Tavistock’s Experimentation with Puberty Blockers: Scrutinizing the Evidence

[Pimmsnlemonade]

www.transgendertrend.com/tavistock-experiment-puberty-blockers/

"To summarize, GIDS launched a study to administer experimental drugs to children suffering from gender dysphoria. Between 2010 and 2014, puberty blockers were given to 50 children. This study yielded only one published scientific article on outcomes. It showed no evidence for the effectiveness of GnRHa: there was no statistically significant difference in psychosocial functioning between the group given blockers and the group given only psychological support. In addition, there is unpublished evidence that after a year on GnRHa children reported greater self-harm, and that girls experienced more behavioural and emotional problems and expressed greater dissatisfaction with their body—so puberty blockers exacerbated gender dysphoria. Yet the study has been used to justify rolling out this drug regime to several hundred children aged under 16. Almost five years after the last patient was enrolled in the experiment, there is no evidence to substantiate Carmichael’s claim ‘that the results thus far have been positive’."

The other thing is that if a child is given puberty blockers to " buy time" what happens in that time? A poster on here said her DD was prescribed puberty blockers and then just sent away - no therapy or support - how to s that going to help?

Well exactly. By the time they are asked if they want to switch to cross sex hormones, nothing has happened. No development, no evolution, no maturity. They are no further ahead than they were to start with.

Except they've lost eight IQ points..

They're actually less able to make a bloody decision.

"After puberty blockers, almost 100% of children go on to cross sex hormones. We've no idea why!"

Michael Biggs.

No wonder they had to silence you.

NeurotrashWarrior

yy, and we don't even have to deep dive into science. It is extremely well know that IQ doesn't stabilise until late adolescence because formal IQ tests always stress the fact that the IQ of children changes and any results from tests in childhood come with that caveat.

Obviously there's a lot of science which has led to that caveat, but somehow we're going to pretend there isn't.

An IQ in and of itself is of course only a predictor, not a prophecy. I think the fact that decision-making, spatial awareness, memory and many other brain functions may be affected, is even more concerning, especially when reportedly autism among referred children is at well over 40%. These are children who already are neuro-atypical. Do we really need to interfere with their brain development via puberty blockers?

And Tammy

Thank you. I hadn't seen your story before and appreciate you sharing it.

BernardBlacksWineIcelolly

Write to Matt Hancock and cc your own MP. Mp’s have to reply to their constituents.

One or both will reply (though I think I’m fortunate in that my MP is less shit than a lot I read of on here)

"After puberty blockers, almost 100% of children go on to cross sex hormones. We've no idea why!"

If you're a male who has taken blockers presumably you're going to be much smaller and less masculine. Definitely much 'less' of a male (as public cases show.)

I'd also question how many teens in a state of arrested development are able to maintain same sex peer group friendship structures which could be crucial to rehabilitation if they end up detransitioning . So is the only option to continue on that path?

Exactly Charlie, was going to add the ASD aspect to the post below.

the NHS has been experimenting on non conforming children (often gay or neurodivergent) with drugs that they knew had serious side effects on cognition

And that's without considering the risks of osteoporosis, the autoimmune effects Tammy has been trying to raise awareness of and god knows what other long-term health outcomes given the total lack of long-term follow-up.

Pituitary development

In this link you see Polly Carmichael explaining to Leo (of "I am Leo") about puberty blockers. She makes them sound so appealing and safe. No more periods? No more boob growth? What teenage girl going through body hatred wouldn't love that?

twitter.com/Newsround_Blog/status/1100049660004237312

I’ve bored everyone here with it multiple times

No - what happened to you, and your direct first hand experience is VITAL. It has to be heard. Keep saying it, on every thread we talk about these drugs. Every single one.

They can affect the thyroid:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3811697/

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/6772729/(In vitro study)

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1933719115608000

They must be comparing it with suicide risk. They seem to compare everything with suicide risk, in order to justify it as the better (or least worst) option.

They had damn well better have cast-iron proof that the suicide risk diminished rather than increased after medical treatment.

