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Children's Hospital doctors and staff getting death threats over bogus online accusations about their care for transgender patients
By adamg on Tue, 08/16/2022 - 10:18pm
Online trolls led by a Brooklyn real-estate broker have been targeting Children's Hospital over false claims that the hospital performs hysterectomies and other procedures on transgender children in its care.
The hospital says it is now working with law enforcement to go after the people vowing violence and death against hospital employees and doctors:
In response to commentary last week critical of our Gender Multispecialty Service (GeMS) Program, Boston Children's Hospital has been the target of a large volume of hostile internet activity, phone calls, and harassing emails including threats of violence toward our clinicians and staff. We are deeply concerned by these attacks fueled by misinformation and a lack of understanding and respect for our transgender community.
The commentary and the online attention that followed was based on the incorrect statement that Boston Children's performs genital surgeries on minors in connection with transgender care. For hysterectomies and other genital surgeries performed as part of gender-affirming care, Boston Children's requires a patient to be capable of consenting for themselves. Age 18 is used to reflect the standard age of majority for medical decision-making. Boston Children's does not perform genital surgeries as part of gender-affirming care on a patient under the age of 18.
We condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms, and we reject the false narrative upon which they are based. We are working with law enforcement to protect our clinicians, staff, patients, families, and the broader Boston Children's community and hold the offenders accountable. We will continue to take all appropriate measures to protect our people.
Boston Children's is proud to be home to the first pediatric and adolescent transgender health program in the United States.
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Comments
threats are wrong and illegal
The Childrens' Hospital videos said what they said.
In one of them, it was said that playing with toys associated with the opposite gender was a symptom of gender dysphoria.
Wasn't that an idea that was supposed to be overcome, that it should be unusual for girls to play with trucks and boys with dolls?
While surgery may be delayed until age 18, they are administering puberty blockers and hormones at much earlier ages. These might have irreversible effects on fertility, sexual functioning, and bone development. The videos imply that therapy tends toward "affirmation."
EDIT: surgery was not being delayed until age 18, see my comment below
In a way, this controversy is like the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s. Except it's a mirror image: the myth is supported by powerful institutions and they are abusing kids.
In this case, the myth is that gender roles are, in fact, rigid and fixed, and that physical biology means little.
People feel that this myth/ideological construct is embedded in institutions like schools and clinics with power over children. They fear that children are being indoctrinated, diagnosed, and railroaded into irreversible decisions over what in the past was just normal adolescent self-discovery, or indeed normal homosexuality.
so sadly misinformed
last I heard, trucks don't have a gender. Their point was when a child constantly chooses dolls of a different gender that is one of many many indicators they use to listen to a child.
Your concern about blockers causing permanent damage without considering how much damage is done by NOT taking them for those children who don't recognize their own bodies.
Sexuality is a completely different conversation, we are talking about someone's physical body feeling foreign to it's resident. There is a 100 years of gender affirming research into this so it is not new. But children are being allowed to direct themselves.
Basically people who consider children property are upset that a hospital is providing children the care to make their lives easier so they can become productive members of society. These haters want to put a stop to it and return to the days where children were seen and not heard.
This is transphobic propaganda
This post refers to affirming care for trans youth as "powerful institutions abusing kids."
The reference to "normal homosexuality" indicates that the poster subscribes to the "gender skeptic" movement, which is a radical anti-trans ideology that seeks to purge the "T" from the LGBT acronym.
This kind of propaganda leads to the kinds of death threats reported upon in the article. This post is intended to justify the potential for violence against institutions which support trans youth and their families.
Terf?
"threats are wrong and illegal -- but justified???"
Shortened that screed for you.
Satanic panic
The only legitimate connection to the satanic panic is that the trans panic follows on almost exactly the same lines as the attack on children's hospital. Accusing people of extreme child abuse without evidence and using that to rile up mobs, and the state if possible, to ruin their lives. The original satanic panic had a disproportionate impact on queer people just like this one. Truly amazing you brought this up to blame those on the receiving end of the violence when you are literally the one participating in its contemporary reincarnation.
As for all the other nonsense you said it’s not really worth a response but I can give one to explain why you are wrong to anyone who might get convinced by your cheap tricks. No one is making medical interventions on kids for playing with toys associated with the opposite gender but they are correctly identifying that as part of a spectrum of behaviors associated with identity formation, which is more useful for convincing skeptical adults around them than the kids themselves whose formation of their own gender identity goes way beyond toys.
