Yes, this whole business is so icky in so many ways, including that of forcing one to acknowledge that on this (and often this alone) Republicans make more sense than Democrats. Ugh.
Until the trans craziness hit, I viewed Democrats as more right and more wise on every single issue. Not any more. If nothing else, trans activists have shown me how illogical well-meaning liberals can be. My thoughts still go back to the emails I exchanged (about two years ago) with a liberal poetry editor (I am a poet) who was trying to convince me of the existential torture of being three years old and believing that you were born in the wrong body -- as if he knew! Liberals have allowed themselves to be extraordinarily gullible.
Thank you Hortense and Perry for your comments! As a very liberal Democrat who lives in a city in a state that is so “blue” that I feel like I live in the sky 🤪!, I really “feel” you on this. “Icky” is such a perfect word to describe the weird rites and rituals of people trying to think that they can fundamentally change sex. I feel so alone in my critique and I know that I can never go back to thinking that a human being can be “born in the wrong body”. Yes, I used to thing that. I am so disturbed by the attempts to erase women’s spaces and even the word woman! --- “pregnant people”!!!!!! no, no, no.... I am even more disturbed by public schools attempting to teach trans ideology to children, and the idea of messing with children’s (and young people’s-- I shudder to think of 20 year old me [eons ago!] making irreversible decisions about anything!) bodies fills me with incomprehensible despair. Why would anyone, especially someone who calls herself/himself a doctor, advocate for these practices?
I agree with you, Ruby. My very blue state -- Rhode Island -- is not really as blue as it appears. It has a strong blue-collar population, but those blue-collar workers understand that the Democrats provide better government services than Republicans do, and so many of them vote Democratic -- though certainly not all of them. To the best of my knowledge, there are no drag queens reading stories to kids in Rhode Island.
I agree with you about professionals. No teacher should EVER tell his or her students that they are free to choose their gender. I know there are teachers who are doing that, and it is a total lie. Too many professionals are liberals, and they don't seem to be aware about the harm that trans people are doing to kids. "You are trans? How exciting! How wonderful! You can be anything you want to be!" (Puke.) If I were a school principle, I would be talking to all the teachers about it. "It is not up to you to talk to kids about their sexuality."
The efforts of trans people to make women invisible will not work or last. A few institutions have picked up on the "pregnant people" lingo, but it will fade. Everyone knows that only a woman gets pregnant. If you ever have a professional talking to you about "pregnant people", just look them in the eye and say, "Women! Not 'people' !"
Thank you Perry. I appreciate hearing your take on Rhode Island’s “blueness”. It’s different where I live and it is probably its own blue bubble. I just think that a lot of people who support the idea of trans do not really go too deep in their thinking. I am fairly certain that was what I did when I mouthed platitudes like, “maybe he was born in the wrong body”! I was trying to understand, and I was trying to fit in and I was also trying to summon up compassion. I started to educate myself because there was this tiny little voice inside that did NOT understand, and as I proceeded to learn more, my belief structure crumbled. I hope that those Democratic Rhode Islanders you mentioned can nudge the Democratic Party in a saner direction. Many of the Democratic movers and shakers in CA (my blue bubble) are really into using the transgender train as a means to signal that they are not Republican. Some of the stuff they are coming up with is truly ludicrous/scary [take your pick]-- CA as a sanctuary state for “trans” kids, etc...
Yes, I know that the trans community has done a good job brain-washing the people of California. I understand that Newsom is also brain-washed. Sadly, Biden is brain-washed too, as he supports everything trans no matter whether it is good or bad. I just don't understand why people aren't able to distinguish good from bad in social movements. Protecting trans people in housing and employment (that's good); allowing trans people to redefine what gender is for the whole human race, influence children, displace women in women's private spaces, and shame people who disagree with them out of their jobs (THAT'S BAD). Is that so difficult?
Yes. When I think about the harm that liberal-leaning parents can do to their kids (like the parents of Jazz Jennings) I want to cry. There may be thousands of liberal parents around the U.S. and other Western countries who are HOPING to have a trans child so they can have a "special" project to keep them busy.
Jazz's parents don't seem so liberal to me. They were basically transing the gay away- like Susie Green and her husband, Jazz's parents were less than thrilled with a nonconventional boy. Extra mommie points and attention for that Munchausen's by Proxy goodness.
I understand what you are saying. This is also happening in the Middle East, where they are hardly liberal. There is so much hatred of homosexuality among religious groups that parents would rather have a trans girl than a gay boy. Indeed, the hatred of homosexuality in the world is a sickness unto itself. I'm gay, and it didn't make me a bad person. So Jazz's parent may not have been liberal in the sense of accepting their boy as gay -- but then, it does take a certain amount of liberalism to accept a trans child. Also, Jazz's mother started the campaign to convert her son to a girl when he was only three. She WANTED to have a trans child. There's no doubt in my mind that she was looking forward to the challenge of having a "special" child.
'liberals have allowed themselves to be extraordinarily gullible.' So sadly true in so very many ways. In the past few years I have watched most of my long time liberal community lose their collective critical thinking minds and guzzle down the trans gender koolaid, the covid koolaid, etc etc, I am independent because frankly I cannot stomach the fanaticism and hypocrisy of either the dems or reps at this point.
I'm not a scientist, and I know far less about vaccines than medical doctors and researchers do. I got every Covid vaccine that came out, and there is no evidence that I was harmed by any of them. You sound to me like a vaccine denier, and I'm not with you on that. Yes, there are issues involving vaccines, but in my view they do more good than harm. As for all the social harm you talk about, I don't have enough information to agree with you. Staying home was difficult for a lot of people, and many kids fell behind in their schoolwork, but most people survived okay. Now, what they did in China was monstrous; but here in the U.S., most measures recommended by the government were voluntary. In the U.S., one thing I know for sure is that there were more deaths among conservatives who wouldn't get vaccinated than among the liberals who did.
You need to be careful about where you get your information.
I am sorry but Republicans do not make sense. for them opposing this trans shit is part of a belief system which includes rigid gender roles, denying reproductive rights to women and often to the the men who are the fathers of the babies the women are forced to have. They are (were? - it varies I think) anti-porn for religious reasons but support the porn industry and resist prevention of violence against women, especially stalking, domestic violence and gun control provisions. I could go on. The Republicans are not my friends just because they have come down on the right side by accident.
In no way do I think the Republicans are my friends; all I was saying was that they make more sense than Democrats on this one point. That's literally my only point on this. I am horrified to find myself agreeing with Republicans whose every other stance I revile, and yes it's true that their reasons for their stance are highly questionable. That's my point: it's horrifying that Republicans make more sense than Democrats on this.
