{"id":30360,"date":"2019-01-22T14:57:24","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T18:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cosmicconvergence.org\/?p=30360"},"modified":"2019-01-22T14:57:24","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T18:57:24","slug":"canadian-cultural-marxists-have-taken-transgendering-to-a-whole-new-insane-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cosmicconvergence.org\/?p=30360","title":{"rendered":"Canadian Cultural Marxists Have Taken Transgendering to a Whole New Insane Level"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Guidelines to be published Monday recommend doctors take an unconditional \u201caffirming\u201d approach, that drugs to stop puberty may begin as early as age 10-and-a-half and that \u201ccross-sex\u201d hormones \u2014 estrogens so that a trans girl develops a more rounded figure and testosterone to give trans boys a more angular jaw and masculine physique \u2014 may be administered at age 16.Getty Images<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

Puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones: Canada’s family doctors get guidance on treating youth with ‘gender dysphoria’<\/h2>\n

Hormone suppression can delay puberty and give youth “more time to make decisions about transitioning,” write the authors of a new review.<\/h3>\n

Sharon Kirkey
\nNational Post<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s family doctors are getting new guidance on how to manage the burgeoning number of teens identifying as transgender.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0new review article<\/a>\u00a0published Monday urges doctors to take a \u201cthoughtful, affirming\u201d approach and to avoid \u201cinfluencing the adolescent to move down a path they would not have chosen for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe youth\u2019s voice is always paramount,\u201d the authors write in a special issue on transgender health appearing in this week\u2019s edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.<\/p>\n

A recent Canadian study found less than half of transgender youth are comfortable discussing their health care needs with their family doctor.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough the consensus in the medical community in the 1960s and 1970s was to view gender variance through a disease model in which associated behaviours, expression and declared identity were deemed pathological and in need of correction,\u201d the authors write in the CMAJ, \u201cthe current approach is an affirming one that does not view gender variance as pathological.\u201d<\/p>\n

The opposite side of that is you don’t even address gender at all \u2014 the watch-and wait approach. You avoid it and see what happens<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With wait lists at specialty gender clinics stretching a year or longer, the review offers family doctors advice on supporting the social and medical transitioning of teens with \u201cgender dysphoria\u201d \u2014 psychiatry\u2019s label for the distress that may accompany the incongruence or mismatch between the gender one identifies with, and one\u2019s gender \u201cassigned\u201d at birth.<\/p>\n

The article provides recommendations on the timing of prescribing hormone blockers to suppress puberty as well as \u201ccross-sex\u201d hormones \u2014 estrogens so that a trans girl develops a more feminized figure and testosterone to give trans boys a more angular jaw and masculine physique.<\/p>\n

The review comes as divorced parents fight complex and messy legal battles over who gets to decide the course of hormone treatments for their transgender teen, and as experts report more youth with no known histories of gender identity issues in the past suddenly identifying as transgender. A recent controversial study on so-called \u201crapid-onset gender dysphoria\u201d<\/a>suggested \u201csocial and peer contagion\u201d could be behind \u201ccluster outbreaks\u201d of gender dysphoria among friends, and that some teens (mostly trans boys, female to male) are being influenced by social media, including YouTube transitioning videos. The study, based on parental reports, has been attacked by transgender advocates as seriously methodologically flawed and is now being reviewed by the journal that published it.<\/p>\n

It’s also not uncommon to have youth who, a couple of weeks ago, decided that, after talking with a friend or researching on the Internet that maybe they’re transgender.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, the authors of the CMAJ article also note that the sex ratio of teens presenting to transgender clinics appears to be changing, \u201cwith many more youth who are assigned female gender at birth seeking care than those assigned male.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reason for the phenomenon isn\u2019t clear.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the\u00a0Post\u2019s Douglas Quan reported<\/a>\u00a0that the number of referrals to the gender clinic at B.C. Children\u2019s Hospital rose from seven in 2007, to 80 in 2017. The transgender clinic at Toronto\u2019s Hospital for Sick Children sees over 200 referrals each year.<\/p>\n

Dr. Joey Bonifacio, an adolescent medicine specialist at Toronto\u2019s St. Michael\u2019s Hospital and a co-author of the CMAJ review article, said the approach to care has moved away from a \u201cDrop the Barbie\u201d approach, \u201cwhere it was deemed almost like you should \u2018correct\u2019 a child\u2019s behaviour or a child\u2019s identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opposite side of that is you don\u2019t even address gender at all \u2014 the watch-and wait approach. You avoid it and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The youth’s voice is always paramount<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Instead, \u201cThe validating and affirming approach is an approach that gives you a bit of both of those, in the sense that you should address it, but maybe you shouldn\u2019t try to correct it either, but see where the youth is and where the parents are, and working together as a team so that that youth is functioning well, both physically and mentally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Precise numbers in Canada are unknown, but studies from other countries suggest about one to four per cent of teens identify as a different gender from their birth gender.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s recommend hormone blockers be given only once puberty starts \u2014 on average, at age 10-and-a-half for children born female, and 11-and-a-half in those \u201cassigned\u201d male gender at birth. \u201cSome youth find that their dysphoria abates as puberty starts, making it important to allow initial pubertal changes to occur,\u201d the authors write.<\/p>\n

However, the drugs can also buy youth time \u201cto explore their gender identity and expression without having to worry about ongoing pubertal changes and development of secondary sexual characteristics that may be psychologically disturbing and undesired.\u201d<\/p>\n

We’re not moving in one direction or another \u2026 I tell families that it allows you to take a deep breath, but a very long breath, so you have more time to figure stuff out and gather more information.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The drugs are used to block the hormones that normally increase during puberty. For\u00a0youth also struggling with mood and anxiety disorders, they can act as a pause button, Bonifacio said. \u201cWe\u2019re not moving in one direction or another \u2026 I tell families that it allows you to take a deep breath, but a very long breath, so you have more time to figure stuff out and gather more information.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Endocrine Society, an international medical organization, says cross-sex or \u201cgender-affirming\u201d hormones may be administered around age 16, or as young as 13-and-a-half in special circumstances.<\/p>\n

However, Bonifacio and his co-authors say \u201cmany youth understandably express the desire to go through puberty in their affirmed gender at similar ages to their peers, which would necessitate starting gender-affirming hormones at even younger ages.\u201d<\/p>\n

That troubles one leading U.S. expert, who worries that, without proper assessments by trained mental health experts, family doctors could be too quick to prescribe cross-sex hormones, which come with some irreversible body changes. Testosterone for female-to-male can cause a permanent deepening of the voice. Estrogen for male-to-female transitioning causes breast development.<\/p>\n