Puberty Blockers - impact on the brain

[Triffiddealer]

Hi all

I'm well aware about the arguments about lack of evidence re. long term effects of PB on physical health / infertility etc, however I never see any discussion of how they may impact brain development.

Part of my PhD was looking at issues affecting specific teenagers and I found the research on cognitive development during puberty really interesting (Sarah Jayne Blakemore has published a lot and there is a TED talk here www.ted.com/talks/sarah_jayne_blakemore_the_mysterious_workings_of_the_adolescent_brain)

Have any cognitive neuroscientists or biologists studied this - are there implications for cognitive development / ability? I would assume that the PBs also inhibit cognitive development related to puberty, but is this true or does it only impact physical development?

@WarriorN

Chilling, gardenbird

so crazy that anyone would let that stuff near a child (apparently even people administering it need PPE because it is so toxic) if it wasn't an absolute life or death situation

and just so we are clear for some people, even GIDS is clear that suicide ideation in gender dypshoric children is no greater than other children so that would not be a valid justification for such children to take puberty blockers.

and just so we are clear for some people, even GIDS is clear that suicide ideation in gender dypshoric children is no greater than other children so that would not be a valid justification for such children to take puberty blockers.

There also appears to be absolutely no curiosity from some posters as to why so many children are dysphoric.

It's just all leverage.

Why are so many children thinking that the grass, any grass, where ever it is, must be so much greener than their own grass??

Well well,sheep have a gender identity? Please tell me more. ( Sheep farmer here). I'd hate to upset my girls by inadvertently misgendering them.

It's just all leverage.

That is the most shocking thing about it. It also seems to be why the health risk for young female transitioners are ignored or downplayed with a ‘I know many transmen’ like it is a gotcha. It isn’t. And the long term side effects are known and sadly, most apply to females not males. Always feel like they are ignored to progress another groups needs over their’s.

I think it is that suicide ideation is no more common than in other children with mental health problems (rather than when compared with all children)

Just to post a quote about bone density.

It depends what you mean, by reversible,’ says Dr Richard Quinton, an endocrinologist and senior lecturer at Newcastle University. ‘When the blockers wear off, a young person’s own sex hormones will “wake up” again,’ he says. ‘This includes a resumption of fertility, but the process of building stronger teenage bones is disrupted and may not be entirely recoverable.’

In today’s Telegraph. Maybe this ‘doctor’ is worthy of listening to for those who continue to handwave the negative effects of puberty blockers. Or who continue to spread misinformation about the irreversible nature of these drugs.

@Helleofabore

Just to post a quote about bone density.

It depends what you mean, by reversible,’ says Dr Richard Quinton, an endocrinologist and senior lecturer at Newcastle University. ‘When the blockers wear off, a young person’s own sex hormones will “wake up” again,’ he says. ‘This includes a resumption of fertility, but the process of building stronger teenage bones is disrupted and may not be entirely recoverable.’

In today’s Telegraph. Maybe this ‘doctor’ is worthy of listening to for those who continue to handwave the negative effects of puberty blockers. Or who continue to spread misinformation about the irreversible nature of these drugs.

that's an interesting point re reversibility. From the previous thread about the Dutch child in the movie, the puberty blockers were described as constantly overloading and challenging the pituitary gland until it 'gave up'.

I wonder if there are situations where it gives up permanently and in that case I guess there will be no reversibility and the person will be on actual HRT for life with all the health risks that entails.

From the previous thread about the Dutch child in the movie, the puberty blockers were described as constantly overloading and challenging the pituitary gland until it 'gave up'.

Yes. I guess if you are determined to take cross sex hormones for the rest of your life, you may not see it as a problem to have to take other synthetic hormones your body can’t then produce.

He's been very sensible on vitamin d recently and helped to get the Newcastle numbers of cv deaths down as a result. He knows his stuff.

A big issue for young people who have anorexia is the fact that the highest amount of bone density it laid down during puberty; recovering from the anorexia doesn't cure the risk of long term bone health.

@Helleofabore

I think it’s going to continue to get wheeled out at every opportunity, regardless because facts! And science!

sophaclesthefox

I think that posters either haven’t looked at the 50+ studies or think we won’t. The poster a few months ago posted it and used the ‘here’s 50 studies that disagree’ and I pointed out each of the first 15 why they didn’t covered the topic under discussion. And then just grouped the others into subsets as to why they weren’t applicable. I didn’t get a thank you for doing it though.

