Are kids on blockers a-sexual as adults?

Thank you for those posts, Vegilante. And may I just sidetrack to congratulate you on a superb username? 

I separated this from my prior post about the study on puberty blockers - "Buying time or arresting development? - in case it gets removed. I want to point out that I'm not revealing anything here that hasn't already been revealed on Jazz Jennings' TV show "I Am Jazz" or supplementary videos Jazz has posted on YouTube.

Unfortunately, what's happened with Jazz - on puberty blockers since 11 & cross-sex hormones (estrogen) since 12 - indicates that puberty blockers will leave a trans child forever "frozen in a prolonged childhood."

As OP & others have noted, Jazz has been very open about having no libido & little or no sexual sensation in the genitals her early & longterm use of puberty blockers has left stunted. And though she's now 18, she's never dated.

What's more, since Jazz had "a falling out" with all her childhood friends in 9th grade, her only friendships appear to be the few rather forced ones she has with fellow trans teens met relatively recently. Jazz is so alienated from the peers she grew up with, in fact, that she dropped out of HS last year at the start of 11th grade. She supposedly is now taking classes online, but last year her mom said Jazz spends most of her time in her bedroom watching TV & binge eating.

What social life Jazz at age 18 has is still mainly limited to her family, which developmentally is way, way behind. Today her principal companion remains, as always, her mother, who - inappropriately, indeed weirdly - was still accompanying Jazz into doctors' exam rooms for genital exams when Jazz was 17.

Even more disturbing, discussions shown on "I Am Jazz" last year between Jazz, her doctors & parents about Jazz's "bottom surgery" made it clear that Jazz's mother would be intimately involved in the intensive dilating regimen Jazz's neo vagina would require in the months/year post-surgery.

In fact, the surgeons Jazz & her parents consulted said they generally preferred doing "bottom surgery" on trans girls at 16 or 17, before they've left home, because then the parents can either do the dilation or make sure it gets done - which the doctors fear won't happen if a child already has left home for uni or independent life.

It seems clear to me that putting GNC children on puberty blockers is child abuse that can/will stunt their development sexually & in myriad others ways. And it paves the way for novel forms of parent-child boundary invasion & sexual abuse never heard of or imagined before.

"Buying time or arresting development? The dilemma of administering hormone blockers in trans children and adolescents" is a short review of what little research there is from Porto Biomedical Journal, Oct. 2017:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2444866417301101

From the conclusion:

"...the treatment risks hindering the individual's development of a free personality, sexuality and identity, thus disconnecting the young person from the typical experiences of her or his age, with no certainty of the long-term effects on physical health. Suppression of puberty may suggest that the person is deprived of adolescence – the crucial time to deal with identity issues, experiment and pursue unstable convictions regarding the self...

"From a psychological perspective, the main dilemma is to understand whether 'buying time' at such a precocious age truly enables children to explore deep personal meanings, or whether it freezes youngsters in a prolonged childhood, secluding them from certain aspects of reality and isolating them from peer groups."

"The blocker is a physically reversible intervention: if the young person stops taking the blocker their body will continue to develop as it was previously. However, we don’t know... whether it alters the course of adolescent brain development." - claim by GIDS cited above.

Two different studies of kids who took puberty-blockers to suppress precocious puberty show a 7-8 point decline in IQ. This is a presumably permanent decline.

www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00044/full#B8

In one of the studies, two of 15 girls on puberty blockers had to be held back a grade.

It's probably significant that most trans kids put on puberty blockers stay on them far longer than is customary for kids who take them for precocious puberty.

Tammy you can get those side effects recorded.

yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk

The MHRA is the Uk equivalent of the FDA (roughly.) you can use this system to report what you have experienced.

Also, do blockers stop children developing into adults with sexual desire?

There's a transgendertrend blog article around this.

www.transgendertrend.com/puberty-blockers-safe/

“When we block the surge of hormones that create the adolescent brain we invent a new kind of human being: cosmetically perfect but lacking sexual and reproductive function”

Tammy, that's horrific, I'm so sorry you are having to go through this.

Just been googling - there’s certainly a lot more information out there these days but it’s mostly about Lupron rather than the drug I was on - seems there was a class action lawsuit against the drug I took in America but that was today with inflating the price or something?

I can’t see that I would have any hope of legal action because there’s no way to prove that the problems I have are caused by it - if they concealed information then maybe but I imagine it would be a huge job to prove it.

I may try to find others who have experienced similar. My main aim really is to make women think twice before taking these drugs, and certainly make parents think twice before using them to prevent puberty happening when it should.

