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It is wise to seek council from many voices especially on the topic of children experiencing gender dysphoria. The professionals here seem quite biased toward a medical solution to for this family’s child. They seem unaware of what is going on in the UK and the unwarranted medication of children:
“In December 2020, the High Court ruled that under-16s were unlikely to be able to give informed consent to what it described as “experimental” treatment, which is sometimes used to pause puberty in children experiencing gender dysphoria.
Keira Bell, one of the claimants in the case, started taking puberty blockers at the age of 16 after being referred to the Tavistock and Portman Trust, which runs the UK’s only Gender Identity Development Service (Gids).”
The following account documents the experience of a family who attended a one-hour appointment at SickKids Gender Clinic in Toronto where they were told their daughter was a good candidate for the puberty blocker Lupron and would be able to start receiving the injections at the next appointment.
Yet here in Canada we seem to be all gung ho for medical intervention, as opposed to the more conventional and safer watchful waiting approach.
Sick Kids Gender Clinic Review
Several years ago, our 14 year old daughter advised us that she was transgender and wanted to be a boy. Over the next several months – although often requested – she did little to elaborate on her feelings or any other information on how or why she felt this way. Our family doctor counselled her a few times and she saw one psychologist once and a psychotherapist approximately three times before we sought out a referral to the gender clinic at Sick Kids hospital in Toronto.
Approximately one year after our daughter had suddenly begun to identify as a boy, we attended Sick Kids Hospital. We filled out a survey as did our daughter asking questions about our daughter’s childhood. We had an interview session with a physician and a male student observer as a family for about 30 minutes. The context that we gave to the counsellors during our portion of the session was that we felt that at least one of our daughter’s peers had greatly influenced this transgender epiphany. Further, she had recently been seeing a psychotherapist that was coaching her on what to say to Sick Kids to get hormone treatment right away. Our daughter had disclosed this to us after the third visit with this therapist. Lastly, her gender dysphoria had come about suddenly with the onset of puberty at age 14 with no previous indication of gender identity issues. Our daughter denied all of this during this interview.
We were asked to leave and our daughter then spoke with them without us for another 15 minutes. After that, we were invited back into the room and advised that they could not disclose what was discussed citing confidentiality but that our daughter did in fact have gender dysphoria. Further, they considered her to be a good candidate for Lupron but they could not give her a prescription until we had blood work done and the mandatory 3 month waiting period was complete. They handed us a lab requisition form for the blood work further stating that on our next visit they could administer the hormone blockers if the blood work was done.
We asked to speak to the counsellors in the absence of our child so we could express more detail about our concerns without upsetting, alienating or damaging our relationship with our daughter. They refused, stating that the confidentiality was with her, not with us and whatever we said to them without our daughter present they would just tell her anyway so we might as well say it in front of her. We questioned the safety and hastiness of the drug administration. We were advised “the sooner the better” and that Lupron simply puts puberty on hold and is fully reversible, which we knew is not entirely true. They commended us on our knowledge of the hormone blocker Lupron but totally ignored our concerns and minimized the risks.
We left the hospital shocked at the outcome. Not feeling that a one-hour long interview with a child and ignoring all parental input and concerns was sufficient to start on a course of hormones. We never returned to Sick Kids hospital.
Our daughter is now 17 and continues to identify as transgender, but has not expressed any desire to take any sort of medical intervention since our visit to Sick Kids. She continues to function well emotionally, socially and academically. She has close friends with which she socializes outside of school, works part-time and is on the honour role.
The recent surge of gender activism has not given Canadian society enough time to properly examine many issues surrounding the transing of children, or even the efficacy of taking cross sex hormones and the medical commitments and downfalls that come part in parcel with trying to change your sex.
Political practice in the US often seems to centre around everything but the facts of any given issue. The pandemic being one of the most obvious examples.
So, we ignore the real-world material evidence of what Denmark is doing with their Corona Pass and continue to prevaricate in our approved left/right ideological ways.
Can we just be pragmatic for once with a touch of utilitarian goodness on the side? Wouldn’t that be nice?
David Rovics writing for Counterpunch describes the pandemic angle of the left/right folly that is occurring in the US and to a certain extent, Canada.
“So when it comes to public health measures necessary to get a pandemic under control, much of the public is skeptical. They may be described as skeptical about vaccines, but I’d say it’s a skepticism, if that’s the right word, that far transcends any particular thing like that. It’s more a generalized skepticism of anything the government — any government, or particular ones, depending — might propose.
