Culture Tranny News Megathread - Hot tranny newds
- Thread starter trannyfucker
- Start date
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2018
I don't know how this ad is getting inserted into YouTube videos during current year. These guys are either unaware of their unwokeness or they're deliberately ridiculing troons(!).
They're selling a mechanized catbox called Litter Robot. Weird Uncle Stephanie is one of their quirky characters.
1:31 - Uncle Stephanie is abashed when caught admiring a woman's leotard. He explains Stephanie is "a family name."
1:47 - Uncle Stephanie wears the leotard while aerobicizing.
2:23 - Uncle Stephanie dances with his cat.
2:41 - The ad hostess is horrified by the leotard (or maybe because the cat shit in it). "Oh God, Uncle Stephanie..."
Is it foolish to hope -- are the times, they are a-changin'? Do the Trust and Safety apparatchiks not care anymore?
They're selling a mechanized catbox called Litter Robot. Weird Uncle Stephanie is one of their quirky characters.
1:31 - Uncle Stephanie is abashed when caught admiring a woman's leotard. He explains Stephanie is "a family name."
1:47 - Uncle Stephanie wears the leotard while aerobicizing.
2:23 - Uncle Stephanie dances with his cat.
2:41 - The ad hostess is horrified by the leotard (or maybe because the cat shit in it). "Oh God, Uncle Stephanie..."
Is it foolish to hope -- are the times, they are a-changin'? Do the Trust and Safety apparatchiks not care anymore?
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2018
Written by an FTM troon named Devin-Norelle. Devin comes across a very butch lesbian early in her transition.
Devin getting her tits lopped off.
Devin today. The eyes give it away.
Devin must be something of a favorite token at Condé Nast, as she’s been bumped around from Teen Vogue to GQ to them, CN’s failed genderqueer online site that shut down earlier this year.
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2019
Teen Vogue is a cesspool of degeneracy. They have articles for teen girls on how to use sex magic to get what they want -- as if you can masturbate your way to an A or the top spot at the girl's state track meet (instead of, say, studying or practicing). They've gone full metal troon on that site.
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2014
You mean like that Chick Tract where a girl persuades her dad to buy her D&D stuff by casting the Bondage Spell?
Ceci
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2015
That seems to be exactly what's happening in the comment section, at the very least.
Whatsup bud?
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2019
One more reason theyre hurting the LGBs
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2019
And that's why I don't understand how they have as much power as they do. Their "genital preferences are transphobic" rhetoric is offensive to straights AND gays. Initial resistance to gay rights was because it was thought gays were choosing to be gay. Once people accepted that it was not a choice but a hardwired sexual orientation, it was much harder to justify moral opposition to it. Trans are literally trying to make it all about choice and not biology. When the push back comes against trans (and it will), I do worry that the LGB is going to get caught up in that backlash. The LGB members supporting trans nonsense might deserve it (as do the feminists who support it), but there are plenty of LGB that don't.
Wallace
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2015
The Daily Mail only now just finding out about what Kiwi Farms has known for years.
A quarter of youngsters being treated at transgender clinics may just be autistic, new research claims
A quarter of youngsters being treated at transgender clinics may just be autistic, new research claims
- Those attending gender identity clinics are more likely to show signs of autism
- Individuals with autism are more likely than others to become fixated on an idea
- Gender dysphoria is perception of a mismatch between one's biological sex and gender identity
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2016
Is putting your dick in a light socket electron-phobic? More at 11!Time to lube up normies! You are without excuse.
Is Refusing to Date Trans People Transphobic?
The thin line between preferences and prejudice.www.advocate.com
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2018
My inner autist has been considering buying one of these ridiculously expensive shitterbots for a while. This may have just sealed the deal.
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2016
I skipped to the part where he was like, " I have an advantage on other women because I had a boyhood, and that made me lucky".......Troons aren't hiding anything anymore.
Whatsup bud?
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2019
Because they're the hot new cause. LGB rights are old hat, they got most of what they fought for. Fortunately for the trans lobby their demands are still unpopular by the majority of people so they can keep the trans train chugging for the next decade at least.
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2017
According to some older studies >3% of men are sexually aroused by crossdressing and about half of those were interested in feminizing themselves. I can only imagine that those numbers have gone up as barriers have come down and pressures have gone up. So, you're looking at a massive demographic, probably larger than the total number of homosexuals (on the men's side at least. lesbian invisibility strikes again wrt statistics.)
