Elon Musk makes bombshell claim about his transgender child

Yes there is a lack of research.

There has been some research on Rams that showed puberty suppression during the critical developmental window caused longterm spacial memory reduction that was permanent.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5333793/

And impotence for boys and atrophy for girls.

True.

But presented with suicide or this one might well say "this" while starting the process of discovery. Discovery takes time - there is SO much to wade through.

The child was also quite far along by the time he was included.

Don't forget - he lost a baby before and suffered deeply because of that.

Complete pubertal blockade results in infertility.

He said his child is dead to him. He’s estranged from all his kids. He’s dead to them (though not through the choice of the very youngest of course - yet), because he’s a narcissist.

Also choosing to be interviewed by Jordan Pederson dressed, who chose this interview to dress like a piñata, says quite something about how unseriously he really takes this.

His success is built off the back of genuine genius engineers, scientists and manufacturers who he exploits and ruins until they can give no more. He hasn’t even got an original idea in his head - ‘woke mind virus’ has been kicking around far right circles forever, and he clearly has picked it up thinking he’s so terribly original.

A horrible human, who once duped many of us to thinking he actually had a positive vision for humanity. He can’t even say a positive thing about his own kid.

I think he is talking about the entire project - transitioning to the opposite sex.

Not just puberty blockers.

At least I think he is - I will watch it again!

I think there is a lack of evidence (no surprise there) but they don't think so. They think there is a window where puberty takes place and if you miss that window it's unlikely that you would go through a perfectly ordinary puberty if you come off them after that window has closed. Trouble is nearly all children who start PBs go onto cross-sex hormones so by starting PBs at age 12 you are going to end up infertile in adulthood.

If a child is presenting as dysphoric (I have issues with this diagnosis) - treating them with puberty blockers is almost a guarantee that they will go on to cross sex hormones - which comes with big problems.

Posters are being disingenuous when they say PBs are safer than you think. They are not for dysphoric kids.

Letting children go through a natural puberty seems the best treatment for dysphoria as there is a 80% desistance rate. Treatment with puberty blockers leads to a lifetime of cross sex hormones dependence (unless they detransition.).

But I really would have expected Elon Musk - of all people! - to ask tough questions and go back to the science and the evidence. He's not the kind of person to say "not my area" and let it go.

Fertility concerns of the transgender patient - PMC (nih.gov)

"Effects of puberty suppression
Pubertal suppression with gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist analogs (GnRHa) is used in the pediatric transgender population as early as Tanner stage 2. This treatment prevents the development of permanent secondary sex characteristics incongruent with gender identity and can alleviate the psychological distress associated with these changes (20). Furthermore, it provides more time for these children to explore their gender identity. GnRHa-based pubertal suppression is reversible, but it also pauses maturation of germ cells, which could affect fertility potential (21-23). In children treated with GnRHa, 43 of 49 patients had a decrease in testicular volume (24). Similarly, a study of 87 girls with precocious puberty while on GnRHa showed a decrease in ovarian and uterine size during treatment, which subsequently increased in size with resumption of menstruation approximately 1 year after discontinuing therapy (25)."

so it COULD effect their fertility, not it 100% will.

What are you basing this extraordinary statement on?

Yes it is confusing isn't it.

Again, this is not the case. There is nothing to suggest that someone on puberty blockers until they are 18 or 19 can't resume puberty as normal if they choose to.

@PlanetJanette - You keep saying it is a lie - would love something I could read?

I am trying to understand all this suff but good info is hard to come by.

Surely you have some data?

His child is now an adult and there is no indication that puberty blockers were the wrong course of action for her. She is still trans, and I've seen no indication of regret or detransition etc.

It was a small minority but yes there were transkids, well there was one and I vaguely knew the family as my kids went to the same school as their kids. Their son was desperate to transition and at the time, we are talking 40 years ago, there was little help and he worked as a prostitute to pay for his surgery. It was very sad.

I don't entirely disagree with this. I agree that there is a broken "chain of trust" around transgender where professionals who we'd usually expect to rely on, who we'd expect to stick to medical evidence, who we'd expect to be honest and accurate ablout what is known and what is not known, have been acting in a very unprofessional way. And that parents as well as children/young people have been badly let down when we've done what parents usually do and followed what we thought was sound professional advice.

@lordloveadog - if a 12 year old takes PBs until they are 18 - will they go through puberty at 18?

Can we stop and start it at will?

It is very confusing!

From what I’ve read there is a window of time where puberty takes place and if you block puberty during that period of time (say between 12 and 18) it doesn’t just kick back in if you stop PBs beyond that window. This is why PBs are not a genuine pause button because you can miss that window of opportunity.

The way he said is may raise an eyebrow, however what he says is interesting.

Parents faced with this issue come up against a one size fits all institutional pathway. And every institution thinks the same way; do it or else...

That is what I took from him - we presume these institutions function with a duty of care and the best interests of the child at the forefront. This is clearly under question.

Most people would not turn around and tell Musk how to create an electric car. I also presume he treats other professionals with the same respect - eg a shrink who is treating his son/daughter...He has clearly been manipulated as have most parents.

Puberty is a process that happens within a genetically predetermined timeframe; if a child is blocked from development during that timeframe the clock doesn't miraculously reset to the beginning of where puberty would have started if not interfered with. Some children may, according to their own developmental timetables and individual treatment, experience some pubertal development (brain/growth/fertility), but it will never be the same as what would have happened in an uninterrupted process. Growth is no longer possible after the developmental window closes. This is why the outcomes for children whose puberty is interrupted by development-inhibiting treatments for e.g. cancer are so uncertain. What comes afterwards is not a 'difficult puberty' - it's a very chancy, risky attempt to claw back something which has been withheld, and which may have been made unreachable.

It’s not sophistry - it is fact.

Anyone deciding to pursue a path that leads to infertility as an adult is just that - an adult.

Pretending that puberty blockers cause permanent infertility is a straightforward lie. It is medically false.

This is sophistry.

Preventing puberty in children stops them developing physically, sexually and mentally.

There is very little evidence about fertility outcomes for young people whose puberty is blocked but who then change their minds after several years. For this reason the NHS stopped saying that puberty blockers are reversible.

One reason there is little evidence is that, as even the limited data collected by the Tavistock showed, puberty blockers lock children into a medical pathway so that almost all go onto hormone treatment and never go through puberty to become fertile adults.

The reality of all this is pretty bleak once you drop the cute euphemisms the activists like.

A child taking puberty blockers is prevented from being fertile while they are taking them.

That does not mean that child is sterilised or permanently infertile.

We know this because they can choose, as adults, to come off puberty blockers and not to take gender affirming hormones. Of course that carries downsides - it means they have to go through a difficult puberty, and it might mean that medical transition later on becomes more difficult. But as an adult they can weigh that up against issues around fertility. That is a far cry from claiming that children are being sterilised.

No - when used for trans healthcare they still do not cause permanent infertility.

At a point when someone taking them wishes to decide how to proceed, as an adult they will have choices, some of which could result in permanent infertility. But those choices can be taken as an adult and are not caused by puberty blockers.

So someone who has been on puberty blockers before, say, 18 can then decide to either come off the puberty blockers, experience puberty and maturation of sexual characteristics; or they can choose to move to gender affirming hormone treatment which may have permanent implications for fertility.

It is simply a blatant lie to claim that taking puberty blockers in itself is 'sterilising kids'.