PBS Frontline's "Growing Up Trans"

[EnglishTeacher]

This documentary aired within the last couple of nights. Did anyone else see it? It is eye-opening, although not exactly in the way that the producers intended. What is being done to these children is nothing short of child abuse, and a particularly evil form of it. Society has gone truly gone mad.

“Growing Up Trans” follows the life of several children, aged about 9 through 14, who believe they were born in the wrong body and wish to transition into the opposite sex through puberty-delaying drugs, hormones, and surgery. And their parents and doctors are allowing it.

In watching it, what struck me is that not once did anyone in the documentary ask the question why these children feel the way they do. No one asked about their early childhood or their relationships with their parents or possible sexual abuse, any of which could be a root cause. Instead, the parents (more often the mothers than the fathers) are rushing them off doctors to pump them full of hormones and mutilate their bodies.

Each of the cases was interesting and heartbreaking in its own way. An especially sad one was the case of a 13-year old girl who “identified” as a boy and who also said that she struggled constantly with deep depression and suicidal thoughts. You could see the deep sadness, and she seemed on the verge of tears every time she spoke. Her father tried to suggest that getting surgery wasn’t going to suddenly fix all her problems and that children shouldn’t have these kind of options available to them, but the mother was all for it, and I believe they ended up at starting the process before the documentary ended.

Another case that I found perhaps the most interesting in that there was much to read between the lines, was that of “Ariel,” a 13-year-old boy who “identified” as a girl, and who, indeed, looked and acted very feminine. He was already on puberty-delaying drugs and was about to begin surgery and hormones, with the full approval of his mother and therapist. He mentioned that turning into a man (i.e., by allowing natural puberty to occur) was the worst thing he could think of. He apparently had no father present, as none was ever shown or mentioned on the documentary. They showed early childhood pictures and videos of Ariel, usually wearing girl’s clothing and talking about how he wanted to be a Disney princess. It was clear (to me, at least) that in Ariel’s case, the “transgender” thing had been created and encouraged by his mother, who I am guessing wanted a girl instead of the boy she was given, and/or wanted the attention of having a “transgender” child.

What were your thoughts, if you saw this documentary?

 

[utah_rose]

I don’t think these so called transgender children need surgery but therapy. And I think it should be a law that they wait until they’re at least 18 if they’re even considering surgery, with the junk PBS has been airing this year ensures that during their pledge drives I won’t contribute anything. I also plan to write a letter at that time to our local station giving them the reasons why.

And shame on these parents! I remember my daughter growing up loving trains trucks and hating girlie things too, but I took that as her personality. By her teens she still liked these but also liked boys.

Because of her love for ships she went into the Navy and learned electronics, the only girl in her graduation class in Great Lakes. She ended up in radar and from there to a computer specialist and married!

She hated dresses when she was little and a perfect tomboy. By today’s standards they’d ask if she was a transgender!

 

[anon97089806]

This documentary aired within the last couple of nights. Did anyone else see it? It is eye-opening, although not exactly in the way that the producers intended. What is being done to these children is nothing short of child abuse, and a particularly evil form of it. Society has gone truly gone mad.

“Growing Up Trans” follows the life of several children, aged about 9 through 14, who believe they were born in the wrong body and wish to transition into the opposite sex through puberty-delaying drugs, hormones, and surgery. And their parents and doctors are allowing it.

In watching it, what struck me is that not once did anyone in the documentary ask the question why these children feel the way they do. No one asked about their early childhood or their relationships with their parents or possible sexual abuse, any of which could be a root cause. Instead, the parents (more often the mothers than the fathers) are rushing them off doctors to pump them full of hormones and mutilate their bodies.

Each of the cases was interesting and heartbreaking in its own way. An especially sad one was the case of a 13-year old girl who “identified” as a boy and who also said that she struggled constantly with deep depression and suicidal thoughts. You could see the deep sadness, and she seemed on the verge of tears every time she spoke. Her father tried to suggest that getting surgery wasn’t going to suddenly fix all her problems and that children shouldn’t have these kind of options available to them, but the mother was all for it, and I believe they ended up at starting the process before the documentary ended.

