Thanks everyone for your welcome   @Charlize I really hope that finding this dpace will help me somehow by getting in touch with people having similar experiences as mine and also finding a place where I'm feeling safe to express myself.    In my life so far, I have barely been in contact with persons having faced gender transition, which is a shame.

https://www.advocate.com/health/hhs-trans-kids-mental-health     Nasty buggers, those new folks at HHS are.   Carolyn Marie  

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-attacks-transgender-americans-test-100000669.html     Yup, it's going to be a wild a woolly race next year.  I can't say I'm looking forward to it.  Kamala Harris hasn't even decided yet if she will run.  I'm not at all sure if I like the idea of our community being the main, or even a major, attraction.  All I know for sure is that it will be a Democrat in the Winners Circle when the dust settles.   Carolyn Marie

@Betty K, I can understand how you came to the conclusion that I was "endorsing the article."   I stated that I felt it was a reasonable and fair analysis of the HHS report, and that it pointed out some flaws in both that report and the work of the WPATH, and that it was worth a read through.  I did not intend for my comments to be a full throated endorsement, however, and if that's how it came across, my apologies.  I have not read the HHS report itself (yet).  I think Erin In The Morning did a far better job of critiquing the editorial than I ever could.   I don't know the views of my former colleagues on the WaPo editorial, and I don't speak for them.  My term as a Board member ended in March.   Carolyn Marie

Yes, and she did an excellent job of it, too.  I'm glad that she pointed out the deficiencies, contradictions and hypocrisies of the WaPo editorial.  I'm also glad that I reprinted the editorial so that we can all read what's out there and have a good discussion about it.  That's what the News Forum is all about.  I do think there are almost certainly some issues with the SoC; there always has been debate about them, about the politics involved in the organization, about their methods and conclusions.   That is the nature of science, especially so with transgender healthcare science.  The more we know, the better we, as community members and advocates, can defend our position and ourselves.  We need to advocate for openness and truth, which is the opposite of what our critics desire.   Carolyn Marie

I’m only just reading this now @Carolyn Marie, and I’m shocked. I didn’t realise you were endorsing the article! You realise that on its first page the HSS report uncritically cites so-called “rapid-onset gender dysphoria”, don’t you? It treats “ROGD” as an actual diagnosis! It is not. I’ll admit I did not read any further, but since I’m told that throughout the report it repeatedly cited the Cass Review, which I have read in its entirety, I figure I do not need to. What the HSS report gives every appearance of being, judging by the commentary from those who have read it, is a still more extreme version of the Cass Review.      I totally agree, but I don’t see how that is relevant here. The problem is not that Cass or the HSS report aren’t “completely supportive”, it’s that they are blatant anti-trans propaganda.   Since @MaeBe has already picked holes in the article I’ll leave it alone for now. I’m actually exhausted with attempting to debunk 400-page hit pieces and the people who take them seriously, and wonder if it does much good anyway. I do want to ask though Caroline: you work for a trans advocacy organisation, don’t you? Or volunteer your time at one? If so, is your view common among your colleagues? Is anyone else in your circle taking this kind of analysis seriously? 

What a great story! Hoping things continue to go well with you ... 

Are there resources that will help point us to the top surgeons, etc?  This is a pipe dream for me but there is yearning deep within me that I can't explain to one day walk this path ... I get goosebumps thinking about it ... What if? 

Wow, this warms my heart. With everything feeling so heavy lately, it is happy, uplifting news to see. ~ Lilis 💗

Erin In The Morning hit this one hard.   https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/washington-post-shamefully-endorses?fbclid=IwY2xjawKPpjFleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETE1bndzVDc2U3RGU1JHeXpOAR710Ra4bOrsHsKT-Fu6G3WHig7iVdhGo0jDRM7hcFf182nhrhj8aruxSmjyBA_aem_u7rEJuyo6TNu0Cg5UAfrXw   Added fuel to the controlled burn backfire.   Another comment from the place where I obtained Erin's piece involves another person I know in person who reminded that group (International Transgender Health group on Face Book) that the type of Double Blind test involving a placebo is actually forbidden in this case by the Nuremberg Code of 1949 which came as the result of the "medical experiments" done by the Germans on concentration camp prisoners, a large number of whom were children. This was pursuant to the War Crimes Trials back then.

