Sweden's U-Turn on Trans Kids: The Trans Train (Part 1): The New Patient Group & Regretters

foreign [Music] the Health Care System hasn't got a clue there's no science backing it they're experimenting on young people with their lives ahead of them it makes me angry I think it's incredibly irresponsible [Music] these are harsh words and the voice of a person who wishes the doctors hadn't been so eager to help that she had never been treated by the Swedish Health Care system so she'll live with the consequences for the rest of her life this is about girls who are young and who were given help perhaps because the Health Care System thought it was doing the right thing not feeling at home in one's own body is a great torment many who feel this way also feel discriminated against tonight's report discusses a sensitive issue that's not been openly discussed in Sweden before now foreign [Music] foreign [Music] I have been having gender dysphoria ever since I was a kid and I had been thinking about my gender identity for years and when I heard about transgenders I was like instantly I was like so this is what it is foreign that is what what I am I felt that there is something different in my brain it has always been present in my life so um when I learned about transgenderism I felt that I just cannot go on anymore so I have to change myself [Music] it went on for a very long time like it took months I don't I don't know how many meetings I started the hormones in if I remember correctly I started [Music] 2012 on May and my first surgery was December 2012. and it was the depressed thing [Music] it felt good I felt that this is the solution [Music] now we are doing the thing that will fix me like a when I do this I will not feel bad anymore because this is the thing that I need to do and when I started to see the changes I felt that like yesterday now it's now it's happening right now we are getting better foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] to be who you want to be is a natural desire and a human right something we cherish we cherish it so much that society's good intentions can cause harm EDI lives in johnsu in eastern Finland she has decided to speak out openly for the first time about what happened she's not alone in her story particularly in Sweden but few dare to talk about it because uh I cannot hide anymore because you know everybody can see what I am you know I sound weird I look weird and whenever I go to like to a bathroom or stuff like that if people hear my voice they think that I'm a male like a I'm I'm a guy in a dress who is coming to women's bathroom or a women's locker room and uh um there have been people who like I have been to a grocery store or a place like that and then there's somebody next to me who is like are you a man or a woman you know when they just hear my voice and they are like oh my God what are you this is gender dysphoria the terrible feeling of not belonging in one's own body I think it's trendy to want to accept everyone with all the variants and variations they have Sweden has taken a stand for transgender rights since the 1970s medical treatment has been available and these days you don't have to be sterilized when you transition Sweden's biggest gender identity Center is at carolinska University Hospital adults are treated at the Anova Clinic and children and teens are treated by the kid team founded in 2000. ER Anders radelius is senior professor of pediatric psychiatry since the start we've had about 650 cases it's been interesting to see at first there were maybe five to ten a year but in the past few years there's been a huge flood of referrals nearly 200 a year so these past few years is when the majority of those 600 were referred since 1999 I've been evaluating and assessing and treating and coordinating gender affirmation treatment of people with gender dysphoria we see at clinics around Sweden the clinics that receive patients under age 18. we see that there are many more people who were assigned female at Birth that's the group that has increased a lot in the past five or six years why do you think that is no idea Cecilia dejna was named trans hero of the year in 2016. she spearheads the development of treatment for patients who feel they were born in the wrong body gender affirmation treatment means getting help to make your body match your gender identity treatment with the predominantly male sex hormone testosterone makes the individual's voice deepen eventually to a masculine register or so the person is perceived as a man when they speak it leads to more hair on the body and eventually on the face it can increase muscle mass when you work out slightly enlarges the clitoris and leads to a masculine distribution of fat [Music] we know that those who come to us with gender dysphoria are suffering they're depressed they have anxiety they're worried if my suffering from gender dysphoria is so pronounced that it inhibits my daily life and if everyone is in agreement which in this case means the young person their family and medical professionals all agree if we all have the same opinion then we should give gender affirming treatment now we go to the university to return some stuff that I borrowed for our student union meeting and after that go to study in science park because that is where the computer science faculty is so yeah [Music] it's that that's why I had a lot of problems with my emotions I had like a lot lots of emotional problems I call them emotional locks like I had lots and lots of lots of blocks it made my discon connection to my body