GPs express concern about puberty blockers

[2Rebecca]

I'll post link below as difficulty starting a new thread today

www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/time-for-measured-debate-on-role-of-gps-in-helping-children-with-gender-dysphoria-dr-angus-mckellar-and-dr-anthony-latham-3658081
Link to excellent article in yesterday's Scotsman

I logged out then logged in again to be able to post today. They've done an upgrade to the site

Thank you for link

"at least 80 per cent of children who present with gender dysphoria will become comfortable in due course with their biological sex if a watchful waiting policy is pursued"

"Yet most children with gender dysphoria are still prescribed puberty blockers. Over 95 per cent of these children then go on to have sex hormone treatment and surgery – both of which cause irreversible changes to their bodies"

"We are writing this because GPs are under pressure to comply with the current trend to affirm, refer and then treat. If we disagree with this approach, what are the implications?"

Absolutely shocking.

Well done to these doctors for doing their duty to children and medicine (and science) and speaking out.

About time GPs spoke out on the issue of puberty blockers.

We have written to our health board and to the Scottish government with some simple questions: Firstly, would we be considered transphobic if we chose not to refer children to a gender clinic (on the assumption that this may harm them, signposting them instead to an alternative referral route, if desired). Secondly, would a professional opinion that sex is immutable be considered transphobic?
Our health board would not give a clear opinion and asked us to clarify this with NHS Scotland. NHS Scotland, after a delay of six months, replied stating that we should seek clarification from our health board.

• *Ffs. Neither their Health Board nor NHS Scotland would confirm that humans cant change sex ???

The ideological capture has gone above and beyond.

It's insane.

Very important that GPs speak up. Thank you. Their professional bodies should be doing this campaigning as a matter of defending their professional ethics, not leaving it to individual named GPs to campaign. (As much as I am grateful to them for doing it).

Unfortunately the RCGP and BMA have had transactivists pushing gender ideology through and criticising doctors who oppose changes as evil bigoted transphobes. Ordinary doctors are just starting to speak up against it.
It didn't help when nearly all political parties were also pushing this nonsense.

Well it’s about time all medics - people who should be well aware of the physical differences between males and females 🤦‍♀️ and as a result of which should be the best-placed professionals to withstand this ideology - started speaking up very LOUDLY.

It’s just beyond fucking stupid, quite honestly. What a farce 😡

Ffs. Neither their Health Board nor NHS Scotland would confirm that humans cant change sex ???

Obviously I haven't seen the letters, but I'm not sure if that's what they mean. It seems that the GPs were asking whether it's transphobic to say that sex is immutable, so it's a legal question around what is considered transphobic rather than a question about whether or not people can change sex (assuming that 'transphobia' has a legal meaning).

So the NHS and Health board are just saying that they don't have a policy on what constitutes transphobia, so they don't know if stating this particular scientific fact is considered to be transphobic.

It's still insane that the NHS can't just say that stating facts is not transphobic.

Makes me glad I stuck with pink toys and blue toys.

🙄 Thanks for that.

Lots of GPs are very concerned but, as @2Rebecca says, our professional bodies push a Stonewall agenda, as do our regulators (CQC/GMC) and NHS England and Scotland. Doctors who speak out risk being dragged through disciplinary processes and potentially losing their livelihoods- if they are suspended from the GMC register, they can't work at all GPs are not currently prescribing PBs, so they are not being forced to choose between doing something unethical and losing their jobs.

Do you do a job where you can lose not just that particular job but all work, if you speak out against gender ideology? Are you speaking out anyway? If yes, feel free to criticise GPs. If not, stop blaming us for yet another thing that isn't our fault.

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow is right. Our hands are tied because while GIDS is the referral pathway that’s commissioned and trying to refer to CAMHS to explore the issues around gender identity gets rejected with a letter telling us that they don’t deal with it GIDS does we don’t have any other option. It would be a breach of our contract and Good Medical Practice guidance issued by the GMC to refuse to refer someone to the commissioned service just because we have concerns about whether this is right for kids.

I started a thread a while back about how I feel I’m failing the 3 teenagers I’m currently looking after who are all ID-ing as trans for a range of reasons, 2 of whom are under CAMHS/in care services and one who I have had no choice but refer to GIDS. All I can do is keep talking to them, encouraging them and the people around them to think about what they’re aiming for, why they identify the way they do, what the other issues might be. And I have to do that without running the risk of being called transphobic because 1. I value my job and 2. Because it’s not just the child I care for, it’s their family too and in a small practice like mine, word gets round.

I’ve indirectly been called a T*rf in a GP group I’m in on SM and there are definitely those that have drunk the Kool Aid but I think (hope) most of us have serious concerns about being asked to prescribe PBs and recognise the hypocrisy of the GMC on the one hand quite rightly stressing the need to practice within our competence and on the other telling us we should offer briefing prescriptions for PBS and hormones.

Thank you for what you're doing, Faffertea. I hope this appalling situation is resolved soon. It should sound all sorts of alarm bells when professionals are attracting approbation just for trying to do the jobs they're qualified for.