Well, its an op-ed piece.  Worth what we paid for it, I guess.  I gleaned a few things from it.   Trump talks about "junk science" and I think its a good term.  There's a lot of junk science out there, even in supposedly prestigious peer-reviewed journals such as JAMA.  Its an aspect of our culture, really, and not limited to any single side of an issue.  Studies with small sample sizes, location issues, seemingly omnipresent conflicts of interest, and difficulties with repeatability.  I'm no scholar - I have a functioning high school education.  But when I can spot problems in the stuff that I read - how is it that these PhD types missed the basics?    How much of this junk science is going on in the area of trans healthcare?  I'd guess probably no more than any other field.  We'd be correct to call out junk science when it shows up, but incorrect to specifically target one issue more than others.    I'm not surprised that WPATH could be involved in some fishy stuff.  In my opinion, basically everything with "World" in its name is automatically suspicious, and probably serving the leftist/globalist/etc set of agendas.  They present themselves as a professional association, but a significant portion of their members are non-physician activists.  Perhaps they present some good information, but they cannot be viewed as impartial or exclusively scientific.    In my opinion, we have to accept that we have less impartial, trustworthy, useful science than we would prefer.  In the middle of a politically clouded issue, there's a different way to argue for what we need:  Personal rights, family rights, and general civil liberties are the most useful angle.  But that goes against the grain for followers of both major political parties.  For some reason, people just love asking the government for permission, while encouraging that same government to deny permission to their political opponents.    Either you have bodily autonomy or you don't.  Either you can make choices for your family or you can't.  Either you have the right to purchase what you need and want, or you don't.  Either the medical profession exists to serve paying customers, or it exists to puff itself up as an "authority."  You either have life, liberty, and property, or you're a subject.  It doesn't matter if the issue is trans healthcare, abortion, hiring the doctor of your choice, firing that doctor and getting a different one who will do what you need, refusing vaccines, buying lifesaving medicine, or choosing not to take medicine at all.  The principle is the same.  Until the majority of the people realize that liberty must be absolute for everybody in these most sensitive personal areas, regardless of family style or overall political persuasion, then liberty will not exist.    Yes, its extreme to say it.  But I recall a quote, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.  Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue." 

Thank you for sharing that, Kat. It’s a blessing to have someone steady and supportive like your sister by your side through surgery and revision. And wow, passing the real-life test without hormones, good for you, especially back then when the expectations were so rigid and so limited. And thank you for your kind words. I’m taking things one day at a time. There’s a lot going on right now for me, balancing transition, work, and family, so my time feels like a rare resource these days. Just rolling with the punches and doing my best, and it feels good to be back. ~ Lilis 💗

@MaeBe, @Carolyn Marie Pulled this out from behind a paywall for us to see the whole thing without it costing us individually.  She mentions that in her lead paragraph.  The quotes from this are not hers, they are from the mush piece directly. Your points in meeting them are accurate in my mind though.  I will only add that my suspicion is that the infamous 400 pages were written about a year ago and not in this calendar year.    

Welcome to the Forums.   I am not sure what you mean by You now have your first post, at your 6th post you will be off of full moderation and able to edit your profile and use our personal mail system.  We do not allow members to edit their own posts ever, but the Staff of Moderators and Admins will be happy to help you there, PM us and ask, and if it is within our rules we do it happily for you.  You are posting in a good place here.  The lines of CDing and simply living Trans are pretty loose and we do not assign labels to you here, that is your thing alone.  Look around see what you find helpful and go ahead and post questions.  We keep things kind of tame here since we do have folks between 13 and 18 but they are welcome.  

Ignorant people who haven't seen a trans kid and probably couldn't tell you what being trans means. Sure, it makes them feel good to protect the kids. The orange juice lady had the house fraus and workin' joes all up in a tizzy about homosexuals in the same way. People are dumb.

I’m new to this site and idrk how this stuff works or if I’m even making a post correctly but  i wanted to discuss with others how it is crossdressing while being FtM (for reference I’m bigender but i identify as FtM so i consider it crossdressing). I feel like it’s kind of hard to do because people kind of look at us and go “you can’t be trans because you dress up like your agab!” and then also confuse trans men for femboys when they’re not femboys, just afab (we can obviously be femboys but ykwim).    hopefully i did this right 😔 i want to be able to edit my pfp

We have it.   It's a political fluff piece, there's as much science in it as there was in the Kelly LeBrock vehicle from the 80s.   You cannot do a trial with youth that knowingly causes harm.   Mostly with those that see "lack of return" as proof of "decisistance".   Conjecture, the whole of this and next paragraph. "A study wasn't published"? Why because it was created with bad science or to start at a conclusion and walk backwards from there? There are plenty of research papers that don't get pushed through and what if this was just some religious nutjob who wanted to shove rosaries down peoples throats and see if the power of god could expel their trans demons?   Calling the HHS hit piece "fair and balanced" is like saying the other thing that's called "fair and balanced" actually is.   Yes, 90 days set by a deadline by a psychotic president who wants nothing but sycophantic yes-isms was sure to be a rock solid report. Also, never mind the people that HAVE been determined to edit the document aren't even doctors in the field and are known anti-trans activists.   Ahh, this old chestnut. "We are afraid of the people that will call us names". Fierce backlash, hah. Tell that to the parents of the kids that never got care. Tell that to their graves.   But the Orange One isn't funding ANY research and sure as -crap- won't be funding trans research. But maybe he'd fund reports that are designed to fit his policy that work backward from there...   The government should demand specific outcomes and fund them, check.   Where are the author's citations, the manifold footnotes for studies that are poor? Ignoring the massive amount of new studies that are showing the opposite of what they portend. Never mind the 90,000 trans people surveyed. Never mind half of Europe giving the US, the UK, and effing Putin the middle finger.   Please @Carolyn Marie, I really hope you were being ironic when you thought this love letter to RFK Jr.'s "study" was worthy of consideration. It's an OpEd "just asking questions" with veiled plaudits for the HHS junk report. There may very well be good, new, ways to help treat children with GD but this author doesn't want that. They want trans care shut down forever, because this is just a long dog whistle.

Oh dear, I hope you’re doing all right Ivy. I think there is a good argument for avoiding news you cannot influence, especially in times of personal crisis. Wishing you peace and perseverance. X Bette

I need to avoid the news better after my time on the psych ward. It's never good.

Because, of course.