The effects of puberty blockers is well documented and minimal, certainly far lower in impact than forcing trans kids to develop secondary sexual characteristics that they actively do not desire (increasing dysphoria, making it harder and more expensive to transition later, and increasing suicide rates which are already astronomical for trans kids because of bigots like you). The only problem with what children's hospital is doing is that they do not fully embrace affirmation and thus are not facilitating children to go through their desired puberty at the same time as their peer group and instead simply delaying puberty, and any affirming intervention actively desired by the child, potentially for years.
Being trans is as normal as being homosexual and there are plenty of masculine men who never played with dolls and still have sex with men. You have some extremely misinformed ideas about human sex and sexuality.
If we're going to go there...
Yes, I've heard from trans clinicians that GeMS is on the conservative side in terms of not usually starting minors on T. Some other criticisms of GeMS that come from the trans community are:
1) They aren't trans-led and they view cis physicians and cis parents of trans kids as the experts in trans kids, when the experts to be consulting about trans kids are of course trans young adults (and plenty of trans young adults are physicians and psychologists, in the event that anyone insists we only seek expertise from those of us with letters after our names).
2) They encourage the medical community at large to view their program or similar programs as required for any minor who is trans/nonbinary, so that other Harvard-affiliated peds tend to view it as problematic if a child socially transitions without "oversight" or "permission" of GeMS or a similar clinic. Providers will literally see a perfectly well-adjusted trans/nonbinary youth with a supportive family and connections to the queer community, who doesn't desire any medical intervention, and will ask "OK but who is following them for gender?" and will see this as a missing medical service. To clarify, sure it's appropriate to make sure someone has support and make sure they are aware they can access medical intervention if they wish, but no one needs approval or permission to be trans just like no one needs a medical signoff to be cis. I've encountered Harvard-affiliated physicians reporting parents for neglect because the trans or nonbinary youth wasn't being "followed" for gender.
But in general, it's a pretty solid program, and kids are able to access affirming services there. And they certainly shouldn't be receiving threats (or really, receiving any criticism from outside the trans community and strongly allied folks -- cis folks have absolutely no business commenting on what a gender clinic should or shouldn't be doing).
why is this moderated?
Why is this forum even moderated if the first response allowed to go through about people sending death threats to local doctors over a invented and exaggerated accusations of abuse is defending that?
Even more absurd is the analogy this person made to the satanic panic, despite defending those carrying one out.
Pay attention kids!
This is how they deftly tut-tut threats of violence while winking and nodding at those who plant bombs and murder doctors.
"Just asking questions" about topics they're entirely ignorant to and positing "what if's" without medical degrees.
Be wary. For these are the goons who will usher in the coming Christo-Fascist American Century.
Put up or shut up
Put up or shut up. Provide a link to this alleged video, with a timestamp of when this statement was allegedly made.
This is incoherent and absurd. None of what you have said here makes sense. It is a canard inspired by ignorance.
ETA: and shame on the sixteen people who upvoted your post.
the truth is out there
One of the characteristics of this debate on transgender treatment for children is the degree to which things that were said or done, are denied to be said or done.
here is a link to the video, https://twitter.com/i/status/1558669742126223361
If you don't want to click, here's the transcript
It also turns out that the claims that Children's Hospital was performing surgical procedures on minors were not "false" or "bogus."
A Journal of Clinical Medicine paper from anesthesiologists from Children's Hospital from this year is a study of
From the NIH medical journal website (pdf)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9000168/pdf/jcm-11-01943.pdf
The report said that 65 of the surgery patients were minors on the date of surgery, 36% of the total.
92% were identified as "Trans Man." This included a 15 year old given a mastectomy.
Adam should amend this post. The "online trolls" were right, their claims were not "false" or "bogus," according to a very authoritative source.
But that would be wrongthink, wouldn't it?
Again, a characteristic of this debate is the degree to which one side outright lies about what they are doing and saying.
The extent to which people are liking my post is an indication of the degree to which people are waking up to the lies.
It's also regrettable that almost all the people telling the truth are on the right wing, but that's because the US left has ceded the field to a tiny number of activists.
you need help
why are you so obsessed with young people getting necessary medical care?
You are supporting terrorism
Want to have a measured, thoughtful conversation on this (or any) topic? Fine. But this thread is about terroristic threats against a hospital and the medical professionals working there. The only thing you are doing here is trying to justify those terror threats. By doing so, you have crossed a line and totally abrogated any claim to a measured argument you could have possibly claimed.
