HHS Study Challenges Affirmation-Only Model for Treating Minors with Gender Dysphoria


Here’s a link to the full study pdf: Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria Review of Evidence and Best Practices.

The report notes that lesbian girls and gay boys have often been misdiagnosed as gender dysphoric and subjected to “gender transition” drugs and surgeries, often because their parents, their doctors, or they themselves believe changing their bodies is preferable to being homosexual. Excerpts from the report below:

“[Christian Hamburger, a Copenhagen endocrinologist] Perhaps Hamburger felt a special compassion for homosexuals because his sister was a lesbian. Despite Denmark’s comparatively liberal national policies, Hamburger surely knew from his sister’s experience how discrimination against gays and lesbians could be profoundly troubling for a homosexual. He could offer no medical intervention to help his sister, but he believed there might be some steps he could take to help George Jorgensen, and he was willing to try.”

“Given clinician reports of his self-reported sexual behavior and desires, it is almost certain that George was gay.”

“See also Chapter 3 for the influential case of George/Christine Jorgensen and the subsequent wave of predominantly lesbian and gay people who sought medical transition.”

“Also apparently ignored was the related possibility that transition may appeal to young gay men and lesbians suffering from social disapproval of their homosexuality.”

“The previously observed tendency for early-onset GD [gender dysphoria] patients to be gay continued with the Dutch cohort. Of the initial group of 70, only one reported heterosexuality; the other 69 reported either homosexuality (62), bisexuality (six), or “don’t know yet” (one).”

“That is, the original Dutch Protocol patient cohort was comprised almost entirely of gay, lesbian, and bisexual patients67—one of whom died as a result of surgical complications from vaginoplasty following pubertal blockade and cross-sex hormones.”

“Given the medical profession’s history of pathologizing and medicalizing same-sex attraction, serious justice-related concerns are raised by the overrepresentation of gay, lesbian, and bisexual adolescents among patients receiving unproven interventions that adversely impact fertility and sexual function.”

“There is evidence that the specter of being labeled a “conversion therapist”— a damaging accusation given the profession’s history with the mistreatment of gay people—has created a climate of anxiety among mental health professionals. Therapists worry that failing to affirm or recommend medical interventions for youth who meet the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s (WPATH) eligibility criteria could jeopardize their careers and reputations.

“The gay people pushed to change their gender.”

Closing Down Dialogue on Transing Kids

Remind me again, which side is made up of censorious authoritarians who think only their viewpoint should be allowed to be expressed?
The irony is that Ben Shapiro is actually defending gay kids against a cult that’s telling them because they’re gender-nonconforming they need puberty blockers and genital surgery, after which they can become happy heterosexuals.

[Double irony: Facebook removed this post from the IGF CultureWatch Facebook page because it “violated community standards.” Twitter, now, is not as censorious.]

And this:

Uncovering the Hidden Truth About Childhood Gender Dysphoria

Eliza Mondegreen asks why gender clinicians are withholding research findings that giving puberty blockers to minors with gender dysphoria doesn't improve their mental health.

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Thursday, October 24, 2024


And more:

Art Morty writes: >>Stereotypically feminine-acting boys and stereotypically masculine-acting girls are perfectly…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Friday, October 25, 2024


And this:

Tom Knighton writes: >>For all the sins of the trans movement and their aggressive assault on childhood, the idea of…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Science vs. Ideology

The extensively researched and thoroughly evidence-based report by Britain’s Dr. Hilary Cass, conducted over 4 years for the UK’s National Health Service, has exposed so much of the anti-scientific, gender-ideology driven insanity that was first embraced by LGBTQ+ trans-queer activists and then used to pressure U.S. medical institutions into compliance, less they be labeled unprogressive bigots and transphobes.

.


Via Andrew Sullivan: Will Big Trans Be Held To Account? The Cass Report has definitively destroyed their case for child sex-changes:

Drugs used to castrate sex offenders and to treat adult prostate cancer have been re-purposed, off-label, to sexually reassign children before they even got through puberty. Big Pharma created lucrative “customers for life” by putting kids on irreversible drugs for a condition that could not be measured or identified by doctors and entirely self-diagnosed by … children.
And what if over 80 percent of the children subject to this experiment were of a marginalized group — gay kids? And the result of these procedures was to cure them of same-sex attraction by converting them to the opposite sex? I simply cannot imagine that any liberal or progressive would hand over gender-nonconforming children, let alone their own children, to the pharmaceutical and medical-industrial complex to be experimented on in this way.
And yet for years now, this has been the absolutely rigid left position on sex reassignments for children with gender dysphoria on the verge of puberty.


J.K. Rowling weighs in:

Feminine Gay Men and the False Promises of Transgenderism


Art Morty adds:

“I myself was a feminine gay man attracted to much more masculine men than myself, and for a time I felt guilt, shame, and confusion about the mismatch, so I can somewhat understand what these men are feeling. But in the late ’90s I worked at a trans bar, and what I saw there was profoundly sad, in a deep, fundamental way not easily remedied with flags and parades and campaigns for better “representation.” I came to suspect that there was a structural dysfunction at the heart of the transgender subculture.”

He continues:

“The gender movement thinks it’s flinging open the gates of free gender expression, liberating everyone to express their gender however they wish. But really, all this extra attention being paid to everyone’s gender expression is just making everyone feel overcautious and cling harder to stereotypes….”

And this:

“I know all too well the confusion about being a young, gender nonconforming gay man, and the pain and loneliness it brings. I want society to show them that they can have happy and healthy relationships just as they are.”

There Are No Adequate Words

I don’t usually like to go too far afield from the blog’s focus on gay people and our issues — and, as a counter-voice blog, to take a critical look at the movement that claims to speak in our name. That said, I find it necessary to consider the events of this week in Israel and, in particular, those who are supporting Hamas and its barbarism. A few shared posts calling out this vileness follow below.


And this:

Another Gay Man Grateful He Isn’t a Gender Noncoforming Kid Now


Planned Parenthood joins the list of progressive organizations putting gender-nonconforming gay kids at risk.


And worth repeating:

The State vs. Parents

Who is more likely to protect the wellbeing of gender nonconforming kids, or kids that progressive public school teachers and diversity educrats, in their great wisdom, decide are gender nonconforming and therefore transgender, and therefore should be encouraged to self-identify as their affirming gender identity (as perceived by public school teachers and educrats)?

Sure, some gender nonconforming kids, and many gay kids, have unsupportive parents, or sometimes worse. But giving the state the power, through public school teachers and educrats driven by hard-edged progressive gender ideology, to “help” confused kids to adopt new, “affirming” names and pronouns, and to change into “affirming” clothes once at school and use the “affirming” restroom—putting them on a path toward sterilizing puberty blockers and surgeries—all without contacting or discussing these issues with the parents, crosses all kinds of lines. And, significantly, these policies threaten the otherwise healthy development of gender nonconforming gay kids.