Anyone following the Wash U adolescent gender clinic whistleblower case?
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At some point, even indoctrinated lefties have to have a trace of an individual moral compass, free from socially mandated leftism, and they'll have to fear for either their own souls, their own self respect, or at least, social shaming in the not too distant future against anybody who was blindly pro-mutilation.
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I am hoping that this exposure is going to give the useful idiots the cover they need to start leaving their entrenchments… I’m sure it will only be in regard to medical intervention with minors, though. They will still try to stuff Genderqueer books and teaching in the schools and still promote experimenting with gender and sexuality, just don’t do anything medical…
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@jon-nyc said in Anyone following the Wash U adolescent gender clinic whistleblower case?:
A group of 10 year old girls, presumably friends, all decide that they're "trans".
Let that sink in.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@jon-nyc said in Anyone following the Wash U adolescent gender clinic whistleblower case?:
A group of 10 year old girls, presumably friends, all decide that they're "trans".
Let that sink in.
@George-K said in Anyone following the Wash U adolescent gender clinic whistleblower case?:
@jon-nyc said in Anyone following the Wash U adolescent gender clinic whistleblower case?:
A group of 10 year old girls, presumably friends, all decide that they're "trans".
Let that sink in.
And the clinic said “Take two of these and call me in the morning” while encouraging the school district to support the transition.
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@jon-nyc said in Anyone following the Wash U adolescent gender clinic whistleblower case?:
A group of 10 year old girls, presumably friends, all decide that they're "trans".
Let that sink in.
@George-K said in Anyone following the Wash U adolescent gender clinic whistleblower case?:
A group of 10 year old girls, presumably friends, all decide that they're "trans".
They should also all get TRANS tattoos on their foreheads.
Just so they could affirm each other.
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This will curl your toenails
https://www.thefp.com/p/i-felt-bullied-mother-of-child-treated
stood.
But two months later she got a phone call from a nurse at the center who wanted to reopen the discussion. Caroline says, “Casey was about to turn 15, and I didn’t know what to do. He had been struggling with depression and anxiety, and they were saying the reason why is because he feels like he’s not in the right body. And I thought, if this is going to make him happy, let’s just give it a try. The worst it would be doing is stopping his hormones and it can be taken out and puberty will take place like it was supposed to.”
Caroline sent her emailed consent. “I thought, let’s see what happens. And what happened was that everything got worse.”
Do You Want a Dead Son or a Live Daughter?
Suicide is an ever-present topic at the Transgender Center. In a video interview with The Free Press, Jamie Reed said clinicians at the center commonly warned parents—in front of their child—that refusing to give consent for gender transition could lead to that child’s suicide. Normalizing, even glorifying suicide by saying it is a common outcome for young people who are not allowed to medically transition, violates all established rules for how to talk safely about a subject known to have a substantial element of social contagion.
Meanwhile, evidence shows that the threat of suicide in these circumstances is exaggerated. This medical journal article by Oxford University sociologist Michael Biggs illustrates how hyperbolic this threat is. Between 2010 and 2020 he found that 0.03 percent of patients at the UK’s Gender Identity Development Service committed suicide. He writes, “The fact that deaths were so rare should provide some reassurance to transgender youth and their families. . . . It is irresponsible to exaggerate the prevalence of suicide. Aside from anything else, this trope might exacerbate the vulnerability of transgender adolescents.”
But Caroline’s discussions with the center’s staff fit Reed’s description of how not to talk about suicide.
Caroline told me that when she expressed resistance to starting Casey on blockers, the psychologist responded by quoting alarming statistics, in front of Casey, on gender dysphoric kids committing suicide if they aren’t allowed to transition. “I was flabbergasted, and I really felt like this is not a meeting for me to get answers to my questions, and for everybody to have equal say,” she said. “This is like I’m the last man standing and now it’s being implied that if I don’t okay this, I don’t care if my kid kills himself.” She said she felt as though “the therapist was planting the idea for him right there.”
A Dramatic Slide
The slide in Casey’s mental health after receiving the blocker was not just evident to his mother. As Reed wrote to her colleagues, “I have been monitoring this chart. . . and I have been following the mental health worsening in [the psychologist’s] visit notes.”
