<p>Also, thanks, quaere, for that fascinating synopsis. Will read the abstract later.</p>
<p>It certainly helps to explain my young friend I mentioned above. Her family is one of the most loving and functional I’ve ever known.</p>
<p>claremarie, I assume you’re aware that the study you linked to is one of young children who were referred or brought to treatment, not of adults who are actively seeking to transition. It’s difficult to separate referral bias from actual contributing factors in the case of patients who are too young to seek treatment independently, as [this</a> more recent article](<a href=“Qualitätsmanagement | WEKA Shop”>Qualitätsmanagement | WEKA Shop) explains quite well. The article you linked to also does nothing to explore which family issues (divorce, death of a parent, etc.) occurred before children began manifesting gender issues, and which occurred after. That’s obviously key information if you’re trying to establish any claims of cause and effect.</p>
<p>I’d write more, but I’m off to spend more time bonding with my mother in hopes that it will cure my deluded sense of gender. Apparently the 18 years I spent with a positive maternal role model in a loving, heterosexual, undivorced, and otherwise “functional” home had no impact on my male identity, but perhaps it’s not too late to change…</p>
<p>Meanwhile, I am seething with jealousy at DonnaL’s writing ability! Time to get going on that book, missy!</p>
<p>Re post 141: wow, Claremarie, your desperation is showing! </p>
<p>Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel: the article you pin your fading hopes on was written by George Rekers of all people, the religious right mouthpiece whose “expert” testimony in support of the Florida gay adoption ban was resoundingly rejected by the court as “not credible,” in its decision late last year. One of our members, jym626 I believe, specifically posted about her unpleasant experiences working with him 30 years ago.</p>
<p>See this post: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061337152-post12.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061337152-post12.html</a></p>
<p>And this one: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062719632-post910.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062719632-post910.html</a></p>
<p>And this one: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062720067-post912.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062720067-post912.html</a></p>
<p>And the full decision, at <a href=“http://www.aclufl.org/pdfs/GillRedactedFinal.pdf[/url]”>http://www.aclufl.org/pdfs/GillRedactedFinal.pdf</a></p>
<p>I really loved this quotation from Rekers, at fn. 25 of the decision:</p>
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<p>And this one:</p>
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<p>[Note to moderators: quotations taken from published judicial opinions, like these two, cannot constitute copyright violations, since judicial decisions are in the public domain.]</p>
<p>The Court’s conclusion, at p. 23 of its decision:</p>
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<p>Quack, quack.</p>
<p>Donna</p>
<p>PS to Quaere: please don’t ever make the mistake of taking at face value any “study” quoted by Claremarie for any purpose! Even apart from the author’s lack of credibility, some of what CM quotes is ludicrous on its face: any parent of a gender dysphoric child is classified as being “pyschologically maladjust[ed],” according to Rekers, if they have a “history of mental health problems and/or psychiatric treatment” – in other words, if they’ve ever been depressed, or seen a therapist! </p>
<p>Typical nonsense and double-talk. Claremarie fails again (as she frantically performs her next google search looking for another quack she can quote).</p>
<p>It was my hope that if I tried to intelligently debunk the material she quotes, it would persuade some people who might otherwise be swayed by these “studies”. (I don’t think there’s any way to actually change claremarie’s opinion!) It’s definitely valuable to point out that these scientists are quacks, but I wouldn’t want to leave anyone thinking “Okay, but what about the actual data?”</p>
<p>Yes, DonnaL, it was I who had the unpleaseant experience of working with George Rekers. Fortunately I was able to get off his rotation and didn’t have to do any of his so-called “treatment”. What we were expected to do was evaluate, with some supposed diagnostic tools (toys, dolls, other test equipment of some sort, the specifics of which I have conveniently forgotten), effeminate behaviors in young (6-12 yr old or so, IIRC) boys. The “treatment” was then going to be reshaping these behaviours. Again, it was 30 years ago, and my memory is rusty, but I recall being (1) creeped out by him and (2) having to find a way to extricate myself from that rotation before I had to take a stand against this approach. Fortunately, I was able to get outta his clinic before too long, and he was then gone, not long thereafter.</p>
<p>Can someone point me to an unbiased, peer-reviewed, reliable study that demonstrates that children with GID, or adults seeking to change their sex (many of the latter were once the former, no?) come from stable, intact families with no history of child abuse, sexual abuse, psychiatric trauma, or other pathologies? </p>
<p>Because what I’ve seen so far suggests that family structure IS a relevant factor in these cases. And, indeed, in the case of many “ordinary” homosexual and lesbians. The absence of a loving father who is a positive role model is striking. </p>
<p>Or perhaps this is one of those taboo areas, both for serious research or this forum?</p>
<p>You absolutely succeeded, quaere; what I said was by no means a criticism of what you posted.</p>
<p>Oh, no offense taken :)</p>
<p>I think the burden is on you, claremarie: not on me or anyone else to prove a negative.</p>
<p>People have been trying to prove what you say is true, for trans people and gays and lesbians, for at least 100 years. Nobody has ever provided a shred of evidence that LGBT people are more likely to have a “history of child abuse, sexual abuse, psychiatric trauma, or other pathologies,” to lack a “loving father who is a positive role model,” or to come from a family than isn’t “intact,” than anyone who isn’t LGBT. (It seems you’re now claiming that divorce causes homosexuality and transsexualism. A new one on me, but coming from you, it doesn’t surprise me.)</p>
<p>As a wise person once said, if having an absent father who’s always working and doesn’t play a major role in raising his kids causes those kids to be gay, then a substantial percentage of American children who grew up in the 1950’s would be gay (or trans). </p>
<p>Didn’t happen.</p>
<p>And, please: stop portraying yourself as a lonely truthseeker, persecuted by those who want to censor your daring viewpoints. Galileo, you ain’t.</p>
<p>PS: As I said before, my history of sexual abuse occurred in my early adolescence. Long after I knew I wanted to be, and should have been, a girl.</p>
<p>Did the Florida family court judge evaluate Dr. Rekers’ work on GID?</p>
<p>“I think the burden is on you, claremarie: not on me or anyone else to prove a negative.”</p>
<p>So, the answer to my question is “no,” you cannot point me to an unbiased, peer-reviewed study that demonstrates that children with GID or adults seeking sex-change surgery come from normal, stable, intact families.