So, iow, the T is quite possibly a massive force, just beginning to surface, and it needs to be dealt with - and it needs to be reintegrated into the social body - but not like this. Not with this insane untouchable incel screaming litigation dogshit.
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2019
Seriously? Why this fetish and not any of the others? What needs to happen is these guys need to remember this is a kink and keep it to kink places like their homes and adult clubs/private parties. We don’t need to enshrine this particular kink and treat it differently. Things were fine in the YKINMK days.
“Pardon one offense and you encourage the commission of many.” Publilius Syrus. Similarly, legitimize one kink as something other than just a kink and you encourage the legitimization of all of them.
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2019
I don't care what happens in the privacy of consenting adults bedrooms -- but it needs to remain in their bedrooms. Sexual liberation does not require sexual exhibitionism. If you have to force me to participate in your kink in order to get off, you are infringing upon my rights. A man who gets off dressing as a woman is not much different than the man in a trench coat who gets off flashing his junk at women who don't want to see it.
Enjoy_the_Soylence
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2019
They really have no shame and no pretense to real medicine. I was going to say something after the shoe video, and that homeless pyromaniac-- have you noticed more mentally ill people are calling themselves trans? I mean actual psychotics, diagnosed bipolar, schizophrenics, not just depressed or dysphoric people. People who are non compos mentis . I was going to suggest it's part of the social contagion aspect, plus the lack of adequate medical insurance/care for poor people but it looks like this is actually being promoted by trans lobbies. Because of course. Whatever the most unbelievable, dangerous, batshit insane thing you can think of is -- the trans reality is worse.
Don't mind me, I still haven't gotten over the revelation some of them still ejaculate from their neovags.
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2016
Source on them ejaculating from their neovags? You might be thinking of nullos, guys who chop off their cocks without getting a hole carved in their crotch.
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2017
The problem is that part of the kink is pretending that it isn't a kink. It's really fucked up. I have no idea how they do it, but the same internet junkies that grew up knowing that there's someone out there jerking off to the idea of Sonic the Hedgehog being turned into a toilet, for some reason think that a guy wanting to be a lady isn't a sex thing. Couldn't possibly be a kink! In fact the only reason that they get reliable dopamine surges when they tuck their dicks and do kissy faces is that their lady soul is waking up!
It's a psychological delusion as much as it is an erotic target disorder. Part of the delusion is that it has to be innate. The split off element of the self that represents the "other-sex" personality insists that it is the true self, despite the GLARING evidence to the contrary (e.g. every single part of their personality, history, behavior, etc.) Meanwhile the troon leans into this interpretation because it fits their own internal feeling of omnipotence, that their desires are a true manifestation of the self, rather than something imposed on them from the outside, the way that a fetish is understood to be.
There's actually a whole body of work in the psychoanalytic field that these types have silently pushed off under the rug..
Ceci
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2015
\
Agreed. The whole reason trans stuff has gotten so far is that they made people believe it's not a kink. That man does't want to be treated as a girl because he has a sissy fetish, he was just born in the wrong body. Even suggesting autogynephilia is a thing, or bringing up the existence of fetishistic crossdressers is sacrilege. They sell the idea that transgenderism is as innate as being straight or gay, once gay rights became accepted in the mainstream it was easy for troons to take that groundwork and use it to steamroll in their agenda.
Xiphias
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2019
News updates.
Local council may be sued over shared school lavatories
(There's a paywall. If anyone has a subscription please post the full article, thanks.)
Children crowding gender clinics may be ‘just tip of iceberg’
The article has been updated as of 17 December.
And the long-awaited for English subtitled to part two of the Swedish documentary The Trans Train.
Local council may be sued over shared school lavatories
(There's a paywall. If anyone has a subscription please post the full article, thanks.)
Parents, teachers and children are to sue a council unless it withdraws guidance to schools on how to handle youngsters questioning their gender identity.
The case could affect all schools as they grapple with a surge in pupils wanting to be identified as girls rather than boys and vice versa.
The advice from Oxfordshire county council’s Trans Inclusion Toolkit for Schools and Education Settings 2019 tells schools that transgender pupils may use the school lavatories and changing rooms of the gender they feel themselves to be.