I understand this point but I am concerned about what is happening. There have been people, maybe a lot of them, across the range of gender critical substacks and other webs groups who announce they are no longer on the left.
There is also a 1980s history of feminists allying with right-wing evangelical Xtian groups on anti-porn issues. The result of that was an anti-sexuality discourse in which porn was written about as if it were evidence of all male sexuality and all positive approaches to sexuality were a pathway to violent abusive sex.
The outcomes of republicans very different starting point are very obvious further down the track and so I am objecting to you saying you agree on this one point. There is no just one point and the Republicans only make more sense if you refuse to connect up the dots that they themselves are connecting up with their other policies.
Observing this outcome means I am opposed to fighting transgender ideology by allying with the republicans, evangelical xtians etc. It also just enrages me to be told that TRA policy and practices are the left and we have to leave the left to oppose TRA. I hope this makes sense to you?
By saying that I agree on this one point I mean precisely that I agree on this one point. I have never voted for a Republican and cannot imagine doing so, but I agree with them on this one point: that kids under 18 should not be allowed to choose hormonal or surgical gender-reassignment treatment or whatever it's called at the moment. That's it. I have no illusions about the political posturing on their part (nor on the other side for that matter), and I think the bathroom debates are absurd.
Ergo: object all you want to my saying I agree on this one point, but that's the reality: I agree on this one point. You are welcome to disagree with me, on this one point or on any other.
It's interesting to scroll down on the new Protect Kids CA ballot initiative website and see the polling, where they say that 67% of California Democrats do not want blockers, hormones, surgeries "allowed" for minors. It may be that they are extrapolating from a national poll - or it may be that polled California Democrats are in stark disagreement with our AG. The lead time is long - these are initiatives for the Nov 2024 ballot. (https://protectkidsca.com/protect-kids-california-launches-three-ballot-initiatives-to-protect-children-and-support-parental-rights/)
well that’s good news! could it be that in the privacy of one’s home (or mind), we Californians feel more comfortable telling the truth? ( I include myself in this).
Yes, in my experience there are lots of people who are horrified by the idea of encouraging children to pick their own sex and allowing medical intervention to ruin lives as a result. (Gender is another thing, despite all the rhetoric, and I think it's our absurdly rigid gender divisions that exacerbate all this; let the boys wear makeup and dresses and the girls long to be construction workers; that would make the world a much less oppressive place). But people just don't want to enter these arguments, because it's so very violently contentious. I think this phenomenon of people being cowed into silence on the left greatly skews the debate.
Yes, the shut-down of an open dialogue by trans activists is a big problem. I have contemplated writing an article on my own blog about whether or not we are justified to dislike trans people themselves, given their very bad behavior. Trans activists, and their bad ideas, are the real issue here.
Yeah, I just checked the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh gender/endocrine website and they still post that they do gender affirming care and hormone therapy. Ugh.
The whistle-blower is liberal, Saint Louis is a liberal city, St Louis Children's hospital is one of the biggest / top in the country. It's a huge win!
For sure. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the staff/doctors of the clinic just crawl across the state to Illinois, which is liberal and continue to do evil there. (But the precedent the closure of STL center sets is priceless in my opinion).
If the regret rate for this necessary, life-saving care is low enough to be minuscule, then why would a longer statute of limitations matter? It should be a cakewalk for the most effective treatment in medicine; 15 years is nothing.
I suspect we would see the same trepidation if the statute were extended for any other treatment as well. It is well known that obgyn has the highest rate of lawsuits-as well as the highest malpractice premiums-in part because they can be held liable for problems in the child for many years after birth.
At first glance you would think that if the doctors really believe in their treatments then there shouldn't be an issue. But the thing is, ALL medical treatments come with some drawbacks. The whole idea of informed consent is that the patient (or guardian) weighs the risks on both sides and chooses the one they wish to live with. The thing is, minds change. People develop regrets once they learn they are in the 1%,10% or 70% who actually have a specific side effect. And to be able to extract money from a doctor (really their insurance company) for those regrets years later? Even people who know they made the choice themselves with all the information may have a hard time refusing once the personal injury lawyers start targeting them with ads.
Doctors generally want to help people. They generally don't want to be held responsible for someone changing their mind 15 years after the fact. Not to mention that after so many years it is very difficult even for the patient themselves to accurately recall their decision process and what they knew or didn't know at the time-memories change constantly little by little.
I understand why people think this is a good solution, but I'm concerned. For one because I worry more laws like this will be passed about other conditions and we will see a mass exodus of providers willing to touch these patients at all with any treatment for any reason. Not to mention the last thing our health care system needs is more costs!
Perhaps you can't. Having worked in multiple branches of medicine (albeit not this one) for two decades, I'm pretty confident that most (of course not all) in any specialty generally want to help and think they are. Doesn't mean they're right. But it looks to me from the outside like the most extreme practitioners in this area have personal experience with this issue and thus feel incredible drive to keep others from suffering as they did. They may be too close to be objective, but that's different than being motivated to hurt kids.
I'd be a lot more sympathetic to this view if their professional organizations didn't circle the wagons around GAC every time the evidence base for it was challenged.
Yes. Where were doctors when claims of blockers being "fully reversible" were made? Where were their professional organizations when it became clear that the drugs used off-label WERE ALWAYS GOING TO BE OFF-LABEL? No research, no proof, no long-term follow up?
Big pharma suckered doctors into this, and doctors should know better. They did not call for research, but rather suppression of it.
Lawyers have been involved in this issue the whole time...they were there advising hospitals and organizations that the risk of liability was low, not because the research and results were sound, but because the laws (est by Democrats) were in place. Stinks of politics and doctors KNOW that puberty serves developmental functions. They know, but they organized to shut down serious science about it. Big pharma will never pay for this, and "clinics" were set to keep using drugs off-label forever until liability came knocking.
I also think this is the case. The other issue is that there has been a strong drive to accept how patients see themselves as valid and to include them in decisions about their care - a very good premise which probably needed boundary setting.
And, additionally, the concept that ultimately what makes life worth living and happy is highly subjective, and forcing someone else's picture of perfection onto another person is at best a crapshoot. So, we need to find ways to respect that people have different views and feelings and thoughts on what they want from life while also finding ways to protect those who need protection. Which starts with figuring out who that is. And that is a problem much bigger than the gender world... Take a look at the psychiatric survivor movement, for example.
