Will Stories Like This Become More Common?

[Lewkowski]

https://lacroicsz.substack.com/p/by-any-other-name?s=r

"My name is Helena, and as of this writing I’m a 23-year-old woman who, as a teenager, believed I was transgender. In the years since detransitioning (stopping testosterone treatment and no longer seeing myself as transgender), I’ve become interested in exploring why, in the last decade, nearly every English-speaking country has seen a meteoric rise in adolescents believing they are transgender and pursuing cosmetic medical and surgical interventions. Here, I’d like to go over how and why I came to see myself as transgender, the process of transitioning, and the events leading up to and following my detransition.

The short version of my detransition story for those who want the bare details is that when I was fifteen, I was introduced to gender ideology on Tumblr and began to call myself nonbinary. Over the next few years, I would continue to go deeper and deeper down the trans identity rabbit hole, and by the time I was eighteen, I saw myself as a “trans man”, otherwise known as “FtM”. Shortly after my eighteenth birthday, I made an appointment at a Planned Parenthood to begin a testosterone regimen. At my first appointment, I was prescribed testosterone, and I would remain on this regimen for a year and a half. It had an extremely negative effect on my mental health, and I finally admitted what a disaster it had been when I was 19, sometime around February or March 2018. When the disillusionment fully set in, I stopped the testosterone treatment and began the process of getting my life back on track. It has not been easy, and the whole experience seriously derailed my life in ways I could never have foreseen when I was that fifteen-year-old kid playing with pronouns on Tumblr.

But what leads a girl with no history of discomfort with stereotypical “girl” toys and clothes, or even the slightest desire to be a boy in childhood, to want to be a “man” through hormonal injections as she approached adulthood? In a vacuum, such a profound confusion leading to such drastic measures sounds like it should be rare and a sign of some sort of severe mental disturbance. Was I a fluke? Was I some kind of idiot who mistakenly believed I was trans because I’m crazy or just downright irresponsible?

The truth is that there has been an extreme rise in adolescents, especially girls, believing they are transgender. UK NHS referral data shows a 4000% increase in pediatric gender service referrals (not a typo). So-called “gender dysphoria”, which was once a very rare diagnosis that described mostly prepubescent boys and adult men, is now most commonly diagnosed in teenage girls. Activists will argue that these explosive numbers are a result of increased societal acceptance, and that at long last trans people are coming out of hiding and living as their authentic selves. If this were true, one might expect to see comparable rates of transgender identity across all age groups and between both sexes, but its disproportionately adolescent females feeling that warm and fuzzy inclusive acceptance. Considering “acceptance” now implies supraphysiological doses of cross sex hormones and having healthy body organs surgically rearranged, it’s worth a deeper look into what kinds of factors are driving this population clamoring to go under the knife."

The post goes on quite a bit longer but I am curious as to how this translates into the future and how many people will look back in horrified regret.

[Ominous Gamer]

If anyone is curious why Lewk is developing yet another disgusting fetish, it's cause we just had a transgender athlete win a swim competition and the right has unsurprisingly lost their shit over it, to the point that state governors are making proclamations that only cis athletes can be allowed to win. Talk about being a group of emotionally stunted fucktads.

[Aimless]

I thought we'd reached peak pettiness but that story has really taken these babies to new heights.

[Unheard Of]

I assume Fox News has now classified trans people as untermensch and told Lewkowski to hate & fear them.

[Lewkowski]

I thought we'd reached peak pettiness but that story has really taken these babies to new heights.

How so?

[Lewkowski]

I assume Fox News has now classified trans people as untermensch and told Lewkowski to hate & fear them.

http://theworldforgotten.com/showthr...l=1#post208377

"Currently people consider trans people oppressed. It is has become popular to be a victim, therefore young people (a group always hungry for attention) are claiming to be trans in larger numbers. What else would you call people who don't have gender dysphoria but choose to claim they are trans? How else would you explain young people claiming to be trans and 2 years later saying "uh never mind."

Meanwhile the dangers of taking hormonal treatments (especially in young people) is partially responsible for the absurdly high suicide rate in trans individuals. We know that oppression and suicide aren't linked (see white suicides vs. black suicides) so what else could be the reason for a ratio so much higher than the norm?"

That was from 2019

[Aimless]

Twitter Link

I don't believe in violence but if this creep were to maybe accidentally fall down several flights of stairs, well, I dunno

[GGT]

"Helena's post" sounds made-up. There's no way she'd get a testosterone prescription on her *first* visit to PP, let alone get refills for a year and a half without mandatory mental health counseling, follow-up evaluations, and referrals to specialists.

