This is outrageous - medical paper argues that wanting healthy, undeformed babies should be "queered"

Because they will be taking that testosterone without medical supervision - no doctor will want to be responsible for prescribing and monitoring in these circumstances (and if animal studies indicate testosterone is dangerous to an animal foetus then no ethics committee will approve moving to human subjects - the whole point of animal studies is to check it’s safe enough to try on humans!)

A transman who refuses to stop taking testosterone in pregnancy will be akin to someone using other illicit substances in pregnancy and that means all you can ‘research’ is a self reported case study.

And those self reports are unlikely to be honest because deliberately taking a known teratogenic substance whilst pregnant (in a pregnancy that is intended to result in a live birth) is a social services referral.

If there's already women taking testosterone before/during pregnancy, why not study them, compared to controls who are not? In other words, a quasi experimental design.

Obviously you lose the double-blind gold standard, but it's the closest we've got. (I'm not actually sure how the placebo effect interacts with a sincere belief a drug is harmless, either, so it may not be such a big problem.) You'd have to match the control group as closely as possible to the experimental group, obviously, to rule out other variables as much as possible.

Plenty of medical research is done like this, where it's unethical to randomly expose people to something likely to be harmful. They study people who are already in that situation.

Of course the problem may be that it would be unethical to study someone doing something known to be harmful... In which case, we already have sufficient evidence that it's harmful.

Just out of interest - serious question not trying to goad you - how would you propose to do such research in humans and getting it past a research ethics committee and the regulator? Just, because they're incredibly strict now in what proposals they approve. So how would you do a human experiment on teratogenesis on infants in utero?

I mean, it's been done on animals and testosterone has been found to be a massive teratogen. So the safe assumption is that it's the same in humans. Now clearly there might be other medications that might be able to counteract the effect (can't hink of any, the only way to counteract testosterone is not to take any) but I'm just not sure how you would do the necessary research you're calling for?

I remember years ago reading of a deaf woman who chose to insemination herself with sperm from a deaf man, so her child would be born deaf. She wanted a child who would be part of deaf culture. It was a long time ago, pre-internet.

Me too.

Quite.

and the animal studies (on rats and on sheep) are presumably why exogenous testosterone is is classified as a teratogenic?

This is a not a ‘well it might be ok’ situation the way an over the counter painkiller can be, testosterone is a controlled prescription drug.

It's a feature of queer theory that it seems to damage what it touches and subvert the safeguards and best practice that have been learned. So far it has only made inroads into medical practice at the fringes with 'gender affirming care'.
There is a fundamental conflict as medicine is evidence based and made by dead white guys, it needs to be queered in their eyes.

It does feels like a specific new low that if a political movement can’t permanently physically trans kids so easily any more by claiming it’s who the child is, that its proponents might then move on to trying to project some kind of identity validation on to parents who would deliberately expose their kids to the prospect of birth defects in utero, defects which could affect any part of the child’s brain and body.

That’s the problem with political advocates for genderism thinking about genitals as only externally relevant, as if they were interchangeable clip on Lego parts or something. It’s a false understanding of biology. In reality each human body has a whole complex and interrelated reproductive and hormonal system that is linked to their brain, and which affects the functioning of their body as a whole.

What's needed here IS proper medical research, not kneejerk reactions or anybody's propaganda.

You do know what proper medical research is - right? I'd love to see a study with a randomized population of pregnant women, some getting testosterone and some getting a placebo get past the ethics committee of any research institution.

Thanks, Sidaway - as usual, Helen is spot on.

I've read the pre-print - the paper was as abhorrent as described by the OP, though I have no idea what some randoms have said on Twitter.

You seem to be advocating using babies born to transmen taking testosterone as guinea pigs in a sort of natural experiment. Not very ethical really.

“Twitter is quoting the paper wildly out of context”

Have we heard yet how this study has been misrepresented or was this just an unsubstantiated statement ?

When harm to others is just shrugged away or smiled upon as 'just another identity' and it's all to enable the absolute narcissistic freedoms of a special individual?

Any ethics, morality or sense of society has left the building. It's not progressive to think like this, it is the province of the seriously ill and dysfunctional.

I just want health professionals to be freely able to tell pregnant transmen that while the risks are unevidenced of taking T in pregnancy because it’s completely unethical to research that, they don’t look likely to be good results for babies at all. Without the doctor who is just doing her or his job in saying that, being castigated for any wrongdoing.

It’s not transphobic or misogynistic in any way to be super upfront with any woman about what might be risky to do in her pregnancy if it’s suspected to be a major health risk

Sally Hines and friends are not going to be around to help anyone if something goes badly wrong and avoidable harm is caused to a baby or its mother (whatever gender identity she may or may not believe in)

I just don't understand why trans women are so desperate to experience periods and other female biological processes, but trans men are quite happy to get pregnant while still pretending they're men.