The case could affect all schools as they grapple with a surge in pupils wanting to be identified as girls rather than boys and vice versa.
The advice from Oxfordshire county council’s Trans Inclusion Toolkit for Schools and Education Settings 2019 tells schools that transgender pupils may use the school lavatories and changing rooms of the gender they feel themselves to be.
Children crowding gender clinics may be ‘just tip of iceberg’
Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital has come to the defence of its gender clinic after five months of silence amid intense questions about the safety and ethics of risky medical treatment.
An open letter from RCH chief executive John Stanway and chairman Rob Knowles said the clinic led by paediatrician Michelle Telfer was “one of the world’s best” and its 2018 treatment guidelines had been “peer- reviewed at the highest level”.
The letter said treatment of children and teens who identified as transgender was “based on the best available medical evidence” and given under “strict clinical governance standards”.
Children as young as 10 are being put on puberty blocker drugs to halt growth of “distressing” sex characteristics such as breasts, followed by cross-sex hormones, with Dr Telfer pushing for a start to double mastectomies at RCH for under-17s.
New referrals were up 20 per cent in the six months to July, with the clinic expecting to reach a record 300 this year, a potential increase of 1567 per cent since 2012, when Dr Telfer took charge.
Sydney psychologist Dianna Kenny, who has warned of irreversible harm from trans medicalisation of youth, said the RCH letter failed to mention growing global concern among practitioners, the role of social contagion in a surge of teenage patients, or the regretful young adult “detransitioners” who complain clinics had skated over the health risks.
“It’s a motherhood statement with no detail,” Dr Kenny said.
Western Sydney University’s professor of paediatrics John Whitehall, whose call for a broad parliamentary inquiry into trans youth medicine has been backed by more than 200 doctors, said the RCH statement ignored evidence suggesting hormone treatment might damage the still-developing brains of young people.
Citing the RCH claim it welcomed scrutiny, Dr Whitehall said: “Let the public know what you are actually saying to patients and parents about these (cognitive) complications”.
The RCH treatment guidelines have come under international criticism for overplaying empirical evidence and lacking caution.
The guidelines, and Dr Telfer’s expert evidence, are credited with persuading the Family Court in 2017 that new “advances in (trans) medical science” justified a relaxation of supervision by judges of hormone treatment decisions for under-18s.
Meanwhile, in a new BMJ Open paper on a longitudinal study Trans20, begun by RCH in 2017, researchers have admitted “an urgent need for more evidence” about trans medical care.
The authors, including Dr Telfer and her three RCH co-writers of the treatment guideline, say current numbers in crowded gender clinics “may be just the tip of the iceberg”.
They acknowledged treatment was “relatively new”, conceded clinicians needed the guidance of “stronger empirical research data” and predicted Trans20 would give information “about the long-term safety and outcomes of different forms of medical interventions available to them”.
American endocrinologist Michael Laidlaw, a critic of the “affirmative” approach, said the Trans20 paper showed “an experiment is already being conducted on children”.
The Trans20 study does not test the affirmative treatment RCH has been doing for years against any other kind of therapy.
“Why is there no comparison with psychotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, or watchful waiting?” Dr Laidlaw said.
The BMJ paper cited research, usually dismissed by the pro-trans “affirmative” model spearheaded in Australia by RCH, that, historically, most children at odds with their body grew up to accept it.
The paper also suggested greater community acceptance of trans identity might explain only “in part” the dramatic increase in teenagers, disproportionately girls, ending up at gender clinics. This left open a role for social media and peer influence, something the “affirmative” model tends to reject outright as incompatible with teen “expertise” on their “inner” trans identity.
Most of the eight authors of the BMJ paper have ties to Melbourne’s Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Dr Telfer and her three RCH colleagues also have affiliations with that institute, which is involved in the Trans20 study.
The paper estimated 83 per cent of 600 patients in the Trans20 study would stay to the end, meaning as many as 17 per cent could drop out, with their regrets not recorded.
The BMJ paper does not state eligibility rules for treatment at RCH, making it unclear how cautious those rules are.
Dr Telfer in October told a conference that The Australian’s reporting of concerns about trans medicine was “driven by fear and hate” with the aim to “progress a particular religious and political agenda”.
She did not reply when asked what this agenda was.
The Australian sought interviews yesterday with RCH leadership.
