Transitioning Children

The Philosofish #4

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Our guest...
Sasha Ayad, LPC

SASHA'S PODCAST

© Barnaby Dixon 2021

[acethetics]

So after watching both this and the criticism video, I just wanted to share my thoughts on this as a trans woman. Absolutely no disrespect or hate to Dr. Ayad or Barbary here. Also, I am not trying to be just want to be another spiteful twitter user here. My intention with this comment is to evaluate the points made in these videos constructively. Obviously, I can only speak for my experiences, but hopefully, I can try to speak out on how many trans people feel.

I think Ayad is focusing on medical transitioning specifically. While I agree that medical transitioning at a young age can be dangerous and problematic, they generalize all transitioning as purely medical. Trans people can also socially transition, i.e., going by a preferred name, using different pronouns, dressing the part, etc. Generalizing transitioning, I believe, is misrepresenting a big piece of the trans community and only gives a small piece to a bigger picture.

Another thing is that we don’t believe people can be the other sex. Sex is our biological traits such as privates and chromosomes. Gender and gender identity are how we identify socially. I still know my sex is male, but my gender identity is female, and I like to present that by using she/her pronouns and dressing feminine. This concept of sex vs. gender may sound like some crazy thing made up by tumblr, but its orgins can be traced back to ancient civilizations such as Native American cultures with the idea of two-spirits, where a person identifies with neither male nor female, or Samoa with Fa’afatamas and Fa’afafines, where a person identifies with a gender different from their sex, or many other examples throughout different cultures. In my opinion, it’s much more about self-expression and social identity rather than a rebellion against biology.

To add, while gender dysphoria is a popular reason why people transition, it is not the only one. Some people might identify as non-binary, which is neither entirely male nor female. Maybe it could be cultural reasons, as stated before. Perhaps some people simply like to identify as a different gender. There are multiple reasons why trans people transition, and not all of us don’t feel comfortable in our bodies.

I think the main point Dr. Ayad is making is that it can be dangerous to medically transition at a young age. I agree with that. I think the transition process should take lots of time and maturity to understand the person’s needs before anything physical takes place. It took me four years of reflection in the closet before I publicly came out. The problem is that this video frames it as reflective of an entire group of people. I just don’t think this should be representative of trans people in general. Again, this is not intended to hate on Dr. Ayad or Barnaby Dixon. I can tell that Dr. Ayad comes from a stance of genuine concern, and I’m sure Barnaby was interested in learning about the subject. I believe the video’s intent was not made to hurt the trans community. Still, I think the hurt comes from misrepresenting the community in a way that can paint the people in it in a bad light.

I love all of Barnaby’s videos, and I’m really excited about some of the new things he’s working on. But I feel like this would be hurtful to a lot of uninformed people on trans issues and I think its important for people to speak up on them. I’m sorry if you’re tired of seeing these kinds of comments. But, I just want you to know that things like these can be hurtful to communities, even if we don’t mean them to be.

[sophiarose]

I think a really good next step in this conversation would be to hear from actual trans people who are living at different stages of transition. People who’ve been out for decades, young people who are just starting, or people who are a few years in to their transition process. From my *current* understanding of trans issues, I see a potential for harm in some of the rhetoric she was using. However, I also understand that my perspective is very limited. I’m really glad that you are providing a respectful platform for this conversation to continue and I look forward to hearing from the rest of the community.

[Koguri]

I really do like the Philosofish videos and Phil being able to just ask questions without having any previous viewpoints is very interesting, especially when covering the side of topics that might be the less popular one, but as many other people already said in the comments, please, PLEASE have Phil cover the other side of this topic next, i.e.: have him interview an actual trans person.

