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How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired

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Re: How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired

#41

Post by xupybd »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #40
xupybd wrote: post #10

There is a huge problem when activists care more about their cause than the truth.

Yes, the hard part is figuring out which side are the "activists". I know nothing of this particular field, but I do know I can go out on the internet and find well-meaning people writing a very similar story about a scientist commited to the truth being hounded by ill-informed activists on the topic of, for example, climate change. And, to my point, I can find that story written from both sides of the debate. Who wo…

Exactly, it's a problem much greater than this issue. People need to be free to have dissenting views. That will drive research in that direction, the outcome of that will either prove or disprove the position and we'll all be the better of for it having been tested. But now I'm going down the road of an idealist. TLDR; politics suck.

Re: How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired

#42

Post by ascorbic »

Cyph0n wrote: post #22
DanBC wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

11 year olds have a pretty good idea about their gender identity. Puberty blockers are a temporary measure to avoid the trauma of the child going through puberty as the wrong gender - and it is traumatic. Young people are at generally at low risk of suicide, but that risk increases for trans children.

11 year olds 100 years ago, maybe. Nowadays they are children in slightly larger bodies.

It's pretty much exactly the other way around. Puberty was much later, mainly due to nutrition.

Edit: I should add a source. It's dropped by five years since 1920, and 7 years since 1860. That's massive. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/oct/21/puberty-adole...

Re: How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired

#43

Post by xupybd »

xupybd wrote: post #41
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the hard part is figuring out which side are the "activists". I know nothing of this particular field, but I do know I can go out on the internet and find well-meaning people writing a very similar story about a scientist commited to the truth being hounded by ill-informed activists on the topic of, for example, climate change. And, to my point, I can find that story written from both sides of the debate. Who wo…

Exactly, it's a problem much greater than this issue. People need to be free to have dissenting views. That will drive research in that direction, the outcome of that will either prove or disprove the position and we'll all be the better of for it having been tested. But now I'm going down the road of an idealist. TLDR; politics suck.

I think I missed the point, but was spot on with the summary.

Re: How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired

#44

Post by throwaway-09876 »

I'm a regular poster on HN. I have decided not to use my usual account, because this topic is toxic and breeds hatred.

I am now in my forties, married with children. I am now coming slowly to accept that I am trans. It is a hard and troubling realisation. It is (without doubt) a curse in today's (western) society.

I'm also starting to realise that there are different kinds of transgendered people [1]. I have also come to realise that gender is not necessarily fixed, and it spans a range.

It is not a surprise that our society struggles to accept this, since people only outwardly see two fixed biological sexes from birth. Deviations from the norm are always the subject of derision in society.

Brain gender and physical sex do not always match. Gender and sexuality are also different. Many people confuse these two.

I like the existing methods for dealing with gender-dysphoric children. Delay puberty because it is extremely traumatic (from personal experience). Then wait and see which gender starts to settle. We don't want our children to make mistakes they regret, nor end up forced into a gender that ends up damaging their entire lives.

However, it is incredibly important that children are not forced to be cisgender when they are not, no more than cisgendered children who have a fleeting period of trans-esque feelings be forced into being trans for the rest of their lives.

We need to get it right, otherwise you end up with secretly trans people in their forties with children and a partners who have their lives turned upside down, because something that should have been dealt with 25 years ago was brushed under the carpet.

My gut feeling is that there are a lot more transgendered people out there than we realise. Many of them sit in their "assigned at birth genders", having their souls ripped in two, because they are forced to live with a shameful secret.

[1] http://www.avitale.com/developmentalreview.htm

Re: How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired

#45

Post by toothbrush »

whitegrape wrote: post #37
justinpombrio wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me try. I frankly find it bizarre that so many things -- colors, clothes, toys, certain behaviors -- that should have nothing to do with gender are associated with gender. Why are toy isles even gendered? Why does everything for girls have to be pink? The kids wouldn't care if the adults hadn't already hoisted the distinction on them. I feel like, if we got rid of all these false associations, the difference betw…

In the nicest possible way I'd say you're missing the point. To what degree gender is a social construct vs actually having non-minimal differences in the brain depending on your chromosomes is largely settled (IMO), the real question is just what is going on with gender dysphoria. Is it (and do we treat it as) a mental illness? (The DSM-V calls it a disorder.) What are the causes? Is it just attention-seeking? Or is…

> To what degree gender is a social construct vs actually having non-minimal differences in the brain depending on your chromosomes is largely settled (IMO)

I don't actually think this is true. Disclaimer: a close friend of mine studies this academically, so i'm probably incorrectly passing along a vague version of what i've been told, plus i have a certain level of personal investment in the issue. Anyhow, there's rather a difference of opinion in the schools of thought of queer theory (roughly: it's all a social construct) versus sexual difference theory (roughly: no, the physical body is important in the equation) -- if i understand correctly, this is far from a settled question.