How could you even measure suicide risk in a study like this, other than looking at incidences of self-harm?

And we already know what the findings about self-harm say. It's sickening.

(You'd need a large-scale 20 year study to have a hope of measuring the the impact on suicide risks - worth noting the Swedish study did not find transition decreasing suicide risk for adults.)

As someone who has struggled with thyroid disease during my entire adult life, that makes me v cross.

And when I have my thinking skills were severely affected. (Which is one of the reasons why in the past I've taken an armchair interest in brain structures.)

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47456938

BBC have a new news story which seems to be on the back of the Panorama programme:

'Prof Carl Heneghan, from Oxford University, said there was an "urgent" need for a new regulator in the field.'

Why they have the fluffy piece of a 9 year old plastered in make-up at the same time is beyond understanding.

Yes, those are the only studies I’ve been able to find too - it’s funny that I’m told the problem doesn’t exist when in reality no one is looking and no one cares.

There is such a thing as secondary hypothyroidism (an issue with the pituitary gland rather than the thyroid), supposedly rare but also very difficult to diagnose so who knows how rare. When you look at the vocal Lupron sufferer communities, what most describe could easily be hypothyroidism but doctors will only go on standard thyroid function tests (albeit waiting until a ridiculous level to treat in this country compared to the US and most of Europe where I could get treatment and the level I’m at now).

I presume there are journalists covering this?

Re contacting ministers and other MPs, since this is undoubtedly of national importance, members of the Health and Social Care Select Committee can be contacted regardless of who your MP is:

www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/health-and-social-care-committee/membership/

Member Party
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Chair) Independent
Luciana Berger Independent
Mr Ben Bradshaw Labour
Rosie Cooper Labour
Diana Johnson Labour
Johnny Mercer Conservative
Andrew Selous Conservative
Derek Thomas Conservative
Martin Vickers Conservative
Dr Philippa Whitford Scottish National Party
Dr Paul Williams Labour

www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-your-mp/

Can I contact other MPs?

You should always contact your local MP first to raise an issue at Parliament. However, if your campaign is of general or national importance, you could also contact other MPs who may be interested in supporting you.
To find out which MPs take a special interest in a particular topic or campaign you could:

Check the Register of All-Party Groups to see if there is a relevant group and find out which MPs have joined
Search Parliamentary Material to see if any MPs have asked questions, tabled motions or spoken in debate on the subject recently
Find the Select Committee that covers the general policy area of the issue (such as Health or Transport) and find out who its members are
Find out who the party spokespeople are for that subject in Parliament

tammy have you thought about private testing for a thyroid panel? Or just nagging like hell for a full, proper thyroid workup and basic pituitary function tests. Secondary is fairly difficult to detect without imaging and tends to be progressive.

And yes the reference ranges for the Uk are disgraceful. Agree there.

Yes, I’ve done it quite a few times now - levels are very up and down but antibodies in normal range so it’s a mystery. Far too much effort for a doctor to try and figure out!

Briggs has posted GIDS' own preliminary results from 2015, with his annotations:
users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0060/Annotated_GIDS_results.pdf

"After puberty blockers, almost 100% of children go on to cross sex hormones. We've no idea why!"

This is, of course, as with so many other claims made in aid of this regressive ideology, a lie.

From the published studies on desistance and persistence among gender dysphoric children it is evident (and this is explicitly mentioned) that it is puberty itself that separates the wheat from the chaff, as it were.

The first flushes of puberty hormones start a process of mind/body integration that results for the vast majority of gender dysphoric children in desistance.

Puberty blockers directly interfere with this reconciliation. They prevent this process, which takes part in the brain, from happening because it halts the development of the brain before puberty hormones can kick start it.

Desistance is a myth is the usual reply to that. Doctors are just better now at diagnosing who's really trans. So here's a number of these claims:

These studies mix up gender-non-conforming and gender dysphoric children. That means the desistance rate is overinflated.

