• Brown University researcher first to describe 'rapid-onset gender dysphoria'
    113 replies, posted
My evidence is myself.
I mean wow. That's a severe chip on your shoulder when it's pretty much a fact that people wrongly transition, often based on the same kind of self-diagnosis that everyone also labels themselves "functioning autist" or "depressive" or "bipolar" or the worst offender, Tumblr "ptsd". There has absolutely been a surge of mental hypochondriacs among millenials, especially these past 10 years. It's not wrong to ascribe the high rate of suicides by trans people to bullying and being ostracised. But not also ascribing it to mis-diagnosis and treatment is disingeuous at best. My own fucking sister went through anxiety and depression and without therapy and counseling, she would have kept assuming it was gender dysphoria. Something that they genuinely explored with her along the way. I find your dismissive attitude narrowminded. You're too quick to dismiss the fact that this field of psychology is very new and not sufficiently explored and even if it was, the fact of the matter is that people should never go around self-diagnosing anything without getting a professional involved. Ok. so this means you get what i'm saying. Then stop jumping down my throat about it. Don't be the person who immediately stiffles discussion at every perceived slight or mistake. Inb4 "educate urself".
I recommend you try primary sources in the future.
Nah, I do get that it happens and while I do think most places go too far with "gatekeeping," I think a stint in therapy before beginning hormones is good practice at the moment if feasible. (there are a lot of cases where people can't afford therapy but can afford HRT. In which case yeah, it's a bad position to be in and it's a big "what's the least-bad decision here?" imo and it's not something I can make for other people.) but the issue I take has to do with magnitude. You explicitly said THis is also where we find the high rate of transsexual suicides. Which just isn't something that can be backed at the moment, especially as it's nothing that I've seen identified as a significant risk factor in the studies of trans suicide that do exist. (e.g. this.)
I don't think most people in this thread have successfully identified what this study is. This is a sensitive topic, so it makes sense that people may not see things clearly. I also do not doubt that right-wing activists are misrepresenting this work in an effort to marginalize people and cause harm. Other people misrepresenting this work is not an excuse however to misrepresent the work yourself. The authors were pretty clear that their work does not say anything about prevalence. The authors do not make any claims about or even come close to implying that gender dysphoria isn't a real condition. I encourage everyone passionate about this subject to re-read the purpose section of the paper as well as the press release on Brown's page. To those complaining about methodology, this study pretty much only tries to take ideas that are already circulating in the wild and come up with a formal definition in an academic setting so that the claims being made by these parent groups can actually be evaluated. This isn't downplaying gender dysphoria. This isn't concern trolling or pop-sci. This is a formal first step in addressing what looks like a growing movement of non-scientists developing potentially dangerous pseudoscience. The authors have previously studied misconceptions about perceived patient risk when it comes to abortion. They have worked on debunking pseudoscience garbage like post-abortion syndrome (PAS). This study acts as a first step in continuing work like that here should future studies demonstrate that ROGD is something people just made up online. If future work identifies this phenomena as a real thing, it will serve as a starting point to help people that have wrongly self-diagnosed as suffering from gender dysphoria. I'm pretty sure most people genuinely interested in ensuring that patients get the care they need would find both of those outcomes favorable.
I don't know where you're getting your information from but you are so wrong it's disgusting. Buying time or arresting development? The dilemma of administeri.. However, use of this intervention has only recently begun, so no other follow-up studies are available and many questions are still unanswered. Thus, many professionals remain critical about the puberty-blocking treatment (e.g.25, 41, 42). The primary counterarguments are as follows: 1. At Tanner stage 2 or 3, the individual is not sufficiently mature or authentically free to take such a decision.25, 41 2. It is not possible to make a certain diagnosis of GD in adolescence, because in this phase, gender identity is still fluctuating.25, 41, 42 3. Moreover, puberty suppression may inhibit a ‘spontaneous formation of a consistent gender identity, which sometimes develops through the “crisis of gender”’ (p. 375).43 4. Considering the high percentage of desisters, early somatic treatment may be premature and inappropriate.25 5. Research about the effects of early interventions on the development of bone mass and growth – typical events of hormonal puberty – and on brain development is still limited,7 so we cannot know the long-term effects on a large number of cases. 6. Although current research suggests that there are no effects on social, emotional and school functioning, ‘potential effects may be too subtle to observe during the follow-up sessions by clinical assessment alone’ (p. 1895).25 7. The impact on sexuality has not yet been studied, but the restriction of sexual appetite brought about by blockers may prevent the adolescent from having age-appropriate socio-sexual experiences.41 8. In light of this fact, early interventions may interfere with the patient's development of a free sexuality and may limit her or his exploration of sexual orientation.41, 42 9. Finally, for trans girls (natal boys with a female gender identification), the blockage of phallic growth may result in less genital tissue available for an optimal vaginoplasty.44
I'm not sure you can equate the treatment of people with a medical issue and the same treatment being given to kids with normally functioning systems. (i.e. The treatment of kids with premature puberty development is equivalent to the same treatment of kids with normal puberty development.) There's a reason the FDA has approved indications. Using similar treatments for different problems often doesn't work out the same. There's also the question of the role puberty, itself, plays in a person deciding if they are actually trans or not. The low rates of persistence seem to suggest that it plays a fairly large role. Also, this type of treatment has been in use for gender dysphoria in children since the 1990s. That means we should be seeing the effect after ~20-30 years, plenty of time to start seeing study relevant results. It's not THAT new. For example, the "Dutch Protocol," base on the work of Peggy Cohen-Kettenis and Stephanie van Goozen, psychologists at a Dutch gender clinic, was published in 2006. They also describe some negative effect, such as inhibited height development and weaker bone density. It also seems a little naive to suggest that the social and psychological development of a child won't be affected by inhibiting puberty past the normal age that it happens for all their peers. Here's an extremely detailed, and well cited, article talking about the it: Growing Pains (I am not very familiar with the source, but I checked it out on a few rating websites, and it seems to be seen as highly factual.)
