“The evidence to support medicalised gender transitions in adolescents is worryingly weak”

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Econimist article shared by my increasingly GC hubby:https://econ.st/3ZNU7rz
(I hope the share link works and isn’t limited).

So tragic for the young victims butchered thanks to this abhorrent ideology.

More sunlight, and more first rate journalism from the Economist.

The TRAs will no doubt be especially incensed by the fact that Economist articles are never bylined, so they will struggle to harass, attack and threaten violence against any individual journalists.

can you summarise please, If you have read the full article? I can't access it.

I can’t read it either, but the more the poor evidence base for transitioning children is publicised, the better. This medical scandal is going to devastate many lives and the sooner it is stopped altogether, the better.

Oh sorry, it’s a long un! I will try to share screenshots but I’ll have to do it over a few posts.

Screenshots 2

wow. I agree with the word "grooming". That does seem to be appropriate.

thank you for the screen shots

Screenshots 3

Screenshots 4

Screenshots 5

I hope they’ve come out in vaguely the right order and you can make sense of them!

Good grief. 42,000 diagnoses in the US alone. I haven’t read far enough to see if it mentions how many began medically transition, but that’s a huge number of potentially damaged children.

Yes, but on the plus side, 42,000 victims make for a multi million dollar class action lawsuit against the private clinics. Sometimes money is the only thing that will stop idiots in their tracks.

Using the word “grooming” is very damning from the Economist. It’s really encouraging that serious publications like this are now being clear in the conclusions they have reached, given the evidence available.

One of the most sexist elements of this movement is that they have taken a treatment aimed at making adolescent males grow up smaller and weaker long term, to pass better. They then dole it out to adolescent females as if they are the same as males. How is a trans man going to have a better life if he's 4ft 10 with bones that break easily?

I know an 11yo on PBs, FTM, parents planning T at 18, when she's allowed. There appears to be no evidence about missing puberty out in girls completely. I think she's heading into a future of looking like a weirdly small but not quite right old man. I have access to all the scientific journals and have looked. Even the examples in this article are post puberty girls.

If you don't have a subscription you can read this article on archive dot ph. I won't post the link as archive links often get deleted.

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/04/05/the-evidence-to-support-medicalised-gender-transitions-in-adolescents-is-worryingly-weak

There's another article in there as well. Also on the archive site.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/04/05/what-america-has-got-wrong-about-gender-medicine

One thing not mentioned in the article is the source of funding for much of the research, including the original study leading to the "Dutch Protocol".

This came from Ferring Pharmaceuticals, a major manufacturer of the drugs used for blocking puberty.

Ferring are also a significant donor to UK politicians, in particular the Lib Dems

Follow the money. It's an absolute travesty to say they're reversible & just pressing pause. Horrific for those caught up in it.

That NICE review was kept very quiet.

What do you mean by quiet? It happened alongside the Cass Review and was in the Interim report, and has been discussed here, and reported in news articles including on the BBC.

I think you mean ignored by too many.

Good articles.

One thing I object to about descriptions of gender-affirming care - of every type - is use of 'experimental'. It is anything but experimental. It is Wild West anything-goes. If it was genuinely experimental then proper records would be kept, proper comparison with control groups and alternative treatment groups would be made, and patients of all the groups would be properly followed up for many years. None of this happens.

Gender-affirming care is driven by emotion and ideology, not by science.

Good point Jelly. All norms of trials, ethics seem to be absent in this field.

The subject line in the OP post is factually correct: the clinical "evidence" in support of medical transition for adolescents is very weak.

Here is a more academic and more comprehensive description of the problems with that "evidence":
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2022.2150346

Several of the articles mentioned (such as Tordoff) state in their conclusions that transition alleviates important mental health issues, whereas in fact digging just a little bit deeper shows that the numbers have been completely twisted in order to suit a desired conclusion, and their own data seem to contradict their stated conclusion.

I’m not in the UK but keep abreast of much the of what is going on and am very aware of Cass report, all the issues with the Tavistock, all the cases - Maya F etc.
I wasn’t as aware of the NICE review and I’m surprised at that. Usually NICE reviews are quite high profile. You don’t tell me what I meant.

…don’t need to

Medicines Ireland lists 31 Ferring Ireland Ltd products, - no idea have they got a factory here, but that suggests they are an employer so in a position to apply influence (not donations to parties though, we have laws against that).