even worse when you first started the treatment could can you explain how it felt for you good that is a bit scary I think you know um um I had a pretty bad dysphoria and um that the treatment did take that away gender dysphoria is a psychiatric diagnosis its treatment is internationally accepted but something's changed in recent years a new growing Patient Group is seeking out gender clinics in Sweden young girls who want to be boys doctors and transgender people attest to how the treatment eases suffering but what if that doesn't apply to everyone what if some people actually need a different kind of help there are parents who are worried about that very thing several don't want to speak openly because their kids are minors for us it came out of the blue we had never ever felt that our child was anything other than a girl not in any way for us it came as a huge surprise our daughter has had mental health problems for many years she had difficulty in school and with friends and maybe in the family she had a lot of difficulties in life now it seemed she's suddenly found an explanation for why everything was so hard for her and that was a different gender identity so she came and told me she was trans and that she'd chosen a boy's name there was so much aggression connected to this feeling I just had difficulty believing that was really it and there had never been any indication of this before she wanted me to help her deal with the doctors at first I wasn't to say anything to her father and the family she was 17 and a half and they referred her directly to an adult facility they all say it came up Suddenly and unexpectedly in their teen's lives and the phenomenon has an international name rapid onset gender dysphoria rogd in the past few swedes were ever diagnosed with gender dysphoria then suddenly something happened the number increases year by year in 2017 more than 3 500 people were treated for gender dysphoria according to the National Board of Health and Welfare and a striking number are young people more girls than boys come to gender identity services we see the same development in other countries as well 2012 a person who feels they have gender dysphoria can fill in a form online they can wait for months to get into a gender identity Clinic the evaluation often takes about six months once they have a diagnosis treatment begins often with hormones now she's been taking testosterone for almost this whole year I think in May when she came here her voice was changing so she'd probably been taking testosterone for a few months the doctor we met asked one question are you sure and our daughter 15 at the time said yes so the doctor said then we'll send a referral to the gender identity Clinic congratulations you're so brave no follow-up no further questions about how did you arrive at this and what does it mean to you how do you feel about this it was just congratulations the answer we got was we don't say no to anyone we affirm everyone who comes to us and it's very important to affirm this not to argue it's a question of identity not a diagnosis a question of identity here at Anova we have a standardized evaluation format for most people that makes it more efficient so we can work faster so to speak foreign so people don't have to wait how often do you say no it's been many years since we didn't agree with the patient so when when someone comes to talk to us we don't say no we conduct a joint evaluation the patient has to live in their body not us whatever it looks like in Norway oslo's University Hospital's Ward for transgender children has seen the same increase in teenage girls they are concerned about what that means because they've also seen something else that characterizes this group so in the past five years since 2012 there's been a huge increase and again what we see is that most of them are teenage girls but then we see this group is those who are born biologically female and these are born biologically male and you see that in the teenage group of those born biologically female over half of them nearly 60 percent have a complex mental illness they're carrying significant trauma with PTSD post-traumatic stress they're on the autism spectrum they have severe clinical depression psychotic symptoms annavare and her team are currently treating 350 young people from all over Norway it is the Norwegian equivalent of karolinska's kid team she stuck her neck out and created a storm when she wrote an opinion piece addressed to the minister of Health wondering who will be responsible for the nation's bearded girls once they get here they're already on the trans train so to speak once you start on testosterone you become a patient for life you have to come to the hospital take blood tests it's very serious treatment and it's the same thing with a deeper voice it's there and it always will be that's why it's important to talk to them and ask them what happens if you decide two years down the line that this isn't right and now you feel that you are a girl or a woman what will it be like for you to live with a deep voice and facial hair so we try but these teens aren't in a position to think clearly about this her article was questioned and she was accused of transphobia but she also got support from an unexpected source when I want really good coffee I make this kind I want people to understand we don't want to make it more difficult but we want to ensure quality in the treatment it's not that we don't recognize anyone our work is about always recognizing the individual but that means recognizing the whole person