https://bsky.app/profile/esqueer.net/post/3mdyywci74k2h
Alejandra Caraballo
@esqueer.net
The president of the ASPS is a huge Trump supporter if you’re wondering why they shifted positions now to align with the Trump Administration. He’s donated substantially to Trump and Ted Cruz. This was a political decision.thanks for the inline quote, the Bluesky post is not visible without being signed in.
How many trans people took part in making that decision? Still, at least they’re only going after surgery and not hormones, hormones and puberty blockers are the things that absolutely need to be available as early as possible.
Quoting the article:
The new guidance says “there is insufficient evidence demonstrating a favorable risk-benefit ratio for the pathway of gender-related endocrine and surgical interventions in children and adolescents.”
If you ask me, what options do you have if you can’t access hrt during or shortly after puberty? Either learn to accept you’ll get clocked more often… or pay a plastic surgeon.
I don’t think it’s typical for medical guidelines to be decided by patients rather than doctors, e.g. the recommendations on how to treat diabetes is made by endocrinologists.
Doctors are not precluded from being trans.
Of course, but what is your point? Trans people are already only 1% of the general population, and trans people tend to be very poor and face discrimination that makes it difficult to become a doctor. The probability that any significant number of doctors will be trans is very low.
Even in 2024 the American Society of Plastic Surgeons was refusing to endorse gender-affirming care for minors:
https://wng.org/roundups/plastic-surgeons-dissent-from-pro-trans-trend-with-minors-1725647038
And even if you look at one of the very few trans doctors who is represented in that association, Marci Bowers, you will find that she opted to be interviewed by an anti-trans activist and in the interview advocated against gender affirming care for minors:
When asked whether children in the early stages of puberty should be put on blockers, Bowers said: “I’m not a fan.”
When I asked Bowers if she still thought puberty blockers were a good idea, from a surgical perspective, she said: “This is typical of medicine. We zig and then we zag, and I think maybe we zigged a little too far to the left in some cases.” She added “I think there was naivete on the part of pediatric endocrinologists who were proponents of early [puberty] blockade thinking that just this magic can happen, that surgeons can do anything.”
I asked Bowers whether she believed WPATH had been welcoming to a wide variety of doctors’ viewpoints — including those concerned about risks, skeptical of puberty blockers, and maybe even critical of some of the surgical procedures?
“There are definitely people who are trying to keep out anyone who doesn’t absolutely buy the party line that everything should be affirming, and that there’s no room for dissent,” Bowers said. “I think that’s a mistake.”
The problem for kids whose puberty has been blocked early isn’t just a lack of tissue but of sexual development. Puberty not only stimulates growth of sex organs. It also endows them with erotic potential. “If you’ve never had an orgasm pre-surgery, and then your puberty’s blocked, it’s very difficult to achieve that afterwards,” Bowers said. “I consider that a big problem, actually. It’s kind of an overlooked problem that in our ‘informed consent’ of children undergoing puberty blockers, we’ve in some respects overlooked that a little bit.”
Nor is this a problem that can be corrected surgically. Bowers can build a labia, a vaginal canal and a clitoris, and the results look impressive. But, she said, if the kids are “orgasmically naive” because of puberty blockade, “the clitoris down there might as well be a fingertip and brings them no particular joy and, therefore, they’re not able to be responsive as a lover. And so how does that affect their long-term happiness?”
I don’t know about the accuracy of Bowers’ statements here about puberty blockers entirely preventing genital development and orgasms - I would think starting estrogen would develop the genitals and stimulate a typical female puberty.
Regardless, undergoing male puberty as a young woman causes such extreme lifetime harm that I am skeptical that it would ever be a responsible, recommended path. So my point is that even the one notable trans doctor on this association is known for working with anti-trans activists and advocating against medically necessary care for trans minors.
On my phone so I don’t feel like finding the source, but a recent study these chuds are citing does point to greater difficulty achieving orgasm for amab women who did not orgasm prior to blockers, hrt, and surgery. What they fail to address is the same studies show generally increased ability to orgasm following surgery. Beyond that, they ignore the existence of a population who has a famously high prevalence of difficulty with orgasm: cis women.
Fuck these chuds.
That is a real shame, you would think an actual trans person would realise how harmful forcing adolescents (who are not children) to go through the wrong puberty would be
Yes, Marci Bowers is a disappointment as a political actor; she also opted to be interviewed by Matt Walsh (a famous anti-trans activist) for his film What is a Woman, and naively played into their purposes there.
And yes, you would think trans people would be able to empathize and understand the need for trans care, but… there are plenty of exceptions. Being trans does not magically make you a better advocate for trans people - think of people like Caitlyn Jenner, Blaire White, Aaron Kimberly, and Buck Angel. All of these famous trans people have advocated for conservative, anti-trans policies.