I don't think that legislatures should have anything to do with medicine. But in this specific case, medicine has utterly gone off the rails. I'm Ok with the laws, and believe that no child or teen should be getting blockers or cross sex hormones ( lets not forget, the purpose of these hormones is for cosmetic effect. I think we should constantly go back to that fact. It's cosmetic, not medically therapeutic.) Dysphoric kids and teens will be treated with counseling, which is as it should be.
And let us not forget that for a long time we have known that up to 80-90 percent of kids w/ bodily 'gender' distress settle into their bodies by going through puberty and teenhood--they grow out of it--and many just turn out to be LGB. Let kids grow up w/o medical interventions and w/ psychological and emotional support, if need be, to become whole and healthy adults. And continue to expose 'trans' 'gender identity' as the invented and incoherent con that it is.
"lets not forget, the purpose of these hormones is for cosmetic effect. I think we should constantly go back to that fact. It's cosmetic, not medically therapeutic. ". This is an interesting point... it's curious to me that the bans and liability law changes have utterly ignored children and teens who undergo other cosmetic procedures and medications (from nose jobs to Botox to weight loss medications and surgeries even without any complications from obesity-or without being obese at all). Seems to me that those children might be better off being treated with counseling, and one can make all the same arguments about side effects (up to and including death) and long-term regret. However, in that aspect of things, it has been left utterly up to the child in question and their guardians and doctors to make those decisions. I'm curious as to why that is.
Because the whole of USA society believes in those modifications and worships a ghastly imitation post human version of our bodies? And has been exporting that distorted grotesque all over the world since the 1950s.
You make some good points. In this case though I see the uncalled for serious medical interventions on healthy, developing minors and the implications for their future as in a wholly different category than other conditions. I am encouraged that these unjustified interventions will be curtailed and hope that more people will see the utter madness of it but if the fear of liability b/c the insurance companies see the potential exposure is what does it so be it. I hope more states will follow and more insurance companies will refuse to insure these medical interventions for minors and adults too--esp. more vulnerable adults w/ other issues--who need extreme gatekeeping before such brutal hormonal and surgical interventions are undertaken.
A once credible medical profession has allowed interventions that have caused a lot of misery and there will be future misery. In addition, w/ its dystopian butchery, these 'gender doctors' have created patients for whom there are no practitioners to treat them; a male w/ a faux vagina goes to an OB/GYN who is not trained to manage such an iatrogenic construction nor is any other practitioner keen to deal w/ such patients I suspect. And the whole of society will pay for this foray into utter madness and those who have promoted it, facilitated it, and profited from it probably never will and that is the unkindest cut of all.
"Not to mention that after so many years it is very difficult even for the patient themselves to accurately recall their decision process and what they knew or didn't know at the time-memories change constantly little by little."
Great point!
Particularly true when the patient for irreversible body modification treatment is a minor. Often one in a group of friends who also won't remember.
Doctors wanting to help people in general may be true...but there has been a concerted pushback from the health care industry against not only any research about long-term effects of blockers and cross-sex hormones but any discussion of research.
Patient follow up is dismal, and results aren't being tracked well.
Low quality research.
This is not like other conditions in that way. It has not been treated responsibly by providers, but has been promoted on unverifiable claims.
If unsustainable liability is what it takes to put the brakes on whatever helpful impulse led countless doctors to treat minors with poorly researched, harmful drugs and even surgeries, and to not follow up with their patients effectively over time, then so be it.
You may think most of medicine is evidence-based. It is not. Estimates of how much medical practice is based in scientific evidence hover around 20%. In my profession, nursing, it's worse because we have less money & corporate support and fewer years of doing science.
Not sure who you're replying to but I actually agree. Which is why I think singling this particular area out for onerous regulations that will probably have unintended effects and will almost certainly lead to this patient population becoming hot potatoes, is a bad idea... because actually the issues here aren't terribly unique and so this is likely to be a slippery slope. And I think it hasn't been well thought out. The goal here seems to be to drive this area of medicine out of existence. So what happens when these techniques are applied to the 80% of medicine that is not evidence based? Granted, I think there are lots of improvements to be made, but cutting our health care system to a fifth of it's size doesn't seem like the way to do it.
You can bet millions was spent on lawyers to provide risk assessments about this, all across the land, as clinic after clinic was established. You can imagine the number crunchers who said "It's fine...the trans Healthcare legislation is in place, keep using off-label drugs on minors and expand and promote your services to more and more people. Now that ANY other clinical response other than affirmation-only is essentially illegal, you're good to go."
"Onerous regulations.
Not terribly unique."
Parents are being forced in some cases to medicalize their children or lose them, while the poor, beleaguered health care system is working in concert with legislators who were likely bought off by big pharma.
Those harmed by this callous, irresponsible, unproven, profit-motivated treatment will be hot potatoes regardless of whether "gender medicine" clinics are held culpable or not. The sooner the providers are held accountable, the fewer youngsters will be harmed.
Do you have any idea how many off label prescriptions are written every day? Including for children, because treatments that are approved for adults are often used for children without approval. In the vast majority of cases, no one is aware they or their child is getting an off label treatment because they are so widely accepted.
Now, I have a couple questions and I'm pretty sure of the answers but I'm truly interested in learning if I'm wrong.
Can you tell me of any legislation that was passed MANDATING medical gender transition for children, before the bans started? (Of note, one frequent unintended consequence of extreme reactive crackdowns is that the other side cracks down equally extremely).
Also, can you point to any specific instances of a child actually being removed (or even a specific parent who was threatened with removal) for the sole reason of gender affirmation issues? The only one I have seen named is the case of Sage, and from what I've read there seems to have been a lot of other issues in that case. Due to privacy laws pertaining to family court cases, we generally only get the parents' side of the story, and even with that in mind I have seen multiple issues that would have complicated child protection proceedings. (Bear in mind, too, that in that case as well as the still-hypothetical cases that will be impacted by the "gender sanctuary" policies, one complication is that Sage ran away from home and sought gender transition. It is very possible she actually refused to return. In nearly all cases of teenage runaways who refuse to return home, there is an investigation and court proceedings as well as attempts to determine a compromise like kinship placement.)
Also, you are naive if you believe there are only lawyers on one side of this issue. The evangelical right, including their law firms, is cashing in big on this issue right now, and has been heavily involved in things like drafting legislation. Another good reason to try to avoid legislative action: issues that become political in this split country generally raise major dollars for both sides. And they tend to become performances by political interests with families and constituents used as window dressing. Ultimately, those interests care about themselves and often don't give a hoot about the actual issue other than "how can I raise money and elevate my profile with this?"
