‘Gender-Affirming Care Is Dangerous. I Know Because I Helped Pioneer It.’ - Article in The FP

[UtopiaPlanitia]

I’m reading this article and thought it would be of interest to FWR. I’m impressed by Dr Kaltiala and the interviews she has done in recent years, she very much has protection of children and adolescents at the heart of her speaking out.

‘Gender-Affirming Care Is Dangerous. I Know Because I Helped Pioneer It.’
https://www.thefp.com/p/gender-affirming-care-dangerous-finland-doctor

Thank you, a really interesting article, I am still astonished that medical people can be so against evidence, sadly it will be lawsuits rather than evidence that will lead to change by the sound of it

It is a very interesting article.

I'm quite interested myself in how the original small sample of patients in the Dutch treatment created this establishment of clinics who all took up that approach en masse. It seems so fast, with no caution.

Thank you for this OP. Excellent article. I'm not sure how big a reach the Free Press has? I'd like to see this interview in publications that would reach a wide audience!

Medicine, unfortunately, is not immune to dangerous groupthink that results in patient harm.

Thanks for the link. So depressing, but so much is similar to so many other stories that are later revealed to be the opposite.

But in this case, this affirmation approach has led to both physical and mental harm.

I know there’s been a push for high standard evidence-based medicine in recent decades but that doesn’t seem to apply in this area of medicine. Most studies done have been assessed as being of weak evidential value and Dr De Vries, of the original Dutch Protocol study, counters the evidence assessments (made by a number of national health systems) as not relevant because her personal experience tells her that pubertal blocking is helpful in treating gender-questioning/distressed children.

That’s why I’m glad to see Dr Kaltiala, Dr Cass, and a number of doctors in Norway, Sweden, and even the Netherlands, going on public record with their concerns about gender-affirming treatments.

I think it's shameful that the American Academy of Pediatrics refused to allow her to host a panel on this topic.

I’m glad to see the article. The author is demonstrating enormous courage.

Devastating that the US, presumably the biggest market for gender medicine, is determined to push on with their sick, mass experiment on sterilization of troubled young women.

And devastating for the troubled young women who have already been harmed. I hope that they receive as much support as possible in coming to terms with what has been done to them at a time when what they really needed was protection.

Oh god

"It is devastating to speak to patients who say they were naive and misguided about what transition would mean for them, and who now feel it was a terrible mistake."

I mean, we know there are people who regret medical transitioning because of the court cases and media stories. But I guess I was hoping that GC commentators were amplifying a small number of people, the most extreme cases.

This suggests that there are many many more :(

Thank you for this link.

Given the FP.com is a very right wing organisation that many have said is very anti-woke, then no surprise this article would appear. An organisation of Bari Weiss.

Always check for context who is behind these "not the usual", media outlets. Many are just sprouting propaganda.

Puberty blockers for kids have been used way before 2011. The whole article has bias and an agenda. But if your life view is that treatment for trans people is wrong, and they are mentally ill, then I am sure it will reinforce for you that belief.

For those more balanced among us, I would treat this with a high degree of scepticism.

It's nothing that most on here didn't already know, but it's still bloody shocking to read.

The thought of so many children who have had their lives ruined because they are unhappy as teenagers going through puberty, or were little kids that played with toys their parents thought they shouldn't. Or had other mental health issues which meant they couldn't make any sort of informed decision about what they wanted.

There is going to be so many cases of regret as this cohort all reach milestones in their lives where their friends are off living their happy adult lives fit and healthy and they are stuck in bodies that are ravaged by hormones not designed for them, suffering the ongoing issues caused by removing, adding, inverting parts of their anatomy etc. They are gong to realise that they aren't happy, they are still depressed, but now ill with crumbling bones, unable to have children and unable to have a meaningful sex life.

The fall out from all this gender affirming care is going, and already is, to be absolutely horrifying, and so very sad.

Mishy said 'Puberty blockers for kids have been used way before 2011.'

This is true and the side effects are discussed in this article from 2017. It specifically discusses the drug Lupron.

ETA- It's really horrific reading and it is worth keeping going until the end of the article.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/women-fear-drug-they-used-to-halt-puberty-led-to-health-problems

lol.

Dr, Riittakerttu Kaltiala, on the Gender: A Wider Lens podcast all the way back in Feb 2022:

Boiled said 'The fall out from all this gender affirming care is going, and already is, to be absolutely horrifying, and so very sad.'

I agree with this. It's also completely predictable to anyone not swept up in the 'affirmation only approach' which adds another level of horror.

I know that I've said it before, but the medical complications (especially from the genital surgeries) can be life changing. For example, incontinence is never going to help someone who is struggling and vulnerable.

Some of the saddest videos I have seen are from transitioners documenting their complications and then saying (in the most heartbroken, unconvincing and regret filled way) that they have 'no regrets.'

The problem is that the more credible publishers may not be willing to invoke wrath and publish even very well evidenced work (which this is). I presume from your warning that you have not followed the links back to her academic sources underpinning this. Which she links to throughout. Take a while and do so. I recommend these. Note that these are articles in Journals (not conference papers - where the threshold is lower). This author was denied the opportunity to host a panel at a conference in US which would discuss some of this evidence. The evidence that so many stop taking hormones after a few years is interesting. The differences in the patient group underpinning the Dutch protocol is illuminating, Its terrifying that the statistic about trans youth and suicide is used as a reason to fast track when there is no evidence that its its anything like as high as quoted (see first article). Great resource even though its an unfortunately discredited publication bringing it to light. Hm. Wonder whether she tried getting this published elewhere in mainstream US media first?

