Are puberty blockers just like the pill?

[mach2]

And yet still, conservative voices in the UK and abroad are fighting, with worrying levels of success, against it – to me, puberty blockers are in the same bracket as the contraceptive pill, entirely suitable for young people with proper medical supervision.

https://metro.co.uk/2023/09/28/we-accept-teenagers-taking-the-pill-but-not-puberty-blockers-why-19564554/

I can think of one difference...

Wow. Willfully misleading or just plain thick? I don't really care but I do care that the media platforms such ill researched shite.

Yet I know of an 8 year old that is going through precocious puberty and her GP will not prescribe puberty blockers as his opinion is that it will do her more harm.

No, they are nothing the same, and apparently I am not allowed to say why.

They seem to be considering cases against them, so I'm guessing it's covered.

Puberty blockers for everyone!

“It prevents, for example, young trans girls from growing a beard and their voice dropping, or trans boys from growing bigger breasts and hips – which for cis people is a very normal part of growing up, but for many trans or non-binary people it is a source of severe distress.”

I was pretty damn distressed when I started to menstruate and grow breasts and hips, but eventually my brain caught up with my body and I made my peace with it. Although, being male, Ugla wouldn’t know about that.

”Of course, as with the contraceptive pill, or indeed any medication we take, there are also some risks when taking puberty blockers. Potential side effects include loss of fertility, effects on bone growth and bone density and growth spurs.”

Those side effects are hardly trivial.

Against Metro, not metro.co.uk, which is where this article is published.

A pill that temporarily stops you from getting pregnant or one that is likely to permanently stop you from getting pregnant. 😶

When I put it into Google, it had IPSO rulings for the website.

In one of the linked pieces, a 2020 study is mentioned. Even if you aren't going to give a full reference, a little bit more than that would be nice.

However, I'm guessing it's some study done by Jack L. Turban and others, that appears to have been published in a couple of different places in 2020 / 2022, with somewhat different authors involved. I'm assuming it's closely related work and they published it twice.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7073269/

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0261039

For criticism see:

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/comment

Deliberately misleading. I have read many articles of theirs where they deliberately misread reports and findings, call anyone who doesn't believe in their ideology far-right and part of the culture war.

But by far the worst is to mislead about the actual medical transition process, to make it sound as wonderful as possible and to seriously downplay side-effects. Detransitioners are blithely disregarded.

It is these people who you don't want anywhere near confused teenagers, because they will be pushed down the path of transition.

We are sufficiently confident in the risk/benefit profile of the pill, that GPs can happily and confidently prescribe it for teenagers. We are so unsure about the risk/benefit profile of puberty blockers, even for their actual designed purpose of delaying precocious puberty, that they can only be prescribed by a paediatric endocrinologist at a children's hospital. Nah, no difference at all. Honest guv.

Are you joking?

Appalling, but not surprising, from TRSOH.

What a dreadful article, the promotion of misinformation is I think dangerous

Clause 1 (Accuracy)
i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or images, including headlines not supported by the text.
ii) A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and — where appropriate — an apology published. In cases involving IPSO, due prominence should be as required by the regulator.
iii) A fair opportunity to reply to significant inaccuracies should be given, when reasonably called for.
iv) The Press, while free to editorialise and campaign, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.
v) A publication must report fairly and accurately the outcome of an action for defamation to which it has been a party, unless an agreed settlement states otherwise, or an agreed statement is published.

https://www.ipso.co.uk/complain/

metro.co.uk is coming up in the drop down box, so it seems it is possible to complain.

As far as I can tell, they will send the publication your name and address, but the publication is not allowed to share this.

This does seem to be an important goal for many transactivists.

Another important goal is to convince the public that some people "are trans", that this is a defining and unchanging part of their being, and that this is not a mental disorder or a paraphilia. To do this they need to persuade everyone of the existence of "trans children".

In other words, if trans children didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent them.