Hilary Cass sent a document to every single MP and Peer, justifying and defending the puberty blockers trial

I am only focussing on the UK because this is a proposed clinical trial to be conducted in the UK by the UK NHS on UK kids.

No UK ethics comittee would agree to a clinical trial that puts kids in the UK at risk just to prove a point to the rest of the world.

Er, have you not seen the emotional blackmail involved? We have seen it here on this site, repeatedly. It's an integral part. 'Your kid will commit suicide if you don't....' Mums terrified. Not knowing what to do.

Either a parent believes in the same crap as their child or is pressured to believe it.

I thought you said you didn't believe it but wanted proof to save all the others? So is it dumb or blackmailed parents you would like to rely on for that? Which kids are you happy to sacrifice? Would you be happy to sacrifice your own?

I'd love you to specify which kids you think are ok to sacrifice for this absolutely bollocks trial with no meaning other than to validate felishistic men.

I see you're only focusing on kids in the UK. And thinking that the NHS allowing a clinical trial somehow validates puberty blockers as a treatment way more than their continued promotion and prescription both online and in other countries.

So we're going to have to disagree on the importance of collecting data to protect all children.

And like I've been saying, you can't do a proper analysis of a pile of crap.

'Adults who attended gender clinics as a child are more likely to suffer from mental health problems as an adult' 'ok, did you control for childhood trauma and conditions like autism?' 'No, because we didn't know who had them'.

'Can we compare bone density of the adults who attended the gender clinics as a child with the general population' 'we've got like 12 of them who have ever had that measured, so no'.

'Can we compare mastectomy rates' 'yeah, they're higher for women who think they are trans, well that's a surprise'.

'Liver function' 'non starter'.

'how many have destransitioned?' 'No idea'.

I think @SingleSexSpacesInSchools has summarised answers to most of your points. But anyway.

not just it being that the most 'trans identified' kids who would end up on hormones anyway are the ones who start blockers

Yes, the Keira Bell Judicial Review (which led to the Cass review) were horrified to learn that although the selection of kids who were put on puberty blockers at the Tavistock GIDS was pretty random and it seemed to depend more on the preferences of different clinicians than the child's own characteristics, all those kids who were put on blockers (bar one or two) went on to cross-sex hormones. Far more than the ones who (for equally random reasons) weren't given blockers. That's how they realised blockers were a pathway.

getting the required evidence that stops kids being given puberty blockers is even more important to stop that pipeline then?

Not really no, because (a) it would take so many years for evidence of harm to appear that many more children would be harmed before the evidence was gathered and (b) the govt and NHS could shut down the pipeline now without gathering any more evidence from children and (c) even allowing a study implies that there must be potential value in the blockers and encourages parents and older children outside of the study to continue to seek out other ways to get the blockers.

The NHS could (I hope) still gather some useful evidence about all the children they already "treated" in this way, though the practice of assigning a new NHS number and a new medical record at some stage of transition might screw that up.
https://pcse.england.nhs.uk/help/patient-registrations/gender-reassignment
"The [GP] practice also needs to ensure the patient is aware of the implications in issuing a new NHS Number, including potential loss of old medical record,"

Either way it's not worth putting yet another batch of children through it.

A parent who really doesn't want their child to have puberty blockers is now somehow being forced into signing up their child to this trial?

Can we just refresh our memories on the fact that when medics at GIDS said 'hang on this isn't right', not one of the higher ups listened or started improving note and record keeping or follow ups. And the same people have even involved in putting together this utter shitshow of a 'trial'. I wouldn't trust them to make breakfast.

And it STILL hasn’t be clarified what is being treated.

And it won't be.

The clear difference in what is considered outcome success (being happy with your sexed body v being able to 'pass' as an adult) is the huge elephant in the room.

Are you really suggesting that British children should be sacrificed to save all those children in other countries with different laws? And that those countries will all step in line with whatever they find out in this trial? Words fail me.

It’s crazy isn’t it?

And as I said in a pp, it sends out a strong message to the rest of the world if the UK says “we considered a trial, but it is highly unethical to do so given we will knowingly harm children, because this treatment pathway is ultimately harmful.”

And it STILL hasn’t be clarified what is being treated.

I can't access that article, but it must be a rare person who hadn't started puberty aged 16.

So then you don’t rely on single case reports do you?🙄 You do a proper analysis of long term data. Like we’ve been saying.

I still cannot wrap my head around what any outcome to this trial would prove. It cannot be extricated from the ideology surrounding it.

I'm fairly certain most of the participants don't want the outcome of desistance. The outcome they want is cross sex hormones.

If the participants actively want to pursue this preferred outcome, the only thing that would counter this would be findings of significant harm to physical health, cognition, mental health etc.

And the participants would still see cross sex hormones as the solution. Because it's based on ideology not reality.

Nothing scientific has persuaded the ideologs thus far, and neither will any outcome of this trial.

Can you imagine being the parent in this situation? Hoping the government will be sensible and step in and say no? Treading this fine line while the society around you eggs it on? And finding that they are willing to sacrifice your child for the greater good (as per noblegiraffes suggestion).

We have to have a backbone and say no. Absolutely no.

