NLGC-vs-GaGP Testimony

.  .  .  when every expert  .  .  .  told me that 99% plus of young people
who are put onto the puberty blockers go on to the cross-sex hormones
and the (inaudible) surgeries and the rest of it.   .  .  . 
(based on 25 years in pediatric medicine) what I hear is, this is not a harmless pause.  
This is a medication which stops brain development
and concretizes the gender dysphoria, concretizes the cross-gender identification.  .  .  . 
there is no diagnostic criteria which leads to that level of precision. 
That was the first clue to me that there was something wonky about pediatric gender medicine.  

This is what happens over and over (in the gender affirmation medical literature),
this conflation of homosexuality and gender identity.  And they are in no way the same thing.  .  .  . 
so I look at the AAP paper and see they are really sloppily conflating homosexuality with gender identity  .  .  . 
there were all these appeals to authority, and yet the references they were citing were not backing them up.  

  .  .  .  we’re all really busy and we just assume that if the American Academy of Pediatrics
puts out a policy statement, that they really looked at the science, but they didn’t. 
Then you just kind of go down the rabbit hole,
because the level institutional capture is stunning. 
And I guess the Georgia Green Party is discovering this as well.

Julia Mason, Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine

Dr. Mason has practiced pediatrics for 25 years, and practices in Oregon.  Her work with gender-dysphoric children led her to question standards of care that she believed were not evidence-based. She noticed that every child referred to the gender clinic seemed to obtain a diagnosis of transgenderism. In her opinion, children "are not ready to be locked into a single path" for all their lives.

She pointed to cases of publication of junk-survey data solicited using promises of raffle prizes and for the explicit purpose of advocating for the transgender cause. She pointed also to data showing that detransitioners are motivated by realization that gender dysphoria was not the main cause of their distress, and/or by realization that transitioning didn't resolve their gender dysphoria. Data also indicates that the trans lobby exaggerates rates of suicides in gender-dysphoric children.

The original experimental use of puberty blockers for children, in the Netherlands, screened carefully for co-morbidities and even discouraged "social transitioning" while under study. Dr. Mason stated that puberty blockers sterilize children, adversely affect bone density, and prevent penile development in boys. "Children are unable to give informed consent to be anorgasmic," or to puberty blockers or hormones, she said. When professionals express their wish to study de-transitioning, institutions prohibit it. In published pro-transition research, titles and abstracts often misrepresent the results.

Dr. Mason advocates "gentle exploratory therapy with experienced therapists" for gender-dysphoric children, and that medical decisions should be made not before the mid-20s.

80% of the improvement in my mental health has been the rejection of queer theory
and gender ideology as a part of my identity and
a part of understanding what gender dysphoria is.  .  .  . 
Queer theorists have taken over the system of care.  .  .  . 
I have concerns about the ideological capture.   .  .  . 
I need to educate my clients based on evidence-based,
and I need to treat a condition based on evidenced based,
not on political beliefs or someone's identity.  .  .  . 
100% of the people that I know who went to (my own) surgeon had complications.  .  .  . 
Its alarming, the complication rate from these surgeries. 

Aaron Kimberley, Gender Dysphoria Alliance of Canada

Kimberly transitioned medically 15 years ago and recalls the experience of gender dysphoria as a small child. "I wasn't able to categorize myself as female, despite obvious evidence that I was." As a masculine-appearing lesbian, Kimberly felt social discomfort and was harassed. The Gender Dysphoria Alliance attempts to bring people together, whether trans, de-transitioning, or other. The vast majority of people with gender dysphoria Kimberly is aware of are  gay or lesbian. Kimberly counseled 52 GD clients. Of these, 37 were born female. 19% had been diagnosed with autism (vs. 2% of the population); 29% ADHD (vs. 9% of the general population); 14% had had child-protective services (vs. 1% of the population).

Kimberly left a position counseling GD young people because of a mandatory standard of care that rejected exploration of identities with patients, in favor of only evaluating their ability to give informed consent for treatment. This policy is contradicted by data indicating that most minors desist from GD after puberty.

