Update on the puberty blockers trial

Why has the nutty fundamentalist strain of this belief got so embedded

Because trans ideology has become a cult and is executing a purity spiral

It certainly started out more reasonable. The original demands were for us to use preferred names and pronouns for people with gender dysphoria who had had medical modifications, whilst acknowledging that that people couldn't actually change sex. It was a polite fiction. Many of us were prepared to go along with that.

Then there was a gradual shift towards extending the 'trans umbrella' to cover various other groups who had no intention of undergoing medical modifications, some of whom didn't even want to be the opposite sex. And the concurrent blurring of sex and gender. Eventually, gender identity superseded sex for determining whether people are men or women .

Once gender identity supersedes sex, you have an irrational ideology. And it ends up executing a purity spiral as its believers try to outdo each other in zealotry.

It's had terrible repurcussions for various groups of people. Ironically, it's also made it harder for the very same group of people it was originally meant to help - people with genuine gender dysphoria who have undergone medical modifications but who don't necessarily see themselves as having actually changed sex. I think @Seethlaw is part of this group (apologies if this isn't the case and I've misinterpreted your position)

As much as tras say trans people have always been here the trans child is brand spanking new. I think the only evidence, prior to about 10-15 years ago, is the largely unfalsifiable assertions of older, adult (usually) men. Often approaching retirement or older. Claiming that they felt they were the wrong sex since...insert age when a sexual fetish would be unlikely to manifest. Thus sanitising the whole thing.

I wonder if Cass has swallowed it because she cannot believe that medics, like herself, would be so gullible, would do what they've done to children for no reason that stands up to scrutiny. It would discredit a huge chunk of her profession. I don't think she could take that step. Muddying the waters are the infinitesimal number of children who are now genuinely dysphoric. I suspect in many of them the problems they're suffering wouldn't have manifested as dysphoria if they'd never heard the word.

Unfortunately I've lost all faith at this point in adults ever being anywhere to be found.

This will be like the grooming gangs, like women's rights, it will just bumble and bumble and bumble on forever, going nowhere, with much shrugging and long grass, while the victims stack up.

I accept that it's a relatively mainstream view that a tiny minority people really are so truly trans that transition is the only way.

But it's still a fucking leap to think you can ascertain that in a CHILD and then override everything you already knew about informed consent; child abuse; the effect of: parental attitudes, bullying, growing up in our sexist/homophobic/ableist society etc etc.

With all the huge focus on acceptance for trans people, why on earth are activists not letting go of the cruel notion of "passing"?

Then they can relax and allow children the puberty that will give them the healthiest brain and body with which to "transition" as adults, if they still want to?

Seriously. You could be a believer in trans ideology and be relatively sensible. Why has the nutty fundamentalist strain of this belief got so embedded that people like Cass are willing to abandon principles they'd uphold in any other circumstances?

Seems plausible.

It has appeared in the Telegraph this morning but, frustratingly, that one won't archive either.

They won't confirm the exact number of six or younger because 'fewer than ten' might be too identifying!? Ridiculous.

That the flood of kids claimed they're trans seems to be abating is a good development. I'm concerned that (from a quick read) they're not comparing the same numbers. Is the reduction to 4K+ (at one of three clinics) the same as the 6K+? If the second figure was the UK total then there might actually be an increase. Also is anyone counting the kids who, with or without their parents help, are doing it outside the NHS?

Eta I think it's the same waiting list. What's happened to the kids no longer on the waiting list? Have they been treated? Dropped out? Aged out? Desisted? Gone private? Died?

Sadly, I think Baroness Cass is a true believer, both in the idea that there is such a thing as a 'genuinely trans' child and also in the idea that medical intervention will help this (very small) group:

"There are a tiny number of people who will never be comfortable with their biological sex, with the gender associated with their biological sex. And for them, a medical pathway is the only way they're going to live their life comfortably."
(source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0k1vkmxgd6o)

This is a fairly typical medic mindset - they're used to fixing things with drugs and surgery, and assume that all problems must be fixable in this way. It's one reason why medicine needs ethical oversight from non-medics.

Keeping them off social media might help with the social contagion aspect.

Although not from transhausen parents who don’t want a gender non-conforming or gay child.

eta It’s a bloody stupid notion that this can be done ethically, and I think Cass backed herself into a corner by giving a sop to activists in the report.

I think this is the DM version of the story (maybe?).

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15917681/More-250-children-primary-school-age-waiting-care-NHS-gender-clinics-youngest-aged-six-under.html

I happened across this headline in the Times

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/children-waiting-list-gender-care-clinic-3lvkl6jnl

I've only been able to read the headline and subheading. Archive hasn't been working for me with Times articles for a while now. Just the subheading though!
Including 260 of primary school age!

