Main Edition
US
FR
May 28, 2024 - 7:30pm
New research in the International Urogynecology Journal raises serious concerns about testosterone use among trans-identified female patients. Researchers found that 94% of the patients they studied had developed pelvic floor dysfunction since starting testosterone. What’s more, 87% suffered from issues with bladder control; 53% reported sexual dysfunction, such as pain during intercourse; and 74% reported experiencing issues with bowel movements, such as constipation or faecal incontinence.
In an interview with the Telegraph, physiotherapist Elaine Miller warned that young adult females taking testosterone appear to be on “exactly the same trajectory” as women undergoing menopause — except that they’re encountering these issues 20 or 30 years ahead of schedule. Miller spoke about the toll complications like this can take on a person’s life: “Wetting yourself is something that just is not socially acceptable, and it stops people from exercising, it stops them from having intimate relationships, it stops them from travelling, it has work impacts.”
There’s a serious disconnect between emerging evidence of transition’s risks and harms, and the ways young people view these interventions. In the online spaces that I study, young people talk about their bodies using casual, often dismissive language, as though they were embarking on a do-it-yourself home-remodelling project. They talk about how they prefer their bodies to run on “T” (testosterone), not “E” (oestrogen). They deride puberty as “oestrogen poisoning” or “testosterone poisoning”. They are also startlingly alienated from their bodies’ natural functions, always seeking fresh euphemisms to hide uncomfortable realities, such as the young woman who wrote that she could only cope with the “dysphoria” her period caused by “seeing it in a[n] impersonal and logically [sic], usually thinking ‘The cycle is occurring to this vessel.’”
Young people and gender clinicians alike increasingly speak of detransition as no big deal — just another stop along an edifying journey of self-discovery. Jack Turban and Johanna Olson-Kennedy, two of the leading gender clinicians in the US, refer to “dynamic desires for gender-affirming medical interventions”. Others prefer the term “retransition”, which suggests a kind of equivalence between the initial decision to intervene on a patient’s healthy body and any subsequent interventions on an altered body. Olson-Kennedy has waved away concerns about potential surgical regret among her young female patients: “If you want breasts at a later point in your life, you can go and get them.”
But transition — and detransition — is nothing like customising an avatar or tearing out a kitchen. What hormonal and surgical interventions can offer to patients struggling with gender dysphoria is severely limited. When these interventions “succeed”, they imperfectly imitate physical features and functions that medical technology cannot, in fact, replicate. When these interventions go wrong, the complications can be life-altering, even fatal. Meanwhile, every intervention takes an unpredictable toll on the body. Over the coming decades, as this mass medical experiment plays out, I worry that we will see growing numbers of young people suffering from the kinds of diseases and disabilities that typically emerge only in old age.
To make matters worse, researchers also expressed concern that patients may avoid seeking help for transition complications, citing fear of encountering discrimination in healthcare settings, as well as discomfort and distress dealing with body parts and functions. Patients may also fear losing access to interventions they have come to believe are not just identity-affirming but life-saving. Discussions in online forums frequently turn to complications patients are reluctant to bring to their doctors’ attention, lest they lose access to hormones.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeWho would have guessed…
For somebody who is cagey about any kind of medication – they all have side effects – this gung ho attitude to hormones seems remarkable. If there weren’t serious side effects I would be very surprised.
“For somebody who is cagey about any kind of medication – they all have side effects – this gung ho attitude to hormones seems remarkable. If there weren’t serious side effects I would be very surprised.” <– I know you are actually a committed pro-child abuse advocate.
Your patent dishonesty there is clear. There is no more a “gung ho” attitude about cross sex HRT than there is for chemotherapy, neither can you point out any excuse for your claim there is. You are making it up. It is a wonderful thing it exists for those who need it, no more, no less.
Dying is a serious side effect of living. Why don’t you complain about that too?
There are no side effects to HRT more than there are for having naturally produced hormones in you body in the first place. There is a reason why the term “bioidentical” is in use for modern HRT.
“If you want breasts at a later point in your life, you can go and get them.” Just don’t expect them to function like the originals. Body parts are not like hair that grows back after being cut off. Plastic surgery replacements are non functioning facsimiles.
There seems to be an emphasis only on appearance, as if that’s all that matters. It does leave me wondering if this is simply part of trans culture, or if it speaks to a more general cultural shift in our societies.
I agree. Is it a possible consequence of an increasingly online, edited world?
Definitely! This generation has taken superficiality to another level by treating health and life as social media spectacles that are staged for others rather than cherished and experienced as something that is all too fleeting!
It is the gender critical who are superficial, child abusing imbeciles.
Your sort are the ones making the spectacle.
Anyone who’s had to sit through the narcissistic daily TikTok output of a trans influencer, knows that at a level both philosophical and visceral, there’s something gone very much off the tracks.
Anyone familiar with TikTok and reality known Tik Tok has nothing to do with reality — it is immaterial.
it is no grounds whatsoever for law or policy. It is fake.
I have spoken, Thlamydia.
That is the end of the matter.
You are a person with no relevant facts. That remains true. Your opinion is meaningless — Tik Tok is irrelevant.
No, it is a matter of functionality. The presumption is that a man should want to have breasts of they were born with a female sex — the presumption is always that no one is really transgender. In claiming it is about appearances, you are claiming a man should be happy to have breasts — that that is how some should be glad to function.
That’s all it is, is whinging by the gender critical that transgender people by existing and successfully seeking happiness invalidate the worldview of those fragile gender critical bigots.
There is no more or other or better to it.
Being a man or a woman is dependent on your physical body. There are no ‘male’ or ‘female’ souls floating around in the wrong body.
“Being a man or a woman is dependent on your physical body.” <– And the determinate part of the body is the gender between the ears.
“There are no ‘male’ or ‘female’ souls floating around in the wrong body.” <– So what? Stop lying and stop pretending that is what this is about.
Talia, briefly, could you clarify your own position for us.
Do you think that a trans person is someone who really is the opposite gender to their sex? I’d call this the female brain in a male body hypothesis (or vv).
Or do you believe that there is something different about them/their brain such that they identify with the opposite gender to their sex. And do so in a way which is a permanent part of who they are. I’d call this the gender identity hypothesis.
Or do you think the two inevitably go together?
