Thoughts about James and Chemical Castration

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NJWxMan

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I'm all for getting children the help and treatment that they need. But as a father and psychiatrist, I still find the case of James Younger to be very disturbing. I don't understand the rush to make a life altering decision for s 7 year old. Munchausen by proxy?

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Some of the reviews of that doctor make it sound as if she is purposefully leading boys in particular to transition to female. Of course it's hard to know if the reviews were written in reaction to the news coverage.

I think early childhood hormone treatment interferes with one of the human rights children are afforded under the UNCRC which is the "right to an open future." This means that decisions should not be made for children at a young age unless necessary that will limit their choices in the future.

I also think that there is a hyper-gendering problem that leads to a need to align with a particular sex in order to be oneself.

Children at one time were considered largely non-sexed and were all dressed in gowns until a period known as "britching" in which boys started to wear britches (pants). Now we have gender reveals when the child is still in utero.

I have said before that if i lived in a version of hell in which I was forced to attend elementary school for the rest of eternity and the idea of transgenderism existed, I probably would have chosen to identify as female. And if I had done that, there may have been doctors who used that as an opportunity for medical intervention.

I say that because I wasn't comfortable aligning with *other* boys, especially in a single-sex environment. I didn't and couldn't act like them. But I argue that was an artificial environment. When I am free to live where I want and with whom I want, those issues of being an outlier to me are ego-syntonic. The problems I personally felt never had anything to do with my physical body but with the qualities I had not aligning with those that are typical for my sex. As an adult, it doesn't matter at all. As a child in a very gendered classroom all day long it could be stressful.

I think it's more appropriate to work toward allowing people to feel comfortable having all the qualities they have and feel safe having those qualities without needing to identify with the stereotypes of a particular sex.

I grew up when these movements to change the way gender is perceived were happening, but I think the way they took place was all wrong. It was and still is derogatory toward boys, all about girl power, and in general I thought too dependent on defining qualities as opposites of each other (the idea of opposite sexes defining opposite characteristics). I still see this today with special programs for girls not available to boys. I am not in classrooms to see how it plays out, but I can recall from the 1980s messages of girl power and "girls rule and boys drool" type messaging.

Those are not the types of messages I would hope for when saying people should be allowed to freely have the qualities they have. I would simply place far less emphasis on gender/sex.

Anyhow, all that is not say that a child should not be supported in identifying how they choose to in a way that is unprompted and unamplified.
 
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I wasn't able find many details about this case other than the mother is petitioning to allow for puberty-delaying therapy and she wants his name to be changed to "Luna" and the dad is against this. I'm not condoning the idea of pushing children into a specific gender, but without more info it seems hard to judge whether the child is actually being forced or pushed into either role or if this is something legitimately being done responsibly in the child's best interest in mind. Would be interested to hear other's thoughts on this as well.
 
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My understanding is that no pharmacological interventions are being contested in court at this time and none have been proposed.

One thing that seems concerning to me in that the child has been given a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and does not appear to meet DSM 5 criteria of actually having the dysphoria part. It's particularly strange that the providers arguing for social transition are pathologising being transgender.
 
Calling this chemical castration is a bit of a misnomer, and to my knowledge the way puberty-delaying therapy works, actually does more to give an "open future" to the young adolescent with questions about gender identity than letting puberty do whatever it wants whenever it wants. My understanding is that the way it is practiced, puberty can commence as it would have otherwise when the therapy is stopped. To my knowledge the push is to make that decision at least by age 16 years. In some western countries that is the age of consent and adulthood, and even in this country many legal responsibilities and privileges are considered appropriate for that age.

If I had a child that had any questions at all about gender, I would want them to have as much time as safely physically possible to try to answer them.

If anything, the move to delay puberty is in line with the thoughtful post by birschwing, about androgyny. Delaying puberty keeps a child physically in a state where their sex is less defined.

Specifically for MtF, it's heartbreaking to see late transitioners deal with male facial hair and Adam's apples.
 
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You should read more about the story and avoid knee-jerk reactions after watching Fox News. You can start with the case file. http://search.txcourts.gov/SearchMe...&MediaID=70a215b2-db32-46e3-9d77-25f423e0dba0

There are also some videos and interviews. Basically, father is a dirt bag and pathological liar. Whatever smear campaign he's running, I would take it all with a grain of salt.

So you're condoning placing chemicals in a helpless little boy's body to prevent him from having puberty because his mother's mental health issues.

Got it.
 
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So you're condoning placing chemicals in a helpless little boy's body to prevent him from having puberty because his mother's mental health issues.

Got it.
Considering that there is no medical treatment being proposed, I'm not sure what you're talking about. Also not sure how you determined his mother is mentally ill. My point, and it wasn't a tough one, was that since many of the click bait stories and Youtube videos being passed around grossly misrepresent the actual case, maybe one shouldn't rush to judgement.
 
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Considering that there is no medical treatment being proposed, I'm not sure what you're talking about. Also not sure how you determined his mother is mentally ill. My point, and it wasn't a tough one, was that since many of the click bait stories and Youtube videos being passed around grossly misrepresent the actual case, maybe one shouldn't rush to judgement.

You deflected in your original post. This news story is not about the father being a liar.

