Serious Stuff

Some quotes from a person of questionable sanity:

" I don’t want to reach the evil fuckers and give them more information, to teach them how to con more Lesbians. I want them gone permanently. "

Pseudo, you’re right — they’re the ones who kept taking about violence and murder. But really, they should be careful about giving some angry women those ideas. I can’t imagine that every one of them hasn’t raped or molested a female at some point. They’re male and that’s what males do!

I knew those fuckers were disgusting, but really, they’re worse than I thought in how they don’t even pretend to care about females. To blame us for them being killed by other men? Their arrogance and oppressiveness is amazing. It is funny though that they are so used to Feminists immediately bowing before them that they don’t know how to deal with that we don’t care what happens to them. They expect we’ll be shocked to see statistics about them being killed, and don’t realize, some of us wish they would ALL be dead.

oh my god, Margaret and Fab — I can just imagine their gloating if they can get female body parts and reproduce (not to mention how reproduction is destroying the earth and the likelihood of birth defects and bad health from babies coming from such a place.) There are no words to describe them. There are tiny parasitic wasps who paralyse small animals (spiders, caterpillars, etc.) and lay their eggs on them, so the animal is alive while being slowing eaten by the growing baby. But the wasps aren’t deliberately cruel. These men remind me of a deliberately female-hating version of that. They’ve prove what I’ve been saying for decades — they are more female-hating than even many het men. The character in Silence of the Lambs who skinned women to wear really seems more accurate all the time.

Those quotes are all from just one person, Bev Jo Van Dohre, on just one website (since made private) http://wewillnot.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/wtf-is-with-the-intersex-comments in 2010. There are many others by her elsewhere just like those.

That wouldn't matter too much, except in light of her influence on the organisers of the Seven Sisters Festival, who don't seem to be aware of her true agenda.

And her influence on certain Australian academics.

Thanks, Sharon. I agree it’s good to get and share support from all potential allies, but it’s loaded for me when you name someone who I feel oppressed by and censored (Dirt) — or plagiarized by (as in the case of Sheila Jeffries, who got some of her politics from us and our book.) Because of her academic privilege, she’s in a position to reach more, and I’m glad about that, but quoting her to me as if I hadn’t been writing about the trans cult for years earlier is annoying to me.

https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/transmen-are-still-women-part-2-of-the-pretenders-defining-lesbians-out-of-existence/#comment-394

Curse you, Red Baron!

There are times I realise I'm being entirely too serious.

New Election Logo

What is really meant, though it hasn't been officially adopted yet.

It was 40 years ago today....

Updating a previous post.

Did I always have that haunted expression? So obvious in hindsight, but so difficult to recognise at the time?

Life hasn't been easy since transition. There have been issues, medical, legal and social. But none insurmountable, and I think my expression on the latest photo says it all.

Photo from the "Class of 75" 40 year reunion, which I attended on the 21st

At one stage, I had time for hobbies..

Contemporaries - built late 1915, in service January 1916.The Zeppelin-Stacken R.IV serial R.12/15, and the Nieuport...

Posted by Zoe Ellen Brain on Monday, 18 May 2015

When Does She Become He?

When Does She Become He? | LGBT PERSPECTIVES Magazine



Pithy, concise summary of the science of sex and gender. Highly recommended for all medical professionals, and as an educational resource for lay people too.

Certified Christian Counselors and Post Modernism - Toads included

From The Association of Certified Biblical Counselors Membership Covenant

God’s goodness allows that secular psychology may provide accurate research and make observations that are helpful in understanding counseling issues. Because unbelievers suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness the efforts of secular psychology at interpreting these observations lead to misunderstanding.

Because their observations are distorted by a secular apprehension of life their efforts at counseling ministry will be in competition with biblical counseling. They cannot be integrated with the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

From The Christian Worldview of Psychology and Counseling, Journal of Biblical Medical Ethics, Vol 10, No 1

We affirm that the scientific method is useful in carrying out the creation mandate of Genesis 1:28 to subdue and have dominion over creation when the investigators have Biblical presuppositions and when the Bible does not directly give us the answers we seek; that the use of the scientific method is entirely controlled by the presuppositions of the investigators, and therefore, the results are a pronouncement of faith rather than of scientific fact; and that the faith nature of the results of scientific investigation is evidenced by the investigators' proselytizing intent, that is, their attempt to transform man into their idea of what man should be.

