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Gender Recognition Act: Hansard. 1

I have done twitter threads on the Gender Recognition Act before and two blog posts. I have decided to download the parliamentary discussion as captured on Hansard. The two existing posts, in this series, look at a legal case and an interview with a Judge, who sits on the Gender Recognition Panel. There are 44 pages and I am going to pick out a sample of quotes. The original intention was highlight those assurances that have proved worthless and the warnings that have come to pass. It did not quite work out like that because hardly anyone seemed to think women had a stake in this discussion, unless they of course the ”women” were of the male persuasion.

The first reading of the Bill is a formality to signal the passage of the bill through parliament. The first substantive debate, in the House of Commons Chamber, takes place at the second reading. There is a preliminary stage in committee so I will cover that as well. The full file is available to read here:

Gender Recognition Bill (Hansard, 23 February 2004)

David Lammy presents the bill. Early interruptions raise the issue of pension provision for spouses and the transsexual person. The bill required a married person, usually a man, to have any marriage annulled to get a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). This was because there was, as yet, no provision for ”same sex” unions. Below, David Lammy advises that the bill originates from another piece of work, which I have looked at before. (I will add a post on that document). Lammy confirms that anyone who wished to obtain a GRC must end any marriage.

A number of interruptions raise exemptions, based on freedom of conscience, for religious institutions. Then Tim Loughton raised the issue of prisoners who obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). (This was one of the few interventions that seemed to think about women, the female and only kind)

Here Andrew Robathan raises the issue of detransitioners, people who revert to accepting their biological sex. Nobody really knows how many regret ”transition” but there are currently 27,000 on the detrans forum on reddit.

Andrew Robathan calls the bill a piece of ”arrant nonsense” and raises an important point in respect of those who regret their decision. This is how detransitioners find themselves having to go to a Gender Recognition Panel to have their actual sex recognised in law. This is complicated by the requirement to have ”Gender Dysphoria” which detransitioners either no longer have or they are dysphoric in relation to their actual sex. I know of two people in this legal limbo; they have re-identified with their natal sex but their legal sex remains as that of the opposite sex.

Ann Widdecombe raises the issue of mothers who wish to avail themselves of a GRC and whether this impacts on how parentage is recorded. {An issue that still rumbles on in the Freddy McConnell case}. Donald Anderson raises the danger of activists who are litigious. (This is elaborated on in a later debate and concerns the case of a bearded man seeking access to a female only church group)

Lammy advises the house that he has been advised by a transsexual constituent on this matter who had been a senior official. This was a recurring theme. Many MPs report being visited by a transsexual constituent. They were all male. Clearly the Trans Lobby groups activated their base. Where were the professional feminists rousing women from our slumbers?

John Bercow intervenes to decry those who think this bill is a threat to anyone else. 😳Dunwoody and Boswell intervene to express caution about legislation to help a minority, which is laudable, but should not be bad legislation that harms another group. (They may mean women but they don’t say so. From the proceedings I suspect they are more concerned about the registrars who have to provide the new birth certificates. Boswell also references the trans lobby group, Press for Change. Boswell seems most exercised over preserving marriage between a man and a woman and he also asks if we may encourage behaviour from those who may enjoy “flaunting exaggerated behaviour”. It’s not clear if this is a euphemism for indecent exposure.

Lynne Jones speaks to celebrate the arrival of a bill for which she has campaigned for a decade. She had previously assumed the issue was sexual until a timid transsexual male persuaded her otherwise. She then introduces the idea of the wrong body and an opposite sex brain.

Lynn Jones then goes on to play the intersex card and talk about hormonal influences in the womb. She then pays tribute to Christine Burns and Press For Change and Gender Research and Education Society (GIRES).

Mark Oaten makes a point about the Criminal Records Bureau and the issue of changing names and birth certificates. He seems more concerned about the right to privacy than safeguarding issues. Eric Joyce intervenes to confirm the Bill does not require any surgery to have taken place. Shaun Woodward then speaks up to support the bill and advises that he has a transsexual sister.

There is a lot of talk people with disorders of sexual development from a number of speakers. This is a good time to point out that gender clinics abandoned karyotype tests because people with DSDs are not a feature in referrals to gender clinics. If you want to know why ”intersex” people are used so much in this debate see my piece on Dr Ann Lawrence. Lawrence is an autogynephilic, transsexual and his work sheds much light on this issue.

Diagnostic Criteria: Gender Dysphoria

Andrew Selous questioned the evidence for a biological basis for Gender Dysphoria.

This is the second reading of the bill, which had also spent time being scrutinised by a committee. I will cover those, the House of Lords debate and the Transsexual Working Group established in 1999.

I will end with the point made by Andrew Selous and point out that not one person raised any concerns about women, as a sex class.

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Parents of “trans” kids. Part 3

Social Transition:

In the introduction we are told ”social transition” can mean a change of name, pronoun, coming out at school and a visit to a GP, to get a referral to a gender clinic. It is important not to assume ”social transition” is harmless. There are a number of consequences to socially presenting as the opposite sex. Let me cover two. Firstly, if you look at the first series I did on parents of “trans kids”, it is clear the vast, vast, majority were also taking medical steps or at least getting on waiting lists. Secondly, concretising an ”identity” at such a young age forecloses options and may help cement something that otherwise would have may been transitory. This same ideology claims to believe in ”gender fluidity” but then treats children as if their “gender identity” is immutable. This is just one of the, many, central contradictions in the ideological framework underpinning transgender ideology.

