How to treat gender dysphoria in kids without sex changes, an interview with Kenneth Sucker.
The transgender debate reignites with each tragic mass shooting, most recently the Tumblr
Ridge school mass shooting in British Columbia, and the attack at a Rhode Island ice hockey
ring shortly thereafter.
But solutions rarely penetrate the hyper online cultural zeitgeist.
Our left activists for transgender rights have refused to explore any connection between
mental illness and gender dysphoria, as it would violate the core dogma that gender dysphoria
is entirely biological, that people are born this way.
On the other hand, many conservatives have continued to hammer radical gender ideology,
which is easier than finding solutions.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons issued a new position statement last month, recommending
against breast removal, genital surgery, and facial surgeries for children with gender dysphoria,
a clean break from sex changes in childhood, and a dark chapter in medical history.
So what to do with a child suffering without defaulting to drugs and surgery on one end,
we're not doing anything and letting them suffer with anxiety and identity confusion
Enter Kenneth Sucker, one of the most cited clinical psychologists in this space, who
has resisted orthodoxy and taken a science-based approach to treating gender dysphoria for more
than four decades at the largest mental health center in Canada.
As gender-affirming care became the inviolable standard for children, Sucker found himself
with the center of a harassment campaign that shuttered his clinic, as covered in the
New York magazine a decade ago.
Now, as it recedes, we return to his methods.
In three interviews spanning four hours, Sucker explained to Racket News, gender dysphoria
can be understood and treated with clinical psychology, rather than adherence to any ideology.
Gender dysphoria is significant distress related to one's biological sex, according to the
American Psychiatric Association.
But adolescence is always a period of profound biological upheaval, when hormones reshape
the body and recalibrate mood and desire.
It is precisely the developmental window in which many forms of dysphoria, including gender-related
distress, can emerge or intensify.
For many kids, the solution is simply helping them grow up.
A new counter-consensus
Gender-affirming care emerged in the early 2000s as an extension of gay affirming therapy
de-pathologizing homosexuality, Sucker said.
The philosophical shift was clear.
The authorful medical institutions argued...
