Thank you for publishing Jennifer Block's article on the controversies around "gender-affirming" care. I became a subscriber to the Globe today as a direct result of this article.
I'm a mom who was told by our "highly-credentialed" medical and mental health professional team (at Child MInd Institute, Mt. Sinai Adolescent Health and otehrs) to transition our mentally ill daughter at age 12. It nearly killed her. It led to three hospitalizations and a suicide attempt and her autism was ignored and remained undiagnosed for years. All of her emotional, social and behavioral problems were attributed to her dysphoria. This was the wrong diagnosis and it nearly destroyed her.
When she requested exogenous hormones and radical mastectomy we started to dig into the studies. The more we looked into the research after visiting an endocrinologist at Mt Sinai, the more realized we had been lied to, manipulated and brainwashed by "medical professionals" in ways that led to iatrogenic harm for our child.
After 4 years of transition (during several of which we were actively affirming, buying binders, etc.), our daughter has desisted.
At 16, she emerged as a bright, quirky, stereo-type nonconforming young woman who understands the harms that gender ideology caused her psyche, her socialization, her body and her family relationships.
Self-acceptance is not conversion therapy; it is beautiful.
In my daughter's words, she has emerged from the gender fog as "a fully healed human being" who accepts her healthy body for all its wonder and believes she is beautiful as she is--even if not in stereotypical ways.
I always had a daughter, but now I have her back.
Now I'm desperately trying to raise awareness with journalists, practitioners and advocates about the way gender-affirming care harms gay, autistic, and dysphoric youth. I have found that most practitioners are unaware of the studies, the lack of evidence or the iatrogenic harms they are causing with the cavalier "American model" of affirmation only. In fact, in our state, anything other than affirmation is illegal--even when transition proved to be nontherapeutic--and even harmful.
Kids are being harmed. Families are being torn apart. The medical and mental health professionals are shaming themselves.
YES. Instead of focusing on forcing those who disagree with us to comply (which tends to just justify their views to them and push them to become more extreme), let's maybe focus on explaining why we disagree. There are some who will never be convinced, but many who simply haven't really given the issue much thought, or don't know all the facts, will eventually read or listen, and if we have a strong argument that doesn't dehumanize anyone, we will gain support.
Thank you for publishing Jennifer Blocks’s important article voicing concerns about current gender care for children, teens, and young adults.
I am a mother, a bisexual woman, a life-long liberal progressive, and I am deeply concerned.
I would like the Boston Globe to do more investigative reporting on the increasing scientific-based evidence that gender dysphoria can be validated, treated, and supported without the burden of irreversible medicalization and surgical interventions, both of which can be harmful to long term health. WPATH is not the only organization addressing the needs of gender non-conforming children and young people. Genspect has created a framework for care that is non-invasive and takes into account social and cultural implications of gender distress. I encourage you to delve more into this issue and to foster dialog on these new perspectives.
As a very left-leaning parent of a teen struggling with his gender identity, I want to thank you for publishing Jennifer Block's article on the challenges of youth gender medicine. For too long it has been treated as an untouchable topic, leaving families like ours struggling to find solid, vetted information to help our child. As activists on both sides of the issue engage in mudslinging and scorched Earth campaigns, we are simply trying to help our children. I find it very hard to believe either side cares about children and teens. If they did, they would calm their rhetoric and call for more and better research, like much of Europe is now doing.
I am a lifelong defender of LGBTQ rights, politically left of Che Guevara, and the mother of a now 15 year old daughter who has desisted from an opposite gender identity . As a famiy it was devastating to learn that the medical community was completely onboard to do irrerverisble damage to our daughter's healthy body before her brain was fully developed. Thank you! for publishing Jennifer Block's brave and nuanced piece on gender dysphoria. We need these voices.
Our daughter experienced puberty during the pandemic , and TikTok videos offered quizzes such as " Do you feel uncomfortable with your body? Do you feel like you don't fit in with your peers? etc " When she answered yes to the questions, the result was " Congratulations! You may be transgender!" Algorithms continued to feed her trans influencers showing off their double mastectomy scars and being showered with love. When she went back to school , in health class she was further told she can choose her gender, and in art class she did selfportraits with "top surgery" scars and got a great mark. Teachers transitioned her to a male identity without our knowledge.