In other words, if you're supporting the people threatening murder and mayhem, your argument is automatically bogus.
Ridiculous argument
Reminiscent of people who questioned the Afghanistan or Iraq war being accused of "supporting terrorism"
It's a common but obviously dishonest way of shutting down discussion of an issue.
Except one side of the argument here is
literally making death threats.
Americans argued about our involvement in Afghanistan, but didn't threaten to murder people who disagreed with them.
Boston is the last place
I'd expect to see that argument.
This is how you spend your August?
For Chrissakes, fella. Go eat ice cream and/or get laid.
You’re
in bed with domestic terrorists. I’d ask you to explain yourself, but you’re so fucking full of words that it’s just been enough.
Fuck you. How’s that for your dialogue.
"all the people telling the truth are on the right wing"
Sure Terf.
"all the people telling the truth are on the right wing"
Sure Terf.
I don't know if you're ignorant or just
full of shit, deselby, or maybe not carefully reading the reports you cite, but the minimum age that Children's will perform genital surgeries is 18.
Sigh
I shouldn't feed the troll, but I'm going to do some educating for the sake of anyone else reading...
You are correct that they are not performing bottom surgery for anyone under 18.
Top surgery under 18 is extremely rare too, and it's done in cases of trans boys who have been living as boys for most of their childhood. I've worked with more than 1000 trans/nonbinary teens and young adults in my professional role, and I literally know of one who has had top surgery under 18. He was 16 and had been living as a boy since he was 5.
For what it's worth, youths can consent to many medical procedures at 14+. In fact, outside of lifesaving procedures, providers require that the youth is on board once they're at the age that they can clearly understand risks and benefits. Teens also get to decide if they want tonsils out or if they want scoliosis surgery.
Also, minors can and do consent to completely cosmetic surgeries. In some communities, cosmetic rhinoplasty (a "nosejob" meant solely to give a more preferred look to the nose, absent any breathing issue or anything that would be considered a deformity or facial difference) at 14-16 is incredibly common. Cis girls can and do get breast implants at 16 despite implants not being FDA approved for under 18.
Furthermore, a 16-year-old can have sex or not, use substances or not, can become employed or go to college. There are many life-altering decisions people make before 18.
Regardless, transphobia kills. Getting top surgery (before or after 18) and then being one of the tiny percentage of people who later transition to a different identity than male does not. A much much larger percentage get top surgery and their lives are vastly improved. Also, a decent number of cis people regret having spinal surgeries and hip replacements and things. People also get tattoos they regret. People marry people they regret. How about just let people live their lives and get off of this ridiculous faux "concern" about things that don't affect you? If you don't want gender-affirming procedures, don't have any.
In retrospect (see deselby's "The last word" post), your
first instinct was correct; we should not be feeding this troll. Pure bad-faith argumentation, one logical fallacy after another, and deliberate ignorance of facts that are inconvenient to his argument. Pitiful.
Puttin up
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1558580852178780165/pu/vid/1920x888...
Oh, for fuck's sake
Did you actually watch that video?
I don't know what sort of anger-translator you put it though, but in English, it's a doctor saying there are some children who don't feel comfortable with something in their lives and that the Children's program is there to help them. It says nothing about any sort of invasive medical procedures or drugs.
Parents, Doctors, and Youth
Decisions about children's health care should be made by doctors in conjunction with the youth and the youth's parents, not by politicians; certainly options for children's health care should not by influenced or curtailed by a violent, uninformed mob whose only qualification to speak on this subject is that they own a keyboard.
Satanic Panic
Ruining people's lives over bullshit? Yes, I agree, it's very similar.
It's worse than just bullshit. It's a repeat of
an old right-wing political playbook that cynically incites the weak-minded to fear and loathing. The same tactics have long been used to fight abortion rights and gay rights, to whip the ignorant base into a bigoted, violent frenzy.
I didn't bother reading
What's apparently verbal diarrhea in the first comment, because I have no skin in the game of "What gender is this kid, and what are the medical ethics around a gender reassignment for them?"
I'm just here to say "Shut up and let the kids drive." I'll also ask those of you who have children, and talk out of their (expletive) on this topic: What was the point of breeding children if you're just going to discredit them when they indicate their feelings?
lol, kids can't drive
At least until 16 1/2 and not after midnight until age 18.
That's the point, isn't it? BCH was doing mastectomies on 15 year old girls.