Kimberly challenged the claim that medical transitioning is a necessary response to suicidality of some young people, saying that the primary causes of suicidality of some young people are other than gender dysphoria.  Without opposing medical transitioning for some people, Kimberly urged caution and rejected gender ideology. Kimberly reported that the proportion of complications is very high. Asked if the GaGP amendments expressed hate, Kimberly said, "Not at all."

Amparo Domingo is the Country Contact for Spain of Women's Human Rights Campaign, an international radical feminist organisation from the United Kingdom that created the Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights (Women's Declaration).

Sinead Watson is a detransitioner from Scottland, who has spoken with hundreds of other detransitioners.  Here she discusses from her own experience of trauma, the misogyny as she experienced it, and which led her to self-refer to a gender clinic.  She discusses the failure of gender medicine practitioners to examine her history of trauma, her mental instability, her suicidal ideation in their efforts to immediately affirm her.  She discusses the conflicts she faced once she began to experience transition regret, and the failure of gender medicine practitioners to provide support for detransitioners.  Ms. Watson explores the misogyny inherent in the trans narrative, holding out transition as a means to escape the trauma visited on young women in our culture.  She discusses the state of organization among detranstioners, acknowledging the vast numbers of detransitioning women who are lesbians, and discussing the homophobia of trans-away-the-gay conversion therapy.  She discusses what she calls the trans-trend, which provides young women 'a place to belong', and the powerful enticement this presents to young people who are drawn in by their experience in online social media forums. 

"The only thing we know about trans-health is that all the studies that said it helps mental health
have been retracted or pulled, and are wrong. That is the only thing we know about trans-health.
  . . . 95% of (those who have medically transitioned) regret some form of transition."

Scott Newgent is a transman and founder of Trans Rational Educational Voices (TreVoices), an organization which mobilizes trans-identified individuals to share from their own experience in their advocacy to end the practice of childhood medical transition; and to make trans-health safe. 

Newgent is a parent to 13 year old twins and a 17 year old son, who transitioned five years ago at the age of 43.  Newgent has spoken to hundreds of trans-identified people about their experience.  "What people don't see, as they are throwing people under the bus with (charges of) bigotry, is that trans-health isn't safe.  Its absolutely, unequivocally not studied, not safe."

Newgent describes medical transition as a journey, a long process in which 'each step you take further cements your feet stronger in it'.  

"The four years that I was transitioned and with my wife, and  actually fitting in to society, not as a lesbian, was probably the best time of my life.  . . . The thing that I had a hard time with was knowing that it wasn't real, . . . (it) weighed on me, big time.  From a medical standpoint, we are not even talking about what its like to transition medically.  Its brutal."  

Asked why the pursuit of transition, Scott discusses a desire to make more comfortable a lesbian partner with religious conflicts over their same-sex relationship, and a series of health practitioners more interested in affirming a trans-identity and advancing a 'born-in-the-wrong-body' narrative, than in exploring underlying motivations; as well as an off-the-cuff, no-evidence-required intuitive diagnosis of an intersex condition.  "At 42, I did not have the capacity to question those" medical practitioners more focused on affirmation than an honest assessment.  

"Three weeks before I had the phalioplasty, I decided, you know what, I'm having a hard time with transitioning.  I'm having a hard time with the fact that these four years have been the best years of my life.  These four years, I don't have to talk to anyone about being a lesbian.  I get to meet my wife's family.  They love me.  I love them.  I'm not different.  The personality I have fits in with males.  This has been the happiest I have ever been.  But also knowing that it is all fake."

"We're telling 13 and 14 and 15 and 16 year olds that they should know all of this.  And we're telling parties like the (Georgia) Green Party, you are being transphobic for asking questions.  No you are not.  You guys are saving kids' lives, and on the right side of history, as far as I'm concerned."

"It takes about seven or ten years to understand what you have done after medical transition.  In the trans community we call it the seven-to-ten year suicide itch.  .  .  .  And at some point, you have to go back and go. Why did I do that?  And then you go, Did it fix anything?  And you think to yourself, No.  . . . and then you see a transgender person who is older like you and you go, Did it help you?  and they go, It didn't help a f--ing thing.  And then you go, What are we doing then?  Why are we staying silent?"

