes obvious and apparent during adolescence. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t treat young people suffering from this malady with a great deal of compassion and understanding; but it does mean that we shouldn’t immediately give in to their adolescent whims or what the academic-left zeitgeist declares is the latest frontier in “social justice.”
I am sure that I have made this point before, but it is not by accident that it is in the UK where scientists are first beginning to question the transgender orthodoxy which heretofore had enjoyed an almost unassailable status among the elite. The Labour Government of Tony Blair nearly twenty years ago passed The Gender Recognition Act of 2004, which allowed adults to legally determine with which sex they would identify, to the point of issuing them new official government documents such as passports. Unsurprisingly, in short order came the calls from gender radicals and their allies to allow youth to make the same determination. One year later, a British pre-teen boy named Jack Green began the process of transitioning into a girl by beginning a regimen of puberty blockers at age twelve and four years later becoming the youngest person in the world at that point to undergo gender-reassignment surgery. Jackie’s mother then stepped forward as a leading advocate for allowing youth to start the process of transitioning, founding a charity to advocate for liberalized laws for gender reassignment for youths, and thus did the floodgates open.
Britain, the pioneering Western state in this social trend, has since come to regret herding confused adolescents into life-altering decisions which culminate in anatomical mutilation. That ought to be an important development to our own reckless and monomaniacal LGBTQ community, yet the same progressive mentality which insists that the U.S. look to Europe’s leadership on the social welfare state or worker protections or modish environmental concerns is quite quick to change the subject when faced with the realization that Britain is souring on their current hobby horse.
The issue of youthful transgenderism has touched my circle of family and friends, and I am willing to bet it has touched many of yours as well. Children suffering from gender dysphoria deserve our patience and love, but sometimes that love means being the wise adult and steering them away from harmful solutions which cannot be undone, no matter how much we want the young ones in our lives to be presently happy and healthy. One thing that ought to be clear in this imbroglio is that important matters like these should not be left to the whims of the activists, no matter how much emotional blackmail they are willing to put forth or how much they are supported by the “experts.”
– JVW
Man, it gets quiet around here when Dana is away, doesn’t it?
JVW (37f1d8) — 10/24/2022 @ 1:41 pmThat’s in Europe, which U.S. medical organizations can ignore, just like they ignored Johns Hopkins, which started transgender surgery and then stopped..
Well, Johns Hopkins they did more than ignore. They fought against it
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/hrc-sets-sights-johns-hopkins-after-controversial-sexuality-gender-report-n641501
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 10/24/2022 @ 1:51 pmtempest in a tea pot. porn for conservatives like transgender bathrooms.
asset (93c156) — 10/24/2022 @ 1:54 pmPeople cannot even recognize a reducto ad absurdum:
https://michiganadvance.com/2022/10/18/column-the-last-word-on-trans-rights-belongs-to-voters-not-dixon
Something is wrong either with the poll, or how people answer it, or the way they think. Or there’s really a dramatic increase in LGTBQ people.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 10/24/2022 @ 1:57 pmhttps://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification-ticks-up.aspx
Is this some kind of “Bradley effect?” (which wasn’t real by the way -it was caused by differences in willingness to answer polls)
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 10/24/2022 @ 2:02 pmI wonder what honorable and conservative Liz Cheney’s preferred late-term abortionist candidate has to say about the mutilation of a child?
Oh…
BuDuh (25a8b8) — 10/24/2022 @ 2:14 pmHey asset, way to diminish the — ahem, ahem — “lived experience” (trying here to use a term you will recognize) of people who transitioned in their youth because it was what all the adults were encouraging them to do but have now grown to deeply regret that decision. What would you say if you met one in-person — “Oh, you’re just the pawn of a bunch of right-wingers who hate the LGBTQ community”? What’s it like having no empathy for people who don’t share your obnoxious political beliefs?
