Two recent developments point to the fact that not just individual medical practitioners but even some important hospitals are facing the risk of having to pay substantial settlements in pending litigation over gender transitioning of minors. The first is a new declaration by the American Society for Plastic Surgery, which we have embedded at the end of this post. The second is that a jury just awarded $2 million to a plaintiff who had her breasts removed as part of her transition. Keep in mind that gender-affirming operations on minors are not frequent but breast removal is far and away the most common procedure. And as we will unpack soon, not just practitioners (and their malpractice insurers) but also certain big institutions will be on the hook as cases proceed and some seem likely to similarly garner hefty awards for plaintiffs.
American Society for Plastic Surgery document is not clinical guidance but merely a “position statement”. It explicitly says that is not retrospective. However, this ASPS paper will strengthen the case of detransitioning plaintiffs in cases against doctors that provided puberty-suppressing drugs and “gender affirming” surgeries to those under 19. ASPS clearly sets forth that the evidence supporting these interventions was and remains weak, and in many cases, they proved to be unwarranted. Key sections from the paper (emphasis theirs):
Available evidence suggests that a substantial proportion of children with prepubertal onset gender dysphoria experience resolution or significant reduction of distress by the time they reach adulthood, absent medical or surgical intervention…Importantly, clinicians, even those with extensive experience, currently lack reliable methods to distinguish those whose distress will persist from those whose distress will remit…
Consistent with ASPS’s August 2024 statement that the overall evidence base for gender-related endocrine and surgical interventions is low certainty, and in light of recent publications reporting very low/low certainty of evidence regarding mental health outcomes, along with emerging concerns about potential long-term harms and the irreversible nature of surgical interventions in a developmentally vulnerable population, ASPS concludes there is insufficient evidence demonstrating a favorable risk-benefit ratio for the pathway of gender-related endocrine and surgical interventions in children and adolescents. ASPS recommends that surgeons delay gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery until a patient is at least 19 years old.
Unherd has done important reporting on this ASPS position paper, including interviewing the current and penultimate president of ASPS. Please find the time to read Plastic surgeons ditch gender ideology in full. Author Benjamin Ryan points out the tide had been turning against “gender affirming” treatment of teen overseas overseas before the US:
Health authorities in a swath of European nations and the ruling Labour party in Britain sharply restricted minors’ access to gender-transition interventions. In the United States, just more than half of states, all of them red, have banned these practices. And on Friday, a jury in Westchester County awarded $2 million in damages to a detransitioner after her attorney convinced a jury that her psychologist and plastic surgeon had deviated from best practices and harmed her by removing her breasts when she was 16 years old. It was a landmark case — the first decision of its kind — and is expected to serve as a catalyst for others.
The New York ruling against psychologist Dr. Kenneth Einhorn and surgeon Dr. Simon H. Chin found they had not adequately assessed her mental health issues. The award consisted of $400,000 for reimbursement of medical expenses and $1.6 million for pain and suffering. consisted of $400,000 for reimbursement of medical expenses and $1.6 million for pain and suffering.
Ryan was also the only reporter to cover the trial and highlights the testimony that he believed the jury found persuasive:
On @CBSNews, I reported on the $2M judgment in the 1st detransitioner civil suit to go to trial. I recalled the mother saying her daughter’s psychologist browbeat her into consenting to a gender-transition mastectomy for the 16 year old. But then the president-elect of WPATH… pic.twitter.com/7zjlv6VN7H
— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) February 5, 2026
At Unherd, Ryan unpacks the ASPS reasoning:
The ASPS’s position statement calls into question the logic pushed by many transgender activists that patient autonomy should be paramount — even absolute — among minors seeking these interventions. The document states that “patient autonomy is more properly defined as the right of a patient to accept or refuse appropriate treatment; it does not create an obligation for a physician to provide interventions in the absence of a favorable risk-benefit profile.”
Neither he nor ASPS belabor the point that society as a whole does not regard minors under 18 as sufficiently competent to vote or drink; some states also have 18, as opposed to 16, as the age of consent. So given this view, how can they be treated as able to make permanent, life-altering decisions? This does not just extend to what can uncharitably be called selective amputation; taking puberty-suppressing drugs along with hormones can result in infertility.
Ryan contends that the ASPS drew the line for transition surgeries at 19 not out of political considerations (this is the preferred age for states banning these procedures) but per current ASPS president Dr. Scot Glasber, is when teens are “safely out of puberty”.
