Janice Turner The Times 21/2/20 Giving puberty blocker to ‘trans’ children is a leap into the unknown

[AnotherNightWatering]

Looks like there'll be more in The Times this weekend!

Weekend Essay: A landmark legal review will examine claims that confused young people are being subjected to a giant medical experiment, says Janice Turner

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/giving-puberty-blocker-to-trans-children-is-a-leap-into-the-unknown-x3g37sb7f

(Sorry, I still can't get that free link to work.)

It talks a lot about the hippocampus and impact of puberty and puberty blockers on its function and structure.

I wonder if anyone has actually sat down and pulled together all the available information and made any comparisons with current recorded outcomes?

Sorry, first link doesn't seem to work either.

Try again:

"EMOTIONALITY IN ADOLESCENT MALES IS DRIVEN BY HORMONAL CHANGES"

https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/archiveofnews/2012/july/headline2372600_en.html

Neil Evans who has conducted this research appears to be critical:

I've fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole of Evan's research actually, mostly as far as I can tell so far on male sheep development and puberty blockers. And none are positive. Not appear to be reversible.

This one is fascinating: Peripubertal GnRH and testosterone co-treatment leads to increased familiarity preferences in male sheep

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453018312101

A lot of comparison to the human brain and human teenage brain development.

Published last October.

It was a good article.

I noticed in the comments the usual people showed up banging on about their usual debunked statistics. They really have run out if things to say now and it doesbt work against clearly knowledgeable people who have facts to correct every comment they make.

Shame the share token ran out and we cant see the latest comments

Great stuff. Will read and digest.

That’s to NeurotrashWarrior

SarahTancredi
Here's another share token. Hope it works.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3a32fa8e-54c9-11ea-b4ee-385bb4c8d255?shareToken=648e937ca34e734f5c0a8f2bb6d0ea29

It does. Thank you

I find it both fascinating and horrifying.

That last article has a lengthy comparison to teen brains which I haven't digested as I was toddlered.

There's a comment in the 2019 research about precocious puberty treated girls being more emotionally reactive and it's linked to this research:

Effects of peripubertal gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist on brain development in sheep—a magnetic resonance imaging study

In Psychoneuroendocrinology 38 (10), 1994-2002, 2013

(Can't do a click link but can be googled)

Showed a huge impact on the amygdala.

Thanks for all that info @neurotrashwarrior fascinating- especially about the amygdala. We have ADHD in the family and I’ve learnt about he part this development plays on impulse control( ).

I also observed the part puberty plays I t he brain because I had a very late puberty (entirely naturally) myself. I do t think I was on the same page as my contemporaries in emotional intelligence and the overarching teen desire for relationships and sorting out the pecking order of society around them - I just didn’t understand why they were all so obsessed when I was clever and interested in the world around me more than people. Then having puberty itself was -really difficult because everyone else was way ahead and I was acutely embarrassed. These things matter so much .

Miss, I'm sorry to hear your son has adhd. I'm sure he has huge talents too!

Yes I was a "late developer." I completely understand what you mean. At 12 I was avidly glued to the archers and most r4 progs whole contemporaries had pop posters on their walls. Never saw the point. And I think I was emotionally immature too. The others all seemed so much more savvy! Although interestingly one of the studies states that girl's emotional development is linked to age; boys is directly affected my hormones. Though I'm sure puberty has some sort of impact.

I also developed hypothyroidism at around 18, but it wasn't diagnosed for some time and then not well controlled till my mid 20s. I've often wondered if that further impacted things at the time. It's certainly left me with a type of trauma linked to that time. (I became very weak and unable to do much, anxious, confused, depressed, studies were affected, friends were lost etc.)

What concerns me is that lupron has been known to permanently affect the thyroid system too in girls with precocious puberty. Low thyroid hormones do affect cognition. Lack of enough in the womb and maternal iodine deficiency and while growing up used to cause cretinism. This was eliminated when the dairy industry started to use iodine to sterilise udders.

And then the assumption is that children who've been on puberty blockers for a few tears will be well placed to make decisions about hormones and surgery, having already suffered from whatever the side effects of the puberty blockers are in terms of cognitive development and potentially higher anxiety it sounds like too.

This has always bothered me, that assumption that well, you "hit the pause button" on puberty but then the child makes the rest of the decisions at say 16, with the assumption being that they have then reached the same level of cognitive development and emotional maturity as the average 16 year old. But we don't know that that's what actually happens, and evidence seems to be pointing towards the conclusion that it doesn't.

Absolutely.

If puberty develops the rational adult brain, but blockers stop it, you've basically still got a child at 16,17 making decisions for the rest of their life.

Precisely. When you block the process that kicks off the cognitive development that eventually results in an adult, well, what do you expect? Kids don't develop adult understanding just because they've lived longer, there are actual physical changes happening over time that puberty blockers will prevent from happening, including changes to the brain.

Puberty blockers aren't a pause, they're a block

I interviewed Helen Webberley before she was suspended and asked her about the "pause button". Eventually she admitted that by around 18-20, there was no chance of puberty restarting. "Blockers are reversible" is a lie

Sarah Ditum
twitter.com/sarahditum/status/1231161540671397888

Eventually she admitted that by around 18-20, there was no chance of puberty restarting.

I have always wondered about this - for example whether you could start puberty in your 20s (biology not being my strong suit!). This is awful.

"Blockers are reversible" is a lie

And yet this is the basis of the legal ruling in Australia, Re: Jamie, that allows competency to consent to puberty blockers to be decided by health professionals rather than the courts.

NeurotrashWarrior I think we must have Pubmed searched the same thing. I searched “puberty cognitive development”. There is no way anyone can dispute that puberty and its associated hormones change the brain and function. Ergo, no one can dispute that stopping puberty means those changes don’t happen.

When the key researchers are rt that it's a live experiment and it's not a "pause" and active harm could be being done, you've got to query wtf is this being allowed to continue.

It's being allowed to happen because adult male transitioners feel their lives would have been easier if they had a more convincingly female appearance.

Those adult transitioners went through male puberty and know the downsides of that. They can't go back and compare whether they would have been better off with a more feminine appearance and a less mature mind.

Damn, damn, damn. The token has run out and I can no longer access this article. Is there anywhere it is likely to be available still?

I wanted it to show to my unregenerately stupid-male husband, because I think reading it might make him think a bit he isn't actually unintelligent, he has just never needed to bend his mighty brain on trans oppression of others in any real way, because he knows half a dozen what I would call genuine transwomen (and no transmen! there's a surprise) and four of them are really quite nice people so all trans people should have his support... ARGH! And he did medical training so he knows all about the medical side only he doesn't, he is thirty years out of date and has no real idea at all, which this article would have helped with. More ARGH.

Try this share token - I've just generated it so hopefully it will work.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3a32fa8e-54c9-11ea-b4ee-385bb4c8d255?shareToken