I'm curious how you think these laws will hold providers accountable? Those who are merely in it for the money will run away before they can get snared by the beefed-up laws. Those who are really, truly trying to help and care about their population will be the only ones who might be harmed. Regardless, the payouts almost never come from the pockets of the providers themselves. It's a bit like trying to hold drunk drivers accountable by charging their insurance companies for the property damage and medical expenses they cause. Might raise their premiums, will also raise everyone else's if there are enough such cases, and soon you see dominos falling in the whole healthcare system.
Blanket legislative action like this is neither wise nor targeted. And it WILL have unintended effects-whether it has any of the intended ones, or not.
I don't agree with what you say but I do think you are right about the problem. Surely the issue with the solution is that it is being pushed by Republicans who are not interested in sorting out the medical industry?
I do think that's a large part of it. Frankly, I think any quick "solution" pushed by either party without both a thorough understanding of the medical industry as well as a vested interest and real actionable plan to solve the systemic issues throughout the health care system is not only doomed to fail but will probably backfire in ways they don't expect.
I think though that people trying to change sex is in such a unique category, that a heightened liability might not carry over to other procedures, as you fear might happen. There is so much “woo” and “mush” and mind sets involved in wanting to change one’s sex and then actually thinking that that is possible. It seems very different from a hip or knee replacement or organ transplant, etc...
Perhaps, especially for some patients. Although I do get the impression that there are some who are well aware of the limitations of medical gender transition. However, I know for sure (because I have met and treated them) that there are people who have highly unrealistic expectations for the procedures you mentioned as well. They may not be best described as "woo" and "mush" but, for example, many people think they will magically become more athletic and thus thinner and have an all-around healthier life with the joint replacement alone. Some people certainly do become healthier after joint replacement but it takes painful rehab followed by all the training anyone else would need-the new joint is just the beginning and is actually a hindrance at first until one recovers from the surgery.
Someone, especially a young person, who has sadly had their social life curtailed by organ failure may picture themselves as having loads of friends once they get their new organ. And young people struggle to really comprehend the expected and possible complications of any procedure including a serious surgery like that. And of course, once they recover sufficiently to be more social (if that even happens) they will still have limitations and may find that just because they are physically healthy enough to have friends sadly doesn't mean they will fit in, especially if they've spent many of their younger years in hospitals and therefore their social development may not be at the same level as their peers.
That's not to say at all that people don't have full lives all the time after these procedures. It's simply a note that unrealistic expectations are rampant in medicine.
I have always been ambivalent about outright bans against gender medicine for minors. But what I definitely favor are extensions of the statutes of limitations for liability.
Many observers have predicted that the solution to this problem would be lawsuits, but there are legal barriers to lawsuits, the short window for filing a lawsuit being one of them.
There is no such thing as a 'trans child,' it is an invention. See the link below for an interview w/ the author, Helen Joyce, of the book, Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, for an explanation about the wealthy, powerful men who have promoted this pernicious and fictional 'trans' 'gender identity' nonsense throughout Western culture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xUrtNW6Fzo&t=664s
The decision by Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital to stop prescribing "gender medicine" to minors is certainly welcome even though it does not signify that the Center saw the error of its ways. It took a statutory prohibition against the practice of handing out puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to minors to make what had been a hypothetical legal risk real enough for someone to make a mission-changing decision.
If the trans movement isn't already fundraising and lobbying over this, it very likely will be doing so soon. Activist reporters in the progressive mainstream media may already be at work turning the Washington University Transgender Center into a martyr of what they will almost certainly erroneously refer to as "anti-LGBTQ legislation." Trans allies and activists have already turned Jamie Reed into a villain more sinister perhaps than even J. K. Rowling. Additional progressive states and cities may declare themselves sanctuaries for "trans kids" who've been denied life-saving gender affirming care.
For the time being, pushback against and pullback from gender medicine in red states is likely to stiffen the resolve in blue states to stand up for trans rights. Progressive politicians and progressive thought leaders are impervious to the widely circulated fact that science today does not support chemical and surgical interventions on youth who claim to be or identify as trans.
Could it be that the problem lies in the difficulty of proving a negative? Will more and better scientifically valid studies that produce rafts of statistics give dissidents in the healing professions the ammunition they need to break trans activists' influence over their organizations? Maybe in addition to showing conclusively that gender medicine isn't a panacea, it will also be necessary to flood blue states with case studies showing the actual harm that chemical and surgical interventions can cause to bodies and minds. Or will reform be driven by adverse judicial decisions in blue states that produce enough legal risk to drive a wedge between trans activists and the medical establishment, legislatures and other elements of society that do the bidding of the trans movement?
Double-blind studies of puberty blockers are impossible and in my mind unethical. Lobotomies were in vogue for a while but it didn't take double blind studies to see that it was a very bad idea. (I am generally all for double blind clinical trials but not for this). Case studies, observational studies - for sure.
For illumination of the Frankenstein results of "vaginoplasty" in males, watch the video from Alexander L (YouTube) channel discussing the reasons why both he and Ritchie Herron decided to discontinue exogenous testosterone after detransitioning. Both of them had those surgeries, where the penis is inverted and a tube . . . you all know the rest, I don't have to detail it. When they take T to remedy the lost natural male hormone due to castration, the internal penile tissues do what they evolved for, which is erection. So, pain. Why these surgeons have no awe, no respect and no actual understanding of just what the vagina does in the female body and how you cannot create it out of male genital tissue, is just beyond me. I tried to tell that to my husband, before he put himself on that path (now ex)--so here's Alex and Ritchie telling the awful, bloody truth:
I'd be more pleased if this "pullback" occurred in a blue state instead of a red state which had just passed a new law. Still, any pullback is good.
Yes, this whole business is so icky in so many ways, including that of forcing one to acknowledge that on this (and often this alone) Republicans make more sense than Democrats. Ugh.
Until the trans craziness hit, I viewed Democrats as more right and more wise on every single issue. Not any more. If nothing else, trans activists have shown me how illogical well-meaning liberals can be. My thoughts still go back to the emails I exchanged (about two years ago) with a liberal poetry editor (I am a poet) who was trying to convince me of the existential torture of being three years old and believing that you were born in the wrong body -- as if he knew! Liberals have allowed themselves to be extraordinarily gullible.