That'll be because PCOS isn't an "intersex" condition. FFS, the term "intersex" is no longer used by those working in the field of differences in sexual development (DSDs), except for those activist researches with an ideological agenda.

So first off, for those who haven’t heard it said before: PCOS is not all due to testosterone. It’s not even necessary for a diagnosis:
Diagnostic criteria for PCOS: 2 out of the following 3:
Oligo/amenorrhoea (absent or very infrequent periods not due to another cause)
Raised testosterone/SHBG/FAI
Evidence of polycystic ovaries on a scan

PCOS is not fully understood but is most likely linked to metabolic syndrome/is a form of metabolic syndrome which has insulin resistance at its core (along with Type 2 diabetes and other Type 2 variants such as LADA, MODY). That’s why Metformin (whichis mostly used to treat diabetes) is a treatment for it.

It is unethical to prescribe known teratogens to a foetus. It breaks so many principles of medical ethics it would be laughable if these batshit ideas didn’t somehow get picked up and adopted by frankly sociopathic doctors so keen to be the pioneers or feed their God complex.

And finally, as a Mum to an ex extremely premature baby, now diagnosed ASD child and having had to fight for even basic recognised treatment for intractable pregnancy sickness despite losing a lot of weight, multiple hospital admissions requiring huge amounts of treatment for dehydration and vomiting blood at one point they can frankly FUCK OFF with their ‘let’s queer pregnancy and children’s lives’ Deal with the reality of an ND or sick child within the state the NHS is in and see if they think it is still such a wonderful idea.

Speaks to their massive privilege that they see this as an academic subject to be discussed rather than reality. They can get in the fucking bin.

<rant over>

Your second paragraph is really upsetting to read. Who mocks their baby? 😥Is this in the UK?

2bazookas I know what you are getting at but it is not all women who at some point in their lives are so driven.

It also assumes that at least some females on T are subject to the same involuntary compulsion whilst at the same time being unable, or unwilling, to: sacrifice their addiction; rein-in their narcissism; sublimate their vanity, etc.

I am sure that there must be women who, whilst prepared to go to extremes in order to conceive, also continue to smoke, drink to excess, take recreational drugs, engage in risky physical pursuits, burn the midnight oil, etc.

What is extraordinary about that "research" paper is that it unashamedly argues that it would be a positive outcome if the affected babies, and potentially their children too, were harmed in utero.

Harmed in ways that the researchers do not detail, as they are only interested in fetishising "intersex" people; in creating a milieu of ambiguously-sexed humans for the benefit of unaffected "trans people", and undermining heteronormativity.

So while I think I understand your point about the selfish individuals on T who are prepared to harm their babies, to me the more disturbing aspect is that the Government is using our taxes to fund the promotion of unethical medical practice, all in the service of a warped "Queer Eugenics" programme.

Something equally sinister is the massive Ruth Ellis Centre in Detroit, funded by "Jennifer" Pritzker and dedicated to manufacturing those archetypes of intersectional oppression, "poor black transwomen".

Video should start at the right place:

"How the Trans Movement Conquered American Life | The Transgender Empire"
Christopher Rufo

s

We can rail all we like about the Billionaires pumping money into Universities, Hospitals, Museums, etc. in the USA and Canada but the joke is on us in the UK - because WE are paying for Sally Hines et al to produce this insane "research" and indoctrinate students, WE are paying for the NHS to massively increase the number of phalloplasty operations.

Is there anything more fucking insane than the fact that WE are funding the NHS to amputate healthy breasts and penises, give males breasts to play with as part of their kink (we've all seen their selfie-videos) and perform risky surgeries constructing "bonus holes" for males (yes, they can have the disgusting terminology foisted on women) and grotesque, non-functioning fake "penises" for females.

Perhaps the only thing MORE insane is that WE are paying nurseries and schools to sexualise little children and indoctrinate them into a reality-denying, "Queer" ideology, pawns for a power-tripping, ivory tower, pseudo-intellectual elite, who get paid to play with them like lab rats!

RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT!!

I'm with Clymene: if you want to be a bloke, WTF are you getting pregnant anyway?

And if you do get pregnant, it's not about you. It's about the baby. It's time you grew the fuck up.

This may have already been posted but sums up the nonsense beautifully.

Specifically, pausing testosterone would make “public recognition as a man more challenging” and might increase body dysphoria and depression, including postpartum depression. We have to stop here, rub our eyes, and shake our heads. Why would someone wanting to pass as a male desire to take on the very female task of pregnancy?

This exactly.

Surely if society is required to pretend female people are male so that they can live as "men" those females in return should actually.....live as men?

Still not over 'offspring-focused'. Sally Hines is good at telling people to fuck off. Why did she not tell the person who came up with that one to fuck off? Or was it her?