" The series places much emphasis on the psychological assessments preceding treatment, which are presented as a way to detect the real “trans kids,” and therefore the whole scandal is blamed on the recklessness of US doctors who didn’t follow the protocol as it was intended."
" They are still convinced that their assessment process could reliably identify the true trans kids, "
But yet, they never checked. And the whole "Protocol" is a paean to their assessments.
And furthermore...what if these are kids with lifelong cross sex identification--they never checked that medicalizing them was better than alternatives!
This is strongly held belief.
This is not medicine. Over 14,000 US minors started on these treatments from 2017-2021 (Reuters), surely over 20,000 by now, and the answer is "do our assessments that we haven't checked"?
Thank you for pinpointing this. It is not a study of gender medicine. It is just a piece advocating for these assessments that haven't been shown to do what they are claimed to do, by the people who shaped/contributed to the (repeatedly found to be poor) guidelines the US is using now.
And what on earth was that bit at the end with Leibowitz saying that people who don't want to medicalize the kids want all kids to match the stereotypes of their sex? Crazy-backwards--they're the ones saying a boyish girl is a boy, give her drugs and a beard...Sotomayor, I think, also claimed this during Skrmetti?
They do not discuss renaming the once "disorder" in a series of Overton Window moving linguistic changes. They do not address the high rate of 'co-occurring' MH issues. They do not mention that 9/10 kids, left alone, outgrow the ideation.
This is an exceptionally astute, accurate and well written analysis, not only of the NYT series, but also of the (finally!) emerging public debate about the "gender" woo.
I challenge Bowers and anyone else who claims that "thousands" of healthcare providers agree with GAC to provide data supporting that claim. I am a psychologist and for a couple decades I worked with adult patients who were focused on "gender" concerns. I was one of a handful of mental health professionals in the Portland area who had specialized experience in working with such patients. A lot more therapists have received training in "transgender healthcare" since then, but I still don't know of many colleagues who specialize in it. Mostly, reputable mental health professionals steer away from this field, especially away from the pediatric side of it. I steered away from it myself after I became more familiar with it.
Exactly this:
" The series places much emphasis on the psychological assessments preceding treatment, which are presented as a way to detect the real “trans kids,” and therefore the whole scandal is blamed on the recklessness of US doctors who didn’t follow the protocol as it was intended."
" They are still convinced that their assessment process could reliably identify the true trans kids, "
But yet, they never checked. And the whole "Protocol" is a paean to their assessments.
And furthermore...what if these are kids with lifelong cross sex identification--they never checked that medicalizing them was better than alternatives!
This is strongly held belief.
This is not medicine. Over 14,000 US minors started on these treatments from 2017-2021 (Reuters), surely over 20,000 by now, and the answer is "do our assessments that we haven't checked"?
Thank you for pinpointing this. It is not a study of gender medicine. It is just a piece advocating for these assessments that haven't been shown to do what they are claimed to do, by the people who shaped/contributed to the (repeatedly found to be poor) guidelines the US is using now.
And what on earth was that bit at the end with Leibowitz saying that people who don't want to medicalize the kids want all kids to match the stereotypes of their sex? Crazy-backwards--they're the ones saying a boyish girl is a boy, give her drugs and a beard...Sotomayor, I think, also claimed this during Skrmetti?
They do not discuss renaming the once "disorder" in a series of Overton Window moving linguistic changes. They do not address the high rate of 'co-occurring' MH issues. They do not mention that 9/10 kids, left alone, outgrow the ideation.
This is an exceptionally astute, accurate and well written analysis, not only of the NYT series, but also of the (finally!) emerging public debate about the "gender" woo.
I challenge Bowers and anyone else who claims that "thousands" of healthcare providers agree with GAC to provide data supporting that claim. I am a psychologist and for a couple decades I worked with adult patients who were focused on "gender" concerns. I was one of a handful of mental health professionals in the Portland area who had specialized experience in working with such patients. A lot more therapists have received training in "transgender healthcare" since then, but I still don't know of many colleagues who specialize in it. Mostly, reputable mental health professionals steer away from this field, especially away from the pediatric side of it. I steered away from it myself after I became more familiar with it.