Thank you Hortense and Perry for your comments! As a very liberal Democrat who lives in a city in a state that is so “blue” that I feel like I live in the sky 🤪!, I really “feel” you on this. “Icky” is such a perfect word to describe the weird rites and rituals of people trying to think that they can fundamentally change sex. I feel so alone in my critique and I know that I can never go back to thinking that a human being can be “born in the wrong body”. Yes, I used to thing that. I am so disturbed by the attempts to erase women’s spaces and even the word woman! --- “pregnant people”!!!!!! no, no, no.... I am even more disturbed by public schools attempting to teach trans ideology to children, and the idea of messing with children’s (and young people’s-- I shudder to think of 20 year old me [eons ago!] making irreversible decisions about anything!) bodies fills me with incomprehensible despair. Why would anyone, especially someone who calls herself/himself a doctor, advocate for these practices?
I agree with you, Ruby. My very blue state -- Rhode Island -- is not really as blue as it appears. It has a strong blue-collar population, but those blue-collar workers understand that the Democrats provide better government services than Republicans do, and so many of them vote Democratic -- though certainly not all of them. To the best of my knowledge, there are no drag queens reading stories to kids in Rhode Island.
I agree with you about professionals. No teacher should EVER tell his or her students that they are free to choose their gender. I know there are teachers who are doing that, and it is a total lie. Too many professionals are liberals, and they don't seem to be aware about the harm that trans people are doing to kids. "You are trans? How exciting! How wonderful! You can be anything you want to be!" (Puke.) If I were a school principle, I would be talking to all the teachers about it. "It is not up to you to talk to kids about their sexuality."
The efforts of trans people to make women invisible will not work or last. A few institutions have picked up on the "pregnant people" lingo, but it will fade. Everyone knows that only a woman gets pregnant. If you ever have a professional talking to you about "pregnant people", just look them in the eye and say, "Women! Not 'people' !"
Thank you Perry. I appreciate hearing your take on Rhode Island’s “blueness”. It’s different where I live and it is probably its own blue bubble. I just think that a lot of people who support the idea of trans do not really go too deep in their thinking. I am fairly certain that was what I did when I mouthed platitudes like, “maybe he was born in the wrong body”! I was trying to understand, and I was trying to fit in and I was also trying to summon up compassion. I started to educate myself because there was this tiny little voice inside that did NOT understand, and as I proceeded to learn more, my belief structure crumbled. I hope that those Democratic Rhode Islanders you mentioned can nudge the Democratic Party in a saner direction. Many of the Democratic movers and shakers in CA (my blue bubble) are really into using the transgender train as a means to signal that they are not Republican. Some of the stuff they are coming up with is truly ludicrous/scary [take your pick]-- CA as a sanctuary state for “trans” kids, etc...
Yes, I know that the trans community has done a good job brain-washing the people of California. I understand that Newsom is also brain-washed. Sadly, Biden is brain-washed too, as he supports everything trans no matter whether it is good or bad. I just don't understand why people aren't able to distinguish good from bad in social movements. Protecting trans people in housing and employment (that's good); allowing trans people to redefine what gender is for the whole human race, influence children, displace women in women's private spaces, and shame people who disagree with them out of their jobs (THAT'S BAD). Is that so difficult?
Could not agree more.
Yes. When I think about the harm that liberal-leaning parents can do to their kids (like the parents of Jazz Jennings) I want to cry. There may be thousands of liberal parents around the U.S. and other Western countries who are HOPING to have a trans child so they can have a "special" project to keep them busy.
Jazz's parents don't seem so liberal to me. They were basically transing the gay away- like Susie Green and her husband, Jazz's parents were less than thrilled with a nonconventional boy. Extra mommie points and attention for that Munchausen's by Proxy goodness.
I understand what you are saying. This is also happening in the Middle East, where they are hardly liberal. There is so much hatred of homosexuality among religious groups that parents would rather have a trans girl than a gay boy. Indeed, the hatred of homosexuality in the world is a sickness unto itself. I'm gay, and it didn't make me a bad person. So Jazz's parent may not have been liberal in the sense of accepting their boy as gay -- but then, it does take a certain amount of liberalism to accept a trans child. Also, Jazz's mother started the campaign to convert her son to a girl when he was only three. She WANTED to have a trans child. There's no doubt in my mind that she was looking forward to the challenge of having a "special" child.
'liberals have allowed themselves to be extraordinarily gullible.' So sadly true in so very many ways. In the past few years I have watched most of my long time liberal community lose their collective critical thinking minds and guzzle down the trans gender koolaid, the covid koolaid, etc etc, I am independent because frankly I cannot stomach the fanaticism and hypocrisy of either the dems or reps at this point.
Well, I guess I'm one who guzzled the Covid Koolaid. It's pretty obvious to me that we had a pandemic.
I'm not a scientist, and I know far less about vaccines than medical doctors and researchers do. I got every Covid vaccine that came out, and there is no evidence that I was harmed by any of them. You sound to me like a vaccine denier, and I'm not with you on that. Yes, there are issues involving vaccines, but in my view they do more good than harm. As for all the social harm you talk about, I don't have enough information to agree with you. Staying home was difficult for a lot of people, and many kids fell behind in their schoolwork, but most people survived okay. Now, what they did in China was monstrous; but here in the U.S., most measures recommended by the government were voluntary. In the U.S., one thing I know for sure is that there were more deaths among conservatives who wouldn't get vaccinated than among the liberals who did.
You need to be careful about where you get your information.
I am sorry but Republicans do not make sense. for them opposing this trans shit is part of a belief system which includes rigid gender roles, denying reproductive rights to women and often to the the men who are the fathers of the babies the women are forced to have. They are (were? - it varies I think) anti-porn for religious reasons but support the porn industry and resist prevention of violence against women, especially stalking, domestic violence and gun control provisions. I could go on. The Republicans are not my friends just because they have come down on the right side by accident.
why I am one of the politically “homeless”...
In no way do I think the Republicans are my friends; all I was saying was that they make more sense than Democrats on this one point. That's literally my only point on this. I am horrified to find myself agreeing with Republicans whose every other stance I revile, and yes it's true that their reasons for their stance are highly questionable. That's my point: it's horrifying that Republicans make more sense than Democrats on this.
I understand this point but I am concerned about what is happening. There have been people, maybe a lot of them, across the range of gender critical substacks and other webs groups who announce they are no longer on the left.
There is also a 1980s history of feminists allying with right-wing evangelical Xtian groups on anti-porn issues. The result of that was an anti-sexuality discourse in which porn was written about as if it were evidence of all male sexuality and all positive approaches to sexuality were a pathway to violent abusive sex.