JVW (15c733) — 10/24/2022 @ 2:28 pmIs this some kind of “Bradley effect?” (which wasn’t real by the way -it was caused by differences in willingness to answer polls)
Sammy, this is just my guess, but I have the sense that there are a lot of heterosexual progressives who have never really had a true same-sex attraction but want to feel that they are open-minded and tolerant so they self-identify as bisexual. Note that the Gallup poll says that bisexual is the most common identity among the LBGTQ group, and that it is highest among the youth who have grown up with the entire progressive agenda shoved down their throats.
JVW (15c733) — 10/24/2022 @ 2:32 pmAmong other things, children should be allowed to progress unmodified through adolescence to determine if their theoretical sexuality matches up with their actual sexuality. This can only be truly determined by, well, trying it on.
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 10/24/2022 @ 2:42 pmtempest in a tea pot. porn for conservatives like transgender bathrooms.
Like late term elective abortions, pre-teen genital mutilation never really happens, but we must be vigilant to make sure it’s allowed.
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 10/24/2022 @ 2:45 pmOr there’s really a dramatic increase in LGTBQ people.
But never, ever, say they are recruiting.
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 10/24/2022 @ 2:47 pmJVW, I continue to be a believer in “social contagion.” It has happened before in many places, on many topics, for many years.
I do think it is very strange that a teenager cannot get a tattoo without parental permission, but can undergo hormone therapy or surgery in such cases.
I would feel better if we regularized such decisions to an older age. But that would get me labeled like crazy.
Simon Jester (a24cdc) — 10/24/2022 @ 2:52 pmCan’t even get an ear pierced.
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 10/24/2022 @ 3:00 pmWhen I bring that up, Kevin, people look at me as I just spoke in Esperanto.
Simon Jester (a24cdc) — 10/24/2022 @ 3:09 pmKion mi supozas, ke mi povus.
Simon Jester (a24cdc) — 10/24/2022 @ 3:10 pmI think part of the problem here is that parenting has gone off the rails. Too many parents indulge their children these days, and want them to be happy all day, every day. (Witness all the activities they have their children attend, and how they ask for children’s input on what should be adult decisions.)
So, when little Johnny or Sally gets the idea he/she should be something else, the parents overreact, and swoop in to support whatever their child wants.
My mother said that her biggest problem as a teacher was out of control students, and parents who wouldn’t believe that their children were less than angels.
My cousin has a grown-ass son who is in his late twenties. The son is married. He and his wife, his wife’s sister, and his wife’s sister’s friend all live with my cousin in Utah. My cousin said that young people now will never be able to afford houses, so she plans on having her son and his wife live with her for life. She’s building a new house right now. There will be an apartment in the basement for her son!
I should have asked my cousin if her son is the type who works hard and saves his money (which is the key to buying a house), but I blew the opportunity. Later, I found out that he has made faint attempts at school and at jobs, but never sticks with them. Curiously, he seems to have acquired the wherewithal to cover his body in tattoos.
My cousin and her husband say they like having their kids live with them, even as adults.
Parenting gone crazy.
norcal (a1f318) — 10/24/2022 @ 3:21 pm“But never, ever, say they are recruiting.”
Were you recruited to be straight?
Davethulhu (129a95) — 10/24/2022 @ 3:54 pm16… I have a feeling that people will need to adjust their expectations of what future times will bring. It will not be like the good, old, comfortable days. Just my opinion.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/24/2022 @ 3:54 pmDave,
Did you ever apologize to whembly?
norcal (a1f318) — 10/24/2022 @ 3:56 pm“Were you recruited to be straight?”
—- Davethulhu
No “recruitment” necessary, it’s the natural order of things. Biology is destiny. Don’t deny the Science!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/24/2022 @ 3:57 pmI mean, it’s your choice, but my opinion of you will be diminished if you don’t.
norcal (a1f318) — 10/24/2022 @ 3:57 pmMost children who believe that they are transgender are just going through a “phase”, the NHS has said, as it warns that doctors should not encourage them to change their names and pronouns.
That certainly explains the life and times of one Reginald Kenneth Dwight.
