The horrific reality of child MtF transition

Can someone PM me the gist of what was deleted? Is it that we’re not allowed to name a medical procedure as castration - whether surgical or chemical?

It occurs to me with a certain amount of force that if one of the known and common side-effects of Lupron is suicidal impulses, along with Wikipedia's listing of

"Common side effects of leuprorelin injection include redness/burning/stinging/pain/bruising at the injection site, hot flashes (flushing), increased sweating, night sweats, tiredness, headache, upset stomach, nausea, diarrhea, impotence, testicular shrinkage, constipation, stomach pain, breast swelling or tenderness, acne, joint/muscle aches or pain, trouble sleeping (insomnia), reduced sexual interest, vaginal discomfort/dryness/itching/discharge, vaginal bleeding, swelling of the ankles/feet, increased urination at night, dizziness, breakthrough bleeding in a female child during the first two months of leuprorelin treatment, weakness, chills, clammy skin, skin redness, itching, or scaling, testicle pain, impotence, depression, or memory problems"

this would explain at least to some extent any increase in suicide among young trans people. Not that I can find any particular evidence that there actually is an increase in suicide by trans adolescents over that by ones who are not trans, as a percentage, but blimey, if there is they have drug-induced reasons for it!

But MNHQ decide to side with those who Scarlett describes are causing the harm and delete posts using the correct terminology. Why? Because some people don't want other 'Scarletts' to hear?

I think this is it

Something I've wondered, So if you take puberty blockers until you're in your 20s then stop do you then go through puberty? 30s? Is there a window on puberty occuring after which it just won't happen?

So here is a young man who has a heart wrenching story of how they didn't know what the route they were being put on would lead to - how becoming a transwomen at 13 would lead to the removal of their penis and testicles. A demonstration of both how important it is to use clear language, the lack of capacity of a child to decide and the harms of not doing so. But MNHQ decide to side with those who Scarlett describes are causing the harm and delete posts using the correct terminology. Why? Because some people don't want other 'Scarletts' to hear?

Even if they stop taking blockers at 16/17 and don't take cross sex hormones they will not simply kick into natural puberty.

Actually, I think this is one of the (many) “unknowns”. As the vast majority of children put on puberty blockers go directly onto cross-sex hormones, there is little evidence either way.

It is suspected that there may be a set window during which puberty occurs, but I believe this is not fully evidenced - which is also one of the arguments that comes into play when discussing whether puberty blockers can ever be considered a “pause button “.

My friends whose daughters have taken T say it is another nail in their hearts when they realise they will never hear their daughters sing or speak in their natural voices again.

But it no longer sounds anything like a woman's voice either and most people will interpret it as a man's voice rather than a woman's.

It is horrific isn't it?

It's also exactly why it's import to challenge views held by people such as your OH about PB's being a benign "pause button".

The trans lobby have historically been very effective in using language to whitewash the facts to make them more palatable and making emotive statements (eg better a trans child than a dead child) for which there is no empirical evidence.

Tbh I'm very uncomfortable with the term Trans Child.

A child suffering from gender dysphoria is not automatically trans nor should be assumed to be so. As noted below, if appropriately supported the vast majority of children will reconcile their gender identity with their biological sex if given the chance to so without medical (by which I mean PB's) intervention.

Labelling children as trans as soon as they exhibit concerns about their gender identity is in and off itself an affirmative behaviour that reduces their space to decide/evaluate for themselves who they are and how they want to present.

I’m friends with some older gay men who lament the lack of beautiful feminine young men nowadays. Because they all get told they’re straight trans women, instead of just being comfortable with being feminine gay men.

Such an interesting thread and a powerful interview. I really admire Scarlett for opening up. But those are just about the worst interview skills I've ever seen in my life. Just shut the fuck up! It's almost a case study in the worst elements of mansplaining - he keeps interrupting her very heartfelt, emotionally sensitive, difficult narrative to explain to her how she was feeling and what was going on!

Thanks for the info and links, very interesting (if horrifying)

Their voice may "lighten" a bit but not to what would have been their natural pre- CSH register.

voices are very indicative of sex and I think the voice of a female on testosterone sounds different from a male. It's sometimes subtle and I can't quite put my finger (or ear) on what it is but a woman with a deep voice (from smoking or a sore throat or cross sex hormones) doesn't sound like a man.

I agree with you.

As might be evident on this thread one of my big ticket issues is this determination from the trans lobby to spread the narrative that blockers are a benign, safe, fully reversible "pause button".