The outcomes of republicans very different starting point are very obvious further down the track and so I am objecting to you saying you agree on this one point. There is no just one point and the Republicans only make more sense if you refuse to connect up the dots that they themselves are connecting up with their other policies.
Observing this outcome means I am opposed to fighting transgender ideology by allying with the republicans, evangelical xtians etc. It also just enrages me to be told that TRA policy and practices are the left and we have to leave the left to oppose TRA. I hope this makes sense to you?
By saying that I agree on this one point I mean precisely that I agree on this one point. I have never voted for a Republican and cannot imagine doing so, but I agree with them on this one point: that kids under 18 should not be allowed to choose hormonal or surgical gender-reassignment treatment or whatever it's called at the moment. That's it. I have no illusions about the political posturing on their part (nor on the other side for that matter), and I think the bathroom debates are absurd.
Ergo: object all you want to my saying I agree on this one point, but that's the reality: I agree on this one point. You are welcome to disagree with me, on this one point or on any other.
It's interesting to scroll down on the new Protect Kids CA ballot initiative website and see the polling, where they say that 67% of California Democrats do not want blockers, hormones, surgeries "allowed" for minors. It may be that they are extrapolating from a national poll - or it may be that polled California Democrats are in stark disagreement with our AG. The lead time is long - these are initiatives for the Nov 2024 ballot. (https://protectkidsca.com/protect-kids-california-launches-three-ballot-initiatives-to-protect-children-and-support-parental-rights/)
well that’s good news! could it be that in the privacy of one’s home (or mind), we Californians feel more comfortable telling the truth? ( I include myself in this).
Yes, in my experience there are lots of people who are horrified by the idea of encouraging children to pick their own sex and allowing medical intervention to ruin lives as a result. (Gender is another thing, despite all the rhetoric, and I think it's our absurdly rigid gender divisions that exacerbate all this; let the boys wear makeup and dresses and the girls long to be construction workers; that would make the world a much less oppressive place). But people just don't want to enter these arguments, because it's so very violently contentious. I think this phenomenon of people being cowed into silence on the left greatly skews the debate.
Yes, the shut-down of an open dialogue by trans activists is a big problem. I have contemplated writing an article on my own blog about whether or not we are justified to dislike trans people themselves, given their very bad behavior. Trans activists, and their bad ideas, are the real issue here.
Yeah, I just checked the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh gender/endocrine website and they still post that they do gender affirming care and hormone therapy. Ugh.
Don't be a sore winner , Perry :)
The whistle-blower is liberal, Saint Louis is a liberal city, St Louis Children's hospital is one of the biggest / top in the country. It's a huge win!
If that's true, I'm glad. Still, the new law gave them no choice but to "come to their senses".
For sure. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the staff/doctors of the clinic just crawl across the state to Illinois, which is liberal and continue to do evil there. (But the precedent the closure of STL center sets is priceless in my opinion).
The blues are completely captured by the AGP lobby. It won't happen.
If the regret rate for this necessary, life-saving care is low enough to be minuscule, then why would a longer statute of limitations matter? It should be a cakewalk for the most effective treatment in medicine; 15 years is nothing.
I suspect we would see the same trepidation if the statute were extended for any other treatment as well. It is well known that obgyn has the highest rate of lawsuits-as well as the highest malpractice premiums-in part because they can be held liable for problems in the child for many years after birth.
At first glance you would think that if the doctors really believe in their treatments then there shouldn't be an issue. But the thing is, ALL medical treatments come with some drawbacks. The whole idea of informed consent is that the patient (or guardian) weighs the risks on both sides and chooses the one they wish to live with. The thing is, minds change. People develop regrets once they learn they are in the 1%,10% or 70% who actually have a specific side effect. And to be able to extract money from a doctor (really their insurance company) for those regrets years later? Even people who know they made the choice themselves with all the information may have a hard time refusing once the personal injury lawyers start targeting them with ads.
Doctors generally want to help people. They generally don't want to be held responsible for someone changing their mind 15 years after the fact. Not to mention that after so many years it is very difficult even for the patient themselves to accurately recall their decision process and what they knew or didn't know at the time-memories change constantly little by little.
I understand why people think this is a good solution, but I'm concerned. For one because I worry more laws like this will be passed about other conditions and we will see a mass exodus of providers willing to touch these patients at all with any treatment for any reason. Not to mention the last thing our health care system needs is more costs!
"Doctors generally want to help people." Not to be a jerk, but you cannot look at this branch of medicine and walk away with this conclusion.
Perhaps you can't. Having worked in multiple branches of medicine (albeit not this one) for two decades, I'm pretty confident that most (of course not all) in any specialty generally want to help and think they are. Doesn't mean they're right. But it looks to me from the outside like the most extreme practitioners in this area have personal experience with this issue and thus feel incredible drive to keep others from suffering as they did. They may be too close to be objective, but that's different than being motivated to hurt kids.
I'd be a lot more sympathetic to this view if their professional organizations didn't circle the wagons around GAC every time the evidence base for it was challenged.
Yes. Where were doctors when claims of blockers being "fully reversible" were made? Where were their professional organizations when it became clear that the drugs used off-label WERE ALWAYS GOING TO BE OFF-LABEL? No research, no proof, no long-term follow up?
Big pharma suckered doctors into this, and doctors should know better. They did not call for research, but rather suppression of it.
Lawyers have been involved in this issue the whole time...they were there advising hospitals and organizations that the risk of liability was low, not because the research and results were sound, but because the laws (est by Democrats) were in place. Stinks of politics and doctors KNOW that puberty serves developmental functions. They know, but they organized to shut down serious science about it. Big pharma will never pay for this, and "clinics" were set to keep using drugs off-label forever until liability came knocking.
I also think this is the case. The other issue is that there has been a strong drive to accept how patients see themselves as valid and to include them in decisions about their care - a very good premise which probably needed boundary setting.
And, additionally, the concept that ultimately what makes life worth living and happy is highly subjective, and forcing someone else's picture of perfection onto another person is at best a crapshoot. So, we need to find ways to respect that people have different views and feelings and thoughts on what they want from life while also finding ways to protect those who need protection. Which starts with figuring out who that is. And that is a problem much bigger than the gender world... Take a look at the psychiatric survivor movement, for example.