There are also psychological consequences for the child who is presenting one way but dealing with a body of the opposite sex to the one they are presenting. To get a psychologist’s view on this, I recommend this piece on Transgender Trend website, on the dangers of social transition.

Dangers of social transition

Here is a clip from the article, written by a psychologist.

“Coming out” stories.

This quote from one of the parents in this research project is worth reproducing in full. This is a mum with a plan of action which she is putting into motion immediately. 👇. The mum claims to know nothing about ”transgender”children but she barely takes a breath before she has a plan of action.

She is doing all this before she tells the child’s father! She admits she had done no research and she did not even know if she was doing the right thing. By the very next day the teachers were calling her by a new name and a doctor’s appointment had been made!

The website then provides guidance on changing a legal name and then quotes another parent who has taken this step, against the advice of the Gender Clinic, who counselled caution. 👇

We then hear from a father who has a nineteen year old daughter about to start testosterone. We are told their journey began at age 13. {The website includes an aside her to remind us that “medical transition” does not necessarily follow from “social transition” but, as you will see, it is a rare parent who questions the wisdom of these, irreversible, medical steps.

This parent explains why she dislikes of parental acceptance for her ”transgender” child. On the contrary, it should be described as not rejecting her “daughter”.

She goes on to explain how they had resisted the entreaties of their son, but eventually, capitulated because it was all their son would talk about. At this point they had already spoken to a gender clinic and, it appears they were on the waiting. When they agreed to use a female name and pronouns it brought an end to a very stressful period, punctuated by bouts of crying.

Next we hear from a foster parent who claims she was the one slowing things down.

She claims the process was slow and she always left the door open for a change of heart. At the same time, when she is interviewed, she says she knows in her heart her ”son” won’t go back; ”He would never have fitted. He was never female”.

Next we meet Mel, a step mum, who explains her, and the child’s father, were the last to know about his son. They were concerned there may have been some collusion by the child’s mother and if her mental health issues played a role. The ”transition” also felt very rushed. 👇

Living in stealth.

The word stealth is derived from old English and the word ”steal”: “to carry off clandestinely without right or leave“

The next section covers the issue of lying about your sex. The author’s explain this is a personal choice, people have the right to conceal their sex, this is justified because ”trans” people face rejection and discrimination. It is worth pointing out that this is NOT merely a personal choice, it has societal ramifications. We tend to use the term discrimination only in negative contexts but being discriminating is also ”to choose wisely”. There are also some legitimate areas of discrimination, protected in law, such as the right to exclude males from single sex spaces. What the author’s are ignoring is the impact from the presence of stealth males, in female spaces. This is a violation of the boundaries of women and girls and shows a complete disregard for issues of consent. #MeToo anyone?

Here is Lisa talking about her child’s decision to withhold information from their classmates. None of the parents seem to even consider whether this is ethical. Lisa seems more concerned that she is not able to express her pride in having a ”transgender” kid in public. 👇

Kate says her ”son” will go stealth “if he can get away with it”. Quite apart from the betrayal of trust I cannot imagine the stress on the child, from fear of discovery. I would also point out that a female example provokes a very different reaction to a stealth male. I fear for a stealth female in male spaces. The opposite is true when this is a biological male using female spaces, in stealth mode. The consequences are vastly different when the sex is male and the spaces are female.

Below a parent tells the story of her stealth son; who would not let her tell the truth to his school. Her perspective is entirely from her son’s perspective. She wants him to be out, proud and accepted. No concern for the girls who think they are dealing with another female. The mum is, however, concerned that she may have betrayed her son by, covertly, asking advice from the school. Sounds as if the school tacitly agreed that this fraud could be perpetrated against their female pupils.

The above quote touches on another issue. How many of this generation began by performing their ”gender” in an on-line setting? I have seen more than one detransitioner talk about how cos-play in on-line environments cemented the idea life would be easier as the opposite sex. I covered a paper looking at therapeutic approaches to resolving gender dysphoria and the, female, client was using male avatars in on line interactions. She pointed out how much more respect she garnered as a “man”. One of the strategies deployed, in her therapy, was to find a strong female avatar and role play as her own sex. With that and other therapeutic work she desisted. You can read that case here:

Therapeutic Interventions to resolve Gender Dysphoria

I will finish this section with a quote from the Transgender Trend article, quoted above.

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Parents of ”trans kids”: 2

This is the second piece on some research, for a PhD, on families in the U.K. who believe they have a ”transgender” child. Part One focussed on experiences with “socially transitioning” their child. It followed 30 families whose children ranged from years of three to eleven. Most identified as the opposite sex but some were ”non-binary”. For this paper the numbers under consideration were the 23 families engaging with gender clinics. As you can see from the title there was not much positive feedback about the gender clinics, in the U.K.

Full paper is accessible here:

Parents of “trans kids” at Gender Clinics

Broadly the parents felt the clinics were overly intrusive in their questioning /therapy and unsupportive of affirming parents. The social transition of children is a relatively new phenomenon, in the United Kingdom, and these parents, who have taken this step, are likely to be more convinced/entrenched in their belief system. The negative feedback seems very much driven by shock that the clinicians, at gender clinics, were still treating these children in an exploratory fashion. The parents have already determined that they had a transgender child on their hands and they did not take kindly to being questioned.