We deny that the scientific method can ever be applied in psychology without its being thoroughly determined by the presuppositions of the investigators.

From Table Talk (words of Martin Luther)

"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but -- more frequently than not -- struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God."

"Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God."

So if you come across a "Certified Christian Counselor", you know they've had 30 hours of training in denying the existence of objective reality, in ignoring "so called facts" and to whom any scientific knowledge is anathema. Snake-oil merchants.

Experience has proved the toad to be endowed with valuable qualities. If you run a stick through three toads, and, after having dried them in the sun, apply them to any pestilent tumor, they draw out all the poison, and the malady will disappear.

Ibid

They're big on "unclean spirits" and magic spells of course.

We affirm that creatures who have only a spiritual dimension exist, that some serve God faithfully (angels) and others are in active rebellion against God (demons), and that the latter may possess unregenerate persons and oppress or influence regenerate persons.

We deny that the Christian counselor may neglect the reality of demons, and that personal problems, organic or non-organic, are never the result of the influence of or possession by demons.

The Christian Worldview of Psychology and Counseling

So why the "politics" tag? From The Friendly Atheist:

In a few weeks, members of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors will gather in Louisville, Kentucky for their first-ever conference. While the overall focus is on homosexuality, a pre-conference will deal with transgender issues specifically. But no trans people will actually be present — and the speakers will be required to state from the beginning that trans identities aren’t real.

It's a war council, to plan political action - and get the money coming in. Some who don't know the meaning of "Certified Christian Counselor" might give it credence as something scientifically valid.
If you come across such a person, it might be worthwhile giving them a link to this post. It has URLs in so they can check the nature of these people themselves, they don't have to take my word for it. Trust - but verify.

Z Gauge

One day, when the continuing crises have passed, we'll be able to indulge in our shared hobby - Z gauge model railways.

Yes, this is Z.

Posted by NMRA on Friday, 28 August 2015

Gender Identity and the Brain - a Round-Table

http://www.hulu.com/watch/807430

Six months ago Charlie Rose and his colleague, Nobel Prize-winning brain scientist, Eric Kandel, began planning their latest instalment of the Charlie Rose Brain Series dealing with gender identity and the brain. In the time since, we met the most famous transgender person in the world — Caitlyn Jenner. In a fascinating hour-long episode, Charlie moderates a brilliant discussion on the topic, joined by: Ben Barres, chair of neurobiology at Stanford University, Norman Spack of Boston Children’s Hospital, Catherine Dulac of Harvard University, Melissa Hines of University of Cambridge, and Janet Hyde of University of Wisconsin. Kendel opens the discussion with the introduction: “This is a marvelous topic, and I like it in particular because it shows how brain science can be a liberating influence in our life.”

The Six Genders in Classical Judaism

More Than Just Male and Female: The Six Genders in Classical Judaism — SOJOURN

This description from Trans Torah/Rabbi Elliot Kukla:

Zachar/זָכָר: This term is derived from the word for a pointy sword and refers to a phallus. It is usually translated as “male” in English.

Nekeivah/נְקֵבָה: This term is derived from the word for a crevice and probably refers to a vaginal opening. It is usually translated as “female” in English.

Androgynos/אַנְדְּרוֹגִינוֹס: A person who has both “male” and “female” sexual characteristics. 149 references in Mishna and Talmud (1st-8th Centuries CE); 350 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes (2nd -16th Centuries CE).

Tumtum/ טֻומְטוּם A person whose sexual characteristics are indeterminate or obscured. 181 references in Mishna and Talmud; 335 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes.

Ay’lonit/איילונית: A person who is identified as “female” at birth but develops “male” characteristics at puberty and is infertile. 80 references in Mishna and Talmud; 40 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes.

