Interesting thread on endocrinologists ignoring dangers of restricting girls' height via high doses of estrogen

[kesstrel]

twitter.com/Bleedinheart2MD/status/1089623256011657216

"Endocrinologists have a history of manufacturing health problems based on children violating sex stereotypes. From the 1950s to the early 2000s, doctors used high dose estrogen to prevent girls from becoming too tall. Endocrinologists defended their experimentation by claiming that tall girls will have difficulty finding husbands or wearing "smart" clothes, and will suffer severe lifelong psychological distress from not fitting in. None of these assumptions were actually tested in research." Thread continues....

Wow. Thanks for sharing. Nothing new in the world eh?

(Spolier alert) turns out childhood hormone treatment "unexpectedly" did cause significant long term damage to fertility, for treated 'tall' girls.

This was suggested for my niece when she was about 10 when she saw a paediatrician for an unrelated mater. She was 5’6 then. Luckily my sister laughed & said no way.

Niece is now 6’3 & owns every inch of it.

Smacks to me of squashing down women.

That is shocking... or less shocking more just downright disgusting. I’m not shocked as such because I have all sorts of endocrine issues and they, as a group, are fucking useless and don’t listen to women at all. I had one doctor put me on 14 different hormones and supplements for what was a thyroid condition that evolved, untreated, into an inability to make much of any hormone. He would not listen when I told him that it was making the symptoms worse, that it was confusing and a full time job to take so many pills, separately, away from food, at different times. It’s a little experiment to them.

My parents offered to investigate this for me (would have been early to mid 80s I guess); I was happy to say no. I appreciated that they mentioned it though! Based on my height in younger years I could have ended up taller than I am, and I suffered a lot of bullying and other negativity in part due to my size; I ended up marginally under 6 foot, which to put it in context is roughly the top 0.5% of women by height. Very tall girls aren't likely to feel comfortable with their height within their peer group until their later teens, at the earliest, so I would not blame anyone for trying to manage this.

Testosterone treatment can also be used for late-developing boys to bring on puberty sooner. May not be necessary, but may for some be a big psychological benefit.

I think these treatments should remain in (very occasional) consideration, with due respect for potential side effects, but only ever offered as a "we could do if the child concerned is interested and if there are good reasons why they might benefit".

Oxy I was going to make a similar, sceptical, comment regarding endos and women, especially regarding thyroid stuff.

Though I've since come across some good ones. They're always men too.

The good ones are usually in the private sector, Thyroid UK have a list. Some of them though, Jesus wept they can be next to useless.

Luckily I'm in an area where few people need to use private endos as the nhs works reasonably well here. The ones I know aren't private, but are of course usually concerned with thyroid cancer, TED, addisons etc.

Here's Dr. Spack boasting about doing this to the child of Mermaids' Susie Green:

He claims 'Jackie was destined to be 6'5"'

He's so fucking proud of himself

sorry the time link there is 12:00