Detransitioned teen stories

[Opti]

Reading this made sense to me for some of the conservative talking points. What I noticed in the article as that these people sought out the online community and followed them like a cult. The online community didn't seek them.


nypost.com/2022/06/18/detransitioned-teens-explain-why-they-regret-changing-genders/


When Chloe was 12 years old, she decided she was transgender. At 13, she came out to her parents. That same year, she was put on puberty blockers and prescribed testosterone. At 15, she underwent a double mastectomy. Less than a year later, she realized she’d made a mistake — all by the time she was 16 years old.



Now 17, Chloe is one of a growing cohort called “detransitioners” — those who seek to reverse a gender transition, often after realizing they actually do identify with their biological sex. Tragically, many will struggle for the rest of their lives with the irreversible medical consequences of a decision they made as minors.

Dr. Lisa Littman, a former professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Brown University, coined the term “rapid onset gender dysphoria” to describe this subset of transgender youth, typically biological females who become suddenly dysphoric during or shortly after puberty. Littman believes this may be due to adolescent girls’ susceptibility to peer influence on social media.

Helena Kerschner, a 23-year-old detransitioner from Cincinnati, Ohio, who was born a biological female, first felt gender dysphoric at age 14. She says Tumblr sites filled with transgender activist content spurred her transition.



“I was going through a period where I was just really isolated at school, so I turned to the Internet,” she recalled. In her real life, Kerschner had a falling out with friends at school; online however, she found a community that welcomed her. “My dysphoria was definitely triggered by this online community. I never thought about my gender or had a problem with being a girl before going on Tumblr.”

[billisonboard]

Sounds like a good cautionary tale.  What stood out for me was:  “rapid onset gender dysphoria” to describe this subset of transgender youth, typically biological females who become suddenly dysphoric during or shortly after puberty. I would suggest that professionals be very aware of this subset and be slow to introduce medical procedures into such situations.

[Opti]

Agreed. I do not understand the double mastectomy at 15. Why not breast binders and waiting until at least 18 years old?

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Jun 20, 2022 9:54:15 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Sounds like a good cautionary tale.  What stood out for me was:  “rapid onset gender dysphoria” to describe this subset of transgender youth, typically biological females who become suddenly dysphoric during or shortly after puberty. I would suggest that professionals be very aware of this subset and be slow to introduce medical procedures into such situations.

I cannot speak with 100% certainty but from what I have read they are supposed to and it is supposed to be congruent with therapy just like any plastic surgery.

BUT there are doctors out there who aren't scrupulous and do things they shouldn't be doing.  

This article being from The New York Post I'd need more information.  I am not saying the teens in it are lying about their experience but this isn't exactly an unbiased source.  I am highly skeptical that there are large numbers of doctors performing gender reassignment surgery on teens.  It's a valid concern but not to the level conservatives are trying to make it out to be.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

When Chloe was 12 years old, she decided she was transgender. At 13, she came out to her parents. That same year, she was put on puberty blockers and prescribed testosterone. At 15, she underwent a double mastectomy. Less than a year later, she realized she’d made a mistake — all by the time she was 16 years old.

I thought that it was required you be 18 before any permanent work like a double mastectomy done.  

I am not naive enough to think that there are not unscrupulous surgeons out there who will do anything for $$, but isn’t this where the parents put on the brakes too?  At the very least, they hold the financial purse strings.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Jun 20, 2022 10:05:12 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

When Chloe was 12 years old, she decided she was transgender. At 13, she came out to her parents. That same year, she was put on puberty blockers and prescribed testosterone. At 15, she underwent a double mastectomy. Less than a year later, she realized she’d made a mistake — all by the time she was 16 years old.

I thought that it was required you be 18 before any permanent work like a double mastectomy done.  

I am not naive enough to think that there are not unscrupulous surgeons out there who will do anything for $$, but isn’t this where the parents put on the brakes too?  At the very least, they hold the financial purse strings.

That's also what I was thinking at 13 you cannot legally consent to anything your parents have to.

A lot about this article does not make sense outside of stirring up conservative voters.

[raeoflyte]

The Trans kids I personally know were voicing concerns much younger and live in their chosen gender for years before anything permanent is done.

[chiver78]

Jun 20, 2022 10:25:18 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

The Trans kids I personally know were voicing concerns much younger and live in their chosen gender for years before anything permanent is done.

likewise. 

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Jun 20, 2022 10:25:18 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

The Trans kids I personally know were voicing concerns much younger and live in their chosen gender for years before anything permanent is done.

I don't know any children as far as I am aware at the moment but the talks I attended from adult transgender people they all said they had to live as their chosen gender for X amount of time before they could petition to have anything permanent done as well.  

