That puberty blockers should not be promoted for children by any charities or celebrities for children.

[WandaWomblesaurus]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68549091.amp

https://archive.ph/hmIvY

Loads of news today about the NHS stopping puberty blockers being given to children who think they are trans. Puberty blockers are sometimes prescribed for children who have precocious puberty, however a narrative that has been pushed by Mermaids, Stonewall and celebrities like India Willoughby and Emma Watson (who gave a large donation to Mermaids) - that puberty blockers are safe and "lifesaving"

WPATH guidelines in the USA which the UK NHS have followed in procedure have had leaked documents and videos showing that they knew that children didn't have the ability to understand the long term effects.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/09/disturbing-leaks-from-us-gender-group-wpath-ring-alarm-bells-in-nhs

https://archive.ph/h0BtF

And a new Finnish Study debunks the idea that children who say they are trans are more suicidal https://archive.ph/h0BtF

However Mermaids, Stonewall and India Willoughby are pushing puberty blockers as safe.

https://x.com/stonewalluk/status/1767603259932361036?s=

https://www.tiktok.com/@mermaidsgenderr*/photo/7345520902936726816?isfrommwebapp=1&senderdevice=mobile&senderrweb_id=7345629783211378209

https://x.com/indiawilloughby/status/1767595379921404151?s=46

AIBU to think that anyone pushing puberty blockers at this point is unethical? And that they should never have been allowed to be given to children who did not need them for precocious puberty where the risks are weighed up against the side effects and they are only used short term?

The issue is Wanda, that I know that there are posters who will simply dismiss this sexual dysfunction as being 'just a side effect of an important medical treatment'. It is the fall back answer every time.

Link this to the private members bill Liz Truss is introducing on Friday that would ban any medical professional prescribing blockers to children, and close the loophole of going private/less ethical providers.

"Every single child who was truly blocked at Tanner stage 2 (9 - 11 years old) has never experienced orgasm."

— Marci Bowers
trans-identified male
President of WPATH

Why are you continuing to push this?

I agree with pp

I cannot understand how ANYONE is supportive of this. How can a child of this age comprehend what they are signing up to?

They absolutely can't and anyone suggesting they can is being grossly dishonest.

This is abuse. Plain and simple.

When medication is blocked for children by the NHS because of too many concerns re safety and lack of evidence of it working - yet some adults are still identifying as it being safe and necessary for children.....

The proof is getting strong and stronger that children need such strong, effective protections from adults living in personal preferred realities. And so do women.

And a treatment for what? What Robin Moira White calls 'an essence'? How do you medically treat an essence? It sounds very mediaeval. And incoherent.

The teaching unions need suing as well for promoting this damaging, stupid doctrine.

Now this needs to be extended to private clinics. They should only be prescribed for precocious puberty full stop.

and shame on Emma Watson

My concern over all this are the young ppl currently in the system/on the list/indoctrinated.

They've been told for a few years now that they are at risk of killing themselves, like, a lot. It's a huge part of the narrative. No other group I can think of gets told this so regularly or has this said about them all the time. There's good reason why suicide is dealt with so carefully in the media on every other subject but this one. VERY good reason.

And that really worries me - these kids & young ppl are very vulnerable & I've a horrible feeling that the fast & loose way activists have dealt with weaponising suicide could backfire, hard.

I sincerely hope that has been factored into this (correct!) decision.

I think that it has been thoroughly factored in is shown in that it is being made very clear, kids with current prescriptions will not be affected and will continue taking them. Kids currently in the system who have been told this is an option/are in the process of having them prescribed will not be refused them.

Effectively this is a grandfathering clause, to prevent panic or distressing those already using these drugs. This is just about stopping it being an option for new referrals, who will be offered (hopefully, by the shared info) a much wider range of support approaches. It just won't include risky and untested medical experimentation.

I'm desperately sorry for those 100 or so kids this is too late for, I wonder what percentage of them will come to regret what adults have done to them and been too afraid to stop other adults doing to them. I also wonder how much this is a desperate attempt to try and keep the inevitable storm of court cases and compensation to manageable amounts.

This is very true.

How often are those who are ignoring all the signs that there are issues, personally invested. Either this is their medical focus, or they have a 'gender studies' qualification, or they are or have a loved one who is identifying as having a trans identity.

Or. They have built a platform on this issue and need to deflect attention away from it.

Considering that Spain's equivalent of Stonewall is now talking about suing a group of male people for fraud, because those male people have discovered very recently that they are 'women' and changed their gender in Spain's military also shows just how this is a philosophical belief and not based in any evidence at all.