Saris/סריס: A person who is identified as “male” at birth but develops “female” characteristics as puberty and/or is lacking a penis. A saris can be “naturally” a saris (saris hamah), or become one through human intervention (saris adam). 156 references in mishna and Talmud; 379 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes.

Caitlyn Jenner's Debut in Vanity Fair Spotlights Transgender Issues

Caitlyn Jenner's Debut in Vanity Fair Spotlights Transgender Issues



If you want to read just one article that explains all the major issues, medical, social, and legal - this is it.

McHugh's "Surgical Sex" Revisited

In which Dr Paul McHugh's 2004 article Surgical Sex is rebutted by.... Dr Paul McHugh's 2004 article Surgical Sex.

Why did Johns Hopkins stop performing sex reassignment surgery? The obvious reason is that their surgeon left, and wasn't replaced. They now refer patients to other surgeons after assessing suitability. The surgery is now no longer a "research" effort, but part of mainstream medical practice.
But there's more to it than that.

From McHugh's work, Psychiatric Misadventures :

I happen to know about this (sex-reassignment surgery) because Johns Hopkins was one of the places in the United States where this practice was given its start. It was part of my intention, when I arrived in Baltimore in 1975, to help end it.

Verdict first, trial afterwards.

The Meyer study McHugh commissioned in support of his pre-determined aim, and used as the primary evidential basis for the conclusions in Surgical Sex  was, well, it has figures on a scale of -8 to 5 with values of 19. For a scathing critique of just some of the more obvious nonsense that means it should never have passed even the most cursory peer review, due to the ridiculous figures in it, see
Sex Reassignment. Thirty Years of International Follow-up Studies After Sex Reassignment Surgery: A Comprehensive Review, 1961-1991 Friedemann Pfäfflin, Astrid Junge (Translated from German into American English by Roberta B. Jacobson and Alf B. Meier),
specifically
Chapter 3: Follow-up studies in chronological order : Meyer & Reter, 1979 Dept. of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

"The tables and figures shared by the authors do not seem serious because after the scoring table a maximum of only eight minus and five plus points can be achieved, but in the results table (p. 1014) a range from -18 to +19 points is given. How these figures came about remains totally in the dark....One asks the question how it came about that a renowned professional publication published such opaque figure material."

Junk Science from the "Dark Age of Psychiatry".

McHugh adduces in support of his secondary thesis, that genes determine sexual identity, an article by Reiner,
Discordant Sexual Identity in Some Genetic Males with Cloacal Exstrophy Assigned to Female Sex at Birth by Reiner and Gearhart, N Engl J Med. 2004 January 22; 350(4): 333–341.
McHugh writes:

"Reiner concluded from this work that the sexual identity followed the genetic constitution. "

Reiner did no such thing. He stated that sexual identity followed the hormonally-directed path in foetu.
 
1 in 300 men aren't 46,XY, they do not have a "male" genetic constitution (as McHugh puts it). Some women do. Genes are only important in that they *usually* (not always) cause a specific hormonal environment in the womb.
 
It's important to make the distinction because hormonal environment during pregnancy can change, resulting in mixed anatomy, part female, part male. It can also be completely out of synch with "genetic constitution", resulting in XY females and XX males.
This explains the situation, and why McHugh's claim that "genetic constitution" dictates "sex identity" is very obviously a misinterpretation of the evidence.
Sexual Hormones and the Brain: An Essential Alliance for Sexual Identity and Sexual Orientation Garcia-Falgueras A, Swaab DF Endocr Dev. 2010;17:22-35 

The fetal brain develops during the intrauterine period in the male direction through a direct action of testosterone on the developing nerve cells, or in the female direction through the absence of this hormone surge. In this way, our gender identity (the conviction of belonging to the male or female gender) and sexual orientation are programmed or organized into our brain structures when we are still in the womb. However, since sexual differentiation of the genitals takes place in the first two months of pregnancy and sexual differentiation of the brain starts in the second half of pregnancy, these two processes can be influenced independently, which may result in extreme cases in trans-sexuality. This also means that in the event of ambiguous sex at birth, the degree of masculinization of the genitals may not reflect the degree of masculinization of the brain. There is no indication that social environment after birth has an effect on gender identity or sexual orientation.

