What will happen to the increase in false positives for gender dysphoria in childhood, given the lack of protection under the "Trans Law"?
Joaquín Díaz Atienza
INTRODUCTION
Some deny the proven historical fact that the problems of sexual identity in childhood and adolescence have always existed, an assessment with which I cannot agree. It is true that the number of visible cases has been scarce, just as it is true that the cultural conditions in which they occurred contributed to many of them remaining hidden. On the contrary, the current self-deterministic culture of man, as well as his denialist approaches of the weight of biology in the development of human dimorphism, They facilitate them in a very dangerous way, for health reasons, in those children who have the slightest doubt about their sexual identity and/or orientation, on the other hand, inherent to psychosexual development.
In this article I intend to provide a brief historical overview of the evolution that transsexuality has undergone throughout childhood and adolescence since objective records of it have been kept. Its evolution is nothing more than a reflection of the extent to which culture acts as facilitating factor (persistence) or blocking factor (resistance) of a health problem which will have serious repercussions in most cases throughout their lives.
EVOLUTION
A deep understanding of a health problem necessarily involves knowledge of its evolution if no therapeutic intervention is performed. This is called natural History and it makes it easier for us to detect and understand the persistence and desist factors involved.
- Natural history of Gender Dysphoria in childhood.
Both in the DSM-III, as in the ICD-9The disorder of sexual identity appears: When it occurs in adults, it is called transsexualism And when it occurs in childhood/adolescence, gender identity disorder in childhoodThe fact that both classifications include it is indicative of its existence throughout history; the fact that the one that appears in adulthood is described separately from the one that appears in childhood is not a trivial matter, as we will see later.
Historically, some examples are described in anthropological and historiographical literature, although, from what I've observed, in an effort to justify transsexuality as a historical and global reality, they include cases of homosexuality as if they were transsexuality. They all tend to refer to adults or gods from Greek mythology. Perhaps the most relevant case, due to its contemporary relevance in some situations, is the indigenous tribe where mothers choose to raise their children as female: They are the muxes from Oaxaca, Mexico((Rosa de Bustos. Gender identity in history. La Vanguardia, 1/9/2020)). An ancestral custom that has become a sex tourism business encouraged by the lobbies of the ideology queer.
Before the sociocultural primacy of gender ideology and the exclusive and mandatory implementation of the nefarious affirmative therapyMost childhood cases exhibiting symptoms of gender dysphoria disappeared before adolescence, although almost all of them resulted in homosexuality or bisexuality. Therefore, for some researchers, early gender identity-related symptoms are simply the expression of a pre-homosexual condition.
Zucker and BradleyIn their excellent monograph, they indicate that the first signs of discomfort in children regarding their sex usually appeared at between 3 and 5 years old, and at 9 years old They were already clearly stating that they wanted to be girls.((Zucker, KJ, Bradley, SL, Gender Identity Disorder ana psychosexual problemsin chindren and Adolescents. Guilford Press, New York 1995)). However, as they approached adolescence, the identity problems disappeared. Consequently, to avoid harmful and unnecessary interventions, a series of investigations were carried out with the aim of detecting which cases were persistent, which were desistent, and what factors influenced both conditions. This concern among professionals arose from Green's pioneering research on this topic, published in 1987. (Green R. The Sissy Boy Syndrome and the development of homosexuality, Yale Uni. Press, New Haven, CT 1987)).
1.1. Persistent evolution.
At table 1 I present a summary of the data collected by Javier A. Pérez Ruiz in his excellent thesis on gender dysphoria in pediatrics (2018)((Pérz Ruiz JA, Analysis of gender dysphoria in the pediatric field. Scientific and bioethical review of therapy, IF Press, Rome (Italy), 2018))
It is a proven fact that the year 2000 marks a turning point in the incidence and persistence of Gender Dysphoria in childhood, and I will share my personal opinion on this change at the end. Researchers in this field highlight, as elements of persistence of the disorder, the social changes that occur regarding the social distance between boys and girls; the infatuation that arises at these ages and its relationship with sexual orientationWhat seems most decisive in persistence is the degree of incongruence between one's own body and the desire to have the body of the opposite sex. However, in those who desist, what prevails is the desire to fulfill the roles of the opposite sex, including sexual orientation towards the opposite sex. Therefore, the degree of dissatisfaction with one's own body is the determining factor in persistence.
Thus, Steensman and his collaborators state that persistence from adolescence onwards would be determined by: ((Taken from the cited work of Javier A. Pérez Ruiz, page 111))
- The initial intensity of the DG.
- The greatest incongruity with one's own body.
- Belonging to the female sex.
- The early onset of its appearance.
- The degree of cognitive and emotional identification with the opposite sex at birth.
- The way to approach the social transition.
1.2. Gender dysphoria and sexual orientation in childhood and puberty
While biological sex It is determined genetically and chromosomally, with the exception of cases of intersexuality and other medical anomalies. gender identity and sexual orientation They are quite ambiguous during early childhood and puberty in many children. Not surprisingly, sigmund freud, He defined the child as a "polymorphous pervert"This expression reflects the instability of childhood psychosexual development. It is precisely this indeterminacy in sexual orientation that has been shown to be present in most misdiagnosed cases of Gender Dysphoria, with all the harm that the premature implementation of hormonal treatments entails.
Green He already stated that 75-80% of children with suspected gestational diabetes went on to develop a homosexual orientation problem. Both the American Psychiatric Association and World Professional Association for Transgender HealthThey reported that in most children the symptoms of DG disappeared and, among those that persisted, trans children presented a homosexual or bisexual orientation in 63-100% of cases and in trans girls they would be lesbians in 32-50%.
These data force us to reflect on the harmful repercussions that the current "Trans Law", based on the exclusive self-determination and without the need for prior assessment by specialized professionalsThis will cause children, in their natural confusion, to decide that their possible psychosocial and mental health difficulties are due to an identity problem, when it is likely that they only stem from an orientation problem. I hope that, faced with a such a disastrous and irresponsible law, future victims sue the State for its negligence, especially when countries with extensive experience are modifying their laws (England, Sweden, Norway….).