The terminology in this area is a bit fraught, but I hope you get what I mean. I’m genuinely curious.
I think Talia is going to struggle with this. She thinks bio-identical hormones don’t have side effects too.
I suspect Talia struggles with a great deal starting with a failure to understand basic biology.
I do understand the basic biology — you have not even the slightest awareness of it.
The first section here are all about the basic biology of it — none of which you even dare acknowledge.
https://taliaperkinssspace.quora.com/People-are-born-transgender-they-are-not-mentally-ill-it-is-no-paraphilia-it-is-a-physical-birth-defect-no-more-a-men
They have no side effects other than what the same molecules do when made by the body.
I know you will cite nothing other.
“I’m genuinely curious.” <– No, you are not. If you were, you would have taken seriously my prior statements which are perfectly fact based and clear.
“Being a man or a woman is dependent on your physical body.” <– Yes, exactly, and one’s anatomical gender is the determinant.
“There are no ‘male’ or ‘female’ souls floating around in the wrong body.” <– So what?
Clearly Johanna Olson-Kennedy deserves to spend many years behind bars.
The guillotine is faster, more economical and more instructive.
I’m not kidding at all.
I am not disagreeing. These people are pure evil. I don’t believe in hell and the devil, but here we have, as has always been the case, evil in human form.
No, you are pure evil.
You want to force boys to have breasts and periods and you want to force girls to have beards and deep voices.
Chop the chopper.
So what? That is not your call to make.
Any parent who agrees to this is either a fool or a criminal.
This is just another scam, another TikTok challenge gone too far.
Devastating yet obvious outcomes.
Also, need to address this: “In an interview with the Telegraph, physiotherapist Elaine Miller warned that young adult females taking testosterone appear to be on “exactly the same trajectory” as women undergoing menopause — except that they’re encountering these issues 20 or 30 years ahead of schedule.”
As a 50 year old woman currently in menopause I am not experiencing any of these complications, although I realize some do. Therefore these outcomes are significantly worse than just an early menopause. Ninety some percent of women in menopause are not suffering from pelvic floor dysfunction and all the incontinence and sexual dysfunction that brings, even women like me who have had many children. This is far worse.
I agree. I went through the menopause 18 years ago and still have no such physical symptoms as mentioned in the article.
I feel so sorry for those youngsters.
“I feel so sorry for those youngsters.” <– There is no need for your condescending pity — they will tell you to your face this report is horseshit.
The ones reporting faecal incontinence would tell you about human shit.
“The ones reporting faecal incontinence” <– Do not exist in that report, no such thing was measured or claimed.
It is clear to me the UnHerd is only a herd, when they they downvote steadfastly what is the black and white truth.
Or there is a black sheep in every flock 🙂
And you’d be that sheep in any pasture, child abuser.
Let me check something 🙂
How do they know this report is horseshit? Are they all medically qualified and specialising in this field of medicine?
Or could it be they and you are just reacting to what you don’t want to hear?
Because I know what is real about it. I’ve only studied the field for over 40 years. I know the actual complication rates, and rates of good resolution.
I know the gender critical know nothing real and intend never to learn anything real about it.
If you are taking HRT you probably won’t until the doctor stops providing this past a certain age point.
Taking testosterone aggravates these proplems. .
As a post menopausal woman on HRT, including testosterone in very small doses, I can say your sweeping statement is just that: sweeping.
“Therefore these outcomes are significantly worse than just an early menopause.” <– No they are not — in fact, if you read the actual report, no data is shown which even could support that conclusion.
Figure this out.
The gender critical are always lying bigots.
I agree with you in part but believe you are mistaken about your percentages. Most women do suffer from pelvic floor prolapse and sneezy incontinence even those without having given birth. Those that don’t suffer are the lucky outliers.
If we are going to use language like this, I’d like some percentages. What percentage of the age cohort are actually doing this?
3,000 referrals to the Tavistock for 2019, I’d consider this flocking.
I don’t know the size of the relevant cohort, but if it’s about 6 million, that means 1 in 2000. That’s high, but it’s not “flocking”. We do have to be careful not to overstate this. I haven’t checked the accuracy of your own figure – I assume it’s correct.
It actually means only about 1 in 49 of people who will eventually seek medical transition are doing so as youth. There are about 67 million people in the UK, so, in a population that size there will be about 149,000 who have or will seek medical transition when the financial cost of it are spread throughout the population and not personally born at once in the time period of treatment.
No, not “flocking”.
Which proves you are an unaware idiot.
When you have already dismissed the facts of the matter, why are you pretending you would accept any further?
Not even sure what that means.
It is perfectly clear. You have dismissed measured reality as being not to your liking. Why are you bothering to ask after it?
“Too many will find out in the course of time.”
My grandmother was a wise woman who lived through the difficult years of the Depression followed by World War II and its aftermath, and she told me at a young age that everything in life has a price, and payment is due sooner or later. It’s a shame today’s young people do not seem to have wise parents and grandparents who can talk sense in them, and impart even the simplest life lessons.
I know the backlash will be coming, and with a vengeance, but where did we as a society go so terribly wrong? I came off age in the 1990s, and my daughter is a very sensible young woman, which shows that not all of us were caught up in this wave of reality-denying insanity.
everything in life has a price
Indeed it does -good and bad.There does appear to be a belief (or a delusion) across certain aspects of society (including the political class) that change can be wrought at no cost whatsoever.
These deluded narcissists are in for a rude awakening-and no doubt we will all be subjected to their wailing and bleating when reality hits home.
You are the deluded narrcisist presuing you should have a say in other’s lives. You are not fit to make that call for anyone else.
“There does appear to be a belief (or a delusion) across certain aspects of society (including the political class) that change can be wrought at no cost whatsoever.” <– It is your delusion that has anything to do with this.
Figure this out. There will never be any backlash, because of all those who transition, only 1 in about 10000 feel they have any need to file a lawsuit. There would need to be 1 in 100 doing so for so little as the acknowledged false positive rate to all be filing lawsuits.
This is because you are completely wrong about reality — you do not know or care what is real.
Keira Bell lost her lawsuit on appeal, because her lies became known to the court. Remember that. No one is responsible for her lies but her.
“which shows that not all of us were caught up in this wave of reality-denying insanity” <— You child abusing imbecile, only about 1 in 150 people are transgender in the first place.