Note that McHugh got it partly right -

"Male hormones sexualize the brain and the mind."

Correct!

"Having looked at the Reiner and Meyer studies, we in the Johns Hopkins Psychiatry Department eventually concluded that human sexual identity is mostly built into our constitution by the genes we inherit ..."

WRONG - this contradicts the previous statement, that it's hormonal environment that's the issue

" ... and the embryogenesis we undergo."

Correct again.

Moving outside the field of psychiatry, let's look at physical anatomy. If embryogenesis and hormonal environment rather than "genetic constitution" is key, if "male hormones (in the womb) sexualise the brain and the mind" as McHugh says, then there has to be physical, objectively measurable evidence of this.
 
If genetic constitution is key - as McHugh also says, contradicting himself, it is impossible for "genetic males" to have female brain structures.
If hormonal environment is key, then we'd observe female brain structures in all those with a female sex identity, and only those with a female sex identity, regardless of genetic constitution.
The experiment to determine which is correct is simple.

 A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality. by Zhou et al Nature (1995) 378:68–70.

   Our study is the first to show a female brain structure in genetically male transsexuals and supports the hypothesis that gender identity develops as a result of an interaction between the developing brain and sex hormones

Note the date. 1995. Twenty years ago. Nine years before McHugh's article.
In terms of what this means for patients.... here's McHugh again.

"Proper care, including good parenting, means helping the child through the medical and social difficulties presented by the genital anatomy.... This effort must continue to the point where the child can see the problem of a life role more clearly as a sexually differentiated individual emerges from within. Then as the young person gains a sense of responsibility for the result, he or she can be helped through any surgical constructions that are desired. Genuine informed consent derives only from the person who is going to live with the outcome and cannot rest upon the decisions of others who believe they “know best.”

ABSOLUTELY! This applies to both Transsexual and Intersex children. Those who believe they "know best" because of religious conviction or whatever should not be allowed to mandate un-necessary treatment, or prevent necessary treatment. Moreover, as sexual identity is based on biology, and biology is anything but a strict binary, the sexual differentiation may not be binary either. Some will be most comfortable conforming to a binary model, while others will find that model neither comfortable nor appropriate. Similarly, surgical options should be offered, but never required. The patient may be fine with having unusual genitalia - their body, their choice.

 Back to McHugh again...

" I have learned from the experience that the toughest challenge is trying to gain agreement to seek empirical evidence for opinions about sex and sexual behavior, even when the opinions seem on their face unreasonable. One might expect that those who claim that sexual identity has no biological or physical basis would bring forth more evidence to persuade others. But as I’ve learned, there is a deep prejudice in favor of the idea that nature is totally malleable. "

 Again, completely agree in all respects. The problem is that McHugh states that

1. Sexual Identity results from hormonal factors (true)
2. Sexual Identity instead results from "genetic constitution" (false)

and also

1. Sexual Identity always without exception results from biological factors (true)
2. Sexual Identity in Transsexuals is a "mental illness" with no physical basis (false)

Bottom line:

Male–to–female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus. Kruiver et al J Clin Endocrinol Metab (2000) 85:2034–2041

"The present findings of somatostatin neuronal sex differences in the BSTc and its sex reversal in the transsexual brain clearly support the paradigm that in transsexuals sexual differentiation of the brain and genitals may go into opposite directions"

F-0180 Aerial Test of Torpedo

The second US cruise missile - though the first was a close contemporary. Yes, this was Rocket Science, 1919 style. Had the Great War continued, development wouldn't have been delayed, and it would have been in service by late 1919 in the strategic bombardment role - probably at night and in cloudy conditions, as it was a fairly easy target.

May I present - the "Kettering Bug"

What they really think....

