High court case on puberty blockers and consent

[bumpertobumper]

This week a case starts in the high court with a mother of a teen and a former gids nurse bringing a case that under 18s can't consent to puberty blockers.
Sorry if there is already a thread on this, had a look and couldn't see one.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jan/05/high-court-to-decide-if-children-can-consent-to-gender-reassignment?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

Not sure if this means me

I didn't particularly. But the recent HRA directive will/should feed directly into this case.

No XX I do think u are right. Not only do we need a law firm/medical expert/everything involved to have not been infiltrated and "trained" , but winning would mean that every single establishment that has been trained to help start this journey as young as 4 years old will have to admit they were wrong.

And of course it also means the police for once arent called at truthful medically accurate language being used to describe the consequences.

These sugar coated, played down words we have to use to describe what's happening do not have the ability to make the impact needed. But we dont have a police force on speed dial ready to spring to action for thought crimes.

I dont think I've ever been so scared and angry In my.life that I am now for children I've never even met...

What a lot of arrogance. As a trans child I had worked out my gender-identity by around 11 all for myself in the far-away non-Internet 1970’s and if offered puberty blockers would have gratefully and informedly chosen the treatment (with all the attendant risks and uncertainties) over the horror of male puberty. How dare folk contemplate treating equivalent children today with the arrogance those bringing the case propose. Capacity to decide is plainly important. Given that I achieved 13 O-Levels, 5 A levels And 2 S-levels as a teenager and shortly afterwards a first class science degree from the UK’s premier science university (and all ‘before my brain had stopped developing’ as an earlier poster has said), I think I could have fully appreciated the issues.

Robin, I respectfully disagree.

I had already achieved my degree and was 25 years old when I started these drugs. I was experiencing constant, unbearable, unmanageable pain. I consented to the treatment believing I was making an informed decision. When the six months were up, given that’s the time limit on the license for women with my condition to have this treatment, I believed I was making an informed decision to continue.

This drug ruined my life. That’s not an exaggeration. I lost my career and inability to work. I lost my health - now I have constant pain, alongside crippling fatigue and a list of other symptoms as long as your arm. No libido whatsoever, for what will be 13 years this year, and the problems that this brings in terms of my marriage. I am mainly housebound, often bedbound. It is absolutely brutal.

And the consent I gave was not informed because the chances of this happening to me were simply never explained or mentioned. Because doctors simply don’t know and don’t care to know. I’ve had no help from anyone in the medical profession because they have no idea what the problem is or what they are looking for. So according to them there is no problem and if there is it’s some non-specific, not provable, unrelated issue, and it’s just a coincidence that there are thousands of women around the world reporting the same response to these drugs.

As a PP has pointed out, these are extremely powerful drugs which disrupt every aspect of your physical and mental health. I had simply no idea of the extent of the roles that hormones play in every area of your health until I agreed to disrupt mine. I’ve been paying for it ever since and it seems I will continue to do so. I’m in my late 30s and my life has essentially been over since my mid 20s. Doing the same to children is unconscionable and I find it very difficult to believe that anyone who’s actually experienced these drugs would advocate for their use in children. You think you could have made an informed decision at 11 years old when even now you don’t understand what you would have been agreeing to.

I didn't particularly. But the recent HRA directive will/should feed directly into this case.

I imagine Mrs A's lawyers will introduce it. But it may not have the weight you expect. The Tavi's lawyers will likely argue that:

(A) a 15 year old can understand what infertility entails. The legal standard for understanding tends to be lower than I think most posters imagine. (Remember that we tried two 10 year olds for murder - the law held them to have a sufficient understanding of the crime to be tried in the same way as adults)

(B) PBs are not materially different from other treatments for which Gillick competence is considered sufficient, e.g. a termination which, in extreme cases, can lead to infertility or even death (via infection or haemorrhage). They will argue that PBs are as necessary to a GD teen as a termination is to a teenager with an unwanted pregnancy. I would consider that absurd, but there is no guarantee the court will do so.

Don't despair Sarah. Ultimately, I think the Law will be instrumental in stopping prescribing of PBs. Sadly though, I think it will be through detransistioners suing GIDS, rather than via this case.