[moonpeanuts]

“they didn’t ‘have’ gender dysphoria until they knew what gender dysphoria was” no duh, i had anxiety and depression my whole teen years and i had no clue cause no one told me what it was and i just called it “having a weird feeling”, doesn’t mean i suddenly got anxiety only when i learned what anxiety was 😒😒

[GearedForMusic]

After watching this video I sat for a while considering what it it intended to say, and what it actually said.
I think it intended to say "Childhood transitioning can be risky and needs to be considered carefully. People who assume that transitioning will automatically make them happy are misinformed."
A fine point!
But what it seemed to actually say was "Childhood transitioning is dangerous, and people are being pressured to let their children transition or the child will die. There is a sudden uptick in children who want to transition because of social media. If only we would take better care of mental health, there would be fewer children wanting to transition."
These stances don't inherently contradict each other. The latter includes inflammatory opinions that lack nuance and portray a desire for transition as unhealthy and impulsive. It makes it sound like children broadly want to transition because of peer pressure.
This conversation is tough, and has to be made with care. I don't think that happened here.

[dysphoricpeach]

as a trans girl, i have heard these arguments so many times from people who are against me transitioning. it is their belief that i am being led, or even pushed, to transition, and it is simply not true. sasha says in the video that once people she works with hear about gender dysphoria, they suddenly have it. this way of looking at things often leads people to believe that these people are pretending that they have it, or are being tricked into believing that they have it. from my experience and from what i’ve heard of other trans people’s experiences, this is not how things usually happen. in my case, before i realized i was trans, i did ballet. though i enjoyed it, it was frustrating that i wasn’t treated how the girls in the class were treated. i never felt like i fit in with boys, and i secretly despised being called handsome or strong. because of how toxic masculinity is, i was never able to voice these feelings. one day i read a book with a trans character in it. they were accepted for who they were, and they were able to talk about their discomfort with their assigned gender at birth. it made me realize that my feelings were valid, and that there was a way to feel better. it took a couple years to figure out who i was, but when i did, it was clear as day that i was a girl. i have never been pushed to be trans. there certainly were people who were trying to tell me who to be. both people who thought i should be a boy, and people who thought i should be a girl. both were incredibly annoying. there’s no real agenda to turn people trans. i do believe that some people approach being supportive in the wrong way, and end up seeming pushy. neither i nor any trans person i know has been influenced by these people.

a lot of the discourse around how to treat trans patients is indirectly aimed at trans men. trans men, teens in particular, are often infantilized because of our society’s patriarchal nature. they are seen as women and treated as though their experiences don’t matter. it’s hard for them to be taken seriously about their gender dysphoria, and they are often told that they are wrong. views like the ones expressed by sasha in this video only further deny their experiences. the claims given by her lack any substantial evidence. while i can partially agree with many of the things she said, she is heavily misrepresenting things. detransition is not at all as common as these arguments would have you believe. while the way we treat trans patients could be vastly improved, misdiagnosing people as having gender dysphoria is not a prevalent issue in today’s society. arguments like these end up keeping people from being diagnosed more than they help people from being misdiagnosed, and they are repeated by people with biases against trans people as a way to deny their experiences.

the things i said in this comment don’t represent all trans people, but i believe many would agree with me. i don’t hate barnaby for doing this interview, but i wish he could have also interviewed other people who could say what i’m trying to say here in a better way. maybe also do an interview with a trans person and listen to their experience instead of being told by cis people what trans people experience.

[weirdnwack]

3:56 as I trans person I would say that it's less of getting gender dysphoria after learning about it and more of recognizing what that feeling is

[tentaclerevolution]

Despite the fact there is now a response video out, it’s best that someone actually explains this video.

The point of this video (I believe) is to bring light upon; how it’s totally normal to experience gender fluidity, and how it’s absolutely valid to de-transition.
HOWEVER,
It was brought about by someone who has little-to-no personal experience too reference off of, and she has been called out numerous times for having harmful tactics of expressing this point.

Her point originally seems to be how transitioning at a young age can do a lot of harm BECAUSE a large amount of medications and procedures used are either untested, or can lead to sterilization.