and the whole person isn't necessarily One path it's many paths I thought we'd show you our reality was born a girl he works to support transgender rights with his colleague Tony Maria Hansen when they transitioned more than 20 years ago things were different they had years of evaluations and waiting for treatment they worry today that young people can get treatment after just a few months back when we started this Association things were so simple we thought if someone says it then it's so and in many ways it was but what we're seeing as time goes on is that the complexity in the situation is increasing dramatically these are changes you'll have for the rest of your life and that's also a serious thing and I think it's important to take your time that's the reason that I'm so concerned now because so many people are pushing to have people get treatments like testosterone very quickly to remove the breasts very quickly and I think that's incredibly scary considering how potent these Medical Treatments are and how much it will affect if they're wrong if they're wrong that's an awful lot to undo there might be people in this group we haven't seen before and who we aren't sure will benefit from this treatment we don't know how they'll be affected in the long run there's no research but we do it and we hope and pray that it will benefit them and that they will be happy they hope and pray that it will benefit them she says usually Health Care is based on science and proven experience in her opinion piece she describes it as an experimental treatment the experimental aspect of this is this curve here which you also have in Sweden is that there are people here that we aren't sure will benefit from the treatment in the long run it's not experimental in the true sense of the word it follows a tested evaluation model naturally the evaluation model may need to be modified in some way but the majority of the patients who are assessed and treated are happy with the results in Sweden more than half of these teens also have other psychiatric diagnoses such as self-harming autism and anorexia and several describe other traumas such as sexual abuse are the same evaluation model and treatment from the past really right for this new group I asked again what is it that's going to get better and how is this going to help your mental state and she can't she can't say we've seen that she's just been getting worse since she started this journey this transition so we're really worried that she'll just keep getting worse if they keep pursuing this development we're really worried about that foreign [Applause] I felt good I think that I looked better I liked my new figure when I look at the old photos of myself before I started the treatment I look a lot different from the face you know when I had forgotten what I looked like and then I looked at the photos and I was like oh my God and I actually have to have some photos I can show you yes yes I would love to see the photos yeah now yeah can you see [Music] so here yeah okay why did I ever feel the way I felt like it I don't understand yeah there is a reason why samadhi wants to show us these pictures because her gender reassignment wasn't what she hoped it would be when a young person starts their Journey towards transitioning they are given puberty blockers hormones that stop puberty these powerful drugs are being prescribed to 15 to 19 year olds doctors say the body returns to normal development after the treatment but no one knows what happens in the long term one research team is seeing a patient's IQ dropping other research finds risks of osteoporosis and that puberty blockers can affect the brain and heart the medical products agency approves and tests medicines but it is doctors who decide who gets these drugs the same drugs and same doses used in chemical castration of adults physiologically some of these things are to be expected we know that castration has an effect on the heart and we know there's a risk to the bones with castration and there's also a mental effect that's something we see with castration of both men and women with the treatments that exist and these are the same drugs yes the same mode of action so we'd expect to see this in girls I would expect that to happen but these are healthy teenage bodies that are still growing that are perfectly healthy physically and they're being prescribed these strong drugs what kind of benefit do they get to make it worth it once again I said I think it's about being able to show that the individual is happier despite the risk the question of treatment is in the spotlight in the UK after an internal report from the gender identity development service leaked staff are worried that diagnoses are made lightly and that treatment is fast-tracked we try to talk with someone in charge how many kids come here like every how many new referrals would you have like so two thousand 17 to 18 the last years we do it that kind of April to April like Financial year there were 2 519 young people referred to um this episode voters numbers on the website again through email I can send you like the last five years details you can film from the other side of the road if you get the building but yeah if you've just been mindful because obviously yeah we didn't get in but a few days later a member of the Clinic's board stepped down so he could speak publicly oh gender service in Rao of a damning report as well front prize of the Observer yeah well no I mean we've we've just had a lot of I've had a lot of positive reports you know and people saying thank