Once in awhile I like to call out obvious BS, just like you like to play tuff guy. You're here wasting your time, too.
Adam
Please delete and ban this person who is intentionally misgendering trans folks. This is blatant transphobia.
You're full of shit
You're full of shit. You're a transphobe and your comments reek of dishonesty. Seek help.
Any Doctor who blocks puberty
Or performs double mastectomies and hysterectomies on people not old enough to buy a beer are performing medical malpractice.
The threats from trolls also should not happen.
My comment will be called trolling and transphobic by some, we are in an odd time.
performing medical
And your legal and/or medical credentials are... ?
Allow me to help, since you obviously missed it.
Right there in paragraph one above: "Online trolls led by a Brooklyn real-estate broker have been targeting Children's Hospital over false claims that the hospital performs hysterectomies and other procedures on transgender children in its care [emphasis added].
Anybody
Who buys Bigfoot a beer after he trashed all those campsites in Montana is no friend of mine
I know many people say Bigfoot is made up, but someone on the Internet saw him, so who is to say what is truth and what is not
Adam
Please delete and ban this transphobe.
But...
But'cha ARE, Blanche!
Terrorism directed at doctors and medical professionals
I certainly hope the Republican Party is proud of their contribution to American political rhetoric in the 21st Century, because they're going to be remembered for it for a long time.
They are both...
...proud -- and pleased with just how effective their scheme is.
Fascist Tactics
This is part of an increasingly blatant and horrifying national trend by the GOP to embrace the dehumanization of the voting majority that oppose them.
The leaders of this movement on the right don't know or care about the details of what medical decisions are made at Boston Children's Hospital, they're just using trumped up accusations about the hospital (and public libraries and public education) as a rallying cry to further their fascist aims.
People who don't embrace their fascist movement are "pedophiles", "groomers", or "child abusers", so they don't deserve the right to political power, and therefore taking that power away by violent or undemocratic means is acceptable.
Puberty blockers not in same category as surgery
Puberty blockers are important for the mental health of kids struggling with gender dysphoria. Unlike surgery, they do not make irreversible changes - quite the opposite. They buy time for kids and their parents by blocking irreversible or difficult-to-reverse physiologic changes, preventing the need to rush into more major interventions.
For a trans adolescent, the development of irreversible gender characteristics such as masculine broad shoulders or a feminine narrow waist/broad hips can lead to despair and, in severe cases, suicide. Puberty blockers delay these changes until the person is older and more mature, buying time for them to mature before taking steps that are irreversible.
Sex obsession
Show me someone whom needs to opine about the sexuality, gender or any other facet of another person’s sexual being and I’ll show you a person obsessed with sex in everyone else.
What kind of illness is this obsession? Mental, psychological. Perhaps this kind of obsession with the intimate lives of others is evidence of a psychological syndrome involving power, mastery over others, need to hate, judge and condemn?
Perhaps these are elements of spiritual disease that are part of the human condition. Nevertheless disease, illness, malediction, etc. that, like physical disease of old (syphillis, gonnarhea, etc.) require the use of a spiritual penicillin before they ravage both the individual and the community.
If…
+ the child wants the care &
+ the parent(s) agree that the care is warranted
+ the child’s primary care doctor agrees
+ the child’s therapist/psychiatrist agrees
+ the child’s gender affirming care specialist agrees
…then your opinion (and mine) is irrelevant and useless. If you feel the need to interject with an opinion contrary to the patient, parents and several doctors, then you are transphobic asshole and actively trying to make a child’s life shifty. Kindly shut the fuck up.
The government should not mandate how a patient manages their healthcare. And neither should random internet weirdos.
The last word
First, my initial post was wrong. I took on faith Adam's post, based on Someone On Twitter, that claims that BCH was performing surgery on minors were "false" and "bogus."
Goaded by a reply, I went to postings on the debate and soon found the March 2022 article in the Journal of Clinical Medicine titled
All of the authors of the article are anesthesiologists and surgeons from BCH. They are writing about, and only about, "gender affirming" surgeries at BCH.
Again, here's a link to the article, from the National Institute for Health website (pdf)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9000168/pdf/jcm-11-01943.pdf
The article is devastating.
quotes:
The overwhelming percentage of those seeking surgery - 90.7% - were born female. Critics - "TERFs" if you will - have questioned whether patriarchal structures have driven these overwhelming numbers.