How thorough was the research on this guest
@gmb?
Stephanie Lynette (male) had a brain blood clot due to exogenous oestrogen intake: the clot travelled to his jugular, but not before affecting his sight. His surgery had to be revisioned and he suffered post-op depression.

x.com/JournalismSEEN/status/2032372565184827772

Yeah but imagine you do your follow-up and they're not all dead or incapacitated but actually claiming that the lobotomy saved their life?

e.g. https://inews.co.uk/news/fought-take-puberty-blockers-saved-life-3427474

A PP admitted that lobotomies would have stopped sooner if there had been a proper trial of them.

It could have been stopped sooner if someone had said “you know all those people you lobotomised and said we’re doing great after just a few months? Well, we went and found them all and actually they’re all doing terribly several years later. They’re in mental hospitals, dead, incapacitated, or suffering terribly.”

An earlier study just finding out what had happened to the original number would have stopped it sooner. It didn’t need more people to be lobotomised in an earlier study to stop it sooner.

I completely agree that it is abuse , but I also think she did expect people to nod along, and lots will have. Isn’t that what the woman standing up and speaking afterwards did?

Baroness Merron

The noble Baroness brings her expertise to the subject and I am grateful to her. This is not a political matter. As I have said, it must be driven by clinical evidence and focus on the safety of our young people. The example she gave is deeply disturbing and is a result of not taking action that is evidenced.

What could Baroness Merron have meant by “a result of not taking action that is evidenced”? I think she meant ‘Jo’ would not have ended up hiding in his room if only he had been given puberty blockers?

She did not alas say, ‘this is a result of child abuse’.

I don’t know why the parents aren’t being investigated if it’s a real case. It’s child abuse. What on earth what make you think they’re a girl at that age? They must have a degree in gender studies, I’d bet.

I have a 2 year old. He was telling me today that the spider he accidentally squished likes him. He’s still not potty trained. I could put him in a pink dress and he wouldn’t be aware that’s girl clothes. He wouldn’t care. The idea that a 2 year old is aware of these things or knows themself is mad.

Also if it’s not a real case why would you choose 2 as the age to fictionally transition? That seems crazy to make a case up with a 2 year old. Surely any decent person is going to think those parents are abusive? I guess since Stonewall say children know their gender identity at 2 then why wouldn’t you “trans” your child at that age!? Madness!

It's such a bizarre thing to do. She could have perfectly legitimately raised the issue of toddlers being transitioned, the politics vs medics debate, informed consent etc. It really calls in to question her thinking.
She's desperate enough to write individually to peers yet creates this fake scenario that she promptly has to reverse when the glaring missed safeguarding issues are pointed out. What was she thinking?

Very odd.

Well, yes, there is shock and sympathy for the child, but perhaps not in the way she intended. In answer to her question:

Should her subsequent treatment be decided by politicians or by the clinicians looking after her?

I would say neither. Social services and possibly the police should be involved, because this is clearly a case of child abuse. How could someone who has spent her life working with children not recognise this as abuse?

A little boy has spent his whole life being told he's a girl, but somehow knowing that he's not the same as other girls, and has had to live "in stealth", pretending to be something he's not. What sort of stress would this put him under?

Any rational person should see this for the abuse that it is. How could she give this as an example of a child who should be further harmed with puberty blockers? Did she really expect people to nod along and say "yes, of course he should be given puberty blockers to try to continue the pretence that he's really a girl"?

I don't know if this would be classed as misleading the house

I wonder too and rather think it would.

If it was taken as true ( I took it as true), and as it was so emotionally charged, it definitely had an effect of creating shock and sympathy.

In aftermath of the shock and sympathy she created, the demand seemed to be:
‘This is such desperate case that of course there is no choice but to allay this poor boy’s torture by stopping his puberty’

And, ‘If you are a politician, don’t you dare interfere. You know nothing about it.’

@OldCrone, re Cass not realising she was describing an abused child, Read Some Piaget Please on X has an open letter to Cass (written before it was clear that the child was fictional) which finishes like this:

Given that he is now isolated, school avoidant, and showing physical signs of neglect of his basic developmental needs, I think it is also worth asking plainly whether this is a case that ought to have come to the attention of children's social services on ordinary safeguarding grounds, independent of any question about gender identity at all. I would suggest the more pressing question your case actually raises is what support and recourse exists for a child in his position now, given how early and how thoroughly the foreclosure already occurred, and what should change about how social transition in early childhood is approached so that fewer children arrive at eleven in a position this difficult to unwind. Yours sincerely,

From her letter, above:

There was considerable discomfort in the House and more widely on social media about my account of 'Jo', a biologically male child who was socially transitioned to a girl at 2 1/2 and presented at around 10-11 afraid to go to secondary school for fear of being 'outed', later retreating to their bedroom and developing weak bones due to inactivity. 'Jo' is not a specific case, but represents a group of similar children being seen in the new services, and previously at the Tavistock. Although social transition is usually later (from 4 onwards), I was told during the Review about children who had been transitioned at Jo's age and younger.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5552735-hilary-cass-sent-a-document-to-every-single-mp-and-peer-justifying-and-defending-the-puberty-blockers-trial?reply=153464461&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

That has crossed my mind. The fact that some of us even have that thought, however fleeting, shows how low our trust in clinicians and the NHS has fallen.

It's going to be a study that the entire world will take seriously, while at the same time being so small it's not significant.

Oh well.

@noblegiraffe As for 'poisoning 250 more children' (I don't think they'll recruit that many tbh),

I think they need that many for statistically significant data.