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Kathleen Lowrey's avatar

It is clear to me that this is a huge motivator for vulnerable kids in care. There are lots of additional services - and a ton of additional "love" -- available to kids who identify as trans or nonbinary. These are kids who are where they are precisely because they are poor and haven't gotten enough steady reliable love during their lives.

Advocates insist homeless kids and kids in care are disproportionately gender non-conforming because of their families rejecting them. I think the agencies where they work are begging for a public inquiry.

Jenny Poyer Ackerman's avatar

Great article. I’d heard one Sasha Bailey interview and read the WPATH files but hadn’t considered how meaningfully they dovetail. I also wonder in all seriousness how prevalent severe mental illness is among treatment professionals?

Faith Kuzma's avatar

Interesting! Since we know youth mental health has suffered since social media via smart phones got amplified, I'm guessing similar for adult population in the sense that social media often operates to amplify echo chambers.

alewifey's avatar

When assistant HHS secretary Richard "Rachel" Levine held a similar position in Pennsylvania's state government. he pushed gender butchery surgeries on homeless teenagers—AT THEIR FIRST AND ONLY VISIT to a medical facility, bypassing all precautionary measures and even forgoing puberty blockers.

I stupidly didn't save the exact quote or the source when I came across this, but he actually said on-record that the surgeries were being pushed upfront because these kids couldn't be trusted to come back for a second appointment.

Deltawhiskylima's avatar

The sordidity (is that a word) of this makes me want to go take a shower. This feels more like medical/psychiatric experimentation on a vulnerable population under the guise of providing care and help.

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May 7, 2024
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Faith Kuzma's avatar

I knew about the concept of a divided brain generally, but Gilchrist is suggestive on several levels. The clinicians seem to me to be too left brained, living their almost exclusively. Were you thinking primarily of their patients? Are MH issues initiated from a right-brain outlook? I know dysphoria (read anxiety) like other pain can be alleviated by distraction. So the patient may be manipulated to think of each surgery complication as in reality an opportunity to shift perspective to a new way to manifest an identity....