I spend a lot of time in the UK, where the debate is a bit sharper due to the Keira Bell base, the Tavistock Clinic, and JD Rowling among others.
Maybe it's just me, but I think mutilating kids unable to legally drive a car or sign a binding contract based on feelings interpreted by ideologically or even monetarily motivated adults surrounding them is wrong, or at least questionable. It's well-established that cognitive functions supporting judgment are not fully matured, even at 18. That's why we have Juvenile Court. Heck, you can't even buy alcohol or cigarettes until age 21, yet they were castrating kids at age 18.
I'm not going to threaten anybody about it, it's not my main concern about the world, but I think it's a humanitarian as well as a political concern. The Democratic Party's support and defense of this kind of thing is why they lose and why we don't have universal health care.
The way this story is playing out is also a good example of how people trying to defend the indefensible or change the subject, make the discussion about the discussion, not the underlying subject.
In this case, the subject is changed from 12 year olds being given puberty blockers and 15 year olds being given mastectomies to alleged "threats" and "terrorism." We don't know anything about how many threats there were, the nature of those threats, or how credible they were. So, a good job changing the subject.
Like "Bernie bros," or complaints about people heckling Supreme Court justices in public after Dobbs. Demonize your opposition by associating them with bad communications. Say that anyone who disagrees with you is putting you in danger and insist that they be banned from speaking.
Thank you all for your gracious comments and concern for my use of my time. I'm a professional writer/researcher with published work, so it doesn't take much time to write things supported by credible references. I might be waiting for a bus or for takeout at Popeye's while I'm writing.
Fuck off
1) Adam, please ban this unapologetic transphobe (and the other one), unless you've decided safety of trans folks on your site isn't important.
2) Deselby, you don't know jack about trans folks or medical care, and it's obvious from your posts. The reason the majority of people seeking affirming care are trans men should be obvious, and it isn't some TERFy conspiracy theory. Having obvious female-appearing breasts causes dysphoria for a lot of trans men and boys. It's apparent while fully clothed, and it leads to constant misgendering (in a way that clothed genitals or a clothed flat chest don't). Men beyond a certain size can't really successfully achieve a flat chest by binding.
Also, as I've explained, based on my clinical experience with 1000+ trans youth and frequently serving as a court expert in trans health issues and child welfare issues, minor teens can and do consent to lots of procedures that have nothing to do with gender affirmation. Why are you not "concerned" with cis minors getting 100% cosmetic nose jobs, or choosing not to have a recommended tonsillectomy? I mean, and shouldn't you also be going around sticking your nose in minors' business about their educational choices and sexual activities? You've determined based on your expertise that no one under 18 knows themself or can possibly decide anything, right?
(Again, I'm not posting because I have any faith that your transphobic ass will listen or learn, but because it's possible that others might learn something.)
Second
Second. There isn't any "both sides" here.
"Neutrality helps the oppressor."
- Elie Wiesel
I have to say
It's pretty heart-warming to see many of the UHub characters who often squabble with each other band together to tell a full-of-shit TERF to fuck off. Good job everyone! Well played.
deselby
Every point Deselby has made is worth thinking about. Nothing ban-worthy here. Other points made have also been v worthy of thought.
Another transphobe to ban
No, there is no need to think about intentionally misgendering people and stating a marginalized group of people shouldn’t get the healthcare that saves their lives. Absolutely no “other side” to consider here.
Does it involve your kid?
Does it involve your patient?
No?
Then no, it’s none of your or deselby’s fucking business.
Think about it all you want, but whatever thoughts you have about the healthcare of someone else’s child are not needed and if it’s contrary to the patients’, parents’ and doctors’ conclusion, it’s creepy.
Internet concern trolls should not influence the healthcare of children.
Thinking?
See, here's the problem with that. They haven't made any points. They've posted a tissue of lies, half-truths, and conflated irrelevancies, generously seasoned with concern trolling.
If your comment was made in good faith, you are making the error of elevating intellectually dishonest pseudo-argumentation to the level of legitimate discourse, and thereby degrading any such discourse. In simple terms, if you insist that a pig is human and demand that humans get down in the mud and wallow with it, before long everything is covered in shit and anyone who hasn't been watching carefully won't be able to tell the pigs from the humans. Anyone with sense will see where this is going, and will decline to obey your admonishment to "think about" deselby's bigoted nonsense.
And if your comment was not made in good faith, nice try, but some of us can tell a pig from a human no matter how much shit you throw.