Talk by Dr Aidan Kelly (Tavistock)

[rogdmum]

This is worth a listen from around the 15 minute mark for anyone concerned about the use of puberty blockers.

Some quotes from the talk:

“We are putting responsibility back on the family because we don’t have the evidence base to say ‘it’s these kids or it’s these kids’, or how we can pick out which kids should go forward and which kids shouldn’t. “

“The blocker is not a benign thing, it comes with - I don’t mean financial costs- it comes with downsides, especially around energy- if the young person has mood difficulties the blocker can sometimes make that worse- it also takes away those sex hormones, so that whole thing I was talking about, of being attracted to, developing crushes, when all your teens and peers are getting into relationships and developing social connections in that sense- that’ll be gone, well not totally gone, but that drive that interest whether it’s the opposite or same sex or whatever will be greatly reduced. And we do worry, because we don’t have long term evidence for this. We do worry for what impact that might have on their identity because sexuality is such an important part of your identity,who you’re attracted to.”

“It can often mean you are signing up to be a patient for the rest of your life. In a way you taking what is essentially a physically healthy, you know it’s not got medical- you might say internally in terms of gender it’s not right- but medically it’s a healthy body and you’re introducing medication and making it dependent on medication, so ethically it’s really quite a complicated area, especially for children.”

“We’ve only started talking about fertility in the last 4 to 5 years. Before that, we were putting people down this pathway and actually they were coming back to us 15 years later and going, “oh, you never really said, you know.” And that’s what I mean about this being such a new area, CoS we weren’t even doing hypothalamic blockers under the age of 16 until 5 years ago. We don’t have people who are 40 to 50 to see, you know, how’s your life been, were we right to intervene so early? We don’t know.”

“It can often mean you are signing up to be a patient for the rest of your life. In a way you taking what is essentially a physically healthy, you know it’s not got medical- you might say internally in terms of gender it’s not right- but medically it’s a healthy body and you’re introducing medication and making it dependent on medication, so ethically it’s really quite a complicated area, especially for children.”

ethically it’s really quite a complicated area

NO SHIT.

He says it's a "massively under-researched area".

Why's that then, do you think?

Hint: I don't think it's because gender-critical vipers are hindering research.

I honestly just can’t with these people. How dare they. How dare they openly acknowledge that they are experimenting on healthy children and fucking carry on because...why? Why do they do it? I have loads of medics in the family and I can’t imagine any of them prescribing unnecessary drugs to children when we know nothing about long term effects. Even the little we do know about the effects should be enough to stop this absolute madness right now but no, it keeps happening and right now there are thousands of children on an inexorable path towards long term ill health, sterility, lack of sexual function and potentially a permanently immature brain.

What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On.

It's mindblowing that this just... goes on. All the time.

"If you stop taking it, the hypothalamic blocker, your body will just kick back in and continue on".

He's not a teenager on Twitter, he's an expert and parents trust him.

So disturbing.

“We’ve only started talking about fertility in the last 4 to 5 years. Before that, we were putting people down this pathway and actually they were coming back to us 15 years later and going, “oh, you never really said, you know.”

That is so sad. Everyone's always up in arms about Mumsnet and mothers getting outside of their boxes about trans kids as if we're all Mary Whitehouse or something... but this is the shit that parents consider. Their kids' whole future lives.

Jesus, those quotes in the OP are really quite shocking.

And this guy is pro treating "trans" children, I presume? In spite of this?

Pear He presents the Tavi as being quite neutral. At one point he talks about the parents who come in wanting their child to be put in the medical path very quickly and that the Tavi takes time to explore (or words to that effect). He also seems quite perturbed at the number of young children who have been socially transitioned by their parents before being seen- that seems to cause him a fair amount of concern. However, he appears less neutral around the social transition of teens.

The whole thing comes off as one giant experiment with no one knowing how it will work out which I find quite worrying.

What's even more concerning is that this Kelly chap is opening a private gender service in Hackney. www.kellypsychology.co.uk/. £200 for one hour on zoom.

The whole thing comes off as one giant experiment

I wonder if there's a slightly different attitude to experimental treatment among psychologists, as opposed to medics who deal with physical problems? Could it be that as a psychologist whenever you treat somebody there's always a possibility that you and they won't definitively know what part of the treatment made the difference, or even whether the treatment did make a difference?

[Apologies if this is deeply offensive to psychologists, and way off the mark! It's a genuine question about whether there's a difference in approach.]

Right, so informed consent is not an option because you don't know the risks. So why the fuck is this allowed on the parents (or childs) say so?

@SunMum2

What's even more concerning is that this Kelly chap is opening a private gender service in Hackney. www.kellypsychology.co.uk/. £200 for one hour on zoom.

Oh, look. Who'd have thought it. Not much info on his qualifications/experience on there, is there? One would surely want to know all that, before shelling out what is considerably more than the going rate for a psychiatrist/therapist.

@BadgertheBodger

I honestly just can’t with these people. How dare they. How dare they openly acknowledge that they are experimenting on healthy children and fucking carry on because...why? Why do they do it? I have loads of medics in the family and I can’t imagine any of them prescribing unnecessary drugs to children when we know nothing about long term effects. Even the little we do know about the effects should be enough to stop this absolute madness right now but no, it keeps happening and right now there are thousands of children on an inexorable path towards long term ill health, sterility, lack of sexual function and potentially a permanently immature brain.