This IS a good point, but the way it was expressed was hurtful, inappropriate and invalidating. Why was it hurtful, inappropriate and invalidating?

You are talking about the matter as if it’s a medical issue, when being transgender only involves medication or doctors when they choose to take it up with a trained, special treatment doctor. The way it was said can fuel transphobic ideologies that say “being transgender is a mental health disorder”— it’s not.

You have been referring to a book that is outdated and has been for many years (and won’t change due to bigotry and intolerance) to further push the fear-mongering narrative that exploring your identity is bad— it’s not.
You also for some reason strayed off path and brought in many off topic elements like your cohost (which I’m unsure if they gave you permission to share that information here) and the other sides of the LGBT community.
Additionally, you’ve mentioned a separate clinician talking about a patient which goes against literally every code of confidentiality. Even knowing the gender is against medical code.

Side note;
Often I found our speaker using ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ interchangeably, which is weird considering she is trained medically (as mentioned in the beginning of the video)

Gender is used to describe the characteristics of women and men that are socially constructed;
while sex refers to those that are biologically determined.
Gender is not the same as biological sex

Let’s say it again;

Gender is an identity to chromosomal differences.
Sex is the chromosomes you are born with.

There are 7+ confirmed chromosomal pairings leading to sex differences, and an entire spectrum of genders relating to mentioned differences. They are not the same thing.

[quinteni.g.]

I had a hard time getting through this video as a trans guy. I understand why we need to have these conversations but at the same time it feels wrong without an actual trans voice in the mix. I saw a lot of people in high school experiment with gender and I get it we all need to find ourselves. But using those people as examples to not listen to young trans people can be really harmful. I don’t think we should be having kids transition but listening to young trans people is important. I was having gender dysphoria in elementary school when I didn’t even know what it was. But I look back now and realized that it was severe dysphoria.

Finding out I was trans wasn’t sudden. It was a slow process aided by therapy I started 9 years ago and finally talked to my therapist about it 6 years ago.

When I wasn’t accepted by the people around me I was waiting for the day I planned to kill myself because my basic identity was being ignored as a phase. I wasn’t a young kid at the time either…I was 16 and I couldn’t reach important things in my life because of that. I didn’t get a drivers license until my 20s because the idea of having a card with my dead name and birth sex worsened my depression. I had a hard time in my first year of college because my legal name change hadn’t gone through yet.

I’ve been out of the closet for over eight years now and I see that this video is important. All I ask is that you include a trans person if you delve any further. There are so many educated trans people who are qualified to speak about this.

Even though this was hard for me to get through it was a well made video. But please don’t talk over educated trans voices and include us in a conversation about our lives.

Thank you.

[nineblackgoats]

Gender dysphoria was always a part of my life, and I started experiencing it when I was about 6 years old. Of course I had no idea what it was at the time, it was just clear to me that I was a boy and something wasn't adding up. When I was a teen it definitely hit a peak, I started to put names on what I was experiencing and given the opportunity, I would have jumped without a second thought into medical transition. Now at age 30 I realize that transition wasn't the right solution for me, and I'm perfectly comfortable with the way I am, and I'm glad I didn't jump into T and surgery when I was 15. Of course for some people, transition is the thing to do, the step they need to take, but it's important to remember that it's a mindful step to take, not a blind leap to rush into. Taking a decision as drastic as surgery at an age where you're basically confused about everything within and around you is a risky bet. Listening, accepting, letting trans kids live their lives as who they are would make the wait so much easier, and alleviate so much pain. Kids are kids. They need time, love and support in everything they do, and transitioning is no different.

[beans]

I think it would be good to get a trans person, or other people under that umbrella, to talk about their side and hear what they have to say. They might have different opinions or experience with this subject or their story may be different.

[rwvh]

Also, somebody who has made it her literal life's work to stop children accessing transition related care is not an impartial or neutral party to have an informed and nuanced discussion with

[Core_]

This video was professional and well made, but I don't think it represents the wider picture of the issue. This is one person's opinion on the matter, and there are plenty of people who feel the other way, and I think it's important that we listen to all of them.

