Steve, I think you may be suggesting that Gender Dysphoria is the gold standard for trans status, and I think we should question that.
First, consider that before the WPATH gender-affirmative care standard and puberty blockers. research on children with Gender Dysphoria showed that about 80% had that dysphoria resolve during puberty. (Mo…
Steve, I think you may be suggesting that Gender Dysphoria is the gold standard for trans status, and I think we should question that.
First, consider that before the WPATH gender-affirmative care standard and puberty blockers. research on children with Gender Dysphoria showed that about 80% had that dysphoria resolve during puberty. (Most became gay or lesbian). That is, only about 1/5 of GD cases were actually trans. Being trans is not the only cause of GD.
And consider that almost all of the cases of ROGD (Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, typically propagated by social contagion amongst teenagers - mainly girls - without previous GD) come to believe that they suddenly have GD - and who can say they do not? Does that 4000% increase in diagnosed GD reflect a 4000% increase in actual trans, or in "I believe I have GD and nobody can prove differently"?
Or consider the male prisoners who suddenly discover that they have GD in order to be transferred to a women's prison? Who's to say they didn't suddenly get GD (and perhaps spontaneously heal from it upon release)? GD is entirely subjective after all.
What I'm saying is that while I believe that there really is a subjective psychological condition of Gender Dysphoria, it's EXTREMELY imprecisely bounded (remember that sudden 4000% increase? Does that suggest that only 2.5% of the reported GD in that group is actually based on trans status?), and this can happen because there is zero objective evidence of it and many social or pragmatic reasons to delude oneself or others about it.
So GD is not the same as being trans, any more than having a fever is the same as having influenza. (And fevers can be objectively measured!)
If brain scans can fairly reliably determine 4 phenotypes (with FAR less than a 40 false positives to each true positive), that would likely be vastly more precise than relying on asserted subjective GD as the gold standard benchmark.
And yes, you are right that we agree that we don't need this to treat people humanely. Everybody should be treated humanely, trans or cis, GD or no GD.
This is more about society trying to (1) better understand the underlying nature of the problem (eg: 4 distinct phenotypes rather than only two with some people having perfect reversals, like a 100% female brain in a male body) as a guide to needed balances and tradeoffs, and (2) having some relatively objective validation. In other words, it could provide some tools for rationally making the tricky decisions needed to wisely make those humane policies.
You might have noticed the degree of irrationality involved today, and thus the need for any rational and humane assistance in threading a path. Not ironclad doctrine, just meaningful additional guidance from science, rather than relying exclusively on ideologically reshaped subjective reports.
"I think you may be suggesting that Gender Dysphoria is the gold standard for trans status, and I think we should question that"
Yeah, maybe I wasn't perfectly clear here. I do think gender dysphoria (GD) is the gold standard, but a) I think a lot of people calling themselves trans today don't actually have GD, b) GD status can change, and c) I'm talking about an official, not self diagnosis.
I'm not arguing that somebody with GD should automatically be given hormones and surgery. Especially when they're children. I think surgery and hormone treatments should be a last resort when all other efforts to help the person deal with their distress have failed.
Again, the significant and irreversible nature of gender affirming surgery means that some percentage of people will always have regrets. The aim is simply to make that number as small as reasonably possible.
Yes, most dysphoric children will outgrow their feelings and become (usually homosexual) children. I hate the fact that this has become one of the many taboos in trans discourse. That's why I think it's important to normalise gender "non-conformity".
I think, for a lot of these kids, if they were able to explore their relationship to their gender without learning to think they were in the "wrong body," they'd experience much less distress and would be much more comfortable waiting for adulthood to see if they were in that 80%.
ROGD should absolutely be assumed to be temporary (again, in most cases this would fail a clinical diagnosis of gender dysphoria), and medical interventions should at least wait until the child is an adult. Given that most cases of ROGD manifest well into puberty, I don't think this would be a big issue in most cases with proper care and counselling.
I think adults really underestimate how impressionable children are, and how much of their sense of identity they absorb from their parents and friends. We really need to give them the chance to develop into adults before making these life-changing choices. That the ~80% desistance rate isn't enough to convince people of this shows how lost we are.
But, since gender affirmative treatment has become required in much of the US, and counseling professionals can lose their licenses if they are perceived to have questioned whether a given client is actually trans or might have other conditions, and puberty blockers are fairly widely used, today it's close to illegal and certainly infeasible to reproduce any assessment of how often GD would desist on its own. So those advocating for this cause may be hoping that the pre-WPATH data on resolved GD will age out and be forgotten.
Some of the selling points of puberty blockers are: (1) it just delays puberty, but kids can always change their mind later, and (2) they do no irreversible harm in the meanwhile. However, nearly 100% of those taking puberty blockers continue on that path (while we have reason to believe that only perhaps 20% would absent chemical intervention). Apparently going through normal puberty (including developing sexual attractions) is part of what helps resolve the GD for many of the homosexual kids. Sigh.
"and counseling professionals can lose their licenses if they are perceived to have questioned whether a given client is actually trans or might have other conditions,"
Yep, this is the first layer of insanity that needs to be rolled back. I think the de-trans community are gong to be invaluable here, because they're the ones pushing for it the hardest and are the living proof that blindly affirming children isn't the answer.
