Dr. Anna Collins Weighs In On Young People Making Gender Transitions.

By now, most of you are familiar with our resident retired physician, Dr. Anna Collins (not her real name), who is trans. If you’ve missed her earlier work on this site, please check out her previous posts  here, and then here, and then here.  Also make sure to check out her latest and most personal post right here.

Dr. Anna read my recent post about “Watson” – a biological female who transitioned to live as a man in her early 20s, and was readily encouraged to do so despite the fact that she had a history of mental problems.  Watson is now in the process of detransitioning, and is not alone.  Dr. Anna wrote the following:

Hello again.  I had not thought to write another piece so soon since my last one but today I read the article on COTR about a trans-man called “Watson”.  This person raised several thoughts in my old brain and I have to say, raised my blood pressure as well

In medical school (at least back in my day) it was drummed into us…”First do no harm”.  I am totally amazed at physicians who encourage young people to transition and to provide them with hormones and even referrals for surgery.  In Watson’s case she experiences a double mastectomy and male hormones (primarily testosterone). In the country of Canada, it is apparently a crime to “misgender” and individual when speaking to them and a minor child can be forcibly removed from their biologic parents if the parents do not go along with their minor child’s wishes to become a person of the opposite sex/gender (yes they are the same thing).  It is my understanding that the city of New York also has such a law about misgendering a person. If I am in error, someone please correct my understanding.

Lovely COTR readers, please understand that there are immutable facts in this world.

No matter how much you believe the world is flat (and some do..the Flat Earth Society), it is a sphere. No matter how much you believe that a man can be trapped in the body of a woman or a woman trapped in the body of a man, it simply is not possible. There is not a single cell in a natal male that possesses a genotype of XX not in any of the some three trillion cells.  The same holds true for natal females, not a single cell in their 3 trillion or so cells possess a genotype XY. Wishing, hoping, thinking ain’t gonna make it so and most importantly, neither are drugs or surgery.

I have close natal male friends who I love dearly who want more than anything to be female. I’ve had some of them tell me that they indeed understand that they have no female cells in their body but that they…”have a woman’s mind”…or…”think like a woman”.  Really! I asked them how they know they think like a woman given that they are not women and thus have absolutely no idea how a woman thinks…and even that is so reductionists that it presupposes that all women think alike or are of the same mindset. Come on…does this sound as ridiculous when you say it as it does when I hear it? I point out that they simply wish to live their lives as a woman and that’s perfectly fine so long as they are not operating under the delusion that they indeed are a woman.  It is a delusion if one actually believes that they are the opposite of their natal gender.

In the trans world, there is a high incidence of mental issues including a 40+ percent incidence of suicide attempts while in the general population it is something less than 3 percent.  Something is wrong and I submit it is not one’s body but rather their thought processes.

As I have noted, in today’s parlance I am considered “trans” but I’m not trans anything, I simply enjoy living some part of my life as a woman knowing that I can never, ever be a “real woman”.  As also previously noted in past post, I have absolutely no idea why I am this way….but I do know it isn’t my body that is out of sync…it is my thought processes that are, for lack of a better term, not normal.  However, I am cognizant that this is a thought process and nothing more. There is no part of my body or genetic makeup that is female. So maybe now is a good time to speak to some aberrant thought processes. In the ICD-11 (International Classification of Diseases) under code number 6C21 there is described a condition wherein a person does not believe that one or more of their limbs (arms or legs) belong to their body.  It is called “Body Integrity Identity Disorder”. If you look up “Body Integrity Dysphoria” in that great medical compendia Wikipedia (I’m being facetious), you will find that it is compared to gender dysphoria …..wow….go figure. While no surgeon that I know of would ever consider amputating someone’s leg or arm because the patient thought it was not theirs….and yet….we have surgeons who will readily amputate a young woman’s breast or a young man’s penis for essentially the same delusional thought process.  As a physician, I consider this malpractice especially on a teen or young person under 30 years of age. Additionally, consider these facts…while the suicide attempt in trans folk is 40+ percent after “gender confirming surgery” (what a joke of a term), the suicide attempt rate is (hold your breath)…40+ percent. In other words, transitioning changed…nothing. Because IMHO the thing that needs changing is not one’s body but one’s thought processes and that does not belong to a surgeon but rather a well qualified behavioral clinician.  And why did I pick 30 years of age? No real reason except it seems that at 30 years of age one has passed puberty, high school, college (probably), and is generally established in their profession. If they want to alter their body and can find a surgeon to do the deed, go for it. And for some people that will actually make them happier and I’m all for that. In fact I have opined if one wishes to have a horn transplanted to their head and live life as a unicorn, I could care less……until…..those unicorns start telling me that I have to recognize them as a special class of unicorns, that I have to have my hard earned (and ultimately stolen) tax money used to help them pay for their transplanted unicorn horns, and that when they get ill, I have to have a veterinarian attend them (actually they would not want that at all)….then I draw the line at participating in their delusion.  But evidently not to the people in Canada, NYC, and other “woke” places in the world. They readily vote for politicians who take their tax money and fund these insane, ill advised procedures. I do think that to be polite, a person addressing a trans person should endeavor to use the pronouns that correspond to their presenting gender. But that’s as far as it goes.

People such as Watson (as she as so plainly stated) do not need to have their body mutilated and assaulted with drugs, they need to spend some time with a good therapists who understands such things and gently guides them through it.  Unfortunately as I noted in an earlier article, the psychological clinicians are seemingly all woke and will do little other than encourage pressing forward with drugs and irreversible surgeries. I have to wonder at this point if the entire planet is nuts.

Consider, a recent article indicated that a trans-man was uncomfortable (ie, butt-hurt as so many of these folks are) that “he” had to acquire his feminine hygiene products in the women’s section of the drug store I suppose in with the cosmetics and such.  My fingers almost would not type that sentence because it is so psychotic I couldn’t get my fingers to transmit my thoughts. And as previously noted in another article, consider in what world it is sane for a “male” soldier to get pregnant and have to be attended to by the military medical corps for pregnancy! I wonder if the military will be required to provide male soldiers with feminine hygiene products?

I will close by noting that I have received a number of private correspondences from concerned parents and grandparents about their children who have announced to their family that they are trans and wish to transition.  It has been heart rending for some of these parents. My advice, for what it’s worth, is to love and support the person and encourage them to talk it out all that they can with someone they trust. Try as much as possible to delay life altering drugs and surgeries.  Statistics note that some 90 percent will resolve to the person’s natal gender. It is possibly good to gently introduce the concept that many, many trans-folks are detransitioning because it isn’t at all what they thought and were told. Let them read Watson’s story.  It is becoming all too common to hear such stories. It is my hope that clinicians and physicians who participate in in these life altering drug prescribing and surgeries will themselves become “woke” to the reality of life….no one can change genders….ever!

Having said that, I do have friends who have transitioned (changing gender identity is not the same as changing gender) and are happy that they did.  Most will readily tell me that they know it is a mental thing but the transitioning is what it took to address their mental process. They are adults.  I love them as friends and good people and wish them well. I suppose it is not really so different than a person who wants plastic surgery to look and feel better about themselves.  If that’s what it takes, fine. I do draw the line at children and teens and like I previously said, folks under about 30 years of age. Unfortunately I think Watson is the slowly emerging tip of the iceberg…there are many, many more who will emerge in coming years and what then will these governments do…..say, “Oops, sorry”……probably.

Please address personal comments to me at my email since I do not have the ability to respond to comments left on the COTR site.  My email is [email protected].

Hugs,

Anna Collins, MD