DM Article - NHS sex change drugs are putting hundreds of children at risk each year warns top doctor

[SuitedandBooted]

Mail on Sunday online article, and another highlighting that children are buying hormones on the internet. Decent articles, can't argue too much overall. They even mention the meeting last Thursday, which some TRA's tried to stop .

Hats off to Dr Griffin.

*Dr Griffin chose to speak out against a backdrop of a fierce debate between feminists and transgender activists over whether transgender women – who were born male – should be placed in the same category as biological females.

She attended a women’s meeting on the issue in Bristol last Thursday, which descended into violence after 30 masked trans protesters attempted to storm the venue.

But refusing to be silenced by such intimidation, Dr Griffin continued: ‘Children can’t vote and they can’t leave school, but we are allowing them to make decisions about their fertility and sexual function. My own feeling is I can’t see how young people’s health can be anything but harmed by these treatments.’

Dr Griffin revealed that she is not the only doctor worried about the ease with which young patients can get transgender medicines.

But she said that many other medical staff are ‘running scared’ because they fear accusations of bigotry, of being out of touch or, at worst, practising ‘conversion therapy’ on transgender people

However, Dr Griffin felt compelled to voice her criticisms because of the potential harm she feels is being done to patients by the eagerness of hospitals to appear politically correct*

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5642577/NHS-sex-change-drugs-putting-hundreds-children-risk-year.html

Also the article on hormones being bought online here;
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5642617/Cowboy-chemists-selling-DIY-trans-pills-teenagers-online.html

I wonder if I will be allowed to comment this time.........

Both good articles. I just wish it wasn't the DM...

brave, brave woman. good to see this issue in the press

I know the Daily Mail is shite, but one way or another it's influential. It's crazy the Guardian isn't reporting this.

Dr Griffin thank you for speaking out. It really matters. Hopefully others will add their voices to yours.

Mail on Sunday is a bit more liberal than the Daily - different editors.

Thanks for posting. Good for Dr Griffin.

I tried getting the petition link onto one of the previous articles but it never went up reading the 'house rules' it says no petitions. Can someone clever with words comment to steer people to it?

Yes, very brave of Dr Griffin to speak out on this issue - It's bonkers that it's such a risk for a doctor to speak up on a medical issue affecting children but unfortunately it is.

Good for her for following the Hippocratic Oath, pledging to reject harm.

Brave woman, I hope she is ok.

I'd like to contact her, and thank her for doing this.

What have we come to when we feel the need to praise a doctor for putting forward actual medical facts, and worry about what backlash they will experience?

People could email her hospital in support, before all of the class war clowns have a right masked-up moan-in.

I'm seeing comments online about this being the start of a back lash.

Doing an investigation into the hormones means they are investing resources into the subject now. That's a step up from just talking about the subject. To invest money, they must think there is profit for the paper in the story. It also means they are unlikely to let the subject just drop and go. If they think something smells bad relating to children they will follow it up. If its generating interest, that's income. And the sensationalism inherent in child abuse stories is a big seller.

The Mail recognise that children are the achilles heel of the TRA movement. Political correctness will only get trans ideology so far if the political winds blow a certain way. Make it TRAs v children's wellbeing and the suicide argument just won't wash. Not if kids are being harmed to become trans anyway. TRAs can not win are argument over who is the most vulnerable in society in this context.

There are ramifications here which TRAs don't understand. If they did they wouldn't be behaving the way they are. When all is said and done, they aren't worth as many votes as they think and their small number makes the potentially very politically expendable. Make it difficult for allies to justify what's happening and the house built on the sand collapses. Child abuse is hard to justify; what's happening just has to be framed by the media as child abuse. The section 28 comparison is harder to continue if you have an under cover investigation or something that demonstrates physical harm. The difference between homosexual and trans issues, is body modification. The differences are hugely important to public support and sympathy.