It also needs to be borne in mind that the author of the study identifies as ”non-binary” and also has a “transgender” child. Both the author and the parents spent time in closed groups for parents in the same situation; groups which cater for “affirming” parents. Parents who are more questioning are badged as ”trans-hostile” and were not included in the study, naturally enough as these parents are highly unlikely to be ”socially transitioning” their child. Of course this does not mean non-affirming parents are insisting only girls wear pink and have long hair. They may well have a son, like mine, with waist length hair and a penchant for perfume and baking. Like me they may be comfortable with this variant expression of masculinity and regard it as perfectly acceptable for his sex.

A central critique of the gender clinics is they are pathologising gender diversity because they are tainted by ”cis-genderism”. They are accused of seeking a “cause” for the “non-normative” development of the transgender child. By treating it as a disorder the clinics are, from the parents, they are erroneously seeking explanations rather than accepting the child as a “transgender child”. This is anathema to these parents who are firmly in the ”born this way” camp. It is necessary to understand the parental belief system to comprehend why they are so keen to embrace their ”transgender” child even to the extent of blocking puberty. For those of us who see embracing gender diversity as a positive value which does NOT , should not, include a drug regime, the parents embracing lifelong medical dependence are a baffling phenomenon. To ”affirmative” clinicians it is we who are problematic. To the author of this paper, clinicians who seek fo find an underlying cause for the ”gender dysphoria” are the ones guilty of “medical violence” . Yes by practicing therapeutic exploration you are accused of doing serious harm. The framing here is duplicitous. Parents resisting medical intervention, for our children, are perfectly accepting of diverse ways to express your ”gender”; we just don’t think society needs to medically intervene to mimic the opposite sex.

The author clearly believes therapeutic exploration is akin to ”conversion therapy” and any questioning induces feelings of shame and is a path to self-harm and suicide ideation.

The study then quotes some trans-ideolgues who rail against pathologising these children, instead they should be celebrated. Many /all of these parents fervently believe in this perspective. Is it any wonder, as we saw in part one, they feel they have no choice but to embrace their child’s ”identity”.

The results of the study were as follows:

Quotes from parents are included to illustrate the themes the author identified. We are told that many parents became emotional /angry when describing their treatment by the clinicians at gender clinics. One parent is aghast that the clinician wants to explore the impact of a still-born child on her/the family. Another that she was asked about the timing of the transgender identity in relation to the father leaving the family home. Another is unhappy the therapist wishes to explore the death of her mother and a second mother is unhappy the therapist wants to explore paternal bereavement:

The parents are manifestly irritated by the idea of any causal factor in their kids adopting a transgender identity. To them it’s all a waste of time. The child just is trans and all they really want is to take action; by which I assume they mean access puberty blockers. From this vantage point exploring issues like family break-up, sibling rivalry, bereavment or even whether they practice rigid gender roles, is irrelevant. There are plenty of quotes illustrating this perspective.

Another thing that comes over, very strongly, is the parents feeling let down by not encountering unquestioning acceptance of the trans-narrative; which is labelled “trans-positive”. More than one parent reports that a clinician had expressed a negative view about the parent having socially transitioned the child.

The way the parents interpret the exploratory therapy is akin to an inquisition. One parents talk about how they “wised up” to the direction they felt the clinician was heading by their line of questioning. It is clear to some of the parents that some clinicians see being ”trans” as a less than desirable outcome. While the clinician may have thought all parents would prefer an unmedicalised future for their child it is obvious this is not the desired outcome for these parents. They have already decided they have a ”trans” child and invested, publicly, in their child’s identity and see themselves as supportive parents. They talk of the hostility they face for socially transitioning a young child, some speak of unsupportive family members. Imagine arriving at a gender clinic and finally speaking to someone paid to understand this issue who does not immediately affirm your child! It clearly came as a shock. This was a really revealing quote from one parent. They had been ”excited” to visit the gender clinic and were left deflated..

Overall the assessment was that the gender clinics were judgemental and parents felt unnecessarily scrutinised. This parent expresses what seems to be the generally held opinion.

More than one parent complained that they felt de-stabilised by any questioning. Two are quoted rejecting clinicians who told them desistance rates for children with gender dysphoria were around 80%. This is based on a piece that looked at all studies conducted prior to early medical intervention. The fact these parents seem to prefer lifelong dependence on opposite sex hormones should have raised red flags all over the place. The author does raise child safeguarding issues but it is not for these parents, rather it is for parents who are not affirming. See this excerpt below: 👇. One of the recommendations is to educate the parents and if they do not get on board the clinician should take responsibility for prioritising ”child safety”. What form this will take is not spelled out but it all sounds rather ominous.

It is perfectly clear that these parents are very committed to the idea they have a transgender child. They do not want to be questioned lest they are dissuaded? The kind of ”care” which would seem to be desired is outlined by this parent: 👇

I will follow this up with a later post when the author publishes more of this research.

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Parents of ”Trans Kids”: 1

Some reflections on parents who ”socially transition” their children to present as the opposite sex.

An analysis of this paper: 👇

Paper available here

The author is undertaking a PhD covering this research. The first article is about the parental experience of socially transitioning their child. There is a second paper confirming some of these children were also attending gender clinics. It seems likely a number of these children are accessing puberty blockers. Hopefully the author will continue to follow up these children as the impact of the medical pathway becomes clear.

The paper is written from the perspective of the parents and follows 30 families, located throughout the United Kingdom.