After all these decades, there is no evidence that these identities are anything other than a philosophical belief. Otherwise, there would be diagnosis tools ready to be used.

This stuff can’t be dealt with because the foundation is a falsehood

It’s falling apart. Good let it end

Absolutely not being unreasonable. There is no peer reviewed research on use of puberty blockers. There are no long term studies on physical or mental health impacts for patients 5,10,15,20 years down the line. GIDS @ Tavistock did not keep records on patient numbers, ages, desisters and detransitioners. None of the other prescribers internationally are any better as far as record keeping goes.

This is an ideologically driven “treatment” which if nothing else generates lifelong adult patients if they continue. Even those who stop are/will be affected by serious side effects for the rest of their lives - at present long term side effects are an unknown quantity due to lack of research. even now patients are complaining of vaginal atrophy, incontinence, osteoporosis and other horrors at a very early age.

This will be looked back on as a bigger scandal than lobotomies - they carried on until the early sixties and the “inventor” received the Nobel prize for medicine!

And even the 'Dutch Protocol' evidence is now being described as too low to have warranted it being based as a standard for treatment.

While we wait for that evidence that puberty blockers are safe, here is some of the background for the 'Dutch Protocol'.

Apologies to readers, there is a lot here, but I don't want to do post after post and will do it in one post. This thread could well end up at 1000 posts and I really want those making declarations about the safety and the advisability of these medical treatments to have ample space to post their evidence.

(Not that they have backed up their declarations before, but maybe this is the thread where they will do this)

All "safe" here... nothing to see apparently.

The Dutch Model is falling apart

By Stella O'Malley / 2 January 2023

First, Stella O’Malley writes about an article in Nederlands that is throwing a great deal of light on the Dutch Protocol. It also seems that there will be a review of the patients that the Dutch team had not previously included in their papers.

This article in the Nederlands points out the dangers on only using a nation’s own sources with no international input or even wide review.

genspect.org/the-dutch-model-is-falling-apart/

= = = =

Then SEGM has published on Colin Wright’s substack a version of their previously published article.

5 False Assumptions Behind Youth Gender Transitions

2nd Jan 2023

www.realityslaststand.com/p/5-false-assumptions-behind-youth

Here is the original

segm.org/false-assumptions-gender-affirmation-minors

( segm.org )

[This reviewed Stephen M. Rosenthal‘s paper in Nature, 10 August 2021:

“Challenges in the care of transgender and gender-diverse youth: an endocrinologist’s view”

www.nature.com/articles/s41574-021-00535-9 ]

The five unproven assumptions are:

Unproven Assumption 1: Gender identity, which underlies gender dysphoria, is a fundamental personal characteristic that is biologically “ingrained.”

Unproven Assumption 2: The sharp rise in the number of youth presenting with gender dysphoria does not signal a true increase in cases—it’s merely better detection.

False Assumption 3: Medical interventions in gender-dysphoric minors have clear eligibility criteria.

False Assumption 4: Medical interventions for gender dysphoric minors have been demonstrated to be safe and effective.

Unproven Assumption 5: Detransition does not represent medical harm and is rare.

= = = = =

The Myth of “Reliable Research” in Pediatric Gender Medicine: A critical evaluation of the Dutch Studies—and research that has followed

E. Abbruzzese, Stephen B. Levine, Julia W. Mason

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2022.2150346

Our analysis of the Dutch protocol has been written with three goals in mind. First, we wanted to definitively refute the claims that the foundational Dutch research represents “solid prospective research” that provides reliable evidence of net benefits of youth gender transition. In fact, it is much better described as case series—one of the lowest levels of evidence available (Dekkers et al., Citation2012, Mathes & Pieper, Citation2017). Second, we aimed to demonstrate that the type of non-comparative, short-term research that the gender medicine establishment continues to pursue is incapable of generating reliable information. And third and most importantly, we wanted to remind the medical community that medicine is a double-edged sword capable of both much good and much harm. The burden of proof—demonstrating that a treatment does more good than harm—is on those promoting the intervention, not on those concerned about the harms. Until gender medicine commits to conducting high quality research capable of reliably demonstrating the preponderance of benefits over harms of these invasive interventions, we must be skeptical of the enthusiasm generated by headlines claiming that yet another “gender study” proved benefits of transitioning youth. This time-honored concern about risk/benefit ratio is a sobering reminder that the history of medicine is replete with examples of “cures” which turned out to far more harmful than the “disease.”

