Puberty Blocker Trial Paused

So she's 16.

Well that's laid my mind to rest about the long term effects of blockers and how it leads to further medicalisation and how they are safe and she and everyone like her will be happy and fulfilled without problems in her 40s. Based on one child.

(Slaps forehead about the absence of understanding of absolutely anything and the mentality of 'we must do something, anything even if unproven because we'll someone said blockers are great and are a magical long term bullet')

That sounds you hear may well be the kicking of the can down the road for an unavoidable clash with reality that's merely been delayed a couple of years. Only with added steroids.

Well if a patient is described as 'transgender' I would expect the letters to be using cross-sex pronouns. And a transman would get testosterone, a transwoman oestrogen (or be discussing them clinically). So you should be able to work out pretty easily who is what sex. Someone who is non-binary and not on drugs less so, but really it's the effects of drugs and surgery that are of interest.

I agree it's dangerous if sex is inaccurately recorded and a person comes in acutely unwell as the reference ranges / risk of pregnancy / gynae or testicular problems will be obscured.

Yes! I am exactly the same with these Reddit threads. It's like you can feel your brains leaking out of your ears...! 😁

What I can't accept is the assumption that the right answer for every young person is no medical pathway ever, regardless of their individual presentation and regardless of how they respond to other approaches.

Very few people (and I'm not one of them) assume that no medical pathway, ever, would be the best option for some young people.

What would evidence need to show for you to consider that medical intervention might be appropriate for some young people?

Firstly, some clear guidelines to be able to distinguish for whom medical intervention would be the best option, and for whom it wouldn't.

Secondly a good evidence base that medical intervention can produce a beneficial outcome over a person's entire life. Not just making them happier in their teens - but adulthood too.

Thirdly, some genuine acceptance across the communities that even with the most extreme medical interventions, people's legal sex remains unchanged.

Fourthly, I'd like a consistent rational explanation for the explosion of trans-identifying young people in recent years. Thirty years ago the equivalent was anorexia and bulimia - in epidemic proportions. Unlike being 'trans', however, treatment for eating disorders didn't involve irreversible body modification.

I feel that since this is a psychological issue, the constant societal background of "yes you really can become a man/woman" is immensely damaging.

Can you clarify exactly what you think the medical pathway involves?

I hear you, and I don't think we're as far apart as it might seem.
I agree that psychological support should be the first line of response, and that it should be well funded and readily available. The current situation where young people wait years for any help at all is failing everyone, regardless of what treatment they eventually need.
On the specific concerns you raise: yes, there are questions about bone density and blockers. The research is ongoing, and monitoring matters. But "preserving IQ" isn't quite accurate to the current evidence. The studies that raised cognitive concerns were small and methodologically limited. I'm not dismissing them, but they're not settled science either.
Here's what I keep coming back to though. You say "speaking therapy which is evidenced to help in distress from dysmorphia." But gender dysphoria isn't the same as body dysmorphia. They present differently, respond to different interventions, and have different trajectories. Treating them as interchangeable leads to approaches that don't actually address what the young person is experiencing.
My daughter had therapy. Lots of it. It helped with her anxiety, her depression, her ability to cope with school. What it didn't do was make her feel at home in her body. That's what blockers, and later hormones, did.
I'm genuinely open to better research, longer assessment periods, more psychological support alongside any medical intervention. What I can't accept is the assumption that the right answer for every young person is no medical pathway ever, regardless of their individual presentation and regardless of how they respond to other approaches.
What would evidence need to show for you to consider that medical intervention might be appropriate for some young people?

To be blunt, we are sceptical that your child benefited and we do not believe that going through puberty is a life threatening condition that can be solved by preventing a child from reaching sexual maturity.

I do not think children in severe mental distress should be abandoned, and it is clear that no other avenues like therapy have been explored by these clinics.

Thank you for the kind wishes. She is 16 and doing well.
I appreciate you laying out an actual alternative rather than just saying no. That's more than many people do, and it lets us have a real conversation.
I have some genuine questions about this approach though.
The 80% desistance figure gets cited a lot, but it comes from studies of children referred to clinics in the 1980s and 90s, many of whom wouldn't meet current criteria for gender dysphoria. They included kids who were gender nonconforming but not necessarily distressed about their bodies. Comparing that cohort to adolescents with persistent, intensifying dysphoria isn't straightforward.
On watchful waiting specifically: this was the approach with my daughter for over a year. Talking therapy, no medical intervention, exploration of what was driving the feelings. She didn't reconcile with her body. She got worse. Significantly worse. The dysphoria didn't come from stereotypes or confusion about what girls can do. She understood perfectly well that girls can have short hair and play football. That wasn't the issue.
I'm not saying watchful waiting is wrong for everyone. For some young people, time and therapy will be enough. But presenting it as the answer for all young people in distress assumes the distress always has the same cause and the same resolution. It doesn't.
The question I keep coming back to is: what happens to the young people for whom watchful waiting doesn't work? At what point, after how many years of escalating distress, does medical intervention become acceptable in your view? Or is the answer simply never, regardless of outcome?

