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I can't help thinking that there really is a large element of adults applying adult values to children here. > "...research suggests that most gender-dysphoric

• vidarh 11y ago
  While I tend to agree, note that a child is not diagnosed with gender dysphoria the "moment they express doubt". It takes extensive evaluation that takes into account persistent and insistent behaviour over time to give that diagnosis. Depending on country, it can take years before that diagnosis is given, but even the most gung-ho people in that article have far more stringent critria than "expressing doubt".
• makomk 11y ago
  Allowing the child to make up their own mind is almost exactly not the approach offered by Dr Zucker. His approach involved telling parents to prevent their kids from playing with toys of the "wrong" gender and making friends with other kids of the "wrong" gender in an attempt to make sure they grow up the right gender. That's why activists call it conversion therapy. This is what the article means when it says that: "That’s because the authors believe that messages from family, peers, and society do a huge amount of the work of helping form, reinforce, and solidify gender identities, and that at young ages these identities tend to be quite malleable. There’s great potential for confusion. A young boy might notice his new baby sister getting more attention than he is, and start dressing like a girl in a bid to be noticed. His parents, not knowing what to do, might go along with this, inadvertently reinforcing the notion that he’s a girl — a notion which, according to the GIC model, probably doesn’t come from a deep-seated kernel of gender identity, but rather mostly from social reinforcement and family dynamics." His position - what he told parents coming to his clinic for help - is that if parents don't do everything they can to dissuade young kids from acting in gender-inappropriate ways, to make sure they wear the right clothes and play with the right toys and socialise with the right gender of other kids, they'll turn their kids trans. This is the point of dispute, and he's way outside of the scientific consensus here. All the stuff about the adolescent he may or may not have mocked is a red herring - I've followed this issue, and literally the only place I've heard it mentioned is articles defending Zucker.
  • rntz 11y ago
    > All the stuff about the adolescent he may or may not have mocked is a red herring - I've followed this issue, and literally the only place I've heard it mentioned is articles defending Zucker. The article brings up many more flaws with the external review than the use of that anecdote. For example, the misreporting of statistics (70% vs 30% of patients meeting the criteria for gender dysphoria); the low number of interviews with actual patients of the GIC (9 or 11), of whom even so only 2 had complaints; misreporting the nature of the use of play therapy (for assessment vs treatment); and so forth. If the GIC is to be condemned (as perhaps it should) for conversion therapy, it should at least be done on the basis of a thorough, fact-checked independent review; the article's thesis is that the external review conducted by Zinck and Pignatiello does not suffice. It's not just one anecdote they take issue with. > His approach involved telling parents to prevent their kids from playing with toys of the "wrong" gender [...] > His position - what he told parents coming to his clinic for help [...] > I've followed this issue, [...] Do you have any links you think are particularly informative about the practices of the GIC in this regard?
  • interpol_p 11y ago
    > All the stuff about the adolescent he may or may not have mocked is a red herring Seems pretty definitive that he did not mock that person: > But Adam is now sure that it wasn’t Zucker who made the offensive remark to him, and said he was planning on sending CAMH a note letting them know he had erred, though he didn’t respond to a follow-up email asking him if he had. (The author got in touch with the person who made the claim, and from details provided, such as full names of the receptionist and other worker, determined he misremembered the clinic where he was mocked. Author provided that person with a photo of the clinician from where she suspected the abuse happened and received a very strong confirmation.) That said, this whole article and ambiguity about the right approach for handling gender dysphoria is scary to read as a parent. I just try to tell my children that whatever they want to do is appropriate for their gender. E.g., If they are a boy and want to wear dresses, then boys wear dresses and that's OK.
• Fuxy 11y ago
  From the limited psychology books and research I read as a hobby it is actually true and there's a very good example of that in Japanese society where it accepted for young children to be attracted or even in love with other children of the same sex. It is considered as something they will grow out of even if sometimes they don't. This leads me to believe that Dr. Zucker is right and he is yet another victim of uninformed activism. The allegations in the report are he said, she said from what I an concerned. If you ever worked in a customer facing role you know if you do enough digging you will find someone that would say what you want them to say even if it's not true. You would need a statistical report of how may people he has treated vs how many people had something bad to say about his treatment to actually see the real truth. You can get some people to lie or they might have their own reason for lying but given a large enough sample that is meaningless. That was not a proper investigation it was a witch hunt.
  • rntz 11y ago
    > where it accepted for young children to be attracted or even in love with other children of the same sex. That's sexual orientation, not gender identity, no? One of the salient points in the original article is precisely the distinction between gender identity (which the GIC sees as flexible, but their critics see as immutable) and sexual orientation (which both appear to view as immutable): > GIC clinicians view this as a conceptual error: The critics are conflating sexual orientation — which can’t be changed, which is part of the reason we view attempts to mess with it it as unethical — and gender identity, which they say isn’t some hardwired thing
  • dragonwriter 11y ago
    > there's a very good example of that in Japanese society where it accepted for young children to be attracted or even in love with other children of the same sex. > It is considered as something they will grow out of even if sometimes they don't. Sexual orientation and gender identity are two different things (you can be trans without being attracted to people of the same biological sex, and vice versa.) So, while the example you refer to (if true) might be relevant to discussion of whether sexual orientation drifts from childhood (or, perhaps, whether environmental pressures get people to outwardly conform to heteronormative social expectations when their orientation is homo- or bi-sexual), it doesn't seem anything directly to do with gender identity discussion.