New Dutch Report on pathway for children who have puberty suppressed

[Cailleach1]

I saw this article about a report which was published in The Lancet. The Dutch women's movement 'Voorzij' (for her) had a response wrt a comment by a Dutch MP. This MP said (translated) Re-confirmed: the transgender nature of young people rarely blows over… . We've known for a long time, but now the outcome of a new study.

Children being socially transitioned, then put on puberty blockers and on cross sex hormones at still a young age doesn't confirm anything about 'nature', though, does it? The response of those around them affects the children, and maybe this just shows that kids are trapped on a steam train and are unable to get off. More nurture than nature. As we know from Cass, even social transitioning is not a neutral act. It has an effect on the children and they are more likely to go onto puberty blockers (which are now thought to not solely retard normal physical development). So, I wonder if these children are even able to get off this train before being put on cross sex hormones. Or, what would be the outcome if these children were able to receive help and support to work through any problems.

I read somewhere that children who were not placed on this trajectory of medical intervention, predominantly come to terms with issues wrt their sex as they develop normally into adulthood. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think this study had a comparable cohort who were allowed to develop normally (maybe with support) in this way to compare against the medicalised cohort of children. What if that showed that the vast majority of that unmedicalised cohort had resolution?

I think the article is propaganda, and relies on people just taking it on face value. It is boll*cks to pretend this shows what the NPR (and that Dutch MP) pretends it shows. What about cultivation and manipulation?

www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(22)00254-1/fulltext#%20

twitter.com/voorzij/status/1583838048592150528?cxt=HHwWgICqwYmU9vorAAAA

www.npr.org/2022/10/26/1131398960/gender-affirming-care-trans-puberty-suppression-teens

Have you listened to the Gender A Wider Lens episode with the two Dutch clinicians who are responsible for the Dutch Protocol?

It’s an absolute shocker. They have absolutely no interest in the adult lives of their former child patients.

"Most participants who started gender-affirming hormones in adolescence continued this treatment into adulthood. The continuation of treatment is reassuring considering the worries that people who started treatment in adolescence might discontinue gender-affirming treatment."

The irony is we all KNOW already that puberty blockers are less of a pause button and more of a fast forward to cross sex hormones and surgery. There's loads of data already.

To grow out of gender dysphoria, as 80%+ used to..... you need to develop through puberty.

Nothing reassuring about sterilising children, but the Dutch are keen to defend their protocol eh?

Its not just about persisting, though, is it? Is dysphoria alleviated? Are co-existing mental health issues/outcomes improved?

I've just read a study of a transman who'd had a cardiac arrest after 20 years on testosterone, who was advised to stop taking it but refused as it was 'part of his identity'.

The Dutch protocol was designed for MTF transitioned, who want to pass better as an adult. I haven't yet seen any justification that it should be applied to FTM - it seems incredibly sexist to apply it this way, not considering the needs or biology of women.

For example, how does preventing puberty and FTM being even shorter, height wise, help them pass?

No, @TheClogLady. I shall do when I've the stomach for it. This 'study' was published in The Lancet on only 20th October 2022. This very month. I'm very surprised at it's lack of rigour. It is actually quite a sad little report on how children may become trapped - by the adults around them, and treating them.

Some Dutch MP's are trying to push more legislation through their parliament to make it easier for people who which to identify as the other sex. Self ID, I think. Maybe lowering the age too, I think (could be wrong on that). I imagine this propaganda piece will be referred to as the newest and best research. I hope it is exposed for what it is.

Could one say the same about Oxycontin? You can become addicted to something mentally or physically. Doesn't mean it is objectively a positive thing.

The Dutch MP in question is a transwoman and the driving force behind the self id proposals in the Netherlands. They call women objecting to male people in sports and prisons 'fake feminists'.

During the last debate in parlement they confirmed they have female in the Dutch citizen registration and male in their medical records.

The Netherlands don't have an Equality Act, 'geslacht', the Dutch word for sex, is not defined in Dutch law, probably because no one thought it necessary. The law change stills refer to 'geslacht' but you can change it whenever you want so it becomes gender and sex doesn't exist anymore in Dutch law, so neither does any protections against discrimination based on sex. MPs just don't care.

WPATH had a study where 100% of children persisted when put on blockers but over 80% desisted when not put on blockers. Can't link it anymore as it was presented at some conference and the link doesn't work anymore.

It is patently obvious that the line "gives them time to decide" is a complete illusion.

@TheClogLady which episode, please?

The Dutch seem to be going mad. Their Government wants to destroy the farming industry, one of their major sources of income, in the name of ‘green’ policy. I’m not surprised that they also want to sterilise their children, I suppose it will be good to have a lower population when there is nothing to eat.

The interview episode is number 66:

gender-a-wider-lens.captivate.fm/episode/66-pioneers-series-where-it-all-started-the-dutch-researchers-steensma-de-vries

and then Stella and Sasha talk about it in this recap episode:

gender-a-wider-lens.captivate.fm/episode/69-pioneers-series-post-series-analysis-break

I had to scrape my jaw off the floor more than once.

That follow up only looks at whether the patient (who on average started on medical intervention at the age of 14/15) is still in receipt of a hormone prescription age 19/20.

Firstly, we already know that transition regret sets in at around 7 to 10 years (will try and dig out a reference for that later) and secondly, still getting the script says nothing about contentment with transition or lack of regret (eg detrans man Ritchie is still on an estrogen prescription because he fears testosterone will give him a useless libido and no hormones at all is an osteoporosis risk). It certainly says nothing about the person’s health, well-being or functioning in the world.