Not only do (I think it actually *is*) 100% of children on puberty blockers go on to transition, but the claim that they're reversible or do no harm is a lie. Not only that, but as I think I mentioned earlier, putting prepubescent children on puberty blockers can actually make their gender reassignment *more* difficult.
Steve, I think you may be suggesting that Gender Dysphoria is the gold standard for trans status, and I think we should question that.
First, consider that before the WPATH gender-affirmative care standard and puberty blockers. research on children with Gender Dysphoria showed that about 80% had that dysphoria resolve during puberty. (Most became gay or lesbian). That is, only about 1/5 of GD cases were actually trans. Being trans is not the only cause of GD.
And consider that almost all of the cases of ROGD (Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, typically propagated by social contagion amongst teenagers - mainly girls - without previous GD) come to believe that they suddenly have GD - and who can say they do not? Does that 4000% increase in diagnosed GD reflect a 4000% increase in actual trans, or in "I believe I have GD and nobody can prove differently"?
Or consider the male prisoners who suddenly discover that they have GD in order to be transferred to a women's prison? Who's to say they didn't suddenly get GD (and perhaps spontaneously heal from it upon release)? GD is entirely subjective after all.
What I'm saying is that while I believe that there really is a subjective psychological condition of Gender Dysphoria, it's EXTREMELY imprecisely bounded (remember that sudden 4000% increase? Does that suggest that only 2.5% of the reported GD in that group is actually based on trans status?), and this can happen because there is zero objective evidence of it and many social or pragmatic reasons to delude oneself or others about it.
So GD is not the same as being trans, any more than having a fever is the same as having influenza. (And fevers can be objectively measured!)
If brain scans can fairly reliably determine 4 phenotypes (with FAR less than a 40 false positives to each true positive), that would likely be vastly more precise than relying on asserted subjective GD as the gold standard benchmark.
And yes, you are right that we agree that we don't need this to treat people humanely. Everybody should be treated humanely, trans or cis, GD or no GD.
This is more about society trying to (1) better understand the underlying nature of the problem (eg: 4 distinct phenotypes rather than only two with some people having perfect reversals, like a 100% female brain in a male body) as a guide to needed balances and tradeoffs, and (2) having some relatively objective validation. In other words, it could provide some tools for rationally making the tricky decisions needed to wisely make those humane policies.
You might have noticed the degree of irrationality involved today, and thus the need for any rational and humane assistance in threading a path. Not ironclad doctrine, just meaningful additional guidance from science, rather than relying exclusively on ideologically reshaped subjective reports.
"I think you may be suggesting that Gender Dysphoria is the gold standard for trans status, and I think we should question that"
Yeah, maybe I wasn't perfectly clear here. I do think gender dysphoria (GD) is the gold standard, but a) I think a lot of people calling themselves trans today don't actually have GD, b) GD status can change, and c) I'm talking about an official, not self diagnosis.
I'm not arguing that somebody with GD should automatically be given hormones and surgery. Especially when they're children. I think surgery and hormone treatments should be a last resort when all other efforts to help the person deal with their distress have failed.
Again, the significant and irreversible nature of gender affirming surgery means that some percentage of people will always have regrets. The aim is simply to make that number as small as reasonably possible.
Yes, most dysphoric children will outgrow their feelings and become (usually homosexual) children. I hate the fact that this has become one of the many taboos in trans discourse. That's why I think it's important to normalise gender "non-conformity".
I think, for a lot of these kids, if they were able to explore their relationship to their gender without learning to think they were in the "wrong body," they'd experience much less distress and would be much more comfortable waiting for adulthood to see if they were in that 80%.
ROGD should absolutely be assumed to be temporary (again, in most cases this would fail a clinical diagnosis of gender dysphoria), and medical interventions should at least wait until the child is an adult. Given that most cases of ROGD manifest well into puberty, I don't think this would be a big issue in most cases with proper care and counselling.
I think adults really underestimate how impressionable children are, and how much of their sense of identity they absorb from their parents and friends. We really need to give them the chance to develop into adults before making these life-changing choices. That the ~80% desistance rate isn't enough to convince people of this shows how lost we are.
Yep.
But, since gender affirmative treatment has become required in much of the US, and counseling professionals can lose their licenses if they are perceived to have questioned whether a given client is actually trans or might have other conditions, and puberty blockers are fairly widely used, today it's close to illegal and certainly infeasible to reproduce any assessment of how often GD would desist on its own. So those advocating for this cause may be hoping that the pre-WPATH data on resolved GD will age out and be forgotten.
Some of the selling points of puberty blockers are: (1) it just delays puberty, but kids can always change their mind later, and (2) they do no irreversible harm in the meanwhile. However, nearly 100% of those taking puberty blockers continue on that path (while we have reason to believe that only perhaps 20% would absent chemical intervention). Apparently going through normal puberty (including developing sexual attractions) is part of what helps resolve the GD for many of the homosexual kids. Sigh.
"and counseling professionals can lose their licenses if they are perceived to have questioned whether a given client is actually trans or might have other conditions,"
Yep, this is the first layer of insanity that needs to be rolled back. I think the de-trans community are gong to be invaluable here, because they're the ones pushing for it the hardest and are the living proof that blindly affirming children isn't the answer.
Not only do (I think it actually *is*) 100% of children on puberty blockers go on to transition, but the claim that they're reversible or do no harm is a lie. Not only that, but as I think I mentioned earlier, putting prepubescent children on puberty blockers can actually make their gender reassignment *more* difficult.