Pink News saying puberty blockers are “well studied, safe and completely reversible”?

[Slythermum]

www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/11/10/tory-mp-miriam-cates-house-of-commons/

In an article about Miriam Cates MP, Pink News say this:

"A recent high court ruling found that trans youth are perfectly capable of consenting to puberty blockers, which are an internationally recognised best-practice treatment for gender dysphoria in young people.

The medication is “well studied, safe and completely reversible” and simply delays puberty until a trans teenager is old enough to make decisions about having gender-affirming medical treatment."

They are quoting a Boston based doctor from this interview theconversation.com/im-a-pediatrician-who-cares-for-transgender-kids-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-social-support-puberty-blockers-and-other-medical-options-that-improve-lives-of-transgender-youth-157285

Isn't this conflicting with what the NHS says which is that:

"Little is known about the long-term side effects of hormone or puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria.

Although GIDS advises this is a physically reversible treatment if stopped, it is not known what the psychological effects may be.

It's also not known whether hormone blockers affect the development of the teenage brain or children's bones. Side effects may also include hot flushes, fatigue and mood alterations."

www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/treatment/

@Mybalconyiscracking

I’m curious, how would you all react if they were found to be safe?

Surely if they give a child a breathing space to get its head into a better space then that is a good thing, right!

Or are you against them on principle?

If they were found to be safe? That's not where we are at present. At the moment children are being experimented on, and there are certainly negative side effects (such as reduction of bone density), so I'm not sure how we could ever get to a position that they are 'found to be safe'. Because they're not.

And how does a child get their 'head into a better space' when they are kept in a perpetual childlike state? Puberty is responsible for maturation of the brain as well as the body. And what is it going to do to their mental wellbeing when they are still childlike while their peers grow into adults?

<a class="break-all" href="https://archive.md/www.thetimes.co.uk/article/transgender-children-puberty-blocking-drugs-for-the-past-four-years-i-ve-been-stuck-as-a-child-5s6tkh7z2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">archive.md/www.thetimes.co.uk/article/transgender-children-puberty-blocking-drugs-for-the-past-four-years-i-ve-been-stuck-as-a-child-5s6tkh7z2

Stop bloody posting I'm curious

I AM BLOODY CURIOUS - or I was before I became a dinosaur

Puberty is responsible for maturation of the brain as well as the body.

This is a crucial point. The only 'benefit' of puberty blockers is that they enable the child to get to a point where they're considered to be competent to choose medical intervention by virtue of their age, even though they haven't actually gone through the development processes that would give rise to that competency.

@BoredOfSamphire

Puberty is responsible for maturation of the brain as well as the body.

This is a crucial point. The only 'benefit' of puberty blockers is that they enable the child to get to a point where they're considered to be competent to choose medical intervention by virtue of their age, even though they haven't actually gone through the development processes that would give rise to that competency.

If a child is put on puberty blockers at 12, they end up after a few years as a 16 or 18-year-old, now old enough to consent to further treatment, but still with the brain and body of a 12-year-old.

I'd like someone to explain why anyone thinks this is a good idea.

@BoredOfSamphire

And I have decided to take your user name personally!

How very bloody dare you!

I’m curious, how would you all react if they were found to be safe?

Safe as in the child isn't disadvantaged in any way (including developmentally or psychologically in the long-term) by taking puberty blockers and delaying the onset of puberty, or safe as in its worth the risk for the psychological distress they prevent in children who have been given a reliable diagnosis of gender dysphoria which can't adequately be explained by examining other factors?

As with most medical treatments, nothing is ever 100% safe and patients need to be informed of the risks (of which there are usually many even for bog standard treatments) before consenting.

The condition puberty blockers seeks to treat is gender dysphoria. We won't know until after the Cass Review. But if the diagnosis of even one child diagnosed as having gender dysphoria and offered puberty blockers might be better explained through an examination of societal attitudes to gender stereotypes and homosexuality, and of the child's own understanding of gender roles given their personal background and any possible neurodevelopmental conditions, rather than their sense of gender identity being a psychological condition requiring medical intervention, then these factors and alternative explanations should obviously be taken into account when weighing up the relative risks of potentially life-changing treatment in the context of informed medical consent.

They are not well studied. 'Puberty blockers' is a misnomer, 'growth stunting drugs' would be more accurate.