Ryan further points out that the ASPS has not been keen about trans surgeries on minors and in a 2024 statement had said it did not endorse these procedures and contends that pro-trans activists has misrepresented the ASPS stance:
Yet major LGBTQ and liberal nonprofits, including GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, and the ACLU, have continued to routinely make the false claim that all major medical organizations endorse what they call gender-affirming care for minors.
Regardless of your views of the merits of transitioning teens, a medical liability bomb is about to explode. As IM Doc said via e-mail:
This is the first time in medical history that this type of case has been won against the physicians. Also please note, the vast majority of these transition procedures in the USA have been done in big academic centers with faculty employed physicians. There are some outliers – but the vast majority are not. In our modern world, the majority of these big centers are completely self-insured. That means all of these judgements – and the tsunami is coming quick – will be paid out of their budget – there is no “insurance”. I have often wondered if this was not part of the freakout in the last year about budgets – the powers that be know they are entirely and completely screwed – they have messed up the lives of young kids – and this is going to be millions and millions and millions possibly billions at some places of settlement. I remember back home over the past 5 years – as this was becoming more of a problem many of the prestige academic places – and actually cooperated with the Biden Admin in prosecuting MDs who blew the whistle on them lying about consent, etc. Yes the Biden Admin prosecuted a whistleblower (look it up Ethan Haim, MD [all charges were eventually dropped]).
They are literally shitting bricks at the state level about the gigantic sums these kids will be suing for. Many of these procedures were done at public universities. It may put a serious dent in Texas Children’s in Houston.
Also note, as far as I can tell this kid got 2 million and all that was done was breast removal. Just wait until all the kids with pus bombs where their genitals used to be start their cases. All of my current patients are all now in active lawsuit mode. This will not end well – and there are cases as far as the eye can see. This will very likely be, along with COVID, the scandal of 21st century medicine.
And another FYI – medical malpractice cases against individual physicians do not go into class action lawsuits well. Medical cases against Pharma, equipment, devices etc and facilities absolutely do – individual physicians not at all. These places are absolutely screwed. The growing recognition of this even in the bluest of the blue has caused them all to begin cancelling these programs.
This is going to be a hell of a cost over the next 10-15 years as this all plays out.
And before you contest this view, I had pinged an attorney friend about the New York verdict, having embarrassingly managed to forget his personal experience. Via e-mail:
I can’t even imagine how many huge lawsuits are lurking out there behind the cult of transgender. I think that it was nothing but a horrific fad straight out of HG Wells Island of Dr Moreau. My kid was never “a man trapped in a woman’s body.”
Mind you, his child has found a good partner and is not about to litigate. But how many will be so charitably disposed?
00 ASPS Position Statement on Gender Surgery
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What about those over 19? I am not asking about lawsuits, it is more a question about their well being. What are the health consequences of “adults” who went through gender affirming surgeries?
IM Doc might have a point of view. An argument with adults could be informed consent, that they were not properly appraised of the risks. Or you could have a badly executed procedure, which happens in all sorts of operations.
Having said that, a trans person I know well, a 52 year old transitioning to a woman (met in 2002 in Sydney, dined regularly at her house) went the full genital change route. Had the surgery done in Thailand. Despite the radicalness of the procedure, seemed happy with the result.
tyaresun and Yves Smith: A year and a half ago, Rhyd Wildermuth, a gay pagan writer / publisher who lives in Luxembourg now, published this interview with Sigrid. Sigrid would now be about 48, roughly the same age as Yves Smith’s friend, and made the transition around 2000 / 2002.
https://rhyd.substack.com/p/trans-in-the-age-of-trump-and-butler
Noting especially this observation from Sigrid: “But I will point out that the consequences of self ID I’ve mentioned so frequently connect to this. When I was transitioning (remember, I was a legal adult — there was essentially no such thing as minor children medically transitioning even with parental consent), we had something colloquially called the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care that were the guidelines practiced by psychiatrists, doctors, endocrinologists, therapists, etc. Up to version 6, the 2001 edition which was in effect when I transitioned, these standards included the things that today are regarded as “gatekeeping” practices and “jumping through hoops” and which the self ID movement universally panned as unjust. I was in therapy for a year before I was allowed to begin HRT, I was on HRT for a year before I was given clearance for surgeries, I needed separate consults with psychiatrists and clearance letters to change legal documents, etc. Whether you agree or disagree where the lines should be drawn, it was always explained to me that the lines were there for one very clear purpose- to make absolutely, positively sure that this irreversible, risky thing is the thing that I should be doing. And to be honest, I never disagreed with it.”
