Michael Biggs paper on the Tavistock

[RedToothBrush]

Seems to have been published yesterday.

Link to pdf in the following tweet.

This paper when published will document an appalling scandal the NHS is inflicting on children.

Andrew Lewis @ lecandardnoir
Hidden trials. Suppressed results. Misleading parents and children entering trials. Ideologically driven treatments. Cover ups. You name it. #alltrials
t.co/34pe8JOmvG

If this is even half accurate Carmichael should be struck off and jailed.

Worth reading.

After 16 they don’t need parental consent.

What lots of people fail to realise is that a prolonged course of this medication can remove your sex drive completely, permanently. It’s what happened to me - a two year course and I couldn’t stand to be touched for close to a decade.

It did eventually improve somewhat until pregnancy and breastfeeding happened - now it’s like a light switch, on or off, mostly off.

And that’s just one of the many ways this fucking drug ruined my life. The thought of giving it to children shatters my heart.

That’s so sad tammy

Tammy I've been around for a long time under various names and I always appreciate when you give the time to share your own personal experience of this drug on a relevant thread and the long term horrible outcomes you've suffered as a result. It's such important information and something as many people as possible need to know about.

Yes the one thing drs are meant to be is honest. Drs are meant to show you away from the internet exaggerations. the horror stories. The lies.

They arent meant to indulge them. So many children spend their days in and out of hospitals. Have their lives limited by courses of treatments. Why anyone would allow a perfectly healthy child to enter an delusional pathway and make them.a lifelong medical patient I dont know.

Maybe this particular field attracts people with dubious motives.
Personal prejudices - 'transing the gay away'
God complex or something more sinister (what kind of person salivates at the thought of puberty blockers?)
Lack of moral and ethical standards. Some plastic surgeons will do anything.

There’s a lot of money to be made also. Have a look at ‘top surgery’ on Instagram if you have a strong stomach. It’s a business.

Tammy

Re:parent involvement- this is a bad idea. If you need input as to whether the technical information is comprehensible by lay people, get it reviewed by a neutral, independent panel.
Parents should emphatically not have been involved in review of this material. They had no value to add.

Thanks all. The physical health effects have objectively been the worst part, but the loss of sex drive and the impact on my marriage has probably been the hardest thing to cope with. Then again, I lost my career, my energy, my ability to function like a normal person, constant pain, weight gain... it all sucks. And the worst part is that doctors don’t know why it’s happening, and nor do they care. There’s almost no research into how these drugs impact people longterm, and why.

I try and pop up to share my experiences on threads about this topic. For anything outing on MN I use other usernames, since I’ve had quite a lot of abuse and threats when speaking on this topic elsewhere. There are lots of people who really don’t want people like me speaking out.

Thanks Red for this thread, chilling stuff but great to see it all laid out so clearly.

What happened to your other thread today reporting on the EHRC? Has it been delegated? It was so important, surely it hasn't fallen down the site so far yet? Thanks!

We don't test on animals so why are we allowed to do this to children?

Parents should emphatically not have been involved in review of this material. They had no value to add

No
All people who are involved in this type of life altering medication should be listened to.

Wrath, this was an information sheet for patients for them (and their parents) to understand the clinical risks of the trial.

Only qualified clinicians are able to provide that information. Or should be.

Clinicians and parents negotiating on which clinical risks to exclude or minimise (if that is what happened here) is ethically abhorrent.

Would certainly be interested in seeing all drafts of the Patient Information Sheet.

Maybe the clinicians themselves excluded certain risks from the very start and the parents added nothing of a clinical nature to the sheets.

To be clear, I am not blaming the parents whatsoever here. They were desperate for a solution to the issues of their child and acted in what they thought were the best interests of their child.

The Tavi clinical staff, however, absolutely must have scrutiny.

Whatever happened there, light needs to be shone on it.

The question is how did known clinical risks get excluded from the patient information sheet?

Young people and their parents deserve answers.

We don't test on animals so why are we allowed to do this to children?

I believe there have been studies on sheep to look at impact on the developing brain.

The outcome was poorer spatial awareness iirc and some areas not developing as well.

It's linked on of Miranda Yardley's blogs around this.

Sorry bold fail.

We don't test on animals so why are we allowed to do this to children?

Thanks for clarifying that Popchyk.

I jumped in there, not realising this was the patient information sheet referring to clinical risks of the trial.

Yes, the clinicians should be absolutely clear in the way they present this type of information.