[Lewkowski]

"Helena's post" sounds made-up. There's no way she'd get a testosterone prescription on her *first* visit to PP, let alone get refills for a year and a half without mandatory mental health counseling, follow-up evaluations, and referrals to specialists.

So if it were true you would agree PP did something wrong in this situation?

[LittleFuzzy]

I agree with GGT that Helena's post sounds made up. But sure, there's going to be a degree of what you allege, Lewk. It's already true to a degree among adults, though not for the reasons you fear or relate. Some people start down that path thinking it's the only road left they have to be true to themselves only to find another before they make an irreversible step, find it's too much for them, or other issues intervene preventing it. Lots of people are unhappy and uncomfortable with who they are, and people who are transitioning or have actually transitioned are not any exception to that human condition. Which does not mean that transitioning is not an improvement for plenty of people, particularly with the ridiculously pervasive and intrusive nature of are artificial and socially-created gender "norms".*
All of that will apply to adolescents and they have further issues. I heard it said once that teens "try on" identities, that it's part of how they figure out who they are in the first place. They test and figure out what works for them, what fits and what doesn't. So yeah, it'll happen to an extent. So? What's the problem with that? Yeah, some of them will remain desperately unhappy even after. They were unhappy before too, it's why they tried in the first place. Should we try to avoid irreversible medical procedures? Yeah, but trying to avoid the irreversible is already the go-to when it comes to raising teenagers or caring for them in a practice.

*Note: I'm one of the people who thinks genetic sexual identity is real but should have very little social impact, while gender is ultimately a bunch of fucked-up nonsense carrying social impact as a nuclear payload that we have culturally attached to genetic sex.

[Ominous Gamer]

Meanwhile the dangers of taking hormonal treatments (especially in young people) is partially responsible for the absurdly high suicide rate in trans individuals. We know that oppression and suicide aren't linked (see white suicides vs. black suicides) so what else could be the reason for a ratio so much higher than the norm?"

No one going to call the dumbass out for this absolutely bonkers bullshit claim?

[Unheard Of]

What's the point? He's not salvageable.

[Aimless]

No one going to call the dumbass out for this absolutely bonkers bullshit claim?

You can't really do much with a very dumb guy who thinks he's smart. The specific argument re. racial disparities has been addressed before, and it's not like he's become smarter since the last time he pulled it outta his ass.

[Lewkowski]

No one going to call the dumbass out for this absolutely bonkers bullshit claim?

1. Primarily based on survey/interview within 12 months? Helen likely would have answered positively too with that methodology. Let's see some 5-10 year views and hopefully once someone is outside of the bubble that pushed them towards it.
2. Even assuming it *can* be good, it wouldn't be the first time medical professionals see something good and then begin over prescribing a treatment and impacted people who didn't actually need that treatment.
3. We know that most children who have gender dysmorphia do not end up transitioning when they become adults, we also know there has been a sharp spike in children being diagnosed with dysmorphia in recent years. Certain mental conditions are absolutely dependent on how peer groups interact. See the rash of teen pregnancies or teen suicide when the first domino falls. When the documentary "Trans Train" aired in Sweden it led to a decrease in referrals from doctors to gender clinics implying a social change.

https://genderreport.ca/the-swedish-...transitioning/

Speaking of which as a first step I would highly encourage any parent or primary care provider is to have their kid watch the documentary series and hear the stories of people who have bee harmed by overzealous "gender affirming care."

[LittleFuzzy]

No one going to call the dumbass out for this absolutely bonkers bullshit claim?

Thought about it but it wasn't worth replying to something he wrote three years ago and built entirely on the most incredibly vague generalizations. You were in that thread when he first spewed that nonsense and it was too moronic for you to respond to then as well.

[Aimless]

3. We know that most children who have gender dysmorphia do not end up transitioning when they become adults, we also know there has been a sharp spike in children being diagnosed with dysmorphia in recent years. Certain mental conditions are absolutely dependent on how peer groups interact. See the rash of teen pregnancies or teen suicide when the first domino falls. When the documentary "Trans Train" aired in Sweden it led to a decrease in referrals from doctors to gender clinics implying a social change.

https://genderreport.ca/the-swedish-...transitioning/

This entire article is incredibly dumb.

