Tavistock puberty blocker study published

[PaleBlueMoonlight]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55282113

Finds 43/44 (98%) progress from PBS to cross sex hormones

[quote NeurotrashWarrior]This CAMHS refers to childline.

camhs.elft.nhs.uk/Conditions/Gender-Identity[/quote]
I hadn't seen the video of Jay before that is embedded in that link and it makes me so sad for such a sweet, naive child.

My 'journey' to becoming nobody of note (boring, mother, grandmother, worker) was identical to Jays including the cars, fantasy roles and disgust at being made to be a bridesmaid. Luckily I had no internet or YouTube videos to watch 50 years ago.

Whenever I do what Mermaids suggest i.e. listen to the children, I become even more convinced that its all a load of bollocks.

[quote PlantMam]The board are clearly aware of this because GIDs staff were expected to do the level three safeguarding course where staff in other departments only had to do level 2.

(Got that from the minutes too).

Here is the current list of services, so GIDs needing more safeguarding training than others is very, well
tavistockandportman.nhs.uk/care-and-treatment/our-clinical-services/[/quote]
I'm not sure that follows, tbh. I'd expect any service that includes discussion of topics around sexual function/sexuality to require Level 3 training. In our organisation, for example, nurses who do family planning/sexual health work with teens do level 3, whereas those who do - say - asthma management do level 2.

So I wouldn't read GIDS requirement for L3 training as an admission of concern, so much as appropriate (for once!) clinical governance.

Have you looked at the other services tho? It ain’t asthma!

Thank you to those who are "unpacking" this as a lot of it is hard to grasp (I think, for me, partly down to sheer disbelief in a "they surely can't be saying xxx?" way).

It genuinely is horrifying. Those children.
I'm sorry I can't find the actual post back in the thread but the "sterilising children because they don't conform to stereotypes" is absolutely it.

I genuinely cannot see how the people involved in this scandal will ever be able to justify themselves.

It is a relief that this is finally unravelling and being properly exposed at last but it's terrible that so many children have been damaged so badly. To me it feels as they are the "behind the scenes" children being harmed whilst people (adults!) in front of them use these children. These adults used and exploited these children whilst cloaking their behaviour with meaningless sound bites, emotional blackmail, creating a culture where they couldn't be questioned.

Well we know exactly why they wanted blind acceptance and no questioning now the curtain is raised.

The issue of GIDS preventing staff from reporting concerns to the Trust Safeguarding Lead, Sonia Appleby, is covered in this BBC programme, June 2020:

"NHS child gender clinic: Staff welfare concerns ‘shut down"

It focuses on a leaked report of an internal Trust Review of GIDS plus interviews with several whistleblowers.

Some highlights:

• Every clinician interviewed as part of the 2019 Trust Review raised concerns about cases where children were prescribed PB and put on the “trans pathway” to life-long medicalisation and sterilisation when the primary issue seemed to be homophobic parents seeking “Conversion Therapy” to “trans the kid straight” (my paraphrase of the situation);

• Child prescribed PB just one hour into first assessment session with “executive clinician”. Junior staff present raised concerns with Polly Carmichael, who fobbed them off.

• Trust instituted “in house” safeguarding system for GIDS (cutting staff off from access to Trust Safeguarding Lead?)

• Staff were discouraged from reporting safeguarding concerns to Social Services

(IMHO staff could be investigated and sanctioned by the HCPC for this breach of duty of care as they are required to inform Social Services if a child might be at risk, eg. the case raised by a whistleblower elsewhere who felt PB were sought by a father who might be sexually abusing his pre-pubescent daughter)

The CQC was meant to be inspecting GIDS again this Autumn. I wonder if that has happened yet? (It will be in those Board Minutes if it has.)

@PlantMam

Have you looked at the other services tho? It ain’t asthma!

I'm sure some of them do have L3 though. And it's profession-dependent: doctors are usually required to do L3 so, if the service is mainly delivered by doctors, L3 will be a given, whereas a nurse-delivered service may have a mixture of L2 and L3, depending on the nature of the service and their roles.