= = = = = =

A documentary on the Dutch Protocol

There are currently almost 3,000 young people on the waiting list for gender care in the Netherlands. They are vulnerable adolescents who are frequently subjected to discrimination. Many of them suffer severe mental distress. Doctors at the gender clinic in Amsterdam are pioneers in care for transgender young people. The treatment developed here years ago is now used worldwide. Now, criticism is growing. International experts are questioning the scientific evidence put forward by the clinicians in Amsterdam. Zembla investigates the Dutch transgender protocol.

What this covers is that no gender clinic has been able to replicate the results of the Dutch paper. One patient of the group died due to the surgery complications of gender surgery and even de Vries questioned why no one seemed interested in that patient while accepting the study. Dr Riittakerttu Kaltiala (Professor of Pschyiatry, Tampere and who set up gender clinics) and Mikael Landen (Professor of Pscyhiatry, Gotenberg) and Dr Angela Samfjord (Head of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Gotenberg ) all are interviewed about the quality of the study behind the protocol and its flaws that became apparent later. Ie. The 55 patients is so small and de Vries acknowledges that they are not really similar to todays cohort of adolescent transitioners. That only 32 filled in the survey with positive results. The others were not chased up and one died.

Gerard van Breukelen, a professor of Methodology at Maastricht university goes on record to say that the methodology of that initial study was weak. There was no control group so the conclusions should not have been considered as strong as the gender clinicians claimed. Other academics declined to be interviewed due to fear for their employment as it is such a contentious issue. When talking to de Vries, she mentions that many more studies have been done by other countries now. And the doco makers mention that all those studies de Vries refer to have stated that the evidence is low quality. A Swedish team led by Landen was asked to do a full review by the Swedish government and he confirms that the evidence was just not there. Hence the Swedish government withdrew treatment.

The mention the Cass review and discussion ‘locking in’ of identities contradicts the ‘time to think’ narrative. They interview three transitioners. One detransitionered before surgery and one is happy with transition but not with the process the team followed. The one who detransitioned was put on hormones despite not even socially transitioning as he felt wearing a dress was ‘a man wearing a dress’. But was put on hormones but didn’t go through surgery after all. It also wraps up with Lucy who was stuck on the waiting list and who believes that if she was given PBs, she would not have ended up transitioning. She has obviously detransitioned now after double mastectomy and testosterone, then ovaries and uterus removal.

The newly released peer reviewed reanalysis of the UK study. McPherson & Freedman both worked on the initial analysis of the patient clinical data.

PLUS

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2023.2281986

Psychological Outcomes of 12–15-Year-Olds with Gender Dysphoria Receiving Pubertal Suppression in the UK: Assessing Reliable and Clinically Significant Change

Susan McPherson & David E. P. Freedman

Published online: 29 Nov 2023

Abstract

The evidence base for psychological benefits of GnRHA for adolescents with gender dysphoria (GD) was deemed “low quality” by the UK National Institute of Health and Care Excellence. Limitations identified include inattention to clinical importance of findings. This secondary analysis of UK clinical study data uses Reliable and Clinically Significant Change approaches to address this gap. The original uncontrolled study collected data within a specialist GD service. Participants were 44 12–15-year-olds with GD. Puberty was suppressed using “triptorelin”; participants were followed-up for 36 months. Secondary analysis used data from parent-report Child Behavior Checklists and Youth Self-Report forms. Reliable change results: 15–34% of participants reliably deteriorated depending on the subscale, time point and parent versus child report. Clinically significant change results: 27–58% were in the borderline (subclinical) or clinical range at baseline (depending on subscale and parent or child report). Rates of clinically significant change ranged from 0 to 35%, decreasing over time toward zero on both self-report and parent-report. The approach offers an established complementary method to analyze individual level change and to examine who might benefit or otherwise from treatment in a field where research designs have been challenged by lack of control groups and low sample sizes.

@Froodwithatowel

Really good points, thank you. The fact we even got to this point blows my mind. Everyone wants the best for these kids, but you'd hope no one wants their bodies warped & mutilated.