It is a physical, medical issue, no more no less.
For the sake of your moral vanity — for your factless faith that no one can be transgender you are willing to force boys to have breasts and periods and you are willing to force girls to have beards and deep voices.
You are a monstrous, grotesque child abuser for the sake of the lies you love.
Oh, give it a rest, Mrs Merkin, do!
Lying child abuser, give it a rest yourself — or — find some facts which make you other than that.
You child abusers deserve no rest from having reality thrown in your teeth.
“How to win friends and influence people.”
I am not attempting to influence or make friends with any such bigots as the “gender critical”.
I am saying what is true, and what is true proves the gender critical are grotesque child abusers.
Instead of throwing out insults, which seems to be the standard line for trans activists to take when confronted by facts and rational discussion, why not think why it is that so many people have serious concerns about transgenderism. They aren’t filled with hate, they’re not child abusers, or are evil and like to see people suffer. They’re simply concerned for the health and well-being of vulnerable people including children who are caught up in the false hope of being something they’ll never be because it is impossible to change sex.
I suggest that you read the article above again, with care this time, and think about why you believe that the risks to the health and well-being of people described in that article are acceptable. Why someone should live with incontinence or be unable to enjoy sex because they’ve received ‘care’ which has left them physically damaged and, probably, psychologically damaged too. Why is this acceptable to you?
“Instead of throwing … acceptable to you?” <– You do nothing but lie and ignore reality. That is not acceptable to me, and it should not be. You have yet here to say so little as one true thing about it.
“They aren’t filled with hate” <– Yes they plainly are filled with hatred for transgender people.
“they’re not child abusers” <– Yes they are, because they are here to claim they have a right to force boys to have breasts and periods and to force girls to have beards and deep voices. Do you contend forcing such on someone is not child abuse ?!
” or are evil and like to see people suffer.” <– No, they very much want to see transgender people including children suffer, as they and you feel that is all transgender people are fit for. You prefer your mythical worldview be enforced by law and policy, over the harmless safety and happiness of transgender people.
“They’re simply concerned for the health and well-being of vulnerable people including children who are caught up in the false hope of being something they’ll never be because it is impossible to change sex.” <– A confabulatory claim you make rather than that you acknowledge reality. If they were concerned for the health and well being of children, they would observe the less than <1% regret rate at medical transition, the historical failure of every other treatment approach to the matter, and admit gender affirming care is the standard approach because it is not only as good as is likely to be done, but it is also excellent. They would admit that if the current procedures by which the sex of a person is changed are good enough for those seeking it, then that is only the business of those seeking it.
“I suggest that you read the article above again, with care this time, and think about why you believe that the risks to the health and well-being of people described in that article are acceptable.” <– I suggest you not pretend I am unfamiliar with your stupidity. That article says no new lies — and all it says and implies are lies. All of it. None of it resembles measured reality. It is only a factless partisan’s caricature of reality.
“Why someone should live with incontinence or be unable to enjoy sex because they’ve received ‘care’ which has left them physically damaged and, probably, psychologically damaged too. Why is this acceptable to you?” <– Because none of that is real. None of it.
The actual serious complication rate is well below 1%. Incontinence is not a material concern because of how rare it is. No current procedure impairs the functioning of the nerves involved. What you want to force on people is the psychological damage of mandating that some women have and must live with p3n1ses and some men have and must live with having vaginas, and they will not be allowed to try to change that.
There is no more to you than that. You want to lie about what choices people have so you can justify forcing your choices on them.
Talia does persist in trying to justify the unjustifiable.
I succeed in justifying the justifiable, you have no facts supporting you whatsoever.
Not very bright, is she?
I am bright enough to have facts on hand which refute you, while you have none with which to so little as credibly assert I am wrong.
Please share your facts then.
I already have, to you, and in this comment thread and other times and places. You have already ignored them for no better reason than that you dislike them.
Presently, you are deserving only of scorn for your love of abusing children.
You are very rude. Do you think you are going to convince anybody by telling them you already gave facts which you never provided? or by calling people who are just giving their views and opinions “imbecile”, “monster”, “child abuser”, etc., etc.,?
I feel sad for you. Life is so short to live with so much hate and anger within you. I wish you find peace
Your sex is completely dependent on your body: male or female. There are no ‘gendered’ souls being born into the ‘wrong’ body. Transgenderism is a deranged social contagion spread by weirdos on the internet that has somehow amassed huge financial backing. It’s just a low-grade science-fiction make-believe story on par with L. Ron Hubbard’s scammy Scientology cult. I feel sorry for the young kids bilked into this by so-called medical ‘experts’ and fanatics like you. I also feel sorry for you. Your entire life is built upon a tragic lie.
“Your sex is … a tragic lie.” <– You are the liar here. You pretend this is about “souls”, when it is only about the fact the body is measured to have variances which include the fact that some people are transgender.
This is only about biology and it’s sequelae.
https://taliaperkinssspace.quora.com/People-are-born-transgender-they-are-not-mentally-ill-it-is-no-paraphilia-it-is-a-physical-birth-defect-no-more-a-men
The first handsful of links there are only about biology.
You lie to claim it is about “souls” is, you hate reality and can not deal with it maturely.
For the sake of whom you hate and the lies you love, you are willing to force girls to have beards and deep voices and you are willing to force boys to have breasts and periods. You are a child abuser.
You can say nothing true to defend yourself from the accusation.
Please write in coherent English.
Yes, his/her comments look like the writings of a mentally deranged individual. One who can’t be reasoned with.
No, that is only another lie you tell yourself because you can deal with reality.
You can not be reasoned with, you do not care what is real.
You instead say to yourself and others, that what lies you love are real.
All you need do is find some facts to support your position. You are not so able.
And in fact all of that is perfectly coherent English. Perhaps you can only operate at a, “see Jane run”, level?
‘You are a monstrous, grotesque child abuser for the sake of the lies you love.’
And you are an extremely rude, aggressive person. You are not even coherent in putting your case. You certainly won’t win over any converts to your point of view with that sort of language. If all trans activists are like you, it’s hardly any wonder that the tide is beginning to turn against your cause.
I am not “rude”, I am honest, sane, and informed. My case is perfectly coherent in the only way which actually matters — it is consistent to observed physical facts.
