NHS announce independent review of puberty blockers and cross sex hormones!

[rogdmum]

www.england.nhs.uk/2020/01/update-on-gender-identity-development-service-for-children-and-young-people/

Am pleased.

Thank you Neuro for posting the terms of reference for this group invited by NHS England, in the screenshot upthread.

I googled the Chair of this group, James Palmer (who is staff from NHS England) because having read everything on this thread, I am concerned.

Clearly it would be important that a Chair comes to such important questions with a politically open mind. Instead, there appears to be a be a heavily advocacy-led sense of priorities. (You can guess what brand of advocacy). These views and priorities are set out clearly on his series of blogs for NHS England.

I am travelling now but if anyone can please screenshot these blogs in case they are edited later, I think this would be helpful.

www.england.nhs.uk/author/james-palmer/

On the plus side James Palmer does say that comments are welcome on the blogs. I’d assume someone from the NHS England Communications team monitors these blogs, so perhaps some of the questions we have can be posted on there.

Hopefully that in turn may prompt another blog to be written about this latest enquiry. I think NHS England need to be communicating about this work as openly and publicly as possible as part of a commitment that they should be making to work transparently with as much freedom from political bias, or political one-sidedness as possible.

We all have political bias to a degree but the chairing role of this group really needs to not be actively be an advocate for any particular side of a debate. It also wouldn’t be OK for any such group to solely be comprised of people with the same political views.

I’m sure NHS England will wish to allay the public’s fears by supplying more information about this and eg they will publish declarations of conflicts of interest from the members of this group that they have invited soon..

ChattyLion I think there are two separate groups with different aims. The one posted earlier was set up to review how gender identity services are delivered. The one announced a few days ago is reviewing the use of puberty blocking medication and cross sex hormones in children and young people. No names have yet been announced for this group, but since it is described as 'independent' the people in the other group should be automatically excluded.

I would have been able to express my views clearly from at least 12. Use of puberty blockers and late teen transition would have avoided: (1) the indescribable pain of male puberty, (2) resolution of my ability to form real relationships at the age others could (I am straight.) (3) the loss of a beloved career through anti-trans discrimination in my 20’s and (4) one period of severe depression and 3 times in life when I seriously contemplated suicide (now behind me after transition in 2011).

Many transwomen don’t alter their bodies and their identification as female is based on their feelings alone. How can you know that all children with gender dysphoria need to undergo medical treatment? Maybe they’ll stay as trans identifying but with their bodies unchanged. Certainly better for sexual function, fertility and bone health.

Thanks Crone, my bad. I shouldn’t post before coffee

Another here who will not accept any results until I have examined the whole process. It would be absolutely foolish to take anything on faith, especially because the frightening levels of organisational capture.

It's interesting reading what you've looked at though chatty, I notice there hasn't been any activity on his blog or in the twitter hash tag he uses since May 2018.

I was going to do a proper response to Robin but really what it comes down to is that Robin feels that detransitioners (and at some point Robin will have to accept that the number is no longer “tiny”) are acceptable collateral damage to enable the medicalisation of children who would otherwise go on to transition as an adult as Robin did. I don’t think this is acceptable and neither do many of the most experienced medical professionals in this area.

ChattyLion I started looking at who was in that group (and thinking 'far too many TRAs') before I realised it wasn't the one which will be reviewing the use of puberty blockers. It's informative to see who is involved in that group as well, though.

Brazil have just announced a review of transgender treatment of minors too.
Puuulllll.
twitter.com/CanalCorpoCerto/status/1224148484292476935?s=19

I don’t think this is acceptable and neither do many of the most experienced medical professionals in this area

I think its almost ironic that the very ability to look back, analyse and articulate why you think it would have been better to have done it all earlier and know for sure it was the right thing for them to do, is sometnumh they may never have had if they had done it earlier because our brains dont finish developing and maturing til our 20s and blockers lower IQ. Puberty is the "cure" in 80-90 percent of cases and that's the one thing that people want to ^deny: the children.

The way its presented as a cure all by so many people who grew up,. Got married,.had kids,and made a life for themselves. Yes they were probably suffering from dysphoria the whole time.

But do we want kids depressed about behind in their development,.losing their sexual function, their fertility, their bone density along side their dysphoria. When at the end of it, if they go the full distance their surgeries are more complicated.

And given youngsters are mainly f2m which has a sky high complication rate not to mention requires a hysterectomy in their 20s is that a risk we want to take.

Especially since the complications and.problems.of this early intervention has been televised to the world.

Concerns now being raised in Ireland.

“ A number of doctors have claimed a service under which adolescents with gender dysphoria can be given puberty-suppressing hormone blockers is "unsafe" and must be immediately stopped, but their concerns were suppressed.”

www.independent.ie/irish-news/health/doctors-in-row-with-hse-over-claims-childrens-transgender-care-is-unsafe-38920159.html

Well professor the professor of evidence based medicine at oxford university found no evidence puberty blockers are safe, so I'm hopeful the medical community can , I dunno, first do no harm......

Such a good professor I professored him twice

Going by your post Robin you had 47 years to arrive at the conclusion that transition was the right thing for you. 47 years old life experience and 47 years to develop fully comprehensive understanding of the consequences of your decision. That’s a million light years away from the capacity of a young adolescent. You have benefit of hindsight and experience - you waited and made a fully informed decision - the least we can do for children is to give them that opportunity too.

12 year olds might well be capable of articulating their own feelings but those feelings and expectations are severely limited by their minimal life experience and very narrow understanding of consequences. I still can’t quite believe that we’re even having to argue this point to be honest.