But I could be wrong. The fact that there isn't much case law around Gillick makes it harder to predict the outcome. If Mrs A's lawyers can convince the court that PBs are substantially different from other medical treatments, they are in with a chance. 🤞🏻

XX

Yes I do think it will eventually happen. I'm just not sure what level of sheer catastrophe it will entail in order for that to happen.

It seems so far that there isnt anything that's deemed terrible enough. I really dont know how such utter nonsense has got so far despite the piles of evidence to the contrary and despite attempts at every turn to try and shut us all up.

But it's not over til its over.

These children are worth fighting for. And fight we will.

Do you think all these children should be treated even though they will have a better outcome by not being treated?

I've seen a trans activist claim that this very question is transphobic. Why would being "cis" be a better outcome than being "trans"? So at least some of them do think all these children should be treated, even if the treatment does end up making trans adults out of gender-nonconforming gay "cis" children.

a 15 year old can understand what infertility entails.

But as has been pointed out on this thread, women in their 20s and 30s and even 40s struggle to get a sterilisation on the NHS because they might change their minds. These women understand what that means, and may already have had children, but they can't get this treatment. The NHS would have to argue that a 15-year-old who is confused about 'gender' has more understanding of what this entails than responsible adult women.

I've seen a trans activist claim that this very question is transphobic. Why would being "cis" be a better outcome than being "trans"? So at least some of them do think all these children should be treated, even if the treatment does end up making trans adults out of gender-nonconforming gay "cis" children.

I've seen this kind of reasoning too. They are collateral damage.

Sadly though, I think it will be through detransistioners suing GIDS, rather than via this case.

Which means we could be decades away from stopping this insanity.

Considering under 18s aren’t able to vote or marry (at least not without parental consent), and under 16s cannot legally consent to sexual intercourse, I completely agree that they should not be considered capable of being able to make such life-changing decisions about their bodies. Glad to hear this case is going ahead.

Why would being "cis" be a better outcome than being "trans"?

These people are actually suggesting that making a perfectly healthy child into a lifelong medical patient who is infertile, has no sexual function and is likely to have a shorter life expectancy is not a worse outcome than just leaving them alone to grow up into healthy adults with all their body parts intact and working normally?

Words fail me.

I think the exact words in the tweet from someone who's a well known trainer/adviser

"........let's be less concerned with certainty and more concerned with improving peoples lives"

When discussing how they werent going to accidently make someone trans but trans isnt a bad outcome...

But as has been pointed out on this thread, women in their 20s and 30s and even 40s struggle to get a sterilisation on the NHS because they might change their minds.

There is a difference between consent to a treatment that is offered versus being able to compel a doctor to carry out a treatment. Doctors cannot be compelled to perform any treatment. So they can refuse to perform a sterilisation or to prescribe PBs. However, if a treatment is offered, an adult woman has an absolute right to accept or decline it, even on flimsy or non-existent grounds, as long as she has capacity- which the Law presumes she does. If she is under 16 though, a doctor must assess whether she is Gillick competent and she cannot consent if she is not.

Which means we could be decades away from stopping this insanity.

Dunno- cases already happening in the US, I believe. I guess that a few multi-million class actions over there would have the NHS thinking twice.

These people are actually suggesting that making a perfectly healthy child into a lifelong medical patient who is infertile, has no sexual function and is likely to have a shorter life expectancy is not a worse outcome than just leaving them alone to grow up into healthy adults with all their body parts intact and working normally?

The problem is that they can deflect this by saying that no one has to have medical intervention and that's not what being trans is about. Because that's how the older MTFs behave. When they are actively encouraging most of the children down this pathway.

So they can refuse to perform a sterilisation or to prescribe PBs. However, if a treatment is offered

So why are they offering a sterilising treatment to children, when they are refusing to sterilise adult women? The sterilising treatment they are offering children isn't even the main treatment, it's a side effect. If women who already have children 'might change their minds' about sterilisation, surely this is even more true of children.

Sterilising children because they don't conform to regressive gender norms, or because they might be gay. FFS.

But in the vast majority (of these actually very small numbers) of children being prescribed PBs isn’t it being done with parental consent anyway?