I thank you. I think you're a legend for doing it.

@PaleBlueMoonlight

I think it is that suicide ideation is no more common than in other children with mental health problems (rather than when compared with all children)

Thanks that’s probably more accurate thank you - I didn’t have time to find the GIDS page.

NutellaEllaElla

Oh dear! Nutella, I just reread what I wrote.

I meant the poster who’d posted the link didn’t thank me for pointing out the fact that it was irrelevant to the point under discussion.

I wonder if there are situations where it gives up permanently and in that case I guess there will be no reversibility and the person will be on actual HRT for life with all the health risks that entails

It’s definitely a risk. (Andecdote, but relevant) I was only on Triptorelin for six months, but my hormonal balance never recovered. It’s likely that it was implicated in my very early menopause, and in the litany of autoimmune conditions I’ve been left with as a result.

Sorry, we’ve wandered away from the original topic but honestly I never want to miss an opportunity to hammer home how powerful these drugs are.

@PaleBlueMoonlight

I think it is that suicide ideation is no more common than in other children with mental health problems (rather than when compared with all children)

I also remember that it wasn't even across all child demographics but higher in girls? (I vaguely remember lesbians being worst but that might have been somewhere else). Interrim results of Tavi's PB study also showed they increased self harming in girls - but the final results wasn't broken down by sex.

It depends what you mean, by reversible,’ says Dr Richard Quinton, an endocrinologist and senior lecturer at Newcastle University. ‘When the blockers wear off, a young person’s own sex hormones will “wake up” again,’ he says. ‘This includes a resumption of fertility, but the process of building stronger teenage bones is disrupted and may not be entirely recoverable.’

Sex hormones are not going to wake up if your gonads have been removed.

Which is probably why you don’t hear much about detranistioning males who had puberty blocked followed by genital reassignment surgery. And the ones that don’t go for the surgery keep taking blockers because otherwise the male secondary sexual characteristics appear.

The female path tends to not continue blockers and also does not remove gonads.

This website posted on the trans train 3thread might be helpful OP

genderchallenge.no/home-1/science-1/what-science-tells/

Warrior

That looks like a good site. I wonder if it is on the break it down for me thread.

It's not just about hormone levels, it's about the receptors as well. You can pump all the testosterone you want into a female body, and it will develop male secondary sexual characteristics. But this will never completely mimic the male body as the distribution of the testosterone receptors, and therefore the biological and physiological affects is very different between men and women.

Yes. As two transmen sadly discovered in their own medical care.

The one who allowed testing to go on for months while getting progressively worse and not disclosing their trans status highlights exactly that much of the body retains the original wax markers.

It’s like asking ‘should a transwoman disclose their sex so they don’t receive blood from a female who has been pregnant’. You’d expect the answer to be yes, of course. but if they are constantly being told they have changed sex and now are the sex they feel they are, why would they think it should apply medically.

All this conflating sex with gender is so incredibly harmful when people believe it. Yet, to acknowledge that it is harmful is ‘harmful’ and so the cycle continues.

So, I wonder. Do the posters who continue to post that pepper have changed sex, truly understand that medically they are perpetuating dangerous myths?

Maybe they have not had to heavily advocate for an elderly female’s health to be taken seriously. Because the conditions are more ambiguous and are most often discounted because, well female and elderly. It certainly highlighted to me the significance of sex. Oh and all the workplace sex discrimination. That’s a given though isn’t it? (Or maybe those posters have not experienced that first hand either, it is possible I guess )

wax = sex obviously.

Pepper = people. Damn autocarrot

There are a few studies looking at estrogen receptors in relation to autism.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165178116309325

Anecdotally a lot of autistic women have PMDD. Women with ADHD also report a correlation between post ovulation and reduced ability to function whether medicated or not.

It does make you wonder whether cross sex hormones and blockers are indeed alleviating psychological symptoms but not because it’s about gender dysphoria.

I wrote a short thread on PBs here but some of the papers have already come up:

twitter.com/threadreaderapp/status/1336607674344103938?s=19

Katie

I have been updating the breaK it down, I shall add your tweet to the collection.

[quote KatieAlcock]I wrote a short thread on PBs here but some of the papers have already come up:

twitter.com/threadreaderapp/status/1336607674344103938?s=19[/quote]
PB for puberty blockers after 8? But I thought 9 was a fairly normal age for starting puberty these days?