Anti-trans bigots: "Puberty blockers are child abuse"

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Rebecca Watson has only a Bachelor of Science degree in communications from Boston University. She is not a medical practitioner of any sort, but only a blogger and radio talk-show host. No topical expertise there.

Perhaps I read it too quickly, but to me it seemed as much as it accused the person it was arguing against, Rebecca, of using tricks or being dishonest, it seems that the root definition they give is the idea that there are only two sexes because of the ability to reproduce. Saying that one's gender is not necessarily decided by chromosomes, but by what part of reproduction that person can take place. It then ignores what that might mean for someone who is not able to reproduce, whether women become less of a women after menopause or what if someone was born sterile.

It also wrongly claims that Maya was fired because of her statement on sex not being able to change. The reality was that she did not have her contract removed because she was harassing trans people, not simply saying what she thought was a scientific fact. My take is that this article in general is being insincere.

Are you a supporter of this doctor too?

I am not bashing you, only that those sources are highly suspect.
Read up on the Wikipedia article of the American College of Pediatricians, they are a conservative advocacy group, not a proper accepted organisation as an authority of pediatricians, it was started in 2002. The actual one is called the American Academy of Pediatrics formed in 1930, the AAP are the experts you should listen to, ACPeds is primarily a bunch homophobic conservatives that the Wikipedia article specifically mentions are accused of mischaracterising or misusing their work for political reasons.

You just said "viewpoints are not facts, and belief proves nothing" as you quoted a faith based newsletter that can hardly be trusted to give a fair look, and an organisation that manipulates things to give the appearance of authority. Acpeds claims to have 500 members, but independent sources have reported that it is probably somewhere between 60 and 200, up against AAP's 64,000 members. Please tell me that you are smarter than this.

I think I would kick his ass for being an insensitive jerk.

And he was cherry picked as one of the doctors to be published by the American College of Pediatricians, the conservative anti LGBT organisation, not the American Academy of Pediatrics.

At what point does a child become old enough to be able to make his/her decision as to whether puberty blockers are used? I'm not at all knowledgeable in this area , but doesn't being mentally mature lag behind the start of puberty by quite a few years?

If you wait till someone is mentally mature though the pubertal changes that can cause immense stress to such an individual will have kicked in .

It's a tricky one .

That is why puberty blockers are a half step. The otherwise argument is when is a child old enough to decide if they want to transition, a child not being able to make that decision is why they are given puberty blockers to delay the difficult puberty until they are old enough to be able to decide what they want. You are probably going to have to ask some child psychiatrist that is open for the transition process people can take, to decide what level of something like gender dysphoria is needed, and when they might be old enough to decide where to go later.

Sure you can conjure up examples where someone might have been perfectly fine to go through puberty at that time, but that frustration would pale in comparison to those who had to go through the wrong puberty before needing to transition later in life. That is the sort of impact on mental health that contributes to things like self harm for trans people.

According to Dr. Michelle Cretella, president of the American College of Pediatricians, "Our bodies declare our sex. Biological sex is not assigned. Sex is determined at conception by our DNA. It is stamped into every cell of our bodies."

Pediatrics does not make someone an expert on genetics or gender. It arguably barely makes them an "expert" at kids' general health. This completely ignores the fact that genetic changes can and do occur well after conception, in humans as well as a wide variety of other animals and organisms.

"Human sexuality is binary. There are at least 6500 genetic differences between men and women. Hormones and surgery cannot and do not change this. An identity is not biological, it is psychological. Identity has to do with thinking and feeling. Thoughts and feelings are not biologically hardwired. Our thinking and feeling may be factually right or factually wrong."

"Binary" means "two". And yet even on a genetic level, we have XX, XY, XXY, XYY, XXYY, which are common enough that they have names. The actual existence of hermaphrodites also seems to contradict the idea that sex is binary, since a "both" and "neither" version exist in addition to the standard "male" and "female". Again, this is a pediatrician, not a neurologist, psychologist, psychoanalyst, or anything else of the sort, and really aren't an authority on such matters as where thought does or does not come from.

"When supported in their biological sex through natural puberty, the vast majority of gender-confused children get better," she explained. "Yet, we are chemically castrating gender-confused children with puberty blockers. Then, we permanently sterilize many of them by adding cross-sex hormones."

This is cleverly worded code for "When forced to conform to their assigned gender roles, kids tend to stop resisting, and pretend to be normal so the adults in their life stop pressuring them. That way when they relapse later, we can blame it on societal pressure and deny the fact that they were already showing signs of such behavior long before."

That aside, spironolactone, a common testosterone blocker, does just that, blocks testosterone. It does not "chemically castrate" and individual, and once the medication is discontinued, testosterone production resumes. This is a scare tactic.

Dr. Cretella is convinced that far from releasing children into who they were "made to be", such treatments actually constitute "institutionalized child abuse".

