In Sweden, referrals to gender clinics, after starting to rise from nothing around 2012, peaked in 2017 and 2018, then declined dramatically in 2019. Why was that? Does the Swedish experience, asks this report, tell us something about the hype and potential disillusionment surrounding the practice of medically transitioning children?
The sudden, sharp increase suggests a triggering event. Certainly, the explosive growth in natal females seeking gender transition is a new phenomenon throughout high-income countries. It has coincided with the advent of social media and the popularisation of “transgenderism” in mainstream media and on-line.
Swedish child psychiatrist, Sven Roman has compared the explosive growth in the number of cases of gender dysphoria to other psychiatric conditions, such as eating disorders and self-harm behaviour, that are known to spread with social contacts. He documents the process of discovery that the medical community went through to understand how to best treat these kinds of conditions. Over the past decade, he says research has proven that supportive psychotherapy can reduce or stop self-harm behaviour within 3 months. Of the avalanche of gender dysphoria cases being referred, he says:
Unlike the epidemic of self-harm behavior, (gender dysphoria) care providers are not exploring to find the right treatment. Instead, on a broad front, drastic treatment with high doses of sex hormones and breast and genital surgery is introduced. This despite the lack of any scientific evidence for these treatments for children, and probably not for young adults either.
In the fall of 2019, there was a 65% decline in the number of referrals to gender clinics in Sweden. This corresponded with experts calling on the government to review clinical protocols and more balanced media coverage of the phenomenon of regret among gender transitioners, including the airing of a documentary entitled “Trans Train”.
The 3-part documentary includes several interviews with detransitioners and revealed that medical transition of minors is not evidence-based. A high profile transwoman in Sweden – Aleksa Lundberg – also came out in the media saying that if she were to go back and make the decision again “I might not have had the surgery”. She said she had believed that “there was a more scientific basis” for this healthcare – but has since realized that that is not the case. She says people deserve “a more complex narrative” than the simple public narrative that the media has been promoting on the topic of gender transition.
Referrals have remained steadily lower, indicating that the medical necessity of gender transition was questionable for many of the youth being referred for treatment. We are told that the treatment of minors now (unofficially) includes referring many to psychiatric evaluation. Previously, we are told that almost 100% of trans-identified youth who were referred to the gender clinics were prescribed puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.
In other words, once the faddish social-media-driven nature of the "gender dysphoria" claims began to be exposed, a more reasonable and less damaging approach could start to emerge.
A preliminary report on “The development of the diagnosis of gender dysphoria”, from Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare, confirms that people with gender dysphoria, especially young people, have "a high incidence of concomitant psychiatric diagnoses, self-harming behavior or suicide attempts compared with the rest of the population.” Further, “the diagnoses that stand out are depression, anxiety disorders, ADHD and autism.” So rushing in with irreversible and life-changing medical procedures may not, perhaps, be the most responsible way to go.
Take note the Tavistock, our very own gender identity clinic - already the subject of legal action over its gung-ho approach to early medical intervention on troubled young people, who've been pressured by social media and trans activists to believe that all their problems would be solved if only they transitioned.
Another Swedish u-turn: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/16/sweden-limits-public-gatherings-to-eight-people-amid-covid-surge
Posted by: Hal | November 16, 2020 at 11:35 PM