XPost: soc.culture.belgium, alt.transgendered, alt.society.mental-health   
   XPost: alt.society.liberalism, talk.politics.guns, alt.politics.homosexuality   
   From: remailer@domain.invalid   
      
   Marci Bowers, the 'Beyoncé of Bottom Surgery,' denies flip-flopping,   
   says blockers are 'safe and reversible'   
      
   The president of World Professional Association for Transgender   
   Health, Marci Bowers, has done a 180-degree turn on the use of sex   
   change drugs on minors during a critical puberty stage after   
   previously sounding the alarm about its potential to cause permanent   
   sexual dysfunction for the rest of a child's life.   
      
   The turn on hormone recommendations occurred around the time Bowers   
   joined WPATH as president, one of the most powerful organizations   
   which sets global standards for trans care for children and adults.   
   The professional standards set by WPATH are observed by leading   
   providers, including the U.S. Department of Defense, gender clinics   
   across the U.S. – such as Boston Children's Hospital, as well as   
   insurance companies.   
      
   Before joining WPATH, however, Bowers held views considered   
   controversial in the transgender health space.   
      
   "Unfortunately, [transgender care] has been hijacked by people who   
   have their own political agendas," she told Mount Sinai Health in   
   June 2021.   
      
   Bowers consistently spoke out about her concerns on whether puberty   
   blocking hormones should be used in critical early stages of   
   pubertal development called Tanner Stage 2.   
      
   "Every single child who was or adolescent who was truly blocked at   
   Tanner Stage 2 has never experienced orgasm. I mean, it's really   
   about zero," she said.   
      
   Bowers complained in a talk with Mount Sinai Health System that she   
   was getting heat from the left for "abandoning" the transgender   
   agenda by speaking out against puberty blocking hormones, also   
   called gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues (GnRHa), a class of   
   drugs which suppresses sex hormones by continually stimulating the   
   pituitary gland.   
      
   "I had concerns about initiating hormone blockers for children   
   because it affected their surgical results that might affect how   
   they respond sexually. And I got a lot of backlash on the left also   
   for people who felt like I was abandoning the cause," she said.   
      
   Regarding surgical results, Bowers was discussing the later   
   complications biological males who wish to have a sex-change   
   operation can face after taking GnRH because it can block penis   
   growth. Surgeons can have little tissue to work with for sex change   
   surgeries and will have to use skin grafts from other regions of the   
   body.   
      
   Such was the case for one of Bowers' patients who was put on puberty   
   blockers, Jazz Jennings. The penis Bowers operated on "was the size   
   and sexual maturity of an 11-year-old’s" and required a graft from   
   her stomach lining, according to the Free Press.   
      
   In 2019, Bowers performed Jennings' vaginoplasty surgery at age 17.   
   The surgery had a series of complications — including when it split   
   apart, requiring a visit to the emergency room – and numerous   
   revision surgeries. It appears that sometime after the surgery,   
   Bowers became opposed to administering puberty blockers to minors at   
   the Tanner 2 stage.   
      
   "I’m not a fan of blockade at Tanner 2 anymore, I really am not,"   
   Bowers told the Free Press in October 2021.   
      
   "We don't know [whether]… they are going to be able to achieve   
   sexual satisfaction," she also said at a Duke University event.   
      
   "It's important in relationships, and I know that from my work with   
   female genital mutilation survivors, that the lack of being able to   
   be intimate with a partner is very important. And so this is what   
   really raised the red flag for me," she told Mount Sinai.   
      
   However, according to the most recent standards from WPATH, which   
   Bowers endorsed, it stated they "recommend[ed] health care   
   professionals begin pubertal hormone suppression… after [transgender   
   children] first exhibit physical changes of puberty (Tanner stage   
   2)."   
      
   "The general problem with WPATH guidelines is that they are   
   primarily based on opinion and not on high quality research. That   
   judgment has been affirmed by structured reviews, carried out in the   
   United Kingdom, Norway, and  Denmark. The current protocols used in   
   many if not most American clinics fail to adhere to the original   
   studies conducted in the Netherlands. And even those studies have   
   been harshly criticized for failure to adequately assess outcomes of   
   transition," said Dr. Stanley Goldfarb of Do No Harm. "For Dr.   
   Bowers to demonstrate varied opinions on the use of puberty blockers   
   and other procedures is not surprising given the absence of high-   
   quality-evidence-based guidelines that are required to inform   
   clinical decisions."   
      
   That is the same stage at which Bowers warned can cause a child to   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)