They are incredibly powerful drugs, the efficacy of which in the context of treating children gender dysphoria is medically unproven, that have potentially very serious side effects (even after they have stopped being taken) and statically have been proven to put the majority of children prescribed them on a pathway to transition in direct contrast with the vast majority children who do not take PB's that desist.

They are not a "pause button". They are better described as a very dangerous accelerator of gender dysphoria that have long term consequences.

It seems to me that the deeper voice is one of the difficult things for female detransitioners to cope with - can that be reversed?

I think it was Ray Blanchard who described the permanent effect of thickened vocal cords from cross sex hormones. He said, and I paraphrase, that it was as if the treatment was surgical.

It cannot be reversed though vocal/speech therapy could be used I suppose, the vocal chords will never return to their previous pre-CSH state.

Is that really true? Is this the same puberty blockers that are used for precocious puberty or is that something different? My OH keeps telling me that because blockers are just pausing puberty like they do for precocious puberty then there's no problem with them.

I don't see how that's possible given a) they're (apparently) the same medication that's used in stage 4 cancer and b) hormones are very powerful things and the medical community has no real idea how they work.

Is that wrong? Thanks

People taking these for precocious puberty do so only until the normal onset of puberty which in girls can be 10 or so. It's reccomended the time on them is kept as short as possible.

For transitioning kids they take them longer by a good deal, until they are old enouhg to take testosterone. So they are on them a long time and there is none of the normal developments of puberty during that time. That can include development of sexual organs, interest in sex, and no one knows for sure but very likely changes to the brain, the ability to abstract, and so on.

Once they begin cross-sex hormones, it causes secondary sex characteristics, but it's not at all clear that these cause the more basic types of maturation that happen during puberty, or if they do so in the normal way.

Trailer here for new documentary about children transitioning - posting as relevant.

Transmission: what the rush to reassign gender sex

Also, even with short-term treatment to delay precocious puberty, it has turned out that the downsides are considerable.

khn.org/news/women-fear-drug-they-used-to-halt-puberty-led-to-health-problems/

extract

For years, Sharissa Derricott, 30, had no idea why her body seemed to be failing. At 21, a surgeon replaced her deteriorated jaw joint. She’s been diagnosed with degenerative disc disease and fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition. Her teeth are shedding enamel and cracking.

None of it made sense to her until she discovered a community of women online who describe similar symptoms and have one thing in common: All had taken a drug called Lupron.

Thousands of parents chose to inject their daughters with the drug, which was approved to shut down puberty in young girls but also is commonly used off-label to help short kids grow taller.

The drug’s pediatric version comes with few warnings about long-term side effects. It is also used in adults to fight prostate cancer or relieve uterine pain and the Food and Drug Administration has warnings on the drug’s adult labels about a variety of side effects.

More than 10,000 adverse event reports filed with the FDA reflect the experiences of women who’ve taken Lupron. The reports describe everything from brittle bones to faulty joints

In interviews andin online forums, women who took the drug as young girls or initiated a daughter’s treatment described harsh side effects that have been well-documented in adults.

Women who used Lupron a decade or more ago to delay puberty or grow taller described the short-term side effects listed on the pediatric label: pain at the injection site, mood swings and headaches. Yet they also described conditions that usually affect people much later in life. A 20-year-old from South Carolina was diagnosed with osteopenia, a thinning of the bones, while a 25 year-old from Pennsylvania has osteoporosis and a cracked spine. A 26 year-old in Massachusetts needed a total hip replacement. A 25-year-old in Wisconsin, like Derricott, has chronic pain and degenerative disc disease.

“It just feels like I’m being punished for basically being experimented on when I was a child,” said Derricott, of Lawton, Okla. “I’d hate for a child to be put on Lupron, get to my age and go through the things I have been through.”

In the interviews with women who took Lupron to delay puberty or grow taller, most described depression and anxiety. Several recounted their struggles, or a daughter’s, with suicidal urges. One mother of a Lupron patient described seizures.

Such complaints have recently come under scrutiny at the FDA, which regulates drug safety.

“We are currently conducting a specific review of nervous system and psychiatric events in association with the use of GnRH agonists, [a class of drugs] including Lupron, in pediatric patients,” the FDA said in a statement in response to questions from Kaiser Health News and Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting.

