Fox News Doctor: Same-Sex Parents Of Transgender Youth Need ‘Psychological Evalu

[Shana A]

Fox News Doctor: Same-Sex Parents Of Transgender Youth Need 'Psychological Evaluations'

By Zack Ford on Oct 19, 2011 at 1:20 pm

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2011/10/19/347913/fox-news-doctor-same-sex-parents-of-transgender-youth-need-psychological-evaluations/

Fox News continued its efforts to demonize transgender people yesterday with a segment about 11-year-old Tammy Lobel, whose parents are allowing her to use hormone blockers to delay the onset of puberty under the care of a doctor. This will give her time to mature and reach a decision about her gender identity before male puberty makes irreversible changes to her body. The segment featured Fox News Medical A-Team "expert" Dr. Keith Ablow, who refuses to affirm transgender identities, calling them "psychotic delusions," "toxic" and "disordered," and comparable to anorexia and heroin addiction. Everyone in the segment referred to Tammy as a boy and host Martha MacCallum described the parents (who happen to be a lesbian couple) as "irresponsible." Ablow tried to couch his comments as not being stigmatizing, but then proceeded to call for a psych evaluation for both parents and child:

    ABLOW: Here's what I think. First of all, I think we should remind ourselves from the outset: we're not looking to bully anyone. I'm reminded of the words of Abraham Lincoln, "With malice toward none." But now is the time, Martha, when we have to understand this issue, what's happening here. We have two women raising a child — he's adopted — and he's come to believe that he, too, is female. That argues for a complete psychological evaluation, not just of the boy, but of his parents as well, to see whether psychological forces are at play here to make him say such things.

[spacial]

That argues for a complete psychological evaluation, not just of the boy, but of his parents as well, to see whether psychological forces are at play here to make him say such things.

Such examinations would have been done already.

This is a red herring and one which is approaching the point of civil war within the medical profession.

Ablow et.al. will need to argue that any psychological examination was inadequate. That is clearly calling into question the comeptance and professionalism of the medics who have worked with this case already.

The only reason I can think of that this matter is not being treated more seriously by the American medical associations is they hope the public will make their view known thus making this a public opinion matter.

This is medically and professionally unacceptable. The priority for care, in medicine must always be the interests of the individual patient. Submitting medical decisions over to public opinion is a dnagerous step.

[Sailor_Saturn]

Oh, propagandists and their pseudo-science. No matter what, they'll stick to their guns and posit that transsexuals are some sort of Freudian mess. It doesn't matter how much evidence gets stacked against them by the scientific community, it doesn't matter how discredited John Money's gender identity development paradigm is, it doesn't matter how much of the data he fabricated (for those not in the know, he fabricated ALL of it), we're insane and that's it. It's just "common sense" that if two women raise a boy, that boy will be more likely to develop a female gender identity. Never mind that "common sense" has been demonstrated to be an ILLUSION that is WRONG more often than it is right. Let's ignore that inconvenient little detail. Also never mind the neurological data strongly suggesting a developmental link between certain brain structures and gender identification.

Here's a little newsflash for the so-called doctor: I was raised by a man and a woman. My father was/is not a weak man, he was an infantryman. My mother is not an overbearing woman. And I am an MtF transsexual. Freudian psychology is f---ing WRONG. ACCEPT IT, DAMN YOU!

[Joelene9]

  Another Ablow at it again, but I sided with Dr. Makary with the time to start the hormone blockers is too early in Tammy's case.  The body needs to grow at this time in development.  Doesn't matter if you are male or female. 
  Joelene.

[justmeinoz]

If I were the parents I would be talking to my lawyers right now regarding a suit for slander. Unless that is protected by the US idea of free speech.

[spacial]

If I were the parents I would be talking to my lawyers right now regarding a suit for slander. Unless that is protected by the US idea of free speech.

Sadly, it seems unlikely that would work. Drs are pretty much above the law on this as on many others.

In the 80s and 90s, one Dr in the UK, Roy Meadow, the one who developed the preposterus notion of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, accused a number of people, mostly women, of killing babies. In at least one case, it was after seeing the person in a TV interview talking about his wife, whom Meadow had also accused.

That's the price we pay for granting these technicians the status of demi-gods and the price the majority of of good Drs will eventualy pay, for failing to deal with this obvious situation is yet to be seen.

If either of these excellent parents makes any sort of fuss they can almost certainly expect to be on the receiving end of a litany of increasingly preposterus and vitriolic accusations. There will, of course, be numerous other Drs ready take a similarly politicaly motivated stance, while none other than those directly involved are likely to stand in defense. In their position, they will probably be better advised to simply not react and hope this peters out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Meadow

Given the resources of Fox News it seems unlikely they and Ablow wouldn't already have prepared a counter to any possible complaints.