Radio 4 Women’s Hour Talking about Puberty Blockers Shortly

This is the question that people should not be able to wriggle out of: they accept a much lower standard of care than they would for kids who are not trans. That actually is transphobic. That is treating children who have been put in specific groups worse than other children, by default.

This problem also applies to consent. There is no way that a child or young person can give informed consent to throwing away their natural sexual function (capacity to orgasm, for example), their natural fertility (capacity to produce own gametes) or reproductive capacity (for women to carry a pregnancy to term) and to take on unacceptable, irreversible side effects like increased cancer risks, loss of IQ, loss of bone density, vaginal atrophy, permanent voice changes, hair growth pattern changes. These are reported from blockers, taking long term cross-sex hormones, or having surgery.

Apparently human brains don’t mature fully until 25 years old and that’s WITH natural puberty.

What child or young person can truly understand what removing those natural capacities forever, or what rendering themselves a permanent medical patient, will really will mean to them as an adult?

How can they possibly consent to something they can never reverse and about which there is every likelihood they will change their mind?

Part of the reason there is no way to consent to this is that there is still a lack of robust evidence about either risks OR of benefits from medical, hormonal or surgical transition for kids. The research is not being robustly done even where children and young people are being prescribed these treatments in large numbers by the NHS, and have been for years. And that’s another national scandal in plain sight.

The lack of conditions to allow informed consent in irreversible medical, hormonal or surgical transition at a young age, are completely different BTW, to decisions that Gillick competent young people can understand in their own situation.

Examples I would give here are being prescribed contraception or an abortion if they have an unintended pregnancy. It’s typical TRA crap to say gender critical thinking is anti Gillick. Plenty of threads on here about that if people want to read more on that.

The instructor said that whole churches can be groomed and that Christians want to believe the best in people and that can make them vulnerable.

This is where "be kind" and "people are who they say they are" leads us. As you say, this leads to whole institutions being groomed.

Forget "be kind". We should all be vigilant.

Expecting abuse victims to deny reality and their trauma to validate males - would that come into this category?

Destroying girls' chances of sporting success by allowing males to compete.

Well mermaids and their awful behaviour. The undisguised homophobia from Susie Green. The fact that they have no safeguarding. They have influence in schools that has encouraged them to things against their better judgement.

One of the safeguarding courses I did was with a church (for my child’s toddler group). It was a different perspective to the ones I have done through work. The instructor said that whole churches can be groomed and that Christians want to believe the best in people and that can make them vulnerable. I think that is what has been happening here. Whole institutions are being groomed. People who want to see the best in people who they know are facing a lot of prejudice overlook a lot. They can see it but they dismiss their rightful concerns as internalised transphobia. This inadvertently results in actual transphobia where they accept a much lower standard of care than they would for kids who are not trans.

The same happens for disabled children (I am autistic amongst other things). There is a link between gay conversion therapy and therapy that is meant to cure autism. ABA was rebranded as a therapy for autism after it was banned by for use on gay or gender non conforming children and lo what is happening. The same kids a different cure.

So what is happening in plain sight at the monent? Clearly we are encouraging (and drugging) young people to delay or prevent puberty.
Is there anything else?

I know. Now I understand about Jimmy Saville. Everyone who knew him knew. A lot of them thought it was perfectly fine. Look at all the people who supported PIE.

That’s why when he died everyone was like yeah that happened. Not one person disputed it because they knew all along.

Everyone knew about dodgy priests (I wont say rapey, that's not quite it)
But no one did anything.
Dodgy tv presenters and pop stars
Dodgy mini cab drivers and takeaway owners
That dodgy taxi driver
That dodgy bloke in your tow

I'm not the first to say this, as you on this board well know.

On a more individual level it's like the Michael Jackson stuff blowing up in the public consciousness.

That blew hot and cold for years with most people ignoring how incredibly weird it was for an adult man to be constantly in the company of adolescent boys and share his bed with them.

The public watched for years as he basically 'dated' one 11 year old boy after another yet it took decades for the reality of what this most likely meant sink in.

Transcript of the discussion threadreaderapp.com/thread/1277990757786411010.html

The best example of a lying in plain sight yet ignored scandal I can think of is the Hillsborough disaster. All of the relevant information was widely known for decades and yet those in power/having responsibility could simply ignore it and there was no way of holding them to account. It was only when the Hillsborough Independent Panel reported that the public became engaged and there was a huge outrage as the facts known for decades were seen as if for the first time.