The more conversations Scott has had with medically transitioned people, the more Scott realized that "medical transition is cosmetic surgery  . . .  its changing the outside of who you are.  But calling it what it is, means that insurance doesn't pay for it; governments don't pay for it.  And they have made it into a prescription.  There is something wrong with you.  No, there wasn't anything wrong."

Scott describes living a life that

"didn't go over very well as a woman.  . . .  I realized that the reason I transitioned is that I was everything they say a male should be, but I was female."  

Scott discusses being surprised  by increased business success, when presenting male. 

"Everyone has always told me there was something wrong with me.  There is nothing wrong with me."

Citing the testimony of Aaron Kimberly, Scott states:

"There is no such thing as detransition.  There's no way I can detransition.  I have every female part of my body is gone.  I have to be on hormones for the rest of my life.  I have done this to my body.  So just because I am not detransitioning does not mean I do not have regrets.  I do have regrets.  I should have accepted who I was.  So, if I, at 42 (I was) unable to decipher the medical professionals telling me that what I am doing is righting a wrong, our children are not going to be able to understand that."

(18:00) "This has become, and this is the thing that bothers me, this has become something of an attack on children that are gay, an attack on children that have autism, an attack on children who are abused.  These are attacks on all the children who are different.  (On) all the kids who at 13, 14 said: 'I don't want to be me'.  . . .  this is how silly it is: we are asking the boys at five years old: 'Do you like GI Joe?', 'No'.  'Well, what's your spectrum?', 'I don't know'.  And we are asking girls, 'Do you like Barbie?', 'No'.  'Well then what is your spectrum?  Are you really a girl?' And those are the kids that are growing up  . . .  all the kids who do something in the world, all the kids who become lawyers, all the kids who become artists,  . . . (who) didn't fit in to society and it sucked when they were in middle school.  But you know what, they cherish it at 35 when they are accepting their Oscars, they are accepting that they saved this or they did this or they did that.  We're telling these kids that 'there is something wrong with you and we're going to fix you'.  And then they put them out into the world.  These are the kids that were medically transitioned, I talk to.  These are the kids at 24 saying: 'Mom and Dad, I'm sterile now.  I can't have kids.  My dating pool has been cut down by 90%.  I've got early onset osteoporosis because hormone blockers are permanent.  I have heart disease.  I have hair on my face.  Now I am attracted to men and now I am like a gay man, at 24.  Why did you do this to me?  I was a kid!'  And we're sitting back and telling parties like the (Georgia) Green Party, or anyone else who says: 'Do you think we should talk about this?', 'No!  You're a bigot!'  Its ridiculous.  Its nuts!"

Scott discusses

"my phalioplasty, which was conducted by Dr. Crain, . . . so many people are mutilated by this doctor.  . . . He was a surgeon in San Francisco that had nine medical malpractice cases and said that to increase everyone's trans health, (that) he's moving to Texas.  Well, Texas has a tort reform act, which means that its really hard to win medical malpractice cases against a (defendant in a) tort-reform state.  And I didn't know that this surgeon was banned from conducting surgeries in San Francisco.  And I didn't understand that Texas was becoming the ultimate state for trans-health because we have Abbots, governor Abbot who's taking $250,000 from gender surgery (interests), pushing off the books four or five bills to protect gender (non-conforming) kids."  

Newgent describes in some detail a series of acute, disabling and life threatening medical complications which led to the loss of a house, a car, a career, thought processes,

"everything was taken from me.  . . .  Dr. Crain wouldn't touch me because I had lost my insurance."

"And this is what you guys really need to listen to.  I went through eight attorneys.  I was defeated.  . . .  and the eighth attorney  . . .  (25:00) she told me something I will never forget, she said WPATH is supposed to be the level for trans health.  Well, in WPATH (Standard of Care) is 'up to doctor's discretion'.  It has nothing of substance in it.  And I challenge each and every lawyer to find a case in the United States, in Canada, anywhere in the world, that has used WPATH as a standard of care.   It doesn't hold up in court.  What it does is, it throws it on the table, for lawyers and politicians and for parents, to make them feel better about transgender health, but it doesn't say a f--ing thing.  (after describing what an actual standard of care would provide),  . . .  So we have trans-surgeons that are moving to tort reform states like Texas, because they know that trans health is experimental."