The far right is horrified by the idea of what in Denmark is known as a Corona Pass — a form of ID that verifies you have been vaccinated and have tested negative, in order to be allowed to do things like fly in a plane with other people, sit down in a cafe, attend a festival, etc. Through widespread vaccination and the use of the Corona Pass system, Denmark has thus far avoided the fourth wave of the pandemic that is killing so many people, especially in countries like the US, India, and Brazil.
But we can’t do that kind of thing, we hear from voices on the right, because maybe the virus doesn’t exist, or maybe the vaccine causes more sickness than the virus does, or even if the virus does exist and vaccines are good generally, these vaccines haven’t been tested enough, and if they have, people shouldn’t be required to take them, because that’s an infringement on their God-given individual rights. Their freedom to live free means they might have to die free, which is better than obeying a government mandate. And then add to the mix the fact that the only government mandates in the US that exist with regards to this pandemic so far are completely piecemeal, local, and therefore ineffective.
And then from the corners of the left we hear that having information like our vaccination status publicly available to the relevant authorities is the next step towards total control of everything by Big Brother, and as soon as we all have submitted to the magnetic strips on our ID cards, the next step are those FEMA concentration camps that the Spectrum always agree are waiting for all of the dissidents. Which dissidents will end up in those camps would be the main point of contention on the Spectrum.”
I heard this story on the radio while driving into work this morning. I had hoped I had misheard the announcer when they said that health care workers had been verbally assaulted and in some cases physically assaulted while doing their jobs.
But sadly, no.
“Crowds of people opposed to COVID-19 vaccinations clogged the streets of Vancouver and demonstrated outside hospitals across B.C. on Wednesday afternoon, earning the indignation of some political leaders.
According to police estimates, thousands of demonstrators gathered outside hospitals in Vancouver, Kelowna, Kamloops, Victoria, Prince George, Nanaimo and in other Canadian cities.
The protests were organized by Canadian Frontline Nurses, a group founded by two Ontario nurses who have promoted conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and attended rallies in the U.S. for those who think the pandemic is a “fraud.” In posters for the event, dubbed “worldwide walkout,” the group urged supporters to “stand up for freedom” and “reject the tyranny of mandatory vaccines.”
Unbelievable.
“Protesters carried signs with slogans criticizing vaccine passports as a form of discrimination and chanted “freedom” and “crimes against humanity.”
By the early evening, one health authority was reporting a physical assault against a health-care worker. Island Health’s president and CEO Kathy MacNeil said some of the protests on Vancouver Island had disrupted people’s safe access to health care.”
You can’t go to school without the mandated vaccinations. This is just like that, public health mandates are good for society. These people are protesting for the freedom to spread Covid-19 to others, because of their monumental ignorance and gullibility.
“What happened to our health-care teams today is not acceptable to me nor to the people and communities they serve. Our health-care teams deserve respect and support, no matter what personal beliefs we hold.”
Health Minister Adrian Dix described the protests as “despicable.”
“The nature of the protest to disrupt people when they go to hospital, people who are going there for surgery or for other circumstances, or to visit loved ones or to be with loved ones when they pass away, to have a protest there is really not acceptable behaviour,” he said.”
It is not the people at the hospitals that are ‘ruining your freedom’ and ‘imposing tyranny’ on you. Look at your political class. They are making the call here and if you have issues with them, go protest at the legislature or city hall. But stay the heck away from hospitals and health care workers who are doing their best (and have been doing their best for a very long time) to keep people alive during this pandemic.
The stupid people are now the deadly dynamos of this pandemic.
“We have a window of opportunity to rapidly accelerate vaccine uptake and close the protection gap in younger age groups.”
The number of cases in Canada each day grew from about 700 in early August, to almost 3,500 now. The vast majority of cases are among unvaccinated individuals, with Tam saying unvaccinated people are 12 times more likely to be infected and 36 times more likely to be hospitalized if they get infected.
New modelling released Friday showed if the current rate of transmission of COVID-19 remains the same, Canada could see more than 15,000 new cases a day by the beginning of October.
So, the ignorant are weeding themselves out of society, but at too great a cost for the rest of us. It’s sad a I have to compile stories like this, I thought Canadians as a whole had a better grip on reality.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
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