Be interesting to see what would happen if they get the debate.

As the official opposition the Tories get 17 out of the 20 "Opposition Days" to choose what to debate in parliament. There is nothing preventing Kemi Badenoch using one of their days to force a vote on this subject.

On the warpath.

Kemi Badenoch

4h
It is NOT ok to experiment on kids as young as 11 and make irreversible changes to their bodies.

We must protect children from dangerous ideology.

Conservatives will not just sit back and let this happen. I refuse to believe MPs, if given the chance, would let this continue. That is why we will force a vote, not just to pause this trial but to stop it completely.

https://nitter.net/KemiBadenoch/status/2068246503265608115

Be interesting to see what would happen if they get the debate.

This is horrific. I seriously (and naively) thought we were past all that. Those poor children.

@KkkItas others have said this is not a harmless pause button. This is deeply damaging medication which sterilises children. Can you imagine a 14 yo with the mental age of a 10 yo in a class of other 14 yos? Well that’s the least damaging bit. Most children who say they are trans are already pretty vulnerable and struggling socially. They are autistic, gay and victims of sexual assault. You have just divided them further from any hope of peer group friendships and sterilised them.

There are, tragically, thousands of adults who were put on puberty blockers as children who we could study as a natural experiment to see what the effects are. Standard medical ethics say this should be researchers’ first port of call. Instead they choose to sterilise more children who are too young to consent.

Where can I donate to the legal challenge? I would like to do something to help these children.

I can see a value in the original idea of just creating a delay till the mind catches up with the body. So long as the next step is normal puberty not cross sex hormones

Unfortunately, the act of taking puberty blockers makes children highly likely to carry on to cross sex hormones and surgery. So it's not a neutral 'pause'

knowledgeable people with no pro trans bias

I don't think people without a pro trans bias are going to be involved with this trial. And we can't really be knowledgeable about the effects of puberty blockers because there has been no systematic follow-up of the children who have been given them so far. The whole thing is a massive experiment. An experiment on children

Awful.

This is criminal.

So I can see a value in the original idea of just creating a delay till the mind catches up with the body.
The brain is part of the body. If you block puberty you will block the maturation of the brain. The mind will never 'catch up' with the body.

Puberty blockers don't delay puberty. They block it.

Puberty isn't some nebulous thing that you can hang around for. If you block the appropriate hormones for, say a year. You block a year of growth, mental and physical development. A year of growing up.

Puberty is a time period in someone's life that happens at a certain age. If you miss it, you miss it. You can't go through puberty at 18, or 20. You've missed it.

That is why transmen are often smaller then the average women. They missed out on that growth.

This is why on average people on pb have a lower IQ. You stopped their brains growing.

This is why pb can cause infertility. You stopped their genitals and reproductive organs growing at the time they were supposed to grow.

This is a process that you can't delay without skipping parts of it entirely.

Good observation. This has been pointed out many times by (I think) MrsOvertonsWindow or Ophelia:

Who benefits from a cohort of adult-age people who have the physical and emotional maturity of children?

To be honest the rationale for this comes across as a sort of medical paedophilia.

So long as the next step is normal puberty not cross sex hormones.

Well, that's not going to happen, is the problem. The whole point of giving puberty blockers to the kids is to avoid them going through the so-called "wrong puberty" until they are old enough to be put on cross-sex hormones.

@KkkIt
So I can see a value in the original idea of just creating a delay till the mind catches up with the body.

So, you're happy with adults experimenting on children to see what happens, are you? Because that's what this trial will do.

This might be a different view than many but I might not have a problem with girls as young as 11 (providing any physiological risks can be minimised) but would be concerned about girls as old as 14 being kept in suspended animation
Puberty does start earlier - and some of thosd children most vulnerable to gender ideology may not be emotionally or intellectually ready for it. So I can see a value in the original idea of just creating a delay till the mind catches up with the body. So long as the next step is normal puberty not cross sex hormones.
With that in mind I wonder whether what is needed is not a minimum age but a maximum one - say 12 to 13 for girls, 14 to15 for boys. Or whatever age is agreed as appropriate by knowledgeable people with no pro trans bias.

Girls as young as 11 set to be handed puberty blockers

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/77a2313c5ebba59b

It isn't on the MRHA either.

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/medicines-and-healthcare-products-regulatory-agency

No doubting the news reports but surely this should be somewhere in the public domain.

Does anyone know if it is?

Is the article about this? https://www.gov.uk/government/news/update-on-the-pathways-clinical-trial

Because if it is, or in fact about some other aspect, as a Government statement it is as clear as mud