I was pretty sure that was the case, but since several posters here seem to regard themselves as experts on these matters, I figured that they would be well aware of such studies, if they existed.</p>
<p>I haven’t looked, Claremarie, and don’t have to. It isn’t my burden. I can tell you, however, that I came from a “normal,” stable, intact family. How about you? Please provide neutral, peer-reviewed evidence that people who share your Weltanschauung don’t come from “abnormal” families. I’ll bet you can’t!</p>
<p>claremarie, can you point to unbiased, peer-reviewed, reliable study that demonstrates that trans people don’t come from stable, intact families with no history of child abuse, sexual abuse, psychiatric trauma, or other pathologies - and successfully demonstrates a strong statistical relationship between the two (not just “these people are more likely”) - and shows that the dysfunctional family, abuse, trauma, or “other pathology” took place before the start of cross-gender identification? Because that’s what would be necessary to support your claim. All of the work you’ve mentioned so far has been thoroughly debunked.</p>
<p>"Nobody has ever provided a shred of evidence that LGBT people are more likely to have a “history of child abuse, sexual abuse, psychiatric trauma, or other pathologies,” "</p>
<p>Here’s a shred: Men who were sexually abused as youngsters are SEVEN times more likely to self-identify as homosexual than those who were not victims of such abuse</p>
<p>[Sexual</a> Abuse of Boys: Definition, Prevalence, Correlates, Sequelae, and Management – Holmes and Slap 280 (21): 1855 – JAMA](<a href=“http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/280/21/1855]Sexual”>http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/280/21/1855)</p>
<p>I remember wondering, when these parents brought their kids in for one of Rekers’ “evaluations”, how they even knew about his “clinic”. I don’t recall the parents being particularly off the bender, but wonder if they came from fanatic religious groups (perhaps his own church??) I dont recall, I am just wondering…</p>
<p>Literature suggests that one in 3 girls and one in 7 boys are sexually abused before (or by) the age of 18. With your line of thinking, CM, if this leads to homosexuality, why arent more women gay?</p>
<p>claremarie, heres a direct quote from the article you posted, containing the statistic you referred to (emphasis mine):</p>
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</p>
<p>In other words, this study found correlation but no sign of causation. At least as of 1998, when this was published, there was no major research available examining the relationship between abuse and sexual or gender identity.</p>
<p>I would be more impressed with your arguments if it seemed like you actually read these articles before posting them.</p>
<p>Moreover, how about providing evidence for your “absent father” theory from another direction, claremarie: what percentage of the children of single mothers (or at least those children of single mothers who have little or no contact with their fathers or any other male role model) is gay, lesbian, or trans? How does that compare with the percentage in the population as a whole? </p>
<p>Of course, the percentage of trans people out of the population as a whole is so tiny – far less than 1% even by the most generous estimates – that, of statistical necessity, the overwhelming majority of the children of single mothers and absent fathers (who, as a group, obviously represent far more than 1% of the population) are clearly not transsexual. If so, then, by definition, having a single mother and absent father cannot be the “cause” of transsexualism. QED. (Just as, as Jym points out, the overwhelming majority of sexually abused children clearly do not “turn out” to be gay or lesbian, of statistical necessity.)</p>
<p>PS: Quaere, I have little doubt that my own gender issues, and my desire to keep them secret, and my sense of shame about them, made me more vulnerable to sexual abuse by an authority figure like a doctor, and more likely not to say anything about them. But that doesn’t mean the gender issues, which long preceded the sexual abuse, were “caused” by it.</p>
<p>One must distinguish between a “cause” and a “risk factor”.</p>
<p>It is of interest, for example, to know that substance abuse is a risk factor for suicide, even though it is quite clear that substance abuse does not ineluctably lead to suicide.</p>