You have no such case. All you bring to the table is your emotion born bigotry and desperate ignorance of measured reality.
I am not here writing “to” the gender critical, but “at” them.
The tide is not turning as you think, but to your greater shame at any success you have.
It is proven factually to be a true statement that you are a monstrous, grotesque child abuser for the sake of the lies you love — you want to force some boys to have breasts and periods and you want to force some girls to have beards and deep voices,
Until you have any actual facts which disprove that, you have only reality to resent.
As someone who has been on a medical leash (the other end being held by the Canadian Healthcare system, of all places) since the age of 10 for wholly legitimate reasons well beyond anyone’s control, my advice to any young person who thinks such medicalized bondage is a small price to pay for social acceptance and feeling ‘right’ with their otherwise-healthy bodies is this:
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON’T DO IT
So why don’t explain why you think a girl should be forced by law and policy to have a beard? Why should a boy be forced to have breasts and a period?
If that is the impression you drew from what I said, I mean… I don’t know how to respond to that. If you think someone saying don’t carve up your body like a Christmas turkey and subject yourself to untested, irreversible medical experiments based solely on vague intuitions and social pressures is tantamount to holding a gun to a child’s head and demanding they grow a beard, I mean, I don’t know how to try and even *begin* to bridge the divide between our worldviews.
My worldview is based on facts — yours is based on nothing but your own fears and ignorance.
“untested, irreversible medical experiments” <– Do not exist and are not involved. It is a lie to claim they are.
“based solely on vague intuitions and social pressures” <– And it is a lie to claim that is involved.
You have no excuse for any of your lies.
But I’m not lying. I’m operating off of what knowledge and facts I have available. I genuinely don’t want people to suffer needlessly. If medical transition was proven to be the most effective treatment of this disorder, if the complications or side effects were minimal or non-existent, if there were no better alternatives, and if all of this could be verified by multiple unbiased sources who were not personally invested in finding a specific outcome, for or against, I would be 100% on board with all it.
But that is not the case. There is little to no evidence that these treatments are effective over the longterm, the complications that come with it are severe, debilitating, and often worse than what it’s supposed to be treating, and anyone with even the most reasonable, good-faith questions are attacked and harassed by ‘experts’ who, far from being unbiased, are personally invested and committed to ensuring that these treatments continue and expand indefinitely, regardless of the consequences, either because they benefit financially, it’s seen as a boon to their socially constructivist political agenda, or as post-hoc justification for their own treatments on themselves or loved ones.
WPATH, GIDS, Mermaids, and other activist organizations are NOT trustworthy sources on this issues. If you really, genuinely want to put an end to these ‘lies’, as you called them, you would support unbiased, third-party reviews of the evidence. You would answer reasonable questions politely and with respect. You wouldn’t attack people and call them monstrous child abusers simply for not being in possession of the same set of facts as you. And you certainly would take the time to differentiate between people who are hesitant but ultimately don’t want people to suffer, those who’d need convincing of the facts but who would accept them if you could prove it, from the genuine hate-filled bigots who simply want to lash out at those different then them. In my experience the former *vastly* outnumber the latter, yet trans activists treat them as one and the same. Just like you’re doing right now.
If you are willing to do all of those things, then maybe we can solve this issue, together. If not, then you have no one to blame for your lack of support other than yourself.
“But I’m not lying. I’m operating off of what knowledge and facts I have available.” <– But right there you are lying, you are ignoring the available knowledge and facts because you don’t like them. I doubt you have even inquired as to what they are.
That is because everything — everything in detail — that you have claimed is true about it is in fact a lie.
“WPATH, GIDS, Mermaids, and other activist organizations are NOT trustworthy sources on this issues.” <– Yes, child abusing imbecile, they are. You have no evidence to the contrary either.
So is the research linked to here also trustworthy:
https://taliaperkinssspace.quora.com/People-are-born-transgender-they-are-not-mentally-ill-it-is-no-paraphilia-it-is-a-physical-birth-defect-no-more-a-men
The frauds and cranks hovering in and about the field are all on the gender critical side, people like McHugh, Zucker, Bailey.
You have already revealed your self to be a committed deliberately faceless partisan on the pro-child abuse side.
You fail the duty of asking yourself, if you were wrong, what would be true — and realizing what would be true if you were wrong is true. The reason it is floated here there are only 10 or so “detransitioner” lawsuits is because you are wrong. The reason borderline all scientific work disagrees with you is that you are wrong.
You are doing nothing to help your cause. Even if everything you say is completely true, no one will believe you. Your hateful belligerence, intolerant harassment, and refusal to believe and engage in even the most basic of good faith exchanges will sour any sympathy people have left. Truth does not require such needless antagonism.
No matter what you think, I am not a hateful person. But I think it’s abundantly clear at this point that *you* are. No matter our disagreements I don’t actually wish harm upon you or anyone. Can you say the same?
“No matter what you think, I am not a hateful person.” <– Yes you are. What could be more hateful than forcing a girl to have a beard and a deep voice, or forcing a boy to have breasts and a period?
“Even if everything you say is completely true, no one will believe you” <– Yes, they will. The same way the “whites only” signs came down. You are an imbecilic deliberately ignorant liar and child abuser, and the arc of the universe bends towards justice.
“Your hateful belligerence, intolerant harassment” <– To the extent what you claim is that is anything like it, it is well deserved by you at the fact you are trying to force girls to have beards and a deep voice, and forcing boys to have breasts and a period.
“refusal to believe and engage in even the most basic of good faith exchanges” <– It is not possible to have a good faith exchange with you, you don’t care about anything but your own moral vanity.
“Truth does not require such needless antagonism.” <– Of it is quite needful, after all, the facts do prove you are trying to force girls to have beards and a deep voice, and forcing boys to have breasts and a period — and you have no hope of finding any actual facts to the contrary. There are none in that piece above by Mondegreen.
“No matter our disagreements I don’t actually wish harm upon you or anyone.” <– A delusion on your part, since you are trying to force girls to have beards and a deep voice, and forcing boys to have breasts and a period — and that is nothing but harm.
“Can you say the same?” <– I say better there should be no harm to the innocent, but karma for the evil. And you are that, you are trying to force girls to have beards and a deep voice, and forcing boys to have breasts and a period.
