Great read Paul. As you know I will cede space here because my cis hetero voice has enough dominance in society - it doesn't have a right to take up band width in the rainbow community.
As an ally I do understand the pain that the biological imperative community as causing. Their rhetoric is honestly vile and as an intersectional feminist I have absolutely no time for it all.
I do feel I can comment as a counsellor though and these two thoughts are ruminations worthy of closer inspection.
Firstly, I know that because I might follow Family First on Twitter that doesn't make my position and personal bias around pro choice any less valid or real. In fact it can help me to remain on top of the unhelpful discourse that sector of society are engaging in. Know they enemy so to speak. Like you it can help to keep you grounded and open to other perspectives and sometimes it's just plain funny to see the rubbish other sectors of society spout. (Following Act or National is a good example.)
The second pondering is a nod to understanding that in following a person, or reading their blog or engaging in a friendly exchange of views you continue to give them the likes, clicks and whatever they need to feel validated to espouse their views. And that's where I do feel a conflict. Sometimes I think that the most vilest of views deserve to be cancelled. People who think that trans people are not people for example are just not ever going to earn nothing but my disdain.
With that in mind, I wonder what it would be like for a rangatahi whai ora to discover that you are following and engaging with someone on Twitter or the like? The same someone who has suggested that they don't deserve to be acknowledged in society or are just following a trend?
That opens a whole other conversation and exploration around a right to privacy and the perils of being active on social media.
I guess it comes back to your point about nuance. Ultimately this isn't a black and white world and navigating the grey is ultimately where resilience resides. What I do know for sure is I will continue to refer rangatahi to you and would absolutely be guided by your skills and experience in responding to rainbow issues as they come up in my own practice.
Kia kaha for being a good man Paul and for raising awareness of this wrong that has been done to you by Rainbow Youth. I am fully in agreement with your assessment of the dangers of counselling that does not address underlying issues. I have done some thinking about this and from looking at the Stats it appears that one of the impacts of Rainbow Youths approach is that we are putting far more mostly lesbian and gay kids onto cross sex hormones and puberty blockers than anywhere else in the world. By way of an example the youth clinic in Ch'ch has 65 of 100 kids on them. The full figure may be closer to 100% since presumably some of the clinics patients are not yet at puberty or are already on cross sex hormones. There are no NZ figures on this. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/124409488/call-for-more-research-into-use-of-puberty-blockers In contrast the number of kids medicated in the UK and Australia is no more than a few percent. NZ campaign against the advice on puberty blockers has the comparative information. htpps://www.fullyinformed.nz/gp
A good read, thank you, then there's someone like me, born at 26 weeks, balanced hormones til they got messed up due to inadvertent medical misadventure (given diuretics from birth (750g) to age 3 (12.5kg)), AMAB, may be intersex, developed menopausal symptoms from age 9 when testosterone really started to dominate although estrogen tried to keep up, then due to the brain not calming down I started tobacco and alcohol to calm the brain and pot to balance the body, eventually found my way onto estrogen and progesterone only (Spiro triggers trauma and cyproterone acetate has bad side effects for me I don't need),
I now know I'm essentially a menopausal and now nearly premenopausal woman that got stuck with guy bits but am ultimately just mashing both bits together and identify as non binary trans femasc (made the last one up because I'm both in the same body...).
Great read Paul. As you know I will cede space here because my cis hetero voice has enough dominance in society - it doesn't have a right to take up band width in the rainbow community.
As an ally I do understand the pain that the biological imperative community as causing. Their rhetoric is honestly vile and as an intersectional feminist I have absolutely no time for it all.
I do feel I can comment as a counsellor though and these two thoughts are ruminations worthy of closer inspection.
Firstly, I know that because I might follow Family First on Twitter that doesn't make my position and personal bias around pro choice any less valid or real. In fact it can help me to remain on top of the unhelpful discourse that sector of society are engaging in. Know they enemy so to speak. Like you it can help to keep you grounded and open to other perspectives and sometimes it's just plain funny to see the rubbish other sectors of society spout. (Following Act or National is a good example.)
The second pondering is a nod to understanding that in following a person, or reading their blog or engaging in a friendly exchange of views you continue to give them the likes, clicks and whatever they need to feel validated to espouse their views. And that's where I do feel a conflict. Sometimes I think that the most vilest of views deserve to be cancelled. People who think that trans people are not people for example are just not ever going to earn nothing but my disdain.
With that in mind, I wonder what it would be like for a rangatahi whai ora to discover that you are following and engaging with someone on Twitter or the like? The same someone who has suggested that they don't deserve to be acknowledged in society or are just following a trend?
That opens a whole other conversation and exploration around a right to privacy and the perils of being active on social media.
I guess it comes back to your point about nuance. Ultimately this isn't a black and white world and navigating the grey is ultimately where resilience resides. What I do know for sure is I will continue to refer rangatahi to you and would absolutely be guided by your skills and experience in responding to rainbow issues as they come up in my own practice.
Kia ora ē hoa.
omg someone with their own mind banned from twitter - whoda thort?!
Kia kaha for being a good man Paul and for raising awareness of this wrong that has been done to you by Rainbow Youth. I am fully in agreement with your assessment of the dangers of counselling that does not address underlying issues. I have done some thinking about this and from looking at the Stats it appears that one of the impacts of Rainbow Youths approach is that we are putting far more mostly lesbian and gay kids onto cross sex hormones and puberty blockers than anywhere else in the world. By way of an example the youth clinic in Ch'ch has 65 of 100 kids on them. The full figure may be closer to 100% since presumably some of the clinics patients are not yet at puberty or are already on cross sex hormones. There are no NZ figures on this. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/124409488/call-for-more-research-into-use-of-puberty-blockers In contrast the number of kids medicated in the UK and Australia is no more than a few percent. NZ campaign against the advice on puberty blockers has the comparative information. htpps://www.fullyinformed.nz/gp
I see you have had to do alot of considering here.
But on the strength of this, I would happily recomend you to Trans.
Good luck
A good read, thank you, then there's someone like me, born at 26 weeks, balanced hormones til they got messed up due to inadvertent medical misadventure (given diuretics from birth (750g) to age 3 (12.5kg)), AMAB, may be intersex, developed menopausal symptoms from age 9 when testosterone really started to dominate although estrogen tried to keep up, then due to the brain not calming down I started tobacco and alcohol to calm the brain and pot to balance the body, eventually found my way onto estrogen and progesterone only (Spiro triggers trauma and cyproterone acetate has bad side effects for me I don't need),
I now know I'm essentially a menopausal and now nearly premenopausal woman that got stuck with guy bits but am ultimately just mashing both bits together and identify as non binary trans femasc (made the last one up because I'm both in the same body...).
Hope this is of interest to you, regards, Kiera