Ben Hunte BBC article about puberty blocker ban

You'll find it's the same for almost every trans adult who didn't have access to blockers.

Male people. You are talking about the regrets of make people who wish to be women/identify as women/think they are women.

Keira Bell was a teenage girl. Not a wistful middle aged male.

You just cannot make make people female, any more than you can make them immortal. It sucks, but it’s the truth.

I feel this needs to add - and be free of medical complications (because you can't magically turn into a woman with no side effects).. (re Jazz and how they would feel with beard etc)
Yes, to be experiencing their adolescence and early 20's NOT going through pretty horrific surgeries, and not being in front of the camera for them, would be a completely different life. They've been on this route for so long, who knows how they'd have grown up? Maybe they would still have been "trans" and decided to have surgery/medical treatment as an adult. Maybe they'd have been happy as a gay man. Or a heterosexual man. Who knows?

Why does this article say the Tavistock is appealing the decision? The High Court refused to hear their appeal (rather vigorously).

My understanding is that the Court of Appeal may agree to hear it, if a point of law was wrong in the first judgment. But surely that decision hasn't been made yet.

I just can't get past the fact. If a child is experiencing suicide ideation then the suicide ideation should be treated therapeutically. Feeding a child lies about their physical potential will only make it worse.

Regarding vaginal atrophy, I know a few women who have had radical hysterectomy due to cancer, its not the same as a regular hysterectomy all of the reproductive system is removed even parts of the vulva may be removed, which of course brings on immediate menopause and all the fun that goes with that. Its not something to be taken lightly and certainly not by a pre pubescent child.

The irresponsibility is breathtaking

How do you think Jazz would have felt to develop a beard, a broken voice and a masculine body shape?
I feel this needs to add - and be free of medical complications (because you can't magically turn into a woman with no side effects).

Positrans

@notassigned

"No they couldn't."

Me neither.

But, @Positrans, this is irrelevant. The goal of mental health support/intervention is to reduce people's distress, not to "change gender identity" (however you define this). A person cannot change sex. If this (alongside all sorts of other factors, inevitably, perhaps including that adults have let them believe that they can) causing them distress, then they need help and support. If a person is deeply distressed, and says it's because they are too short/too ugly/too hairy/don't look like they used to before puberty/whatever, we don't assume that the only way to reduce distress is to attempt (and inevitably fail) to change the offending physical attribute.

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

We'll never know.

Can a trans girl understand the consequences of going through a testosterone puberty? The physical masculinisation of her body that will likely give her life long gender dysphoria, the constant issue of navigating a transphobic society with a broken voice and a large build? The extensive surgery she will likely need if she is to overcome some of those effects?
Positrans asked this about a boy who wants to be a girl going through natural puberty, which obviously doesn't need consent.
BUT THIS IS WHAT IS BEING DONE TO GIRLS! This is what we are worried about! All this plus the sterilising and lack of sexual development caused by blockers. Girls start on puberty blockers, vast majority go on to cross sex hormones, for girls this is testosterone, with the effects as above - but for a girl.

The person who was born a boy can go back to presenting as a boy if they want - no problem. For girls, they have a girls body, with all these changes, and that's what detransitioners have been telling us about.

@notassigned

"No they couldn't."

Me neither.

A lot of people wouldn't be comfortable having a sexual relationship with someone who cannot feel sexual pleasure or orgasm etc. Not because they are 'bigots' or 'closed minded', but because they are decent people who wouldn't feel comfortable putting their partner through something that their partner isn't getting anything out of. This will massively have an effect on future relationships, again, forever.

How do you even begin to explain any of that to a 12 year old?

They don't care - and that makes me feel terribly bad for people suffering with gender dysphoria.

The High Court ruled that informed consent isn't being obtained. They don't care.

The Tavistock pre-print paper suggests puberty blockers do nothing to help mental health outcomes. They don't care.

Webberly is a criminal, suspended by the GMC. They don't care.

Bränström and Pachankis cared so little, their paper considered suicide a positive mental health outcome.

They don't care.

I think that encouraging social transition is a problem. I can quite imagine children have been told that they can be the other sex, and as.a child it's pretty easy to present as the other sex - then they realise that actually they can't be - that's where a difficulty comes about, and of course it leads to distress. But it isn't "dysphoria" causing the distress.