You are not being truthful. I've been following this case for the past year. James' mother has been seeking transgender hormone therapy.

There is certainly a need for rush to judgment. Like I noted in my previous post, you are accepting of this mother's behaviors and the chemical castration of a 7 year old. Got it.
 
You deflected in your original post. This news story is not about the father being a liar.

You are not being truthful. I've been following this case for the past year. James' mother has been seeking transgender hormone therapy.

There is certainly a need for rush to judgment. Like I noted in my previous post, you are accepting of this mother's behaviors and the chemical castration of a 7 year old. Got it.

Again, where is this information you’ve been “following for the last year“ coming from that led you to the conclusion that this kid is going to imminently be pump full of hormones and “chemically castrated?”

Oh yeah, it's from the guy who lies about literally everything. Hopefully you can understand why that’s relevant.

Considering that there is absolutely no medical treatment being proposed, the guy bringing people to testify who have never met the kid seems pretty weak. The court isn't going to support the father’s argument on the idea that "but sometime in the future, something might happen!!” They're just going to make him fight that fight when the medical intervention actually becomes relevant.

And again to be clear, the mother isn’t proposing any medical intervention at this time. The kid will go to therapy, and several years from now when the kid hits puberty, if he still wants to transition, he’ll probably be put on Lupron or similar drug to pause puberty until he’s a little older and more capable of providing informed consent. That’s pretty standard of care from my understanding.
 
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The tl;dr for the people not wanting to read through the court documents:

-guy lied about having a degree. Said he had two degrees and was finishing up his phd. Hr never went to college.

-Dude lied about being a Marine. Said he was in for 6 years and gave up a $250k job to serve his country and fight in Iraq. Actually, he enlisted briefly using a fake ID and got kicked out.

-lied about being in the Army. Said he served 25 years. In reality, he served less then one year and was kicked out when he told people he was gay.

-lied about income and being employed. Said he was a math professor at a college in TX. Was actually unemployed.

-lied under oath about $ he had declared when seeking restitution. Court not happy.

What Fox News fails to mention in their articles is the father made the claim of his wife scheming to transition his son at a custody hearing. He lost that custody hearing, in large part, because they found all the lies the father told. There is no evidence (and actually testimony against it) that the mother is actively seeking out medical treatment. It just seems like a hail-mary claim from the douchebag father as a reason to get sole custody of the kid.

This is just manufactured outrage.
 
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I don't know anything about this particular case.

What I did find interesting was the presentation we were given by one of the founders of one of the first gender support services in the country.

They asked parents "at what age did your child first show signs of preferring a different gender?"

The peak answers? Ages 2-4. With pictures of male toddlers holding barbies.

This shouldn't be taken as any sort of global position on the issue. Just that I think that there are nuances that aren't discussed in favor of advocating for social rights but with the potential downside of reduced concern for the children, themselves.
 
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The tl;dr for the people not wanting to read through the court documents:

-guy lied about having a degree. Said he had two degrees and was finishing up his phd. Hr never went to college.

-Dude lied about being a Marine. Said he was in for 6 years and gave up a $250k job to serve his country and fight in Iraq. Actually, he enlisted briefly using a fake ID and got kicked out.

-lied about being in the Army. Said he served 25 years. In reality, he served less then one year and was kicked out when he told people he was gay.

-lied about income and being employed. Said he was a math professor at a college in TX. Was actually unemployed.

-lied under oath about $ he had declared when seeking restitution. Court not happy.

What Fox News fails to mention in their articles is the father made the claim of his wife scheming to transition his son at a custody hearing. He lost that custody hearing, in large part, because they found all the lies the father told. There is no evidence (and actually testimony against it) that the mother is actively seeking out medical treatment. It just seems like a hail-mary claim from the douchebag father as a reason to get sole custody of the kid.

This is just manufactured outrage.
The tl;dr for the people not wanting to read through the court documents:

-guy lied about having a degree. Said he had two degrees and was finishing up his phd. Hr never went to college.

-Dude lied about being a Marine. Said he was in for 6 years and gave up a $250k job to serve his country and fight in Iraq. Actually, he enlisted briefly using a fake ID and got kicked out.

-lied about being in the Army. Said he served 25 years. In reality, he served less then one year and was kicked out when he told people he was gay.

-lied about income and being employed. Said he was a math professor at a college in TX. Was actually unemployed.

-lied under oath about $ he had declared when seeking restitution. Court not happy.

What Fox News fails to mention in their articles is the father made the claim of his wife scheming to transition his son at a custody hearing. He lost that custody hearing, in large part, because they found all the lies the father told. There is no evidence (and actually testimony against it) that the mother is actively seeking out medical treatment. It just seems like a hail-mary claim from the douchebag father as a reason to get sole custody of the kid.

This is just manufactured outrage.

So again, you completely avoid any content about the child and focus solely on his father. MSNBC is a poor choice for a news source. You have not addressed the fact that this child's psychologist is completely supporting the mother calling him Luna, putting him in dresses, and applying nail polish. Yes. There should be outrage.
 
This isn't really related to psychiatry. Moving to Topics in healthcare.

Gender dysphoria and Munchausens by proxy are relevant topics on this board. God forbid we have a controversial thread.
 
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