AIBU to think puberty blocker trial is child abuse?

Exactly

I know this will sound controversial (maybe less so on mumsnet where there are some likeminded people) but nobody is born the wrong sex, you have a penis you are a male, a vagina and you’re a female. If a grown adult has their heart absolutely set on going through a life of surgery and hormones then fair enough but to encourage that in a child is sick.

I’ve been astounded by the level of ignorance around transgender surgery, I was speaking to someone recently who genuinely thought a vaginoplasty led to a fully functioning actual vagina. So so so so wrong. I’ll spare you the details but at best it leads to an open wound that doesn’t get infected and has to be regularly “dilated” to prevent it closing up.

And ftm surgery is a lot more complicated than mtf surgery I won’t bother going into it though.

The level of ignorance around this and the whole “be kind” bollocks is leading people who have no actual idea what cross sex surgery consists of encouraging impressionable children into a lifestyle of being a permanent medical patient. And anyone who points out the actual truth gets shouted down

I gather Rosie Duffield’s letter has more signatories now, but not sure how many are Labour. My female Conservative MP has signed it.
I have never voted Conservative in my life before, but Reform is a very real threat here, and I may even vote for her if she stands again. She’s an excellent constituency MP and a fairly moderate, centrist Tory.

In the vast majority of cases of gender-distress in children, puberty is the cure. Why delay it?

The tests are on children FFS.

The known risks are:

• permanent sterility
• impaired sexual function as an adult
• a total lack of sexual function or desire as an adult
• brittle bones
• severe "brain fog"

It's also suspected they cause:

• impaired brain fuction
• lower IQ
• inhibiting the child from maturing mentally, so their peers grow up around then and they stay childish

Why on earth would you test like this on a child, especially when you could do studies on those who have already taken them, or on animals? (The concerns about brain fuction come partly from a study in sheep).

It's ghoulish and entirely unethical.

Brilliant indeed.

.

This is brilliant

https://x.com/i/status/2000214697631494511

How do you know you can do the 'production' side if you are 'non binary'?

And 'production'? That's a whole thread in itself.

I feel strongly about this and wrote to the Secretary of State

Dear Mr Streeting

I write to express my concerns about the proposed Pathways trial involving the administration of puberty blockers to children. I am surprised that this gained ethical approval given that it consists of live experimentation administering powerful drugs to minors who can have no clear understanding of the possible consequences of the impact of these drugs on their future fertility, sexual function or sexual pleasure.

Cass recommended further research but surely the place to start is with those who have already been given the drugs. I understand that follow up data is incomplete but surely it would be a useful first step.

The trial seems far too short lived to produce proper results. By the end of it the children will still be, well, children, with a child’s perspective on life. How can the long term impacts be gauged? Most of us past the age of about 25 know that our understanding of ourselves, others and the world once we are properly adult is very different from that of our younger selves. We see happiness and unhappiness in a very different light. Indeed, recent research indicates that the period of “adolescence” in the human brain extends far further into our lives than was previously thought. We need time to grow up as fully realised adults. Interfering in this important process is surely very unwise (and I know that you have concerns about it). Moreover, the psychological tools proposed to measure the effects of the medication seem crude and unsuitable for children, to say the least.

We know that in many cases in the past children have been manipulated by parents and professionals into thinking that these treatments will solve their problems. There do not seem to be proper safeguards against this. In many cases at GIDS, according to Hannah Barnes, parents preferred a trans child over a homosexual child. There were even in-jokes about there soon being no gay children left. The professionals involved in the Pathways trial include some who have long worked in this field and are strong proponents of the discredited “affirmation” approach.

I am not generally a Labour supporter, Mr Streeting (I have no particular political affiliation) but I have a personal regard for you as a fair and intelligent person and politician whose motives are to do the best for the country and its people. As a retired teacher who has seen many young people come through a turbulent and unhappy adolescence to become secure, happy and productive adults, and as a mother and grandmother who has seen the devastating effects of the transgender phenomenon at first hand, I implore you to think twice before proceeding with this particular experiment.

Sincerely

I think you may be misremembering. For precocious puberty you would normally stop taking PBs at around 12 to let you go through puberty at a normal age. To have been on them for a decade you'd have been put on them at 2

It isnt a 'trial'.

It is stopping a load of kids from growing up, for spurious reasons, and they haven't even got a definition of what 'gender incongruence' means, let alone what 'gender' means. The terms used change as each one gets undefined into oblivion and outed as utter nonsense.

Girls can play with trucks. And boys can play with dolls. This doesn't mean we should stop them growing up in some sort of nightmarish 'trial'. And that's before they get the wrong sex hormones to get them to mimic the opposite sex characteristics. Utterly demented.

They go from puberty blockers to cross-sexhormones so they don't go through puberty

That’s why there is a trial.

And Hannah Barnes

Also, it’s not unethical to do medical studies on adults who give consent. Most medication is only ever trialled on male adults. Go figure.

Check out Helen Joyce’s book, Trans.

Used in children as a treatment for precocious puberty, with puberty taking place at a typical age.

That is very different to the experimental and untested use of puberty blockers to prevent puberty taking place at a typical age.

It is a proven treatment for that though. And presumably you then developed and went through puberty normally? Hardly the same as giving them to children with no clinical requirement and which is widely seen as a pre cursor to cross sex hormones

As for PP who said people have the right to choose what’s right for their family not where that can cause untold harm to another person’s body for no good reason they don’t

Normal puberty doesn't just start up when a child stops taking puberty blockers, unless they have precocious puberty. If normal puberty is delayed, certain biological changes and stages have been missed, and won't restart. A boy's penis won't grow normally, for example. Children who were stopped at Tanner stage 2 will be inorgasmic and possibly infertile.
This study is unethical and misguided. In any case - why didn't they follow up on all the kids who have already been on puberty blockers? That was pretty much the basis on which the Tavistock were allowed to prescribe them in the first place. Then it emerged that they had just handed them out and had done virtually no research.
Anyone who thinks it ok to keep kids in a pre-pubescent state... there's a word for that.

Ignore them, OP. It's the usual sealioning so they can get back to squealing in their own echo chamber. I wouldn't waste your breath on replying further - about a trial their own precious Cass Review recommended about drugs that have been used in children for decades.

I find it really upsetting that my 8 year old will have to wait an estimated 4 years locally for autism and ADHD assessment. Even longer if they want any form of psychological support or medication. Yet it seems to be far far faster to get treatment for gender dysphoria.

There's a total lack of logic there as gender dysphoria is often linked to unsupported ND. I'd much rather see money being spent on the basics of ND and mental health care.