They have been used for in the past for women with endometriosis and occasionally girls with precocious puberty. These patients would take the drugs for up to 6 months at a time. There is evidence that side effects in children include:

• Arrested brain development
• Emotional dysregulation
• Bones not fusing properly
• Damage to cartilage and connective tissue which leads to damage to internal organs further down the line
• Lack of muscle development
• Liver & kidney damage

Additionally in grown women:

• Brain fog and cognitive dysfunction
• Chronic pain
• Chronic fatigue

Worth repeating that these were sife effects observed in 6 months of taking them (they were only ever designed for short term use). There is evidence of gender distressed children being on them for years. Jazz Jennings was on them from age 7.

• Migraines

Surely if they give a child a breathing space to get its head into a better space then that is a good thing, right!

One minute trans kids know their gender at 2/3. We hear of all these extremely smart articulate toddlers who want to know when God is going to fix his mistake and make them a vagina/penis.

The next minute they suddenly need extra time at 11/12/13 to figure out their trans identity.

Which is it?

How I wish the smug fools who claim these extreme drugs are safe would be forced to take them and see just how 'harmless' they are.

I had the misfortune to be given Lupron for endometriosis and it was easily the worst few months of my life. The side effects are horrendous.

I took it as an adult and only for a short period but my consultant was absolutely clear that it could cause irreversible loss of bone density.

To give it to children for up to three years is incredibly reckless.

How can they give anyone a chance to think when they turn you into a zombie who can barely function - let alone make important decisions?

I accept that they might be useful in the case of people facing deadly cancers but apart from that they should be banned.

I am very much looking forward to the Cass Review.

My impression is that the findings will not be favourable for the GIDs.

So, that's going to be challenging for Mermaids et al.

Do we have any evidence that the Cass review has not been captured?

I’m curious, how would you all react if they were found to be safe?

How could they be found as ‘safe’? There is already a class action building for one of the drugs for use for precocious puberty.

Please do tell why you think the results would be different? What are you basing this on?

I'm curious, how would you all react ifjumping out of an aeroplane at 40000 feet without a parachute was found to be safe?

Like others, I have been treated with Zoladex (goserelin) for endometriosis, a drug very similar to Lupron. It was comfortably the worst 3 months of my adult life. It completely messed with my brain generating huge levels of anxiety, completely foreign to me as a healthy, resilient adult.

In grown women with gynae problems, these drugs are only licensed for 6 months use in a lifetime, and are banned for under 24 year olds because they haven’t finished growing. This is because they demonstrably decrease bone density leading to life long problems with ostopenia, amongst other potentially irreversible effects.

The cognitive dissonance between these drugs being “harmless and reversible” for growing teenagers vs the caution and restrictions around their administration in adult women is astonishing.

@Mybalconyiscracking

I’m curious, how would you all react if they were found to be safe?

Surely if they give a child a breathing space to get its head into a better space then that is a good thing, right!

Or are you against them on principle?

The thing is, they’re not safe, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many restrictions around their prescription to adult women for gynae issues, including being banned for women under 24 because they haven’t stopped growing yet

I wouldn’t use Pink Propaganda to wipe my arse on after a particularly runny shit, never mind take medical advice from them.

@OnlyTheTitosaurusOfTheIceberg

I wouldn’t use Pink Propaganda to wipe my arse on after a particularly runny shit, never mind take medical advice from them.

The problem is that parents of children are taking advice from them, and kids themselves will be reading it and thinking its true. :(

@CheeseMmmm

Note the use of 'trans youth' to avoid the word children.

Youth is being used this way now.

This is so sinister

The thing is, they’re not safe, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many restrictions around their prescription to adult women for gynae issues, including being banned for women under 24because they haven’t stopped growing yet

Even some surgeons who specialise in trans surgeries are coming out now and saying that they are a bad idea. On account of should the child continue on the path ( which 98 percent of children put on blockers do) the male children don't develope enough to perform the usual surgeries. With blockers it's basically over before it starts

@Lovelyricepudding

Do we have any evidence that the Cass review has not been captured?

Anecdotal, but a good friend of mine is an expert witness for the Cass review. They're GC but coming to that position out of concern for their client group rather than women & children's rights. They were struck by Hilary Cass' scientific rigour and careful evaluation of all the research they put forward. She really listened and accepted what they said. They are optimistic that Dr(?) Cass will fully understand the issues and report factually, without fear or favour.

They told me this some months ago, so things may have changed but it seems doubtful.