The Goodbye Yellow Brick Road phase was an especially bumpy if not satisfying ride. 😉
DCSCA (c28d3a) — 10/24/2022 @ 4:03 pmGay isn’t transgendered, DCSCA.
norcal (a1f318) — 10/24/2022 @ 4:06 pm@1
I hope she’s okay, is simply on hiatus.
Let us know if she needs anything….
whembly (0a8536) — 10/24/2022 @ 4:16 pm@9
There’s also this basic biology in that if that kid was allowed to have puberty, and experience orgasm, then after 18 if they wish to be transitioned, the surgeons has more “material” to work with to facilitate successful transition.
The most appalling thing, in my mind, is this idea that these kids, particularly pre-pubescent kids could “consent” to top surgery or puberty-blockers. None are reversible and furthermore, they will likely never experience orgasms in future. How could the “consent” to something that they’ll never experience in the future?
whembly (0a8536) — 10/24/2022 @ 4:21 pm@12
Absolutely this.
When I was a GenXer, the social contagion was to support the “anorexia” look.
whembly (0a8536) — 10/24/2022 @ 4:23 pmI hope she’s okay, is simply on hiatus.
Yes, indeed. Dana is just taking some R&R. I’ve been caught up with work for, oh, the past six weeks or so, hence my abandonment of the blog (for which I am very penitent).
JVW (15c733) — 10/24/2022 @ 4:41 pmhence my abandonment of the blog
Deadbeat dad!
norcal (a1f318) — 10/24/2022 @ 4:44 pm“But never, ever, say they are recruiting.”
Were you recruited to be straight?
I can tell you this much: when I was in college I knew some women at Wellesley who told me that without a doubt many of the upper-class lesbians “recruited” freshmen girls by telling them that they couldn’t be true feminists unless they were willing to dabble in same-sex relationships. It’s why the whole LUG phenomenon (look it up if you’ve never heard of it) was noticed and gained currency.
JVW (15c733) — 10/24/2022 @ 4:47 pm@23. He’s bi- hence on the Yellow Brick Road to some special spot in his merry old land, norcal. 😉
DCSCA (c28d3a) — 10/24/2022 @ 4:51 pmYes, indeed. Dana is just taking some R&R.
Good. She’s been caregiving for a long time and everyone needs a break- best wishes to her– hope she manages some photos to post upon return. She has a good eye for composition.
DCSCA (c28d3a) — 10/24/2022 @ 4:53 pmDCSCA (c28d3a) — 10/24/2022 @ 4:51 pm
Neither bi nor gay are the same as transgendered.
norcal (a1f318) — 10/24/2022 @ 4:59 pm“I can tell you this much: when I was in college I knew some women at Wellesley who told me that without a doubt many of the upper-class lesbians “recruited” freshmen girls by telling them that they couldn’t be true feminists unless they were willing to dabble in same-sex relationships. It’s why the whole LUG phenomenon (look it up if you’ve never heard of it) was noticed and gained currency.”
NJRob admonished me to “follow the science”, so I read this article referenced in your link:
“The popular stereotype of college campuses as a hive of same-sex experimentation for young women may be all wrong.
To the surprise of many researchers and sex experts, the National Survey on Family Growth found that women with bachelor’s degrees were actually less likely to have had a same-sex experience than those who did not finish high school.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/education/18sex.html
Davethulhu (129a95) — 10/24/2022 @ 5:02 pmAre you going to answer my question, Dave, or just sweep the whole whembly incident under the rug?
Is your ego too big to admit error?
norcal (a1f318) — 10/24/2022 @ 5:08 pm@342. Jello, norcal: follow the Yellow Brick Road, dear. 😉
DCSCA (9c5228) — 10/24/2022 @ 5:50 pm“Are you going to answer my question, Dave, or just sweep the whole whembly incident under the rug?”
It’s off topic for this thread, but no I’m not going to apologize. It’s not a matter of ego, though.
