Michael Biggs paper on the Tavistock

...and I am relieved to say that the growth spurt in my child steadied and there was no suggestion of them needing the drug. The more I read about it, the more I am thanking my lucky stars.

beardedvulture my understanding is slightly different - but coming from this as a parent with a child who was query precocious puberty (I'm not a medic) so had looked into it then. I thought that long bone growth accelerates rapidly during puberty, then the growing regions of the bone change and become unable to grow further. So a puberty blocker prevents that acceleration, and you don't get the rapid height gain associated with puberty while you are on blockers.

For children with precocious puberty, one of the problems when it is left untreated is an early growth spurt - from say age 6 and from a lower baseline height than a 11 or 12 year old will have - so the bones stop growing at a lower height, and the child's full potential height is not reached. Use of puberty blockers I understand prevents this happening. The growth spurt will happen when they come off the blockers at a more 'normal' time for puberty, and will begin from a more 'normal' height.

My child had suddenly gone up the centiles at age 6, and this was one of the reasons they were referred to an endocrinologist, along with a couple of other symptoms.

The Italian castrati grew very tall.
They were soprano choirboys who were castrated to keep their singing voice intact.

Found it!

www.statnews.com/2017/02/02/lupron-puberty-children-health-problems/

Note the article doesn't mention that this drug is prescribed to children with gender dysphoria. It's almost like they didn't want to poke that particular hornet's nest

Someone upthread asked about whether puberty blockers have an effect on height.

I read a long article a while back regards the long-term effects of blockers in American women who were a prescribed GnRH agonist as children for precocious puberty and because they were small for their age. These women have gone on to suffer a range of long term health problems including osteoarthritis in their 20s.

From what I understand: most long bone growth occurs prior to puberty, so if you block puberty, you have more time to get taller- hence the drug being prescribed to kids who were shorter than what is considered normal.

If I've got that right, male and female trans kids on puberty blockers would grow taller. This would have the desired aesthetic effect for FTMs because they'd be closer to the average height for men, but not for MTFs because they'd potentially grow taller than they would if they'd underwent normal puberty.

This might also explain the bone density issues among females- the bones are getting longer but not 'filling out' properly.

I met a male trans child about a year ago. They were 12 going on 13 at the time and on puberty blockers, and they were staggeringly tall for their age- nearly 6 foot of beanpole. Of course this could have been down to their genetics and not the drugs. Anecdata does not equal data after all.

If I've got anything wrong above, please correct me as I'm not a doctor! i'll try to find the article.

Sophocles thank you for sharing.

Its awful that such powerful and really awful drugs are being used on children in this way. If they have been used to chemically castrate sex offenders then there can be no doubt about them having a similar effect on young people. If the patient information stated in plain English,

These drugs have been used to chemically castrate sex offenders so will have the same effect on you/your child.

How many would consent? If they did it would be concerning.

Thank you Sophocles

A quick google shows that Triptolerin is also used as chemical castration to reduce sexual urges in sex offenders.

Among prostate cancer patients Triptorlelin is known as "a medicine from hell" due to its devastating side effects (Wikipedia).

How can such a drug be given to confused and vulnerable children without any unbiased and ethical long-term clinical trials?

Madness.

Sorry, just found the post that says you have been explaining this here too! Thank you.

The only kids I've known being given blockers for too early onset puberty have been severely disabled, where the effects physically and emotionally for the child and the carers are considered severe and worth delaying to give the child better quality of life, and early onset was something thought to be associated with the child's already complex condition. Often these children wouldn't be able to consent or to communicate preference. Its occurred to me a few times reading this thread to wonder what the statistics are around this and whether this is relevant.

Sophocles that sounds horrible, I am sorry. Please do speak out about it where you feel you can, Tammys been patiently sharing her own awful experiences on MN since these drugs started to be questioned here and it was one of the things that made me realise how bleak the long term future is likely to be for these poor kids.

SophoclesTheFox you had it for endometriosis - I was listening to Women's Hour on R4 earlier today and they had a bit on endo and a woman was saying that at 20 & 30 she was prescribed what she called "GNRH" (I think, not sure if that's the right order of the letters) which put her into an immediate temporary menopause - I thought maybe these drugs were different to the puberty blockers which I thought had an "A" at the end - GNRHA - but now I think they are the same and this is what they give these children? I think they did say on WH too that these drugs were brutal (again, if I remember correctly).

I was given it to treat endometriosis, pippa. It’s no better at doing that than it is at treating gender dysphoria, the sledgehammer of wrecked health doesn’t justify the nut they’re trying to crack in either case.

Also in children, used to treat precocious puberty, but I can’t comment on the efficacy of that, as I don’t know.

I’ve read back and seen that now, popchyk- we’ve both shared on numerous threads. I also have lifelong medical conditions that may or may not have been caused or worsened by this fucking awful drug.

Tammy.

Back from my slight me-rail, the point about the “aesthetic” result of a puberty blocked trans child has hit me like a sledgehammer in that it hadn’t occurred to me how this is only of possible benefit to male children wishing to appear female children and YET AGAIN, as if by magic, it’s women and girls getting the shitty end of the stick! And vanishing from the narrative, to boot.