An older scandal which is waiting for a similar kind of trigger to "become known" is the use of the Police as a paramilitary force during the Miners' Strike. Most of the scandalous stuff is known but those in power have been able to simply look past it for nearly 40 years. While the scandal sits there in plain sight.

Getting action needs more than just showing there's been wrongdoing.

The staff working there must know they are on borrowed time. It’s too late to reverse now they can’t say whoops sorry. That’s why they are sticking their head in the sand.

They probably don’t want to admit to themselves they were wrong.

It seems that people were afraid to challenge this as the we’re afraid of being transphobic. The approach of here is the science young people and family can make an informed choice is good here. You can’t argue with the science. It is non confrontational and that might cause some people to change there minds.

Yes! I've been having those thoughts too. A lot of these things can happen in plain sight but it takes a change in thw public mood before it blows up into a scandal.

Uncovering a scandal doesn't automatically occur when the misbehaviour comes to light. Scandals can trundle on for much longer than that where everyone with a stake knows about it but there's a weird kind of inertia. It needs to be pushed and pushed until those in power simply cannot ignore it any more.

It was one of the things that really caught my attention about the Post Office Horizon scandal. Everyone involved knew about it and those responsible just looked away into the distance until there was about to be a High Court decision that was about to make those responsible look more shit and devious and plain nasty than anyone would have imagined.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jfyv

Kitties thank you will read through that link later, had no idea !

However reversible the physical effects these young people will never get the time back and it's such an specific, important time in development

Yes the psychological effects of being well behind your peers are never mentioned really. If you did change your mind and came off them how is someone who already is distressed going to cope with being the last one of their group to develope. While all your friends have finished and/or coming out the other side where does that leave you...

Not to mention that actually not starting puberty in itself can be signs if a medical issue and why would you induce a medical issue that in other circumstances would require treatment to do the very opposite of what you are doing?

However reversible the physical effects these young people will never get the time back and it's such an specific, important time in development

Reading this point from Broomfondle, I was reminded of something Stella O'Malley said in her TV programme. She found a group of very eloquent and open young trans men and women who had taken puberty blockers. They were all incredibly warm and, as a viewer, you totally wanted them to have happy and fulfilled lives. However, she noted that she thought they all seemed very young for their chronological age. It struck me as an important point - puberty is not just reaching sexual maturity but there is so much emotional and intellectual development.

In what other areas of medicine do we treat minors with off label drugs?

Quite a lot, actually (I think because it's hard to get ethics permission for testing on children: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6677268/

In what other areas of medicine do we treat minors with off label drugs?

It is nothing less than experimental, with unknown outcomes.

I despair at the fictional idea of a 'trans child,' puberty is integral to maturing-to delay/repress it will cause untold damage & leave the child unable to think critically. Now who would love children never to mature into fully formed adults, but to stay young and vulnerable? Who gains from this situation?

Still, the parents can only go by what they have been told and the nhs clearly withheld information for no reason because as they said, nothing has changed so the guidance was changed originally because they must have caved into bullying and have now changed it back only to avoid law suits.

It seems to be throwing the whole responsibility onto the child and parents, who are not usually in a position to judge the medical implications for themselves.

so true...

I have just listened .

It all seemed tbh to he a very long winded , very roundabout way of saying they have no idea what they do long term or that as this is such a new path of treatment for GD there are no follow ups long term.

The fact there was nothing more to say was hidden ( or there was attempts to try and hide it ) behind more discussion that didnt really tell us anything .

Sorry I'm probably not explaining very well. Just that it sounded padded out on order to reduce the impact of what was said .

Thanks for this thread as I dont usually bother with Woman's Hour but really good that Deborah Cohen has been able to use the information that she got from her investigation for newsnight.

(Just a small note that it is Deborah not Debra or some other americanisation. As she has done so much for us think we should respect her name!)

It was on Woman's Hour because it had already been on Newsnight and the WH people decided that it was an important issue that was of specific interest to women, and it is. I don't see the problem.

I think it's great that this issue was given airtime, but I don't get why it was on Women's Hour? This issue isn't specific to women.