“Dynamic desires for gender-affirming medical interventions” sure is a ballsy way to refer to medical harm, regret, and detransition. Gender clinicians really, really, really don't want to talk about medical harm, regret, and detransition. Better to talk about “gender fluidity” or “gender journeys”— “journeys” that may include stunting normal development with unknown consequences or removing healthy organs. And, most importantly, "journeys" that could not and should not have been prevented by gender clinicians.
“We just need to queer our concept of what a good medical outcome is!” Yup, nothing escapes the steamroller of queering. Even children’s bodies. Even standards of care. Well guess what, I don’t want to live in a queered world and I am fighting this.
One of my old friends is both a lawyer and a doctor, and he became a psychiatrist who specialized in treating borderlines and other Cluster-B disordered patients for over 20 years. We were talking about the insanity that is the trans ideology and he said this:
"American psychiatry has been slow to respond to various examples of mass hysteria (like "recovered memories ", "multiple personality disorder", "satanic cult abuse", and "sudden onset gender dysphoria") and that's a good thing. Trouble is that, in the meantime, poorly trained "therapists" and advocates occupy the field speaking psychobabble. They convince well-meaning courts and legislatures that a fad, driven by social contagion, is a serious form of individually experienced distress "ignored by the patriarchal medical profession". Eventually, the boat turns right side up when the right people start getting sued for the right things. We're on track for that turning point in the transgender social movement."
I have to say Eliza - you have identified some of the specific individuals who need to have these law suits filed against them for their criminal behavior. It may take more time to dismantle the ideology, but we can certainly intervene legally to reduce the perpetration of terrible physical harms caused by these people pushing irreversible surgical and chemical maltreatments upon vulnerable innocents. Thank you for doing what you do and being who you are.
Malpractice is malpractice. Plain and simple. I live in right next to Cambridge, MA and the college campuses are seas of rainbows and masks. For the longest time I was the only one of my friends willing to speak out against this generational travesty being done to children. That's slowing changing. I hope a generation of kids will forgive us.
There is a certain section of the mental health community (therapists, social workers, etc.) who engage in both active (that doesn't happen, let's not talk about that) and passive (I've never heard of/thought about that) denial about certain practices causing harm or even being suspect. When presented with evidence of harm, instead of saying "wow, this is something we need to examine" or "I'm going to hold off recommending this treatment until there's more/better evidence of it's success/safety", they say "I'm not aware of any harm" even if they were just told there WAS harm. I've seen this in doctors too, when I tried to report withdrawal symptoms from a medication and was basically told "that doesn't happen".
I felt a hint of it the other day during a meeting with colleagues in which we were discussing an investigative podcast series on abuse in the psychedelic therapy world. Several of us had listened to it and were discussing how troubling it was but some of the other therapists who hadn't listened to it seemed to have this reaction that I couldn't quite place--it was either disgust at the abuse or dismay that this new exciting treatment might not be that exciting after all. It was followed by some other reactions that seemed to be more sympathetic to practitioners than to patients which troubled me.
I may write a post about this when I've thought about it more but my point is--denial, gaslighting, and spin in the mental and medical health fields are absolutely real and it's not just clinicians towards patients, it's clinicians towards each other too.
It's interesting that doctors in other fields complain that patients come in demanding a certain medicine or procedure, as if they knew better than their doctors because they saw it online. In gender medicine, patient demands are not only tolerated; they're celebrated.
Aren't practitioners in the US currently required to provide so-called gender affirming care or risk ant-discrimination lawsuits? My impression is that they risk more by pushing back against patients' self-diagnoses of gender dysphoria than by transitioning them against their better judgment, that refusing to transition a patient is equivalent to "withholding life-saving gender affirmative care." I fear that that's the dystopia we are living in. Someone tell me it's not as bad as I think it is?
Here are a couple tidbits gleaned from a detransitioner subreddit that shed some light on why therapists are only affirming.
A detransitioner posted: "When I told my own goddamn gender therapist I was detransitioning, she confessed that SHE even thought my transition was misplaced and a bad idea, but she couldn't say anything without risking losing her career. The echo chamber is very real and very, very loud."
A therapist added to the thread, explaining that mental health practicioners fear losing their license if they do anything other than affirm, and she posted two APA documents, Resolution on Gender Identity Change Efforts and Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People. I posted links to both documents below.
Interestingly, Guideline 10 of the Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People states: "Psychologists strive to understand how mental health concerns may or may not be related to a TGNC person’s gender identity...." Really????? Most of the document carries the "Would you rather have a trans child or a dead child?" message. https://www.apa.org/practice/guidelines/transgender.pdf
Even in Spain, doing exploratory therapy with gender dysphoric patients carries risks:
"An Andalucian psychologist had to pay €100,000 because she claimed for most teenagers it would be more beneficial to fight gender stereotypes rather than going through hormones and medical procedures in order to change their body." (link to article in Spanish) https://www.newtral.es/terapias-de-conversion-andalucia-expediente/20220205/
I remember when I was ten, I thought I’d like to have twenty wives. Luckily, it was just a phase, but intentions matter. As professionals, this flimsy excuse for morals just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
Brilliant, Eliza. So much so, it was hilarious - your skewering of these "gender clinicians," who should have their licenses pulled and their worldly fortunes awarded to those they've harmed while acting as merely helpful tour bus operators on their young patient's "gender jouneys."
Thank you.
You have such a wonderful way with words. My mother loved witty writing. Your article made me think of her. She would have loved your piece, even though she died 40 years ago, long before any of this was much in the public eye. I wish she were here to share it with her.