This is the abstract. As stated above, the paper looks at the experience of “socially“ transitioning your child but, as will be made clear in the follow up paper, some of the children are also engaging with Gender Clinics and, presumably, either accessing, or seeking, medical intervention.

The average age of the children concerned was seven years old. The youngest child in the study was three years old.

In the introduction we are informed that there has been a shift away from pathologising these children as ”disordered” to “celebration” and ”normalisation” of a transgender identity. Parents are encouraged to validate the child’s experience and ”affirm” their “lived experience”. Social transition may include a change of name and pronouns and, we are told, is not just allowing gender non-conformity but a “shift to a lived gender identity” .

Below 👇 we are told that parental affirmation ensures higher well-being than for other trans youth, who show higher levels of depression, self-harm and suicide ideation.

This statement should not be taken at face value. A study by Michael Biggs, into those children put on puberty blockers, found quite the opposite. I covered this paper on my blog:

TAVISTOCK 4 : Michael Biggs

Here is one observation from the work of Michael Biggs.

Many of the studies making this claim rely on parental report and the survey, quoted above, by Olsen et al, was based on parental completion of a questionnaire. We cannot discount the possibility that parents are unlikely to acknowledge their child is still in distress/ unhappy after they have embarked on this pathway. As Biggs noted:

The authors recommend some further reading on “transgender kids“. One of them is focused on the U.K. and written by a late-transitioning male. He asks us to treat children as our ”gender bosses” . Foreword is by Susie Green, of Mermaids infamy and Jay Stewart of the lobby group, Gendered Intelligence.

Other books by the same author: 👇

Trans-emancipatory Framework

The author contextualises the parental experience of bringing up a trans child within a ”trans-emancipatory” framework. The parents have ”lived experience” of bringing up their child during a “media-driven backlash against trans rights, in the U.K. with concerted attacks on the rights of the transgender child“ . Without naming the case (Keira Bell) the author also references attacks on adolescent trans-health care.

I covered the Keira Bell case here: (Note this judgement was subsequently overturned).

Kiera Bell: Judicial Review

The author laments the permeation of “cis-normativity” in our institutions and also makes it clear they are coming from an intersectional framework and aware of the issues of racism, sexism and classism. For the record I am skeptical about the awareness of “sexism” ; If sex is a pick and mix how do you the defend sex based rights that women fought for? These are all the buzzwords for social justice warriors, what they mean in practice often contradicts the stated aims.

This was the research focus of the paper:

This was the sample interviewed. Ages range from three years old to ten, some identified in line with the sex binary and others were non-binary. Parents were mainly white and ”cisgender” with varied sexual orientations including many with the neo-sexual orientation of “pansexual”. I include this, not just to be snide, but, because this indicates some of the parents were aware being pansexual (open to relationships with all ”genders”) is the politically correct sexuality in transgender circles. The prevalence of females (93%) in the parental sample is also stark. Anecdotally this often seems to be the case.

The sample was drawn from closed groups set up to support parents of “transgender kids”. The sample is, therefore, a self-selecting parental group because parents opting for watchful waiting, described as ”trans-hostile” by the author, would not be active in these forums.

The author is a member of the online spaces and is non-binary and also a parent of a trans child. What are the chances?

The parents were asked to reflect on the decision making process that lead to socially transitioning their child and how they feel now about the risks and benefits. The results were as follows:

Many parents were, understandably, concerned about anonymity but nevertheless many also expressed a desire to share their voices with other parents. This is because they believe their voices are absent from the public discourse. {Given the near ubiquity of trans-kids in the media I find it hard to give this credence. The parents resisting a medical transition are the ones who are missing from this ”debate”. This has resulted in an asymmetry of media coverage in quite the opposite way from the one suggested by this quote.}

The parent comments are eerily similar and many express how terrified they were to embark on this pathway. The parents operated on a “gut-feeling” this was the right path. The centrality of hair length is another key theme. You know hair length means short for a “boy” and long for a “girl”.

Another common theme was a loss of parental control which seems almost indistinguishable from handing over control to the child. Following the child’s lead is seen as necessary because parental control is, in any case, illusory. You can’t ”make your child not trans” and all you can do is have a happy or a sad trans child.

A lot of parents talk about how much courage it takes to take a leap into the unknown with your child. It takes faith.

The parents feel they have no choice, they don’t see any other option. The fear of raising an “unhappy” child is another recurrent theme. It’s difficult to assess what they mean by ”unhappy”. I was personally surprised by how raw and extreme my children’s emotions were when thwarted in any desire.

Parents felt they were forcing their child to be something they are not by affirming their biological sex. Of course no account would be complete without a reference to suicide ideation. 👇

Another parent with a child not wanting to live until they acceded to the ”gender boss” and socially transitioned the child. “How could you tell your child that that’s wrong?”

There follows testimonials that the parents knew this was the right course of action because of how happy their child was. Knowing how many of these kids were being seen at gender clinics and at least some were seeking medical intervention this parent comes across as dangerously naive. 👇. There will be consequences for a child who has puberty blocked. We already know that as high as 98% will continue to cross sex hormones once puberty is blocked. If a boy changes his mind there could be significant, detrimental, impacts, such as stunted growth in respect of his genitalia.

This is a risk about which the parents are either unaware, or in denial. “Most outright rejected the idea that there was any risk associated with accepting their child“, notice the framing. Those of us who accept our (male) children in the body they are in, irrespective of a preference for long hair, and an attraction to boys are, implicitly, badged as not ”accepting” our children.