The FDA is also reviewing deadly seizures stemming from the pediatric use of Lupron and other drugs in its class. While there are other drugs similar to Lupron, it is a market leader and thousands of women have joined Facebookgroupsor internetforumsin recent years claiming that Lupron ruined their lives or left them crippled.

But the FDA has yet to issue additional warnings about pediatric use, and unapproved uses of the drugs persist.

Meanwhile, pediatricians and industry researchers are criticizing doctors for using Lupron to help kids with normally timed puberty grow taller, an “off-label” practice that was shown more than a decade ago to cause harm. Off-label prescribing is legal and common, but means doctors are using drugs in ways the FDA did not determine to be safe and effective.

In 2009, an international consortium of pediatricians hadwarnedagainst such use. Among them was a pediatric endocrinologist, Dr. Erica Eugster, whose research found that puberty-delaying drugs are widely used off label, even though the safety of such prescribing is unproven.

The health problems described by more than a dozen women in interviews could illustrate long range effects of pediatric use and warrant further investigation.

“That’s what you have to ask, ‘Is this the tide rising?’” said Dr. Alan Rogol, a University of Virginia Medical School professor emeritus in pediatrics who said he prescribed the medication for decades. “None of us can answer that.”

Continues: khn.org/news/women-fear-drug-they-used-to-halt-puberty-led-to-health-problems/

@talkingdeadscot @Aspiringmatriarch

www.transgendertrend.com/puberty-blockers/

This article is very good at explaining the issue under discussion and directly addressing the questions you have both raised.

It's well worth a read.

Children with precocious puberty stop taking the blockers at the age where natural puberty would take place, so they go through it at the same time as their peers and it occurs as it should.
Children whose puberty is blocked until they are 18 years old when they can start cross sex hormones never go through natural puberty. Even if they stop taking blockers at 16/17 and don't take cross sex hormones they will not simply kick into natural puberty.
Puberty is more than just growing breasts or a beard. The brain matures during puberty, which doesn't happen for blocked children.

I think one of the reasons the monitors are so keen to prevent accurate discussion of the medical procedures involved is because they’re absolutely horrifying.

Also, I’m absolutely not being snippy at anyone on this thread but the lack of knowledge and the fudging of language around puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones is such an enormous issue in my eyes. I am so glad we have Mumsnet with knowledgable posters who can tell others exactly what happens when PBs and CSH are taken, because there has been a deliberate (and successful) attempt to obscure the reality of what is being done experimentally to these children.

This is why the Bell case was so important, it established that children cannot consent to this level of “treatment” as they cannot comprehend what the future holds. Equally, nobody involved in this process is being honest about it in a way that a young teen might have a chance of understanding. It’s all sanitised language and euphemism, the whole thing makes me boiling mad because it’s so misleading and dishonest but the consequences are devastating.

*There's one aspect of this I don't understand which is when girls go through FtM transition, they get a deeper, often very male-sounding voice, and can have facial hair etc. Is this only possible if they've already had a female puberty? What happens if they have been on blockers and not had puberty - would they still have those effects?

It seems to me that the deeper voice is one of the difficult things for female detransitioners to cope with - can that be reversed?*

The reason they get facial hair, deeper voices etc is because their bodies are being flooded with Testosterone (as part of cross sex hormone medication).

This would happen whether or not the child had experienced natal puberty.

Typically these changes are not reversible.

They might "lessen" to a degree, for example a trans man who stopped taking testosterone might see a reduction in facial hair and the arrest of male pattern baldness but you can't "reset" to where you started. Their voice may "lighten" a bit but not to what would have been their natural pre- CSH register.

Is that really true? Is this the same puberty blockers that are used for precocious puberty or is that something different? My OH keeps telling me that because blockers are just pausing puberty like they do for precocious puberty then there's no problem with them.

So this was a key aspect of the Keira Bell case.

The argument your OH makes is that which the trans lobby are keen to have everyone believe.

There are two key issues however.

Firstly, there is no data that supports the notion that blockers are without harm. They are powerful drugs and there is a lack of studies into their usage - which is why they are deemed as experimental.

Secondly, to pick up on the "pause button" argument as was discussed in the Bell case the reality is that the vast majority of children who take blockers then go in to take cross sex hormones. As such rather than see them as a "pause" they are more accurately a gateway to transition.

In the Bell judgement the judges refuted the notion from the Tavistock that the provision of PB's and CSH's were distinct "stages" precisely because the evidence is that don't "just pause" puberty but affirm the process of transition.

By contrast the vast majority children not prescribed PB's desist and accept their natal sex.