I think Sasha fails to mention that the number of people who detransition is incredibly small, less than 1% infact. And this sudden increase in trans people is the same reason why historically left-handedness saw a sudden spike when the stigma surrounding it was cleared. It's not that there were suddenly lots of left handed people, it's just that people were now free to do what was comfortable to them.

I agree with some of the things she said, but every child is different and will have different needs, so we should be careful not to generalise.

On a side note, the dancing at the end was an unexpected turn after the deep discussion before it. 😅

[scribblecloud]

this is the least heated comment section about this topic that ive ever seen, im proud to be honest. Many reasonable people here

[jameshughes]

I spent my life struggling with an illness that a lot of doctors said didn't exist, called D.I.D. They said that just hearing about it can make you have it (they call it iatrogenic), even though I had it long before I heard of it. Even though lots of people had it before they began even treating it. As a result, I couldn't get treatment for 30 years and just suffered untreated with what was debilitating me. 30 years of my life, because some doctor somewhere made a mistake, messed someone up, and then the way the industry decided to cope with it was to say the whole thing was imaginary. Finally they're learning they were wrong. When I think of what I could have done with my life, the goals I could have reached.. It makes me sad and angry to think that somewhere there's a kid right now going through something, anything.. that grown ups don't believe in for political reasons or because they don't like it. The upside is that I finally did get treatment, and it's actually helping for the first time but dangit people, if you don't understand something stop telling other people it's not real. Stop telling people to just "snap out of it" or "get a hobby". You, are, not, helping.

[amberlon]

Does she not realize that being trans doesn't mean medical intervention always? Children don't medically transition, usually only take puberty blockers in order to prevent further dysphoria and allow them to make the decision when they get older. Affirming their identity does not do any harm.

[mivilkku]

I like how one of the activities she suggested for trans people to try instead of transitioning was *swimming*. You know, one of, if not the most, dysphoria inducing sport.
I'm not even dysphoric most of the time, but going swimming is *hell*.

[emilgoran]

Also i gotta say that she uses the classic "People don't do thing before they learn that the thing exists" and it's just so old and actually sucks as an argument. It's like saying "People don't like reading books before they know what a book is" like what. OF COURSE you don't know what's "wrong" with you until you know that it's something quantifiable!!! (I got upset here but I personally think it's justified given the betrayal I felt when watching this video)

[Altir_nate]

I... can't finish watching this. Not only did she effortlessly gloss over many points in actual treatment and handling of children trying to understand themselves, but she isn't even trained in the field.
From my experience, puberty was a nightmare, growing up sucked, and no amount of "this is biology, you must deal with it" helped (most fields of science actually affirm being trans as... real).
I didn't suddenly have gender dysphoria once I knew the word for it in my late teens; I was dyphoric as a child, but felt lost as I didn't understand a lot of thing. Once I suddenly knew I could identify otherwise, that I can be a man, did my confidence of all things skyrocket. I'm still dysphoric having not transitioned yet, though.
From the research I've done, there are SO MANY different ways to help trans people and kids still discovering themselves. A lot of people in the comments have already said so much (and more adequately than me lol) in that matter. A lot of it is reversible and not permanent. Real gender therapists/physicians aren't "yes men" like they're painted to be. They gather as much info from their patients as they can and give informed details on procedures, often working with other doctors (such as endocrinologists) to find the best course of action for each individual.

Also, like, what on earth is this "transition or suicide" nonsense I keep seeing? I've literally never heard that in my life. No sane trans person would ever say this.

[thrillhous]

Honestly would much rather be talking to a french fish during therapy than a human face

Edit: I am sorry for assuming that this is a French accent, I’m French, it does sound similar to the way I speak English, but of course we don’t all speak the same way. I hope I do not offend you by saying this.

Edit 2: im not sorry, i dont care if you are mad about something this stupid.