Then, during a counseling session in April 2022, Casey told the psychologist he sometimes thought of suicide, and had a plan for how he would do it, but that he didn’t have an intention to try. Alarmed, the psychologist recommended that Casey be immediately admitted to the psychiatric unit of Children’s Hospital, known as the Behavioral Health Unit. After a few days as a patient, Casey asked to return home (he lives primarily with his father). He made it clear to his parents that his talk about suicide was just that—talk.
Caroline expected that after this event, people at the center would focus on the role the puberty blocker might be playing in Casey’s continued mental health decline. But they weren’t. Reed was stunned by the lack of care. She said, “We initiated a blocker, the child’s mental health is getting worse—the psychologist sees it’s getting worse—and there is no discussion as to whether this intervention is working the way it was supposed to, and does it need to stop.”
On June 9, Caroline had had enough. She decided it was time to get the blocker in her son’s arm removed. She sent this pointed and angry email to the clinic:
“Please be advised that I’m revoking my consent for this course of medical treatment. Grades have dropped, there’s been an in-patient behavioral health visit and now he’s on 5 different medications. Lexipro [sic], Trazadone [sic], Buspar, etc. [Casey] is a shell of his former self riddled with anxiety. Who knows if it’s because the hormone blockers or the other medications. I revoke my consent. I want the hormone blocker removed. Thank you.”The first email Caroline sent to the center.
A few hours later—having heard nothing—she sent a follow-up:
“I also do not want [Casey] to receive anymore counseling at the Transgender Center. He’s not transgender. He’s a 15 year old child. The only further treatment I authorize as JOINT LEGAL GUARDIAN is the removal of the puberty blocker and the subsequent aftercare. Please call me with any questions.”
Reed says that when a mother with joint legal custody demands an end to treatment that is harming her child, that treatment should be stopped right away. But that’s not what happened. Instead, Reed says, the discussion within the clinic was how to keep the blocker in place. In the end, the doctors called for a consultation with a hospital ethicist. It was conducted on Zoom, with Reed attending. She walked away from it thinking, “Our center is an ethical hot mess.” The ethicist seemed to agree. Reed says as the doctors described the case, the ethicist repeatedly responded, “Wait, you’re doing what?”
In response to Caroline’s demand for the removal of the implant, she said someone from the center asked for a copy of her custody agreement and parenting plan. “I definitely felt like I was getting the runaround,” Caroline said. She noted she wasn’t asked for such documents when they sought her permission to have the Supprelin put in her son’s arm.
A few weeks later, a meeting took place at Children’s Hospital with the family, the center’s psychologist and a nurse practitioner to discuss the blocker. Caroline was moving that day and was supposed to be put on speaker phone. But she never got a call. She found out much later from Casey that the center’s position was that in a joint custody arrangement one parent could not unilaterally demand the removal of the blocker. That meant everyone but Caroline was in favor of keeping it in, including Casey’s father.
I asked Casey why he thought his father supported this decision while his mother opposed it. “He was more concerned with what would make me happier,” Casey said. “My mom was more concerned about the future and my dad was more concerned about how I felt.”
In Reed’s story for The Free Press, she described how when parents disagreed about their child’s treatment, the center would make things difficult for the objecting parent, especially in the case of divorce. That was playing out with Caroline. If she was to have any chance of getting the blocker removed, she decided she needed an attorney. She spoke to one briefly, but ultimately concluded it would be too hard and expensive to try to press her case.
The lawyer did have a suggestion: why not take Casey to his regular pediatrician and ask to have her remove the implant? Caroline did. But even though the pediatrician was sympathetic, she said she was not in a position to remove a device placed by another doctor.
When Reed was informed of this, she said, “That just sickens me. I just can’t imagine how powerless you would feel as a parent in that moment. To feel you have to go up against this monolithic medical institution, having no money for an attorney, and feeling bullied to start with.”
What’s Next?
A puberty blocker can’t stay in forever, and Casey’s is scheduled to come out in July—more than a year after Caroline demanded it be removed.