Uppdrag granskning avslöjar: Flera barn har fått skador i transvården
Tranlates as ”Assignment review reveals: Several children have received injuries in trans care”
This is a headline today in Sweden on SVT.se related to an investigation showing possible issues with the treatment.

@Porridgeislife

Like others, I have been treated with Zoladex (goserelin) for endometriosis, a drug very similar to Lupron. It was comfortably the worst 3 months of my adult life. It completely messed with my brain generating huge levels of anxiety, completely foreign to me as a healthy, resilient adult.

In grown women with gynae problems, these drugs are only licensed for 6 months use in a lifetime, and are banned for under 24 year olds because they haven’t finished growing. This is because they demonstrably decrease bone density leading to life long problems with ostopenia, amongst other potentially irreversible effects.

The cognitive dissonance between these drugs being “harmless and reversible” for growing teenagers vs the caution and restrictions around their administration in adult women is astonishing.

I'm still shocked that effects on adult men and women of these drugs are known and closely regulated but at the same time they're perfectly safe to use on growing children. How does that make sense?

You only have to watch one episode of I Am Jazz to see how harmful early medical intervention can be. What had been done to that poor young person is unforgivable and my heart goes out to anyone including adults who's life had been destroyed by these drugs.

I'm still shocked that effects on adult men and women of these drugs are known and closely regulated but at the same time they're perfectly safe to use on growing children. How does that make sense?

They even stopped trying to chemically castrate sex offenders with these drugs.

So, children are subject to treatment / standards of care deemed unsuitable for even rapists and sex offenders.

@Mybalconyiscracking

I’m curious, how would you all react if they were found to be safe?

Surely if they give a child a breathing space to get its head into a better space then that is a good thing, right!

Or are you against them on principle?

I am curious to know how people who have supported their use in children for gender dysphoria will react when they are finally admitted to harmful. Harmful due to direct negative effects through to harmful because it is proven to be a gateway to CSH when used with affirming only treatment and the numbers of detransitioners in the future can no longer be ignored.

And that includes any person who has tried to shame others for discussing these negative impacts for whatever agenda.

I accept that they might be useful in the case of people facing deadly cancers but apart from that they should be banned.

I checked out their use in prostate cancer and side effects listed there. Clearly stated 1% risk of dying from heart failure caused by the drug. (This high risk seems to be age-related as it is almost always elderly men who suffer from prostate cancer. But their risk of dying from prostate cancer is higher than that 1%, which means this is an acceptable risk to take.)

There's been plenty of reports of heart health issues in children who were prescribed GnRH analogues, so damage to the heart is a known side effect in all patient groups. I don't know what the prevalence is, the overall risk to the heart, but I do have a family member who was illegally puberty--blocked as a child in a sports academy in a communist country, without her parents knowledge or consent. Heart health issues are present in much of her cohort.

This claim that we will somehow, miraculously, discover that puberty blockers are safe to use when we have decades' worth of evidence that they are harmful to children, is puzzling to me. There's been a whole scandal about their use in children with stunted growth, IIRC there was a book or a documentary about that ages ago, there's a brewing class action suit with former child patients prescribed puberty blockers for precocious puberty that now runs into tens of thousands of women so badly damaged by the drug it has had life-limiting effects for them. There's currently (at anecdotal level) the same pattern emerging for children diagnosed with gender dysphoria who were prescribed GnRH analogues - with such serious bone density issues, there's spinal collapse, paralysis, with the accompanying effects of double incontinence. Increased suicidality. I mean these drugs carry prominent warnings now that they cause depression and suicidality in all age groups. (Screenshots attached)

Wilful ignorance is not a good look when we're discussing the health of children. Shouting bigot and transphobes when we're pointing out that puberty blockers do not give children a breather or put them into a better frame of mind is not a good look. When we're discussing the mental health of children it matters that the few studies done on this patient cohort shows mental health getting worse, not better. So the main stated aim of giving the drug to children diagnosed with gender dysphoria is demonstrably not achieved. And the results are the same whatever country the study is conducted in. That's strongly suggestive of a serious problem with the drugs, not the studies.

What I'm curious about is at what point do you concede that this is bad? One of the worst ideas doctors have ever had. A medical scandal of such gravity it will go into the history books.

At what point do you say maybe, just maybe we should look at the evidence of harm, concede this is a treatment causing more harm than good and stop?

I say unequivocally that the wellbeing of children should take precedence over ideological beliefs. And that's why I reject the use of puberty blockers in children on principle, regardless of why they are prescribed - precocious puberty, stunted growth, gender dysphoria.