lol you say im wrong, that article is bullshit because the sources he listed show the positive benefits: Main Outcome Measures Behavioral and emotional problems (Child Behavior Checklist and the Youth‐Self Report), depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory), anxiety and anger (the Spielberger Trait Anxiety and Anger Scales), general functioning (the clinician's rated Children's Global Assessment Scale), gender dysphoria (the Utrecht Gender Dysphoria Scale), and body satisfaction (the Body Image Scale) were assessed. Results Behavioral and emotional problems and depressive symptoms decreased, while general functioning improved significantly during puberty suppression. Feelings of anxiety and anger did not change between T0 and T1. While changes over time were equal for both sexes, compared with natal males, natal females were older when they started puberty suppression and showed more problem behavior at both T0 and T1. Gender dysphoria and body satisfaction did not change between T0 and T1. No adolescent withdrew from puberty suppression, and all started cross‐sex hormone treatment, the first step of actual gender reassignment. Conclusion Puberty suppression may be considered a valuable contribution in the clinical management of gender dysphoria in adolescents. Puberty Suppression in Adolescents With Gender Identity Disorder I mean shit, your source pulls that list with hotlinked sources, and its from the same fucking article hes writing. We have used hormone blockers way before for other usages with no real side effects. The body simply stays near androgynous till it receives hormones to solidify their biology. The Treatment of Adolescent Transsexuals Aim To describe the stepwise changes in treatment policy which, in recent years, have been made by the team of the Gender Identity Clinic at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Methods The first step taken to treat adolescents was that, after careful evaluation, (cross‐sex hormone) treatment could start between the ages of 16 and 18 years. A further step was the suppression of puberty by means of gonadotropin‐releasing hormone analogs in 12–16 year olds; the latter serves also as a diagnostic tool. Very recently, other clinics in Europe and North America have followed this policy. Results The first results from the Amsterdam clinic show that this policy is promising. Conclusion Professionals who take responsibility for these youth and are willing to help should yet be fully aware of the impact of their interventions. In this article, the pros and cons of the various approaches to youngsters with GID are presented, hopefully inciting a sound scientific discussion of the issue. The entire piece is a dude pulling the maybe negative side effects while sourcing papers that say otherwise.
Are you serious? Do you not understand what 'may be' means? Or do you live in a world where everything trans and related is always in a positive light without 0 side effects of any kind?
May be usually means "probably". Furthermore I had to take Prednisone multiple times as a child due to asthma and eczema. Prednisone is also "bone hurting juice" in that it can and does lower bone density. It's almost like medications have something called "acceptable side effects".
When its been paused before with little side effects and people who already have had puberty postponed naturally, and we have been using the drug for years, and you post fucking sources showing its a great treatment idea, yeah there's little cause for concern. You provided me sources with experts saying its a great diagnostic measure doctors can use to zero in if its a true case. The worst case we have is that osteoporosis in extreme cases of using them way over the prescribed use. Puberty will resume even when you remove the blocker 5 years down the line because your pituitary gland doesn't just stop working to tell your body to produce hormones, this has already been documented to happen with every hormone therapy.
ever read the stories from the people who regret their decision to undergo therapy/surgeries? these studies are great and will help people in the long term.
How do you know this when, as you have already stated, there haven't been any studies about it?
By that same exact metric why are you so skeptical when there is no basis for your skepticism since there are no studies.