goodness you're speaking out and and this chat seems to be talking a lot of sense anyway my worries we're letting kids down we're rushing things through under pressure in order to make the everybody feel right we've solved the problem when in effect we haven't solved the problem we've just fitted in with a quick fix it's not that I'm saying people should not never transition that's not the point it's just slow things down and think things through with them over time and in depth was saying there's no long-term research studies we don't really know the about the effects the long-term effects of the um of the hormone blockers what's going on we just don't know but we're acting as if we do Tavistock writes to us that they follow National guidelines and that the Children's Health is their top priority in Sweden all they saw there has treated many children with gender dysphoria you have to weigh that against the suffering the patients would go through without that treatment obviously I know what happens in terms of hormonal effects but we haven't been able to follow up the long-term effects because this is such a new group is it reasonable to treat such large numbers of them as you're doing today well these people again are suffering they're asking for help but Marcus Evans an experienced psychoanalyst thinks it's wrong to just affirm teens seeking help for gender dysphoria I wouldn't get myself into an argument I'd say okay that's what you that's that's that's what you believe and I understand that's very important that I understand how you want to be seen but my job is is to try and understand who you are you see and what drives this sort of perception you know so I don't want to get into an argument I I I'm trying to empathize with the individual and the way they want to be seen but I've got my own mind and my own mind is thinking about them as a person in Sweden the rule is that puberty blockers are given for up to three years the next step is testosterone hormone treatment is lifelong as are the physical changes they cause there is also a risk of side effects cardiovascular disease and cancer testosterone was designed for men but in several Swedish countries it is prescribed for more girls than boys aged 15 to 19. we've never seen such numbers before what are your thoughts on that if you make a major policy change you have to have some kind of evidence that it's based on and in this case the Health Care system has made that judgment so the Health Care system has to answer you about the basis of that decision and the change in treatment methods and because I had that initial feeling that this isn't quite right I started reading up about it [Music] and that strengthened my initial feeling so then I thought I have these doubts but maybe this is right for her because that's what I keep being told that this is right and all I can do as a parent is to support her but more and more I was feeling confirmed in my conviction that this isn't right foreign we don't feel that the Health Care system is providing anything but an offer of hormone treatment and planning for surgery to surgically alter our child [Music] and give and help our child to change her sex yeah which validates that there's something wrong with her it confirms her feeling that her body ought to be different and that she's strong and brave to pursue this I'm sure the system wants to do the right thing I just don't understand that they don't seem to consider that this is a new patient group and they need to proceed with caution we ask how many people regret the decision and they say none of them my greatest worry is that this is that she's being influenced by others that it's not her own decision and that she'll eventually realize that Karen a toxicologist who works with Pharmaceuticals is worried her child will regret this choice at a gender identity Clinic she asks about the risks recording the meeting if you look at regret the numbers are astonishing not even appendectomies have such a low figure as 0.2 percent that's really low people regret an appendectomy yes it happens some people have lifelong complications from surgery Karen's child tells us that gender affirmation treatment is the right choice how many people regret transitioning a Swedish study shows that from the 1970s until 2010 only 15 people 2.2 percent regretted it but how many of this new group will regret it is an unknown we must be affirming and of course you can have hormones and surgery and it will only take six months because we can see you're unhappy it gives me chills when I realize how fast this can all go and how carelessly they're treating this group of patients who are quite fragile I want to tell my child and the Health Care system one thing this must not be hurried we must have the option of waiting it should be the main alternative waiting until you've reached maturity wait wait a couple of years live as a man as the person you want to be Express whatever gender you want but don't do something you can't change don't do anything irreversible to your body what the Health Care System told me was that basically no one regrets it meaning someone like me born biologically female who goes through the whole transition and then goes back I had never ever heard of such a thing regretting or de-transition is a sensitive subject in the trans world [Music] we've been in touch with Micah for more than six months she has been plagued with doubt about telling her story I'm afraid to show my face because de-transitioning is such a terribly sensitive topic and because this is a reality that we