An open letter from RCH chief executive John Stanway and chairman Rob Knowles said the clinic led by paediatrician Michelle Telfer was “one of the world’s best” and its 2018 treatment guidelines had been “peer- reviewed at the highest level”.
The letter said treatment of children and teens who identified as transgender was “based on the best available medical evidence” and given under “strict clinical governance standards”.
Children as young as 10 are being put on puberty blocker drugs to halt growth of “distressing” sex characteristics such as breasts, followed by cross-sex hormones, with Dr Telfer pushing for a start to double mastectomies at RCH for under-17s.
New referrals were up 20 per cent in the six months to July, with the clinic expecting to reach a record 300 this year, a potential increase of 1567 per cent since 2012, when Dr Telfer took charge.
Sydney psychologist Dianna Kenny, who has warned of irreversible harm from trans medicalisation of youth, said the RCH letter failed to mention growing global concern among practitioners, the role of social contagion in a surge of teenage patients, or the regretful young adult “detransitioners” who complain clinics had skated over the health risks.
“It’s a motherhood statement with no detail,” Dr Kenny said.
Western Sydney University’s professor of paediatrics John Whitehall, whose call for a broad parliamentary inquiry into trans youth medicine has been backed by more than 200 doctors, said the RCH statement ignored evidence suggesting hormone treatment might damage the still-developing brains of young people.
Citing the RCH claim it welcomed scrutiny, Dr Whitehall said: “Let the public know what you are actually saying to patients and parents about these (cognitive) complications”.
The RCH treatment guidelines have come under international criticism for overplaying empirical evidence and lacking caution.
The guidelines, and Dr Telfer’s expert evidence, are credited with persuading the Family Court in 2017 that new “advances in (trans) medical science” justified a relaxation of supervision by judges of hormone treatment decisions for under-18s.
Meanwhile, in a new BMJ Open paper on a longitudinal study Trans20, begun by RCH in 2017, researchers have admitted “an urgent need for more evidence” about trans medical care.
The authors, including Dr Telfer and her three RCH co-writers of the treatment guideline, say current numbers in crowded gender clinics “may be just the tip of the iceberg”.
They acknowledged treatment was “relatively new”, conceded clinicians needed the guidance of “stronger empirical research data” and predicted Trans20 would give information “about the long-term safety and outcomes of different forms of medical interventions available to them”.
American endocrinologist Michael Laidlaw, a critic of the “affirmative” approach, said the Trans20 paper showed “an experiment is already being conducted on children”.
The Trans20 study does not test the affirmative treatment RCH has been doing for years against any other kind of therapy.
“Why is there no comparison with psychotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, or watchful waiting?” Dr Laidlaw said.
The BMJ paper cited research, usually dismissed by the pro-trans “affirmative” model spearheaded in Australia by RCH, that, historically, most children at odds with their body grew up to accept it.
The paper also suggested greater community acceptance of trans identity might explain only “in part” the dramatic increase in teenagers, disproportionately girls, ending up at gender clinics. This left open a role for social media and peer influence, something the “affirmative” model tends to reject outright as incompatible with teen “expertise” on their “inner” trans identity.
Most of the eight authors of the BMJ paper have ties to Melbourne’s Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Dr Telfer and her three RCH colleagues also have affiliations with that institute, which is involved in the Trans20 study.
The paper estimated 83 per cent of 600 patients in the Trans20 study would stay to the end, meaning as many as 17 per cent could drop out, with their regrets not recorded.
The BMJ paper does not state eligibility rules for treatment at RCH, making it unclear how cautious those rules are.
Dr Telfer in October told a conference that The Australian’s reporting of concerns about trans medicine was “driven by fear and hate” with the aim to “progress a particular religious and political agenda”.
She did not reply when asked what this agenda was.
The Australian sought interviews yesterday with RCH leadership.
Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital has come to the defence of its gender clinic after five months of silence amid intense questions about the safety and ethics of risky medical treatment.
An open letter from RCH chief executive John Stanway and chairman Rob Knowles said the clinic led by paediatrician Michelle Telfer was “one of the world’s best” and its 2018 treatment guidelines had been “peer- reviewed at the highest level”.
The letter said treatment of children and teens who identified as transgender was “based on the best available medical evidence” and given under “strict clinical governance standards”.
Children as young as 10 are being put on puberty blocker drugs to halt growth of “distressing” sex characteristics such as breasts, followed by cross-sex hormones, with Dr Telfer pushing for a start to double mastectomies at RCH for under-17s.
