Puberty Suppressing Hormones, House of Commons, Wes Streeting taking a firm and intelligent stand

Pleased this made WH.

And pleased it's Deb Cohen leading on it

@Shortshrift, I have a recent and relatively long history of being on a REC. The same criteria is applied to all studies, but there is still a level of subjectivity involved when it comes to high risk studies and, ultimately deciding if the ends justify the means.

Successful applications require the applicant to demonstrate consideration of all potential risks. If any potential risks are overlooked or minimised, the application is likely to receive a 'provisional opinion' whereby the applicant is asked to resubmit having done further work.

Ultimately, the committee assess whether the potential benefits of the research justify the risks. High- risk studies do receive permission when the potential benefits are clear and where the study presents the only means of generating the new knowledge/ evidence needed.

I have seen on this and other threads posters suggesting the purpose of PBs is cosmetic. I don't think this will be a factor that is included in the REC submission. I expect it will focus on exploring the evidence of improving mental health outcomes in the short term - and long term if it's a longitudinal study (which it should my imho).

I expect the mitigating measures they will put in place will involve limiting the length of exposure and conducting regular monitoring. I imagine they will also put significant screening processes in place (inclusion and exclusion criteria). I expect this will cause uproar as many seem to be expecting access to be similar to before but on the condition of signing up to a study. I also expect people to start jumping up and down about the Equality Act in relation to the exclusion criteria. However, I can't see ethical approval being granted without careful consideration as to who should or shouldn't be included in the trial. Again, this is a balancing act!

It always takes ages for WH to be available for some reason.

Not yet available -taking a long time…

Thank you @BoreOfWhabylon

I shall look forward to listening to that. I hope Nuala and others at the BBC are starting to feel a growing sense of confusion followed by shame that they might have dismissed this medical scandal as nothing more than a culture war.

Not sure if this has already been linked - recent article by Deborah Cohen
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyd2qe5kkjo

It's finished now. Well worth a listen
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00261fg

Deb Cohen also talked about the reaction to the original Tavistock reports she did with Hannah Barnes - she was banned from Twitter, monstered online, called a transphobe etc etc

Deb Cohen very good on this. Nuala out of her depth. Deb setting out the ethical considerations that still have to be thrashed out.

PB trial about to be discussed on Woman's Hour, with Deb Cohen (former Newsnight reporter)

Thankfully his desire to do a good job is taking precedent. He's definitely at the stage of waking up to the cognitive dissonance.......but is not fully there yet.

I have read the Wes Streeting quotes but not yet listened to him speaking. This is my impression too.
When he stops using the phrase "trans children" it'll be an indication that he's likely arrived at a fully sensible approach to this. As David Bell explains so clearly, using this phrase is wrong because it forecloses on the outcome of any exploration of why the child might be distressed. It's a potential destination following exploration, not a start point that's followed by a demand for puberty blockers to allow (what will now be a biased) exploration.

A trial has already been carried out by GIDS, starting in 2011. Why not start with analysing the results from that trial rather than risk harming any more children?

Hear hear. And putting pressure on (or simply asking) the US government for the results of the Johanna Olsen-Kennedy trial that it funded for the last 9 years would also be good. This needs international collaboration because it's an international problem. Enough children have already been experimented upon around the world. Let's get the results out there for all to use.

There is a belief/suggestion that PBs improve outcomes for some gender dysphoric children. There are case studies that show this. Therefore, in line with other areas of medicine, a trial has been proposed.

A trial has already been carried out by GIDS, starting in 2011. Why not start with analysing the results from that trial rather than risk harming any more children?

If this was another branch of medicine, though, do you think the trial would get past an ethics committee?

I think the key thing is that gender medicine is practiced in the same way as other areas of medicine. This wasn't happening at the Tavi prior to the Cass Review and Kiera Bell's case.

There is a belief/suggestion that PBs improve outcomes for some gender dysphoric children. There are case studies that show this. Therefore, in line with other areas of medicine, a trial has been proposed.

If we want treatment to be evidence based and not ideologically based, standard protocols should be applied to gender medicine. This involves proposed trials being subject to the same ethical approval processes ;and corresponding safeguards) that all trials have to pass.