And you have no honest argument to make to excuse you.
Oh, and one new to me proving you further wrong
https://sci-hub.se/10.1097/01.GOX.0000547077.23299.00
Have you tried not being a child abuser for the sake of the lies you love?
I am sorry that you are the way that you are.
Honest, forthright, informed — that is myself here — I regret you are the way you are, which is willing for your baseless moral vanity to try to force girls to have beards and a deep voice, and forcing boys to have breasts and a period.
All you need not to be contemptible is some facts excusing you, yet you are bereft of them. You want no honest argument, you already eschew making one.
You’re really fixated on this idea that I’m ‘forcing’ girls to grow beards and other nonsense. I’m not forcing anyone to do anything. I’m simply standing here, inert, sharing an opinion. But apparently *not* actively forcing procedures on children is… forcing procedures on children?
Simply saying you’re right and moral does not make you so. Everything you are screeching seems like 100% projection. But by all means, keep attacking me for my perceived moral inequities. You are only aiding the actual transphobes by showing any reasonable person watching not to go near you or your beliefs with a 10-foot barge pole.
“Simply saying you’re right and moral does not make you so.” <– But I have the facts which prove it. You have none at all.
“You’re really fixated on this idea that I’m ‘forcing’ girls to grow beards and other nonsense.” <– That is what being “gender critical” is, and that is what your onions are.
“I’m simply standing here, inert, sharing an opinion” <– No such thing is possible in political matters.
“But apparently *not* actively forcing procedures on children is…” <- Horseshit, which is all your opinions are. There is no such forcing of procedures on anyone.
“But by all … foot barge pole.” <– Horseshit from you again, because reasonable people look at facts, and you don’t have any.
And yet you haven’t in any of this rambling defined what a woman or a man is.
I don’t believe the “gender dysphoria” framing too much. It looks far more similar to other female body-image fads, like wasp waists and foot binding. The uber cool thing now is to be into social justice, get blue hair, be preoccupied with your gender and be non-binary, be offended, have pronouns, and bind your chest as a statement against patriarchy or whatever. It’s a package — as always there’s moral, status, competitive, aesthetic and fashion aspects to it — but as always, some take it too far. Here, “too far” is pissing yourself and unable to take a dump, or else shitting yourself, all in the name of being the coolest. It’s not “gender dysphoria” but something about the psyche of young women seen across history and culture.
It’s easy to rinse out the blue though
I suspect there is some of both. Before it became popular as an issue – and mainly affected men – I suspect it was about gender dysphoria. Now it’s not clear.
It is hard not to notice that women, and especially adolescent women, are prone both to crises of various kinds (eating disorders etc) and to faddism and social contagion. Social media only makes this worse, and a taboo on criticising women removes any social sanction on such behaviour.
Both sexes are involved in this and it was started by males so what were these “prone to”.
The answer to that is going to depend on whether you think that there really is something called gender dysphoria. I think it is pretty clear that there is. However, I don’t think we can rule out the idea that more recently social contagion has played a role. The number of females identifying as trans has increased more recently – after it became “a thing”.
I also think that in the past some people who were trans in a very broad sense found their own way of living with this. They didn’t all seek to transition. This would include masculine presenting lesbians, effeminate homosexuals, homosexuals drawn to cross dressing and perhaps heterosexuals who cross dressed.
Before you call out the lynch mob – it may be that these stategies are better ways of dealing with a trans element in one’s personality than fully transitioning. They don’t require surgery or hormones, and leave reproductive capability intact. But they may not work for all.
What are the males prone to? Autogynephilia
Which does not exist other than as a theory as failed as phlogiston.
One of the ways it failed was it’s inability to explain female to male transgender people, and early presenting male to female transgender people — Blanchard added “epicycles” to try to maintain his confabulation’s legitimacy, and he failed.
Autogynephelia is no longer entertained in the ICD11.
It became popular as an issue only when the Social Conservatives progressives thought they could make political hay with it. No more, no less.
Gender affirming care became the standard approach for youth well over 20 years ago. There has been no increase in “regret rate” since, in fact that has fallen from ~2% to <1% in that time.
“Now it’s not clear.” <– The facts are perfectly clear, and they universally condemn your pusillanimous, ostensible “bothsideism”. Reality really only has one side, and the only question is are we measuring it accurately. The measurements all go against the “gender critical” — that is why Cass had to ignore them to claim there was no good evidence.
“It is hard … on such behaviour.” <– If you were wrong about that, what would be measured dfferently? Where are measurements which support you?
Yes, the truth. But that truth can be complex. The same phenomena can have several different causes. There is not one single reason why houses fall down, or unemployment increases or why someone suffers from a personality disorder.
Also some phenomena which appear to be the same may turn out not to be, and vv.
“Yes, the truth. But that truth can be complex.” <– Not so complex any fact whatsoever which refutes a mere assertion should be slighted to favor the assertion.
Which is what you are doing.
Lots of boys doing it too. Is there something about their psyche across history and culture. After all it started with men.
Think Jan Morris and April Ashley were the first modern era trans gender people.(men to women).Unlike today’s cult they had genuine body dysphoria and did not consider themselves actual women.
No, the first people “in the modern era” would be for example Dr. Alan Hart and Dora Richter. What misconceptions Jan Morris or April Ashley may have had have no relevance — it has since been proven what makes a person a man or woman is not their sex (which really the existence of visibly intersex people should have already so informed) but how the gender between the ears physically, anatomically, biologically develops.
Every transgender person has gender dysphoria, which is a great enough variance between how their gender and sex develop that they can notice it.
Jan Morris and April Ashley are real women, ones born with the birth defect of having a male sex.
I’m not well read on this, but currently the research seems to show that there is a distinct trans brain structure. That is the structure leans towards the “desired” sex without being the same as it. So at the neurological level there seems to be something real going on.
If so, then it’s no surprise you find it across history and culture.
In our own culture, some female trans phenomena are disguised by the relative ease with which women can adopt male styles of dress. Things are more rigid for men. Also male cross dressers are called transvestites. Masculine presenting lesbians are not. And tomboys are accepted without comment. It’s not so much that men “started it” as that it is more visible where men are concerned.
As above: autogynephilia.