From the NHS link: "In January 2020, a Policy Working Group (PWG) was established by NHS England to undertake a review of the published evidence ... Overall, there was no statistically significant difference in gender dysphoria, mental health, body image and psychosocial functioning in children and adolescents treated with GnRHa (2020). The quality of evidence for all these outcomes was assessed as very low certainty using modified GRADE"
There remains limited short-term and long-term safety data for GnRHa

When the inevitable suing starts it'll be interesting, in light of that last sentence, to see if the usual "we were following the science" will get trotted out

Overall this mess is what happens when folk seize onto the latest fashionable theory without real thought, when it's funded accordingly, and when its popularity among noisemakers results in cancellation of any dissent

I read these threads which seem to be a daily occurrence on mumsnet and have been trying to articulate why it bothers me that people are advocating for safe treatment for young people. And then I realized that these conversations aren't always confined to that idea. The conversations tend to always end up in "don't do it" land as opposed to "do it but let's make sure it's safe and regulated and that we are ensuring that the young people involved have full capacity and understanding of what they are doing and the potential long terms impacts." You know, in the same way that we haven't made pregnancy illegal even though we know that some women will die and others have long term impacts from pregnancy and child birth. But we do ensure that women have access to care and are protected to minimize those risks. I'm fine with regulating this emerging medical area but that shouldn't mean stop it. Just ensure it's safe, access is through well regulated and trained providers and that everyone involved has time and space to consider the choice they are making.

'I'm fine with regulating this emerging medical area but that shouldn't mean stop it. Just ensure it's safe, access is through well regulated and trained providers and that everyone involved has time and space to consider the choice they are making.'

Kids can't consider their choices, as they are kids.

It isn't safe. It literally stops your whole body development. It sterilises you. There is nothing safe about it.

Okay. When you've found the evidence that the benefit exists and outweighs the harm, go for it.

So far, there is scant evidence that these treatments provide benefits. And plenty of evidence of harm. This is generally how we assess medical treatments, hence the NHS at last putting a stop to the practise.

Lastly, making pregnancy illegal is ... an odd analogy.

I'm fine with regulating this emerging medical area but that shouldn't mean stop it. Just ensure it's safe, access is through well regulated and trained providers and that everyone involved has time and space to consider the choice they are making.

I'm wondering how you think a pre-teen could ever meaningfully consent to a treatment that will render them unable to orgasm?

How could they?

Pity that Watson et al don't have the understanding to see past themselves. She could raise awareness on porn culture, effects of toxic masculinity, internalised homophobia, homophobic families and female autism. Many would prefer a trans daughter to a gay son and Emma Watson knows that from her ivory tower. I hope she never works again and gives JKR a public apology.

Helleofabore, thank you for your patient and detailed hard work in sharing the evidence (or lack thereof). It's work like this, as well as the whistleblowers in the NHS and a few very brave journalists, that has helped to bring the NHS to its senses, I have no doubt.

The conversations tend to always end up in "don't do it" land as opposed to "do it but let's make sure it's safe and regulated and that we are ensuring that the young people involved have full capacity and understanding of what they are doing and the potential long terms impacts."

Discussions here are about the NHS having decided 'don't do it' on the grounds that after in depth investigation over time, there are serious concerns regarding safety and there's not enough evidence of clinical benefit. There's a number of posts on this thread and the other on FWR from those with the expertise to explain, about how this investigation will have established that to do it in a way compatible with medical ethics, or to work out how to do studies in a way that would pass an ethics committee, is going to be almost impossible. Hence why the NHS have moved from 'in exceptional circumstances' to 'no, not at all'. Goodness knows, the medical establishment have not rushed to this conclusion, it certainly wasn't an outcome they showed any enthusiasm about.

Except there are treatments that have been discovered to be harmful in the side effects for that particular usage of a drug.

So, can you articulate why a drug that has been shown to have such harmful side-effects that has been glossed over by people who are heavily invested should be merely regulated rather than banned for that use?

I understand what you are saying, but I believe you have the wrong comparator completely.

Plus the issue is this 'do it but let's make sure it's safe and regulated and that we are ensuring that the young people involved have full capacity and understanding of what they are doing and the potential long terms impacts." has been shown as not being possible. Because now it is being publicised that even the clinicians who are doing this have to acknowledge that 'capacity and understanding' is extremely doubtful.

Please do read the WPATH report posted upthread (it is long but there is a clear case that clinicians know the issues and have been effectively ignoring those issues). You say it should be 'regulated', yet puberty blockers have a long history of known life limiting adverse effects on women who were prescribed it for precocious puberty. The effect sometimes took decades to come to light. But they are there and they are known.

How and why do you 'regulate' such a treatment knowing that it is not showing any evidence of improving the life of a patient, and delivers such adverse side effects?

The evidence that the NHS has used to make this decision is that they are NOT "safe" - they cause a range of permanent side-effects.

There's no such thing as a "trans child". Children and young people with gender-relate distress need counselling. Puberty usually cures it.