But in the vast majority (of these actually very small numbers) of children being prescribed PBs isn’t it being done with parental consent anyway?

I think the whole point about Gillick competence is that the child can decide the treatment regardless of what their parents want.

In addition to marriage etc. AFAIK you also can't consent to a tattoo until you're 18 (rightly so in my opinion). But drugs used off label, in under 18s with potentially hugely damaging physical and psychological consequences and no research base.....be my guest!

But in the vast majority (of these actually very small numbers) of children being prescribed PBs isn’t it being done with parental consent anyway?

It’s not very small numbers.

Gids' data suggests that between 2012 and 2018, 267 people under the age of 15 started using the blockers.

www.bbc.com/news/health-49036145

267, and that’s just in one centre.

There is no way on Earth that any 11 year old can understand what full adult sexual function entails - orgasm in particular - and consent to giving it up at that age, something they haven’t actually experienced. Anyone who thinks later academic achievements are an indication of competency of 11 year olds in areas such of this is misguided. An intelligent 11 year old may be able to understand the concept of orgasm, but they can’t truly appreciate what they are giving up. Honestly, look back at your 11 year old self and think about what you knew then about sex and what you know now. There is just no way. And if an 11 year old is actually experienced enough about sex to understand then there’s a whole lot of shit to be sorted out with that well before puberty blockers are put in place.

And then what about those other 11 year olds? What about the ones who have low IQ? Have trauma, anxiety or depression that clouds their judgement? Have autism (25%) that changes their view on social relationships? This is what the case is arguing, that a judge should be involved in assessing on a case-by-case basis:

Providing this treatment – puberty blocking and cross-sex hormones – to any young person who wants them requires, he argues, “a specific order of the court on a case-by-case basis. [The treatment] cannot be delivered as a matter of general approach”

If the judge thinks all the relevant factors have been thoroughly assessed then the treatment will be approved [should this case win]. We can then be (reasonably) confident children will then only receive puberty blockers when all avenues have been explored. This will be safer for the child, offer more protection for the child, and be better for the practitioners involved because they can argue in any subsequent legal challenge in the future that it was a judge-approved decision. So why the hell are activists so against this?

Some possibilities are:

• the belief it will delay this element of treatment which we are repeatedly told “saves lives” with regards to suicide even though that isn’t true and can clearly be demonstrated as such or

• activists don’t want to see any open challenge to or discussion of the fact that there are multiple issues at play with teenagers with gender identity issues that mean it’s not a simple protocol of diagnosis->treatment, because that would highlight errors that have been made thus far in providing these medications to children or

• activists believe the courts should not be involved in medical decisions, in which case they should be able to demonstrate a good body of evidence - by which I would mean proper research, not “this is what everyone does” - to delineate what the long term implications of these therapies are and proof that children can fully comprehend these implications.

It says a great deal about a person, anyone, who would want to remove protections for children. If people are so confident puberty blockers are right for kids, the judges will approve them and all will be fine. What is everyone afraid of?

R4 are covering this now.

I dont think I've ever been so scared and angry In my.life that I am now for children I've never even met...

Sarah As a parent with an “RODG” teen girl, even if the case loses, my hope is that all of the risks and issues around the GIDS path will gain far wider publicity than it currently has. I’m hoping that the concept of watchful waiting will be highlighted and that more parents will start to realise that they have choices other than going down the GIDS route. There are support groups for these parents- they are just hard to find through the tangle of Mermaids etc.

GIDS might be best for some children, but IME, many have ended up there through parents who either haven’t realised watchful waiting exists, or have swallowed the Mermaids hard sell of affirmation, or are too scared of the suicide stats, or have Munchausens by proxy, or whatever. To me, it’s as much about educating parents, or having parents start to question the approach, as it is getting a positive court ruling.

They will argue that PBs are as necessary to a GD teen as a termination is to a teenager with an unwanted pregnancy.

What arguments will they use? What evidence of benefit is there?

What arguments will they use? What evidence of benefit is there?

Probably the false suicide stuff. And the fact that so few people desist on PBs can be argued both ways - it can be argued that this is evidence that PBs were the right treatment.

Let's hope Mrs A's barrister knows his stuff and can contest claims about suicide etc.