Casey is resigned to the removal and normal puberty re-starting. He says of his mother’s position, “Her concerns are valid.” This includes, he says, “the possibility that the hormone blockers have affected my mental health. Because my mental health has decreased a lot since starting them.”
Casey says he is trying to accept what will come after the blocker is removed. “I do feel I come off a bit childish, because I do look younger,” he says, adding that’s fine with him. He doesn’t want to look like his male classmates, with their facial hair, Adam’s apples, and broadening shoulders. “It is a struggle for me, because there’s a lot of uncertainty with the changes that I’ll have to go through. It's just kind of scary.”
Caroline remains mystified that the Transgender Center, instead of helping her son face his fears about entering adulthood, instead offered him a way out. She recalls her own puberty. “When my period started, I wanted a way to have that not happen again. It was traumatizing,” she said. “If I had had an option to get out of it, I would have. But it’s nature. There’s a reason it happens.”
She says Casey’s concerns are common for kids his age and not an indication of something that needs pharmaceutical intervention. “There’s no precedent for this type of treatment. How do they know this is the right answer? How do they go to this extreme?” she asks.
I spoke to Dr. William Malone, an endocrinologist and a board member of the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine about the use of puberty blockers in young people. He says we don’t know enough about their long-term effects. “A child on blockers is halted in physical and likely emotional maturity,” he said. “Within a year or two, their peers will be profoundly different, and they become out of sync. Puberty is not just a physical event, it’s a psychosocial event with your peers. There is brain development that occurs. Blocking puberty likely has important implications for functionality as an adult.”
Of course, none of this shows up on the two-page handout from the center describing the side effects of blockers.
Although Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s investigation into the Transgender Center is not completed, on March 20 he announced that, based on his discoveries so far, he will be promulgating an emergency regulation to stop treatments there that “lack clinical evidence of safety or success” in order to “protect children from being subject to inhumane science experiments.” His proposed new guidelines include requiring extensive and comprehensive mental health care assessment and treatment before any gender intervention can be started, and mandate that all patients be tracked for adverse effects for 15 years.
“These are common sense things all parents should want for their kids,” Reed says of the new standards. “If this care is going to continue, these guardrails have to be in place.”
“I don’t think kids should make lasting decisions when they don’t have the capability to do so,” Caroline says. She adds that if her son ultimately wants to transition, she hopes he waits until he’s about 25, when his brain has matured and when he’s had some life experiences. “If he wants to be a female later on, I don’t have a problem with that. He just should do it when he’s an adult.”
If Casey comes off the blocker this summer and goes through natural puberty, he will be a most unusual pediatric gender clinic patient. Dr. William Malone says, “We know that more than 95 percent of kids on puberty blockers go on to cross-sex hormones.”
Caroline hopes that her family can find the right help to undo the effects and side effects of the center's treatment. She says, “My son needs the antidote to this whole therapy. I feel like he needs a licensed therapist, an endocrinologist, people who can see him through the recovery from this. It’s going to be physical and mental. And then we need family counseling, because this whole thing has torn us apart.” -
This will curl your toenails
https://www.thefp.com/p/i-felt-bullied-mother-of-child-treated
stood.
But two months later she got a phone call from a nurse at the center who wanted to reopen the discussion. Caroline says, “Casey was about to turn 15, and I didn’t know what to do. He had been struggling with depression and anxiety, and they were saying the reason why is because he feels like he’s not in the right body. And I thought, if this is going to make him happy, let’s just give it a try. The worst it would be doing is stopping his hormones and it can be taken out and puberty will take place like it was supposed to.”
Caroline sent her emailed consent. “I thought, let’s see what happens. And what happened was that everything got worse.”
Do You Want a Dead Son or a Live Daughter?
Suicide is an ever-present topic at the Transgender Center. In a video interview with The Free Press, Jamie Reed said clinicians at the center commonly warned parents—in front of their child—that refusing to give consent for gender transition could lead to that child’s suicide. Normalizing, even glorifying suicide by saying it is a common outcome for young people who are not allowed to medically transition, violates all established rules for how to talk safely about a subject known to have a substantial element of social contagion.