However, if they and you think you can intimidate the human race into bowing down to your perverse agenda, you had better guess again. You cannot hide the reality of your condition and motives forever. WE are the human race and you are tolerated only to a point.,

-- Steven Mark Pilling, Chair of the Harris County TX GOP, on Intersex kids. Source

Young Adult Psychological Outcome After Puberty Suppression and Gender Reassignment

Young Adult Psychological Outcome After Puberty Suppression and Gender Reassignment De Vries et al Pediatrics peds.2013-2958; published ahead of print September 8, 2014,

RESULTS: After gender reassignment, in young adulthood, the GD was alleviated and psychological functioning had steadily improved. Well-being was similar to or better than same-age young adults from the general population. Improvements in psychological functioning were positively correlated with postsurgical subjective well-being.

Regarding "Bathroom Bills"

In a full-court press, 6 states in the US are currently considering legislation to overturn existing rights of Trans and Intersex people to use public restrooms. These legislative efforts are co-ordinated and well-funded. Organised.
Here are the facts.

No longer Germaine

To give an idea of the sometimes comic but always spiteful nature of some strains of "feminist transphobia", see http://www.transadvocate.com/sex-essentialism-terfs-and-smelly-vaginas_n_14924.htm

 "Most recently, Germaine Greer made headlines (in queer media circles) for appealing to a bad vagina smell as being essential to authentic womanhood. During a question and answer session at The Cambridge Union, in which she again asserted trans medical care to be unethical, Greer suggested that trans women aren’t truly women because trans women don’t know what it is “to have a big, hairy, smelly vagina.”

Interestingly, prior to Greer asserting that trans women don’t have smelly vaginas, Sheila Jeffreys asserted that trans women have incredibly smelly vaginas, asserting, “The newly carved-out orifices of male-bodied transgenders do not resemble vaginas [and] create new microbial habitats in which infections develop and cause serious smell issues for their owners.

That's fairly typical. First a bizarre test of what sex someone *really* is - this one, genital aroma, is in fact an article of faith amongst TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists), Then the unevidenced assertions that Trans women don't pass the test due to diametrically opposite reasons - one because they do, one because they don't - all asserted without a shred of evidence.

The Religious Right is anti-Trans because Transsexuality undermines a well-ordered society where men are men and women are women, that it's all a Leftist plot to undermine the Gender Binary. (See former pope Benedict's speeches on the subject).

The TERFs are anti-Trans because Transsexuality upholds the Gender Binary, and that Trans people are tools of the Patriarchy.

This appropriation of Trans people is discussed well and with some wit at http://quinnae.com/2010/10/01/i-am-whoever-you-say-i-am/


As an aside, the microbial flora in neo-vaginas is nearly identical to that of the usual kind in premenstrual girls, but that's merely a fact and so irrelevant to the issue.

"Weyers and his colleagues studied 50 postsurgical transsexual women and found microbial microflora that were simiilar to those of premenstrual girls:

Our study indicates that the microflora of the neovagina is characterized by bacterial species from the skin and the intestinal microflora, somewhat similar to what is observed with premenarchal girls…

They also found microbial populations similar to those of women with vaginitis, and they noted an absense of lactobacilii (which is present in the vaginas of ovulating women, but not in girls) in all but one of their subjects."

But to go into this just buys into their irrationality. Like trying to argue with Flat Earthers.

Republican Puts $2,500 Bounty on Transgender Children

Republican Puts $2,500 Bounty on Transgender People | Alternet

Think Progress breaks down the insanity:

The bill provides that any student who encounters “a person of the opposite biological sex” in a bathroom or locker room shall have a legal cause of action if it’s because the school gave the trans student permission or didn’t explicitly prohibit the trans student from using thatfacility. The “aggrieved” student would be entitled to $2,500 from the offending school “for each instance” he or she encountered a trans student in a sex-divided facility in addition to monetary damages “for all psychological, emotional, and physical harm suffered” and attorney fees.

Embry has stated that the bill will help schools avoid the “potential embarrassment, shame, and psychological injury to students” that he believes naturally occurs when trans people are allowed to use restrooms in accordance with their gender identity.