New referrals were up 20 per cent in the six months to July, with the clinic expecting to reach a record 300 this year, a potential increase of 1567 per cent since 2012, when Dr Telfer took charge.
Sydney psychologist Dianna Kenny, who has warned of irreversible harm from trans medicalisation of youth, said the RCH letter failed to mention growing global concern among practitioners, the role of social contagion in a surge of teenage patients, or the regretful young adult “detransitioners” who complain clinics had skated over the health risks.
“It’s a motherhood statement with no detail,” Dr Kenny said.
Western Sydney University’s professor of paediatrics John Whitehall, whose call for a broad parliamentary inquiry into trans youth medicine has been backed by more than 200 doctors, said the RCH statement ignored evidence suggesting hormone treatment might damage the still-developing brains of young people.
Citing the RCH claim it welcomed scrutiny, Dr Whitehall said: “Let the public know what you are actually saying to patients and parents about these (cognitive) complications”.
The RCH treatment guidelines have come under international criticism for overplaying empirical evidence and lacking caution.
The guidelines, and Dr Telfer’s expert evidence, are credited with persuading the Family Court in 2017 that new “advances in (trans) medical science” justified a relaxation of supervision by judges of hormone treatment decisions for under-18s.
Tip of the iceberg
Meanwhile, in a new BMJ Open paper on a longitudinal study Trans20, begun by RCH in 2017, researchers have admitted “an urgent need for more evidence” about trans medical care.
The authors, including Dr Telfer and her three RCH co-writers of the treatment guideline, say current numbers in crowded gender clinics “may be just the tip of the iceberg”.
They acknowledged treatment was “relatively new”, conceded clinicians needed the guidance of “stronger empirical research data” and predicted Trans20 would give information “about the long-term safety and outcomes of different forms of medical interventions available to them”.
American endocrinologist Michael Laidlaw, a critic of the “affirmative” approach, said the Trans20 paper showed “an experiment is already being conducted on children”.
The Trans20 study does not test the affirmative treatment RCH has been doing for years against any other kind of therapy.
“Why is there no comparison with psychotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, or watchful waiting?” Dr Laidlaw said.
Rival-free studies
A contentious long-term study of puberty blockers at London’s Tavistock NHS youth gender clinic was initially refused approval, the BBC Newsnight program reported in September.
An ethics committee protested that the decision of researchers not to randomly allocate some patients to a group getting no treatment meant the effects of the blocker drugs could not be proven.
The researchers argued too many teenagers would go abroad for blockers rather than risk ending up in a non-treatment control group, and got the go-ahead for the 2011-19 study from a second ethics committee, as the rules allowed.
In a letter this month to BMJ Open, professor of primary care research Richard Byng and emeritus obstetrics professor Susan Bewley said: “By gaining permission to study individuals without controls or piloting procedures for a (no doubt complex) randomised trial, an opportunity to determine harms and benefits was missed.
“The changing and growing demographic (of patients at youth gender clinics) — mainly natal females with high rates of trauma — make the need for proper studies more urgent.”
A US study begun in 2016 and involving five children’s hospital gender clinics also “observes” existing trans medical treatment without testing it against alternatives.
It is led by physician Johanna Olson-Kennedy, director of the clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, where there are 1500 active patients, and trans-identifying girls as young as 13 have been referred for double mastectomy.
In a July paper, Dr Olson-Kennedy and co-authors said the purpose of the study was to collect “critical data on the existing models of care for transgender youth that have been used in clinical settings for close to a decade.”
Treatment is puberty blockers, followed by cross-sex hormones, and the minimum age for inclusion in the study was lowered to eight.
The maximum follow-up is 24 months — some clinicians believe regret may take up to 10 years to show itself — and the drop-out rate for patients in the study was running at 12 per cent, potentially masking detransitioners.
The researchers said the study had the “capacity to substantially expand treatment across the country by providing rigorous evidence to demonstrate the benefits of early treatment.”
Canada has also launched an observational study of teenagers referred for puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones at ten clinics.
“While these treatments are generally considered safe, there is very little research on the short- and long-term social and medical experiences and outcomes of youth undergoing clinical care,” says the website for the 2019-21 Trans Youth CAN! study.