When she got off of social media ( after watching 'The Social Dilemma' ) and changed schools , she no longer felt the need to identify as trans. A thoughtful therapist helped her work through anxiety and depression issues, which she had attributed to being trans.
I would love to see coverage of Detransitioners, the billion dollar profits of big pharma from the creation of lifelong patients taking synthetic hormones, and an exploration of ideological overstep in the medical community.
Thank you again for breaking ground with Jennifer Block's piece.
I am writing as a reader, a Democrat and a parent of a trans-identified young adult, to thank you for this week's "Ideas" piece by Jennifer Block. I hope that it will be read widely.
Block is right to highlight the ways in which many European countries have systematically reviewed the evidence for so-called "gender affirming care", found it lacking, and scaled it back. These countries recognized that, as Block writes "the evidence that [these treatments] are likely to result in more benefit than harm is of low quality." So many countries, and clinicians in those countries, have acknowledged the "low quality" of the evidence and have argued for alternative approaches - but the doctors and therapists who treated my child in San Francisco did not. That is a medical scandal, with life-long implications for many children and many families.
I visited Boston recently, and was approached on Newbury Street by representatives of Boston Children's Hospital. When they asked for donations, I explained I would not give, and I wrote to the hospital's President, Lyn Susman, to explain why. I wrote: "Our gender non-conforming youth... need evidence-based, depoliticized care - ideally, that care would be research-based counseling, or a "watchful waiting" approach. I would consider supporting your hospital only if (1) it weren't soliciting on the street and (2) it reviewed the evidence systematically and restricted so-called "gender affirming care" care as clinicians are doing across Europe." Susman wrote back, praising the hospital's gender clinic: "The center, one of the most deliberate and thoughtful in the country, insists on a therapeutic model and works closely with parents and families on all treatment decisions. I would be happy to send you more information about the program to address some of your questions if you desire." Of course, when I replied with some questions (the kindof questions Jennifer Block might ask), she stopped corresponding with me.
My takeaway from my exchange with BCH President Susman is that she and her clinic engage in the same "double-think" that Jennifer Block encountered interviewing Jason Rafferty of the AAP and so poignantly described at the end of her piece. Gender non-confirming young people and their families need their questions answered, not magicked away.
Thank you again for publishing Jennifer Block's report.
I wrote in Youth Gender Medicine has Become a Hall of Mirrors, by Jennifer Block
My name is XXX, I am a mother of a gender questioning child, and a lifelong liberal Democrat, and I am concerned with the current practice of social and medical intervention for gender-distressed children and teens. I have been researching this issue for years and feel that it is widely underreported on from an unbiased viewpoint. Usually the articles I see are pro-medical transition and unquestioning affirmation so it was refreshing to see another viewpoint reported on. I think this issue is the most important issue of our time.
I would personally like to see more articles on the concept of "gender affirmative therapy services". It is my personal belief that those who have been trained in the last 10 years are using a flawed model of therapeutic care and pseudoscientific guidelines with little to no evidence of good outcomes for these people. The identity is only affirmed and not questioned and the real underlying issues are never addressed and that this is harmful. I would like to see viewpoints of old school therapists included in this article who went into practice before this became so prevalent and their opinions as well. It is so important that this information is shared with the public as people tend to believe what they are told, however, I believe this is devastating families.
Thank you for your bravery in publishing these articles.
I want to express my profound gratitude for the recent article by Jennifer Block.
As the parent of a gender questioning adolescent, it has been so disheartening to read article after article in the nation’s leading newspaper that basically repeat primary talking points used by trans activists. There are many of us parents on the right and left who agree that the “gender critical” view is being left out of the argument.
I am a liberal parent who would very much like to read stories of other parents who disagree with the current guidelines for treating gender questioning minors within the medical establishment. I would also love to read more stories of detransitioners. They are seldom given the attention they deserve and they need to be heard.
They also broke the priest scandal--and now they are leading the way with this. The Atlantic has been covering it very well and Reuters has produced a fantastic series but that has not yet broken through to the general public, which is badly misinformed.