“We just need to queer our concept of what a good medical outcome is!” Yup, nothing escapes the steamroller of queering. Even children’s bodies. Even standards of care. Well guess what, I don’t want to live in a queered world and I am fighting this.
One of my old friends is both a lawyer and a doctor, and he became a psychiatrist who specialized in treating borderlines and other Cluster-B disordered patients for over 20 years. We were talking about the insanity that is the trans ideology and he said this:
"American psychiatry has been slow to respond to various examples of mass hysteria (like "recovered memories ", "multiple personality disorder", "satanic cult abuse", and "sudden onset gender dysphoria") and that's a good thing. Trouble is that, in the meantime, poorly trained "therapists" and advocates occupy the field speaking psychobabble. They convince well-meaning courts and legislatures that a fad, driven by social contagion, is a serious form of individually experienced distress "ignored by the patriarchal medical profession". Eventually, the boat turns right side up when the right people start getting sued for the right things. We're on track for that turning point in the transgender social movement."
I have to say Eliza - you have identified some of the specific individuals who need to have these law suits filed against them for their criminal behavior. It may take more time to dismantle the ideology, but we can certainly intervene legally to reduce the perpetration of terrible physical harms caused by these people pushing irreversible surgical and chemical maltreatments upon vulnerable innocents. Thank you for doing what you do and being who you are.
Malpractice is malpractice. Plain and simple. I live in right next to Cambridge, MA and the college campuses are seas of rainbows and masks. For the longest time I was the only one of my friends willing to speak out against this generational travesty being done to children. That's slowing changing. I hope a generation of kids will forgive us.
There is a certain section of the mental health community (therapists, social workers, etc.) who engage in both active (that doesn't happen, let's not talk about that) and passive (I've never heard of/thought about that) denial about certain practices causing harm or even being suspect. When presented with evidence of harm, instead of saying "wow, this is something we need to examine" or "I'm going to hold off recommending this treatment until there's more/better evidence of it's success/safety", they say "I'm not aware of any harm" even if they were just told there WAS harm. I've seen this in doctors too, when I tried to report withdrawal symptoms from a medication and was basically told "that doesn't happen".
I felt a hint of it the other day during a meeting with colleagues in which we were discussing an investigative podcast series on abuse in the psychedelic therapy world. Several of us had listened to it and were discussing how troubling it was but some of the other therapists who hadn't listened to it seemed to have this reaction that I couldn't quite place--it was either disgust at the abuse or dismay that this new exciting treatment might not be that exciting after all. It was followed by some other reactions that seemed to be more sympathetic to practitioners than to patients which troubled me.
I may write a post about this when I've thought about it more but my point is--denial, gaslighting, and spin in the mental and medical health fields are absolutely real and it's not just clinicians towards patients, it's clinicians towards each other too.
It's interesting that doctors in other fields complain that patients come in demanding a certain medicine or procedure, as if they knew better than their doctors because they saw it online. In gender medicine, patient demands are not only tolerated; they're celebrated.
Aren't practitioners in the US currently required to provide so-called gender affirming care or risk ant-discrimination lawsuits? My impression is that they risk more by pushing back against patients' self-diagnoses of gender dysphoria than by transitioning them against their better judgment, that refusing to transition a patient is equivalent to "withholding life-saving gender affirmative care." I fear that that's the dystopia we are living in. Someone tell me it's not as bad as I think it is?
Here are a couple tidbits gleaned from a detransitioner subreddit that shed some light on why therapists are only affirming.
A detransitioner posted: "When I told my own goddamn gender therapist I was detransitioning, she confessed that SHE even thought my transition was misplaced and a bad idea, but she couldn't say anything without risking losing her career. The echo chamber is very real and very, very loud."
A therapist added to the thread, explaining that mental health practicioners fear losing their license if they do anything other than affirm, and she posted two APA documents, Resolution on Gender Identity Change Efforts and Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People. I posted links to both documents below.
The Resolution on Gender Identity Change Efforts equates exploring causes of gender dysphoria with conversion therapy. The message is basically "Would you rather have a trans child or a dead child?" https://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-gender-identity-change-efforts.pdf
Interestingly, Guideline 10 of the Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People states: "Psychologists strive to understand how mental health concerns may or may not be related to a TGNC person’s gender identity...." Really????? Most of the document carries the "Would you rather have a trans child or a dead child?" message. https://www.apa.org/practice/guidelines/transgender.pdf
Even in Spain, doing exploratory therapy with gender dysphoric patients carries risks:
"An Andalucian psychologist had to pay €100,000 because she claimed for most teenagers it would be more beneficial to fight gender stereotypes rather than going through hormones and medical procedures in order to change their body." (link to article in Spanish) https://www.newtral.es/terapias-de-conversion-andalucia-expediente/20220205/
I remember when I was ten, I thought I’d like to have twenty wives. Luckily, it was just a phase, but intentions matter. As professionals, this flimsy excuse for morals just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
Brilliant, Eliza. So much so, it was hilarious - your skewering of these "gender clinicians," who should have their licenses pulled and their worldly fortunes awarded to those they've harmed while acting as merely helpful tour bus operators on their young patient's "gender jouneys."
Thank you.
You have such a wonderful way with words. My mother loved witty writing. Your article made me think of her. She would have loved your piece, even though she died 40 years ago, long before any of this was much in the public eye. I wish she were here to share it with her.
Thanks again.