We’re In Danger of Losing Our Way

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“GeekGirlCon pronoun pins” by GeekGirlCon is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Opinion: When it comes to trans youth, we’re in danger of losing our way

Erica E. Anderson, Ph.D. is the former president of the United States Professional Association for Transgender Health, former board member of WPATH and is writing a book on the evolution of the science, practice and culture dealing with transgender healthcare; she is based in Berkeley.

Erica is also a Trans-woman.

Although I would not as a Christian affirm the idea that you can be born in the wrong body, I acknowledge that some adults like Anderson may choose Transition as an option to alleviate their discomfort with the body God gave them (and their earthly father as well) 1It is the male sperm that determines whether a child is born with XX or XY chromosomes.

I would hope they would not ask me to pay for that option which includes expensive surgeries and cross-hormone therapy for the rest of their life.

Anderson, a former president of the top transgender health organization in the U.S. is highly critical of today’s trans-lobby. Anderson has written an important opinion piece in the San Francisco Examiner.

[Standard link disclaimer2Links from this blog to online resources don’t necessarily mean I support everything found there. But as adults we should embrace viewpoint diversity. And make alliances where we can.]

Some grab graphs

As a trans woman and therapist to trans and gender creative people, I’ve worked hard to advance acceptance of trans identities, including those of trans youth. But increasingly I’m worried that in our zeal to identify and protect these special children and adolescents, we may have strayed from some core principles and we are in danger of losing our way.

In this extraordinary time during a global pandemic, we have all been subject to extra stress to stay vigilant and avoid COVID and all its variants. Young people have pivoted to remote learning and stayed at home for in many cases more than an entire academic year, depriving them of ordinary social experiences. As a result, most adolescents have also depended upon social media and the internet to an extent never before seen.

We are learning some worrisome things about this massive, unplanned social experiment. Even the tech giants have conceded in their own research that there is a new kind of addiction/attraction to certain content and a kind of contagion among select groups, especially adolescent girls. Increased rates of depression and suicide, declines in dating and sexual activity, more reported loneliness and feelings of being left out, lower rates of involvement in extracurricular activities and surprisingly less sleep all characterize the current generation of adolescents. These trends seem to be accelerating in the era of the smartphone.

There is little question that reliance on screens and devices has isolated adolescents who may be most vulnerable and susceptible to peer and other influences, intensifying their usage of and reliance on whatever messages and images they see. I am concerned that our computer-mediated, always online environment is creating isolated echo chambers that can work on adolescents in an insidious way. And I believe that it’s been worse during COVID.

For example, some content on YouTube and TikTok includes “influencers,” who themselves are barely out of puberty. They dispense advice to other young people, specifically encouraging them to explore their gender identity freely.

On the one hand, I’m glad our society has evolved toward greater acceptance of all LGBTQ identities. On the other hand, some of the messaging has landed on vulnerable youth searching not just for keys to their own identity but solutions to other psychological and emotional problems, including serious psychiatric problems.

Here is where things may have gone wrong.

I wouldn’t use the word “may” but read the whole thing.

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Love Cannot Affirm Confusion, But It Can Embrace

Fact-Checking the HHS

Two months ago, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued an official document “Gender Affirming Care and Young People.” In a recent blog the Society For Evidence Based Gender Medicine fact-checked this important document and found an alarming number of errors and misrepresentations.

SEGM is an international group of over 100 clinicians and researchers concerned about the lack of quality evidence for the use of hormonal and surgical interventions as first-line treatment for young people with gender dysphoria. They represent expertise from a range of clinical disciplines.

Here are the bullet points of their fact-check:

Inaccurate Claims
  • Misstatements of the effects of social transition
  • Unsupported claim of the reversibility of puberty blockers
  • Inaccurate statement regarding the age eligibility for surgeries
  • Overreaching claims of “proven benefits” of gender transition on adolescent mental health
  • Omission of any discussion of risks
  • Conflation of distinctly different concepts
Insufficient Process
  • Inadequate literature review
  • Biased recommendations that do not acknowledge the low quality of evidence
  • Failure to consult a range of stakeholders with diverse views
  • Lack of identification or acknowledgement of alternatives

Full Fact-Check Report

“Gender crossing” by arboltsef is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

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Biden Admin’s War On “Conversion Therapy”

Important article by Kat Rosenfield on the distinction between yesterday’s Conversion Therapy and today’s definition. Verbal sands are shifting. Entire linguistic territories are being appropriated.

A few grab graphs:

Eight years after Time magazine declared that we are living through a transgender tipping point, there’s a growing sense of unease in the US, that we might have tipped too far, too fast. The momentum of the movement has given way to unanswered questions and nagging doubts: about the long-term side effects of using puberty blockers off-label, about the revelation that patients who begin to transition as children are likely to experience infertility or sexual dysfunction, about the testimony of regretful transitioners who say they were rushed by a gung-ho medical establishment into lives, and bodies, that they didn’t really want.
Unlike in Britain, stories like this, horrifying to the average person, do not appear to have breached the consciousness of the American government. The Biden White House has enthusiastically taken up the cause of not just ensuring access to medical transition for children who identify as trans, but taking other treatment options off the table. Last week, the White House announced that Biden will sign an executive order which takes specific aim at “so-called ‘conversion therapy’ — a discredited and dangerous practice that seeks to suppress or change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQI+ people”.
Critics have already noted the error in lumping in conversion therapy practices in relation to sexual orientation — which were ineffective at best and barbaric at worst — with the type of therapy that aims to help patients find a measure of peace with the bodies they have; such concerns have already led to the exclusion of transgender people from a government ban on conversion therapy in England and Wales. In the US, it is not yet clear whether a doctor with a patient who presented with gender dysphoria and an eating disorder, for instance, would be guilty of practising “conversion therapy” if he tried to address the patient’s mental health issues before opening the door to puberty blockers, hormones, and gender reassignment surgery.

It’s not the job of a doctor to affirm your identity

Full Article Here [Standard link disclaimer1Links from this blog to online resources don’t necessarily mean I support everything found there. But as adults we should embrace viewpoint diversity. And make alliances where we can.].

Relevant previous posts….

I repeat what I said in an earlier post. Who is the Conversion Therapist?

Is it the one who is trying to help a person align their thoughts and feelings with the body they were given at birth or the professional who disregards the body and proposes irreversible radical surgeries combined with life-long hormone treatments in hopes of aligning the outer body with a patient’s inner desires?

Full post:

What about Christian therapists or counselors? Will they be allowed to continue to practice in the U.S. with a state approved medical license? Will the Christian Worldview and its anthropology be respected by licensing associations?

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Drawing by T. Cheesman, May 1816
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license
Courtesy of the British Museum

Love Refuses to Affirm Confusion