1. They favorably cite a notorious antivaxx crank who risked losing his license for repeatedly spreading antivaxx BS—a man who has next to no credibility in his own field, let alone in other fields.

2. They appear to have no insight into how referral processes work, or about the gatekeeping functions performed by actors at different stages in those processes.

3. The claim that "Sweden has officially ended the practice of prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors under age 18" is simply incorrect—minors who were already planned to initiate hormonal treatments are still on track to do so. The largest gender clinic for children has adopted a new policy to only put new patients on hormonal treatments within the framework of a study, so that they can be followed systematically in a way that increases our knowledge about such treatments. No official guidelines state that minors who are deemed highly likely to be trans can't be put on hormonal treatments.

4. 1 in 5 people in Sweden are likely to fulfill diagnostic criteria for some form of anxiety disorder within their first 18 years of life, and comorbidity is common with a number of psychiatric and neuropsychiatric conditions. It's not particularly suspicious that children with gender dysphoria are more likely to fulfill diagnostic criteria for multiple psychiatric conditions—notwithstanding the obvious risks that arise from stigma and from not being allowed to live as one feels one should, there is also an obvious increased likelihood of receiving other psychiatric diagnoses simply as a result of being investigated much more thoroughly by psychiatrists.

[Lewkowski]

1 in 5? At a time of unimaginable plenty? I don't know what it is like in other countries (hell it might even be worse in America) but that's fucking insane. When did the world become so pathetically soft?

[Aimless]

1 in 5? At a time of unimaginable plenty? I don't know what it is like in other countries (hell it might even be worse in America) but that's fucking insane. When did the world become so pathetically soft?

We live in a time of unprecedented plenty and virtually unrestricted access to the sum total of human knowledge, yet you consistently manage to produce the dumbest most ignorant-ass takes on pretty much any issue you take an interest in. When did you become so pathetically sloppy? The very least you can do is check to make sure your sources aren't lying.

[LittleFuzzy]

But they're saying what he wants them to say! If he checks for that, and they are lying, then what good does that do him?

[Loki]

Black guy lies about being assaulted = Lewk: execute him
Random person lies about being trans = Lewk: but what about the reasonable points they raise?

[Lewkowski]

Black guy lies about being assaulted = Lewk: execute him
Random person lies about being trans = Lewk: but what about the reasonable points they raise?

I never suggest Jussie be executed.

I don't believe Helen lied.

Try to argue with what I am saying and not little strawmen you prop up.

[Loki]

Right. It's just that half the things they said are inconsistent with reality. Which is only a problem when someone is accusing people of racism, apparently.

[Lewkowski]

And another one...

https://www.foxnews.com/media/transg...rgery-reaction

"A transgender woman who had sex re-assignment surgery as a teenager is warning those considering a similar operation to explore the world inhabiting their body "as it is" before "permanently altering" it.

In a Monday op-ed for The Washington Post headlined, "What I wish I'd known when I was 19 and had sex re-assignment surgery," software developer Corinna Cohn expressed regret over her transition from being a man to a woman, explaining she wasn't old enough to make such a drastic decision and that it committed her "to a lifetime apart" from her peers.

"When I was 19, I had surgery for sex reassignment, or what is now called gender affirmation surgery," Cohn wrote. "In terms of my priorities and interests today, that younger incarnation of myself might as well have been a different person — yet that was the person who committed me to a lifetime set apart from my peers."

"There is much debate today about transgender treatment, especially for young people. Others might feel differently about their choices, but I know now that I wasn’t old enough to make that decision," she added. "Given the strong cultural forces today casting a benign light on these matters, I thought it might be helpful for young people, and their parents, to hear what I wish I had known.""

[EyeKhan]

The propaganda article aside, and generally speaking, I would think its a bad idea to give gender transition hormone treatment to adolescents. There's a lot of development going on, physical, mental and social, and injecting extra hormones into the mix can only confuse the situation for anyone. Who the hell knows who or what they really are until they are fully baked adults? I'm not against gender transition, but let kids grow up before they decide to alter their bodies with hormones, and especially surgery. Anecdotally, my daughter went to high school with a transitioning teen who was taking testosterone at age 15. I thought medical malpractice and dumb parenting at the time.

