TRANSGENDERThe perfect environment for the placebo effect - “Gender Affirming Treatment” hits another issue

submitted by ClassroomPast6178 from link.springer.com

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[–]ClassroomPast6178[S] 17 insightful - 1 fun17 insightful - 0 fun18 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

TL;DR

Positive outcomes from hormonal interventions, argues psychiatrist Alison Clayton, the article’s author, may be attributable to placebo effects generated by clinical encounters and the social context in which they take place, rather than to the underlying psychotropic effects of the drugs themselves.

Translation: Unhappy teens feel better because they get attention from whitecoats and told the pills will help, but really the pills are doing nothing to help them and destroying their bodies and the relief is entirely psychological and due to the attention and belief.

In other words, these unhappy teens would probably get the same result from being counselled and not going through social or medical transition or being put on puberty blockers.

This is basic medical research that hasn’t been done, and yet they’re allowed to peddle this shit to kids.

[–]tiny-brown-mug 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

I absolutely want someone to do a study researching possible correlations between gender dysphoria and childhood / adolescent sexual abuse or trauma.

[–]Haylstorm 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Considering they're not allowed to question it there's absolutely a lot of hinky stuff going on.

As an example I had a friend growing up who hit puberty early, at about 9-10. She had adult men in cars make some disgusting comments to her when we were just riding bikes with friends and it made her hate growing up. Nowadays she says if it had been an option back then she'd've absolutely been pushed because she often cried about wanting to be a boy. Not because she's trans but because boys didn't face that harassment. It would absolutely not surprise me if there are young girls seeing boys not get that and being pushed towards that.

[–]LyingSpirit472 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Considering how many MtFs will flat-out say that the reason they transitioned boils down to "I can't have a girlfriend, so I'll BE the girlfriend", I think it goes without saying that a lot of trans people boil down to "I think the other gender doesn't get this thing about my gender that sucks, and I want to be on that side."

[–]ID10T 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Puberty was rough as a boy but it seems like it’s way way worse for girls. Between getting unwanted creeper attention, bleeding, raging hormones and emotions, it’s got to be tough as hell.

I can imagine many girls hearing that they can pause this shit would sound like an awesome option. It’s so obvious and people are saying “this never happens, every person is evaluated by a professional before being prescribed hormone blockers”… meanwhile plenty of destransitioners have said they got prescriptions with just one brief counseling session.

[–]Haylstorm 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Look up the Bell case. 3 one hour sessions. Hell there was an article not too long ago about Tavistock where someone wanted to put a girl on blockers because she was trans. Their reasoning for her being trans? She liked Thomas the tank Engine and hated her periods. Practically EVERY woman hates their period. If that's the logic then the standards are way way too low so ofc you're going to catch a lot of people in the crossfire who do need some sort of care realistically, even if it's someone talking them through issues properly and making them think but don't need to transition.

In all seriousness though ofc a nine year old hitting puberty is going to hate her body when grown men are yelling about how she should get in their car and ride something else. Hell a lot of grown adults are going to be put off by that. But how do you expect a 9 year old to deal with it beyond noticing their body is getting them this attention and hating it? Then you gift them an option which mean they might be treated normally, like you know a child ofc they'll jump at it. If the professionals aren't allowed to ask "do you hate your body because of the attention you're getting" or other variations which can be the actual problem how're they actually going to help anyone.

[–]Wanderingthehalls 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's an interesting point. I was a tomboy as a kid but I was very eager for puberty and mainly very happy when it kicked in. I think that a very big part of that could have had to do with the fact that it happened on the very late end of normal. I didn't get my period until I was 16 and while I had had some breast growth starting at around 13/14 it wasn't really until after my periods started that my body shape started to really change from childish to womanly. If anything, I was frustrated and somewhat embarrassed by being so far behind my friends. But later puberty let me appreciate the changes to my body when they happened.

What may also have helped is that I grew up reading old superhero comics. So my vision of capable, athletic, adventure having women was attractive, slim and very hourglass. There was absolutely no clash in my mind between continuing being a tomboy and developing a woman's body. You get a lot of complaints about how women are drawn in comics leading to girls having unrealistic body standards, but I disagree. I think they helped make puberty a mostly positive experience for me because it was the process through which my body naturally became more like theirs.

I also read books in my pre-teens/early teens with male characters going through puberty and concluded that female puberty was easier. Having your voice break just seemed so public and really silly sounding. The thought of getting a random, unwanted boner seemed horrific. And even worse, having a wet dream and needing to deal with the evidence in the morning before your parents saw it, was my idea of a fucking nightmare. Because the latter two are evidence of your sexual growth in a way that you can't always keep private. So I think it's also helpful for kids to grow up with an understanding that the other sex are also going through shit that might even be worse. So you don't end up envious of something that isn't necessarily better.

[–]clownworlddropout 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Also internalized homophobia.

[–]SerpensInferna 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'd like to think I would have been immune to this as a teenage girl, and I was never GNC. However, I was very lonely, socially awkward, had no clique to find belonging in at school, and had a rough home life. Any adult who showed me kindness or promised a solution to all of that might have easily convinced me that I was, in fact, trans.

It makes me a little more empathetic to teenagers going through this right now. But fuck the groomer adults who see and take advantage of these kids. They deserve the worst place in hell.

[–]Q-Continuum-kin 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

Imagine if some doctor started giving out sugar pills and telling people it was hormones.

[–]ClassroomPast6178[S] 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

Funnily enough placebos have an effect even when patients are told “this is a placebo”, so the doctor is prohibited by medical ethics from giving out sugar pills without informing patients that they’re sugar pills but could probably do it as long as they say something like “the pills are placebo but they might help alleviate your symptoms”.

[–]Musky༼⁠ ⁠つ⁠ ⁠◕⁠‿⁠◕⁠ ⁠༽⁠つ 🐈 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Studies have shown that knowing something is a placebo doesn't actually stop the placebo effect oddly enough.

[–]ClassroomPast6178[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

That’s literally what I posted. Hehe

[–]Musky༼⁠ ⁠つ⁠ ⁠◕⁠‿⁠◕⁠ ⁠༽⁠つ 🐈 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I either totally misread, or I've come from an adjacent reality where you wrote something slightly different. Pretty much a coin toss.

[–]LyingSpirit472 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Does this have something to do with how eating killer bees caused my flu to go away?