Too often, when we're debating or railing against transgender ideology, we forget the children afflicted with the condition of gender dysphoria and what can be done to help them.
That gender dysphoria is a real condition is undeniable. It's been a part of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) since the 1970s. There is no known "cure," and the highly controversial treatments for the condition have now become part of the culture wars.
But when debating the silly question of how many genders there are and whether a man can truly "become" a woman or vice versa, we lose sight of those afflicted with this disorder and the real, psychic pain they experience.
Teens and pre-teens who suffer from gender dysphoria are at risk of self-harm and suicide. The risk is overblown for political reasons, but this reality is being used to justify prescribing dangerous drugs that could lead to permanent side effects.
Even more problematic is that too often, gender dysphoria is misdiagnosed or misidentified due to the fact that the kids who are suffering are also afflicted with other conditions that are masked by the gender dysphoria diagnoses.
When it comes to alleviating gender-related distress, “for the majority of young people, a medical pathway may not be the best way to achieve this.” That conclusion will now inform the creation of new state-provided services in England. These will attempt to consider patients more holistically, acknowledging that their gender distress might be part of a picture that also includes anxiety, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, or past trauma.
Psychologists refer to these other factors as "co-morbidities," and a shocking number of kids diagnosed with gender dysphoria suffer from these conditions.
The National Health Service (NHS) in Great Britain became alarmed about the treatment for children with gender dysphoria at the Gender Identity Development Services (GIDS) at the Tavistock in London. The NHS ordered a thorough study of Tavistock patients, which was carried out by Dr. Hillary Cass, former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health at the NHS.
The Cass Review is a devastating indictment of how children suffering from gender dysphoria are diagnosed and treated. The review of 9,000 patient records revealed what many professionals have suspected for years.
"This is an area of remarkably weak evidence, and yet results of studies are exaggerated or misrepresented by people on all sides of the debate to support their viewpoint. The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress," Cass writes in the forward of the review.
The fact that transgender advocates have closed off debate in the medical community through the use of threats and bullying means that kids and young adults who are in pain have very few choices with regard to effective treatments that can help them deal with their condition.
The report included a variety of recommendations to improve care but concluded that “for most young people, a medical pathway will not be the best way to manage their gender-related distress.” Consequently, the NHS reversed its decade-long practice of prescribing puberty-suppressing hormones (PSH) to children with gender dysphoria—“a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender of at least six months duration, as manifested” in delineated criteria, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. “We have concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of PSH to make the treatment routinely available at this time,” the NHS said last month. PSH treatment will still be available for participants in clinical trials and at private clinics, although some British lawmakers are now pushing for a ban across the board.
With no consensus about how to treat kids with gender dysphoria and a toxic political atmosphere made worse by hysterical opposition to any scrutiny of transgender care, children who are in genuine pain are falling through the cracks—or worse, being given hormones that may have irreversible effects on their development.
These kids are victims. Even if they're confused adolescents who want to change genders because of transgender contagion, they don't deserve our hate or criticism.
"Follow the science" doesn't seem to be the operative procedure in the case of confused teens and worried parents being snookered by doctors and psychologists into potentially doing great damage to their physical and mental health.
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