Rhyd Wildermuth is definitely opposed to “self-ID” gender, and Sigrid expresses some skepticism. “Self-ID” is part of what has led to the current situation. (Wildermuth, who grew up in Appalachian Ohio as a fundi, often compares self-ID of gender to religious belief.)
I’d also venture that the poor perception by many MDs that “we must have a good result” led to treating patients before they were ready to be treated — psychologically and physically. (It reminds me how often Yves Smith writes that Anglo-Americans feel compelled to Do Something.)
As the president of the Italian association of psychiatrists said in an interview with Fatto Quotidiano about a year ago, when the Italian government restricted puberty blockers, we have to let people go through puberty to understand their sexuality.
In addition to the Do Something compulsion, the US “health care” system has a profit motive.
It was also a very good monkey. As in “look at the monkey”, it was a very cynical distraction used by the neoliberal left to pretend they were interested and supportive of people and not just donors. That it was a cash cow for the for profit medical interests of so many donors was just icing on the cake.
There are multiple things to consider here.
The most obvious issue is the age of consent. Is it appropriate to do life-altering therapy on kids who do not really have the ability to comprehend? We are dealing with things that will cause them to never have their own genetic children, to never be able to nurse a baby, to never be able to have an orgasm……And that is just the surgery. The big problems occur with these meds they use to fill the teenager with hormones of the opposite gender or to abort their puberty. It must be noted that these meds to the one are off label for any of these uses. I will just remind everyone of the hue and cry that went forth during COVID about using ivermectin and HCQ off label. We heard about the “problematic nature” of this from politicians, Fauci types all the way to Maddow and Colbert and Kimmel. All the time. Never batting an eye was anyone in contemplation in modern medicine about 20% of drugs prescribed are off label. A licensed physician can do that, but you also must take the consequences if something goes wrong. Unlike ivermectin and Lipitor, off label puberty blockers like Casodex and Lupron are literally the most awful drugs ever to take for the 50 year old with prostate CA. These drugs put them down. Now, let’s try to give a little pre-pubescent kid 3-4 times the relative dose and see what happens. It is not a good scene. But that is not the only problem.
Our bodies rapidly develop during the teenage years. They are on a genetically pre-determined conga line to get to adulthood. Puberty is not the most pleasant thing – but it is critical for the body to develop into an adult. This is especially the case for the musculoskeletal system, the cardiovascular system, and the endocrinological system. When you stop the steps of this happening at age 14, let’s say, not with surgery, but with these drugs, it is not just the secondary genital characteristics that are changed. Their bones are severely affected in both growth and development, leading to very early osteoporosis as well as very stunted growth, their endo axis does not fully develop leading to problems with thyroid, pancreas, and adrenal function. And the heart does not develop into what it should be leading to a very decreased exercise ability. I have seen it all from these meds.
So there are not just consent issues. These kids’ bodies are irretrievably harmed by these drugs when given as teenagers. This is why this will play out over years – the damages are not fully known for quite a while.
Most people do not reach this development until 21-23. That kind of time frame. That just so happens to coincide with the age of consent. These really severe hormonal issues just do not occur once the person has fully matured. I am of the strong opinion that adults should be free to do whatever they want. They are able to consent fully and these drugs will not damage them. The worst drugs like Casodex are not needed in an adult anyway. As long as they can pay for it, they should be free to do whatever. I hardly think that the often hundreds of thousands this type of thing costs should be taken from the same pool as kids, homeless and elderly health care money.
What I have learned this week from sources who know – when I first brought this up to Yves……
There are far more kids on these drugs than are doing surgeries. As I state above, the drugs may be doing far more damage long-term than the surgeries.
Most of the surgeries are mastectomies. However, there has been an increasingly prominent use of “bottom surgery” in the past 5 years or so that may or may not be reflected in the numbers.
It is estimated that up to a half of these kids never went through adequate psych counseling and some put that number much higher. Often, it is a single visit to an on-site psych person, and off they go. I can attest to this having looked at these charts.
