Lead article in this week's New York Times Magazine is a longform piece (the audio version takes more than an hour and a quarter) on the rise in the number of young people identifying as TG or non-binary, and the disagreement among clinicians as to when blockers and hormones are appropriate - all in an environment -- much as evolution used to be -- where the controversy over such details is used by reactionaries to "prove" that the whole concept is wrong.
The header: The Battle Over Gender Therapy: More teenagers than ever are seeking transitions, but the medical community that treats them is deeply divided about why — and what to do to help them.
Here's the URL, though I assume it's behind their paywall:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/magazine/gender-therapy.h...
The first two paragraphs:
Scott Leibowitz is a pioneer in the field of transgender health care. He has directed or worked at three gender clinics on the East Coast and the Midwest, where he provides gender-affirming care, the approach the medical community has largely adopted for embracing children and teenagers who come out as transgender. He also helps shape policy on L.G.B.T. issues for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. As a child and adolescent psychiatrist who is gay, he found it felt natural to work under the L.G.B.T. “umbrella,” as he put it, aware of the overlap as well as the differences between gay and trans identity.
It was for all these reasons that Leibowitz was selected, in 2017, to be a leader of a working group of seven clinicians and researchers drafting a chapter on adolescents for a new version of guidelines called the Standards of Care to be issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). The guidelines are meant to set a gold standard for the field of transgender health care, and this would be the first update since 2012. What Leibowitz and his co-authors didn’t foresee, when they began, was that their work would be engulfed by two intersecting forces: a significant rise in the number of teenagers openly identifying as transgender and seeking gender care, and a right-wing backlash in the United States against allowing them to medically transition, including state-by-state efforts to ban it.
Lots of history here, mostly from the Netherlands and the U.S., much of which I didn't know -- not that I'm well-versed in the subject.
It seems that there's a lot of variance, in advance of the eighth edition of the Standards coming out this summer, in opinions as to at what age blockers and hormones can or should be offered, and how much evaluation is needed beforehand. Now that there are many young people who are discovering their gender identity as teens, as opposed to the I've-known-all-my-life group that used to predominate, questions are arising as to what extent social pressure is involved, and how many of that group who undergo treatment will regret it in the future.
Eric
Lighten up!
Having been through the whole process to Post op MTF woman, my opinion is that the Psychological Community needs to butt out. Trans folk having second thoughts need to take responsibility for their actions. Sure detransition if you want to but your starting point no longer exists. No whining, if you have regrets, you did it to yourself.
I HAVE regrets but just have to swallow the hard reality that I can not undo much. I now have Estrogen caused breasts that are about normal for women, and you just don't undo MTF bottom surgery. Grow up!
Gwen
Read it a couple days ago
One of the readers on this channel, bless her heart, keeps me up to date on a lot of trans issues floating around in the news and on the web. I have a very beautiful psychologist who shares a lot of trans issues. She has studied and counseled those like me and is the best I have met in this long screwed up life God gifted me. I'm the one living the transgendered story no matter which view one wishes to look at. She's trying to understand and help those like me as she is looking at it from the outside. I try and help those like me looking at it from the inside.
The biggest problem is almost everyone wants to design a category defining transgender. They want nice rules and definitions for everyone who is trans. We are human and the variety and range of what is and what isn't trans can't be defined or absolute. We aren't a disease to be treated. Trans spans the whole spectrum from those who have it but it doesn't bother them that much. Cross dressers are trans but don't want to go any further. Then we ramp up to those who can't live with the boy-girl sharing the same mind, the same body. Their solution is suicide. There are thousands of "grades" in between the whole spectrum of trans.
By age five I would have traded the rest of my life back to God if She had let me live one year as a areal girl. Silly girl, God already owned my whole life no matter what I did. Some of the girls have told me they knew by the time they were four. We read stories all the time where some never realize until they are fifty or sixty years old. Most figure it out, some never do as their whole life is unsettled.
Modern science and medicine sets up tests and guidelines and if one passes they are trans. It's a farce the same as politicians passing laws there are only male and female and no one shall pass the barrier in between the two. There are the bible thumpers who quote scripture claiming trans is an abomination against God. They aren't quoting God, they are spouting their own bigotry. I don't quote God but I made that trip once already and you can quote me. "Religious bigots are full of shit when they say God doesn't love transgender."
The bottom line is almost everyone has an idea of what transgender is. Then to make matters worse they want to label it, define it, make laws against it, or try and treat it. And almost to a man and woman, they are all wrong. Leave trans people alone. Support them if they want, treat them if they know in their heart and soul they were issued the wrong body on God's Assembly Line. Let them find their own comfort zone and how much they need to change, if any.
Transgender is not a life I would wish on anyone. For whatever reason, God gave some of us a double dose of Boy-Girl. I know when and why it happens and why there are different degrees of trans. I also know there is no cure. One is born trans, lives their life trans, and dies trans. The best that can be hoped for in this day and age is for those who find hormones is enough. Others find they need the whole surgery alteration with the hormones. All of them need love, understanding, and support so they don't end up as part of the highest deadliest statistic among all classes of people.
I wish politicians, do gooders, religious fanatics would butt out. No one can be made trans if they aren't already and I see a whole bunch of screwed up people growing up after they were pushed into believing something they weren't. I repeat, it's not a disease, we are born with it.
The girl and the boy were born at the same time. They grew up together, the boy protecting her most of their lives keeping her out of harms way. Eventually she grew strong enough to live her own life. She would take care of the boy and protect him the same way he had protected her as they both finished out their years together.
I tried out the boy side. I like the girl side a whole lot better. She will carry me to the end of this life cycle. I only exist in people's memories and the dust bins of history. Barbie has everything now.
Hugs People
Barbie Jean Lee
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
A Canticle For Leibowitz
I just couldn't resist!
He's given himself and his fellow clinicians a job that will probably only bring them grief but is IMHO well worth doing. You'll never please everybody and especially those who don't want to listen from the start. Yes, we're all at different points on the spectrum but any help is better than none.
Trust me, I was alone in the 1950s, with nobody to turn to. How I could have done with some of the channels available today. So go for it Scott, even if nobody gives you any encouragement. One day you may get that canticle.