I'm not arguing for a moment that GIDS aren't as dodgy AF. I'm just not sure that the safeguarding training levels tell us much.

Good article in the Economist (behind a paywall but you can read it if you sign up with an email address).

Extract below:

"Some children who feel they are in the wrong body will always feel that way and might benefit from altering their bodies. Others will change their minds—many of these will simply turn out to be gay. No medical test can tell these two groups apart. Children with mental-health problems or conditions such as autism are more likely to experience gender dysphoria. Untangling all this is extremely hard.
However, there are worries that rich countries have the balance wrong. One of the Dutch scholars on whose work the prescribing of hormones and surgery is based has said that her research is being applied to young people for whom it was not designed. And a growing number of people are dissenting. The Economist spoke to more than four dozen people in rich English-speaking countries, including trans people, parents, doctors, social workers, teachers and people who had identified as trans when they were children. Most of those who were critical wanted to be anonymous for fear of losing their jobs or being branded bigots on Twitter."

www.economist.com/international/2020/12/12/an-english-ruling-on-transgender-teens-could-have-global-repercussions

Marcus Evans, recent interview by Erin Brewer (I highly recommend Erin's YouTube Channel - she has a steady stream of interviews with clinicians, parents, detransitioners, Gender Critical trans adults, etc.)

"The Keira Bell Case and A New Therapeutic Model"

Video Description

Marcus Evans discusses his concerns about the "affirmation" model and the medical treatment path advocated by Tavistock's Gender Identity Development Service.

He offers important insights into how experimental and harmful treatments became the accepted norm for vulnerable children suffering with identity issues. He also discusses his wife, Sue Evans, Mother A, and Keira Bell's case in which the High Court ruled that puberty blockers are experimental and should not generally be used for children under the age of 16.

"The Evans' book Gender Dysphoria: A Therapeutic Model for Working with Children, Adolescents and Young Adults" Paperback is available for pre-order at: www.amazon.com/Gender-Dysphoria-Therapeutic-Children-Adolescents/dp/1912691787?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

I'm sure some of them do have L3 though. And it's profession-dependent: doctors are usually required to do L3 so, if the service is mainly delivered by doctors, L3 will be a given, whereas a nurse-delivered service may have a mixture of L2 and L3, depending on the nature of the service and their roles.

And the board said all GIDS staff members must do level 3, it wasn’t role dependent.

T&P is mental health trust, so all services are delivered by the same types of staff, all teams are multidisciplinary.

@StellaAndCrow

And did they really go ahead with offering a treatment that effectively sterilised these children and young people despite seeing these changes in referrals?

I'd also like to know - did they keep data on sexual orientation? (at presentation and in adulthood)? That would be interesting to see.

I don't know if the Tavistock looked at sexual orientation, but this was recorded in an earlier study by a Dutch clinic published in 2011.

www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Puberty-suppression-in-adolescents-with-gender-a-Vries-Steensma/96113a2ebd53008744bb3ed275e0738c5c90c1c1

The last item in Table 1 of this paper records the sexual orientation of the participants. Nearly 90% are attracted to 'own natal sex'. Of the remainder, nearly all are bisexual.

If you are on Twitter, these notes about a 2018 talk by Gary Butler are worth a read:

twitter.com/mum3sun/status/1337780068257558532?s=21

@PlantMam

I'm sure some of them do have L3 though. And it's profession-dependent: doctors are usually required to do L3 so, if the service is mainly delivered by doctors, L3 will be a given, whereas a nurse-delivered service may have a mixture of L2 and L3, depending on the nature of the service and their roles.

And the board said all GIDS staff members must do level 3, it wasn’t role dependent.

T&P is mental health trust, so all services are delivered by the same types of staff, all teams are multidisciplinary.

I just don't see this as any kind of gotcha - sorry. And I'm not sure how you know that the other high risk services (e.g. the one dealing with sexual violence) don't take the same approach? Do you work in healthcare? Because their approach to mandatory safeguarding training sounds totally normal to me, as an HCP- unlike almost everything else they did.

