David French wonders if the left’s transgender zeal is victimizing the mentally ill.
I ran across this heartbreaking interview of a University of Michigan-Flint social work professor whose 19 year-old daughter is “transitioning.” She’s autistic, and she’s been influenced by everything from pop culture to support group meetings to believe that she’s really a man. The story is tragic:
She started attending a local PFLAG meeting, where she met many trans people, including a number of FtoM trans teenagers who were raving about a certain “gender therapist.” Although the APA recommends a minimum of one year of “gender counseling” before surgery, this gender therapist (whom I consented to, before really understanding what I was doing) gave my daughter the go-ahead to have a bilateral mastectomy after only two sessions. This gender specialist never reviewed any of the Special Ed records or spoke to my daughter’s previous therapist, who had known her for a decade. And, crucially, she never asked my daughter, “Might you be a lesbian?”
It gets worse. As you might expect, her daughter wasn’t mentally equipped to understand the true consequences of her decision:
To give you some sense of my daughter’s level of understanding of what it means to transition, she told me recently that she believes that the testosterone “will grow her a penis.” I had to break the news to her that, although this is the mythology in the PFLAG meetings (where a number of the other young trans people are also autistic), this is not the case.
She has been taken advantage of. Healthy organs were amputated. This is insurance fraud, poor clinical practice, a violation of APA standards, unethical and unjust. It is a crime not just against women, but particularly against disabled women. So many of these young women who are “transitioning” are also autistic.
Despite stories like this, many states and professional associations are doing their dead-level best to render it not just unethical but also illegal to counsel teens away from such life-altering mutilations.
It is impossible to have an honest debate about the link between mental illness and transgenderism because to even suggest that a person who feels trapped in the wrong sex body would benefit from psychotherapy will result in accusations of bigotry and “transphobia.”
Obviously, the only “compassionate” thing to do to such people are to chemically and surgically mutilate them.
I don’t understand why self-identification as the incorrect gender gets special treatment. If someone self-identifies as King George III, should we all stand when he enters the room and address him as Your Majesty, and should he be allowed to use a bedroom at Windsor Castle? If I self-identify as a senior citizen, can I get senior discounts a couple of decades earlier than I would otherwise?
Oh, never mind, the Left supports people who self-identify as cats, and is even split about whether to support a white woman who self-identifies as black.
“It’s impossible to have an honest debate” about much of anything now. The PC party line is “settled science,” and any disagreement is dismissed as racist, sexist, homophobic, or Islamophobic.
If the young woman had wanted to have her ears pierced, it might have been possible to raise valid questions about her legal competency, and about her ability to understand risks and consequences. But, since the issue was transgenderism, it was automatically assumed that she needed the surgery, and that she did not need counseling before going ahead with it.
If she was attracted to women, it’s obviously possible that she is a lesbian, rather than a man “trapped in a woman’s body.” She might have benefited from counseling to help her accept her orientation. Also, she obviously did not understand the limitations of sex change surgery and chemical treatment.
The “therapist” was obviously either an unqualified quack, or a con artist exploiting the patient’s ignorance to make a quick buck off of the insurance company.
I dunno…there seems to be something missing in this story. First of all, the surgery that is required for gender reassignment is done by an independent surgeon, who should, in all manner of medical ethics, not preform any procedure without knowing that certain protocols have been followed, not the least of which is living as a member of the opposite birth sex for at least one year. (This appears to be referred to by the writer in the story as the necessary “gender counseling” in the story, but counseling is separate and apart from the protocol of living openly as a member of the desired gender prior to any surgical procedures.)
Any surgeon who does not follow recommended protocols or who does not question why a procedure like a double mastectomy is being sought commits an ethics violation and can be sanctioned by their employer as well as the state licensing board. This story makes it sound like the counselor and the surgeon were almost working in the same office. That doesn’t even address the issue of what credentials the counselor has and what their faculties are for recommending surgery. (Most legitimate gender reassignment surgery requires the involvement of a regular Licensed Professional Counselor, or equivalent; in addition to a psychiatrist to explore the medical necessity of any such surgery.)
Moreover, where was the parenting in this episode? Sure, it’s a “heartbreaking” story, but what self-respecting parent (particularly someone with credentials to teach social work) who is attuned to the requirements of a child with an autism spectrum disorder just willingly consents to allow their daughter to just lop off her boobs, even with a disclaimer of “before really understanding what I was doing” (huh)?? Further, even the parent doesn’t seem to understand the difference between homosexuality and transgenderism themselves, since “might you be a lesbian” is a question explored long before someone starts gender identity counseling. There’s no indication of why the daughter is going to a PFLAG meeting in the first place, since that organization shouldn’t be confused with an organization like a Gay/Straight Alliance, where non-TGLBQXYZ persons are welcome and encouraged to attend; so there’s definitely some backstory missing.
Add to that there are no citations to the claims made by Mr French in the last paragraphs of his posts, making it sound like biological mutilations are being performed about as often as bathroom designations. So much missing that it seems someone was short a topic for a blog post and just hurriedly slapped some crap together to reinforce his viewpoint.
If this is true, it is truly horrible.
I got the same vibe also. I hope V the K follows this up either way. All of my trans friends–some of them quite young–understand the physical sacrifice in going forward with full transition. Some of them plan on it eventually, while others identify as trans with no immediate plan–if ever–to make any kind of sex-based physical modifications. They understand that is a small component in transitioning, as the bulk of the work is the emotional investment in exploring who they are deep down inside and searching for the answers within first before doing anything drastic. I know they are a smart circle of people, but for there to be groups such as the one in the article that encourage such ill behaviours and are facilitated by inept, and unethical medical and social officials is pretty shocking.
Nothing beats sadistic 2%er Mengele types within the APAs aiding and abetting the gender identity disordered. We, as the majority normal heterosexual population, refuse to aid and abet the delusions and neurotic behavior/associated paraphilias of less than 2% of population to the most impressionable amongst us. The batmerdecrazy gender benders of the APAs/ABA, the federal judiciary, the executive branch and those 2%ers in line positions within corporate America can self fornicate because that’s what sadomasochists do best. Much to chagrin of the batmerdecrazy 2%ers, we will not emulate Sweden, Germany or Spain.
So, maybe we need to have Obamacare help with weight reduction diets for the anorexic?
RSG parenting wasn’t involved here because the daughter was 19-parents have no rights to any of the medical records or to even participate in a medical discussion if their child is an adult. I have an autistic, newly adult child and his doctor asked him if he wanted to sign forms giving him permission do discuss medical issues. My son signed but he had every right to refuse.
I have some pretty big issues with encouraging children and teens to take irreversible steps in transitioning and while it isn’t a popular position I think transgenderism is a sign of mental illness that should be treated and not encouraged. I also think you can’t discount some issues of insurance fraud in the case of unethical actions (eg a surgeon with ethical standards may check to make sure protocols have been followed but a surgeon looking to bill insurance isn’t going to look too hard.
“Obviously, the only “compassionate” thing to do to such people are to chemically and surgically mutilate them.”
And then, as that will not solve their problem nor make them hapy, murder them.