I have not fully tacked this down yet. I was unaware of this until I started inquiries. Almost everything in medical liability with kids expires when they are 30. This is completely different than adult liability which state to state has 1-7 years after the injury to get the suit started. This is for obvious reasons. If you do something negative to a child, it may not show up for quite a while. My understanding is that some states have refused to extend this liability expiration in these trans kids who are suing. So in many areas, the cases are already beginning to expire. Again, I have not quite tacked this down. It seems incredible to me that this would even be considered.
As far as the AMA. They have famously changed their policy this week. The evidence no longer supports doing these therapies to minors, etc etc. One has only to look at papers and videos and teleconferences from as recently as 6 weeks ago where AMA leadership were making it known that they were going to the mats to keep transgender care alive and well for kids. It is all online in multiple places. I cannot reiterate enough – “The Science” has nothing to do with science. It is all about politics, industry capture, and quite frankly cash. When the cash disappears so does “The Science.”
I also find it very discouraging that all the hue and cry the past 10 years about doing this to kids came from the same people who for decades of my life as a physician had all kinds of nasty things to say about genital mutilation of young girls in other countries. It speaks VOLUMES to me about their moral makeup.
There was a case a few years ago in the UK with parents who wanted to put their severely physicslly anf mentally disabled child onto puberty blockers. Their reason was that their daughter could never look after herself, would never have a relationship or be able to consent to having sex and therefore wouldn’t have kids. But as she went through puberty it would only get harder and harder for them to take care of her, especially as they got older. This went through extensive legal and court reviews. Not because anyone opposed the general idea, but because they wanted to make sure every aspect was fully considered and what precedents it would set for the future. Along comes the trans right movement and suddenly it’s have at it, when it comes to puberty blockers.
Puberty blockers have been used off-label for decades, i.e. for kids with dwarfism and short stature. What you are describing here seems more ethically questionable since this would be a permanent prevention of pubescence, and done to make life easier for the caretakers, not a temporary delay to allow mental or physical growth to continue before hormonal changes.
I have never understood how medical doctors could not only authorize but perform transition surgery on people who are too young to be consenting adults. I think that there was a saying that at 18, you are old enough to vote, old enough to marry, old enough to go to war and old enough to hang for murder. These sorts of surgeries should never have been performed on volatile teens but they should have been put off until they were at an age to actually decide for themselves as a consenting adult. And now a banquet of consequences is being laid out with some medical personnel finding out that actions have consequences. Zero sympathy.
Let’s also not forget the intense shaming and badgering of anyone who even hinted that performing these experiments on children might be questionable. It made things so much easier for Trump and the revanchist Right to take over the debate, almost as if their work was being done for them.
Indeed. The desperate desire of the Dems to change the subject from their own guilt in the class war has produced an extremism that “foamed the runway” for our current anything goes executive. Their zeal for denouncing their opponents as bigots–on any excuse–was arguably modeled on the late 20th Republican tactic of denouncing abortion doctors as murderers. For both parties, to paraphrase Goldwater, extremism in defense of faction is no vice.
Fear not, we’ll be saved when the Latinx vote D in November!
All 5 of them? (ref to the fact that many Hispanics think the term Latinx is insulting and imperialistic.)
As well as just plain tone deaf stupid.
When the term first emerged it reminded me of when PETA made all those helpful (and linguistically doomed) suggestions for replacing “species-ist” idioms, ie, “Bring home the bagels” instead of “Bring home the bacon,” and “Feed two birds with one scone” instead of “Kill two birds with one stone.”
Though just as comical and absurd, Latinx (or La Tinks, as I liked calling it) spread far further and to more pernicious effect.
Many states have windows in which to file a malpractice suit, so a vast majority of potential suits will be thrown out of court. In my home state, Michigan, it is two years. A main exemption is birth injuries. Although exemptions for other reasons like fail to disclose may be entertained, there is basically a total blanket five-year rule within which to file suit. Statutes of limitations for suits is a major topic for the plaintiff bar. I believe in New York the time window is shorter for public versus private hospitals Those states with short windows to file suits will need to need legislatively extend the time to file suit in these cases. I may be wrong about this, but I understand that there is an effort to extend the filing time in North Carolina to ten years. Expect other states to take this up.
Surgical treatment in these cases is not new, although I suspect that it has become more frequent. I was basically a surgical pathologist, tasked with examining tissues biopsied or removed by surgery. I recall my shock on receiving for examination a set of anatomically normal, male genitalia with penis, testicles and scrotum fifty years ago.