There follows some bafflement about parents who do not affirm /socially transition their child. Specifically parents who allow their child to display behaviour at home but restrict them outside the home. This is a tricky one. If your son wants to be of flamboyant in dress and rock long hair why is this not allowed without implying it means you have changed sex? At the same time making this a furtive behaviour may create unhealthy associations about ”forbidden pleasures”.

Some of the parents report how transgender adults convinced them to embrace their child’s new identity. I think this is misguided because many adults seek validation and a distraction from sexual motives for their own transition. Children de-sexualise motivations and also validate the idea of ”born this way”.

Parents offer advice for other parents going through this and the consensus is this is that socially transitioning your child is the answer. Again 👇 we see the reckless assumption there will be no long term consequences. Short term happiness does not mean long-term well-being.

Two comments on this. Of course we should fight for the right to wear whatever clothes and hair style kids want. However, it’s utterly regressive and culturally ignorant to assume long hair and skirts = girls. Tell that to seventeenth century males who had a monopoly on heels, or dandies, or the note the penchant for long hair and wigs in males. If it were only hair and clothes, not puberty blockers, it would all be reversible. 👇 However, we know for at least some of these families the changes are not merely superficial.

There is a lot of commonality in the comments from these parents. The striking thing is the absence of doubt or fear they may be making a mistake. I wonder if there will be more evidence of critical reflection when these same parents are asked about their experiences with gender clinics? My next piece will cover that.

A note on the author:

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Bewley & Byng:

This is a paper from 2019. Raising concerns about the medical treatment used on children and adolescents with Gender Dysphoria. You can read it here: 👇

Bewley and Byng

The authors raise a number of concerns about the medical responses to children, and young people, with a Gender Identity disturbance. The paper covers the rising rates of referrals, minimal medical discussion and debate, reports of poor care and uncertainty around the evidence which is guiding medical practice. The authors also note the conflation of biological sex with social expectations associated with your biological sex; Gender roles.

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The above is a neat summary of all the areas of concern. A specific concern is a move to an ”affirmative” care model. Broadly this approach argues we should not pathologise someone who believes they are the opposite sex, or neither sex, but should affirm that belief and facilitate, not gate-keep, access to medical treatment.

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Rising rates of detransitioners is the predictable outcome. As covered in my series on Detransition. The authors highlight the changing landscape in terms of the rising rates of referral, the myriad of ”identities” claimed as part of youth subculture, and growing demands to have these identities affirmed via medical interventions. They also make that point that the GMC (General Medical Council) and the BMA (British Medical Association) adopt different positions.

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The paper consistently appeals for more knowledge in this area of treatment. The 4000% increase in females arriving at Gender Clinics should have aroused some, clinical, curiosity. The % increase for boys has also been in excess of 1000% over the same period which was roughly a decade. However the inversion of the sex ratio to 75% female should have warranted urgent attention. Here’s what Bernadette Wren (Of the UK Main Gender Identity Service GIDs /Tavistock) had to say to a parliamentary committee on this rise. This was in response to rising rates of referrals. Clip from Hansard. Note the ”we feel that we are at the cutting edge of a social revolution”

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The impact of long term health outcomes is also a factor that will need to be taken into account when long-term testosterone use starts to affect the bodies of these girls/young women, the long term impact of blocking a natural puberty and the health consequences of surgeries whether or not they are regretted.

Continue reading “Bewley & Byng:” →

Bob Withers. Part 5

This section looks at how young people are being misled into becoming lifelong medical patients. In this section the author looks at different scenarios based on fictional cases which, nevertheless, draw on real life cases from his therapeutic experience. I will add in some observations, from my own experience, of parenting a trans-identified son.

In this section we have some reflections on how our children come to share a belief they are born in the wrong body. 👇. These ideas are not emerging in a cultural vacuum. What shocks me, to this day, is the promulgation of this ideology by Childrens BBC. Programmes like ”I am Leo” were marketing this ideology to our kids. The main culprit, in terms of my son, was ChildLine, who are run by the NSPCC. For those who don’t know this is the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, who are the only children’s charity to have statutory powers to intervene and ”protect” children. The NSPCC is deeply implicated in fostering a bodily disassociation as ”normal” to troubled kids who turned to them for help. {You can find my entire series on the NSPCC from the menu}.

Even purported academic/medical conferences are promoting this ideology and are even funded by the very pharmaceutical companies who stand to profit from our children’s distress. 👇 Big Pharma trumps talking therapies.

Bob then covers some of the common narratives of young girls, identifying as boys, who claimed to have spent time socialising with wolves, but this is not a social contagion, right?

He then covers the case of an autistic female who shed her feelings of “weirdness” when she identified as male. She resisted puberty blockers because of concern about the health risks. Finally she reconciled to her sex, and sexuality:

My son feels ”weird” about being a male, attracted to males, who enjoys female friends, likes to bake and was ostracised and subject to homophobic bullying from a young age. What is happening to him now is Gay Conversion Therapy. 👇. Whether intended or not this is the result of this, deeply homophobic, ideology.

The clinicans who are dosing my son with sterilsing hormomes are criminally culpable and I would like to see trials and imprisonment. Will it happen? I fear not because there are simply too many, high profile, people who have staked their reputations on defending the idea of “transgender kids”.