This worries me because of who will end up suffering most. Its, for the most part, not the activists who simply want self id and have no intention of having surgery. Its the genuinely vulnerable caught in the midst of the coming storm and those trans sexuals who have committed themselves physically already and recognise the danger here properly and understand that feminists generally have always supported their rights and dignity when others didn't.

TRAs can only respond by shouting conservative and tory and intolerance a lot. The problem is, it has to go up against the grains of truth and the sensationalism of someone more vulnerable than them. How far will their piggie backing onto the far left agenda and hatred for the right take them?

Especially when a sizeable part of the public, isn't far left, but neither is it as right leaning as the Mail's editorial line. The harder TRAs push, the more the unease will creep in.

The article itself is good. The below the line comments will be telling. But as much as I want it and it needs to be done, the more my unease grows too.

Agree Red. The most potent weapon TRAs have is the general wish to be tolerant and Live and Let Live. The one place this really dies in modern society is child safeguarding.

I've just seen what the LGBT LDs have been busily tweeting tonight and Miranda Yardley's comment about it. (On the Brian Paddick thread). Its jaw dropping.

If the Mail start to sniff around stuff like that it won't be pretty.

I am concerned by the dynamic of the politics of it all now. But how we got here and the unwillingness of TRAs to take a step back has really driven us here.

I have a real sense of all hell about to break loose somehow.

Their effects are completely reversible when patients cease taking them

Are they?

And reminder that even if your comment isn't published, you don't even have to be logged in to up and down vote other comments

There is no actual substance to the article other than an unsupported feeling of fear. Dr's can be for or against all sorts of things (though rarely have articles in the DM)

You could listen to a random NHS psychiatrist who has no experience in this area simply because she is aligned to your ideology,

Alternatively you could do some actual research

You'd find that hormone blockers are in the realm of Endocrinology and that the International Endocrinology guidance, last updated September 2017, and followed by the NHS, finds that puberty blockers are a safe, reversible and effective treatment for gender dysphoric adolescents from Tanner stage 2.

www.endocrine.org/advocacy/priorities-and-positions/transgender-health

Which is it to be?

One random 'gender critical' psychiatrist, who has 'feelings' and 'anecdotes' and attended a 'WPUK' Bristol meeting.

vs

30+ years of Evidence based practice by the international experts in this field. The guidelines are endorsed by the world’s leading centres for evidence based practice: the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, the American Society of Andrology, the European Society for Pediatric Endocrinology, the European Society of Endocrinology, the Pediatric Endocrine Society, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

Here's a quote from the accompanying position paper:

“The medical consensus in the late 20th century was that transgender and gender incongruent individuals suffered a mental health disorder termed “gender identity disorder. Gender identity was considered malleable and subject to external influences. Today, however, this attitude is no longer considered valid. Considerable scientific evidence has emerged demonstrating a durable biological element underlying gender identity. Individuals may make choices due to other factors in their lives, but there do not seem to be external forces that genuinely cause individuals to change gender identity.

Although the specific mechanisms guiding the biological underpinnings of gender identity are not entirely understood, there is evolving consensus that being transgender is not a mental health disorder. Such evidence stems from scientific studies suggesting that: 1) attempts to change gender identity in intersex patients to match external genitalia or chromosomes are typically unsuccessful; 2) identical twins (who share the exact same genetic background) are more likely to both experience transgender identity as compared to fraternal (non-identical) twins; 3) among individuals with female chromosomes (XX), rates of male gender identity are higher for those exposed to higher levels of androgens in utero relative to those without such exposure, and male (XY)-chromosome individuals with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome typically have female gender identity 6; and 4) there are associations of certain brain scan or staining patterns with gender identity rather than external genitalia or chromosomes

In summary, although there is much that is still unknown with respect to gender identity and its expression, compelling studies support the concept that biologic factors, in addition to environmental factors, contribute to this fundamental aspect of human development.

Data are strong for a biological underpinning to gender identity”

They are not waiting till Tanner Stage 2 to prescribe though. Nor are they forthcoming about the side effects and the time limits that such drugs should be limited by.

