Susie Green and Keira Bell on Newsnight

[OldeMagick]

It's about halfway in

Emily Maitlis not giving an inch

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000pyyc/newsnight-01122020

Don't forget, too, that any negative repercussions will be pushed onto the shoulders of 'transphobic' society and any mental health issues are also blamed on the rest of the world being 'transphobic', rather than at any point anyone suggesting that happiness is, when you come right down to it, something one has to build/make/discover for oneself.

The whole narrative is so horribly corrosive and disempowering.

Why not tell children they are fine as they are, a healthy body is never 'wrong'? Why not teach children self acceptance, and to care less about how other people may see them? All the encouragement to seek out and make a big thing of 'hate incidents' - it's all so masochistic and self perpetuating. Turning these children/young people into imagined pariahs.

Yes, there will be arseholes who will despise anyone for being different/the wrong religion/race/sex/shape. I doubt the human race is perfectible. We do have pretty robust laws and social conventions that already challenge anyone directing bad behaviour for these reasons.

We don't need medication, surgery, and people trying to reality-proof our lives. We do for absolute sure need better mental health treatment, support, understanding. I think we also need to help children/YP navigate life with all its risks and challenges.

Teach resilience, teach self acceptance, teach critical thinking.

Yes- this!

I imagine F2M transition could be very unsettling for transmen who hadn't properly understood men and masculinity. I spent a lot of time when younger working with and around men in a typically male, physically demanding job. I and they accepted that I wasn't physically as strong, but I could do most things well and was a very hard worker so I gained their respect. When I couldn't do something safely or efficiently, I didn't. I also recognised that male culture and relationships are different, and where a natal female can fit in and where she really doesn't.
M2F, however, seems to be a far more performative and superficial effort, and many of these transitioners really don't understand what it means to be of the sex they're trying to fit in to (hence the hurt and bafflement when they're not accepted and treated with suspicion). So they may not feel regret in the way a transman might, and if they do, might blame it on others, rather than their own misunderstanding.

[quote nauticant]Speaking of Kids Company, that matter has currently resurfaced:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9012395/Alan-Yentob-denies-strong-arming-ministers-handing-millions-doomed-Kids-Company-charity.html[/quote]
Yes, *nauticant, a lot of analogies to be drawn.

Also, Camila B says none of it was her fault!
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8931847/Kids-Company-founder-tells-court-neurological-condition-means-avoided-director-charity.html

citing reasons why she avoided a director role, Miss Batmanghelidjh said she was born prematurely which adversely affected her neurological development.

This means she struggles to read and write and cannot type, she said.

The 57-year-old added: 'I do not have a proper sense of what month we are in, what day it is and I have a poor short-term memory but, perhaps confusingly, a very good long-term memory.'

She said that while she created the concept of Kids Company in 1996, she would 'never have taken on the challenge of being director' and had 'around me highly capable people to undertake the functions that would be beyond me'.

I wonder what excuses Susie Green will try when the pigeons currently flying home to roost all arrive and start shitting.

girls lose particularly badly in terms of the positives for gender changes because you can't change your physical size which is a barrier to 'passing' as a man

What happens in terms of growth when on puberty blockers? One of the big impacts of puberty is a growth spurt. Surely if you block puberty you will be even shorter?

I think that the effect of puberty on growth is complex. I think that oestrogen and testosterone actually cause fusion of growth plates, bit I don't know if that means puberty blockers made someone taller as I'm not sure what else they block www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/88791

@Aesopfable

girls lose particularly badly in terms of the positives for gender changes because you can't change your physical size which is a barrier to 'passing' as a man

What happens in terms of growth when on puberty blockers? One of the big impacts of puberty is a growth spurt. Surely if you block puberty you will be even shorter?

I suppose it depends how early you start them. If a girl started them late at 14/15/16 when puberty was already well underway chances are she would already be as tall as she's going get. I don't think I grew any taller than I was at about 14.

I'm not sure what would happen if a girl took them from 9/10/11. It's possible she might gain more height than she would have done because as I understand it puberty is thing that fixes bone growth in place in girls so maybe she'd keep growing?

I'm by no means an expert so might be completely wrong about the above.