Doctors can be "convinced" of whatever they want. Being "convinced" of something is hardly proof of anything, even if you're a doctor. It's an appeal to authority. "I'm a doctor, therefore I'm right".

"Let's be clear. To indoctrinate all children from pre-school forward with the lie that they could be trapped in the wrong body disrupts the very foundation of a child's reality testing. If a child can't trust the reality of their physical bodies, who or what can they trust? Transgender ideology in schools is psychological abuse that often leads to chemical castration, sterilization and surgical mutilation. If that's not child abuse, ladies and gentleman, what is?"

Strawman argument. Nobody is suggesting what is implied here. Nobody is saying that "all kids should be taught to doubt their gender", let alone that it should start occurring in preschool. It's a scare tactic.

Source: This Article

Source - something that sounds good but is otherwise meaningless, and still pediatricians, not gender specialists, geneticists, neurologists, or psychologists.

Also according to Dr. Michelle Cretella... (who is is still just a pediatrician, and not a gender specialist, et al)

• Studies on twins prove no one is born "trapped in the body of the wrong sex".
(no they haven't - also not all twins are identical, genetic or otherwise, in the first place - and "trapped in the wrong body" is an outdated term that's only bandied about to muddy the waters)

• Gender identity is malleable, especially in young children.
(so? the point of this?)

• Puberty blockers for gender dysphoria have not been proven safe.
(They haven't been proven dangerous either... misleading claim)

• There are no cases in the scientific literature of gender-dysphoric children discontinuing blockers.
(maybe that's because the kids keep taking them...? Not sure the point of mentioning this either...)

• Cross-sex hormones are associated with dangerous health risks.
(overstated. They're the same "health risks" associated with women who take birth control or hormone therapy for menopause. As with any medication, proper monitoring by a heath professional tends to mitigate it. The biggest risk is that estrogen tends to increase the prevalence of blood clotting, which is something faced by all women who produce estrogen ever. A small dose of asprin per day usually mitigates that. In reality, the actual biggest heath risk for transgender individuals is being beat up or killed by a bigot.)

• Neuroscience shows that adolescents lack the adult capacity needed for risk assessment.
("Kids lack the capacity to..." is shrieked any time people don't like what kids are doing. Bringing up "risk assessment" is only meant to scare people on the grounds that it includes the word "risk". This helps reinforce the clam that these actions involve more risk than the actually do.)

• There is no proof that affirmation prevents suicide in children.
(Strawman - most "children" don't even know what suicide is, or that it's a thing, let alone attempt it in the first place. OTOH, there is evidence that trans people in general who are given support tend to fare better than those who aren't.)

• Transition-affirming protocol has not solved the problem of transgender suicide.
(Strawman - "solved" is a finalization. As long as even one trans person ever commits suicide ever, for any reason at all, one can claim it isn't "solved" cos it technically still exists. This is phrased very carefully, so it can avoid the fact that is HAS HELPED the problem tremendously, and would do so more if more people actually did more about it. Also it's ironic to say that support doesn't work, from someone who already doesn't support it anyways... it almost feels like personal bias..)

• The Transition-Affirming Protocol is child abuse.
(This is just a random claim with a bullet point in front of it... Is that supposed to make it true?)

Bottom line: Is this bigotry or science?
(it's bigotry)

Source: This Other Article

(NOTE: Dr. Michelle Cretella, MD is a pediatrics specialist in Westerly, RI and has been practicing for 23 years. She graduated from University Of Connecticut School Medicine in 1994 and specializes in pediatrics.)

(Source: Still just a pediatrician)

I agree with everything that uncommondenominator said, and are the exact kind of arguments against the statements and sources that I have seen before.

What if a child is 11-12 and desperately wants to avoid puberty kicking in , but the parents are against that ?

If the kid is 11-12 and desperately wants their birth sex's puberty kicking in, even against their parents, then I think the child's wishes should be taken into consideration. It is their body, and if they are desperate to delay puberty, it is their choice, more so than a reverse where a guardian wants to delay the kid's puberty, and that is up to a psychologist or gender expert to be able to decide. There are kids like as young as 5 that know their sex does not match their gender, but still have outside forces telling them that they are wrong and people try to force them through their birth puberty later on, like they don't understand themselves.

Puberty blockers are not a sex change.

Yeah I'm seconding what Bradleigh posted. ACPeds are not a scientific research organization, they're a right-wing think tank.

So lemme get this right: A bigot is someone whose science-based opinions are at odds with popular belief, right?

A bigot is someone who does not care about science-based opinions, and will try and manipulate things to fit their hate based opinion.

Bigots do things like try and push conversion therapy, which is the sort of s**t that those in ACPeds try to pull, dangerous incredibly anti-science practices, all while pretending like their stuff is science-based. It is absolutely ridiculous to expect that ACPeds would do unbiased research.

The fact that you don't get that, is not a good look.