Do you see kids dropping dead on the streets, trans individuals having massive health issues from a delayed puberty, or people dying years upon years before when the drug was first used? If the drug wasn't safe to use for it's intended purpose, they wouldn't allow it past clinical trials. Doctors now say its been a great tool, I severely doubt they would say otherwise if their patients died shortly after or were permanently maimed.
There HAVE been studies about gender dysphoria, mountains of them. We wouldn't be prescribing HRT to trans people if there weren't. This new study is the first to study a (likely nonexistent) phenomenon known as rapid-onset gender dysphoria.
The burden of proof is on the people advocating/doing the procedure. That is like a fundamental tenet of our medical system. Drug companies don't get to make a new product/procedure, give it to patients, and then claim that the critics need to prove it doesn't work. The drug company is expected to show, to a high standard of evidence, that the drug is effective and doesn't have large side effect before it gets FDA approval. Your standard seems a little ridiculous. Death is one negative consequence among many. There are no clinical trials for this indication.
The negative health consequences for HRT are well studied and well known and it is not without its drawbacks. However it is generally worth it despite that.
We're talking about the use of hormone blockers on children to pause puberty, not HRT.
I'm aware, I noted that above.
And so far the only negative side effects listed for the drug is lesser bone density. So this proves your point how? We know what the drug does and it's side effects. Majority of researchers have found the body resumes puberty after being off the drug, so whats your angle? Your source didn't list anything other than pure fear mongering with studies that are not even related to the topic. I've posted studies where doctors have said its a great tool for diagnosis. We've used the drug to treat early onset puberty for years and the patient's bodies still went through puberty shortly after the drug was removed. What other negative effects are you trying to prove? The lesser bone density? I've already pointed out its a side effect that has been known forever and is an acceptable one VS the permanent effects of undergoing puberty while having GiD. Which we have studies showing doctors recommend its the best course of action when allowing a window to study the symptoms. This is why its the standard practice because its been tested and proven a great asset vs the risks.
Incorrect.
Let me clarify that if an adult wants HRT or any other amount of transitioning, then that should be totally up to them. Whether it has negative health consequences or not is their risk to manage. If they're ok with those risks, then more power to them.
First source doesn't even say if they went through any kind of treatment, they just asked at 8 years old then at 24 years old. So the factor of "hormone blockers may prevent them from figuring out their gender" is moot. Second source is talking about a paper that isn't even there? Like it says its all detailed in the paper above and there's nothing there.
It also doesn't seem to, at first glance, account for people repressing or outright lying to the researchers. Kids are much more open about having dysphoric feelings than adults are.
The point is simply that a diagnosis of GID in childhood is not a good indicator of having GID in adulthood. Assuming that every child diagnosed with GID gets hormone blockers, that means that the majority of kids who receive hormone blockers won't get any of the benefits of it because they'll eventually identify as their birth sex/gender anyway. Those kids will only get the possible negative consequences. Sorry, I thought it included the actual study. Steensma's work is very well known and commonly cited (It's also good to note that he's not anti-transition, religious, or anything like that.) Like I said before, I don't know of any study that has shown the opposite: that the majority of pre-pubescent kids who are diagnosed with GID persist with GID into adulthood.
But the point is, They weren't screen past "do you think you're a transgender person". They weren't examined further nor were they given any kind of treatment. It has nothing to do with your arguments, its a moot point. Also even if the kids were given the hormone blockers and ended up not being trans, the negative consequences are reversible and non life threatening/maiming. Again, you didn't provide proof that the procedure is extremely damaging, you just say we don't know. I on the other hand showed 2 studies that say blockers are great tools for doctors, and should be the norm when treating possible cases. Like Medicine is a balance between potential harm/side effects, and treatment. Doctors have weighed in and said its an acceptable effect considering the other option is permanent and extremely damaging. So you post a study without reading, then tell me to look up the person's studies for you. Provide proof for me like I provided for you.
What? They were professionally diagnosed as having GID. That means a psychologist/psychiatrist (I'm not sure which usually makes these diagnoses) felt sure enough to make an official diagnosis. They used a "standard assessment." At the beginning, 60% of the girls met the DSM standard for GID, and 40% were close, but not quite there, but by the age of 24, only 12% met the standard. That means that only 20% of the girls who met the DSM standard at a young age persisted into adulthood.
Gender-reassignment isn't something that's only been around for a few years, but the amount of people who underwent gender-reassignment therapy has sky-rocketed in the last decade or so. I really do think it's worth investigating what caused the sudden transgender boom, but there's so much controversy over the topic from all sides that it's difficult to even discuss it without arguments breaking out.
I mean, actual acceptance of transgender individuals and accessibility to better corresponding transitioning care certainly helps in such matters.
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