The video in the tweet did mention statute of limitations barring quite a few cases, but I had no idea it was as short as two years (the statute of limitations for contract disputes and civil fraud in many US jurisdictions is five years). A quick search suggests that for personal injury type torts it is routinely 2 to 4 years….although it could be longer than that from the actual procedure since it appears in some states the clock can start with the discovery of harm, which would be some time after the operation.
Would it be possible sympathetic administrations might look at extending the statute of limitations? I’m sure that was done some places during MeToo over sexual crimer related lawsuits.
I’ve seen a growing call amongst certain writers on sibstack and their readers to have criminal trials for doctors who performed such surgeries.
I’m not a US lawyer, but don’t you people have a different (limitless) statute of limitations for the sexual abuse of a minor? If so, clever lawyers will frame what the doctors did as sexual abuse (rightly too). Now you get a painful judgement and get to register as a sex offender.
This could not be considered sexual abuse under US statutes. No sex act was performed.
Wisconsin did a “tort reform” under the governorship of Scott Walker that vastly limited the scope of any suits for medical malpractice and only pays out from a pooled state fund. A relative needed to be compensated for a MERS infection in a knee replacement (really nasty stuff), and the lawyers I talked to said that we should just forget it because short of being a proximate cause of death or complete incapacity, you will likely lose the case. This was in 2015, so things may have improved on the patient side of the malpractice tort. My spidey sense was that a health “care” lobby probably has model legislation for this and that they get the state legislatures to pass it.
Look forward to red states carving out no limit statutes pertaining to this class of suits only.
I am transgender MTF. There have been no studies done on what I am positing. My experience is that a high proportion of transgender men were molested as children. The regret rate for surgery is less than 1%. These transmen tell me that the testosterone helps them cope. For the same reason Epstein’s coconspirators will never be punished and there will never be a study on how many transgender men and women have been molested as children. Any of you can “defeat” my argument, since there is no data on this subject and there never will be, for obvious reasons.
Like the studies that supported transition in minors, the studies on transgender regret are not of high quality and suffer from considerable sample and other biases, such as often an unduly short measurement time frame for regret. See here for a detailed discussion: https://segm.org/regret-detransition-rate-unknown. The deficiencies are nearly all in the direction of understating dissatisfaction.
In addition, the discussion here is of minors, and not all transitioners.
Your theory of sexual abuse is interesting but I don’t see how this validates transition surgery, if that was your intent in offering that idea. I know only three women who were sexually abused in childhood. Two grew up to be nymphomanics with alcohol abuse issues; one of the two became homeless in her 50s and died on the street. The third, who I knew pretty well, did not seem to have substance abuse or compulsion issues.
The point is that it is not considered sound for other victims of severe trauma, such as childhood physical abuse or soldiers with PTSD, to make permanent changes to their bodies as a quasi therapy.
I hope I don’t get in trouble for using my standard handle and kind of threadjacking to this taboo topic. But all the numerous medical problems stemming form my neonatal circumcision are tangentially related to today’s topic of gender reassignment surgery and directly related to NC’s goal of recognizing propaganda and encouraging critical thinking.
My brain and central nervous system is predisposed to neuropathic pain, addiction, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I maintain that circumcision, a permanent change to my body, resulted in severe trauma and helped predispose me to the aforementioned medical problems and something that is very similar to childhood sexual abuse. I can sense tiny amounts of pain that no normal person can sense. Allodynia and specifically post-surgical allodynia can be roughly divided between peripheral nerve sensitization and central sensitization. I attest to this. It is plausible that the shock of circumcision caused my own central nervous system to rewire itself to become systemically hyper-sensitive to pain. As for local problems, if my penis touches something abrasive (e.g. a zipper) I feel an uncomfortable tingle, about the most minimum amount of perceptible pain, for an hour. Even if we account for how small my penis is, that circumcision scar is the largest scar on my body and it does not like to be touched, in sexual and non-sexual contexts.
There is plenty of medical literature that supports the existence of post-surgical allodynia and how physical trauma, surgical or otherwise, can cause neuropathies or other alterations to the nervous system. In contrast, the link between circumcision and its mental sequelae is deliberately less clear. Far too often, complications arising from circumcision, especially mental health problems, are censored and the victim is ridiculed. As for me, I am very unsexual—which is indeed strange because my demeanor and appearance is very overtly masculine. One reason for this, I surmise, is I don’t associate sex with positive and pleasant feelings. Erections were often (very mildly) painful when I was young, and as I noted before, I don’t really enjoy being touched there. This is similar to those who were sexually abused during childhood and end up with difficulty understanding that sexual and romantic things should be pleasant and desirable. It is plausible that circumcision stunted my sexual development.