I don't think that legislatures should have anything to do with medicine. But in this specific case, medicine has utterly gone off the rails. I'm Ok with the laws, and believe that no child or teen should be getting blockers or cross sex hormones ( lets not forget, the purpose of these hormones is for cosmetic effect. I think we should constantly go back to that fact. It's cosmetic, not medically therapeutic.) Dysphoric kids and teens will be treated with counseling, which is as it should be.
And let us not forget that for a long time we have known that up to 80-90 percent of kids w/ bodily 'gender' distress settle into their bodies by going through puberty and teenhood--they grow out of it--and many just turn out to be LGB. Let kids grow up w/o medical interventions and w/ psychological and emotional support, if need be, to become whole and healthy adults. And continue to expose 'trans' 'gender identity' as the invented and incoherent con that it is.
"lets not forget, the purpose of these hormones is for cosmetic effect. I think we should constantly go back to that fact. It's cosmetic, not medically therapeutic. ". This is an interesting point... it's curious to me that the bans and liability law changes have utterly ignored children and teens who undergo other cosmetic procedures and medications (from nose jobs to Botox to weight loss medications and surgeries even without any complications from obesity-or without being obese at all). Seems to me that those children might be better off being treated with counseling, and one can make all the same arguments about side effects (up to and including death) and long-term regret. However, in that aspect of things, it has been left utterly up to the child in question and their guardians and doctors to make those decisions. I'm curious as to why that is.
Probably something to do with Botox not leading patients down a medical pathway to sterility in the majority of cases. Just a wild guess.
Because the whole of USA society believes in those modifications and worships a ghastly imitation post human version of our bodies? And has been exporting that distorted grotesque all over the world since the 1950s.
You make some good points. In this case though I see the uncalled for serious medical interventions on healthy, developing minors and the implications for their future as in a wholly different category than other conditions. I am encouraged that these unjustified interventions will be curtailed and hope that more people will see the utter madness of it but if the fear of liability b/c the insurance companies see the potential exposure is what does it so be it. I hope more states will follow and more insurance companies will refuse to insure these medical interventions for minors and adults too--esp. more vulnerable adults w/ other issues--who need extreme gatekeeping before such brutal hormonal and surgical interventions are undertaken.
A once credible medical profession has allowed interventions that have caused a lot of misery and there will be future misery. In addition, w/ its dystopian butchery, these 'gender doctors' have created patients for whom there are no practitioners to treat them; a male w/ a faux vagina goes to an OB/GYN who is not trained to manage such an iatrogenic construction nor is any other practitioner keen to deal w/ such patients I suspect. And the whole of society will pay for this foray into utter madness and those who have promoted it, facilitated it, and profited from it probably never will and that is the unkindest cut of all.
"Not to mention that after so many years it is very difficult even for the patient themselves to accurately recall their decision process and what they knew or didn't know at the time-memories change constantly little by little."
Great point!
Particularly true when the patient for irreversible body modification treatment is a minor. Often one in a group of friends who also won't remember.
Doctors wanting to help people in general may be true...but there has been a concerted pushback from the health care industry against not only any research about long-term effects of blockers and cross-sex hormones but any discussion of research.
Patient follow up is dismal, and results aren't being tracked well.
Low quality research.
This is not like other conditions in that way. It has not been treated responsibly by providers, but has been promoted on unverifiable claims.
If unsustainable liability is what it takes to put the brakes on whatever helpful impulse led countless doctors to treat minors with poorly researched, harmful drugs and even surgeries, and to not follow up with their patients effectively over time, then so be it.
You may think most of medicine is evidence-based. It is not. Estimates of how much medical practice is based in scientific evidence hover around 20%. In my profession, nursing, it's worse because we have less money & corporate support and fewer years of doing science.
Not sure who you're replying to but I actually agree. Which is why I think singling this particular area out for onerous regulations that will probably have unintended effects and will almost certainly lead to this patient population becoming hot potatoes, is a bad idea... because actually the issues here aren't terribly unique and so this is likely to be a slippery slope. And I think it hasn't been well thought out. The goal here seems to be to drive this area of medicine out of existence. So what happens when these techniques are applied to the 80% of medicine that is not evidence based? Granted, I think there are lots of improvements to be made, but cutting our health care system to a fifth of it's size doesn't seem like the way to do it.
Onerous regulations?
Are you for real?
Issues that aren't terribly unique?
You can bet millions was spent on lawyers to provide risk assessments about this, all across the land, as clinic after clinic was established. You can imagine the number crunchers who said "It's fine...the trans Healthcare legislation is in place, keep using off-label drugs on minors and expand and promote your services to more and more people. Now that ANY other clinical response other than affirmation-only is essentially illegal, you're good to go."
"Onerous regulations.
Not terribly unique."
Parents are being forced in some cases to medicalize their children or lose them, while the poor, beleaguered health care system is working in concert with legislators who were likely bought off by big pharma.
Those harmed by this callous, irresponsible, unproven, profit-motivated treatment will be hot potatoes regardless of whether "gender medicine" clinics are held culpable or not. The sooner the providers are held accountable, the fewer youngsters will be harmed.
Why yes, in fact, I am "for real."
Do you have any idea how many off label prescriptions are written every day? Including for children, because treatments that are approved for adults are often used for children without approval. In the vast majority of cases, no one is aware they or their child is getting an off label treatment because they are so widely accepted.
Now, I have a couple questions and I'm pretty sure of the answers but I'm truly interested in learning if I'm wrong.
Can you tell me of any legislation that was passed MANDATING medical gender transition for children, before the bans started? (Of note, one frequent unintended consequence of extreme reactive crackdowns is that the other side cracks down equally extremely).
Also, can you point to any specific instances of a child actually being removed (or even a specific parent who was threatened with removal) for the sole reason of gender affirmation issues? The only one I have seen named is the case of Sage, and from what I've read there seems to have been a lot of other issues in that case. Due to privacy laws pertaining to family court cases, we generally only get the parents' side of the story, and even with that in mind I have seen multiple issues that would have complicated child protection proceedings. (Bear in mind, too, that in that case as well as the still-hypothetical cases that will be impacted by the "gender sanctuary" policies, one complication is that Sage ran away from home and sought gender transition. It is very possible she actually refused to return. In nearly all cases of teenage runaways who refuse to return home, there is an investigation and court proceedings as well as attempts to determine a compromise like kinship placement.)
Also, you are naive if you believe there are only lawyers on one side of this issue. The evangelical right, including their law firms, is cashing in big on this issue right now, and has been heavily involved in things like drafting legislation. Another good reason to try to avoid legislative action: issues that become political in this split country generally raise major dollars for both sides. And they tend to become performances by political interests with families and constituents used as window dressing. Ultimately, those interests care about themselves and often don't give a hoot about the actual issue other than "how can I raise money and elevate my profile with this?"