Meanwhile, evidence shows that the threat of suicide in these circumstances is exaggerated. This medical journal article by Oxford University sociologist Michael Biggs illustrates how hyperbolic this threat is. Between 2010 and 2020 he found that 0.03 percent of patients at the UK’s Gender Identity Development Service committed suicide. He writes, “The fact that deaths were so rare should provide some reassurance to transgender youth and their families. . . . It is irresponsible to exaggerate the prevalence of suicide. Aside from anything else, this trope might exacerbate the vulnerability of transgender adolescents.”
But Caroline’s discussions with the center’s staff fit Reed’s description of how not to talk about suicide.
Caroline told me that when she expressed resistance to starting Casey on blockers, the psychologist responded by quoting alarming statistics, in front of Casey, on gender dysphoric kids committing suicide if they aren’t allowed to transition. “I was flabbergasted, and I really felt like this is not a meeting for me to get answers to my questions, and for everybody to have equal say,” she said. “This is like I’m the last man standing and now it’s being implied that if I don’t okay this, I don’t care if my kid kills himself.” She said she felt as though “the therapist was planting the idea for him right there.”
A Dramatic Slide
The slide in Casey’s mental health after receiving the blocker was not just evident to his mother. As Reed wrote to her colleagues, “I have been monitoring this chart. . . and I have been following the mental health worsening in [the psychologist’s] visit notes.”
Then, during a counseling session in April 2022, Casey told the psychologist he sometimes thought of suicide, and had a plan for how he would do it, but that he didn’t have an intention to try. Alarmed, the psychologist recommended that Casey be immediately admitted to the psychiatric unit of Children’s Hospital, known as the Behavioral Health Unit. After a few days as a patient, Casey asked to return home (he lives primarily with his father). He made it clear to his parents that his talk about suicide was just that—talk.
Caroline expected that after this event, people at the center would focus on the role the puberty blocker might be playing in Casey’s continued mental health decline. But they weren’t. Reed was stunned by the lack of care. She said, “We initiated a blocker, the child’s mental health is getting worse—the psychologist sees it’s getting worse—and there is no discussion as to whether this intervention is working the way it was supposed to, and does it need to stop.”
On June 9, Caroline had had enough. She decided it was time to get the blocker in her son’s arm removed. She sent this pointed and angry email to the clinic:
“Please be advised that I’m revoking my consent for this course of medical treatment. Grades have dropped, there’s been an in-patient behavioral health visit and now he’s on 5 different medications. Lexipro [sic], Trazadone [sic], Buspar, etc. [Casey] is a shell of his former self riddled with anxiety. Who knows if it’s because the hormone blockers or the other medications. I revoke my consent. I want the hormone blocker removed. Thank you.”The first email Caroline sent to the center.
A few hours later—having heard nothing—she sent a follow-up:
“I also do not want [Casey] to receive anymore counseling at the Transgender Center. He’s not transgender. He’s a 15 year old child. The only further treatment I authorize as JOINT LEGAL GUARDIAN is the removal of the puberty blocker and the subsequent aftercare. Please call me with any questions.”
Reed says that when a mother with joint legal custody demands an end to treatment that is harming her child, that treatment should be stopped right away. But that’s not what happened. Instead, Reed says, the discussion within the clinic was how to keep the blocker in place. In the end, the doctors called for a consultation with a hospital ethicist. It was conducted on Zoom, with Reed attending. She walked away from it thinking, “Our center is an ethical hot mess.” The ethicist seemed to agree. Reed says as the doctors described the case, the ethicist repeatedly responded, “Wait, you’re doing what?”
In response to Caroline’s demand for the removal of the implant, she said someone from the center asked for a copy of her custody agreement and parenting plan. “I definitely felt like I was getting the runaround,” Caroline said. She noted she wasn’t asked for such documents when they sought her permission to have the Supprelin put in her son’s arm.
A few weeks later, a meeting took place at Children’s Hospital with the family, the center’s psychologist and a nurse practitioner to discuss the blocker. Caroline was moving that day and was supposed to be put on speaker phone. But she never got a call. She found out much later from Casey that the center’s position was that in a joint custody arrangement one parent could not unilaterally demand the removal of the blocker. That meant everyone but Caroline was in favor of keeping it in, including Casey’s father.