TammySwansonTwo
I'm so sorry for you, if the company knows about the side effect and fails to disclose that it will happen to a majority then its serious negligence. I would contact a solicitor to see if theres a case you can take.

That’s the problem naivety - there’s barely any information. The studies haven’t been done, there is research into their use for precocious puberty but as I expressed above that’s a very different scenario.

I know my longterm side effects have never been reported by a doctor because they frankly give no shits. Same when I had the mirena coil.

You only need to look online for support groups for women experiencing these problems to see how ignored it is as an issue.

I am reasonably certain that the drug has affected my thyroid, similar to central hypothyroidism as this affects the pituitary gland, same as this drug. I decided to do some research - know how many papers I found? One. About two people, in Korea (if I remember rightly). This is not on anyone’s radar, although I hope that will change now they’re being prescribed off label to children to halt puberty rather than to delay it, as is the case in precocious puberty.

There was one study involving transition and detransitioning that was posted a while ago which was framed as a positive result, but around half of the starting participants were missing from the analysis and one participants died (I think following surgery).

I guess chaste has religious undertones and implies a choice, so that’s out.

How about “non-sexual”?

Greta I think we’ve spoken before about your daughter and these drugs.

IMO the key difference here is that that drugs were used to enable the body’s processes to occur correctly and at the right time. Early puberty would be detrimental for your daughter, having it at the right time was beneficial.

For children like these (or women like me, who had two years of menopause in their 20s because of it), the body is being prevented from doing what it should do and when it should do it.

Who cares if people don't want to have sex?

How can you be so blasé?

I can tell you, I care very much that my libido was obliterated by this drug and never returned. My husband cares a lot too. The fact we won’t be having another child unless I can find a resolution is also an issue.

This is not transphobia - this is legitimate concern stemming from personal experience, and yet funnily enough none of those who come here to cry transphobia ever respond to my posts.

Miri, that article has just made me cry.

I took a different GnrHA in my 20s for two years. Now in my late 30s and my health has been absolutely wrecked. Only just found out recently (from paying for tests myself) that my oestrogen levels are extremely low over 10 years later. Doctors have no interest in helping. I have taken the blame for this as I was told the risks and took it anyway, but now I realise I never had the full picture.

°She came off them at 12 and puberty proceeded completely normally. She is a very healthy 17 yo. In short: blockers alone are not necessarily harmful if used appropriately for a valid medical reason.^

The important part there is she came off them and went through puberty. Transitioning children will never go throuChildren on blockers don't get the brain development that comes with puberty, nor the learning experiences, so they never have the opportunity to change their minds. Puberty and growing up are a time of constant changes that a medicalised trans child misses out on. They are always further and further behind their peers. They continue to be pre-pubertal^

This is what I find so disturbing. While these children become older, they never actually technically become adults - it's an utterly bizarre thing to do to someone.

That article in the tweet posted by FloralBunting www.wsbtv.com/news/local/georgia-woman-says-drug-used-to-treat-endometriosis-led-to-series-of-health-problems/859263892

"Lupron lawyers convinced a federal judge to seal the results from several clinical trials, but not until an expert witness disclosed evidence that even after a year off the drug, 62 percent of women did not regain normal estrogen levels."

Those appear to be adult women who took the drug short term and yet we're being told its just a pause and puberty will resume without issue after months/years of treatment on bodies that are supposed to be going through puberty at the appropriate age without any negative effects

I'm so glad people are taking these cases the only bad thing is how long this will probably take to get to court

I had a daughter at 16 after having sex once with a boy on holiday , I was drunk so felt nothing ,
then was forced into marrying a man decades ago, sex with him did nothing for me , I felt nothing ,by that only violation and disgust

its been a different matter when I have been with any of my girlfriends over the last 40+ years

I have a few straight female friends who get nothing from sex with their husbands either

having also marched against FGM over many years women who had had forced FGM would have no sensation either

but why do people ( usually straight men ) need to know peoples intimate sexual habits and desires ?

it probably says a lot more about them ? as an out lesbian have gotten sick about straight people asking what me and any of my girlfriends do in bed !

we usually say , is there something missing from your life ? wanting to know what we or anyone else gets up to in bed ?

at least have the decency to use your real name when naming and or discussing people with real lives

I don’t understand why anyone intelligent enough to be an academic, would block people they have never engaged with.

I notice that Owen Jones has blocked Beatrix Campbell on Twitter, which seems very much of the mosquito vs elephant kind of thing.

Asexual like many other biological terms has been hijacked to promote a specific agenda and I for one will never use the term to describe anything other than reproduction based on budding, cloning and various other asexual reproductive processes.

What about the sta men?

Okay, I'll get my coat...