Davethulhu (129a95) — 10/24/2022 @ 6:10 pmYoung teens who report being transgendered need to know they are listened to and need to have counseling. There are genuinely transgendered people but there are also cases where feeling transgendered is masking some other mental health issue or brain biology issue. I do not recommend any permanent alteration during early adolescence.
Nic (896fdf) — 10/24/2022 @ 6:28 pmJesse Singal has been covering the issue and its squishy science. There’s a lot of poor reporting out there.
Paul Montagu (753b42) — 10/24/2022 @ 6:58 pmFrom Paul’s link:
Has The Bulwark thrown full support to Liz Cheney’s preferred child mutilator?
BuDuh (25a8b8) — 10/24/2022 @ 7:06 pmCPAC or QAnal or whatever else Trump’s corrupt criminal traitors call themselves, are a current windfall for Putin. The Democrats are his steady menagerie.
When Al Franken was giving Jeff Sessions guff over his conversations with Sergey Kislyak, for example, it was found that then Senator Claire McCaskill had had 25 meetings with Kislyak over “Russian adoptions”.
nk (2d1664) — 10/24/2022 @ 7:11 pmAnd I think I’ll repost that to the proper thread with no apology.
nk (2d1664) — 10/24/2022 @ 7:12 pm“Are you going to answer my question, Dave, or just sweep the whole whembly incident under the rug?”
It’s off topic for this thread, but no I’m not going to apologize. It’s not a matter of ego, though.
Davethulhu (129a95) — 10/24/2022 @ 6:10 pm
Suit yourself. I’m not going to engage with somebody who so grossly mischaracterizes another commenter’s position.
(Incidentally, I wouldn’t have brought the issue up on this thread if you had adequately addressed it on the other thread.)
norcal (a1f318) — 10/24/2022 @ 7:13 pmIn the last 10 years, we’ve seen the percentage of U.S. adults who do not identify as heterosexual double from 3.5% to 7.1%. That includes 21% of Gen Z and 10.5% of Millennials identifying as LGBTQ+, respectively.
Something is wrong either with the poll, or how people answer it, or the way they think. Or there’s really a dramatic increase in LGTBQ people.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 10/24/2022 @ 1:57 pm
Not coincidentally, diagnosed mental illness rates in those generations are through the roof as well, particularly for those voting Democrat.
Factory Working Orphan (bce27d) — 10/24/2022 @ 8:21 pmTo the surprise of many researchers and sex experts. . .
Yeah, because academics who study LGBTQ issues have proven to be so reliable and not at all motivated by ideology. And I would point out, Dave, that the NYT article you referenced was written in 2011, i.e. before the drastic jump in self-reporting of bisexuality began, or right as it was just getting underway.
But put that aside, anyway, for the moment since it is really ancillary to the point that was being made, which was that it’s simply wrong to suggest that efforts to “recruit” young people into same-sex relationships using peer pressure is a figment of our imaginations. Maybe many of us do overestimate how widespread it is, but it certainly takes place and LGBTQ activists can be every bit as manipulative as your typical drunken frat boy in coercing naïve young students into sexual relationships.
JVW (15c733) — 10/24/2022 @ 8:46 pm“But put that aside, anyway, for the moment since it is really ancillary to the point that was being made, which was that it’s simply wrong to suggest that efforts to “recruit” young people into same-sex relationships using peer pressure is a figment of our imaginations. Maybe many of us do overestimate how widespread it is, but it certainly takes place and LGBTQ activists can be every bit as manipulative as your typical drunken frat boy in coercing naïve young students into sexual relationships.”
The implication is that someone hitting on someone of the same sex is different and more sinister than the opposite sex.
Also, here’s a more recent version of that study (2016): https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr088.pdf
The results are similar (college educated women have the lowest reported rate of same-sex contact), but the highest is from college drop-outs.
Davethulhu (129a95) — 10/24/2022 @ 9:16 pmThe implication is that someone hitting on someone of the same sex is different and more sinister than the opposite sex.