Next Bob looks at the TV show Butterfly in which Anna Friel plays the mum of a boy, Max, who feels as if he was meant to be a girl. Series advice was taken from the lobby group Mermaids. The Tavistock apparently withdrew their support for the programme.

This was from the trailer:

The programme foregrounds the idea of only two options. Allow Max to be Maxine or have a child suicide on your hands. Later they also dramatise the idea of a child attempting to castrate himself; all promote the necessary application of puberty blockers. The suicide data does not support these claims.


Bob then examines possible pathways for Max/Maxine. One of these is a non-medicalised future:

As in the ITV drama, Max could have a medicalised future as ”Maxine”. What could be the outcome? One outcome is pharmaceutical companies stand to make a lot of money. Once you start a kid on puberty blockers they, almost invariably, proceed to cross-sex hormones. He will be a lifelong customer.He will also be sterile. In the long term he will have a significantly increased risk of suicide. This is the only suicide statistic that trans-activists shy away from referencing.

Bob then looks at some other consequences. There are some knowns some unknowns. I impact on bone density is a known, impact on sexual function / ability to orgasm is a dirty secret which some, post-operative, males have reported.

One of the consequences of puberty blockers is stunted genitalia, for males, which complicates any future surgeries. Even with “successful” surgeries there are issues re ”maintaining“ a ”neo-vagina”.

After a reminder that Mermaids advised the series producer, and some skepticism about the picture painted in ”Butterfly”, we are presented with an alternative scenario where Max/Maxine gets some meaningful, therapeutic intervention. Eventually he discloses some child sexual abuse and his mother’s feelings about his “sexually predatory” father. Max begins to consider whether these things promoted rejection of his sexed body.

Like many detransitioners this costs him dearly in terms of his social networks.

Finally the author draws these conclusions. Affirmation relies on low quality research and the silencing of critical/questioning voices with cries of ”transphobia”.

Withers makes a final point about the societal response to ”Gender Dysphoria” and other mental health issues. Is it our own discomfort which drives us to accept a medical diagnosis and treatment pathway. Have we embarked on a programme of sexual lobotomy? “Surely this must suit us for some reason”

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Bob Withers: Detransition. Part 4

You can read the other pieces in this series below: 👇

Bob Withers: Series.

Detransition

This part of the paper covers the consequences of unthinking affirmation of a gender Identity which is at odds with their biological sex. The mistake we are making is written on the bodies of our young who are taking cross sex hormones and having unnecessary surgical procedures.

Writing in June 2020, Bob notes the increasing phenomenon of detransitioners. These are people who have had some medical intervention to resolve their distress, under the aegis of a transgender identity, only to realise they have made a catastrophic mistake. Gradually we are seeing more public accounts of detransition and some, scholarly, research. At the same time James Caspian has been denied the opportunity to research this phenomenon, at Bath Spa University, due to concerns about ”reputational risk”.

There is a lack of reliable data on rates of regret / detransition. The phrase ”loss to follow up” recurs in many studies which ought not to be a surprise. Why would you return to the clinic who are responsible for your ”transition” ? We have no way of knowing how many of the missing 36%, mentioned below 👇, also regret their medical interventions.

Another feature of this research is the way completed suicides are treated. There were three suicides in a cohort followed up from a Nottingham clinic. They were not counted as detransitioners but their subsequent suicide certainly does not suggest surgery was an unmitigated success.

The use of misleading statistics about suicide, especially in relation to children, is one of the most egregious tactics used by the Transgender Lobby. It is leveraged to encourage parents to accept a “gender identity” and hasten them to affirm /medicalise. Yet the same groups show a marked lack of curiosity about solid data on post transition suicide rates.

Despite the paucity of formal research there is a growing community of detransitioners who are finding each other in on-line forums, conducting their own research and making YouTube content about their regrets.

Detrans Community on Reddit:

Since this paper was written the detrans subreddit has exploded in terms of its numbers as per below. Since June 2020 the reddit detrans forum has increased from 12,000 + to nearly 26,000 as of February 2021.

I have done two substack posts covering comments by posters, on the above forum. Below is the one on males who regret their ”transition”.

Detransitioned males

This is one on detransitioned females. There are commonalities between the two groups but also some sex specific differences in both the reasons for medicalising their distress and their decision to detransition.

Detransitioned females

The above accounts need more formal research so that we don’t continue to harm a new generation.

Dr Az Hakeem: Trans


This piece by Bob Withers also covers the work of Dr Az Hakeem, who conducted therapy for men who regretted their transition. He provides many case studies in the book ”Trans”. There are many reasons this group are marginalised/silenced. Some are related to personal feelings of culpability and foolishness about the, irreversible, medical steps they taken. Backlash from within the trans community is another reason; many are accused of risking other, trans-identified, people’s access to surgeries etc. This can be very powerful deterrent if your community of friends is drawn from within transgender groups. Many detransitioners speak of losing entire friendship groups when they detransitioned, especially if they questioned transgender ideology.

Dr Hakeem had the inspired idea of setting up a group for those with post-operative regret. He writes about how many became fixtures of this group and how it allowed them to recover self esteem. Another practice was to run combined sessions for this group and the pre-surgical group. The second group were looking forward to medical interventions. So what happened when they mixed these two groups? 98% abandoned the idea of medical treatments for their feelings of gender dysphoria

The group who voluntarily referred themselves to Dr Hakeem were a self-selecting group. Its hard to argue they were representative but it is noteworthy that they were prepared to go back to the gender clinic and make their regret clear. It is odd that this didn’t result in more research and better follow up of their post-surgical clients. Even more odd is the fact we have actually lowered the bar to medical intervention, in recent years. Given the explosion of people with a ”transgender” identity and the average time estimated for regret to set in, what kind of situation will we face in a decade?

