Letter in lancet

[TheSteveMilliband]

Have just seen this https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32223-2/fulltext?dgcid=ravenjbssetocemail
Excellent letter, children are being treated radically with so little supportive evidence.

How did I guess without looking first that this would be the Admirable Quartet of Richard Byng, Susan Bewley, Damian Clifford and Margaret McCartney?

They are reliably excellent and evidence-oriented on this matter.

Yes, they are great

Just knew MM would be a signatory to this. Great letter.

Excellent!

They are absolutely spot on. Children do deserve science as the basis for their medical care. Thank you for posting the letter on here. Thanks to the authors and the Lancet for telling the truth.

Excellent.

There was an article in last month’s Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, written by the same Melbourne authors, Telfer et al, discussing the removal of legal barriers to affirmative care. The article starts by using the 48% attempted suicide stat, this time taken from another online, self-selecting survey of users of places like Tumblr.

www.telethonkids.org.au/our-research/brain-and-behaviour/mental-health-and-youth/youth-mental-health/trans-pathways

It is equally open to the same criticism as the PACEs and Stonewall surveys that also come up with the same 48% mark, but despite this it’s being used to justify affirmative care by the gender clinic team at one of the world’s most well known children’s hospitals. Mind blowing they are allowed to get away with it.

And isn’t it strange that an Australian questionnaire of people online came up with same 48% figure as UK-based online questionnaires....to paraphrase Doc Brown in Back to the Future, it could be that 48% inherently contains some sort of cosmic significance. Almost as if it were the temporal junction point for the entire space-time continuum. On the other hand, it could just be an amazing coincidence...

Excellent. It can't be stressed enough that sex is biology and chromosomes and you can't actually change sex or be assigned a sex.
The woolly feelz blue brain pink brain pseudoscience is gender not sex.
People can change gender as often as they want but you can't change sex.

On Dec. 6, The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology also published a review, "Gender-affirming hormones and surgery in transgender children and adolescents", which seems to take a more positive view of cross-sex hormones (CSH) & surgery for trans young people. Especially natal females because "gender-affirming CSHs and chest wall masculinisation in transgender males are associated with improvements in mental health and quality of life."

Unfortunately, I can only access the Summary, which in entirety says:

"The Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guidelines on the treatment of gender incongruent people recommend the use of gender-affirming cross-sex hormone (CSH) interventions in transgender children and adolescents who request this treatment, who have undergone psychiatric assessment, and have maintained a persistent transgender identity. The intervention can help to affirm gender identity by inducing masculine or feminine physical characteristics that are congruent with an individual's gender expression, while aiming to improve mental health and quality-of-life outcomes. Some transgender individuals might also wish to access gender-affirming surgeries during adolescence; however, research to inform best clinical practice for surgeons and other medical professionals is scarce. This Review explores the available published evidence on gender-affirming CSH and surgical interventions in transgender children and adolescents, amalgamating findings on mental health outcomes, cognitive and physical effects, side-effects, and safety variables. The small amount of available data suggest that when clearly indicated in accordance with international guidelines, gender-affirming CSHs and chest wall masculinisation in transgender males are associated with improvements in mental health and quality of life. Evidence regarding surgical vaginoplasty in transgender females younger than age 18 years remains extremely scarce and conclusions cannot yet be drawn regarding its risks and benefits in this age group. Further research on an international scale is urgently warranted to clarify long-term outcomes on psychological functioning and safety."

If anyone can access the whole paper, please let us know what it says in full.

www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(18)30305-X/fulltext#seccestitle10

Twitter thread about the letter in the OP:

twitter.com/jonkay/status/1071248326035525635

Nothing of particular note yet tho' someone is, of course, attempting to introduce that recent rather dubious systematic literature review.

Excellent authoritative opening paragraph.

So confusing to read that summary:

Evidence regarding surgical vaginoplasty in transgender females

So even the TRA medical experts are gaslighting people with female/male.