Good people who essentially trust institutions have trouble understanding the main issues with "pediatric transition" because they don't understand it is a business model.
The pediatric #gendergrift is not medicine so much as an assembly-line toward easy profit.
🧵 A thread…
The pediatric #gendergrift is not medicine so much as an assembly-line toward easy profit.
🧵 A thread…
Naive parents and youth think they are "buying in" to a science-based treatment regimen, but the profit model is not in curing or health but in creating lifelong medical patients, through induced anxiety and a series of systematically replicable, fairly low-skill steps.
"Gender identity" is modern phrenology, asserting that everyone has a special essence that can somehow be "born in the wrong body," separate from sexist stereotypes and homophobia, discernible by only the most subtly enlightened.
#EmperorsNewClothes
#EmperorsNewClothes
Whether through induced anxiety over possible suicide or otherwise, the #gendergrift model is always forward-focused and fairly frenetic, creating a sense of crises where something predictable must be done.
The "gender affirmation" path is clear, lock-step, entirely predictable.
The "gender affirmation" path is clear, lock-step, entirely predictable.
Decades of pediatric experience shows that most gender-anxious youth will, with "watchful waiting," resolve as LGB by age 25.
Puberty itself is the simplest cure, with gender anxiety often a common part of coming to consciousness and terms about one's same-sex attraction.
Puberty itself is the simplest cure, with gender anxiety often a common part of coming to consciousness and terms about one's same-sex attraction.
Differential diagnoses are deprecated, with constant urgency to move quickly to the next step, and there is always a clear and inexorable next step:
- Social transition
- Puberty retardants
- Cross-sex hormones
- Double mastectomy or other surgery
- Lifelong, exogenous hormones.
- Social transition
- Puberty retardants
- Cross-sex hormones
- Double mastectomy or other surgery
- Lifelong, exogenous hormones.
"Social transition" such as new name or pronouns are the first step, but inherently confusing to the gender-anxious youth, who does not know enough of themselves or the world to do much more than please the (often homophobic) adults in their life.
It is a major intervention.
It is a major intervention.
Social transition creates a strong incentive never to falter or backdown, lest someone look foolish, which makes it major intervention.
For impressionable youth and teenagers, this is trebly the case, and a focus on "presentation" prevents more patient observation or reflection.
For impressionable youth and teenagers, this is trebly the case, and a focus on "presentation" prevents more patient observation or reflection.
Puberty retardants are the next step, and WPATH #SOC8 has no lowest-age limites to begin this process, with many practitioners beginning at Tanner stage two.
GnRH analogues have never been tested over time on pediatric patients, and there is low evidence for their efficacy.
GnRH analogues have never been tested over time on pediatric patients, and there is low evidence for their efficacy.
The vast majority of youth encouraged in social transition will progress to puberty retardants, w insurance paying elevated rates for "pediatric" formulations, and the majority of these will progress to cross-sex hormones.
Cross-sex hormones can have permanent effects quickly.
Cross-sex hormones can have permanent effects quickly.
Surgeries such as elective double mastectomy are the next common step for minors, and surgery costs can vary from ten thousand dollars up to well over $100,000, depending on which ones are chosen.
Depending on insurance/dependent status, surgery may be covered for several years.
Depending on insurance/dependent status, surgery may be covered for several years.
Female organs such as the uterus will atrophy with synthetic testosterone, and after a few years may be removed, along with the ovaries.
Removal of the ovaries or testes (through orchiectomy) is of course a one-way bridge, creating a lifelong dependence on exogenous hormones.
Removal of the ovaries or testes (through orchiectomy) is of course a one-way bridge, creating a lifelong dependence on exogenous hormones.
Depending on when cosmetic endocrinology and surgeries begin, some minors may be entirely without primary sex organs by twenty, and there is almost no medical data on this path over time.
This is not an experiment, but a gambit:
Experiments are designed, monitored and reviewed.
This is not an experiment, but a gambit:
Experiments are designed, monitored and reviewed.
Nations with centralized medical systems are further down this path than US medicine, and are consistently deprecating or discontinuing pediatric "transition."
Given profit motive, the US gender industry is likely to remain, as smoking and asbestos have, for similar reasons.
Given profit motive, the US gender industry is likely to remain, as smoking and asbestos have, for similar reasons.
This is not medicine, but industry, and an easily replicated, low-skill one with enormous, short-term financial incentives.
The long-term health of youth has never been one of those incentives.
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The long-term health of youth has never been one of those incentives.
https://twitter.com/rorybowman/status/1597849738405384192
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