Kinda curious now how many of these kids were operated on outside the US.

[Opti]

Jun 20, 2022 10:09:57 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

Jun 20, 2022 10:05:12 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

When Chloe was 12 years old, she decided she was transgender. At 13, she came out to her parents. That same year, she was put on puberty blockers and prescribed testosterone. At 15, she underwent a double mastectomy. Less than a year later, she realized she’d made a mistake — all by the time she was 16 years old.

I thought that it was required you be 18 before any permanent work like a double mastectomy done.  

I am not naive enough to think that there are not unscrupulous surgeons out there who will do anything for $$, but isn’t this where the parents put on the brakes too?  At the very least, they hold the financial purse strings.

That's also what I was thinking at 13 you cannot legally consent to anything your parents have to.

A lot about this article does not make sense outside of stirring up conservative voters.

I don't know if its because its the NY Post or the people themselves feel the need to blame everyone else besides themselves for what happened. Sure its nice if people protect you from yourself, but if you were perhaps threatening to kill yourself if things didn't happen ... that needs to be part of the story too.

From the article-

Although medical intervention for minors requires parental consent, many mothers and fathers approve surgery and hormone therapy at the recommendation of affirming medical professionals or even out of fear their child might self-harm if denied treatment.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Jun 20, 2022 10:32:44 GMT -5 Opti said:

Jun 20, 2022 10:09:57 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

That's also what I was thinking at 13 you cannot legally consent to anything your parents have to.

A lot about this article does not make sense outside of stirring up conservative voters.

I don't know if its because its the NY Post or the people themselves feel the need to blame everyone else besides themselves for what happened. Sure its nice if people protect you from yourself, but if you were perhaps threatening to kill yourself if things didn't happen ... that needs to be part of the story too.

From the article-

Although medical intervention for minors requires parental consent, many mothers and fathers approve surgery and hormone therapy at the recommendation of affirming medical professionals or even out of fear their child might self-harm if denied treatment.

But those things are supposed to knock you out of getting plastic surgery.  Mental health screening and therapy is supposed to be done before approval is granted because often times people seeking plastic surgery are just treating the symptoms not the cause.  It's a time consuming process.   Even if you are doing it for breast cancer risk reasons they still counsel you before they will give authorization for it.

Ethical doctors are not going to wheel a 13 year old into an operating room and remove her breasts because she said do it or else.

Which is why I am questioning where these parents went to get these surgeries.  

[billisonboard]

This isn't about Transgender. It is stories bout bad parenting and inappropriate medical practices.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Jun 20, 2022 10:40:39 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

This isn't about Transgender. It is stories bout bad parenting and inappropriate medical practices.

But that's not what The New York Post wants you to think.  How nicely this feeds into the notion that parents who are gender affirming need their kids taken away by CPS.

[raeoflyte]

It does read like these were super quick, and I've felt that way about my own medical treatment. That the fix is prioritized over the why. We joke that we'd rather have a veterinarian be our gp because they have to actually examine and diagnose.

But I'd have to look at it more. It could be word choice, but the part about being concerned about "years of testosterone " affecting fertility without any mention of the puberty blockers being a concern shows a lack.of understanding. Dh has been on testosterone for 20 years, but has a decent chance of getting pregnant if he stopped.

Transitioning is a huge decision that should never be taken lightly. But conservatives are taking such an ass backward approach trying to stop it all together. We need to get the politics out of medicine.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Jun 20, 2022 10:32:44 GMT -5 Opti said:

Jun 20, 2022 10:09:57 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

That's also what I was thinking at 13 you cannot legally consent to anything your parents have to.

A lot about this article does not make sense outside of stirring up conservative voters.

I don't know if its because its the NY Post or the people themselves feel the need to blame everyone else besides themselves for what happened. Sure its nice if people protect you from yourself, but if you were perhaps threatening to kill yourself if things didn't happen ... that needs to be part of the story too.

From the article-

Although medical intervention for minors requires parental consent, many mothers and fathers approve surgery and hormone therapy at the recommendation of affirming medical professionals or even out of fear their child might self-harm if denied treatment.

If a child is going to cause self harm, it is more important that they see a therapist first.  Threatening self harm in order to get surgery (surgery is the only thing permanent, drug effects can be reversed once drugs are withdrawn) is essentially blackmailing the medical profession for surgery.  If you are at that point, then it is even MORE important that nothing permanent be done.  

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Jun 20, 2022 10:58:14 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

It does read like these were super quick, and I've felt that way about my own medical treatment. That the fix is prioritized over the why. We joke that we'd rather have a veterinarian be our gp because they have to actually examine and diagnose.