So many of my friends on the left (well, that would be everyone I know except people I've met because they are fighting this medical scandal, among those I've met in that manner, I mostly don't know who is right or left because it usually doesn't come up) do not believe me that this is happening, because they are totally misinformed.
The US medical leadership needs to take a hard and clear look at what is happening-what is and isn't known about gender dysphoria (including what happens if you don't medicalize...the "natural history"), and what is and isn't known about the treatments (they can just read all the evidence reviews in hand at this point and see the benefits aren't established, and sterility is a known harm, for starters) and create policies based on science, not cherry-picked anecdotes. It's appalling this situation ever arose and even worse that people who know what is going on are helping it continue.
Thank you for supporting all the people who are caught up in this and being harmed by misinformed, horribly irresponsible or unethical doctors, and the lawyers, public figures and others who are enabling them.
I am the mother of two beautiful daughters my husband and I adopted from China. I am also a lifelong Democrat whose father served as a Merchant Marine in WWII, Korean War and Vietnam War. Our oldest child was severely neglected in the orphanage and when she was placed in my arms at 13 months, she couldn't cry or hold a bottle. Her toddler years were filled with flashbacks and night terrors. In high school she fell into a group of girls who self-identified as males and she adopted that identity. We have experienced firsthand how gender affirming therapy negatively affected her mental health. We were fortunate to find a professional who is working on our child's pre-adoption trauma and other mental health issues.
Thank you for airing Jennifer's piece on this issue and I encourage you to turn your well known Spotlight on this issue. My mother had a saying "From my lips to God's ears" and as a Catholic who appreciated the Spotlight on the Catholic Church, I always believed that The Boston Globe had the chops to turn to the experimentation on our vulnerable children and young adults. Please don't stop. It takes courage and I know your paper can do this.
Please listen to the Detransitioners. They are the proverbial canaries in the coal mines and their voices deserve to be heard.
My name is Rick Hotchner. As I have learned more over the last couple of years about how pediatric gender medicine is practiced in the U.S. and other countries, I have grown more and more concerned about the at least potentially lifelong, irreversible consequences for kids. At the same time, I have noticed the vehement backlash from some transgender activists whenever someone expresses concerns about so-called "gender-affirming care" for kids (among other transgender-related issues) and, perhaps related, that it is unusual to see frank treatment of different perspectives on this issue in traditional media. As a result, I was pleased to learn that "The Boston Globe" published the piece by Jennifer Block, "Youth Gender Medicine has Become a Hall of Mirrors." I thank the Globe for the courage to investigate and report on concerns about gender clinic practices for children and teens.
I would also be grateful for more investigative reporting on this issue. For example, is there any good research, in the U.S. or abroad, the findings of which run counter to the arguments for "gender-affirming care"? How are other countries (e.g. the UK, Finland, Sweden) handling this issue? How have the profiles of self-identified transgender minors changed? Have rates of desisting, regret and/or detransition changed with those cohorts? Is there any reason to expect those rates might change (or change further) in the years to come? What might be the causes of the large increase of teenage girls who want to transition? What do already open detransitioners have to say about their experiences with doctors, therapists and clinics, as well as the effects of the treatments received, and the kind of support (or lack thereof) these detransitioners are getting now from the LGBTQ community, health care providers, and health insurance companies? What about the experiences of the parents of these detransitioners?
Separately, I would also be interested in seeing investigative reporting on the question of whether and to what extent transgender girls and women should be in girls' and women's spaces (e.g. bathrooms, locker rooms, shelters, prisons, sports).
Again, I thank you for your contribution to informing the public on this issue and hope you will continue to do so in the weeks, months and years to come.
Done:
Dear Brian,
Thank you for publishing Jennifer Block's article on the controversies around "gender-affirming" care. I became a subscriber to the Globe today as a direct result of this article.
I'm a mom who was told by our "highly-credentialed" medical and mental health professional team (at Child MInd Institute, Mt. Sinai Adolescent Health and otehrs) to transition our mentally ill daughter at age 12. It nearly killed her. It led to three hospitalizations and a suicide attempt and her autism was ignored and remained undiagnosed for years. All of her emotional, social and behavioral problems were attributed to her dysphoria. This was the wrong diagnosis and it nearly destroyed her.
