My DD's first boyfriend is transgender and I feel weird about it.

[Milicentbystander72]

I've always been a very liberal minded person. Supported gay rights all my life. My best friend and DN are gay. I support the rights of Trans people to live their life etc.

My dd15 has a nice group of friends (boys and girls). In that group is a Trans teen (Female to Male). He changed his name in Y8, He's totally accepted as Male at school. There are no issues. He looks completely Male and people who don't know him would never think that he'd been born female. He's a nice boy who is well liked. All good.

Except last night my DD told me she's going out with him. I've surprised myself that this has unnerved me.

My dd hasn't had a BF before. She's only ever snogged one boy before at a party. She says she's 100% straight. She says she fancies the cool older boys in Sixth Form. Has teenage celebrity crushes on boys like Tom Holland etc. So how does this work for her?

Last night I told her all was fine and just to be careful they didn't damage a friendship if they broke up etc, but I didn't make a big deal of it.

Would you find this weird if your dc said they were straight? Please be honest. I'm kind of hoping it fizzles out without any drama.

Awesome logic. Yes, the fluclox given to treat my child’s infected finger - with associated transient minor side-effects of diarrhoea is exactly the same conceptually as the puberty blocker that stops the brain producing LH/FSH and turns off gonadal hormone production affecting bones, growth and brain development.

Believe or not the side effects of some drugs are much more severe than penicillin. Funny that you can be bothered to research the effects of puberty blockers but for anything else are presumably happy to leave decisions to the parents and the doctors that treat them.

And funny that you don't seem able to grasp that the harsh side effects of, say, chemotherapy are judged a proportionate risk when weighed against the likely outcome of the child's death if left untreated.

But transgenderism is not, apparently, a mental illness and these children have healthy bodies. So why exactly are you advocating chemically sterilising them, leaching their bones and adversely affecting their cognitive and intellectual development? What pathology are you treating?

Funny that you can be bothered to research the effects of puberty blockers but for anything else are presumably happy to leave decisions to the parents and the doctors that treat them.

You do realise that the effects on the pituitary gland of puberty blockers aren’t suppression of sex steroids aren’t side-effects, but the desired effects? They are given to arrest a healthy child’s child’s normal physiological development.

If “puberty blockers are JUST FINE because sometimes children are given medication for other things is your sole argument then it’s not going well, is it?

“My child accidentally took 10 of his grandmother’s warfarin tablets but that’s fine because he had 2mg melatonin 3 months ago and all drugs are conceptually the same and equally potentially harmful”.

And funny that you don't seem able to grasp that the harsh side effects of, say, chemotherapy are judged a proportionate risk when weighed against the likely outcome of the child's death if left untreated.

I wasn't particularly thinking of chemotherapy drugs. A lot of drugs have more severe side effects than penicillin. Obviously the benefits have to be considered to outweigh the risks but if you are willing to leave that decision to the patient/parent and doctors for all other drugs why are you not doing that for gonadotropin-releasing hormones?

Obviously the benefits have to be considered to outweigh the risks

And what are the benefits of puberty-blockers?

In a child not suffering from precocious puberty, what pathology are you treating with the prescription of puberty blockers, woodchuck?

And what are the benefits of puberty-blockers?

I'm not going to explain the benefits so you can pick it apart because the point is if you are willing to leave decisions on benefits/risks of other drugs to the patients/parents and doctors then you should do the same with puberty blockers. The fact the you don't suggests that your main motivation is not concern for children who take drugs.

mobile.twitter.com/bernard_lane/status/1176702159682985984

Doctors are beginning to feel uncomfortable about puberty blockers as well, woodchuck. I can assure you that my concern about vulnerable children’s welfare is behind my aversion to puberty blockers. Funny that as someone who has joined a parenting forum I should care about children having their healthy bodies pathologised.

Your arguments and reasoning should be able to withstand being “picked apart” if they are sound. It’s cognitively lazy to coyly hint at my “real agenda” but I simply don’t care if you call me a bigot or whatever.

If not for me, do it for the lurkers : for a child who does not have precocious puberty, what are the benefits of puberty blockers?

Doctors are beginning to feel uncomfortable about puberty blockers as well, woodchuck. I can assure you that my concern about vulnerable children’s welfare is behind my aversion to puberty blockers.

Some doctors are concerned about many many drugs and yet you aren't researching those drugs and campaigning against their use.

Aka you can't answer it, because there are no benefits to or pathologies being treated in healthy children prescribed puberty blockers.

I think anti-vaxxers are endangering their own and other children and that homeopathy is absolute arse gravy, and have argued both of those positions passionately when the subjects have arisen...do you want to dismiss that as fake concern too?

Your arguments and reasoning should be able to withstand being “picked apart” if they are sound.

It has nothing to do with not being able to withstand being "picked apart" It is to do with not wanting to be sidetracked from the question of why are you only concerned with the benefits and risk of puberty blockers but not other drugs.

*Aka you can't answer it, because there are no benefits to or pathologies being treated in healthy children prescribed puberty blockers."

See above.