But I'd have to look at it more. It could be word choice, but the part about being concerned about "years of testosterone " affecting fertility without any mention of the puberty blockers being a concern shows a lack.of understanding. Dh has been on testosterone for 20 years, but has a decent chance of getting pregnant if he stopped.

Transitioning is a huge decision that should never be taken lightly. But conservatives are taking such an ass backward approach trying to stop it all together. We need to get the politics out of medicine.

Yeah that is the whole part of this story I don't understand.  Once puberty blockers are stopped you go through puberty.  When you stop taking estrogen or testosterone over time your body will go back to what it naturally produces.

Why was surgery done so quickly?  I would think as a parent you would want to at least wait through puberty before signing off on surgery.  I'm sure there are well meaning (and not so well meaning) doctors out there in the states who would do this but how many are there really?.  How well did the parents do their research on doctors before picking one?  Did they seek out an expert or did they go with the first one who affirmed and signed the papers?

I'm also questioning if these parents got turned away in the states and went someplace else that doesn't care so long as you have the cash.

Cause the line about the doctors does an awful nice job of implying that the medical community is brainwashing parents and children into gender reassignment surgery.

There are so many holes in the article.

[raeoflyte]

I think my FIL was still thinking/hoping dh was just going through a phase, 5-6 years after he transitioned. This article definitely fuels the fire for that kind of mindset.

[Tiny]

That article reads weirdly.

EDITED:  I know one transgendered child (from the time they were 6yo to now in their mid 20's). 
The family of the transgendered child was aware that their child was 'different' well before puberty AND the child was aware of it too. The child had a therapist - the family went to family therapy - to help navigate school, social life, home life. The child was living/functioning/passing as their chosen gender during the HS years - and didn't fully transition (surgery) until they were 18 or 19 (it might have been during or after their freshman year of college). It wasn't a "quick decision" there was a long, slow path, with some "experimentation" with non-surgical options along the way.

I've heard from other transgendered adults - that the path to transitioning was long (years and years) and involved many many people (family, doctors, therapist, social networks, at home and at school) to get to the actual day of surgery.

I find it weird that the article seems to "blame social media" as if that was the ONLY meaningful thing in the decision to transition via surgery.  And that the transitioning happened quickly and out of the blue. 


on a side note - my friends and I played D& during the early 80's - it quickly got stigmatized as "devil worship" and how it was causing teens to do drugs, turn to violence, and even kill themselves. With the current season of Stranger Things touching on that nationwide "demonization" of an offshoot of "respectable" war games that teens and adults played... a friend pulled out a "scrap book" where she had collected up articles from newspapers across the country of examples of WHY D& was 'killing our youth" and should be outlawed. Some of the articles use D& playing as an excuse for some teens bad behavior with paragraphs of why the game caused their kid to get in trouble with the law or worse caused their kid to commit suicide. We looked thru the scrap book and talked about our early years of D& (and just the pressure cooker that grade school/HS was for each of us) at our last game night. It's fresh in my head. And the majority of us, in HS were straight heterosexuals with weird hobbies/interests, stressful home lives or had boyfriend/girlfriend relationships with someone who had mental health issues and who was being treated for those issues.

Any way the articles all had a common thread usually someone died or wound up in the hospital with life changing injuries: There was always a hint of something like 'my kid is a good kid! They go to church on Sunday! They would never steal a car for a joyride or drink/smoke with their friends in the woods/at the quarry lake!!' So some bit of some what typical teenage behavior that got a "good kid" to stop going to church/doing what their parents expected them to do or got in trouble with the law - it wasn't because the kid had a wealthy family (and had a long history of doing whatever they wanted and getting bailed out by their parents- even when their actions resulted in death or life changing injuries of someone else). No, it was that evil game they played making them act in that dangerous way!'.

Or the truly saddest articles where 'parents lamented: my son killed himself because of that game!' An no it wasn't because he was an outsider socially and got bullied at school and maybe had some mental health issues or was struggling with their sexual identity (it was the early 80's where being gay for a teen meant you HAD no future life unless you went deep into the closet.) It was that terrible game! that's why their child was bullied, why their son was gay, why their son had mental health issues. The game made my son kill himself!!"

That article - reads (the format, the way it plays out) rather like those old "D& caused my kid to do some bad thing" articles from the early 80's...

There's more going on (for longer than the moment they decided to actively fully transition) for the child AND their family than is being highlighted in that article.

[Deleted]

From what I've heard/read, letting the child take meds to head off puberty is sort of irreversible. I could be wrong from what mich says. We had a family in our church whose son, about 10, decided he identified as female, and wanted to be called Josie instead of Joseph. They came back only once after that but Josie looked perfectly "at home" as a girl. I wish them all well. It's a difficult road no matter what.

