Radio 4 now - Pausing puberty

[BoreOfWhabylon]

Programme about puberty blockers. Just started.

Just listening but have to get out of the car now. Will listen later.

Scientist Britt Wray talks to parents and doctors about the difficulties of weighing up the risks of taking – or not taking – hormone blockers in the face of so little scientific data. And how they navigate the responsibility of making these decisions with a child who is still below the legal age of informed consent

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00027mp

Did the reporter just say almost half of trans people attempt suicide? Shows how much work she's done on this. Loads of 'gender' instead of sex, including 'gender assigned at birth'.

I missed the first 5 mins. Did they talk to any transboys or transmen? Given that girls are the majority wanting to transition seems very odd?

No, I can only remember one m to f trans child who was going to be distressed at puberty. Ok to take unlicensed meds if there is a bad study showing you will commit suicide. It started off promisingly following the evidence but they did not carry that through and it then fell down the usual rabbit hole.

That was an unpleasant listen. Parents who were very distressed and understandably swayed by the much vaunted possibility of dire mental health catastrophes for their children if their puberty wasn't stopped. The risks of problems with bone density and the fertility issues were discussed with a curious mix of honesty and dismissal, which ended up being very disturbing to listen to, not least because those were the only consequences discussed.

I actually feel quite sick now.

Yes. Seemed to take the line that although there might be bad side effects from puberty blockers, the misery of the child going through puberty outweighed it, regardless of the fact no one yet knows all the medical/psychological effects of pbs or that there might be better ways of helping children or that they might change their minds later or that their psychological distress could have other causes etc etc etc

Felt so sorry for the mum who said she wished she could dodge making the decision. Poor woman.

And my original point - why only transitioning boys? What about the ever increasing number of girls? Why the sudden rise in the numbers of girls? How can anyone present a programme on this subject and ignore all that?

I should be past shock by now but yet again here we go.

It needed input from more medical people who weren't actually making money from this. Also - where was ROGD?

ROGD wasn't mentioned, presumably because the cases on the programme were either GNC prepubescents or older people who really wished they hadn't had a puberty and apparently would have loved hormone blockers.

And another thing. They talked about the difficulties around trying to preserve fertility and how distressing it could be for the trans child to have to masturbate to produce sperm for future use. WHAT ABOUT THE GIRLS?

Sorry. Going to lie down in a dark room.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3493140-Pausing-Puberty-on-Radio-4

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3493244-On-Radio-four-now-Assessment-of-puberty-blockers
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3493119-Pausing-Puberty-BBC-Radio-4-at-11AM-TODAY-Tuesday-29-Jan

I hadn't realised when I started this thread that there was another one already.

I suggest we post there instead

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3493140-Pausing-Puberty-on-Radio-4