My fifth piece from this paper will explore how young people came to their belief in a personal identity as ”transgender”.

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Bob Withers: Medicalising distress.

This is part 3 on an excellent paper by Bob Withers.

You can read parts one and two here:

Bob Withers: Series.

Why are we treating distress by blocking puberty, prescribing cross-sex hormones and surgeries? Not only are we ignoring the underlying issues we are creating new, medical, issues for this vulnerable group. Below are the kind of co-morbidities which exist within this group now labelled as ”transgender”. Underlying issues are left untreated by this rush to label these kids as “trans” and medicalise their distress. We have had medical fads before and are now, uncritically, assuming these psychological problems as the state of being ”transgender”. This is a label of convenience, which just happens to make pharmaceutical companies a lot of money.

This diagnosis is encouraged by trans-activists who believe they are supporting a new civil rights issue. Children are also being bombarded by trans-ideology by broadcasters, like the BBC and purported children’s charities like the NSPCC, via ChildLine. Our kids follow YouTube influencers and can easily find out how to access drugs by learning a script. The script may include invented childhood histories, real or claimed self-harming and suicide threats. These stories are replete with reinterpretations of the past and may include the phrase ”authentic self” accompanied by unverifiable claims to feel like the opposite sex. Using these phrases it is all too easy to obtain drugs from a credulous, or cowed, medical profession. These drug pushers have either imbibed the propaganda, or are operating a profitable sideline. A decade long campaign has removed any meaningful ”gatekeeping” , exposing our kids to having their bodies mined, for profit, by an unscrupulous industry. Finding a therapist who does not ”affirm” your child is nigh on impossible.

Big Pharma!

This is where it starts to get sinister. In the previous blog Pfizer pharmaceuticals were funding a conference hosted at the Tavistock gender clinic. Here we discover that Ferrings Pharmaceuticals are funding studies on the drugs they are making massive profits from!

I did a bit of digging on the Electoral Commission’s superb database. Heres the headline figure from donations made, by Ferring pharmaceuticals to the Liberal Democrats.

Here’s a screen shot of the list. That entire sum went to the LibDems!

Denton’s Document

Withers is referring to the Denton’s document, below, which outlines the strategy for making sure laws are passed to embed gender identity ideology in legislation. This document was a collaboration between a trans lobby group (IGLYO), the Thomson Reuters Foundation and the worlds largest law firm. I blogged about that, sinister, document here:

That Denton’s Document

Follow the money

He is not wrong about the profits to be made. This is just for puberty blockers. Note also that the courts shut down one profitable market, for corruption! Are our kids the new market? You, bet they are.

Consider the profits to be made by lifelong dependence on cross-sex hormones? Throw in the surgeries and look at the predictions from GM Insights. This tells investors where to head to make big money. You can read the preview of their report here: 👇

It’s an Industry


Here they project the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of these surgeries. Anything above 15% is regarded as a good return. Government policy is integral to the growth of this “market”. We are fostering a bodily disassociative disorder for profit!

Here they are estimating the market. They are leveraging the distress of our youth for billion dollar returns.

They do bury this information in the footnotes.

A stark warning.

I will end with this blog with a chilling prediction from the author. My next piece will stay with this paper but cover the section on detransition.

 

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Bob Withers. Puberty Blockers. 2

Part two looking at the work of Bob Withers.

You can read part one here:

Bob Withers: Autogynephilia. 1

This part of the paper deals with blocking puberty in children who we have decided are “transgender”. These are powerful drugs and are not licensed for the purpose of halting puberty in healthy children. (They have been used for a condition known as precocious puberty). They have been billed as harmless and reversible. This not true. Little is known about the long term effects but the impact on bone density is documented. This can lead to osteoporosis. This is also a treatment used to treat prostate cancer and to chemically castrate sex offenders.

Withers quotes the work of Michael Biggs on puberty suppression. I covered that in this post :

TAVISTOCK 4 : Michael Biggs

Even for precocious puberty, where we do have data, blocking puberty resulted in a drop in IQ. Most of this data, scant though it is, is mainly about females, who are more likely to experience, or be medically treated for, the condition. There is, therefore, less data on males.

I find this, personally, terrifying because doctors have prescribed these drugs to my son and brain maturation relies on sex based hormones; which are being blocked. The medical profession are acquiescing in this treatment despite the lack of research.

Bob describes attending a conference about the “Science of Gender” , at the Tavistock. Note, this conference was funded by Pfizer pharmaceuticals! Withers references two speakers. Notice the role of sex hormones in brain development. I looked up Professor Blakemore. You can find a presentation she did on YouTube for The Royal Institution. What struck me about her talk was how little we know about the processes involved in brain development. Despite this lack of knowledge we are experimenting with pubertal development in children/adolescents.

{As a side issue I notice the myelination of nerve pathways occurs during this period. Damage to myelination sheaths occurs in multiple sclerosis and there is some research showing males who take exogenous female hormones are seven times as likely to develop multiple sclerosis. I will blog about this, when I get chance}.

Another speaker gave a talk on puberty blockers given to sheep. 👇. Cognition is impacted and this persists even a year after stopping taking them.