Another case that I found perhaps the most interesting in that there was much to read between the lines, was that of “Ariel,” a 13-year-old boy who “identified” as a girl, and who, indeed, looked and acted very feminine. He was already on puberty-delaying drugs and was about to begin surgery and hormones, with the full approval of his mother and therapist. He mentioned that turning into a man (i.e., by allowing natural puberty to occur) was the worst thing he could think of. He apparently had no father present, as none was ever shown or mentioned on the documentary. They showed early childhood pictures and videos of Ariel, usually wearing girl’s clothing and talking about how he wanted to be a Disney princess. It was clear (to me, at least) that in Ariel’s case, the “transgender” thing had been created and encouraged by his mother, who I am guessing wanted a girl instead of the boy she was given, and/or wanted the attention of having a “transgender” child.

What were your thoughts, if you saw this documentary?

I haven’t seen the documentary mysself, but I assume it takes place in the US, where, as far as I was told, surgery is illegal under the age of 18 unless they leave the country for the surgery. There are also other requirements, like being on HRT for a certain amount of time, going through therapy for a certain amount of time, etc.

Even me, considering myself transgender, I am really iffy about the whole trans kid thing, since I do have a lot of friends, nd even my brothers, who wore dresses or painted their nails when they were younger, but all ended up as straight men who identified as their birth gender.

So, I will not deny that a lot of these kids are going to end up growing up to realize they are not trans. There are also cases of adults being misdiagnosed, who then went through the whole transition process to discover they actually had split personality disorder(or something else), which made them think they identified as the oppositegender.

Once again for the case of trans kids, I am still iffy about it, I do think that in some cases, the kids are actually transgender and being helped, but I think the majority of trans kids are probably just expermenting. In my personal opinion, I kind of think that the processes shouldn’t be started until the kids are at least teenagers, and able to be more aware of what is going on with their identities.

Along the lines of surgery again, still pretty sure it is illegal under the age of 18 except in rare cases. Also pretty sure there is an age requirement for HRT… Thugh, having not seen the documentary, it could be in another country.

 

[EnglishTeacher]

I haven’t seen the documentary mysself, but I assume it takes place in the US, where, as far as I was told, surgery is illegal under the age of 18 unless they leave the country for the surgery. There are also other requirements, like being on HRT for a certain amount of time, going through therapy for a certain amount of time, etc.

Even me, considering myself transgender, I am really iffy about the whole trans kid thing, since I do have a lot of friends, nd even my brothers, who wore dresses or painted their nails when they were younger, but all ended up as straight men who identified as their birth gender.

So, I will not deny that a lot of these kids are going to end up growing up to realize they are not trans. There are also cases of adults being misdiagnosed, who then went through the whole transition process to discover they actually had split personality disorder(or something else), which made them think they identified as the oppositegender.

Once again for the case of trans kids, I am still iffy about it, I do think that in some cases, the kids are actually transgender and being helped, but I think the majority of trans kids are probably just expermenting. In my personal opinion, I kind of think that the processes shouldn’t be started until the kids are at least teenagers, and able to be more aware of what is going on with their identities.

Along the lines of surgery again, still pretty sure it is illegal under the age of 18 except in rare cases. Also pretty sure there is an age requirement for HRT… Thugh, having not seen the documentary, it could be in another country.

Perhaps the surgery is illegal until 18 (that wasn’t completely clear to me when watching the documentary), but puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones definitely were already being administered to children as at least as young as 13 in this documentary. They showed the doctor telling the children and the parents that some of the changes caused by cross-sex hormones were irreversible, and also admitting that they didn’t know the long-term effects of all this. Even from a non-religious perspective, one would think that parents would try therapy to help their child and at least wait until they are 18 before embarking on potentially dangerous drug and hormone treatments that change the child’s body forever.

After watching the show, I did a little research to see if I could come across any respectable research or theories as to what causes gender dysphoria in children and teenagers. I came across this very interesting article, and it tended to confirm what I suspected based on watching the parents in this show: “Transsexual Conflicts, Sexual Reassignment Surgery, and Informed Consent.” The psychologists who wrote the article have a high success rate in treating young people with gender identity disorder.

 

[anon97089806]

Perhaps the surgery is illegal until 18 (that wasn’t completely clear to me when watching the documentary), but puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones definitely were already being administered to children as at least as young as 13 in this documentary. They showed the doctor telling the children and the parents that some of the changes caused by cross-sex hormones were irreversible, and also admitting that they didn’t know the long-term effects of all this. Even from a non-religious perspective, one would think that parents would try therapy to help their child and at least wait until they are 18 before embarking on potentially dangerous drug and hormone treatments that change the child’s body forever.