(Too much information alert. I discuss my not-very-sexual experiences. Avert your eyes.)
When I was young, I rarely masturbated. This was not a result of crazy religious upbringing which discouraged sexuality. Masturbation was simultaneously mildly painful and mildly pleasant. I just didn’t do it because of the former. If you poll a group of men with the question “when did you first ejaculate?” and assuming you get an honest answer, the answer is going to be 14 years old, approximately. For me, it was probably 17 or 18. When I was 16, I had heard that ejaculating felt good. So I masturbated, and I was very confused why I couldn’t physically do it. Was I supposed to force it out, like when urinating?
OMG what a confusing and difficult situation, to be if I read it correctly generally physically very sensitive yet to have your penis function impaired via circumcision. Asexuals are estimated at 1% of the population, and that is generally assumed to be due to the fact that they do not find sex to be pleasurable. But it had not occurred to me that such a widely-administered procedure as circumcision could produce that outcome (although it does make sense….)
If you are happy with your transition and suffering no ill effects from any surgery you have had then I am glad for you. I would be interested to know how old you were when you had surgeries.
I know 2 women who were sexually abused as children. Both are very unhappy and obese adults. One of them only wants to care for and make others happy, she never thinks of herself or takes cares of herself in any way. She has many physical ailments and is non-compliant with most medical treatment. Even counselling is considered self indulgent and thus unwarranted to her. I have also read about abused children who grow up to be hyper-sexual as Yves describes. Working in the community college system I encountered some transgender young adults, they all exhibited what seemed to me to be various mental health issues that transgender care did not seem to be easing. I have no doubt that childhood abuse causes many issues with body comfort – psychic pain, extreme behaviours and addiction are natural outcomes of that kind of trauma without any kind of care or therapeutic intervention. I remain on the side of seeing physical gender transition and the risks that those surgeries entail as an extreme coping mechanism for any kind of trauma, especially for children as we are discussing here.
Sex perverts who were probably molestation victims was a default judgment on gay men and lesbian women for over a century, no? Until the science caught up.
The science is finally catching up on gender, and it indicates there are specific brain differences in transgender women that validate their self-perception. For example, post-penectomy studies show that transwomen do not develop phantom limb sensations, which generally occur in nearly 100% of amputees. Gender identity is apparently linked to hormone levels in utero and during the first few weeks of life. Gendered brain development is very likely happening at later stages and through different mechanisms than biological sex determination. With the increase of environmental endocrine disruptors it’s really no surprise that gender dysphoria is on the rise.
I was mistaken. It is nearly 50%. If you were molested as a child maybe you will feel dysphoria when you begin to develop breasts, and begin to get more unwanted attention. Maybe you will want top surgery and convince yourself you were always a boy born in the wrong body. My experience is that many transgender men and women did not feel they were born in the wrong body from an early age. It’s a sequence. Molestation, then dysphoria.
The women I know who were sexually abused before they were 10 all became hypersexual and wanted attention. One would regularly take all of her clothes off in front of people. She even did it with me! So my anecdata is the reverse of yours.
More seriously, one would have expected to see this come up in psych evals. I have seen nothing even remotely like what you suggest.
What you describe seems to be the case with a family member. She was seriously sexually abused as a child by a family friend and had some other significant negative events in her life. From what I know, there was probably some counseling involved to help her out, but this was also treated with prescription drugs along with some self-medication. I don’t think the drugs helped. She often presented as having serious mental health issues and had difficulty holding down a job. In her 30s, she started experimenting with being trans, but for her what gender she is depends on the day and how she’s feeling.
I don’t want to be misunderstood here – I am not at all saying that all trans people have mental health issues. But the sequence you described sounds very accurate as far as this family member is concerned.
are you talking about molestation rates for FTM transgender?
To claim 50% really you need links and reference.
I know multiple transgender adults and adolescent/young adults. 2 MTF, 3 FTM. there’s no molestation history there at all. There is a history of not feeling “right” in the body from a young age. Just like I know many gay people (as in LGB out of LGBTQ+) that knew from a very early age they were gay.
I do see much higher levels of neurodiversity than elsewhere- there is a high comorbidity of autism and gender dysphoria (or is it gender identity disorder now?).
and I see significant history of mental health issues from the dysphoria, suicidal ideation and attempts. but you get those issues with ASD also.
