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smokingbootSecond night of Spring, and the wind's stopped roaring around the house like it did yesterday, when everything seemed to rock and creak like the boards of a great ship. Now the front room is perfumed with the scent of hyacinths R brought me. They're so sensual they carry me somewhere far away, and I would love that. Tonight I could do with sailing right out of this world.
Clearly the final days are upon us; turns out my brother is right about something for once.
In Time To Think Barnes records clinicians' awareness of rampant homophobia, often among the patients themselves as much as their families and schools. Many of these children may well have wanted to transition because it seemed an easier option than coming to terms with being gay. GIDs seems to have offered one solution, a conveyor belt of puberty blockers followed by cross sex hormones followed by surgery. Whatever one thinks of Time To Think 's place in the culture wars, this is a huge medical scandal. The children and their parents were told that puberty blockers are fully reversible, and now it transpires that there wasn't anything like enough data to justify that claim.
I had to put the book down after reading the words of Dr Kitty Entwhistle of the GIDs Leeds Team.
"I watched a mother sob after I informed her that her young teenager had "consented" to my colleague's offer of puberty blockers. The child's father, a man with a bad temper who made me feel uncomfortable, was pleased. Going along with it, and seeing the mother cry because she couldn't object, will always be a stain on my conscience.'
Time to stop then, for I could almost see those tears, years ago in someone else's life. But my reading between the lines may be massive nonsense. Maybe it all worked out and the puberty blockers did wonders, maybe they were refused, maybe whatever the story, the result was an adult living a happy healthy life. Maybe.
I have to pull myself out of it, for now is the only place I can be, right there in this gentle world smelling of hyacinths, with a cup of chamomile tea in front of me and a cat snoring by my side.
It seems like time will never move again. But we are close to midnight.
Clearly the final days are upon us; turns out my brother is right about something for once.
In Time To Think Barnes records clinicians' awareness of rampant homophobia, often among the patients themselves as much as their families and schools. Many of these children may well have wanted to transition because it seemed an easier option than coming to terms with being gay. GIDs seems to have offered one solution, a conveyor belt of puberty blockers followed by cross sex hormones followed by surgery. Whatever one thinks of Time To Think 's place in the culture wars, this is a huge medical scandal. The children and their parents were told that puberty blockers are fully reversible, and now it transpires that there wasn't anything like enough data to justify that claim.
I had to put the book down after reading the words of Dr Kitty Entwhistle of the GIDs Leeds Team.
"I watched a mother sob after I informed her that her young teenager had "consented" to my colleague's offer of puberty blockers. The child's father, a man with a bad temper who made me feel uncomfortable, was pleased. Going along with it, and seeing the mother cry because she couldn't object, will always be a stain on my conscience.'
Time to stop then, for I could almost see those tears, years ago in someone else's life. But my reading between the lines may be massive nonsense. Maybe it all worked out and the puberty blockers did wonders, maybe they were refused, maybe whatever the story, the result was an adult living a happy healthy life. Maybe.
I have to pull myself out of it, for now is the only place I can be, right there in this gentle world smelling of hyacinths, with a cup of chamomile tea in front of me and a cat snoring by my side.
It seems like time will never move again. But we are close to midnight.
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no subject
Date: 2023-03-23 01:41 am (UTC)Personally, I identified as trans as a young teen, but I'm perfectly happy in my body now. If I had been allowed to go through with that stuff... it's sort of a self fulfilling prophecy. Maybe I'd be happy.
no subject
Date: 2023-03-23 08:34 am (UTC)And I'm glad you're happy in your body now :-)
no subject
Date: 2023-03-23 12:51 pm (UTC)But the thing that really puzzles me about the whole trans phenomenon is the way it buys into binary gender roles. Like I'm perfectly content to acknowledge that trans women are not men. But I have profound difficulties acknowledging many (not all) as women.
I think there need to be legal classifications for third and fourth genders.
A Female Brain
Date: 2023-03-24 07:40 am (UTC)You'd think that wouldn't you? But the book emphasises the desire of clinicians to help these children who are suffering terribly, and if the child is sure it's what they want, and the families are sure it's what they want, and Mermaids or Gendered Intelligence is screaming that the child must be given these drugs, and it's what brings the money in, and your bosses have an eye to that income, and received wisdom says that puberty blockers are fully reversible, it's easy to see why many just did the thing.
But the thing that really puzzles me about the whole trans phenomenon is the way it buys into binary gender roles.
I couldn't agree more. To me it seems that gender is a bunch of stereotypes harming men and women, and it's worrying to see tropes treated as realistic templates around which to base one's existence. It might work for some people, but it's made many very unhappy. One trans friend told a close mate that they were 'more woman' than she was because they liked to wear mascara (mate doesn't do make-up) and because they would happily have had sex at 13 if it meant they could have a baby. Their psychiatrist told them that this was because they had a 'female brain.'