Some doctors are concerned about many many drugs and yet you aren't researching those drugs and campaigning against their use.

Well, generally I reserve my ire for powerful, medications with potentially life-long side effects on bone development and cognition that are used off-license on healthy children to make their normally functioning, healthy bodies dysfunctional .

If you can think of any other medication commonly used in children that fulfils the above criteria - it’s the off licence part that makes puberty blockers especially unique when used in this setting - then I’m happy to widen my campaigning scope.

I'm not going to explain the benefits so you can pick it apart

Surely that’s the whole point of debate? That you put forward your points and justify them with robust argument?

Or is it debate you don’t want? But wasn’t it feminists you accused of not wanting debate?

Surely that’s the whole point of debate? That you put forward your points and justify them with robust argument?

But we weren't debating on whether there are benefits and I wasn't going to be side tracked on it. We were debating whether posters are genuinely concerned about the welfare of children receiving medicines considering that there concern seems to be restricted only to the puberty blockers and they appear to have little interest in the benefits/risk of other drugs.

Are you an anti-vaxxer, woodchuck? Before 2017, when the NHS took an evidence-based approach and reversed their decision to fund homeopathy in primary care (to the relief of those of us who had been campaigning for this for a while), would you have happily given your children sugar pills in place of conventional medicine? Do parents making harmful - on an individual and societal level - medical decisions for their children based on their assessment of the risk of a particular drug never bother you at all?

Your argument seems to be that we only pick on puberty blockers because we have a hidden agenda (i.e. we're apparently anti-trans). Demonstrably not true. So, having established that these are not fake concerns or inconsistent with wanting an evidence-based approach to treatment, especially treatment of children, can you answer the question this time please: what are the evidential benefits and/or what pathologies are being treated when prescribing puberty blockers to a child who is not presenting with the symptoms of precocious puberty?

that there concern seems to be restricted only to the puberty blockers and they appear to have little interest in the benefits/risk of other drugs.

You might have missed why I’m concerned about puberty blockers in this setting, in particular, so I’ll post it again

Well, generally I reserve my ire for powerful, medications with potentially life-long side effects on bone development and cognition that are used off-license on healthy children to make their normally functioning, healthy bodies dysfunctional smile.

These powerful medications are being used very uniquely here - off license and on completely healthy bodies. That’s why I’m concerned about these medications in particular, as much as you’re trying to change my narrative.

Do parents making harmful - on an individual and societal level - medical decisions for their children based on their assessment of the risk of a particular drug never bother you at all?

Anti-vaxxers are going against medical advice though aren't they so not the same situation. I don't personally care if people give their children homeopathic medicines as long as they aren't denying them essential treatment. The main issue was that it was a waste of NHS funds rather than dangerous for children.

Anyway, I can't "debate" further but I have to work now.

#nodebate

@peachgreen Educated, intelligent women are suddenly swallowing the bullshit

You are right, they are. But the bullshit they are swallowing is that humans can change their sex. You have no idea how much wool is being pulled over your eyes by this current "trend" and how damaging it is to the very children you "care" about.

@woodchuck99 I'm not going to explain the benefits in answer to ... And what are the benefits of puberty-blockers?

If you won't back up your thinking, yet expect others to explain their reasoning when you won't (can't) you are just wasting time and you have no right contesting anyone about their opinion. You expect answers, but aren't willing to give any.

It has nothing to do with not being able to withstand being "picked apart" It is to do with not wanting to be sidetracked from the question of why are you only concerned with the benefits and risk of puberty blockers but not other drugs.

But the question is valid within the realms of the debate. And you really are looking like you can't answer it.

#shuttingdowndebate

That’s was an accusation against another poster, woodchuck, not even an attempt at debate.

Thank you for refining your position, however you still seem unwilling to address the fact (perhaps because it would involve admitting you were mistaken? Which makes that reluctance understandable, of course, if a little immature) that I am not only concerned about treatments being inappropriately given (or withheld; the overarching principle of sound medical ethics and safeguarding still stands) when it is puberty blockers under discussion, or that this is is purely "fake concern" arising from an anti-trans position.

I do not like children being prevented from receiving the immunisations that they and others rely on to keep them and the wider population free from preventable diseases, because parents refuse to accept medical evidence.

I did not like children being prescribed ineffective sugar pills, and risking the worsening of their conditions, by doctors who ignored medical evidence.

I did not like children being prescribed SSRIs off-label when it became clear that it substantially and significantly increased their risk of suicide.

And I do not like healthy children being prescribed puberty blockers off-label - or indeed any drug when there is no presenting pathology - when there is no evidence that it will not adversely affect them and what little evidence is available suggests that it absolutely will adversely affect them.

So please, shut up once and for all about "fake concern".

ok. so maybe someone can answer me this.

If humans can change sex, then how is this just news to the human race? How wasn't it happening before? It's not been mentioned in history books. Biologists haven't observed this. Even people who say it is so have the bend words and meanings to make the 'facts' fit their truth.

So how is it so? Noone has been able to answer this question without insults, shutdowns or made-up science.

Because if it is actually so, there is a lot of work to do.