Biggs M. Suicide by Clinic-Referred Transgender Adolescents in the United Kingdom. Arch Sex Behav. 2022 Feb;51(2):685-690. doi: 10.1007/s10508-022-02287-7. Epub 2022 Jan 18. PMID: 35043256; PMCID: PMC8888486.

E. Abbruzzese, Stephen B. Levine & Julia W. Mason (2023) The Myth of “Reliable Research” in Pediatric Gender Medicine: A critical evaluation of the Dutch Studies—and research that has followed, Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 49:6, 673-699, DOI: 10.1080/0092623X.2022.2150346

Kaltiala-Heino R, Bergman H, Työläjärvi M, Frisén L. Gender dysphoria in adolescence: current perspectives. Adolesc Health Med Ther. 2018 Mar 2;9:31-41. doi: 10.2147/AHMT.S135432. PMID: 29535563; PMCID: PMC5841333.

Christina M Roberts, David A Klein, Terry A Adirim, Natasha A Schvey, Elizabeth Hisle-Gorman, Continuation of Gender-affirming Hormones Among Transgender Adolescents and Adults, The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Volume 107, Issue 9, September 2022, Pages e3937–e3943, https://doi.org/10.1210/clinem/dgac251

Kaltiala-Heino R, Sumia M, Työläjärvi M, Lindberg N. Two years of gender identity service for minors: overrepresentation of natal girls with severe problems in adolescent development. Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health. 2015 Apr 9;9:9. doi: 10.1186/s13034-015-0042-y. PMID: 25873995; PMCID: PMC4396787.

Bari Weiss is hardly right wing. She’s a Columbia-educated self-described ‘left-leaning centrist’ journalist, married to a woman, and probably in the category of disenchanted liberals who are socially more conservative than their identitarian peers. In any case, Weiss didn’t write the article … so if we’re going to use ad hominems, let’s at least direct them at the right person.

Puberty blockers for kids have been used way before 2011.

Thalidomide was licensed and widely taken for morning sickness for five years before being recalled in 1961 leaving 20,000 individuals with severe birth defects

Lobotomies were developed in 1930s and were carried out for decades leaving tens of thousands with severe brain injury and approximately 5% of those ‘treated’ dead. The Soviet Union banned it on moral grounds in 1950 but ‘the west’ continued to use it for decades.

Oxycontin was marketed as a non addictive painkiller from 1996 to 2001. By 2004 is was the most abused drug in America with deaths caused by it overtaking those of Heroin

Fen-Phen was marketed as a weight loss drug for 24 years until 1997 before it was recalled. Since then it has cost Wyeth an estimated $21 billion in legal costs and damages

Unlike puberty blockers, all these drugs and treatments had been through the approval processes for the conditions they were marketed to treat. (Which also meant, unlike puberty blockers, the pharmaceutical companies could be held liable).

@MishyJDI

I'm not sure what your point about FP.com's political bias is.

Are you saying this doctor is lying about her direct experience of transition regret in her patients?

Are you saying FP.com is lying and she didn't say it?

Are you saying that it is true, but only truths reported in sources with the right political bias matter?

Because regardless of the source's motivation in publishing this, if it is true it is important and I'm aghast you might think the truth about children being harmed is less important than toeing a certain political line.

I don't understand WHY so many adults are hell bent on affirmation only despite the mounting evidence base against it. Is it the whole sunk costs thing?

Were there equivalent levels of denial with things like lobotimisation once the evidence mounted it was unsupportable as a medical intervention?

I always personally think the Jazz Jennings TV series is a pretty dreadful advert for transition. The bewilderment of the parents when they realise the surgery is all experimental is quite awful to watch. I think they really truly believed the medics wouldn't have given the drugs they did and performed the surgeries they did unless it was well evidenced to the normal standard ... and then when they realise it's a big experiment... very uncomfortable viewing despite the fact the overall message of the series is very much pro-affirmation.

@SaffronSpice great post.

I've been learning about oxycontin and there are parallels.

I actually don't think it would be fair to hold 'big pharma' liable for the unnecessary and unevidenced sterilisation of children because they haven't been the ones pushing it. I think I'm right in saying use of puberty blockers for gender transition is off label and continues to be off label. So presumably the individual doctors doing this should be the ones that are sued and their licenses revoked and the professional organisations pushing and condoning this as 'best practice' like AAP. It's quite astonishing it's still allowed given the lack of evidence of benefit and mounting evidence of harm.

Yes I understand Lupron is not approved for this use. The doctors prescribing it are liable.

I was reading up on that Irish ‘yeet the teets’ doctor in Florida who performs double mastectomies on young girls. She (the doctor) apparently doesn’t have medical indemnity insurance; there are several states in America that don’t require it and Florida is one of these. This means you would never get one of those huge settlements as you can only sue the doctor for her personal assets. And, as luck would have it, Florida is one of the best states for the ease with which you can put your assets out of reach of the courts ( eg. by placing all your earnings/property in offshore shell companies)… So no lawyer would wish to sue as they would be unlikely to even recover their own fees.

Even if the evidence base of the Dutch Protocol was evidence based and sound, most of the Western world did not follow the required procedures. The majority of the growing cohort were not the sample base of the trials and yet country after country piggy backed the research and simultaneously ignored the strict criteria. I will never understand why wanting gold standard research is not everyone’s desire, especially in regards to children.

You’re right, that is a horrifying read - that list of side effects is terrifying. Even when it’s used for its originally intended purpose, treating prostate cancer, the drug has a punishing effect on the human body. The list of serious side effects makes me very surprised, and shocked, at how there’s been a creep in its use into treatment areas that aren’t what it was originally authorised to treat.

It’s disgusting how drug companies wined and dined doctors, and pushed the financial benefits, to encourage them to prescribe the drug. The profit motive in US healthcare is very intertwined with the growth of medicalising child development.