>
And I agree with the article—the consequences won’t be evident in two years, when individuals may still be caught in the euphoria of having seemingly triumphed over their biological development. The real reckoning will come in twenty years, after prolonged use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical interventions. That’s when we’ll see the full impact of this live experiment.
The greatest mental health scandal of our generation is about to be reopened. Instead of addressing psychological distress at its root, we are interfering with normal developmental processes. Having led the world in putting the lid back on Pandora’s box, we are about to open it again. A tragic display of hubris.
Like the lobotomies of the 1950s, future generations will look back in disbelief, asking: What were they thinking? But it won’t be the researchers and their cheerleaders who are left to pick up the pieces of fractured families and individuals who have lost the developmental opportunities that come with the challenges of puberty. That burden will fall on the next generation of psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and psychologists.
And before anyone starts searching for that mythical figure, the true trans child, let’s be clear: there is only one thing with less prognostic reliability than an adult mental health diagnosis—a mental health diagnosis in children. Psychiatry isn’t like medicine. There is no schizococcus—no biological test to confirm a condition. There are only clusters of symptoms and illness behaviour.
After 46 years in psychiatry, I’ve seen every form of delusional thinking & manic denial employed by the profession. That’s why my first book was called Making Room for Madness in Mental Health. Rather than helping people understand & manage the difficulties that come with development, we promise to remove the pain associated with being human-playing god by denying the facts of life.
Leave a Reply