You can access this paper here. 👇

Puberty Blockers in sheep

A pause? 

As you can see the claim puberty is only “paused” is not borne out by the data. Children put on puberty blocking drugs invariably progress to cross sex hormones. Historic data, prior to this early medical intervention, saw most desist, and turn out to be gay males or lesbians, by the way. I am skeptical in respect of the claim, made below, this is due to superior diagnostic techniques. Those of us with children /teens who claim a transgender identity know they learn a script to make sure they get access to hormones.

This is a poorly evidenced medical response to kids struggling with gender identity issue. Many of them are gay, some autistic, kids in the care system are over-represented at gender clinics, as are females more generally.

Looks a lot like eugenics.

In part three I will look at the same paper which explores how society is treating distress by administering drugs and the drug companies who are profiting. If you are able to support my work you can do so here. I will keep my content free but I do this full-time and unwaged and I have an annual bill of £240 coming up to renew this blog.

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Bob Withers: Autogynephilia. 1

I am going to do a series on Bob’s work because it covers a lot of ground. I will deal with the different sections in the same order, as the paper, starting with a case of autogynephilia encountered in Bob’s own clinical practice. ( He also covers other motivations to transition, the role of pharmaceutical companies, and the phenomenon of detransition. He ends with some hypothetical, therapeutic scenarios using fictional ”cases” to avoid ethical issues arising from using real cases. All important issues)

I was unable to access a PDF to save but you can read the whole thing here:

Transgender Medicalisation

Here is the abstract:

Detransitioned Autogynephile.

This article begins with a, sympathetic, portrayal of a man who is an autogynephile. For neophytes this is a man who is sexually aroused at the thought of himself as a woman. Chris sought therapy from Bob when he realised identifying as a woman had not eradicated the feelings which drew him to a transgender identity. He feels let down by the therapists who assessed him. The therapists he saw facilitated access to the, misleadingly named, ”sexual reassignment surgery” (SRS). This is a misnomer because It is not possible to change sex. Latterly this is being called by the even more euphemistic, and deceptive, term “gender affirming surgery”. A surgery some people come to regret as is the case with Chris.

Women’s Rights.

Before I tell this story, a word about women’s rights. It is my position that no males, however they identify and irrespective of surgical status, belong in women’s spaces. Nevertheless I can exercise compassion for *some* men who find themselves in this situation. I am glad there are therapists seeking to help men with AGP before they take irrevocable decisions. For this therapy to be helpful it should not simply validate their identity. It should aim to contain it before they hurt themselves, and others. I do not think it is helpful to affirm anyone in the belief they are a woman, trapped in a man’s body. It is harmful to the man and the women expected to provide, free, therapeutic support; in the form of validation and admittance to women’s spaces. When a clinician demands prove of “living in role” and tacitly encourages males to trespass on women’s spaces you are force-teaming women. This is not ethical.

My sympathy, for men with this condition, is qualified. It ends when a man, with or without autogynephilia, demands his condition be normalised, uses women’s spaces and promotes gender identity ideology, especially to children. When this is motivated by a desire to gain acceptance for a sexual paraphilia, we need to be able to point out this is unacceptable.

Withers opens with a poem and his interpretation of the underlying motivations for Attis’s madness and motivations for castration, followed by a return to sanity and regret.

Bob’s interpretation of the mythical experience of Attis is as follows:

We then leave the realms of poetry to meet a patient who rejects his maleness and locates the source of his distress in his male sexual organs. He tries to cut out his ”madness” by surgical inversion/removal of his penis. Following surgery his first emotion is one of relief: 👇

Chris retained his identity as a “woman” for nine years but, like Attis, his attempt to evade his maleness was doomed to failure. Chris could ”pass” as a woman but he still experienced the rage he had associated with his maleness, as a result, he had decided to detransition. As I have covered before, in my work on detransitioners, the medical professions are unskilled in this area and Chris had not been provided with the male hormones he could no longer produce himself. He now finds himself suicidal and his attempts to blog about his experience had also incurred the wrath of the ”trans” community.

Chris sincerely wishes he had received appropriate analysis before he took irreversible steps. We learn that his father was an abusive alcoholic who abandoned the family and his mother could only love him as a girl. It is not clear whether this is his mum’s actual stance, a trauma response to his maleness, perhaps, or if this is Chris’s projection. {I certainly have seen more than one case of a mum enthusiastically claiming a male child is her daughter which deserves psychological evaluation, of her motives, conscious or not, before medicalising the child}.

Chris had no positive, male, role model. His flight from the characteristic he shares with his father is complicated by maternal rejection, real or perceived, and further confused by early erotic experiences. Autogynephilia is described as an erotic target location error where a heterosexual man is aroused by the idea of himself, as a woman. It has been described as ”becoming the thing he loves”, it is a sexual paraphilia. Unsurprisingly Trans activists do not wish this to be discussed. I am probably not the first person to call this ”the love we would rather you didn’t name”. It is hard to sell trans rights on the back of a sexual paraphilia.

Even with my research into this area, as a lay person, he is describing common patterns of arousal, shame, purging and the accompanying rage. He had what passed for analysis at a gender clinic but was not challenged and became fixated on his goal. Impatient with waiting lists he found a private provider to perform the surgery.

That last sentence is important. “the evidence base supporting the efficacy of such treatment is extremely poor“.

This will be part one of a series. The next one looks at puberty blockers.

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