One of my favorite travel/history writers was a very early trans- James Morris was a Welshman who fought in WW II, married, had children and had gender reassignment surgery at age 46. She started transitioning in 1964 and had gender reassignment surgery in 1972. In all her pictures she looks like nice little old Welsh lady. She died in 2020 at age 94.

Wikipedia article

[raeoflyte]

Jun 20, 2022 12:33:30 GMT -5 @athena53 said:

From what I've heard/read, letting the child take meds to head off puberty is sort of irreversible. I could be wrong from what mich says. We had a family in our church whose son, about 10, decided he identified as female, and wanted to be called Josie instead of Joseph. They came back only once after that but Josie looked perfectly "at home" as a girl. I wish them all well. It's a difficult road no matter what.

One of my favorite travel/history writers was a very early trans- James Morris was a Welshman who fought in WW II, married, had children and had gender reassignment surgery at age 46. She started transitioning in 1964 and had gender reassignment surgery in 1972. In all her pictures she looks like nice little old Welsh lady. She died in 2020 at age 94.

Wikipedia article

I was always under the impression that puberty blockers would prevent biological children as an adult, but I'm not finding that now that I look for it.

www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/puberty-blockers#how-to-start

[raeoflyte]

To balance out the original article Ill link to another about non-binary kids needing to be acknowledged but allowed to live the life of a kid.

I have friends in common with the author. www.cnn.com/2022/06/20/opinions/lgbtq-inclusivity-soccer-wellness-harvey/index.html

[scgal]

The parents should be arrested for child endangerment or neglect. To undergo such a surgery before 18 is nuts.

[billisonboard]

Jun 21, 2022 7:36:03 GMT -5 scgal said:

The parents should be arrested for child endangerment or neglect. To undergo such a surgery before 18 is nuts.

I don't see taking 18 trips around the sun as a meaningful qualifier. To undergo such a surgery before well developed protocols are followed is nuts.

[raeoflyte]

Jun 21, 2022 7:49:37 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Jun 21, 2022 7:36:03 GMT -5 scgal said:

The parents should be arrested for child endangerment or neglect. To undergo such a surgery before 18 is nuts.

I don't see taking 18 trips around the sun as a meaningful qualifier. To undergo such a surgery before well developed protocols are followed is nuts.

There are well developed protocols.

I'm not saying to ignore stories like this. But standard accepted protocols are rigorous and time consuming filled with judgment and fiery hoops to jump through. There's no reason to make them harder for the majority with a very small percentage that may have fallen through a Crack.

We've proven that 1% is an acceptable percentage to permanently die from a disease, but I'm guessing that to certain individuals (not Bills) that even 1 teen who transitioned incorrectly is just too many!!!

[billisonboard]

Jun 21, 2022 8:32:16 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Jun 21, 2022 7:49:37 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

I don't see taking 18 trips around the sun as a meaningful qualifier. To undergo such a surgery before well developed protocols are followed is nuts.

There are well developed protocols.

I'm not saying to ignore stories like this. But standard accepted protocols are rigorous and time consuming filled with judgment and fiery hoops to jump through. There's no reason to make them harder for the majority with a very small percentage that may have fallen through a Crack.

We've proven that 1% is an acceptable percentage to permanently die from a disease, but I'm guessing that to certain individuals (not Bills) that even 1 teen who transitioned incorrectly is just too many!!!

I think the value of looking at these type cases is to see if they illuminate a "crack", are cautionary examples of the consequences of not following the protocols, or just a result from living in an imperfect world.

[thyme4change]

Dr. Lisa Littman, a former professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Brown University, coined the term “rapid onset gender dysphoria” to describe this subset of transgender youth, typically biological females who become suddenly dysphoric during or shortly after puberty. Littman believes this may be due to adolescent girls’ susceptibility to peer influence on social media.

Ah, yes, let's blame social media. Maybe it is because there is an age where girls wake up to see how bad the patriarchy is in this world is and wishes they could get around it.

[nidena]

I'm trying to figure out how someone could have a double-mastectomy at 15 when you're not even at full development.  I had numerous friends who didn't even get their boobs until senior year or later.

I guess it's the combination of removing whatever is there and hormone treatment...

I'm all for advocating for and supporting trans-children through growing up--just like you would any child in the hell that is puberty--but there is definitely some marbles missing from the heads of people who let their children go through major, medically unnecessary, surgery like that.  I mean, you can't even have a nose job until you're 18 and that surgery doesn't change your identity by any means.