Leo's story - a dreadful account of the damage puberty blockers do to children

[MrsOvertonsWindow]

Hard to believe that these untested for purpose drugs are so casually handed out to children in this country.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10768707/When-Britain-wake-danger-giving-puberty-blockers-children.html

I agree. Parents are told that they are doing the right thing. And the fear suicide.

The treatment might actually make things worse in many ways but the narrative has been telling parents that they need to ‘affirm’ to do the right thing for their child.

Feeling you have no choice is not the same as not knowing though. I think that's what gets me the most. The claims that no one apparently knows anything.

Now either everyone has forgotten anything they have ever learnt re safeguarding and child development or someone somewhere has an ulterior motive and is being enabled by people with full knowledge of said enabling.

You may not be able to stand up against it. But you can stay quiet. What you shouldn't do is just lie and pretend you had no idea.

Apart from anything else when the shit hits the fan like its doing, those lies will be proven as lies amd used to discredit you meaning that the children end up with nothing. No compensation. No apology etc

I just watched the whole documentary - thanks for the link upthread, NecessaryScene

Absolutely shocking. An 11-year old put on puberty blockers, with no follow-up whatsoever, kept on them for longer than the recommended time, develops serious physical and mental problems, is in constant pain, and when finally scanned, proves to have osteopenia and spinal injuries as a result of off-the-chart bone thinning.

Then the clinicians and administrators interviewed all try to wriggle off the hook by blaming each other. On camera. And the majority of the various clinics in Sweden dealing with vulnerable young people seem to blithely deny that they have any concerns of any kind about treating these patients. So no great surprise that the parents of 'Leo' were talked into agreeing to it.

The couple of thoughtful, clearly very worried and troubled clinicians interviewed stand out as beacons of sanity but as for the rest…..good grief.

And the majority of the various clinics in Sweden dealing with vulnerable young people seem to blithely deny that they have any concerns of any kind about treating these patients. So no great surprise that the parents of 'Leo' were talked into agreeing to it.

Balint named that the collusion of anonymity a long time ago.

factors contributing to the establishment of the collusion of anonymity – a situation where the patient sees a number of doctors, but nobody takes responsibility about the important treatments and decisions.

www.asociatiabalint.ro/english_reports/THE%20COLLUSION%20OF%20ANONYMITY.pdf

Via CBBC, the BBC effectively runs advertising for the GIDS by recycling a clip in which Dr Polly Carmichael is interviewed about PB and describes them in terms of a pause button.

BBC + NHS + nice Dr Polly = a lot of authority.

mobile.twitter.com/newsround_blog/status/1151821906707984385?

Discussed by Helen Saxby:

notthenewsinbriefs.wordpress.com/2016/04/07/bigoted-or-brave-a-response-to-cbbc/

What struck me in the documentary was the arrogance of the idea that we can just stop puberty and then artificially manufacture conditions within the body that will enable a child to develop into an adult without any negative ramifications.

All of this in the name of kindness and acceptance. Those poor children, their lives will be shortened and full of pain and medical intervention. Why the fuck is this allowed? And you still have people in schools promoting this and trying to keep parents out of the loop.

It's absolutely heartbreaking. At least people are waking up.

I've been on these boards for about seven years, and at the very beginning of discussions about this issue, Lupron was cited as a drug that gives you bone density problems.

A mumsnetter, herself, had taken it, and it had practically ruined her life.

The issues have been known about for years.

The pushing of transgenderism as something to aspire to, is criminal, in my opinion. And it should be immediately outlawed in schools.

Furthermore, and I can't say this enough, research into not just the physical effects of puberty blockers, but the mental impact needs to be implemented.

You can't talk to individuals about how they're feeling at 20 after having taken puberty blockers, and now on cross sex hormones, when they're still thinking and feeling like a 10 year old, but don't know they are.

Yes Datun to the immediate outlawing of all this in schools.
I'm just listening to the marvellous Stephanie Davis-Arai & Helen Joyce in discussion with Benjamin Boyce about the relentless targeting of children that trans groups have been allowed and enabled to do. They're just talking about how decisions about this experimental treatment are being handed over children by the very adults who are meant to protect them.

We have been banging on about this on here for YEARS.

This needs an enquiry. It should never have happened. How many children have been harmed by this bullshit?

There is so little research into the medical aspects of any of this or into detransitioning, because of the consequences for anyone trying to carry out such research. Bad things have happened to those who attempted it.

I believe the governments should carry out that research so that individual researchers careers and reputations could not be that easily destroyed based on what the findings might be.

I obviously don't urge biased research to be initiated (on either side), but want to see properly done medical and sociological studies with properly drawn samples.

And yet there in the documentary is footage from an EPATH conference last year at which two delegates complain about too much focus on the risks of treatment and not enough about the risks of transphobia. And that gender-affirming healthcare is attacked with the idea of protecting children.

I mean, who cares about the children, eh?