I don't want to attack you personally, because i believe you are commenting in good faith (as am i), but this sentence:

> I don't have a strong opinion in the matter other than I know non-passable trans people creep me out on a sub-rational level (so I just avoid them, like spiders).

Comes across as rather hurtful. I hope that sometime in the near future (like, 10–20 years? one can dream), this sentence will be seen as equally dubious as someone saying something like "black people creep me out, i don't know why but i try to avoid them".

I really don't mean to be mean about it, i'm just pointing out that this attitude won't help any early-stage transpeople feel welcome or comfortable. We as the grass-roots society should probably do our bit to make everyone feel accepted and welcome, especially if they do not conform to our (gender expression, as well as other) expectations. I mention the bottom-up point-of-view in contrast to your "Supreme Court" / institutional answer to the issue.

Respectfully.

Re: How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired

#46

Post by rntz »

Fuxy wrote: post #36
SeanDav wrote: post #9

I can't help thinking that there really is a large element of adults applying adult values to children here. > "...research suggests that most gender-dysphoric kids will, in the long run, end up identifying as cisgender." If this really is true, then the approach offered by Dr Zucker makes far more sense to me - to allow the child to make up his/her own mind over time and provide an understanding and sympathetic envi…

From the limited psychology books and research I read as a hobby it is actually true and there's a very good example of that in Japanese society where it accepted for young children to be attracted or even in love with other children of the same sex. It is considered as something they will grow out of even if sometimes they don't. This leads me to believe that Dr. Zucker is right and he is yet another victim of uninf…

> where it accepted for young children to be attracted or even in love with other children of the same sex.

That's sexual orientation, not gender identity, no? One of the salient points in the original article is precisely the distinction between gender identity (which the GIC sees as flexible, but their critics see as immutable) and sexual orientation (which both appear to view as immutable):

> GIC clinicians view this as a conceptual error: The critics are conflating sexual orientation — which can’t be changed, which is part of the reason we view attempts to mess with it it as unethical — and gender identity, which they say isn’t some hardwired thing

Re: How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired

#47

Post by Cyph0n »

ascorbic wrote: post #42
Cyph0n wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

11 year olds 100 years ago, maybe. Nowadays they are children in slightly larger bodies.

It's pretty much exactly the other way around. Puberty was much later, mainly due to nutrition. Edit: I should add a source. It's dropped by five years since 1920, and 7 years since 1860. That's massive. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/oct/21/puberty-adole...

I'm not talking about puberty, but mental maturity. An 11 year old boy back then would likely be working to support his family.

Thanks for the info though.

Re: How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired

#48

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

Zucker is not the victim of misguided activism. He was fired because, simply, he wasn't doing his job, which is to provide (evidence-based) medical treatment for trans people, not peddle pseudo-scientific conversion therapy. If he'd done to adults what he did to kids, maybe he'd have been gone sooner.

Re: How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired

#49

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

vidarh wrote: post #35
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a story on the BBC podcast Analysis, about a UK politician who while helping a transgendered teen, tried to get reassignment treatment funded through NHS. The LGBT group protested. Apparently according to their research the majority of children who feel they are transgender realise they are actually gay.

This sounds odd to me. The NHS has an extensive programme of treatments, including full reassignment: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Gender-dysphoria/Pages/Treatmen... What they certainly would have refused would be to start reassignment if said teen was not yet 18 and/or had not yet undergone the full evaluation and started socially transitioning, and this is in part for medical reasons, in part because it certainly i…

I scrolled through the podcast episodes and can't find it.

I stand by the 2nd paragraph though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria_in_children

Gender identity disorder in children is more heavily linked with adult homosexuality than adult transsexualism. According to limited studies, the majority of children diagnosed with GID cease to desire to be the other sex by puberty, with most growing up to identify as gay or lesbian with or without therapeutic intervention.[5][6]

Re: How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired

#50

Post by ousta »

frankly. This is sick. this sickens me like nothing before. it is a new form of circumcision, sicks parents butchering the minds and the bodies of their children. drugs? making them wear clothes of girls while they are boys? JUST like for Religion we should leave the kids being kids and deal with the sexuality and "gender" issues when they will be able to articulate a self thought after their adolescence and when they have enough awareness of the world to rebel against their sick parents.
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