I asked Casey why he thought his father supported this decision while his mother opposed it. “He was more concerned with what would make me happier,” Casey said. “My mom was more concerned about the future and my dad was more concerned about how I felt.”
In Reed’s story for The Free Press, she described how when parents disagreed about their child’s treatment, the center would make things difficult for the objecting parent, especially in the case of divorce. That was playing out with Caroline. If she was to have any chance of getting the blocker removed, she decided she needed an attorney. She spoke to one briefly, but ultimately concluded it would be too hard and expensive to try to press her case.
The lawyer did have a suggestion: why not take Casey to his regular pediatrician and ask to have her remove the implant? Caroline did. But even though the pediatrician was sympathetic, she said she was not in a position to remove a device placed by another doctor.
When Reed was informed of this, she said, “That just sickens me. I just can’t imagine how powerless you would feel as a parent in that moment. To feel you have to go up against this monolithic medical institution, having no money for an attorney, and feeling bullied to start with.”
What’s Next?
A puberty blocker can’t stay in forever, and Casey’s is scheduled to come out in July—more than a year after Caroline demanded it be removed.
Casey is resigned to the removal and normal puberty re-starting. He says of his mother’s position, “Her concerns are valid.” This includes, he says, “the possibility that the hormone blockers have affected my mental health. Because my mental health has decreased a lot since starting them.”
Casey says he is trying to accept what will come after the blocker is removed. “I do feel I come off a bit childish, because I do look younger,” he says, adding that’s fine with him. He doesn’t want to look like his male classmates, with their facial hair, Adam’s apples, and broadening shoulders. “It is a struggle for me, because there’s a lot of uncertainty with the changes that I’ll have to go through. It's just kind of scary.”
Caroline remains mystified that the Transgender Center, instead of helping her son face his fears about entering adulthood, instead offered him a way out. She recalls her own puberty. “When my period started, I wanted a way to have that not happen again. It was traumatizing,” she said. “If I had had an option to get out of it, I would have. But it’s nature. There’s a reason it happens.”
She says Casey’s concerns are common for kids his age and not an indication of something that needs pharmaceutical intervention. “There’s no precedent for this type of treatment. How do they know this is the right answer? How do they go to this extreme?” she asks.
I spoke to Dr. William Malone, an endocrinologist and a board member of the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine about the use of puberty blockers in young people. He says we don’t know enough about their long-term effects. “A child on blockers is halted in physical and likely emotional maturity,” he said. “Within a year or two, their peers will be profoundly different, and they become out of sync. Puberty is not just a physical event, it’s a psychosocial event with your peers. There is brain development that occurs. Blocking puberty likely has important implications for functionality as an adult.”
Of course, none of this shows up on the two-page handout from the center describing the side effects of blockers.
Although Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s investigation into the Transgender Center is not completed, on March 20 he announced that, based on his discoveries so far, he will be promulgating an emergency regulation to stop treatments there that “lack clinical evidence of safety or success” in order to “protect children from being subject to inhumane science experiments.” His proposed new guidelines include requiring extensive and comprehensive mental health care assessment and treatment before any gender intervention can be started, and mandate that all patients be tracked for adverse effects for 15 years.
“These are common sense things all parents should want for their kids,” Reed says of the new standards. “If this care is going to continue, these guardrails have to be in place.”
“I don’t think kids should make lasting decisions when they don’t have the capability to do so,” Caroline says. She adds that if her son ultimately wants to transition, she hopes he waits until he’s about 25, when his brain has matured and when he’s had some life experiences. “If he wants to be a female later on, I don’t have a problem with that. He just should do it when he’s an adult.”
If Casey comes off the blocker this summer and goes through natural puberty, he will be a most unusual pediatric gender clinic patient. Dr. William Malone says, “We know that more than 95 percent of kids on puberty blockers go on to cross-sex hormones.”
