Pushing Back against Transgender Activists

The situation is obviously horrifying. Activists have effectively stifled debate about transgenderism. Thus, British culture has become a factory for producing transgender children. In that it has much in common with today's American.

In 2009, the Daily Mail reports, fewer than 100 children were referred for gender identity issues in Britain. Last year, the number was 2,590. A significant majority were females wanting to become male. Around a third of the children were autistic.

We note in passing that Brown researcher Lisa Littman offered a similar observation, only to be excoriated by her university and her colleagues.

According to the Daily Mail, the situation in Britain has become a national scandal:

The rocketing number of children seeking to change sex has become a national scandal, a powerful coalition of whistleblowers, academics and medical experts warns today.

In a dramatic intervention marking a watershed in the transgender debate, they have come together to express fears about the dire consequences faced by thousands of youngsters changing gender – including infertility and long-term health problems.

A whistleblower from Britain's only NHS gender clinic for children said: 'I'm really angry at what's happening to these children. What I've witnessed feels incredibly distressing and disturbing and like something that should be stopped.'

The experts' concerns are laid bare in a forthcoming book of essays entitled Inventing Transgender Children And Young People. It challenges what it calls the 'dangerous' transgender ideology promoted in schools, universities, the NHS and other public institutions.

Note the first word of the title of the book of essays: Inventing. I think that manufacturing would serve as well, but clearly the word suggests that these children are being influenced, even brainwashed, into believing that they were born in the wrong body… thus that God made a mistake.

Heather Brunskell-Evans, a former research fellow at King's College London, who co-edited the book, said that 30 years ago the thought of a child being born in the wrong body would have made no sense to the public.

She added: 'Now the idea, which was invented by specialists in gender medicine and transgender activists, has become universally accepted.

'But we are collectively arguing that this unquestioning acceptance poses a serious threat to children's well-being and safety. We hope through this book to bring the world's attention to the public scandal of transgendering children.'

The Daily Mail summarizes the book’s conclusions:

• The book warns:
• Doctors are failing to tell young people they are 'sacrificing' their chance to have children by taking powerful sex-change drugs;
• Psychologists are scared to question transgender ideology;
• Clinicians who resist diagnosing children as transgender face accusations of transphobia;
• Britain's only NHS child gender service is failing to acknowledge other reasons for youngsters wanting to change sex, such as autism;
• Teenagers who have 'normal feelings' of discomfort with their bodies are being classified as transgender.

Psychologists have noticed a recent trend, also studied by Littman, of rapid onset gender dysphoria:

More recently there has been a trend of mainly teenage girls declaring, seemingly out of the blue, that they want to change sex, a phenomenon dubbed rapid onset gender dysphoria.

Like Littman, other researchers are persuaded that the cause is socio-cultural:

Dr Bell, a former governor of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, said: 'The rapid escalation of referrals, the large increase in natal [born] females seeking to change gender and the sudden appearance of so-called rapid onset gender dysphoria, cannot be explained by individual factors alone. Nor is it likely to be caused by a large number of individuals feeling free to 'come out' in this new liberal atmosphere.'

And then there is the problem of the side effects of puberty blocking drugs:

The psychiatrist, who last year produced a critical internal report on GIDS which branded the service 'not fit for purpose', further warned: 'Many services have championed the use of medical and surgical intervention with nowhere near sufficient attention to the serious, irreversible damage this can cause and with very disturbingly superficial attitudes to the issue of consent in young children.'

This newspaper has previously reported that the service has prescribed controversial puberty- blocking drugs to hundreds of children in England, many of whom have been under 14.

It ought to be obvious that the drugs cannot transform an individual’s sex. Since sex is inscribed in every single chromosome in the human body, drugs have no effect on this determinant of gender.

What do the hormone injections do?

The powerful monthly hormone injections stop the development of sex organs, breasts and body hair.

In order to persuade young people to take the drugs, physicians claim that the effects are reversible. They are not:

Young people are advised by GIDS that the treatment is reversible and that if they stop having it, their adult reproductive functions will continue to develop as normal.

But the whistleblowing staff at the service say the drugs – which can permanently weaken bones and stunt growth – put children on an inexorable path to further treatment which is irreversible.

Research has shown the vast majority of those who take puberty blockers go on to start 'cross-sex hormone therapy' at 16, which involves doses of oestrogen for males and testosterone for females. This strong hormone medication begins the physical process of changing individuals from one sex to another and is likely to lead to a loss in fertility.

The story continues:

Yet the concerned clinicians claim the fact puberty blockers are putting youngsters on a pathway to infertility is 'completely swept under the carpet' at the Tavistock. 

Instead, they say children and teens are being given false hope that they will be able to conceive in the future by being offered the chance by the clinic to freeze their sperm or eggs. In actual fact, it is unlikely they will ever have babies – with boys facing the minefield of finding a surrogate mother to have a baby using their sperm and the relatively low chances of frozen eggs producing a child, the clinicians say.

For today, and to respect your sensibility, we will refrain from repeating posts about what really happens to people who have been put on opposite sex hormones and who have undergone reassignment surgery.

Surely, it is good that the medical profession in Great Britain is fighting back.