When she requested exogenous hormones and radical mastectomy we started to dig into the studies. The more we looked into the research after visiting an endocrinologist at Mt Sinai, the more realized we had been lied to, manipulated and brainwashed by "medical professionals" in ways that led to iatrogenic harm for our child.
After 4 years of transition (during several of which we were actively affirming, buying binders, etc.), our daughter has desisted.
At 16, she emerged as a bright, quirky, stereo-type nonconforming young woman who understands the harms that gender ideology caused her psyche, her socialization, her body and her family relationships.
Self-acceptance is not conversion therapy; it is beautiful.
In my daughter's words, she has emerged from the gender fog as "a fully healed human being" who accepts her healthy body for all its wonder and believes she is beautiful as she is--even if not in stereotypical ways.
I always had a daughter, but now I have her back.
Now I'm desperately trying to raise awareness with journalists, practitioners and advocates about the way gender-affirming care harms gay, autistic, and dysphoric youth. I have found that most practitioners are unaware of the studies, the lack of evidence or the iatrogenic harms they are causing with the cavalier "American model" of affirmation only. In fact, in our state, anything other than affirmation is illegal--even when transition proved to be nontherapeutic--and even harmful.
Kids are being harmed. Families are being torn apart. The medical and mental health professionals are shaming themselves.
Thank you for raising the voice of concern,
Sincerely,
Mom of desisted ROGD teen
New Boston Globe Subscriber
This is the way to change. The more we speak the more we write, the more the light of day shines on the darkness.
YES. Instead of focusing on forcing those who disagree with us to comply (which tends to just justify their views to them and push them to become more extreme), let's maybe focus on explaining why we disagree. There are some who will never be convinced, but many who simply haven't really given the issue much thought, or don't know all the facts, will eventually read or listen, and if we have a strong argument that doesn't dehumanize anyone, we will gain support.
This is what I sent:
Thank you for publishing Jennifer Blocks’s important article voicing concerns about current gender care for children, teens, and young adults.
I am a mother, a bisexual woman, a life-long liberal progressive, and I am deeply concerned.
I would like the Boston Globe to do more investigative reporting on the increasing scientific-based evidence that gender dysphoria can be validated, treated, and supported without the burden of irreversible medicalization and surgical interventions, both of which can be harmful to long term health. WPATH is not the only organization addressing the needs of gender non-conforming children and young people. Genspect has created a framework for care that is non-invasive and takes into account social and cultural implications of gender distress. I encourage you to delve more into this issue and to foster dialog on these new perspectives.
Thank you and best regards,
Molly Ruggles
Excellent!!!!
Here is what I sent:
As a very left-leaning parent of a teen struggling with his gender identity, I want to thank you for publishing Jennifer Block's article on the challenges of youth gender medicine. For too long it has been treated as an untouchable topic, leaving families like ours struggling to find solid, vetted information to help our child. As activists on both sides of the issue engage in mudslinging and scorched Earth campaigns, we are simply trying to help our children. I find it very hard to believe either side cares about children and teens. If they did, they would calm their rhetoric and call for more and better research, like much of Europe is now doing.
Dear Brian
I am a lifelong defender of LGBTQ rights, politically left of Che Guevara, and the mother of a now 15 year old daughter who has desisted from an opposite gender identity . As a famiy it was devastating to learn that the medical community was completely onboard to do irrerverisble damage to our daughter's healthy body before her brain was fully developed. Thank you! for publishing Jennifer Block's brave and nuanced piece on gender dysphoria. We need these voices.
Our daughter experienced puberty during the pandemic , and TikTok videos offered quizzes such as " Do you feel uncomfortable with your body? Do you feel like you don't fit in with your peers? etc " When she answered yes to the questions, the result was " Congratulations! You may be transgender!" Algorithms continued to feed her trans influencers showing off their double mastectomy scars and being showered with love. When she went back to school , in health class she was further told she can choose her gender, and in art class she did selfportraits with "top surgery" scars and got a great mark. Teachers transitioned her to a male identity without our knowledge.