Caroline hopes that her family can find the right help to undo the effects and side effects of the center's treatment. She says, “My son needs the antidote to this whole therapy. I feel like he needs a licensed therapist, an endocrinologist, people who can see him through the recovery from this. It’s going to be physical and mental. And then we need family counseling, because this whole thing has torn us apart.”@LuFins-Dad my God.
ETA: So, what's the science that supports this? Do people who have transitioned, and by that, I mean undergone surgical and hormonal treatments, have a lower incidence of depression and suicide?
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@LuFins-Dad my God.
ETA: So, what's the science that supports this? Do people who have transitioned, and by that, I mean undergone surgical and hormonal treatments, have a lower incidence of depression and suicide?
@George-K said in Anyone following the Wash U adolescent gender clinic whistleblower case?:
@LuFins-Dad my God.
ETA: So, what's the science that supports this? Do people who have transitioned, and by that, I mean undergone surgical and hormonal treatments, have a lower incidence of depression and suicide?
According to a Dutch study with a cohort size of 14 and no control group… Fortunately, the study results were confirmed with a second follow up questionnaire to the same cohort of 14 with no control group. So the science is obviously settled.
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@George-K said in Anyone following the Wash U adolescent gender clinic whistleblower case?:
The thread: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1643347040250781706.html
Now that’s going to get serious…
The Brad
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@LuFins-Dad my God.
ETA: So, what's the science that supports this? Do people who have transitioned, and by that, I mean undergone surgical and hormonal treatments, have a lower incidence of depression and suicide?
@George-K said in [Anyone following the Wash U adolescent gender clinic whistleblower case?]:
So, what's the science that supports this? Do people who have transitioned, and by that, I mean undergone surgical and hormonal treatments, have a lower incidence of depression and suicide?
Anecdotal but...
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-023-02576-9
During the past decade there has been a dramatic increase in adolescents and young adults (AYA) complaining of gender dysphoria. One influential if controversial explanation is that the increase reflects a socially contagious syndrome: Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD). We report results from a survey of parents who contacted the website ParentsofROGDKids.com because they believed their AYA children had ROGD. Results focused on 1655 AYA children whose gender dysphoria reportedly began between ages 11 and 21 years, inclusive. These youths were disproportionately (75%) natal female. Natal males had later onset (by 1.9 years) than females, and they were much less likely to have taken steps toward social gender transition (65.7% for females versus 28.6% for males). Pre-existing mental health issues were common, and youths with these issues were more likely than those without them to have socially and medically transitioned. Parents reported that they had often felt pressured by clinicians to affirm their AYA child’s new gender and support their transition. According to the parents, AYA children’s mental health deteriorated considerably after social transition. We discuss potential biases of survey responses from this sample and conclude that there is presently no reason to believe that reports of parents who support gender transition are more accurate than those who oppose transition. To resolve controversies regarding ROGD, it is desirable that future research includes data provided by both pro- and anti-transition parents, as well as their gender dysphoric AYA children.
"Parents felt pressured..."
One statistically robust finding was both disturbing and seemingly important. Youths with a history of mental health issues were especially likely to have taken steps to socially and medically transition. This relationship held even after statistically adjusting for likely confounders (e.g., age). The finding is concerning because youth with mental health issues may be especially likely to lack judgment necessary to make these important, and in the case of medical transition permanent, decisions. The finding supports the worries of parents whose preferences differ from their gender dysphoric children. It is consistent with another finding of this study that parents believed gender clinicians and clinics pressured the families toward transition. The finding is particularly concerning given that parents tended to rate their children as worse off after transition.
"With a history of mental health issues..."
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
-
@George-K said in Anyone following the Wash U adolescent gender clinic whistleblower case?:
The thread: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1643347040250781706.html
Now that’s going to get serious…
@LuFins-Dad said in Anyone following the Wash U adolescent gender clinic whistleblower case?:
@George-K said in Anyone following the Wash U adolescent gender clinic whistleblower case?:
The thread: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1643347040250781706.html
Now that’s going to get serious…
Notice the statement about the decline in mental health? What better, than to do life altering surgery and hormone treatment to a mentally ill minor?
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@George-K said in [Anyone following the Wash U adolescent gender clinic whistleblower case?]:
So, what's the science that supports this? Do people who have transitioned, and by that, I mean undergone surgical and hormonal treatments, have a lower incidence of depression and suicide?