Whoever mentioned stunted Growth in puberty blocked Girls is unfortunately wrong, puberty is what stops Girls getting much taller and why puberty blockers are used in precocious puberty, 8 year olds entering puberty would be tiny as adults iirc.

Is there any actual research on the health of these Girls and Boys who go from puberty blocked to cross Sex hormones? I can’t imagine their life expectancy or general health is that of ‘normal’ kids. We already know their IQ suffers.

Growth will depend on when the intervention is made.
Female children generally only grow an inch or two after menstruation begins.

No natal female will reach a typical male height using GnRHa pubertal blockade and testosterone because the male height gene is on the Y chromosome.

That’s very helpful Clog. I didn’t know about the height gene/Y chromosome combo.
I assumed it was simply the Testosterone pubertual surge that made (some) Boys grow like weeds!

One of my adult Nephews is 6ft 2, the other one ( his younger brother) barely 5ft 8, genetics is fascinating.

As ever then , Boys taking PB’s ‘benefit’ far more than Girls in the ‘Passing’ lottery, when it comes to height? Will a Boy who is genetically ‘coded’ to be tall but has his puberty blocked, still be abnormally tall for a Girl?

Pubertal blockade can help with passing aesthetics for ‘transgirls’ but it’s quite complicated - again, if they start pubertal suppression at the wrong stage of male puberty you can end up with the opposite effect enormously tall transgirls (think of how leggy some castrated male mammals become, or how the historical eunuchs are described as being very tall with small heads)

As far as I can work out the doctors really do have to start pubertal blockade much earlier than even most pro trans people would find acceptable (tanner 2) - and if you do that you then increase the risk of obesity.

Most (perhaps all? Need to reread) of the kids on the original Dutch study were obese at follow up.

The male height thing is a combo of two factors: www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2001/09/11/363100.htm

So while hormonal transition does seem to be able to interfere with with the expression of the height gene on chromosome 15 (called CYP19) it doesn’t seem to have much effect on the bit on the Y chromosome (presumably why males with the DSD described as CAIS grow up to look phenotypically female but taller than average?)

Plus, I don’t think it’s the GnRHa (puberty blockers) drugs that interfere with male adult height via chromosome 15, but the addition of estrogen?
So natal boys who spend a long time on blockers before adding estrogen end up tall (maybe even extra tall, perhaps with disproportionately
long legs!) and natal boys who are blocked at tanner 2 and get estrogen fairly quickly stay shorter than their original projected male height (still taller than average for girls due to the Y chromosome) but are likely to be obese (and not have enough penis growth for surgery)?

Of course, no one is really trying to capture this sort of data, so all we can do is hodgepodge it together from the various figures released and hope that Cass’ proposed clinical trials give full answers in time.

It’s not possible to make a female child into a male adult or vice versa, all the doctors currently do is induce a sort of pseudo DSD state via creating a deliberate hormone imbalance.
Whether long term health/happiness is possible we don’t yet know, as the data sets are so small and the clinicians so incurious about quality of life in follow ups.
I hope it is possible to be happy and healthy after pubertal blockade and cross sex hormones, for the sake of the former ‘transkids’ who are stuck living with the consequences 😢

Especially the natal girls, as many detrans women are now reporting joint/bone/mobility issues at worryingly young ages.

Well, from what we know about the Lupron scandal in the US, Girls’ health was irreversibly damaged.

I think we will end up with a major scandal within 10 years with thousands of kids affected and abundant lawsuits.

Nobody predicting bad outcomes will find comfort from being right all along, just profound sadness at the lack of safeguarding.

I’d love to be wrong 😢

I'd be interested in a reference for the transition regret being highest at 7 years, @TheClogLady if you had one?

I saw buck Angel saying that on the'what's a woman' matt Walsh programme but haven't been able to find a reference just yet.

I agree it's fairly horrifying that they're accepting a 98 to 100 per cent of children continuing to be dysphoric and on hormones when natural history is 80 pc plus desist.

I don't understand how the researchers can't see the connection between the two things

I've found the link which shows median regret timing at 8 years post legal gender change (in Holland) from data 1960 to 2001. Average of 2 per cent in this time asked to detransition back to birth gender. (the data from 2001 to 2010 shows a much lower rate but likely due to the 8 year time lag).

sci-hub.yncjkj.com/10.1007/s10508-014-0300-8#

Dhejne, Cecilia; Öberg, Katarina; Arver, Stefan; Landén, Mikael (2014). An Analysis of All Applications for Sex Reassignment Surgery in Sweden, 1960–2010: Prevalence, Incidence, and Regrets. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 43(8), 1535–1545. doi:10.1007/s10508-014-0300-8

Also Gussie grips said in a talk that FTM go into menopause and this causes pelvic floor problems with incontinese in there 20,s.

so they would in menopause for decades.

They have absolutely no interest in the adult lives of their former child patients.

That's not quite what I got from the "Gender - a Wider Lens" interview (I didn't listen to the followup episode). I got that the Dutch physicians do care and (unlike us) they evaluate their interventions and outcome. But that the only thing that transition can fix is gender dysphoria. If you are depressive it wont fix that. If you struggle to form relationships it wont fix that. If you're obsessive it wont fix that. If you have trauma it wont fix that.

So you had better be bloody sure that (a) what you have is gender dysphoria and (b) that you are strong enough to cope with the downsides of transition and (c) you have good ways to cope with your other problems.

Its not just about persisting, though, is it? Is dysphoria alleviated?

According to the physicians- yes it is. But the Dutch clinic are better set up than we are, they're multidisciplinary, they filter and select children carefully, they deal with other psychological issues and many of their children don't go on to blockers. And this was a cohort from a long time ago, so before ROGD etc.

Are co-existing mental health issues/outcomes improved?

No. The physicians said that.