ZitatHow old must a girl be to consent to a mastectomy? Only 13, it appears. An article in JAMA Pediatrics on “Chest Dysphoria in Transmasculine Minors and Young Adults” at a US clinic was based on a survey which included 2 girls (transmales) who were 13 years old and had both breasts removed and 5 who were only 14.
According to the authors, who are based at the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, “All postsurgical participants (68 of 68; 100%) affirmed the statement, ‘It was a good decision to undergo chest reconstruction.’”
Since the girls were overwhelmingly positive about their operation, the authors contend that “Professional guidelines and clinical practice should recommend patients for chest surgery based on individual need rather than chronologic age.”
[snip]
The psychologists’ perspective is that the “chest dysphoria” of “transmasculine minors” can be so severe that it affects their health. Girls often resort to chest binding, which is associated with “pain, rib fractures, light-headedness, weakness, skin infection” and other ailments.
This seems to be the justification for the authors’ conclusion that “Youth should be referred for chest surgery based on their individual needs, rather than their age or time spent taking medication. Individualized, patient-centered care plans should be considered the standard of care for all transgender adolescents, and referrals should be made accordingly.”
Unsurprisingly, the authors of the article barely mentioned the role of parents and families in the minors’ decisions. Perhaps they viewed them mainly as threats who might derail their daughters’ plans to join the transgender fellowship. Nor did they discuss the ethics of performing surgery which is illegal in many countries for children under 16 or 18. They are living in a Southern California ethical bubble where competing viewpoints are ignored.
How much research supports “top jobs” for 13-year-old girls with gender dysphoria? Very little, if any, in all likelihood. This is basically a surgical experiment for solving a mysterious psychiatric problem. Remember frontal lobotomies for depression and schizophrenia? That was another surgical experiment which didn’t turn out too well for thousands of psychiatric patients. It's now a byword for medical brutality.
Argues that doctors are doing treatment without evidence...
A psychiatrist from Johns Hopkins University has slammed the medical and psychiatric industries for what he says is reckless and irresponsible treatment of patients who claim to be transgender.
Paul McHugh, a renowned psychiatrist from Johns Hopkins University, told The College Fix he believes transgender people are being experimented on because the doctors treating transgender patients with hormones “don’t have evidence that (the treatment) will be the right one.” He also criticized the manner of treatment given to many children who claim to be transgender.
“Many people are doing what amounts to an experiment on these young people without telling them it’s an experiment,” he told The Fix via phone.
“You need evidence for that and this is a very serious treatment. It is comparable to doing frontal lobotomies.”
Vast majority of gender minorities report mental health issues
A recent study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that 80 percent of gender minority students report having mental health problems, nearly double the rate of “cisgender” students. McHugh believes that in many cases the patient’s gender dysphoria is precipitated by mental illness.
“I think their mental problems, often depression, discouragement are the things that need treatment,” not gender dysphoria, he argued.
“I’m not positive about this. It’s a hypothesis, but it is a very plausible hypothesis, and it would explain why many of the people who go on to have treatment of their body discover they are just as depressed, discouraged and live just as problematic lives as they did before because they did not address the primary problem,” he added.
Possible ‘contagion effect’
“I believe that these gender confusions are mostly being driven by psychological and psychosocial problems these people have. That explains the rapid onset gender dysphoria Lisa Littman has spelled out,” McHugh said.
The Lisa Littman to whom the professor referred is a researcher at Brown University, who last year published a bombshell report suggesting that some transgender-identified children might suffer from “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” a phenomenon in which “one, multiple, or even all of the friends [in a group] have become gender dysphoric and transgender-identified during the same timeframe.”
There was significant backlash following Littman’s publication of the study, after which Brown censored the report. The study was eventually validated with its results unchanged. Long-term effects of child transgender treatment
Asked about the possible long-term consequences of the growing practice of helping children develop transgender identities, including with hormones, McHugh expressed pessimism.
“They’re going to be in the hands of doctors for the rest of their lives, many of them are going to be sterilized not able to have their own children, and many will regret this,” McHugh said.
“Can you imagine having a life where you need to seek doctors all the time, for everything, just to live? Getting your hormones checked, getting everything checked. That is something doctors should like to spare people of,” he added.
McHugh thinks that eventually our society will look back on this craze as something of an historical shame. “I believe it will be something like how we think of eugenics now. We will come to regret it when we discover how many of the young people that were injured regret it themselves,” he told The Fix.
The doctor stressed that medical professionals should stick to a higher standard of evidence when considering treatment for individuals who claim a transgender identity.
“You can think whatever you want without proof. Be my guest. You can think anything you want, if you like it that way. But don’t ask me as a doctor to prescribe hormones or operate on you when I try to do things which are for your benefit,” he said.
“My aim isn’t to stop people. It’s when they draw medical people in. That’s when I insist on evidence and what makes more sense.”