The older ones do indeed mix up GNC and GD kids, but when you look at desistance rates for each group separately, they are nonetheless nearly identical.

Still, the old desistance rates are not valid, because they precede the new, much stricter, diagnostic criteria!

Not so. An analysis of the published papers, applying the new diagnostic criteria to the observed children (possible thanks to the information provided by the authors), shows little change in desistance rates

The most recently published research, the Steemsma study (the biggest and the only one with a separate follow up study) is hotly contested by TRAs because it applies the new diagnostic criteria and still shows an over 60% desistance rate.

It just claims desistance for 80 out 127 kids because they stopped coming to the clinic. That's an unjustified assumption!

Not so. If you read the actual study and not just the abstract, you'll find that 56 participants either outright said they're no longer suffering from GD or filled in follow up surveys that showed they weren't.

As for the other 24, in the Netherlands adult and children's services are offered in the same clinic under the same roof. Unlikely that they all remained GD, but moved away from their home country where they could pursue medical transition at no cost to themselves. But let's exclude them anyway:

of the rest a majority still desisted.

This btw is the only study to have found a correlation between severity of GD and chance of persistence. All others stated that there was no way to predict which child would persist (which may still be true for the former, I haven't checked).

Desistance then is not a myth. And with the new phenomenon of more and more children being referred who seem to be merely struggling GNC kids and many of whom are affirmed and socially transitioned very quickly, desistance rates may actually not just remain high but rise among non-medicated children.

Finally, any researcher worth her degree would have picked up on the fact that going from 60 to 90% desistance to 95 to 100% persistence is not a natural development.

So, why didn't this ring any alarm bells? These are Big Ben sized ones! But nobody seemed to care.

I’m rejoining after leaving and reading as a non member for a while... just to say to Tammy that you can have non auto immune hypothyroidism- I have. It’s rarer, about 90% are hashimotos hypothyroidism but some of us have normal anti bodies but symptoms of under active thyroid, along with low active thyroid hormones. It’s SO important to understand that within range is meaningless!!!!! You should have your active hormones in the optimal part of the range. For Free T3, that’s free and unbound, it should be in the upper quarter of the range. For Free T4 should be halfway or above. Reverse T3 is also important to check, along with a SALIVA 24 hour cortisol test. I have done extensive research, seen private doctors ( I’m very fortunate to have been able to ) and I ran a support group for a long time helping others. Please see the Stop The Thyroid Madness website, DM me if you wish. If you have symptoms, many private doctors will also diagnose based on that alone. I am so sorry for the problems you’ve had, I’ve had a very long and difficult time myself and now seem to be in early menopause after sorting my thyroid! Gah! I’m so privileged to be the c word though aye... can I identify out of my hormone hell?!?!

Michael Biggs has been a staunch ally of women and has tirelessly challenged the trans cult's lies and obfuscations. Thanks are due to him for his research, alongside Stephanie at Transgender Trend and the large number of women and other allies, who all repeatedly put their jobs on the line to expose this toxic and dangerous movement.

I kmow...it's weird that they mass report so many people off social media, who then spend their spare time doing research [whilst not on social media] that then is used [hopefully] to take the cult down.

Thanks for this thread - I've been really busy today so only skimmed but I'm as horrified as the rest of you.

It occurs to me that children with ASC often have issues with executive functioning (ability to organise and plan), memory and proprioception (your ability to know where your body is in space). Many also have co-morbid co-ordination issues.

Giving children who already struggle with memory and spatial awareness drugs which are known to exacerbate those problems seems utterly criminal to me.

AFAIK, there are no other drugs which are regularly given to children which are off-label or do this much longterm damage. How have we got to a point where the benefits are considered to outweigh the risks?

I posted a thread last week with a link to parents talking about their horrendous experience of the affirmative approach taken by the US. It was hidden by MNHQ for reasons they haven't explained to me. It's worth reading (bear in mind that this is a right-wing evangelical website).

This is what is being pushed for in the UK by Mermaids.

www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2019/02/49686/