If the government try and prevent gender medicine being practiced in line with all other areas of medicine, they are on dodgy ground. The could legitimately take issue with ethical approval processes etc. but this would need to be across the board (eg for all paediatric studies) not just one branch of medicine)

I knew it would be SJB.

but no, the parents will not reconsider. Tarnish by association (however nebulous/imaginary) is only for the terven.

Protest outside Streeting's office
I hope the parents of the Trans Kids Deserve Better had the good sense to keep them away from this. If a violent sex offender who is out on license is involving themselves with your children's project then it's time to stop and reflect on what you're allowing/encouraging and the connections and relationships being formed within this group of activists.

Watching Wes Streeting's announcement again yesterday, it definitely seems as if his sesnisble, pragmatic brain; and his desire to be a good and professional Health Minister - is taking the lead over the side of him which has a residual emotional attachment to trans ideology and the belief in 'trans children'.

His little speech at the end about " I know what it is like to be able to come out and be your true self...." felt very much at odds with his initial pronouncement, and the two MPs sat on either side of him, nodding more or less vigorously to each announcement ( nodding especially hard when he talked about being 'true self') looked like the light of consciousness was perhaps finally beginning to disturb their elongated slumber and/or disinterest).

Streeting still wants to be warm and cosy with MPs like Nadia Whittome and Stella Creasy, and so was throwing them a few affirmations,and one of those affirmations seemed to be the suggestion that the upcoming trials would offer some confirmation that puberty blockers were a good thing.

Thankfully his desire to do a good job is taking precedent. He's definitely at the stage of waking up to the cognitive dissonance.......but is not fully there yet.

It's also worth noting that using puberty blockers to treat precocious puberty in girls is still relatively controversial and Lupron is subject to a class action lawsuit in the US alleging that it caused necrosis (death) of jaw bone amongst other side effects. So not all doctors would agree with the claim that they are safe full stop.
They are used for prostate cancer but again significant side effects, and for the chemical castration of paedophiles (not sure how common that is but definitely happens- with consent of the male offender).

PS: Sorry, didn't realize the original links from the Dazed article would be transferred...

From the article:
"In addition, research published in 2021 by the NHS Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) found that the majority of transgender teenagers who take puberty blockers to treat severe gender dysphoria feel happier, and that 98 per cent of the young people continued on to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) once puberty-blocking treatment stopped at the age of 16."

They've just thrown down their own arguments:
"feeling happier" - nice outcome, but at what price? AD or psychotherapy could have the same effects, without sterilising people. And teenagers are unhappy about a lot of things, with good reason. Young people are also unhappy about the state of the world but there's no drugs for that.
"moving on to cross-sex hormones" - refutes the "time to think" argument

And then the next steps are probably about their "agonizing attempts to have a family and the trauma of their surrogacy journey" which will make them very unhappy again.

The wording of "access to" is very descriptive. It is a parallel to "access to clean water", "access to education" etc which are about completely different topics.

The baseline should be that no medication is necessary. Most medication has negative or harmful side effects; they are prescribed despite the side effects because the positive outcomes are (or should be) worth the side effects and (longtime) risks. For a lot of drugs, the risks and side effects are cumulative, the longer they are taken, but a lot of diseases are short term and to an informed person usually a temporary intake is acceptable for the outcome.

Also the blockers given to children who actually suffer from too early puberty have the exact opposite intention of them being given to gender-dysphoric children.
Given to 7 year olds, the intent is for the child and later youth to go through puberty, but at the age-appropriate time, as a too early puberty is not in line with the rest of their development.

They've been leaving tiny coffins outside that office since the summer. There was much drama when they saw some of them in the recycling bins. Not sure what else they expected Wes to do with them.

There really is a ‘house style’ used by all these genderist groups in which words like ‘love’ and ‘joy’ don’t have their generally accepted meaning 🤷‍♀️

MPs sometimes live in a very small bubble on some of these issues which I hope be can prick and expose them to better and wider ideas but at least Wes Streeting is trying.