don't want to exist we don't want it to be real I'm I don't want to show my face because I'm afraid of the consequences of how people will react when I tell my version which has never been told in Sweden in this way before because many in the trans and queer community would see it as a threat that it even exists that there are people with different stories we want so much for things to be simple and that the treatment is easy and that everyone is happy afterwards and we're very good at giving that impression to gain more acceptance and understanding and so on and I do see the point of that but we have to show all the stories not to hurt anyone absolutely not but to give the best possible treatment and to give people the correct diagnosis Micah Got Her diagnosis in 2017. she was certain it was the right choice for her that she was a boy born in the wrong body I really thought that the biggest obstacle in my life was that my body didn't reflect who I was so if I could resolve that many other things would become easier when I got my first dose of testosterone it was it's hard to describe because all I remember was being incredibly happy it's finally happening I'm starting a new chapter of my life here and now so here so this is me before I started any hormones oh that you look different from from the face I always thought that I'm very ugly but now that I look look at myself I'm just I never was ugly like why on Earth why did I feel that I'm ugly in the first place how did it start it makes no sense yeah do you want to see more [Music] [Music] I had a pretty bad dysphoria and the treatment did take that away but it didn't solve the problems in the long run I think the first two years were very good I really like the strawberries both sametti and Micah were born as girls they say they suffered from severe gender dysphoria and went through major gender reassignment treatments and still they didn't feel better simady was treated with medicines and surgery for several years before she began having doubts exist suddenly I found a video of a detransitioned woman a girl who had started who had been diagnosed and started treatment at age 16 and then when she was 22 realized that this isn't working and she made a video about it on YouTube I'd been doubting what I was doing for maybe six months at the time for those of you who aren't familiar with me or my blog I'm Carrie I'm a 22 year old transition woman in fact I'm one of the women Serrano talks about a pediatric transitioner I transitioned socially at 15 I started hormones at 17 and I did transitioned just after my 22nd birthday so I only realized afterwards that there are like a lot of people who have detransitioned there are a lot of them mostly women it's just that no one talks about it today we've come for my lawyers to argue that we should be allowed the judicial review of my case that is of Boss by University's decision to prevent my research into people who do Transition gender the university said oh no you can't do the research because the university might be criticized and that would be unacceptable and they said it is better not to offend people British psychotherapist James Caspian has worked with transgender people at his clinic for many years but his proposal to do his master's degree on regretters was turned down he's now taking the matter to court he says it's taboo to even talk about the existence of regreters I think that it's not just considered to be a politically incorrect research topic it's considered to be a politically incorrect topic to discuss but it isn't that simple because we have to listen to what people are saying until I got into this I didn't really have an opinion about people who regret it we thought they were very small in number no one ever really talked about them but I started to hear that there were more and more of them and what they were saying to me was that many of them felt damaged and traumatized they felt that when they said that they were reversing their transitions they became very unpopular some of them were vilified there have been cases of people being very abused on the internet who've reversed transition and so then they don't want to speak out so I think they wanted to speak through my research everybody there's this huge taboo and it's such a I think it's viewed as like a really scary threat against the classic trans narrative you really want to communicate the seriousness of being detransitioned living as a de-transitioned person is no it's not something you want to do it's not a nice thing Micah has connected with 10 other Swedish regreters in the past year the risk of young people getting an incorrect diagnosis and an irrevocable treatment has barely been discussed in Sweden but a few years ago the lundstrom clinic noticed that patients were coming back now they offer trauma care for detransitioners the group of patients who regret their decision they don't make a lot of noise they are suffering and they're not proud of this they're in crisis it's a crisis of great magnitude so they're not making a lot of noise and they blame themselves for ending up where they are not the Health Care system [Music] I have been stupid I have been extremely stupid in so many ways and I have been so delusional about so many things that it's it's embarrassing it's shameful I think it's a very terrible thing in in many ways to realize that you have been wrong you have been very delusional and that you have done something irreversible to yourself [Music] very boring house to be filming at you know this is a student apartment so that I