This reminds me of the Northwick Park clinical trial, where different departments were not properly informed and as the trial progressed, things went downhill very quickly.

I put the blame squarely at the feet of Mermaids/GIRES and anyone else who pushes the idea that puberty blockers followed by cross sex hormones changes your biological sex.

When I was searching for information in around 2011-2012 the terminology was different - sex change surgery rather than sex reassignment surgery, gender identity disorder rather than gender dysphoria, mastectomy rather than chest surgery, etc. There was little information on treatment for teens, just the information that by 16 between roughly 65-95% had desisted with roughly 80% of those a desisting being gay/lesbian/bisexual. Mermaids, etc, pushed for language changes at the same time as pushing for earlier medical intervention.

The Tavistock are to blame as well - for being pushed to follow protocol from other countries without doing their own ethical checks. As my year 2 teacher always told us - if all your friends were playing on the motorway, does it mean you should as well?

Why my son had his tonsils out we had to sign a form listing all the potential complications. They gave odds of 1/2000 for death under anaesthetic. That freaked me out. Yet they sugar coat what blockers/hormones do, or neglect to say they just don’t know.

What about the politicians who have supported no debate. When their job is literally to scrutinise... through engaging in debate? Or the journalists who have supported not publishing concerns of whistleblower. When their job is literally to hold power to account... through investigating claims of abuse of power from whistleblowers?

Do NOT let the politicians and journalists off the hook on this.

The list of those either to blame or complicit in some way is huge!

The problem is thatbwhen heads begin to role the buck will be passed around and the worst offenders likely to get off most lightly. I sincerely hope Mermaids in particluar get hit by the full force of the law.

Tammy thank you for speaking out about ypur experience.

Bang on, Red.

This whole shitshow has only now being called into question because of the actions of a few brave individuals, acting independently of institutions - Michael Biggs, Stephanie Davies-Arai, Heather Brunskell-Evans, goinglikeelsie, Miranda Yardley, Kathleen Stock. All of them ordinary people putting themselves on the line. Grassroots women's groups springing up to hold our institutions to account.

With honourable exceptions of the likes of Julie Bindel, Andrew Gilligan, Janice Turner, James Kirkup, Hadley Freeman, Helen Joyce, Joani Walsh, our esteemed media has been complicit.

And the BBC in particular can fuck off. With their, years late, solemn Newsnight piece "We have learned that a puberty blocker study has raised questions". Piss off. It was all over Mumsnet in March.

All those craven politicians "proudly coming out for trans rights" only to scurry back in again when they were asked a simple question. Again, only courageous individuals going against their party line - Joanna Cherry, Joan McAlpine, David TC Davies.

We've seen what courage is. And how rare it is.

Only got as far as the part about triptolerin.

I’m fucking horrified. I’ve been on triptolerin, and it is an awful, awful drug. The side effects listed don’t even come close to describing how terrible I felt on it (to no clinical benefit at all, I might add).

“Changed mood?” Is a side effect - no fucking SHIT Sherlock! I cried for forty five minutes one day because I couldn’t find my headphones. My poor husband was afraid to open his mouth because he had literally no idea how I was going to react. He said it was like I’d vanished and another woman had taken my place. And I was a sensible, well balanced adult! How would an already vulnerable child even begin to cope with that?

As for the long term effects on developing children’s bodies, well, I can’t even articulate how I feel about that right now.

I would never, ever EVER give this drug to my child. And nor should anyone else, IMO.

Sophocles,

TammySwansonTwo has been sharing her own experience of the drug on this thread. Just a few posts before yours.

Really sorry to hear what you've been through.

Is this drug ever given for reasons other than 'transing'?

I’ve read back and seen that now, popchyk- we’ve both shared on numerous threads. I also have lifelong medical conditions that may or may not have been caused or worsened by this fucking awful drug.

Tammy.

Back from my slight me-rail, the point about the “aesthetic” result of a puberty blocked trans child has hit me like a sledgehammer in that it hadn’t occurred to me how this is only of possible benefit to male children wishing to appear female children and YET AGAIN, as if by magic, it’s women and girls getting the shitty end of the stick! And vanishing from the narrative, to boot.

“Puberty blockers help trans children to pass later in life” - nope. “Puberty blockers will stunt growth in a way that benefits natal males seeking to pass as girls, but will worsen results for natal females seeking to pass as boys”.

Is there any part of this that women win in?