Which does not exist other than as a theory as failed as phlogiston.
“I don’t believe the “gender dysphoria” framing too much.” <– You don’t believe it at all.
That is why you are willing to abuse children for the sake of the lies you love.
You simply choose not to believe the known facts about human biology and it’s variances.
0
Are you a woman with a p*n*s? Do you have a “deadname”?
Nothing about me as an individual whatsoever matters — the facts I present which you can not refute do.
So, you are. And your name needs to be put in inverted commas, “Talia”.
You have nothing relevant to say whatsoever, you are only a deliberately bigoted imbecile.
Always the name calling. Part of your typical autogynephilic psychological profile I guess, along with the testosterone-pumped aggression and the mother-issues misogyny.
“Always the name calling. Part of your typical autogynephilic psychological profile I guess, along with the testosterone-pumped aggression and the mother-issues misogyny.” <– Always with the pseudo-psychological quackery as an excuse for your child abuse.
What happened to informed consent and first do no harm in the medical community. Why have these trans affirming doctors not been struck off?
Nothing happened to informed consent. In fact, there is nothing here to suggest anything is concealed from people seeking cross sex HRT — that is why you will be able to quote no such thing from it.
The thing that strikes home again and again as hard questions finally get asked in the right places is just how intellectually flippant the most influential trans advocates and medical ‘experts’ are revealing themselves to be. This is a scandal driven overwhelmingly by dilettantes, mediocrities, fair-weather parasites and weather-vaning populists, intellectual and political fourth-raters of all kinds. For the most part, the
gender-affirmation therapyChild Medical Experimentation apologists are turning out to be too pathetic to even get terribly angry with. For the most part, anyway.The whole thing is just bitterly tragic. Some of our most vulnerable, hurting and trusting young people…set busily destroying their own future health as a supposed act of their own optimistic and powerful ‘redeeming agency’. Including the killing of their own sexual and reproductive futures; the distortion of their own physical and hormonal evolution; the permanent gaslighting of their own psychological identity and physical agency; the perpetual pathologisation of their own bodily and mental health autonomy. And…all under the guidance, influence, leadership of…who, again? Who has driven all this, in our collective adult names?
The worst kind of non-adult adults our species can throw up, is who. The worst of us. The vaguely unhappy, the unsatisfied, the frustrated activist tyre-kickers, desperate in their activist impotence to contrive any old ‘new bad thing’ to ‘rebel against’; the cynical political and media wannabes, who want their little names up in big lights, any throwaway issue-vehicle to get it up there will do; the self-appointed ‘specialist’ brigades, staffed by medical gimcrackers and pseudo-medical rent-seekers who can’t get gigs in more established, properly peer-reviewed branches of Hippocratic clinical excellence and so have collaborated with Big Drugs to invent their own new faux-field of ‘medical research’.
Above all – or so I think at least – the seriously f**ked-up-but-vaguely-charismatic-with-it narcissists of modern Celebrity Culture. The emotionally and psychologically needy – and/but over-amplified – natural-born-nobodies of our modern era’s Somebody Land. It’s no coincidence to me that this gender cult insanity really took off with Keeping Up With The Kardashians, folding into I am Cait featuring Caitlyn Jenner (Bruce’s make-over coming complete with trendy self-styled spelling, cute huh?). This period, from about 2007 to the mid 20-teens, in which a hitherto closeted gay alpha-jock with an existing public persona found it more amenable (for whatever reason) to come out as trans and not simply gay (or even bi-sexual), to me represents ‘social contagion’ Ground Zero in the Cut-Off-Your-D*ck/T*ts-To-Become-the-Real-woMan-You-Always-Knew-You-Were cult. Jenner – despite lately seeming to recognise the folly of what s/he has helped spawn – is the gender-fluid holy grail: as a man, he was as ‘Real’ as we men get (Olympic gold athlete, Playgirl centrefold, Hollywood star, father of three); but as a woman, she is arguably even more ‘Real’! Billionaire business chick, hot sex bomb, alpha-mother to the whole teeny-pop-queer-hip world…quite literally, Woman of the Year.
Fame, fame, fame and money, celebrity and success, happiness and fame, fame and power, power and image, image and influence, influence and fame. Welcome to the Information Age, where it just doesn’t matter what you are in the flesh. Nor how much you have to fake it to make it: light your flesh flatteringly, edit it judiciously, hide it, tape it, tuck it, blusher, botox, bind it, Photoshop it, YouTube it, TikTok it, nip-tuck-cut it, cut it off…your flesh is as malleable as your digitalised-image. It matters not what you’ve got between your legs now, so long as it Looks Real On Camera-(TM). Still, film, TV, online…any old directable, reality-attenuating lens will do. That line from that Gender Expert-Idiot about ‘getting breasts if/when you need them later’…says it all. Our Celebrity Culture – the living death that is media(ted) fame, in turn our re-iteration of the pagan multi-god cults of pre-monotheistic metaphysics – is strip-harvesting and commodifying our kids’ individual identity-futures, and maybe metaphorically sterilising our collective species in narcissistic amber while we’re at it.
Certainly, in the case of our ‘trans kids‘ – a creepy and predatorial oxymoron if ever there was one – literally sterilising them. (What the f**k do we think we’re thinking…?!)
As this scandal unfolds, all these loser-incubators and junk-DNA-enablers of it – the generals who conceived the sterilisation camps, the good soldiers who staffed the clinical-chemical and clinical-surgical experimentation wings, the wilfully-ignorant townsfolk who looked anywhere but at the 24-7 smokestacks – are with wearying predictability simply melting into thin air. Running away from and disowning their own defining life’s work at high speed. (Witness Nicola Sturgeon barely even mentioning ‘gender’ in her rehabilitative public outings, these days. Just one example among legions.) Like all of history’s worst periods of State-planned sub-Human-barbarity-as-civic-virtue, this one, too, will turn out to have had no adult authors at all. None! And phew! That’s a redeeming relief for us grown-ups all, isn’t it! Lucky no-one among we adults wanted this to happen to our kids. Lucky no-one could see it happening to them. Lucky no-one let happen to them. Lucky no-one…made it happen to them.
Pity it just…happened to them, anyway.