A $2500 payment for detecting an Intersex or Trans schoolkid using a restroom at school sounds like a bounty to me. Just as there's a bounty on detecting other noxious vermin such as fire ants in some places.

Remember, this is no ordinary bill. This is an EMERGENCY bill to combat the epidemic of psychological damage being reported by medics all over the USA as the result of children seeing a trans or intersex kid at school.

Well, so Fox news and "Dr" Keith Ablow would have us believe.

The Pacific Justice Institute is looking for parents of kids who have been damaged like this to come forth and tell their tragic stories, and are willing to pay top dollar. They'll be releasing a damning expose any day now, they promise. Meanwhile, continuing donations are needed to pay for this important work.

From the Bill's text -

"Biological sex" means the physical condition of being male or female, which is determined by a person's chromosomes, and is identified at birth by a person's anatomy..."

So appearance at birth determines the  chromosomes. Which in turn define "biological sex".

Not exactly scientifically literate, is he?

It wasn't always like this....

And standing there as big as life,
And smiling with his eyes,
Joe says, "What they can never kill,
Went on to organise.

-- Joe Hill

From

Royal College of Psychiatrists – (UK)

16 April 2002

Trans People in the New NHS

Historical context:

From the 1930s to the 1960s, Trans people were understood to experience a congenital physical condition, and after appropriate clinical intervention, they had full civil liberties in their real sex. Their Birth Certificates could be corrected, they could marry if they wished, and live otherwise ordinary lives. In the late 1960s, however, two events contributed to a massive change in that status. First – and ironically at the point at which gay men were decriminalised in the UK, in 1967 – in the USA, John Money announced that he had solved the dilemma of whether nature or nurture decide our gender.

One of a pair of twin boy babies had accidentally been penectomised during circumcision, had been reassigned as female, never told of his reassignment, and brought up as a girl. Money, a self-styled ‘missionary of sex’ announced that, after long-term follow up, the girl had successfully adjusted to her new role and that it was, therefore, nurture and not nature that decided the gender of people. Incredibly, on the basis of one single case, that view became the dominant one. It was clear by analogy that Transsexualism was not congenital, and that Trans people should respond to nurture if it was persistent enough and firm enough.

Second, in 1970, the case of Corbett v Corbett ‘criminalised’ Trans people by removing civil status recognition from them. The effect of that trial was comparable to the effect of the trials of Oscar Wilde and of Radclyffe Hall: it produced ‘a brilliantly precise image’ of the Trans community, a ‘grafting of a narrow set of cultural signifiers’ onto an ostensibly homogenous body of Trans people. In the public imagination, Trans people would always be Trans women [so that Trans men became invisible] and Trans women would always be, in the judge’s terms, ‘a pastiche of femininity’, a sort of teapot-elegant drag-queen, a kind of figure of fun. Equally seriously, Trans people were no longer allowed to correct their Birth Certificates, could not marry, could not adopt, were sent to the wrong sex prison [where Trans women at least were routinely raped by male inmates and warders alike] and it became the norm for them to be dismissed from employment as soon as their condition was disclosed, whether at diagnosis or later. With further irony, in 1980, as homosexuality was removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Registered Mental Illnesses (DSM), Transsexualism was placed in it, to confirm by medicine this new edict of the law.

The first response of the UK Trans community was to feel crushed, and the second was to organise.

... in 1998, in the USA, Professor Milton Diamond discovered the real outcome of John Money’s iconoclastic research: the child who had been reassigned as a girl had never been happy in the female gender role; he had always experienced his gender as male, despite his female rearing, and female hormone treatment, and as soon as he was able he had reassigned to his male identity. John Money’s findings for his research were revealed as being grossly inaccurate at best, but not before a generation of tertiary specialists had been at least misdirected by someone who, for many of them, had been their mentor and pre-eminent amongst them. From the point of view of Trans people, of course, a generation of patients had been inadequately and inhumanely treated.

When Worlds Collide.

World-views anyway.

 Here are two therapeutic handbooks, both widely used in psychological counseling.