When she got off of social media ( after watching 'The Social Dilemma' ) and changed schools , she no longer felt the need to identify as trans. A thoughtful therapist helped her work through anxiety and depression issues, which she had attributed to being trans.
I would love to see coverage of Detransitioners, the billion dollar profits of big pharma from the creation of lifelong patients taking synthetic hormones, and an exploration of ideological overstep in the medical community.
Thank you again for breaking ground with Jennifer Block's piece.
Ellen Potter
Mom of a Desister
Dear Mr Bergstein,
I am writing as a reader, a Democrat and a parent of a trans-identified young adult, to thank you for this week's "Ideas" piece by Jennifer Block. I hope that it will be read widely.
Block is right to highlight the ways in which many European countries have systematically reviewed the evidence for so-called "gender affirming care", found it lacking, and scaled it back. These countries recognized that, as Block writes "the evidence that [these treatments] are likely to result in more benefit than harm is of low quality." So many countries, and clinicians in those countries, have acknowledged the "low quality" of the evidence and have argued for alternative approaches - but the doctors and therapists who treated my child in San Francisco did not. That is a medical scandal, with life-long implications for many children and many families.
I visited Boston recently, and was approached on Newbury Street by representatives of Boston Children's Hospital. When they asked for donations, I explained I would not give, and I wrote to the hospital's President, Lyn Susman, to explain why. I wrote: "Our gender non-conforming youth... need evidence-based, depoliticized care - ideally, that care would be research-based counseling, or a "watchful waiting" approach. I would consider supporting your hospital only if (1) it weren't soliciting on the street and (2) it reviewed the evidence systematically and restricted so-called "gender affirming care" care as clinicians are doing across Europe." Susman wrote back, praising the hospital's gender clinic: "The center, one of the most deliberate and thoughtful in the country, insists on a therapeutic model and works closely with parents and families on all treatment decisions. I would be happy to send you more information about the program to address some of your questions if you desire." Of course, when I replied with some questions (the kindof questions Jennifer Block might ask), she stopped corresponding with me.
My takeaway from my exchange with BCH President Susman is that she and her clinic engage in the same "double-think" that Jennifer Block encountered interviewing Jason Rafferty of the AAP and so poignantly described at the end of her piece. Gender non-confirming young people and their families need their questions answered, not magicked away.
Thank you again for publishing Jennifer Block's report.
I wrote in Youth Gender Medicine has Become a Hall of Mirrors, by Jennifer Block
My name is XXX, I am a mother of a gender questioning child, and a lifelong liberal Democrat, and I am concerned with the current practice of social and medical intervention for gender-distressed children and teens. I have been researching this issue for years and feel that it is widely underreported on from an unbiased viewpoint. Usually the articles I see are pro-medical transition and unquestioning affirmation so it was refreshing to see another viewpoint reported on. I think this issue is the most important issue of our time.
I would personally like to see more articles on the concept of "gender affirmative therapy services". It is my personal belief that those who have been trained in the last 10 years are using a flawed model of therapeutic care and pseudoscientific guidelines with little to no evidence of good outcomes for these people. The identity is only affirmed and not questioned and the real underlying issues are never addressed and that this is harmful. I would like to see viewpoints of old school therapists included in this article who went into practice before this became so prevalent and their opinions as well. It is so important that this information is shared with the public as people tend to believe what they are told, however, I believe this is devastating families.
Thank you for your bravery in publishing these articles.
Dear Mr. Bergstein,
I want to express my profound gratitude for the recent article by Jennifer Block.
As the parent of a gender questioning adolescent, it has been so disheartening to read article after article in the nation’s leading newspaper that basically repeat primary talking points used by trans activists. There are many of us parents on the right and left who agree that the “gender critical” view is being left out of the argument.
I am a liberal parent who would very much like to read stories of other parents who disagree with the current guidelines for treating gender questioning minors within the medical establishment. I would also love to read more stories of detransitioners. They are seldom given the attention they deserve and they need to be heard.
Thank you again for a well reasoned article,
Cathy
Bravo for the Globe!!!