What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On.

History will remember them the same way the proponents of the lobotomy are remembered. The inventor received the Nobel Prize in medicine. The lobotomy was promoted as a cure all for inappropriate behavior in women and children. The results were nothing like what was promised. The lobotomy fell out of favor due to misuse and scandal. The evil that was done gets barely a paragraph in history books.

I do think the fact that there are so few medical doctors has allowed this service to get away with so much. I cannot think of another service within the NHS where psychologists tell medical doctors what to prescribe, without first verifying for themselves that the patient needs the medication. Within psychiatry, the psychiatrist may receive referral from psychologist for antidepressants, anxiolytics or antipsychotics, but the psychiatrist should ALWAYS verify for themselves that there is a need for medication, and that the medication is likely to provide some benefit. This is psychologists referring to endocrinologists, who have no expertise/psychiatric training to be able to verify its necessity. The whole situation is turned on it’s head. It’s either incredibly stupid, or incredibly well thought out - tavi can blame endocrinologists for prescribing without proper assessment, endocrinologists can blame tavi for referring the wrong patients. Left hand blames the right hand, no one takes responsibility, hence no one to blame in a law suit.

This is fucking insanity! How dare they let a single child take these experimental drugs that they know bring negative side effects, they just don't yet know how bad the side effects are.

Jesus wept.

How can I be a bigot for wanting trans kids to have the same standard of evidence behind their care as any other kid?

It's like watching a car crash in very slow motion.

This is insane. I have type 1 diabetes and it's no picnic being reliant on artificial hormones. Goodness knows what future health conditions this may be creating. These poor kids.

This is one of the things that made me peak. It was suggested I consider GnRH analogies to manage endometriosis. After being told they were reversible, I researched the side effects involved in grown women including ovarian function not fully returning upon cessation, affecting cognitive function and may lead to bone density issues in later life. One of the drugs published falsified results and had to publish a retraction and there have been a number of lawsuits in the US. When I found out that these were given to children as unlicensed puberty blockers, I was horrified. Here this doctor seems to be confirming they know these side effects but will continue prescribing them. I'm glad to see the NHS recently change their guidance.

I think the point about there not being many medical doctors is an interesting one. I’d also like to know more about the endocrinologists and their understanding of what is happening - presumably an endocrinologist is a medical doctor? So these are the people who actually sign off on the “blockers”. As a PP said, are they prescribing something on the say so of a psychologist? Are they not curious enough or involved enough to think this through? Are they somehow so caught up in affirmation-only and all the other bullshit that they are missing the fact that they are ruining healthy children’s bodies? I used to think we didn’t do things like this in the UK, but obviously we do. So, what the fuck went wrong and how the fuck do we stop it?

@BadgertheBodger

I honestly just can’t with these people. How dare they. How dare they openly acknowledge that they are experimenting on healthy children and fucking carry on because...why? Why do they do it? I have loads of medics in the family and I can’t imagine any of them prescribing unnecessary drugs to children when we know nothing about long term effects. Even the little we do know about the effects should be enough to stop this absolute madness right now but no, it keeps happening and right now there are thousands of children on an inexorable path towards long term ill health, sterility, lack of sexual function and potentially a permanently immature brain.

What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On.

Why are they doing this? Because it's being funded and pushed by adult males who are very invested in accounting for their complicated motivations for transitioning by framing it as innate in children and thus, a children's health issue, so that kind hearted people won't notice that there is no actual legitimate link between the two and will acquiesce to unreasonable demands.

There is a darker possible reason that involves those who might find something positive in legal adults who have been developmentally stunted in body and mind, but I am trying to not get deleted here...

How is this being allowed to happen?
How?
There must be some seriously sick fucks somewhere along the line that think this is ok.
Sterilising children is never ok ffs.
Experimenting on children is not ok.
How can we stop this?

As a doctor, I'd say this illustrates what a complete load of bollocks Ethics Committees are. Ditto all the lip-service paid to informed consent.

A colleague of mine had to submit a 30 page ethics committee approval form to get permission to read poems to medical students. Meanwhile, it's apparently fine to rob children of their fertility and to ruin their health for life, and no one will stand in your way

Mrs Noah - yip.

What I come away with from that is how complicated it all is. Dr Kelly is constantly tripping over the language and how to express the ideas. He even says himself how it would be so much easier if gender didn't exist and everyone could express themselves however they want in whatever body! This man understands all the problems, but ultimately says that the Tavistock hand over the decision to the child and their parents because there are so many doubts they can't actually recommend it as the best course of action.

The second half is really disturbing in terms of parental attitude to children developing entirely normally.I

I feel I should be heartened by the fact that he expresses all the doubts and concerns discussed on this board, but yet he still says that they are neutral on a decision about transition, as if transitioning medically or not transitioning are both perfectly reasonable outcomes, rather than one outcome (coming to terms with your sexed body) being objectively better than the other, even if in some cases it is not attainable.