Puberty made everything worse
The NY Times has plucked up the courage to run a piece on detransitioners.
Grace Powell was 12 or 13 when she discovered she could be a boy.
Well, no, she didn’t discover “she could be a boy.” She discovered she could claim to be a boy, identify as a boy, pretend to be a boy. Let’s be careful about how we word things, ok?
Growing up in a relatively conservative community in Grand Rapids, Mich., Powell, like many teenagers, didn’t feel comfortable in her own skin. She was unpopular and frequently bullied. Puberty made everything worse. She suffered from depression and was in and out of therapy.
“I felt so detached from my body, and the way it was developing felt hostile to me,” Powell told me. It was classic gender dysphoria, a feeling of discomfort with your sex.
What? How do we know it wasn’t “classic” discomfort with puberty? Why assume it’s “classic” gender dysphoria? Isn’t that how we got into this mess in the first place?
Reading about transgender people online, Powell believed that the reason she didn’t feel comfortable in her body was that she was in the wrong body. Transitioning seemed like the obvious solution. The narrative she had heard and absorbed was that if you don’t transition, you’ll kill yourself.
Yes, like that. It’s a socially constructed belief, fostered by “reading about transgender people online.” Hold that thought: it’s important.
At 17, desperate to begin hormone therapy, Powell broke the news to her parents. They sent her to a gender specialist to make sure she was serious. In the fall of her senior year of high school, she started cross-sex hormones. She had a double mastectomy the summer before college…
Well thank god they made sure she was serious first, and then a week or two later let her get her tits chopped off.
At no point during her medical or surgical transition, Powell says, did anyone ask her about the reasons behind her gender dysphoria or her depression. At no point was she asked about her sexual orientation. And at no point was she asked about any previous trauma, and so neither the therapists nor the doctors ever learned that she’d been sexually abused as a child.
So what did the “gender specialist” actually talk to her about?
“I wish there had been more open conversations,” Powell, now 23 and detransitioned, told me. “But I was told there is one cure and one thing to do if this is your problem, and this will help you.”
I guess her parents picked the wrong gender specialist.
I’m not certain that anyone professing to be a “gender specialist” would ever be the right person to talk to. They’ve already drunk the Kool aid.
Puberty might have made everything worse, but putting the kibosh on your opportunity for the only puberty on offer might have been even worse than that. You either get the puberty for your sex, or you don’t mature at all. You NEVER have the option to have the puberty of the sex you’re not. The window of opportunity is finite. You can’t “put puberty on pause” and still be sure that you can restart or resume puberty at a time of your choosing. That window can close while “on pause,” and some or all of the individual’s development into a mature adult can be lost forever.
Oh, come now, maddog, don’t be so unscientific. It’s a factually factual fact that puberty blockers are perfectly safe and the effects only last for as long as they are being taken. Why, you could take them until you’re 80 and still go through a perfectly normal puberty once you stop using them. No side effects, either. I tell you, they’re as safe as lead in gasoline, as innocent as cigarettes, as healthy as playing with asbestos dust, as refreshing as CFCs in the atmosphere.
Why do you hate trans kids so much when all the evidence is against you?
Yes, this. Yes, puberty makes everything worse. That is why one needs caring adults to help guide one through the turbulent time. It doesn’t mean that one needs to try to do the fake “changing sex” thing.
Or this is when she was told she could be a boy. She heard or read a lie and believed it.
They sent her to a barber to see if she needed a haircut. Perfect. Of course the “gender specialist” is going to determine that she’s in need of the very service they happen to provide. Of course she’s going to be “diagnosed” with the imaginary ailment they “treat.” “Yes, she’s serious. Let’s get started before she
changes her mindgets worse.” “Gender-affirming treatment” is like the inverse of homeopathy. Homeopaths offer imaginary treatments for actual diseases; “gender medicine” throws real drugs and surgeries against an imaginary disease called “puberty.” Both are equally effective, but at least homepaths are ony sending you with harmless (if useless) water, rather than wrong-sex hormones and surgical scars.maddog @ 1 – Oh that was very much a bitter sarcastic joke.
The hyperlink didn’t work for me. Found the article here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/opinion/transgender-children-gender-dysphoria.html
A prime example of how trans ideology tries to hold conflicting positions at the same time. Either ‘gender identity’ is innate, set and has nothing to do with the body, OR it’s a deep and abiding discomfort with the body you were born into. It can’t really be both–if there’s ‘no one way to be trans’, then medical interventions for minors should absolutely be off the table.
(Of course, the vastly superior option would be giving girls like Grace therapeutic support that would help them understand that their bodies are not their identities, and that they can and should choose whatever lifestyle they want to live without regard for gender roles.)