[herodoturtle]

> There is a movement to stop any kind of discussion about therapy on gender dysphoria other than transition.

Can you please unpack this sentence a little more? I'm just trying to understand things better.

My understanding of therapy is that it is used for healing and / or to cure a disorder.

And so I can see why using the word "therapy" in this context is problematic, because it implies that there exists something which needs to be healed, or a disorder which needs to be cured.

I'd value your thoughts on this. Thanks.

[Hermel]

“Therapy” does not necessarily imply a disorder. Consider physiotherapy, which is quite common to address things like a pain in the back or to support the recovery of muscles after an accident. Neither are disorders. Therapy does not even imply changing something with the client, but could be simply targeted at helping the client to find better strategies to handle something that is bothering them, for example helping a client to be better deal with the fact that not everyone understands his or her sexual orientation.

[herodoturtle]

> Therapy does not even imply changing something with the client, but could be simply targeted at helping the client to find better strategies to handle something that is bothering them, for example helping a client to be better deal with the fact that not everyone understands his or her sexual orientation.

That really helped frame things in a more constructive light for me.

Thank you.

[high_derivative]

I am not an expert on this, and these below are not my opinions but how I have understood the debate thus far:

- Gender dysphoria is classified in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)

- When it manifests in young people, there can be various reasons, for example, coming to terms with being gay.

- Therapy can explore the reasons for this and help understand how to best help the patients

- For some patients, the right course of action is to have gender affirming surgery and transition

- For other patients, this is a temporary discomfort with their identity that passes or can be resolved otherwise (e..g by accepting sexual identity etc). <--- This is the controversial part. Trans right activists see this position as an erasure of trans identity/denying their right to exist, etc pp. They seek to suppress any kind of research investigating e.g. the rapid rise in gender dysmorphia in teenagers as a medical phenomenon (e.g. in https://quillette.com/2019/03/19/an-interview-with-lisa-litt...), and seek to ban any books/research/open debate in this area.

I have no idea on the biological or psychological reasons, but I object to any suppression of research on medical phenomena.

[herodoturtle]

Thanks for breaking down the evolution of the debate; your summary gave me a lot more context to this discussion.

> This is the controversial part. Trans right activists see this position as an erasure of trans identity/denying their right to exist, etc pp. They seek to suppress any kind of research investigating

Does this mean _all_ Trans rights activists?

I'm wondering if there is discourse from Trans rights activists who are activists for reasons other than those associated with medical research - and who possibly object to this attempt by a subset of Trans rights activists to suppress said research.

I only have one Trans friend that I actively engage with on this topic, and I get the impression that even within the Trans community there is a lot of disagreement in terms of what's best for society (and how to best raise our children).

Which is perfectly normal - especially given the deeply nuanced nature of this discussion.

I'm just trying to wrap my mind around why Amazon took this step.

[e12e]

> Gender dysphoria is classified in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)

So, will Amazon now de-list diagnostic manuals?

[ScottBurson]

Here's a rebuttal to the Littman paper: https://juliaserano.medium.com/everything-you-need-to-know-a...

Here, OTOH, is a young woman talking about how she was temporarily convinced she was a trans man: https://youtu.be/r57wGbiK3U8

[pseudalopex]

The last point is incorrect. Gender dysphoria being temporary for some people isn't controversial. Trans people oppose Littman's paper being taken seriously because it's incredibly shoddy.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnc_KvWkiHw&t=3324s

[mimikatz]

I am sorry to see your post as greyed out, it is an objective viewpoint neutral summary of the issue.

[DanBC]

It links to Quillette and spreads disinfo. That's not objective.

[lexicality]

You need to be wary about what positions people report "trans activists" as holding. The website you link to is considered "questionable" by the Media Bias Fact Check website (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/quillette/) and The Times has been instrumental in pushing transphobic rhetoric mainstream.

While I'm sure you could find someone on tumblr posting about how all 3 year old boys who play with dolls should immediately be given HRT, all mainstream thought (by trans people and medical professionals) I've seen is that children who exhibit gender dysphoria should be given puberty blockers while thorough psychological analyses etc are carried out.

[throwaway53453]

But even puberty blockers cause development issues in children. We are talking about permanent damage for something that might actually be temporary. Why not just let them decide at 18?

[plorkyeran]

At 18 it is too late and puberty has already done permanent damage. The entire purpose of puberty blockers is to make it possible to defer the decision until they are adults.

[lexicality]

Do you have more information? The only issue I've heard about puberty blockers is a slight reduction in bone density over extended usage which is apparently considered negligible. I'd be interested to read a paper or medical journal indicating otherwise.

EDIT: But also to answer your question - if you think a 10 year old child might be suffering from gender dysphoria but you decide to leave it 8 years to see how things turn out, you then have to spend an enormous amount of money undoing the puberty they went through and performing various surgeries (eg mastectomy).

However if you put that child on puberty blockers and give them therapy, it should become obvious very quickly if they're just faking it for attention and they can be taken off them again.

[DanBC]

> For other patients, this is a temporary discomfort with their identity that passes or can be resolved otherwise (e..g by accepting sexual identity etc). <--- This is the controversial part. Trans right activists see this position as an erasure of trans identity/denying their right to exist,

No, this is untrue. Trans people all accept that questioning is a valid part of treatment. The controversial bit is that transphobes say that the only allowable treatment is questioning and denial, and that any attempt to support someone to transition is abusive.

> etc pp. They seek to suppress any kind of research investigating e.g. the rapid rise in gender dysmorphia in teenagers as a medical phenomenon

Linking to Quilette lowers your credibility. Littman did not interview any trans children. She went to an online forum for "gender critical parents" and asked if their children's transition was a sudden. Unsurprisingly, many of those parents said yes. Turns out if you go to conspiracy theory forums you find people who believe conspiracy theories. That doesn't make them true. It's a bit weird to see people on HN suckered into this so easily, but here we are. Her "study" has been widely debunked by experts.

> and seek to ban any books/research/open debate in this area.

No they don't.