It is. Different and more sinister. Because propinquity. And privacy. And opportunity. And probably some more words I can’t think of at the moment.
Boys room with boys, and girls room with girls. Locker rooms. Bathrooms. Showers. Places where you have the expectation and the right not to viewed, and treated, as a sex object.
It’s not some kind of a new thing.
nk (2d1664) — 10/24/2022 @ 9:28 pmYour earlier quote from the 2011 NYT article was as follows:
This new study shows how that claim doesn’t really tell the whole story:
Do you at all wonder about those college women who fail to complete a bachelor’s degree but report that 2 in 9 of them have a same-sex experience? Don’t you wonder if perhaps there is something about that which might cause problems in their lives which makes finishing college more of a challenge, given that they are the largest reported segment of women by educational attainment and are nearly twice the proportion of women who receive a bachelor’s degree? Do you think the higher education establishment — infused with a fierce dedication to protecting progressive priorities — has the guts to investigate this? Nah, neither do I.
JVW (15c733) — 10/24/2022 @ 9:35 pmI guarantee you that if 22.2% of women who didn’t finish their bachelor’s degree reported that they had gotten drunk at a fraternity party and had sexual contact with a man, and only 12.2% of women who had finished a bachelor’s degree reported the same, the higher administration establishment would be looking into how drunken heterosexual hook-ups might be preventing women from achieving their educational goals. But with this data there will likely be the sound of crickets.
JVW (15c733) — 10/24/2022 @ 9:40 pm“Do you at all wonder about those college women who fail to complete a bachelor’s degree but report that 2 in 9 of them have a same-sex experience? Don’t you wonder if perhaps there is something about that which might cause problems in their lives which makes finishing college more of a challenge, given that they are the largest reported segment of women by educational attainment and are nearly twice the proportion of women who receive a bachelor’s degree? Do you think the higher education establishment — infused with a fierce dedication to protecting progressive priorities — has the guts to investigate this? Nah, neither do I.”
Took me 2 minutes to find:
or every man that earns a college degree, nearly two women will. Women have been outperforming men in college since they started attending in the 1920s, but thanks to widening opportunities, an economy that draws women in the workforce, and simple female ambition, women now outnumber men, too.
New research suggests, however, that the opposite is true for sexual minority men and women. Education researcher Leigh Fine asked whether the college graduation rates of gay, lesbian, and bisexual men and women reflected what we see in general. His respondents were 30 years old, on average—that is, old enough to have passed the age where most Americans complete their education—and they self-identified as non-heterosexual.
He found that the pattern we see in which women are more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree is reversed among sexual minorities. Gay and bisexual men are more likely to report graduating than lesbian and bisexual women. In fact, they’re more likely to report graduating than heterosexual men and women as well.
In contrast, sexual minority women were the least likely of all four groups to report graduating.
Davethulhu (129a95) — 10/24/2022 @ 10:03 pm@JVW this is just my experience, so it’s not really data, but I do see a lot of parents and we have self-reported records of education level in our database. A lot of people who report some college haven’t necessarily done college in a traditional way. So they aren’t necessarily going to a traditional 4 yr college, staying in the dorms, and attending frat parties. It’s a lot of tech school, jr. college, online school. Sometimes it’s a class here or there in order to maintain government benefits. Even when they do start the traditional route often they drop out to do something non-traditional. I have a coworker whose daughter dropped out at the end of her first semester and is now trying to be a tattoo artist (no, my coworker is not happy) two whose kids dropped out to do massage, and one whose daughter is currently cocktail waitressing in Vegas. So it is possible that they are experiencing a greater variety of sexual experiences because they are moving in less traditional circles.
Nic (896fdf) — 10/24/2022 @ 10:06 pmJust as we wouldn’t tell someone to cut off their own limb because they don’t recognize the body part, we shouldn’t encourage those to go against their own biology. We should instead help them to accept their actual biology.
NJRob (4183a9) — 10/25/2022 @ 9:11 am