Firstly, I hope everything is going well for you and your (presumably now adult?) child.

Secondly, to directly answer your question, the alternative is:

• no medical intervention
• talking therapy, with no social transition (it's perfectly possible to never need to reference anyone's sex-based or preferred pronouns in such a situation), to understand why the child feels uncomfortable with their body
• directly address specific areas of body dysphoria, without moving away from the reality of sex
• help the child process what it means to "be" a boy or girl, from a foundation of fact. Explore stereotypes and how these can be navigated.

This is watchful waiting in action. It may take years but a neutral exploration of what's driving the distress is more likely (than not) to result in a child reconciling with their own body. From the original cohort, we know that 80% grow out of it. With the latest cohort, which has had far more external influence that could have led to a belief that they are in the wrong body, I should imagine that percentage would be much higher.

Twitter post by Jon Pike, commenting on today's announcement:

"The latest news from Wes Streeting looks good. Here's one of the figures, Dr. Derek Glidden, who refused to co-operate and is now likely to be forced to do so. I know Glidden from the World Rugby workshop back in 2020: he gave his expert opinion that trans-identified males would be unreasonably harmed if they were not allowed to play in women's rugby. Funny how the same names crop up, isn't it? Fortunately, the working group ignored the opinion of this charlatan. World Rugby was the first International Federation to take a decisive pro-fairness and pro-women position, despite his best efforts. Now it looks like the legal privileges that allowed him to block research on adolescent treatment are to be removed. Maybe those mills are grinding slowly, but exceedingly fine, again."

x.com/runthinkwrite/status/2027090824513904690

It’s not, Sarah. It’s prevention of osteoporosis, preserving IQ and encouraging speaking therapy which is evidenced to help in distress from dysmorphia.

I am sorry, your child was distressed and I am sure you made decisions from the advice you were given - but the long term outcomes are that these kids need psychological and not pharmacological support. We should be providing that and lots of it, at least before considering drugs and surgeries.

I have a trans daughter who benefited from blockers. So I can't pretend this is abstract for me.
But I'm curious what you're hoping happens for the young people currently in distress, waiting for help, if the whole pathway shuts down. Not the activists, not the ideologues. The actual kids. What's your alternative for them? Because "just wait" wasn't a neutral option for my daughter. It was watching her disappear. If there are genuine concerns about the evidence base, I'm all for better research and careful oversight. But "shut it down" with nothing in its place isn't protection. It's abandonment dressed up as caution.

We were all Spartacus.

We are all Cassandra.

Honestly I feel like Cassandra.

Why does the trans Reddit community want the data hidden? Surely if the linkage study is done properly it will show how amazingly well they all doing, and the community would want to shout about it? Surely?

I am not really surprised red.

I feel like I am in a philosophy experiment often on threads lately. And a gaslighting experiment- ‘let’s see how much women can be gaslighted before they give up’.

You are surprised by the reaction and ridiculous logic?

It's the reaction you would expect from a cult being investigated for safeguarding issues.

Oh.

WTAF

But me, me, me. What I want.

It's fairly simple to understand. It's all about getting what they want without any regard for consistent thought or contact with the real world.

That's what living in fantasy land online will do to you.

Actually I can’t read any further on that Reddit thread. I can feel my IQ plummeting and my brain imploding as though I am in a pressure chamber with each post I see…

Love this comment. Clearly there is a right and wrong way to be trans… but which ones are which and how are we supposed to know?

Labour have done literally nothing to improve the lives or healthcare of trans people, and the whole point of the Cass review was that it wasn't meant to help trans people, it was meant to put cis people that supposedly mistakenly think they're trans first.

But self ID is simultaneously a human right. Make it make sense.

If this level of stupidity and paranoia is the result of taking blockers it doesn't give it a good press. It's not exactly dripping in endorsed confidence for blockers either is it?

But I suspect the majority of commentators even there are not those who are affected and probably don't have a GRC either.

🤦🏽‍♀️

Apparently it’s all a plot to round them up & kill them.

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1rfgm2j/gender_recognition_order_2026/

My assumption is that because the original SI stipulated that the research was being conducted by Cass/ York, & Cass has since reported, the clinics used that detail to continue holding out, hence this attempt at a new, hopefully watertight Order.

Agree that there'll be money spent playing silly buggers in court but frankly, I'd be happy to see the GLP coffers emptying, the refill rate is not what it was.