They also broke the priest scandal--and now they are leading the way with this. The Atlantic has been covering it very well and Reuters has produced a fantastic series but that has not yet broken through to the general public, which is badly misinformed.
So many of my friends on the left (well, that would be everyone I know except people I've met because they are fighting this medical scandal, among those I've met in that manner, I mostly don't know who is right or left because it usually doesn't come up) do not believe me that this is happening, because they are totally misinformed.
The US medical leadership needs to take a hard and clear look at what is happening-what is and isn't known about gender dysphoria (including what happens if you don't medicalize...the "natural history"), and what is and isn't known about the treatments (they can just read all the evidence reviews in hand at this point and see the benefits aren't established, and sterility is a known harm, for starters) and create policies based on science, not cherry-picked anecdotes. It's appalling this situation ever arose and even worse that people who know what is going on are helping it continue.
Thank you for supporting all the people who are caught up in this and being harmed by misinformed, horribly irresponsible or unethical doctors, and the lawyers, public figures and others who are enabling them.
My letter:
Dear Brian,
I am the mother of two beautiful daughters my husband and I adopted from China. I am also a lifelong Democrat whose father served as a Merchant Marine in WWII, Korean War and Vietnam War. Our oldest child was severely neglected in the orphanage and when she was placed in my arms at 13 months, she couldn't cry or hold a bottle. Her toddler years were filled with flashbacks and night terrors. In high school she fell into a group of girls who self-identified as males and she adopted that identity. We have experienced firsthand how gender affirming therapy negatively affected her mental health. We were fortunate to find a professional who is working on our child's pre-adoption trauma and other mental health issues.
Thank you for airing Jennifer's piece on this issue and I encourage you to turn your well known Spotlight on this issue. My mother had a saying "From my lips to God's ears" and as a Catholic who appreciated the Spotlight on the Catholic Church, I always believed that The Boston Globe had the chops to turn to the experimentation on our vulnerable children and young adults. Please don't stop. It takes courage and I know your paper can do this.
Please listen to the Detransitioners. They are the proverbial canaries in the coal mines and their voices deserve to be heard.
Email sent thanking the editor
Thank you. I sent a personal message.
I emailed as well! As a psychologist working in MA.
Letter sent. Thank you!
Just sent in my email of thanks and gave some ideas for further investigations. Thank you!
This is what I sent:
Dear Mr. Bergstein,
My name is Rick Hotchner. As I have learned more over the last couple of years about how pediatric gender medicine is practiced in the U.S. and other countries, I have grown more and more concerned about the at least potentially lifelong, irreversible consequences for kids. At the same time, I have noticed the vehement backlash from some transgender activists whenever someone expresses concerns about so-called "gender-affirming care" for kids (among other transgender-related issues) and, perhaps related, that it is unusual to see frank treatment of different perspectives on this issue in traditional media. As a result, I was pleased to learn that "The Boston Globe" published the piece by Jennifer Block, "Youth Gender Medicine has Become a Hall of Mirrors." I thank the Globe for the courage to investigate and report on concerns about gender clinic practices for children and teens.
I would also be grateful for more investigative reporting on this issue. For example, is there any good research, in the U.S. or abroad, the findings of which run counter to the arguments for "gender-affirming care"? How are other countries (e.g. the UK, Finland, Sweden) handling this issue? How have the profiles of self-identified transgender minors changed? Have rates of desisting, regret and/or detransition changed with those cohorts? Is there any reason to expect those rates might change (or change further) in the years to come? What might be the causes of the large increase of teenage girls who want to transition? What do already open detransitioners have to say about their experiences with doctors, therapists and clinics, as well as the effects of the treatments received, and the kind of support (or lack thereof) these detransitioners are getting now from the LGBTQ community, health care providers, and health insurance companies? What about the experiences of the parents of these detransitioners?
Separately, I would also be interested in seeing investigative reporting on the question of whether and to what extent transgender girls and women should be in girls' and women's spaces (e.g. bathrooms, locker rooms, shelters, prisons, sports).
Again, I thank you for your contribution to informing the public on this issue and hope you will continue to do so in the weeks, months and years to come.
Thanks and Regards,
Rick Hotchner