There is no mention of any alternative treatment — such as cognitive behaviour therapy — to be studied as a comparison to the medical interventions already favoured by clinics.
“We are an observational cohort study, not a treatment study, so there are no study drugs given or even study procedures (eg bloodwork) done as part of the study,” principal investigator Greta Bauer told the Canadian Gender Report group.
“We are gathering data from the youth and families for two years as they undergo the same care they would have received had they not been in the study.”
Like RCH, the Tavistock, US and Canadian clinics follow the pro-trans “affirmative model”, and medical procedures adapted from a Dutch clinic’s protocol.
Role for social contagion
The BMJ paper on Melbourne’s Trans20 study cited research, usually dismissed by the affirmative model, that, historically, most children at odds with their body grew up to accept it.
The paper also suggested greater community acceptance of trans identity might explain only “in part” the dramatic increase in teenagers, disproportionately girls, ending up at gender clinics. This left open a role for social media and peer influence, something the “affirmative” model tends to reject outright as incompatible with teen “expertise” on their “inner” trans identity.
Most of the eight authors of the BMJ paper have ties to Melbourne’s Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Dr Telfer and her three RCH colleagues also have affiliations with that institute, which is involved in the Trans20 study.
The paper estimated 83 per cent of 600 patients in the Trans20 study would stay to the end, meaning as many as 17 per cent could drop out, with the regret of detransitioners not recorded. RCH relies on overseas studies with a claimed regret rate after transition of less than 1.0 per cent, suggesting detransitioners profiled in the media are often not “true” cases because they were pressured by family or religion.
The BMJ paper does not state eligibility rules for treatment at RCH, making it unclear how cautious those rules are.
Dr Telfer in October told a conference that The Australian’s reporting of concerns about trans medicine was “driven by fear and hate” with the aim to “progress a particular religious and political agenda”.
She did not reply when asked what this agenda was.
The Australian sought interviews with RCH leadership.
An open letter from RCH chief executive John Stanway and chairman Rob Knowles said the clinic led by paediatrician Michelle Telfer was “one of the world’s best” and its 2018 treatment guidelines had been “peer- reviewed at the highest level”.
The letter said treatment of children and teens who identified as transgender was “based on the best available medical evidence” and given under “strict clinical governance standards”.
Children as young as 10 are being put on puberty blocker drugs to halt growth of “distressing” sex characteristics such as breasts, followed by cross-sex hormones, with Dr Telfer pushing for a start to double mastectomies at RCH for under-17s.
New referrals were up 20 per cent in the six months to July, with the clinic expecting to reach a record 300 this year, a potential increase of 1567 per cent since 2012, when Dr Telfer took charge.
Sydney psychologist Dianna Kenny, who has warned of irreversible harm from trans medicalisation of youth, said the RCH letter failed to mention growing global concern among practitioners, the role of social contagion in a surge of teenage patients, or the regretful young adult “detransitioners” who complain clinics had skated over the health risks.
“It’s a motherhood statement with no detail,” Dr Kenny said.
Western Sydney University’s professor of paediatrics John Whitehall, whose call for a broad parliamentary inquiry into trans youth medicine has been backed by more than 200 doctors, said the RCH statement ignored evidence suggesting hormone treatment might damage the still-developing brains of young people.
Citing the RCH claim it welcomed scrutiny, Dr Whitehall said: “Let the public know what you are actually saying to patients and parents about these (cognitive) complications”.
The RCH treatment guidelines have come under international criticism for overplaying empirical evidence and lacking caution.
The guidelines, and Dr Telfer’s expert evidence, are credited with persuading the Family Court in 2017 that new “advances in (trans) medical science” justified a relaxation of supervision by judges of hormone treatment decisions for under-18s.
Tip of the iceberg
Meanwhile, in a new BMJ Open paper on a longitudinal study Trans20, begun by RCH in 2017, researchers have admitted “an urgent need for more evidence” about trans medical care.
The authors, including Dr Telfer and her three RCH co-writers of the treatment guideline, say current numbers in crowded gender clinics “may be just the tip of the iceberg”.
They acknowledged treatment was “relatively new”, conceded clinicians needed the guidance of “stronger empirical research data” and predicted Trans20 would give information “about the long-term safety and outcomes of different forms of medical interventions available to them”.
