Finland’s largest newspaper, the Helsingin Sanomat, recently published an interview with a professor of youth psychiatry who argues that children identifying as trans should not be encouraged by parents or doctors to change their gender.
Professor Riittakerttu Kaltiala, a research-practitioner who has treated minors with mental health issues for decades, argues that adolescence is a time when our identity undergoes construction. And the ultimate outcome of this construction will be unknown to parents and doctors, and even to individual children themselves.
For this reason, Kaltiala argues, children experimenting with gender identity should neither be affirmed nor denied. “Acceptance is saying that you are a boy who feels like you are a girl. It’s OK and you can be who you are and let’s see what happens when you grow up,” she told the newspaper.
The professor explained that when a behaviour is suppressed, the child’s emotional world is denied, whereas if a behaviour or identity is affirmed, then the body is denied. In both cases, the “child gets the message that there is something wrong with (them)”.
At the heart of Kaltiala’s message is the wisdom of acceptance, and the knowledge that cultivating it helps individuals to reach peace. This message is at the core of ancient traditions such as Stoicism, which teaches its followers to accept the world as it is, while trying to change only that which is in our control. The insights of the Stoics have persisted since the third century BC, so it is not surprising that competent psychologists and psychiatrists use a similar approach.
This is not the approach adopted by our public health system in Australia, however. Currently, across the country, there are five pediatric gender clinics offering what is called “gender affirmative care”. On the website for Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital gender clinic, the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines are advertised, which state clearly that medical practitioners must use “affirming language” and must not withhold gender affirmative treatment from minors who seek it out. If they do – according to these standards – they “may exacerbate distress” including “depression, anxiety and suicidality”.
Yet a growing international coalition of concerned researchers, psychiatrists, psychologists, parents, journalists and trans individuals themselves is pushing back against this one-size-fits-all model. Around the world there is growing awareness that this model of care may be iatrogenic – that is, it may result in medically induced harm. Puberty blockers are known to reduce bone density and the long-term impact on cognitive and neurological development is unknown. Taking cross-sex hormones is known to cause infertility.
The dominance of the affirmative care model rests on the claim that if gender dysphoric children are unable to access affirming treatment when they want it, they are more likely to commit suicide. But not everyone agrees. The claim that children who are not immediately affirmed will become suicidal is “purposeful disinformation that is irresponsible to spread”, according to Kaltiala. “Mentally healthy young people who experience their gender in a way that differs from their biological body are not automatically suicidal,” she says.https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/acceptance-not-surgery-solution-to-t...Put those scalpels away, you butchers.
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