Blind, wrathful and violent rage is something to keep at bay. But those of us with very personal skin in this ‘game – that of dearly loved ones who’ve been swept up in the madness of self-poisoning and self-mutilation in pursuit of normal-bodily acceptance – well, sometimes we do mentally (harmlessly) indulge our murderous little fantasies. Just to help us keep control over our anger and our grief. Watching, helplessly as we are forced to, these terrible, deliberative ‘accidents’ happened upon those we love (and to whom we embrace deep actual and/or in loco parentis adult obligations). In broad daylight, in physical real time…and excruciatingly-agonising, emotional slow motion. Knowing there’s not a f**king thing we can do to stop it before it’s too late. We’ll never act upon our darkest impulses, of course. We are civilised and responsible and loving adults, and we wish to keep living in a (mostly) civilised and responsible and loving world, wishing no ill to anyone in this debate: nope, not even to those we truly think are acting recklessly and/or ignorantly and/or destructively and/or in some cases maliciously and grubbily and even criminally, and in all cases not remotely in our loved ones’ ‘best interests’.
But…we should be forgiven for our – only occasional, but then, very barbaric – private thoughts regarding what should be done with those kinds of participants in this debate, some of whom feature in this latest excellently sceptical UnHerd article. The ones who despite the very welcome (if overdue) recent shift in public intellectual and political thinking on
gender affirmation therapyChild Medical Experimentation, are STILL poisoning and butchering our kids and calling it a ‘progressive act of inclusion, care and love’.Gender affirmation therapyChild Medical Experimentation, which at its worst – and that is exactly when a ‘civilisation’ needs to be at its most alertly and proactively interventionalist – is more accurately described as Child Medical Experimentation, and on our tribes’ most vulnerable kids, at that. We should keep relabelling it until the more accurate – the more real – label sticks, and this barbaric insanity is finally ended forever. Thanks for the ongoing focus on this issue (and the space), UnHerd.You are a liar, Robertson, because you neither know nor care what is measurably real.
You are the “intellectually flippant” one, you have nothing to say here which is factual.
You will be unable to defend anything you have claimed with facts. Your word salad will not avail you.
A certain gender critical child abuser here asked me the other day, “but Talia, what if you are wrong?
And the answer is if I were wrong there would be evidence I am wrong. There is none.
These are facts. About 1 in 150 people say they are transgender. About 1 in 3 of them seek medical transition. Of those approved for it by the WPATH standards of care, 97% percent transition for life happily, about 2% detransition permanently but without regret but say they can not make it work (but they wish it had worked for them), and <1% claim it was all a mistake. That <1% represents the flase positive rate.false
Of that <1%, apparently only about 1 in 100 feel they have any cause to file suit. Most lose — like Keira Bell, they lied and dissembled for the purpose of being treated for a condition they did not have. The only one who ran an experiment on Keira Bell was herself — and that is true for most “loud” detransitioners. They are liars who can not accept responsibility for their own deceit.
I pose the question to you — not that I think you are capable of honesty — if you were wrong, what then? What would that look like?
No allegedly ‘trans’ people about whom the current debates are taking place have yet ‘transitioned for life‘. Statistically, the sharp rise in allegedly ‘gender uncertain’ humans has occurred across no more than the last two decades at the absolute maximum. As for material gender transition…it’s really only the last 10 years (or perhaps 15) that’s seen the stats blow out radically on blockers, hormones and surgery.
That means that we are a long way from being able to say that those who opt that way have ‘transitioned for life’. Indeed, a (if not the) driving theme in Cass’s report is that we have been absurdly premature in heralding
GAT for the youngChild Medical Experimentation as a ‘successful’ or even ‘appropriate’ clinical approach. The oft-bandied-about figures – 97% ‘happy with transition’, 3% unhappy, less than 2% de-transition – are meaningless. It’s like heralding Thalidomide a great success, a mere two weeks after it started being prescribed to stave off morning sickness.Look, I don’t wish you any ill-will, Talia. But having read your comments for a while, the conclusion I am inclined to draw is that you’re a biological bloke who’s made the choice at some historical point to remove your (natural, healthy) genitals and medicalize your (natural, healthy) hormonal self for life – in the course of which destroying any chance of having kids or a proper orgasm again. And all in the cause of living your life ‘as a woman’, because you came to believe that this would make you psychologically, emotionally and bodily happier than you were being the man you were born as. If that conclusion is accurate, then I truly hope you are indeed thus happier, and I hope you are so, indeed, ‘for life’.
But your comments, which are almost invariably angry, aggressive, bullying and abusive…strongly suggest that you aren’t a happy person, at all. In which case – again, assuming my conclusion above is accurate – I tend to think that, like many of the trans activist lobby I have encountered, you argue your pro
gender affirmation therapyChild Medical Experimentation case as you do – angrily, aggressively, abusively…at times near-hysterically – mostly as an act of desperate self-delusion. You can’t afford to let yourself hear compelling, sensible, cautious, rational and responsible arguments against allowing the still-young and sexuality-formative to permanently destroy their sexual and reproductive futures, can you.You’ve cut your natural bits off already. You can’t re-attach them. So…even though it might not have made you any happier than you were as a man, the last thought you can allow yourself to entertain is that it might have been an unnecessary act of self-mutilation and self-poisoning that has failed dismally to make you any more at peace with your gender, sexuality or general identity as a person. If that’s the case…well, I’m very sorry for you. But if so…it’s a truly lousy reason to keep on arguing that others – especially the young and vulnerable – should be similarly allowed, encouraged and/or enabled, as you once were, to make the same premature, permanently life-changing choices you did.
All Cass is saying is that we all need to put the
GATMedical Experimentation brakes on, when it comes to kids and still-young adults. Lots of us have been pleading for this very modest recalibration by our medical experts and legislators for years. It’s not asking much at all.Best regards.
https://taliaperkinssspace.quora.com/People-are-born-transgender-they-are-not-mentally-ill-it-is-no-paraphilia-it-is-a-physical-birth-defect-no-more-a-men
Those are facts. Cass ignored them, but then, Cass has spoken from both sides of her mouth about it, hasn’t she?
https://americanmind.org/salvo/genital-mutilation-for-the-masses/
A factless idiot write there, who presumes he is too correct even to look at whether or not he is wrong.
Not really “hidden” risks are they. They’ve been there in plain sight all along. Everybody just too scared of not “being kind”.