American endocrinologist Michael Laidlaw, a critic of the “affirmative” approach, said the Trans20 paper showed “an experiment is already being conducted on children”.
The Trans20 study does not test the affirmative treatment RCH has been doing for years against any other kind of therapy.
“Why is there no comparison with psychotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, or watchful waiting?” Dr Laidlaw said.
Rival-free studies
A contentious long-term study of puberty blockers at London’s Tavistock NHS youth gender clinic was initially refused approval, the BBC Newsnight program reported in September.
An ethics committee protested that the decision of researchers not to randomly allocate some patients to a group getting no treatment meant the effects of the blocker drugs could not be proven.
The researchers argued too many teenagers would go abroad for blockers rather than risk ending up in a non-treatment control group, and got the go-ahead for the 2011-19 study from a second ethics committee, as the rules allowed.
In a letter this month to BMJ Open, professor of primary care research Richard Byng and emeritus obstetrics professor Susan Bewley said: “By gaining permission to study individuals without controls or piloting procedures for a (no doubt complex) randomised trial, an opportunity to determine harms and benefits was missed.
“The changing and growing demographic (of patients at youth gender clinics) — mainly natal females with high rates of trauma — make the need for proper studies more urgent.”
A US study begun in 2016 and involving five children’s hospital gender clinics also “observes” existing trans medical treatment without testing it against alternatives.
It is led by physician Johanna Olson-Kennedy, director of the clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, where there are 1500 active patients, and trans-identifying girls as young as 13 have been referred for double mastectomy.
In a July paper, Dr Olson-Kennedy and co-authors said the purpose of the study was to collect “critical data on the existing models of care for transgender youth that have been used in clinical settings for close to a decade.”
Treatment is puberty blockers, followed by cross-sex hormones, and the minimum age for inclusion in the study was lowered to eight.
The maximum follow-up is 24 months — some clinicians believe regret may take up to 10 years to show itself — and the drop-out rate for patients in the study was running at 12 per cent, potentially masking detransitioners.
The researchers said the study had the “capacity to substantially expand treatment across the country by providing rigorous evidence to demonstrate the benefits of early treatment.”
Canada has also launched an observational study of teenagers referred for puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones at ten clinics.
“While these treatments are generally considered safe, there is very little research on the short- and long-term social and medical experiences and outcomes of youth undergoing clinical care,” says the website for the 2019-21 Trans Youth CAN! study.
There is no mention of any alternative treatment — such as cognitive behaviour therapy — to be studied as a comparison to the medical interventions already favoured by clinics.
“We are an observational cohort study, not a treatment study, so there are no study drugs given or even study procedures (eg bloodwork) done as part of the study,” principal investigator Greta Bauer told the Canadian Gender Report group.
“We are gathering data from the youth and families for two years as they undergo the same care they would have received had they not been in the study.”
Like RCH, the Tavistock, US and Canadian clinics follow the pro-trans “affirmative model”, and medical procedures adapted from a Dutch clinic’s protocol.
Role for social contagion
The BMJ paper on Melbourne’s Trans20 study cited research, usually dismissed by the affirmative model, that, historically, most children at odds with their body grew up to accept it.
The paper also suggested greater community acceptance of trans identity might explain only “in part” the dramatic increase in teenagers, disproportionately girls, ending up at gender clinics. This left open a role for social media and peer influence, something the “affirmative” model tends to reject outright as incompatible with teen “expertise” on their “inner” trans identity.
Most of the eight authors of the BMJ paper have ties to Melbourne’s Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Dr Telfer and her three RCH colleagues also have affiliations with that institute, which is involved in the Trans20 study.
The paper estimated 83 per cent of 600 patients in the Trans20 study would stay to the end, meaning as many as 17 per cent could drop out, with the regret of detransitioners not recorded. RCH relies on overseas studies with a claimed regret rate after transition of less than 1.0 per cent, suggesting detransitioners profiled in the media are often not “true” cases because they were pressured by family or religion.
The BMJ paper does not state eligibility rules for treatment at RCH, making it unclear how cautious those rules are.
Dr Telfer in October told a conference that The Australian’s reporting of concerns about trans medicine was “driven by fear and hate” with the aim to “progress a particular religious and political agenda”.
She did not reply when asked what this agenda was.
The Australian sought interviews with RCH leadership.
And the long-awaited for English subtitled to part two of the Swedish documentary The Trans Train.
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