It's absolutely incredible, it really is.

Christ. How can a phobia be something one can apply to medical condition??!

They are equating it yet again with homosexuality.

What is trans in children? Come to that, what is it in adults? The entire fucking issue needs to be hammered out.

With regard to patients/parents doing research, while there are people who approach their medical care that way, it's important to realize that many, many people do not. Whether it is about a drug they are given, a medical procedure, whatever, many people simply do what their doctor tells them, and don't question it much. They trust the experts to at least tell them where there could be problems or controversies they need to think about.

And while this issue is in the news as controversial in the UK now, it wasn't a few years ago in the same way. It still isn't here in Canada where I am, many parents would not twig that there is something they should look into, it is treated as a standard of care that is totally accepted.

Gender GP says:

'Limited studies have suggested that where bone density is impacted in young people using blockers, it is due to the absence of hormones rather than the result of the blockers, as hormones are essential for bone health.

This supports the argument for the timely use of gender-affirming hormones in trans youth and not allowing prolonged periods without sex hormones.'

Child abuse, this is shameful 😔

The attempts to equate ‘transphobia’ with homophobia are very problematic.

The enormous difference is that being homosexual requires no action or change from anyone. People just are homosexual. Any need to ‘come out’ arises purely because of heteronormative assumptions and homophobia.

But being trans requires you to transition - and have everyone else use different terms to refer to you. Then there’s all this medical intervention as well as social intervention.

Framing anything other than these huge changes and interventions as ‘conversion’ therapy is ridiculous. As is pretending that it’s the same thing as the dangerous nonsense that is homosexual conversion therapy.

There is too much readiness in general to say, if you disagree on some issue, you are phobic or racist. I saw a discussion in a news source local to me that touched on the question of reparations, and what was so notable was that those who tended to think that was a good approach so easily assumed that those who disagreed must do so because they were racist. They didn't even bother to ask why, it was obvious to them on the face of it.

It's not a healthy way to think.

They can't market this treatment as a 'harmless pause' in that case, which has been the argument they have previously used when promoting the use of puberty blockers. Opposite sex hormones cause irreversible effects including sterilisation. Do Gender GP think the right treatment for a child who is confused about gender, or who is gay, is to sterilise them?

''timely use of gender-affirming hormones in trans youth'

I'd like to know what this means in real terms. When do they suggest children should be put onto hormones?

There is no mention whatsoever of side effects on their info page on hormones.

www.gendergp.com/how-hormones-impact-trans-nonbinary-people/

Limited studies have suggested that where bone density is impacted in young people using blockers, it is due to the absence of hormones rather than the result of the blockers, as hormones are essential for bone health.

So why is it that girls who were treated with puberty blockers to delay precocious puberty by a couple of years, and who then had puberty at the same ages as their peers, developed severe bone-thinning?

The real underlying issue to me in all of this is the idea that there is an intrinsic category of person which is "trans". Like left handed people, blue eyed people, trans people.

That's not an evidence based way to conceptualize it, but once you do, it leads to all kinds of other conclusions that are also not evidence based.

Yet my 12yo DD with learning disabilities, who doesn't understand at all, will have to undergo menarche because when I asked about delaying puberty until she was able to understand a bit more, they looked at me like I was some kind of monster.

I work as a health care professional and I dread the day I come across a child or family who buy into all of this rubbish of hormone blockers. I can’t say anything to anyone as I’d be called phobic etc.

i recall watching a documentary based in Canada where a psychologist was fired for not agreeing with hormone blockers. Can’t remember the name of it now…

My mother, who sadly died in December, had osteoporosis. The last ten years of her life were punctuated by falls, fractures, and prolonged hospital stays. She had vertebral body spinal fractures (along with the other). The first time she had an op called a kyphoplasty, where the compressed vertebra is expanded to its normal height and the space filled with cement. There are very few places where you can get this in the NHS and her insurers refused to pay, it cost £10k. She had to suffer the pain for subsequent ones though I have recently seen a patient who has had three done in Bristol.
One of the problems is ideally they need to be done within six weeks of the fracture - it is a huge challenge to get a diagnosis and referral for treatment within six weeks on the NHS by the time one gets to see a GP, gets sent home with pain killers, tries to tough it out, gets referred for an X-ray and gets that referred to an appropriate spinal surgeon....
Hopefully when young people start presenting with these their treatment will be prioritised.
Then there are all the other fractures...
Mum's last fall meant she had a really nasty spiral fracture around the bottom of metal work already in her leg from a previous fracture. I had hoped, when she rallied after a complex operation that she was not expected to survive, that she might get to the point of being able to be up and about in a wheelchair but it was all too much for a 92 year old.

I don't like to think what the future holds for these teenagers who are already showing the same symptoms and problems that Mum had in her 80's.

I’m so sorry about your mum, @FannyCann. That must all have been so distressing for her and you. My late mother also had fractures due to osteoporosis and they were a constant worry and fear.