Ben Hunte BBC article about puberty blocker ban

And if being trans is not a mental health issue and no one is born in the wrong body, then what is this 'treatment' that Emily is having? What is being 'treated'?

You can't change someone's gender identity with mental health support. Would it work on you - do you think a psychiatrist could completely convince you that you have a male gender identity?

It would depend on whether I had a male body. If I was born with a male body, I would be male as a result. At the moment, if someone tried to convince me that I was male, the existence of a vagina and breasts would cause me to question what they were saying. I get that it must be awful to feel as if you are in the wrong body and that you should have been something else but there are only limited things that can be done to change it. You can try for an imitation of the opposite sex but in many cases you will remain depressed because you will know that it’s not real. That’s what happened to Keira Bell. She realised that no matter how much medical intervention she had, she still wasn’t really a man.

In October 2020, Emily's NHS psychotherapist wrote: "I am satisfied that Emily, with the ongoing support and guidance of her parents, has a good understanding about the potential side-effects of this treatment."

This is not 'treatment'. This is the start of a whole life being a clinical patient. Of hospital appointments and medication forever. Of a likely lifetime of sexual dysfunction, of possibly never experiencing sexual satisfaction. Of multiple painful surgeries. Of possibly never having your brain mature as it should. Of bone and growth issues. Of needing to take medication for the rest of your life to keep your physical body doing things that it won't do otherwise.

Imagine you are 12 years old. Imagine you want something more than anything in the world. Imagine all the adults around you are telling you you can have it. You are going to neither care about or understand how this could affect you when you are 40 years old.

You can't change someone's gender identity with mental health support. Would it work on you - do you think a psychiatrist could completely convince you that you have a male gender identity?

No they couldn't. Equally they couldn't convince me I have a gender identity at all, any more than they could convince me to believe in a god. It's all the same thing - a religious belief.

At least the god version of religion doesn't require children to sacrifice their fertility and become a lifelong medical patient.

I can see you are personally invested in this positrans. But women on this board don't personally have anything to gain from stopping the barbaric practice of medical transition (unless their own child is caught up in it).

(Waiting for a deletion for the word barbaric. Cutting off breasts IS barbaric).

All this once again shows how the trans lobby played an absolute blinder latching on to LGB - if all of this was separate to rainbow flags etc there is absolutely no way it would have ever got the traction it has so far. In what other arena is making children lifelong clinical patients, starting with unlicensed drugs, before they have even reached puberty, something to be 'celebrated'? Its nuts!

How anyone can use the 'being trans is just like being gay you know' line with all that is laid out before us, is just beyond me.

Interestingly, low testosterone can cause low mood (in adults). I don't know if it's the same if you intentionally reduce/block testosterone in someone going through puberty. Or whether this has been factored in, or considered.

Cross post with Reality there! ( Good username there for someone ...)

There should be quite a lot of people in their 20s who've been through this shouldn't there, timing-wise? I feel like I'm missing their stories. I've read a lot from detransitioners, but not from those who've continued in their transition.

surely someone's capacity to make any serious decision would be questionable at that point?

Doesn't testosterone exacerbate any depression?

The negatives are never discussed. Never mentioned in articles like Ben Hunte’s. Not in the Sydney Morning Herald. Not in Pink News. Not on Twitter. Not by certain posters here. There is never a single acknowledgment of the harm PBs and CSH cause. Even if someone was to argue the pros and cons I would have a bit more respect, but there isn’t even acknowledgment of the cons.

It’s sickening really. Complete disregard for the long term future health of these children when they’re adults.

It would be really good on threads like this to hear from people who have been through the path of puberty blockers +/- cross sex hormones, and are now adults. I would find that more useful in getting the "trans" perspective for this situation - there's a limit to how much help the view of an adult who has had a sex life and fathered children can be.

And using suicide to push blockers and transition surely goes against usual medical sense.
e.g. a teenager is suicidal and spent time in intensive care (as described in the article) - surely that is not a good time to rush into a non-reversible treatment - surely someone's capacity to make any serious decision would be questionable at that point?

I can't remember the exact stats but isn't it the case that several research studies have shown that at least 90% of minors with gender dysphoria grow out of it by the end of puberty and are happy with their bio sex. I'm not aware of a foolproof test to identify the other children who won't grow out of it. So if 100 children go to the Tavistock and get PBs, on their own stats, 99 will probably proceed to CSHs. The GD is thus baked in. 90 or more would have desisted, but now, however they feel, their bodies are permanently changed. Positrans seems to be saying this is OK because the other kids who are still trans will look more like their target sex - if they are male. Females, as noted above, won't because they will be too short to pass as adult males.

I think this article should have been written by either the BBC's legal correspondent or their health correspondent. Not their LGBT correspondent. The world of LGBT is entirely political and this is a health and/or a legal matter.

but had been told it was "like a sneeze"

Yes. I would have gladly signed it away if I thought it was only like a sneeze.

There's just no appropriate way to explain it to a child. They'll never understand it until they're old enough and have experienced it.

Like a sneeze, ffs.

How do you think Jazz would have felt to develop a beard, a broken voice and a masculine body shape?

Who knows? It’s clearly not possible to determine this, but it’s equally not possible to extrapolate that it would have automatically have been negative.

On the flip side, we know that there have been 4 surgeries carried out on Jazz as a result of technical difficulties and complications, including one needed to relocate the “clitoris”

www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/i-am-jazz-why-did-jazz-jennings-need-a-fourth-gender-confirmation-surgery-after-complications.html/

This is iatrogenic harm caused by doctors.

Positrans

You talk about "extensive surgery", when everyone knows that very few transgender people have any surgery whatsoever, and when they do it is largely cosmetic.

Adults who, based on their own posts, have had children of their own, so presumably a sex life too, yet would happily deny that to others.

Yes, and I remember Jazz saying that they hadn't had an orgasm (neither had I at that age) but had been told it was "like a sneeze". I remember that description from a book given to children i.e. before they develop sexually. Jazz (and others like them) will NEVER develop past this.

Tbats certainly something I've noticed.

They seemingly go from being the most articulate toddlers coming out witg phrases like " when is God going to correct his mistake and give me a penis/vagina" at a time most of us are trying to stop ours from eating the cat food, to incredibly immature young adults. Young adults very self centred to. I mean its not their fault ajd I imagine in order to try ahd make them feel better as they were growing up they were perhaps over indulged in desperation to try and cheer them up/make them happy. But it definitely shows when they get older.

www.bmj.com/content/365/bmj.l1652

I went through a testosterone puberty. It made my gender dysphoria considerable worse. You'll find it's the same for almost every trans adult who didn't have access to blockers. If puberty makes you comfortable with your body, why do people like me even exist?

For a small group of people, transition helps and these people will still have GD after puberty. For the majority, they will desist after puberty and medical intervention will not help but actually make their lives worse. We have to work out whether we protect the larger group who will desist or give early treatment to all, meaning that there will be kids with irreversible changes to their bodies as a result of medicalisation. It’s harsh on the ones who persist but I can’t see how the balance can come down in favour of anything other than erring on the side of caution. It’s objectively a better outcome that a child with GD goes through an entirely natural process and then has medical intervention when old enough (even if they can’t then pass) than if a child is given drugs that irreversibly change their body out of accordance with natural development which they then later regret when older.

Yes, and how old is Jazz now - 19 or 20 ? To me they don't seem as "mature" as others of that age. And again I wonder who it benefits to stop children maturing naturally.

But its the only puberty a child can have. I mean they don't have the organs for any other kind.

There are side effects from men taking testosterone and woman taking oestrogen, even taking their own hormones, let alone the wrong ones.