I'm curious how you think these laws will hold providers accountable? Those who are merely in it for the money will run away before they can get snared by the beefed-up laws. Those who are really, truly trying to help and care about their population will be the only ones who might be harmed. Regardless, the payouts almost never come from the pockets of the providers themselves. It's a bit like trying to hold drunk drivers accountable by charging their insurance companies for the property damage and medical expenses they cause. Might raise their premiums, will also raise everyone else's if there are enough such cases, and soon you see dominos falling in the whole healthcare system.
Blanket legislative action like this is neither wise nor targeted. And it WILL have unintended effects-whether it has any of the intended ones, or not.
I don't agree with what you say but I do think you are right about the problem. Surely the issue with the solution is that it is being pushed by Republicans who are not interested in sorting out the medical industry?
I do think that's a large part of it. Frankly, I think any quick "solution" pushed by either party without both a thorough understanding of the medical industry as well as a vested interest and real actionable plan to solve the systemic issues throughout the health care system is not only doomed to fail but will probably backfire in ways they don't expect.
I think though that people trying to change sex is in such a unique category, that a heightened liability might not carry over to other procedures, as you fear might happen. There is so much “woo” and “mush” and mind sets involved in wanting to change one’s sex and then actually thinking that that is possible. It seems very different from a hip or knee replacement or organ transplant, etc...
Perhaps, especially for some patients. Although I do get the impression that there are some who are well aware of the limitations of medical gender transition. However, I know for sure (because I have met and treated them) that there are people who have highly unrealistic expectations for the procedures you mentioned as well. They may not be best described as "woo" and "mush" but, for example, many people think they will magically become more athletic and thus thinner and have an all-around healthier life with the joint replacement alone. Some people certainly do become healthier after joint replacement but it takes painful rehab followed by all the training anyone else would need-the new joint is just the beginning and is actually a hindrance at first until one recovers from the surgery.
Someone, especially a young person, who has sadly had their social life curtailed by organ failure may picture themselves as having loads of friends once they get their new organ. And young people struggle to really comprehend the expected and possible complications of any procedure including a serious surgery like that. And of course, once they recover sufficiently to be more social (if that even happens) they will still have limitations and may find that just because they are physically healthy enough to have friends sadly doesn't mean they will fit in, especially if they've spent many of their younger years in hospitals and therefore their social development may not be at the same level as their peers.
That's not to say at all that people don't have full lives all the time after these procedures. It's simply a note that unrealistic expectations are rampant in medicine.
USA medicine is an appalling system. What you say merely highlights the fact that the privatised high competition system doesn't work.
I absolutely agree! But that's a problem that needs solving from the root. Which appears to be sadly our of reach in our current political climate.
Exactly!
Emphasises yet again that we are talking here about an industry which only listens when it's hit in the pocket.
I have always been ambivalent about outright bans against gender medicine for minors. But what I definitely favor are extensions of the statutes of limitations for liability.
Many observers have predicted that the solution to this problem would be lawsuits, but there are legal barriers to lawsuits, the short window for filing a lawsuit being one of them.
There is no such thing as a 'trans child,' it is an invention. See the link below for an interview w/ the author, Helen Joyce, of the book, Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, for an explanation about the wealthy, powerful men who have promoted this pernicious and fictional 'trans' 'gender identity' nonsense throughout Western culture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xUrtNW6Fzo&t=664s
I agree completely.
Nice work! Keep up the pressure.
The decision by Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital to stop prescribing "gender medicine" to minors is certainly welcome even though it does not signify that the Center saw the error of its ways. It took a statutory prohibition against the practice of handing out puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to minors to make what had been a hypothetical legal risk real enough for someone to make a mission-changing decision.
If the trans movement isn't already fundraising and lobbying over this, it very likely will be doing so soon. Activist reporters in the progressive mainstream media may already be at work turning the Washington University Transgender Center into a martyr of what they will almost certainly erroneously refer to as "anti-LGBTQ legislation." Trans allies and activists have already turned Jamie Reed into a villain more sinister perhaps than even J. K. Rowling. Additional progressive states and cities may declare themselves sanctuaries for "trans kids" who've been denied life-saving gender affirming care.
For the time being, pushback against and pullback from gender medicine in red states is likely to stiffen the resolve in blue states to stand up for trans rights. Progressive politicians and progressive thought leaders are impervious to the widely circulated fact that science today does not support chemical and surgical interventions on youth who claim to be or identify as trans.
Could it be that the problem lies in the difficulty of proving a negative? Will more and better scientifically valid studies that produce rafts of statistics give dissidents in the healing professions the ammunition they need to break trans activists' influence over their organizations? Maybe in addition to showing conclusively that gender medicine isn't a panacea, it will also be necessary to flood blue states with case studies showing the actual harm that chemical and surgical interventions can cause to bodies and minds. Or will reform be driven by adverse judicial decisions in blue states that produce enough legal risk to drive a wedge between trans activists and the medical establishment, legislatures and other elements of society that do the bidding of the trans movement?
Double-blind studies of puberty blockers are impossible and in my mind unethical. Lobotomies were in vogue for a while but it didn't take double blind studies to see that it was a very bad idea. (I am generally all for double blind clinical trials but not for this). Case studies, observational studies - for sure.
For illumination of the Frankenstein results of "vaginoplasty" in males, watch the video from Alexander L (YouTube) channel discussing the reasons why both he and Ritchie Herron decided to discontinue exogenous testosterone after detransitioning. Both of them had those surgeries, where the penis is inverted and a tube . . . you all know the rest, I don't have to detail it. When they take T to remedy the lost natural male hormone due to castration, the internal penile tissues do what they evolved for, which is erection. So, pain. Why these surgeons have no awe, no respect and no actual understanding of just what the vagina does in the female body and how you cannot create it out of male genital tissue, is just beyond me. I tried to tell that to my husband, before he put himself on that path (now ex)--so here's Alex and Ritchie telling the awful, bloody truth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw7a8eioa1w&t=3320s
My relief around this news is tempered by the knowledge that it was really all about money all along. I can't not be cynical.
Hooray!
I think Jamie Reed had more effect than the university wants to admit. Bravo on her. Thanks for your reporting, and the good news, Eliza.
Loose the hounds (lawyers)!
This is what happened to the pioneer of "sex change" surgeries, Stanley Bieber, ironically enough.