OPINION

bobmccoskrie.com

One of the problems with the whole push to allow children to try and change their sex through preferred pronouns, puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and ultimately castration of health body parts, is that because it’s a relatively new phenomenon, the trans activists have been able to make outlandish claims – and there really hasn’t been the evidence for us to push back. Those days are well and truly over. The research and the evidence continues to pour in, and there was a really significant study just last week – but the media didn’t tell you about it. We will.

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One of the problems with the whole push to allow children to try and change their sex through preferred pronouns, otherwise known as social transitioning, and then chemicalisation with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and ultimately castration of health body parts, is that because it’s a relatively new phenomenon, the trans activists have been able to make outlandish claims – and there really hasn’t been the evidence to push back. So we just get labelled transphobic.

Well, those days are well and truly over. The research and the evidence continue to pour in and there was a really significant study last week.

Trans allies ask parents of transgender identifying youth the shocking question, “Would you rather have a living son than a dead daughter?” A new slogan that is being repeated by media and politicians is “gender affirmative care saves lives.”

Inf fact I saw it just last week in the mainstream media relating to the painting of the rainbow crossings.

Here’s an article from Stuff – in fact this paragraph was repeated in a couple of articles on this issue

“We know for a fact, people in rainbow communities have higher suicide rates than the general community, and any kind of public support or sign that shows we are welcome helps to mitigate the general negativity that often society shows to us.”

The problem with that claim and the conclusion that they draw, and which the media parrots ad nauseam, has no credibility. It’s based on a self-selected survey – the “Counting Ourselves survey” and policy which comes out of the University of Waikato’s Trans Health Research Lab – the unit which is driven by activists – and is closely – very closely – affiliated with the now discredited WPATH – the group which has misled countries around the world with their guidelines, but they’ve now been busted.

You see, for example, there is a large correlation between people who have other mental health diagnoses and gender dysphoria. Causality is the claim but is never adequately addressed in the studies cited. Yes – the statistics of suicidal thoughts and actions are higher in the LGBT community BUT we need to ask if it’s the lack of “affirmation” and phobia (despite the fact that the marketing campaign for the LGBT community by the cultural elite, media and politicians is off the charts and if you don’t buy in, your ostracised and cancelled) – does the so-called homophobia and transphobia cause the suicide, or is it a symptom of another mental health issue, such as depression or anxiety or autism or trauma or other issues.

We would argue it’s definitely the latter. Sexuality and gender confusion is depressing and stressful.

One of the few rigorous studies, which was completed in Sweden, followed a transgender group of adults from 1973-2003. This study found:

Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care [restore the natural balance within the body-mind system to resolve physical and mental stress) after sex reassignment for this patient group.

In other words, the surgery didn’t solve the mental health issues. No surprise.

A more recent study which I’ve already told you about is from the beginning of this year from Finland. Now remember that the mainstream media were silent on this research – their silence was deafening – because they don’t want to tell you about these types of studies. It goes against the mainstream narrative. But this Finnish study found that the suicide risk in a large group of adolescents was predicted by the psychiatric problems that often accompany gender distress, not by the gender distress itself.

Let me repeat that – the suicide risk in a large group of adolescents was predicted by the psychiatric problems that often accompany gender distress, not by the gender distress itself.

Just as the Swedish study had found. The Finnish study said:

… “Although the rate of suicide [in the Finnish study] is just over four times higher among trans young people than their peers, this is explained by their more serious psychiatric problems. When these psychiatric problems are taken into account, there is no evidence that transgender people have a higher rate of suicide.”

This Finnish study vindicates their decision four years ago to adopt a more cautious treatment policy which first targets psychiatric, social and educational problems among gender-distressed youth before any assumption of a stable trans identity justifying “experimental” affirmation with hormones or surgery.

The researchers say in their BMJ Mental Health paper; “It is of utmost importance to identify and appropriately treat mental disorders in adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria to prevent suicide; in addition, health policies need to ensure that accurate information is provided to professionals along these lines,”

And they studied more than 2,000 gender-referred teens between 1996 and 2019 – 23 years – AND a control group (which many of the pro-trans studies don’t have.)

In other words, the main predictor of mortality in this population is psychiatric morbidity, and medical gender reassignment does not have an impact on suicide risk. That’s the words of the researchers.

So there’s one pro-trans myth debunked.

Now, the claim which groups wanting to protect children from trans ideology and confusion, chemicalisation and castration have made (and I’ve made it also) is that if you let the child go through the natural process of puberty (rather than interrupt it with puberty blockers), that puberty confirms a child’s maleness or femaleness, and they grow up and they grow out of the confusion.

A landmark study from the Netherlands (who of course started the Dutch Protocol of doing the steps of transitioning – puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, surgery) published last week (and conveniently ignored by the media) has found that the majority of gender-confused children grow out of that feeling by the time they are fully grown adults.

Researchers in the Netherlands from the University of Groningen tracked more than 2,700 children from age 11 to their mid-twenties, asking them every three years of feelings about their gender. Results showed at the start of the research, around one-in-10 children (11 per cent) expressed ‘gender non-contentedness’ to varying degrees.

But by age 25, just one-in-25 (4 per cent) said they ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ were discontent with their gender.

The researchers concluded: ‘The results of the current study might help adolescents to realize that it is normal to have some doubts about one’s identity and one’s gender identity during this age period and that this is also relatively common.’

In fact, Elon Musk the owner of X formerly Twitter said

I’m cool with adults doing whatever they want, so long as it doesn’t harm others, but kids need to be protected at all costs

This reiterates what an expert in Finland said in 2022 – This is Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala — described as “Finland’s leading expert on pediatric gender medicine and chief psychiatrist at its largest gender clinic” 

So here’s a quick update. These are the countries that have all recently been honest enough to review this issue and in some cases, stop the whole nonsense. (put together by Resits Gender Education on Substack)

The really disturbing thing for Kiwi parents is that if you follow the research, and focus on counselling and affirming a gender-confused child’s biological sex, and if you tell them to wait and to go through puberty i.e. affirm their biology – under the Conversion Therapy Law passed by most of our Parliament a couple of years ago, a parent or a professional or a pastor or a counsellor could be committing a crime and could go to jail.

That’s how disturbing the law is and the debate has become.

Studies show up to 93% of children who begin on puberty blockers will go on to receive cross-sex hormone injections. So puberty blockers don’t pause – they predict, and that’s contrary to what you’ll hear trans activists say.

For the sake of our children, we may need to ignore the law. Allow children to be children.

Conversion therapy is legal in NZ – if you go in the direction that activists want. Conversion therapy has a number of names in NZ. InsideOut, Rainbow Youth, Rainbow Labour, Rainbow Greens, Family Planning, WPATH, Ministry of Health.

Puberty is a human right.

We need to act in the best interests of our children – irrespective of the badly named and badly thought out “conversion therapy” law. This research continues to affirm that we – not them – are on the right side of biological truth.

Just on a light note, that satirical site Babylon Bee were quick off the mark with a mock news item.

On the heels of a new study regarding young people with gender dysphoria, Democrats issued a warning to parents to transition their kids quickly before they grow out of it. The new study, which revealed a large percentage of young people with gender dysphoria eventually come to accept their actual gender, has created a new sense of urgency within the Biden administration to make sure parents take action now so that as many children can be transitioned as possible before it’s too late.

It’s very funny – because it almost seems to reflect reality – and that should concern us.

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