From healthline:

When will a girl stop growing? Girls grow at a quick pace throughout infancy and childhood. When they reach puberty, growth increases dramatically again. Girls usually stop growing and reach adult height by 14 or 15 years old, or a couple years after menstruation begins.

That tallies with my experience. Started periods at 12 and stopped growing taller around 14.

Girls who go on puberty blockers and don’t stop them will end up short compared to expected height I think. Testosterone may cause some skeletal effects but I’m not sure it would increase height as much as a normal growth spurt.

I’m also still trying to figure out how long can someone suppress puberty for. If puberty blockers are withdrawn at 18 would puberty kick back in? What about 22? 24? What’s the final cut off before the hypothalamus just gives up?

Difficult to figure out. Just chalk these two things up on the “101 things we don’t know about what the hell we’re doing to these kids” list .

There is an interesting discussion of what it did, height-wise, to boys, back when it was cultural to castrate boys to stop their voices breaking.

amp.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ir6yd/how_big_are_eunuchs/

Probably best not tell my nearly 17 year old that 4ft8 is as tall as she’s getting

PotholeParadies that would suggest that blocking puberty of boys would make them extra tall?

[quote PotholeParadies]There is an interesting discussion of what it did, height-wise, to boys, back when it was cultural to castrate boys to stop their voices breaking.

amp.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ir6yd/how_big_are_eunuchs/[/quote]
The castrati tended to grow taller because the growth plates didn't fuse as they normally do after puberty, so their bones would keep growing for longer. They also suffered from osteoporosis.

www.nature.com/articles/srep28463/

We have less evidence of what happens to girls because this is the first time girls have been experimented on in this way.

The negative effects of stopping children from going through puberty have been put forward as a reason to start cross sex hormones earlier. We don't yet have any long-term evidence of the effects of early use of cross sex hormones, but some of the proponents of this ideology are keen to get started on this further experiment and recruit more children for it.

It was discussed at the WPATH conference a year or two ago. I remember some tweets from Susie Green about it.

@Aesopfable

PotholeParadies that would suggest that blocking puberty of boys would make them extra tall?

This is really interesting. Would taking cross-sex hormones like oestrogen alter that, I wonder?

Otherwise, is there a risk that mtf transitioners who took puberty blockers end up being taller than the average male, let alone the average female? What implications does that have for their gender dysphoria?

Puberty blockers have been around for a while now. I'd expect to see some anecdotal evidence around this, if nothing else.

I wonder what excuses Susie Green will try when the pigeons currently flying home to roost all arrive and start shitting.

She will blame GIDS, and GIDS will blame Mermaids and other pressure groups.

Polly Carmichael in 2015:
“When the idea of the blocker being available to younger people was being pushed forward, I think that inevitably – understandably – there were quite simplistic arguments that if you have the blocker then all the problems disappear. In our experience, all the problems do not go away.”

The blocker can be therapeutic in itself, because it takes away the anxiety that comes with going through the “wrong” puberty. It also gives young people much-needed time and thinking space. “The idea was, if you could reduce that distress, then there would be room for young people to really explore the less reversible interventions: cross-sex hormones,” she explains. “But there’s also a lot of pressure to introduce cross-sex hormones at a younger age. It’s currently at 16. For some, there’s a real wish to bring it down to 14.” When I ask who she means, she says Mermaids and the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (Gires), a transgender advocacy charity based in the UK. “Really big changes like that should not be considered outside proper research protocols. We just don’t have the evidence.”

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/sep/12/transgender-children-have-to-respect-who-he-is

It's a disaster. We know that anorexia and malnutrition as a teenager is a risk factor for early onset osteopenia and osteoporosis, because 1) the teenage years are the peak age for bone density (it's all downhill from there in terms of bone density) and 2) the menstrual cycle is important. Disruptions at any age may affect bone density (and not for the better).

I've seen it stated before that the contraceptive depo-provera (the injection) should only be used a maximum of two years in a woman's lifetime, before the increased risk factor for osteoporosis becomes too high.