There are a million and one things to criticise GIDS for, but I really don't think this is one of them, or that it reveals anything negative about their management's perception of their service.

Why were puberty blockers ever thought to be a good idea for girls? Within their own logic, it's kind of understandable for boys who want to become trans women, stopping testosterone changes, but for girls?

Surely it would need to be something super-advantageous to make up for all the downsides? I just don't see it. And since girls would want as much height as possible if they want to be transmen, and since puberty blockers reduce this, surely they should be advised against blockers for this reason?

It's like they just took a protocol they were using for boys, and continued it for the vastly increased numbers of girls, without really thinking it through. And it's tragic.

@LangClegsInSpace

Total mystery why GIDS chose not to present this quality data to the court

I’m laughing at this comment but fucking crying for all these children who’s lives will have been ruined by this absolute bullshit.

There needs to be a criminal investigation.

@StellaAndCrow

Why were puberty blockers ever thought to be a good idea for girls? Within their own logic, it's kind of understandable for boys who want to become trans women, stopping testosterone changes, but for girls? Surely it would need to be something super-advantageous to make up for all the downsides? I just don't see it. And since girls would want as much height as possible if they want to be transmen, and since puberty blockers reduce this, surely they should be advised against blockers for this reason?

It's like they just took a protocol they were using for boys, and continued it for the vastly increased numbers of girls, without really thinking it through. And it's tragic.

This does seem to be what's happened. When they talk about the 'irreversible effects' of puberty, they're actually talking about the irreversible effects of testosterone - such as the deepening of the voice and the growth of facial hair. There are no comparable 'irreversible effects' for girls.

camhs.elft.nhs.uk/Conditions/Gender-Identity
Jay's story here is just heartbreaking, isn't it. That at that awful time that many (probably most) go through, of seeing childhood coming to an end, puberty starting, changes in relationships with boys and girls - instead of responsible adults validating that yes it is awful, we felt that too, things will get better - they're told the best thing to do is start medication, and that if they don't things will get even worse.

Yes, that's what I was thinking, about the "irreversible effects" being about testosterone - it's another one of those "male as default" things isn't it, and one with such immediate and severe consequences for girls.

Thank you sultanasofa

There don't appear to have been any serious adverse events and suicidaility was not reported as an adverse event at all.

If I treat a cohort of cancer patients with an experimental new drug, especially if I don’t have a control group, and the patients become more unwell than they were at baseline, I must stop the trial.

The data you’ve just explained and quoted doesn’t match what was reported after the preliminary findings, so I’m a bit confused.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-49036145
Perhaps the preliminary findings were before the 12 month time point?

Why were puberty blockers ever thought to be a good idea for girls? Within their own logic, it's kind of understandable for boys who want to become trans women, stopping testosterone changes, but for girls?

Purely to stop breast growth, isn't it, so they don't ''need'' a mastectomy?

It says on the Leeds leaflet that blockers make "breasts less full so binding is easier."

I've also seen transmen take them on YouTube to stop periods.

(Presumably if breasts have begun to grow.)

Jeez Molesmokes "Every clinician interviewed as part of the 2019 Trust Review raised concerns about cases where children were prescribed PB and put on the “trans pathway” to life-long medicalisation and sterilisation when the primary issue seemed to be homophobic parents seeking “Conversion Therapy” to “trans the kid straight” (my paraphrase of the situation);"
Every clinician! And I imagine that clinicians questioning it, and not being supported, are the ones that leave. So the ones that remain are increasingly avid believers.

It says on the Leeds leaflet that blockers make "breasts less full so binding is easier." OMG. Lifelong consequences for that. TBF I might have taken them at that age if it got rid of breasts that were uncomfortable, laughed at for bouncing in sports, poked at by boys. Being given a good bra would have probably been a better first step.

Anything that reduced the size of my breasts as a young teen I would have taken with both hands, fuck the consequences, will deal with that later. The way grown men started treating me once breasts appeared, was scary. Thats before even getting into boys my age. It was horrific.