In fact no consequence is concealed in any way, neither are any of these supposed consequences actually occurring above baseline in any data these researchers have made known.
The transhuman revolution today. The historical irony of tomorrow appearing today thanks to this transgender strain of Queer politics. But there is also state euthanasia in Canada and the Benelux countries to consider.
Yes, as they are now euthanizing the depressed. The Nazis would be proud.
“The transhuman revolution today.” <– Which not only has nothing to do with it, your claim is brainless twaddle you can not possibly defend logically.
The rest of what you said has less than nothing to do with it.
I am a 69 year old woman with all these problems, and I can tell you that there is no way these young women, deluded and fatally immature – better said, immature and fatally deluded – can or could be emotionally prepared to deal with these chronic issues in a practical, positive manner. And they do not and will not have the love and reassurance which attend normal life (children, grandchildren, the strength and stability of long-term love) to help them by distracting them from such issues and provide focus on joy, affirmation of sacrifice greatly rewarded, love which transcends all.
“I am a 69 year old woman with all these problems, and I can tell you that there is no way these young women, deluded and fatally immature – better said, immature and fatally deluded – can or could be emotionally prepared to deal with these chronic issues in a practical, positive manner.” <– You are a weakling and a confabulationist child abuser. They in fact have no such complaints. I know, I’ve talked to them at all stages of life.
“And they do not and will not have the love and reassurance which attend normal life (children, grandchildren, the strength and stability of long-term love) to help them by distracting them from such issues and provide focus on joy, affirmation of sacrifice greatly rewarded, love which transcends all.” <– Actually, they will have that — just not from the likes of you.
But you don’t count.
Typical autogynephilic misogyny.
Your reply is typical factless twaddle. You have nothing supporting your opinions but your own opinions — you have no facts behind them.
The fact was in what you wrote. Own it. You’re a misogynist. It’s clear as day.
“The fact was in what you wrote.” <– Then prove it. Quote it.
“It’s clear as day.” <- To you, but you are a pro-child abuse bigoted imbecile.
The long term risks are exclusively that medical transition may be regretted, and that risk is below 1% of those who transition. No “risk” outlined above exists for people who transition as youth — they never develop any of the anatomic adaptions to estrogen which are maladaptations when on testosterone.
Just like Cass told The Kite Trust, “In the data the Cass Review examined, the most common age that trans young people were being initially prescribed puberty suppressing hormones was 15. Dr. Cass’s view is that this is too late to have the intended benefits of supressing the effects of puberty and was caused by the previous NHS policy of requiring a trans young person to be on puberty suppressing hormones for a year before accessing gender affirming hormones. The Cass Review Report recommends that a different approach is needed, with puberty suppressing hormones and gender affirming hormones being available to young people at different ages and developmental stages alongside a wider range of gender affirming healthcare based on individual need. ”
“Flatal incontinence” <– They fart. Seriously, that is a supposedly awful symptom.
People do that.
In fact, there are no “symptoms” described above which are not common to either all of humanity — and the paper does not describe them as occurring above baseline, neither does it show data which even could show that.
FtM transgender people who have undergone a feminine puberty are told they will experience menopause. Nothing is concealed from them.
Mondegreen has managed to make the “gender critical” ridiculous as well as being a vile advocate for mandating that some children be abused
You “gender critical” are all child abusers.
Anybody else here wondering if ‘Talia’ is some kind of AI creation, maybe courtesy of our friends at Google? The rhetoric used, if expectedly tiresome, devoid of rational argument and baselessly accusatory, seems somewhat forced and stilted, even by transactivist standards. The mindless repetition of the bizarre ‘forcing boys and girls’ line seems especially suspect to me. What say you, fellow UnHerders?
Imbecile, it is bizarre you want to force the puberty of their birth sex onto transgender youth — but that is the worst thing this is really about, and is certainly the most important thing that this is about. I doubt you have the courage to face up to the evil you want to see inflicted, which is why you picked that out to whinge about.
I am no AI, you are naturally stupid, and apparently also evil.
The only person here presenting any relevant facts is myself. I’ve done so in every thread I’m in.
You don’t know or care what is real, and you won’t make any answers to even the basic questions which you can defend with facts or logic either one, to go by what you have already said.
Do you think gender exists physically in a person or is taught?
If you think it exists physically, do you think it is always identical to the sex of the person?
Sorry, I don’t engage in dialog with insane people. There’s no point, as they’re insane.
You are a cowardly child abuser who knows you have no hope of supporting your bigoted pro-child abuse position with any facts or logic.
That is why you cannot and do not try to engage on the level.
Thanks for making my point for me.
Thanks for admitting you have nothing for an excuse.
Umm, they could have had a chat with post menopausal women on HRT: we’re kinda experts on this stuff, and none of this is news.
None is news. Neither is any consequence of cross-sex HRT concealed from those seeking it.
They have no reason to ask you about anything.
Are we looking at Mengele levels of medical mispractice here? (Which was also sanctioned by the state.)
“Are we looking at Mengele levels of medical mispractice here?” <– No. That is what the gender critical are guilty of, in their pursuit of laws and policies which force boys to have breasts and periods and force girls to have beards and deep voices.
“What hormonal and surgical interventions can offer to patients struggling with gender dysphoria is severely limited.” <– It is exactly as described, in written detail and as discussed in detail. It doesn’t matter if that is not good enough for you.
You also can not make the case it should be anything you have any say in, Mondegreen
“For all the … course of time.” <– You and your ilk, Mondegreen, are the only ones trying to strip from transgender people any right to live their lives as they please.
“Too many will find out in the course of time.” <– Liar, you and I both know you have no excuse to claim more than 1 in 45,000 or so people will ever regret medical transition.
What on earth is going on in the comments here? I used to read unherd for the interesting articles and intelligent debate in the comments. Seems to be unhinged rather than unherd here.
It is infested with Social Conservatives and “gender critical” zealots who have disdain for facts and instead validate their beliefs solely by their own approval of them. This herd is only a herd of such. They stampede as their master’s propaganda directs.
But, of course, they’re all mature enough to have the vote at 16.
“The hidden long-term risks of youth gender transition”
And of course Mondegreen is a liar and vile child abuser, because nothing is hidden.