Anecdotal but...
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-023-02576-9
During the past decade there has been a dramatic increase in adolescents and young adults (AYA) complaining of gender dysphoria. One influential if controversial explanation is that the increase reflects a socially contagious syndrome: Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD). We report results from a survey of parents who contacted the website ParentsofROGDKids.com because they believed their AYA children had ROGD. Results focused on 1655 AYA children whose gender dysphoria reportedly began between ages 11 and 21 years, inclusive. These youths were disproportionately (75%) natal female. Natal males had later onset (by 1.9 years) than females, and they were much less likely to have taken steps toward social gender transition (65.7% for females versus 28.6% for males). Pre-existing mental health issues were common, and youths with these issues were more likely than those without them to have socially and medically transitioned. Parents reported that they had often felt pressured by clinicians to affirm their AYA child’s new gender and support their transition. According to the parents, AYA children’s mental health deteriorated considerably after social transition. We discuss potential biases of survey responses from this sample and conclude that there is presently no reason to believe that reports of parents who support gender transition are more accurate than those who oppose transition. To resolve controversies regarding ROGD, it is desirable that future research includes data provided by both pro- and anti-transition parents, as well as their gender dysphoric AYA children.
"Parents felt pressured..."
One statistically robust finding was both disturbing and seemingly important. Youths with a history of mental health issues were especially likely to have taken steps to socially and medically transition. This relationship held even after statistically adjusting for likely confounders (e.g., age). The finding is concerning because youth with mental health issues may be especially likely to lack judgment necessary to make these important, and in the case of medical transition permanent, decisions. The finding supports the worries of parents whose preferences differ from their gender dysphoric children. It is consistent with another finding of this study that parents believed gender clinicians and clinics pressured the families toward transition. The finding is particularly concerning given that parents tended to rate their children as worse off after transition.
"With a history of mental health issues..."
@George-K said in Anyone following the Wash U adolescent gender clinic whistleblower case?:
@George-K said in [Anyone following the Wash U adolescent gender clinic whistleblower case?]:
So, what's the science that supports this? Do people who have transitioned, and by that, I mean undergone surgical and hormonal treatments, have a lower incidence of depression and suicide?
Anecdotal but...
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-023-02576-9
During the past decade there has been a dramatic increase in adolescents and young adults (AYA) complaining of gender dysphoria. One influential if controversial explanation is that the increase reflects a socially contagious syndrome: Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD). We report results from a survey of parents who contacted the website ParentsofROGDKids.com because they believed their AYA children had ROGD. Results focused on 1655 AYA children whose gender dysphoria reportedly began between ages 11 and 21 years, inclusive. These youths were disproportionately (75%) natal female. Natal males had later onset (by 1.9 years) than females, and they were much less likely to have taken steps toward social gender transition (65.7% for females versus 28.6% for males). Pre-existing mental health issues were common, and youths with these issues were more likely than those without them to have socially and medically transitioned. Parents reported that they had often felt pressured by clinicians to affirm their AYA child’s new gender and support their transition. According to the parents, AYA children’s mental health deteriorated considerably after social transition. We discuss potential biases of survey responses from this sample and conclude that there is presently no reason to believe that reports of parents who support gender transition are more accurate than those who oppose transition. To resolve controversies regarding ROGD, it is desirable that future research includes data provided by both pro- and anti-transition parents, as well as their gender dysphoric AYA children.
"Parents felt pressured..."
One statistically robust finding was both disturbing and seemingly important. Youths with a history of mental health issues were especially likely to have taken steps to socially and medically transition. This relationship held even after statistically adjusting for likely confounders (e.g., age). The finding is concerning because youth with mental health issues may be especially likely to lack judgment necessary to make these important, and in the case of medical transition permanent, decisions. The finding supports the worries of parents whose preferences differ from their gender dysphoric children. It is consistent with another finding of this study that parents believed gender clinicians and clinics pressured the families toward transition. The finding is particularly concerning given that parents tended to rate their children as worse off after transition.
"With a history of mental health issues..."
On social contagion