[Loki]

The propaganda article aside, and generally speaking, I would think its a bad idea to give gender transition hormone treatment to adolescents. There's a lot of development going on, physical, mental and social, and injecting extra hormones into the mix can only confuse the situation for anyone. Who the hell knows who or what they really are until they are fully baked adults? I'm not against gender transition, but let kids grow up before they decide to alter their bodies with hormones, and especially surgery. Anecdotally, my daughter went to high school with a transitioning teen who was taking testosterone at age 15. I thought medical malpractice and dumb parenting at the time.

How do you deal with the children who commit suicide or develop severe mental illnesses because they're unable to start transitioning at a younger age? It seems like there's a trade-off to me, and decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis. Rather than using one-sided anecdotal evidence to make policy that will have major unintended (or perhaps intended) consequences. Imagine if we banned chemo because some cancer patients end up dying from it (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2360753/).

[Lewkowski]

How do you deal with the children who commit suicide or develop severe mental illnesses because they're unable to start transitioning at a younger age? It seems like there's a trade-off to me, and decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis. Rather than using one-sided anecdotal evidence to make policy that will have major unintended (or perhaps intended) consequences. Imagine if we banned chemo because some cancer patients end up dying from it (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2360753/).

How do you deal with children who have BIID and think they should be legless? What if they are suicidal??

[Loki]

How do you deal with children who have BIID and think they should be legless? What if they are suicidal??

I take it you want to ban chemo because a substantial number of people suffer irreparable harm from it (i.e., they die)? Strange how you support parents' rights unless those parents do something you disapprove of.

[Lewkowski]

I take it you want to ban chemo because a substantial number of people suffer irreparable harm from it (i.e., they die)? Strange how you support parents' rights unless those parents do something you disapprove of.

Just to be clear here you would be A-OK with the amputation of limbs for BIID? Kid's 13 and parent's says its good - you are all right with that?

[EyeKhan]

How do you deal with the children who commit suicide or develop severe mental illnesses because they're unable to start transitioning at a younger age? It seems like there's a trade-off to me, and decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis. Rather than using one-sided anecdotal evidence to make policy that will have major unintended (or perhaps intended) consequences. Imagine if we banned chemo because some cancer patients end up dying from it (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2360753/).

I've known four teens who were transitioning in high school, all friends of my daughter (and another one in college). Three were female to male and one male to female. Only one was taking hormones, the rest were just taking new names, flipping their pronouns, dressing opposite gender. From what little I knew of them, they all seemed to be doing okay, including the one taking testosterone. Their families and the community I lived in at the time were very accepting, and I think family and community condemnation is the major obstacle for trans kids leading to the sort of crisis you're talking about. I'm not a doctor, but it seemed to me at the time that interrupting whatever natural biological development that's going on at age 15 with hormonal injections might cause some lasting harm, whatever gender the child ends up settling on (maybe Lolli could offer a more knowledgeable comment on that....) I confess I was taken aback at the time by the number of kids desiring to transition and I suspected some of it might be on the level of experimentation or part of a process of self-discovery. I don't know where any of those kids are, on a gender basis, now - they'll be in their early 20's - though I know at least one who was biologically female is still using a masculine name.

[Dreadnaught]

I've known four teens who were transitioning in high school, all friends of my daughter (and another one in college). Three were female to male and one male to female. Only one was taking hormones, the rest were just taking new names, flipping their pronouns, dressing opposite gender. From what little I knew of them, they all seemed to be doing okay, including the one taking testosterone. Their families and the community I lived in at the time were very accepting, and I think family and community condemnation is the major obstacle for trans kids leading to the sort of crisis you're talking about. I'm not a doctor, but it seemed to me at the time that interrupting whatever natural biological development that's going on at age 15 with hormonal injections might cause some lasting harm, whatever gender the child ends up settling on (maybe Lolli could offer a more knowledgeable comment on that....) I confess I was taken aback at the time by the number of kids desiring to transition and I suspected some of it might be on the level of experimentation or part of a process of self-discovery. I don't know where any of those kids are, on a gender basis, now - they'll be in their early 20's - though I know at least one who was biologically female is still using a masculine name.

I think experimentation is normal and should be supported, but I think there are good faith arguments to not provide hormones and puberty blockers to pre-pubescant teens. Beyond the lack of long-term medical studies (and indications there can be damage, like permanently inhibiting the ability to orgasm), hormones are like pouring cement into a mold.

If we all know that teenagers explore identities and teen wants are fickle (and can seem extreme because, well, they are teenagers), I don't think it's really affirmation to let a teenager lock something in. Identities aren't settled at the age of 12.