After watching the show, I did a little research to see if I could come across any respectable research or theories as to what causes gender dysphoria in children and teenagers. I came across this very interesting article, and it tended to confirm what I suspected based on watching the parents in this show: “Transsexual Conflicts, Sexual Reassignment Surgery, and Informed Consent.” The psychologists who wrote the article have a high success rate in treating young people with gender identity disorder.

Well, I have never heard of hormones being given to people under the age of 15(think that was the youngest I saw), so in that case, I would be very concenred about the dooctors letting kids go on hormones at that young. I honestly thought the whole point of puberty blockers were to safely delay puberty until the child was able to decide for sure if they wanted to pursue HRT at around age 15 or 16.

From my understanding of to transition or not to transition, is that transitioningg is the only treatment that has had the most sucess, but I know that doctors were working on other treatments, like therapy. For my own case, I m hoping to go through therapy before deciding to go on HRT, so I can be sure that there aren’t other options.

I do know that some doctors treating transgender patients, are transgender or related to the community themselves, so as much as I hate to admit it, there is a possibility, in the case ofthis documentary, of the doctors trying to push transition instead of other options.

 

[Sunbreak]

I saw Frontline’s report, but I also have a niece who always insisted she was a boy. She was not sexually abused. She was in a loving environment. There was nothing to explain why at age 2-1/2 she began to insist she was really a boy. I don’t understand it, but this was not just a matter of being a tomboy. She is now 19 and has never wavered from her insistence on being a boy.

 

[Crown_of_Stars]

I saw Frontline’s report, but I also have a niece who always insisted she was a boy. She was not sexually abused. She was in a loving environment. There was nothing to explain why at age 2-1/2 she began to insist she was really a boy. I don’t understand it, but this was not just a matter of being a tomboy. She is now 19 and has never wavered from her insistence on being a boy.

This just truly is a mystery to me. Why would God create her this way? Why give her such feelings? These feelings cannot come from God. It’s just very strange, and I sympathize with her.

 

[Viki63]

Johns Hopkins Medical Center stopped doing sex reassignment surgery, saying that gender dysphoria is a mental disorder that should not be treated by surgery. Here is a link to an excellent article about it.
Dr. McHugh also mentions a new study showing that the suicide rate among transgendered people who had reassignment surgery is 20 times higher than the suicide rate among non-transgender people.

.

 

[7_Sorrows]

I saw part of the documentary while channel surfing. I was disturbed by it. I saw the part where the doctor was telling the “boy” of the irreversible effects of the hormone drugs which I believe was the changing of the voice and facial hair. so if later he wanted to remain a girl, he would still have the deep voice and facial hair. then the doctor mentioned about some transgenders do still want to have sex with the vagina and others don’t and the look on the kids face was that question obviously confounded “him” - that “he” hadn’t the experience yet to really know what she was talking about. they talk about how bad birth control pills are for women and yet they are willing to shoot these young kids up with drugs that they don’t even know what all the side effects might be. I wish I had seen the whole documentary, but the little bit I saw was disturbing.

 

[Kamaduck]

Dr. McHugh also mentions a new study showing that the suicide rate among transgendered people who had reassignment surgery is 20 times higher than the suicide rate among non-transgender people.

I don’t see how we could know whether the cause was the treatment or the condition itself without additional data, given that transgender people in general have a very, very high rates of suicide and suicide attempts. I can’t find any numbers for suicides of trans people who don’t choose surgery vs trans people who do, but those would seem to be the relevant numbers in terms of whether the treatment is effective on that level.
7 Sorrows:

I saw part of the documentary while channel surfing. I was disturbed by it. I saw the part where the doctor was telling the “boy” of the irreversible effects of the hormone drugs which I believe was the changing of the voice and facial hair. so if later he wanted to remain a girl, he would still have the deep voice and facial hair.

Haven’t seen the documentary yet. It seems to be available for free online, so I think I’ll go watch it. Going in, I would agree with those who say that puberty blockers should be used to delay the process until the child is able to make a more informed choice. These are tough decisions, though, because natural puberty might ALSO have irreversible effects, and make it harder to transition later in life, if the child is correct about their condition.