“Puberty blockers help trans children to pass later in life” - nope. “Puberty blockers will stunt growth in a way that benefits natal males seeking to pass as girls, but will worsen results for natal females seeking to pass as boys”.

Is there any part of this that women win in?

Is this drug ever given for reasons other than 'transing'?

Sophocles,

TammySwansonTwo has been sharing her own experience of the drug on this thread. Just a few posts before yours.

Really sorry to hear what you've been through.

Only got as far as the part about triptolerin.

I’m fucking horrified. I’ve been on triptolerin, and it is an awful, awful drug. The side effects listed don’t even come close to describing how terrible I felt on it (to no clinical benefit at all, I might add).

“Changed mood?” Is a side effect - no fucking SHIT Sherlock! I cried for forty five minutes one day because I couldn’t find my headphones. My poor husband was afraid to open his mouth because he had literally no idea how I was going to react. He said it was like I’d vanished and another woman had taken my place. And I was a sensible, well balanced adult! How would an already vulnerable child even begin to cope with that?

As for the long term effects on developing children’s bodies, well, I can’t even articulate how I feel about that right now.

I would never, ever EVER give this drug to my child. And nor should anyone else, IMO.

Bang on, Red.

This whole shitshow has only now being called into question because of the actions of a few brave individuals, acting independently of institutions - Michael Biggs, Stephanie Davies-Arai, Heather Brunskell-Evans, goinglikeelsie, Miranda Yardley, Kathleen Stock. All of them ordinary people putting themselves on the line. Grassroots women's groups springing up to hold our institutions to account.

With honourable exceptions of the likes of Julie Bindel, Andrew Gilligan, Janice Turner, James Kirkup, Hadley Freeman, Helen Joyce, Joani Walsh, our esteemed media has been complicit.

And the BBC in particular can fuck off. With their, years late, solemn Newsnight piece "We have learned that a puberty blocker study has raised questions". Piss off. It was all over Mumsnet in March.

All those craven politicians "proudly coming out for trans rights" only to scurry back in again when they were asked a simple question. Again, only courageous individuals going against their party line - Joanna Cherry, Joan McAlpine, David TC Davies.

We've seen what courage is. And how rare it is.

Tammy thank you for speaking out about ypur experience.

The list of those either to blame or complicit in some way is huge!

The problem is thatbwhen heads begin to role the buck will be passed around and the worst offenders likely to get off most lightly. I sincerely hope Mermaids in particluar get hit by the full force of the law.

I put the blame squarely at the feet of Mermaids/GIRES and anyone else who pushes the idea that puberty blockers followed by cross sex hormones changes your biological sex.

When I was searching for information in around 2011-2012 the terminology was different - sex change surgery rather than sex reassignment surgery, gender identity disorder rather than gender dysphoria, mastectomy rather than chest surgery, etc. There was little information on treatment for teens, just the information that by 16 between roughly 65-95% had desisted with roughly 80% of those a desisting being gay/lesbian/bisexual. Mermaids, etc, pushed for language changes at the same time as pushing for earlier medical intervention.

The Tavistock are to blame as well - for being pushed to follow protocol from other countries without doing their own ethical checks. As my year 2 teacher always told us - if all your friends were playing on the motorway, does it mean you should as well?

Why my son had his tonsils out we had to sign a form listing all the potential complications. They gave odds of 1/2000 for death under anaesthetic. That freaked me out. Yet they sugar coat what blockers/hormones do, or neglect to say they just don’t know.

Thanks for clarifying that Popchyk.

I jumped in there, not realising this was the patient information sheet referring to clinical risks of the trial.

Yes, the clinicians should be absolutely clear in the way they present this type of information.

This reminds me of the Northwick Park clinical trial, where different departments were not properly informed and as the trial progressed, things went downhill very quickly.

Sorry bold fail.

We don't test on animals so why are we allowed to do this to children?

We don't test on animals so why are we allowed to do this to children?

I believe there have been studies on sheep to look at impact on the developing brain.

The outcome was poorer spatial awareness iirc and some areas not developing as well.

It's linked on of Miranda Yardley's blogs around this.

Wrath, this was an information sheet for patients for them (and their parents) to understand the clinical risks of the trial.

Only qualified clinicians are able to provide that information. Or should be.

Clinicians and parents negotiating on which clinical risks to exclude or minimise (if that is what happened here) is ethically abhorrent.

Would certainly be interested in seeing all drafts of the Patient Information Sheet.

Maybe the clinicians themselves excluded certain risks from the very start and the parents added nothing of a clinical nature to the sheets.

To be clear, I am not blaming the parents whatsoever here. They were desperate for a solution to the issues of their child and acted in what they thought were the best interests of their child.

The Tavi clinical staff, however, absolutely must have scrutiny.

Whatever happened there, light needs to be shone on it.

The question is how did known clinical risks get excluded from the patient information sheet?

Young people and their parents deserve answers.

Parents should emphatically not have been involved in review of this material. They had no value to add

No
All people who are involved in this type of life altering medication should be listened to.