There is a petition to investigate Lupron as a drug used as a medication for other issues, such as prevovious puberty on a purely temporary basis. Full of comments. What happens when a child has been on it for years?

www.petition2congress.com/ctas/investigation-lupron-side-effects-leuprolide-acetate

She will blame GIDS, and GIDS will blame Mermaids and other pressure groups.

It will be an absolute shit-storm of mutual blaming. There are so many individuals and organisations implicated in this that there will be a frenzy of buck-passing the like of which we have never seen.

Seems like the whole 'industry' is stuck in an evidence catch-22. The NHS can only get away for so long operating on a shaky evidence based foundation (as they found out this week). For the lobby groups like Mermaids the last thing they want is concrete research and evidence because it almost certainly won't fit with their narrative.

I thought I'd read that the NHS was grateful to get this clarification? They were in a bind having to 'affirm' anyone who suggested they may have any kind of gender issues; this judgement has been so needed.

PotholeParadies that would suggest that blocking puberty of boys would make them extra tall?

Jackie Green appears to be tall and willowy, you tube clips of a beauty contest where I imagine many/most of the young women would be naturally tall anyway suggest she is definitely at the upper end of the height spectrum for women.

I have also seen clips from around age 11 (possibly before puberty blockers) which suggest a more sturdy body type and give no clue if future height. One can only surmise but I suspect the eventual body habitus would have been different without puberty blockers and cross sex hormones.

www.lupronvictimshub.com/lawsuits.html

this is a must read for anyone promoting the use of this type of drug (apparently all brands of puberty blockers are pretty similar). There are a number of lawsuits from men with prostate cancer (the people it was designed for I think) who have had negative effects and also women, one of whom I noticed experienced 'abnormal physical symptoms' including suicide ideation from her second injection!! One lady went blind.

Now, call me overcautious but if someone suggested my child needed to take that drug for a number of years with all of these possible issues around it, I would be looking for any alternative including buying a desert island and disappearing for 10 years - can gender identity issues persist when there is no one around to create social conditioning (like the falling tree in the forest - does it make a sound if there is no one there to hear it?)

There seems to be suggestion that there may be foul play going on in relation to the number of lawsuits dismissed/settled - I haven't read it all.

Puberty blockers have been around for a while now. I'd expect to see some anecdotal evidence around this, if nothing else

There should be actual data, because Someone should have collected it. But there doesn't appear to be - why not. As for anecdotal evidence - not a great collection there either (again, why not) but even if there was you have to look very hard to remove bias - from any agenda. And there would be bias and an agenda!

I'm just shocked at the lack of data outcomes recorded by the NHS. How can any science progress without experimental data? How can best practice be reached if you're not even recording outcomes?

@FannyCann

PotholeParadies that would suggest that blocking puberty of boys would make them extra tall?

Jackie Green appears to be tall and willowy, you tube clips of a beauty contest where I imagine many/most of the young women would be naturally tall anyway suggest she is definitely at the upper end of the height spectrum for women.

I have also seen clips from around age 11 (possibly before puberty blockers) which suggest a more sturdy body type and give no clue if future height. One can only surmise but I suspect the eventual body habitus would have been different without puberty blockers and cross sex hormones.

I think it depends on what stage of puberty they start blocking from and then how long it continues? Obviously extra height is a bonus in the precocious puberty patient group (because being the size of an 8 year old forever can make life a bit tricky) but in the GD group, who are likely to be entering puberty at the normal time, at an average height, the extra is not such a bonus.

Loads of the paediatric MtF transitioners in the public eye are very tall. Nikki Tutorials is a good example.

But if you point out the extra height using GnRHas can add to an MtF adolescent, the activists just use it as an argument to start cross sex hormones at 14 instead of 16 😢

For scale, the internet says Ellen Degeneres is 5’7” (and that the average British woman is 5’3” www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11534042

In females, blocking from the very early stages of puberty likely makes them a bit taller too. This might well have been a positive in the traditional, early childhood onset gender dysphoria group (of whom only a minority are female) but the current group of adolescent female patients, who only become distressed by gender around the onset of menses anyway, are unlikely to gain more than an extra inch or so, and it’s probably not worth the reduced bone density payoff (of course, we have many, many years before this group are of an age to really know what’s what in terms of life long bone health).