I’m assuming you are the same commenter as above (Blaine – MTF).
you know that the path from MTF or FTM is .. hard. socially, mentally , physically. you have to really want to do that.
I agree with the various comments about taking time. once you get to a gender diagnosis there are typically multiple other diagnosis at the same time. you need time to unpick them – to make sure you really understand and know your mind.
This development is welcome and like many here I don’t have a lot sympathy for the doctors and hospitals who have caused such harm to children. If ever there were a pendulum that needs to swing back towards the middle it is this gender affirming care and treatment phenomenon/fad. I have a female friend (now 58 yrs old) who has unusually high testosterone levels and was tomboyish as a child. Her parents let her do her thing and she grew into a well adjusted adult. She is very physically strong and not much into wearing dresses but who cares? I shudder to think what happens to girls like her now. I don’t know if it were someone here or elsewhere but a couple of years ago someone said ‘We don’t treat people with anorexia nervosa for obesity so why do we treat gender dysphoria by supporting gender transition?’ Now perhaps I don’t know enough about treatment for gender dysphoria in children but I am assuming that there are fewer checks and balances in the process nowadays than there used to be for adults as described by DJG above. Hell, let the kids change their names and dress however they want. Make safe gender neutral bathrooms in the schools. Have boys and girls play sports together when they’re young. I have no problem with allowing and supporting those things and anything else that doesn’t physically or psychologically harm the child. And then, instead of puberty blockers and hormones and irreversible surgeries, provide them with counselling that allows them to understand themselves and learn to deal with their unhappiness, which I am guessing, in most cases is really not because they are the wrong gender.
Adding….and even if there were interventions, checks and balances galore in so called gender affirming care, children are not mentally developed enough to make such risky and life altering decisions.
On some level, I wish this rethinking were not taking place during Trump times. I wonder if antipathy to MAGA/Trump will give cover to the promoters of these treatments to push back hard against trans-questioning physicians, scientists and organizations when the Democrats return to power.
Trussed the Science (yeah, we sure did).
I think the lawsuits will make that unlikely.
You’re probably right. The combination of legal restrictions in red states, and from the federal government, and court judgments, will hit the provider businesses hard, The performative upholders of a child’s “Right to Choose” could certainly decide to give in quickly. But there are a fair number of true believers, and the providers have enough invested that they may decide to fight. I think the battle could go on for a while.
In this country most decisions are made by money, and enforced by PR. It’s a damn shame we can’t focus on learning what is really happening, biologically and culturally, and how to take the best actions to help these children. I suppose in this case the ambulance chasers could achieve a positive outcome for medical care, but I wish this wasn’t how we did it.
Asking transgendered teenagers, an incredibly small fractional percentage of the population, to spend a years in abject, dysmorphic misery while society catches up to them —only to intermittently, flippantly decide to put their safety and existence on the political chopping block as later adults—is suicidally damaging. The policing of bodies and gender expression will not stop at surgical procedures and the marginalized but will be expanded to even basic expressive freedoms, hard won for everyone, by the queer community in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It was not so long ago that the full power of society and the state were used against girls and boys, and women and men of all stripes who dared step out of proscribed roles, and it will return again without pushback. This may seem radical in the extreme but having read firsthand accounts of police beatings and talking with the many trans people I know, and my own experience having experienced slurs and attempted assault for even mild gender-nonconforming presentation, has reinforced this view.
Bollocks. I do not accept your distortions.
1. The evidence, as presented by ASPS, is that the studies are poor quality and practitioners cannot identify which gender-uncertain teens actually are trans versus gravitate to another identity, which can include cis. Many older gay men and women have commented at this site and in other outlets that they are sure now of their sexual identity, but would have been railroaded into trans if they had presented now as they did when they were teens.
2. IM Doc presents CONSIDERABLE evidence above of puberty blockers doing permanent damage to developing bodies.
3. You present NO evidence of harm to teens who actually are trans to waiting till adulthood. I live in a nation chock full of lady boys who may have cross dressed as teens and did not take more radical steps until adults. I hear no one claiming they were harmed by waiting. The suicide argument is hysterics promoted by trans advocates and dishonest, greedy therapists. I know of one case personally of a therapist and surgeon who were barred permanently from providing “gender affirming care” by their state licensing board for pushing a child into trans interventions who had a known developmental condition that often results in body dysmorphia.