I agree. If you’re 6 years old then you can wear a dress and grow your hair long and nobody will question whether you’re really a girl. But by allowing a child to do that and to change name and pronouns at school, you’re giving them enormous false hope. It might be possible to fool people for a few years but their bodies will ‘out’ them before long. If you’d helped the young child to come to terms with their body earlier and never given them the hope that sex change would be possible then it wouldn’t be such a shock. Also, for a kid who’s socially transitioned, it’s not just puberty that is scaring them. It’s the possible ridicule, loss of friends, change of name and complete upheaval of identity that is now accompanied with it. No wonder they feel distressed. But that’s largely the fault of the adults who affirmed them as soon as they said they felt like they were in the wrong body.

Thinking back to the "like a sneeze" giving up of adult sexual feelings - I know that many people will feel uncomfortable having a sexual relationship with someone who doesn't have adult sexual feelings i.e. can't feel sexual pleasure and orgasm. I can imagine this becoming a problem over time in any long term relationship. I think that as well as the physical side effects, anyone undergoing the treatment should understand the effect on adult relationships and narrowing of their "dating pool".

He finished his degree in neuroscience at Nottingham Uni. He's quite the self-promoter - his LinkedIn profile makes him sound like an intrepid investigative journalist when this article shows very clearly he is nothing of the sort. It's poorly written, sensationalist and factually incorrect in many places.

I really do despair of the BBC.

(i) the immediate consequences of the treatment in physical and psychological terms;
(ii) the fact that the vast majority of patients taking puberty blocking drugs proceed to taking cross-sex hormones and are, therefore, a pathway to much greater medical interventions;
(iii) the relationship between taking cross-sex hormones and subsequent surgery, with the implications of such surgery;
(iv) the fact that cross-sex hormones may well lead to a loss of fertility;
(v) the impact of cross-sex hormones on sexual function;
(vi) the impact that taking this step on this treatment pathway may have on future and life-long relationships;
(vii) the unknown physical consequences of taking puberty blocking drugs; and
(viii) the fact that the evidence base for this treatment is as yet highly uncertain

Personally, I cannot imagine my own very bright children being able to understand these issues if I was to sit down with them and go through one by one to gain adequate consent. So then I think about how other children, who might be dysphoric of thinking, or ASD, or intellectually impaired, or suffering from trauma from abuse might then process these questions and adequately consent.

But it seems advocates and their therapists in that article are convinced that they can. And I say good for them. In that case, present it to a judge and there won’t be a problem.

The only possible complaint an advocate might have with having to present this extremely competent child and their consent to a judge is that the process might take too long. Which would only serve to exemplify that advocate as someone who thinks bypassing adequate consent is morally acceptable.

I find it hugely concerning when adults are trying to live a life of “passing” vicariously through a random cohort of children, and be damned with the consequences for them.

Indeed. And they don't seem to be aware that everyone sees it.

There does seem to have been a few successful attempts recently of trans youth ending their lives but in each case those kids had additional serious mental health problems and were all recieving social and medical affirmation. So surely that is proof that the medical pathway is not the answer?
I think that encouraging social transition is a problem. I can quite imagine children have been told that they can be the other sex, and as.a child it's pretty easy to present as the other sex - then they realise that actually they can't be - that's where a difficulty comes about, and of course it leads to distress. But it isn't "dysphoria" causing the distress.

QC on twitter saying that no Application for Permission to Appeal has been lodged so far. She points out that all Applications are recorded on casetracker.justice.gov.uk, a publicly available database so it doesn't say much for Bens fact checking skills that he clearly didn't bother to check this out.

To add, this is about trust. How can anyone trust the BBC when they show such bias and irresponsibility on such an important issue.

Positrans for those whose dysphoria is severe and all involved feel that blockers as a child/adolescent are the best path, then they can still go to the courts and present the evidence, and the courts can allow the treatment to go ahead provided that it is in the child's best interests.

What an absolutely fucking irresponsible article. Irrespective of your personal opinions regarding the high court judgement, where are the basics for discussing suicide such as a trigger warning and links for suicide support services? Suicide is such a complex issue that single cause attribution is reckless and ignorant. I agree with a previous poster that it'll no doubt receive complaints and be toned down, hopefully with the appropriate support signposting but that's not the point. It shouldn't have been published in this state in the first place.

Anyone applauding or sharing an article like this is showing their ignorance of the responsibility adults have in discussing and reporting suicide responsibility. I haven't been near Twitter (avoiding it for the sake of my own mental health) but I can imagine the idiots on there eager to share such an irresponsible piece, showing again a disregard for safeguarding over their own personal ideologies.

According to his profile, Ben Hunte used to be a medical student, though in Malaysia and he does not seem to have completed the course.

Ben Hunte is the clear example of why I chose not to renew my TV license. I will not pay to have dangerous dogmas pushed to our children.