There is no actual substance to the article other than an unsupported feeling of fear. Dr's can be for or against all sorts of things (though rarely have articles in the DM)

Newsflash: women's health and research into women's health is never reported well by any mainstream media outlet in the UK.

Lobby groups play a significant role in this.

The nature of how lobby groups work with PR has led to the NHS regularly making decisions based on popular opinion and what the newspapers say rather than evidence based medicine.

In this particular case though, the problem is that doctors are prescribing against recommendations and the absence of evidence largely because of lobbying. As far as the NHS goes and public opinion this is an absolute no no.

So TRA opposition to research may have backfired in spectacular fashion. You might find CCGs banning hormones for kids completely for children yet. Gillick competent or not.

Of course it may also impact on adults too. NICE recommendations three cycles of IVF for couples. Many areas have gone completely against this advice because of the politics. It wouldn't take much for the same authorities to start saying no gender reassignment treatment at all on the NHS. Those who would be hardest hit would be those who have been receiving hormones for many years.

This was a fear of many within the community that aggressive TRAs would push this story up the political agenda and result in all of them being forced to seek medical assistance privately.

Most British medical organisations comment on the paucity of research in the area. Research to look in to rates of teenagers changing their mind has been difficult to fund due to TRA opposition. Today's gender confused children are being experimented on

Theskyisgrey Here's what the NHS tells us about their grand experiment transing kids:

Although hormone blockers and cross-sex hormone treatment are recommended in young people with GD and widely used across the board, it should be noted that the research evidence for the effectiveness of any particular treatment offered is still limited.

Safety concerns remain regarding the impact of physical interventions. Although puberty suppression, cross-sex hormones and gender reassignment are generally considered safe treatments in the short term, the long-term effects regarding bone health and cardiovascular risks are still unknown (Cohen-Kettenis & Klink, 2015; Klink et al., 2015,).

We also have the very well respected evidence based advocate Margaret McCartney who went on record in the BMJ saying how trans medicine is failing trans people because of the lack of evidence. This particular doctor is merely echoing those concerns. As any doctor sworn to do no harm, should be.

And the Endocrine society caveats cited by Theskyisgrey:

Comparative effectiveness research in hormone regimens is needed to determine: the best endocrine and surgical protocols, as it is not yet known if certain regimens are safer or more effective than others; the degree of improvement as a result of the intervention (e.g. decrease in mental health diagnoses); the need for training of health care providers and the most effective training methods; and whether there are cardiovascular, malignancy, or other long-term risks from hormone interventions, particularly as the transgender individual ages.

In short: we have no idea if this is safe or effective, but let's try it on kids anyway ...

The article is by Sanchez Manning, who has written most of the articles on transgender issues for the Mail and us probably a contact worth cultivating.

New Rules Regarding Discussion of Self Medication self.transgenderUK

We also have the very well respected evidence based advocate Margaret McCartney who went on record in the BMJ saying how trans medicine is failing trans people because of the lack of evidence. This particular doctor is merely echoing those concerns. As any doctor sworn to do no harm, should be.

Yes. That was a significant intervention and may well have galvanised Griffin to work with the Mail.

I share your unease, Red. Transactivists made a big mistake in using children as human shields, I feel, and the repercussions will be highly unpleasant. And if the Mail intends to devote resources to an ongoing campaign, there's plenty to cover. That guy who runs the private London clinic with the very creepy Tumblr profile and kids getting tattoos of his face? Just one example. As you say, the sensationalism inherent in child abuse stories is a big seller and there has been so much recklessness in transactivism that there is material aplenty.

I fear for - transsexuals, who will be lumped in with the identifarians; parents terrified for their children and not knowing which way to jump; the LGB, whose orgs have dragged them into extreme transactivism whether they liked it or not; feminists, because the backlash won't distinguish between libfems who are pro-TRA and radfems, who aren't.

Our politicans will come to wish that they had provided sane, sensible, balanced leadership on this rather than spend their time competing for woke cookies.