don't have much stuff here and also all the furniture they are included in this place like they I don't own them and I I really hate all the furniture they are so ugly I would like to throw them out but I can't because they are they they belong to this place [Music] the lunchroom clinic saw patients returning and that affected the staff who make the diagnosis and treatment decisions there's an awful lot we don't know that's what creates this what we call an ethical stress that we don't have satisfactory evidence for what we're doing welcome please wait for staff we'll be here soon the staff experience ethical stress yet the treatments continue hormones and surgical procedures on girls the breasts are removed and the number of operations is increasing we ask for the ages of the surgical patients the hospitals say the youngest are 16 but only with parental consent all hospitals release data on the number of operations per age group except for carolinska Perhaps it is sensitive for nowhere else in Sweden are individuals as young as 14 given gender affirming surgery if I'm tormented by my breasts to such a degree that I can't show myself in public and I can't hang out with other young people yeah if I can't go to school if I can't feel happy in my body then it's reasonable if all the parents us medical professionals and the young person themselves all see it that way to help her not have to deal with that bust can a 14 year old really understand the consequences of such a decision if it is a very young person then we make a particularly careful assessment but you're quite right that there is a dual ethical problem the unethicalness of not helping to ease their suffering and also there's the unethicalness in that the patient may change their mind 15 years down the line and whose responsibility is it if that happens well since these decisions are based on consensus between the child the parents and the professionals then it is a shared responsibility shared responsibility they're placing part of the responsibility on a child with psychiatric problems Looking Back Now I think it's actually completely sick how this process plays out because it's there's so little support for all this at the heart of it the healthcare system is the one responsible they're supposed to provide a correct diagnosis they're supposed to be able to say you're getting this treatment because we know it will make you feel better the national guidelines for the care of young people with gender dysphoria written in part by karolinska's own doctors recommends Top surgery with gender reassignment even though the scientific evidence is insufficient the lack of scientific basis knowledge is even confirmed in official Health Care documentation one research application to the Ethics Committee plainly states that surgery and gender affirming therapy are carried out today without quality assurance or follow-up it it makes me angry I think it's incredibly irresponsible when I started this process I was my generation of mainly young girls many young girls who are just a bit different who stand out from the typical female role we're one giant experiment we're guinea pigs something that there's no science to back up where in the medical field do you do that where do you gamble with people's lives like this [Music] you can't change someone's brain changing the body to match the perception in the brain is not an optimal treatment it's based on pressure from the patient because they think this is the most important thing in their lives so the question is shouldn't we help those patients [Music] regret was not supposed to happen and where am I now my problems still exist I still haven't found a solution to them nothing can be done about my body anymore because the surgeries and everything they are irreversible my voice is always going to sound like this I will not get my breasts back I will not get my you know the stuff back nothing can be done sametti is going to the doctor for help changing her legal identity back to female it's the same Clinic that gave her the diagnosis back in the day transgender treatment is more than just health care it's politics the Swedish government is currently preparing a bill to make it faster and easier to change one's legal gender to lower the minimum age to 12. and to allow bottom surgery on 15 year olds without parental consent we would have expected that adults doctors psychologists therapists could tell a 15 year old that we think your problem is something else that they'd realize that's the case that they'd be able to say we don't think you'll feel better from hormones or surgery we think you need this instead now it seems there is no adult who wants to tell our child that this is a problem but I don't share the opinion that we rush things or that we disregard the ethical consequences if the suffering is so extreme that treatments must be given from an ethical standpoint then we do it of course transgender treatment is important and surely right for many but for the others who is responsible most don't dare talk about it or go back to their clinics sametti dared [Music] do I stop here I think that they have been very very professional with me so yeah I'm happy actually yeah I'm feeling good now and also they admitted that they have made a mistake so I think that that is that is a very big thing that that is a start [Music]

Channel: Thoughts on Things and Stuff

Views: 535,683

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Id: MVEZ7gELcgY

Length: 57min 59sec (3479 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 16 2023