The first is
The Christian World View of Psychology and Counseling
www.reformation.net/COR_Docs/Christian_Worldview_Psychology.pdf
Mr. George C. Scipione, Th.M., M.A., Chairman
Dr. Lawrence Crabb, Ph.D., Co-Chairman
Dr. Ed Payne, M.D., Co-Chairman
With contributions by members of the Psychology and Counseling Committee of The Coalition on Revival
Dr. Jay Grimstead, D.Min., General Editor
Mr. E. Calvin Beisner, M.A., Assistant to the General Editor

6. Scientific Method
We affirm that the scientific method is useful in carrying out the creation mandate of Genesis 1:28 to subdue and have dominion over creation when the investigators have Biblical presuppositions and when the Bible does not directly give us the answers we seek; that the use of the scientific method is entirely controlled by the presuppositions of the investigators and therefore the results are a pronouncement of faith rather than of scientific fact; and that the faith nature of the results of scientific investigation is evidenced by the investigators’ proselytizing intent, that is, their attempt to transform man into their idea of what man should be.
We deny that the scientific method can ever be applied in psychology without its being thoroughly determined by the presuppositions of the investigators.
...
23 Angels and Demons
We affirm that creatures who have only a spiritual dimension exist, that some serve God faithfully(angels) and others are in active rebellion against God (demons), and that the latter may possess unregenerate persons and oppress or influence regenerate persons.
We deny that the Christian counselor may neglect the reality of demons, and that personal problems, organic or non-organic, are never the result of the influence of or possession by demons.

In this world view, scientific results are a pronouncement of faith, not facts. Evil Spirits and Demons exist, and can even "possess" people.

Here's another handbook, and a quite different world view. One where objective evidence exists, where facts matter. One devoid of ghosts and goblins.


Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health
7th Version 2011
www.wpath.org/uploaded_files/140/files/IJT%20SOC,%20V7.pdf

Mental health professionals need to be certified or licensed to practice in a given country according to that country’s professional regulations (Fraser, 2009b; Pope & Vasquez, 2011). Professionals must adhere to the ethical codes of their professional licensing or certifying organizations in all of their work with transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming clients.

Treatment aimed at trying to change a person’s gender identity and lived gender expression to become more congruent with sex assigned at birth has been attempted in the past (Gelder & Marks, 1969; Greenson, 1964), yet without success, particularly in the long term (Cohen-Kettenis & Kuiper, 1984; Pauly, 1965). Such treatment is no longer considered ethical.

If mental health professionals are uncomfortable with or inexperienced in working with transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming individuals and their families, they should refer clients to a competent provider or, at minimum, consult with an expert peer. If no local practitioners are available, consultation may be done via telehealth methods, assuming local requirements for distance consultation are met.

The results of using the first rather than the second are often fatal. Literally.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=27912326

In the note, Alcorn details the difficulty she said she faced growing up.

"The life I would've lived isn't worth living in… because I'm transgender," read a portion of the post. "I could go into detail explaining why I feel that way, but this note is probably going to be lengthy enough as it is. To put it simply, I feel like a girl trapped in a boy's body, and I've felt that way ever since I was 4," the note states.
...

The note reportedly written by Alcorn detailed her experience coming out as gay and wrote that her peers and school were receptive, but that her parents were not. She said she was taken to Christian therapists, who did not help her overcome her depression.

"After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn't make mistakes, that I am wrong," the note states.

The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren't treated the way I was," reads the post. "They're treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something."

"Christian Counseling" kills Trans kids. Not an opinion, a fact, with a mountain of corpses as evidence for that. Now one more.

Superstition,  Snake-oil and Witchdoctors have no place in psychological therapy. They should be prevented from killing children.

From the religious site, http://catholicexchange.com

"Now I am going to say something that may seem harsh but remember I am talking to you about objective reality – where the rubber meets the road. It is better to die than to offend God."

When dealing with a case possibly involving suicidal ideation, I feel such a statement, however sincere and well-meant, is likely to be counterproductive, and that death is in fact not a more desirable outcome compared to mainstream medical treatment.

At least some "Christian Counselors" differ on that.