This eighth attorney explained that to accept Scott's case, which was obviously one of malpractice, would require the creation of a 'baseline of care', a process which would cost millions and millions of dollars, on a case which would leave them in arrears after a settlement or verdict.  

(29:10) "Lupron was deemed a criminal enterprise in 2001, false advertising and bribery, right?  Lupron is the company which is behind hormone blockers.  Lupron paid, I think it was $281 million, something, an enormous amount of money to the U.S. government.  Yet they don't have the money or the wherewithall to come out with studies for hormone blockers for kids.  No, in my opinion, the reason why they are not doing studies is that the moment any numbers come back from those studies, absolutely medical transitioning in children would halt immediately.  People would be hauled to jail.  So you are telling me that a company that can write a $250 million check, can't come up with $10 million to do studies to get FDA approval for hormone blockers for kids?"  

"There is nothing transphobic about (acknowledging that puberty is not a health problem requiring medical treatment)." 

said Scott, basing this assessment on multiple conversations with detranistioners. 

Newgent, being familiar with the medical literature in the field stated that:

(29:46) "What we have is a significant amount of short term studies that are funded by people who financially benefit from medical transition.  When we are talking about long term studies on what happens to a biological male who takes cross-sex hormones for twenty-five years, those kinds of studies are not there.  But what is there, is talking to transgender people, and realizing that, hey, wait a second.  At 55 to 65, males in general don't have bone issues, are not using walkers or wheelchairs.  But why is it that transwomen that have been on cross-sex hormones for 25 years have a really high chance of having bone issues, that use canes or walkers?  Why is that?  . . . How many transgender people live to be over 65 years old when they are on cross-sex hormones for 25 or 30 years?  . . .  There are no studies.  So we are taking children that we have no idea what is happening, what is going to happen medically.  And we are telling them that we are going to fix these kids, not knowing what that is going to mean in the future.  Its ridiculous.  This is the worst medical malpractice, I think, in human history that is happening right now."

(31:55) "What we are doing is so homophobic.  Its ridiculous that people are not understanding that a huge percentage of these kids are gay and lesbians.  And we are telling them once again that there is something wrong with them, that being a lesbian means that you are probably trans,  . . .  I have finally learned at 48 that happiness is an inside job.  Anything you do on the outside doesn't fix what is on the inside.  So we are telling all of our homosexual kids, we are telling our autistic kids, we are telling all of our kids who are going to grow up to be special, special people that there is something wrong with them.  And shame on every corporation that's making money (off them) because you know that they know (at) the core, what they are doing.  . . .  this is sort of a back-handed bigotry."

Asked about charges that preventing this medical experimentation on children is tantamount to reparative, or conversion therapy,

"I have known several people who have gone through conversion therapy.  We all know it does not work, it does not change your sexuality.  . . .  You can go through therapy and choose not to participate in homosexual sex, if you want to.  But it doesn't change the core of who you are.  It doesn't.  And it will eat at who you are.  It never goes away, never.  But what we are forgetting is that we do have studies that tell us about gender dysphoria, that tell us that 83% of children who have gender dysphoria will eventually work themselves out with therapy to come to the conclusion that, you know, I like being who I am.  Now conversion therapy is trying to change who someone is, right?  Conversion therapy for homosexuals is absolutely wrong.  Asking a child, why do you feel that way, so they don't have to endure medical transition, so they don't have to have ten to fifteen years cut off from their life (span), so they don't have to have early-onset osteoporosis, so they don't have a 12% higher chance of having psychosis, there are so many things that come with medical transition.  That is, at the end of therapy, if someone wants to medically transition, fine.  But most of those people are going to go, 'God, thank God, I didn't do that'.  So we are taking that away.  That is just nuts.  And unfortunately, society thinks that that is bigotry, which, you know, its not."

Asked about the Georgia platform amendments which gave rise to the underlying complaint,

"There is nothing in there that is bigotry.  Unfortunately, I'm so sorry that people who are speaking sense are being thrown bigotry, because its not that at all.  No, I'm perfectly ok with what is in those."