Tavistock puberty blocker study published

What does 'no change in psychological function mean'
I cant work out if this is good in that it doesnt change development or bad in that they still have psychological issues after treatment

I don't think it means all that much and I don't think the study tells us much really, because they only followed up patients for 1-3 years whilst on puberty blockers. We really want to know the effect on psychological function after taking CSH ... and a good few years down the line, into adulthood.

We also want data for a control group who didn't have puberty blockers or CSH.

Not disclosing this to the court will reflect very badly on the Tavistock. I also think it buries at least one of the grounds for appeal as there is a clear path from blockers to cross sex hormones.

I was confused by this too. In fact a few bits confused me.

Me three! I don't know if I'm a wally, or it's poorly written. Especially the part where it mentions findings from this study differing from the Dutch one, and then it carries on and it's not clear to me which study they're talking about

This seems like a very limited, even meaningless study. Are many of the effect both psychological and physical not more likely to become apparent over tens of years, rather than just 3?

This looks like contempt of court to me, publishing it the day after the hearing. I'd like go think the Court of Appeal will take very dim view of this.

I'm just speechless.

Except to observe that there are clearly huge battles going on within the BBC over gender/trans issues.

Echoing what others have said.. how the has this report not been available?? This surely borders on misconduct. Tye court of appeal will hopefully not look kindly on the fact that this was withheld from the judicial review.

Am I being really stupid here, or just stuck at O level biology from 30-odd years ago, but how can pre-pubescent patients be encouraged to store gametes? I thought production / maturation of them was the whole point of puberty!?

This is the data for changes in dysphoria score and body image perception. They didn't do a formal statistical analysis (I wonder why ...), but it is clear that the scores do not change meaningfully.

So blockers have no effect on dysphoria it body image perception. The cost-benefit analysis of these things is looking worse and worse

[quote gardenbird48]omg - this is crazy.

I haven't had a chance to read it fully yet but this link is slightly buried in the article - an interesting snapshot of the internal goings on in 2015.

tavistockandportman.nhs.uk/documents/142/board-papers-2015-06.pdf[/quote]
I've just had a quick look at that. In her report to the board meeting, Polly Carmichael says that preliminary results of the study are in Appendix 7. In Appendix 7 is this table about autism traits. Does anyone know what these figures mean?

It looks as though at the start of the trial, 46.7% of the children were showing moderate to severe autism traits, and after 1 year on puberty blockers, that figure rose to 58.6%.

I hope I've got that wrong. Can someone familiar with the SRS test for autism make sense of this table?

Interesting, body dysmorphia unrelated to gender dysphoria excluded patients from study

Am reading paper now:

^B. Psychological criteria

1. has been seen by the GIDS for at least 6 months and attended at least 4 interviews for assessment

So PBs after 6 months and four appointments - that seems quite short?

Total mystery why GIDS chose not to present this quality data to the court

"Parents reported a significant decrease in well being"

Why has it been left to feminists to safeguard children.

Might relate to this?

Does it say how many of those starting the trial actually went ahead with gamete preservation?

Only in the stuff I was looking at published by the Dutch equivalent of GIDs said that very few adolescents went through with it, despite it being a) strongly encouraged and b) freely available to them at no financial cost.

It strikes me that the Tavi were in a unique position to have done multiple studies and collect multiple data over the last 10 years. It is staggering that this study is all they have come up with. No wonder the judges were "surprised".

But the study was designed to stop follow-up as soon as a patient stopped puberty blockers.

So if a patient started puberty blockers at age 15 and went on to CSH a year later at age 16, they stopped follow-up at that point and only had 1-year data for that patient.

From th bbc this is a bit confusing though wrt no change:

Preliminary findings which showed that after a year on blockers, there was a significant increase in those answering the statement: "I deliberately try to hurt or kill myself", were not replicated across the duration of the study.