New Finnish Study on 'gender affirming' care and suicide ideation

[sunshinellight]

I haven't seen a thread on this so linking it here
https://nypost.com/2024/02/24/opinion/a-finnish-study-is-changing-how-we-approach-trans-kids/

A major new study out of Finland found that providing cross-sex hormones and gender-transition surgeries to adolescents and young adults didn’t appear to have any significant effect on suicide deaths.

Link to the study is in the article.

Forbes admittedly don't appear to have asked 'independent journalist' Erin for comment.

Robin you work in an evidence based profession. You don’t really think we are going to accept unevidenced assertions based on the work of a journalist with a potential conflict of interest over a peer reviewed scientific paper?
Would you make an argument in court on that basis? The scientists got it wrong because a journalist said so.

As other posters said, the key thing is the best and safest outcome for the children concerned to ensure any life changing decisions are made with appropriate understanding taking into account the full context and any co-morbidities.

The thing that depresses me is that it is so difficult for people to acknowledge that they have made a mistake. Because of this clinicians or parents who have 'transed' their child will spend the rest of their lives doubling down on what they have done because how could they not? How could any parent live with knowing the harm that has been done? But these are the very people who we need to be hearing from and I admire their courage enormously when they DO speak out.

I love how RMW, distinguished barrister, cannot even win an argument on mumsnet.

I suppose popular perceptions of mums on the internet might be quite as wrong as those of barristers.

More agencies (not read the Forbes article just adding )

The NICE finding

arms.nice.org.uk/resources/hub/1070905/attachment

The summary of the conclusion is

Conclusion
The results of the studies that reported impact on the critical outcomes of gender dysphoria and mental health (depression, anger and anxiety), and the important outcomes of body image and psychosocial impact (global and psychosocial functioning), in children and adolescents with gender dysphoria are of very low certainty using modified GRADE. They suggest little change with GnRH analogues from baseline to follow-up.

and

Australia and NZ College of Psychiatrists publish a warning there is not enough evidence.

//www.ranzcp.org/news-policy/policy-and-advocacy/position-statements/gender-dysphoria

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists have now updated their guidance.

They are now warning that there is NOT ENOUGH evidence to recommend affirming only treatments or indeed any particular treatment plan. They now say that underlying health issues should be treated at the same time. And warn that medicalisation of children and teens be very careful and thoroughly explored considering the ‘paucity’ of evidence at this time.

And

In January 2024, the WHO has become the latest to declare that there is a significant lack of evidence that the current treatment for children and adolescents around gender.

"the evidence base for children and adolescents is limited and variable regarding the longer-term outcomes of gender affirming care for children and adolescents"

tgdfaq16012024.pdf (who.int)

This update came less than a month after the WHO released what was supposedly their guidelines that were supposedly, at the time, very well evidenced and supposedly balanced.

Thanks, Helle.

The evidence is stacking up worldwide. What is tragic is that all of this evidence is based on harms done to children.

And what is unforgivable is that there are still people pushing the narrative despite evidence of harm done.

After your careful analysis of the scientific study which you were completely unable to debunk you then decided you'd go after the study author. Let's have a look at :

Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala

1. A medical doctor
2. Who is also a qualified psychiatrist
3. With plenty of experience in this field
4. In a country, Finland, with a top class medical system
5. Working at Tampere University Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology

Let's have a look at Erin Reed

1. No scientific qualification
2. Not a medical expert
3. A trans activist

You've made claims about Dr. Kaltiala, which you have not backed up

1. Her work is controversial
2. Her work is subject to many complains in Finland

Care to back up any of your claims? With for example:

1. links
2. proof

Where is your evidence that Dr. Kaltiala's study is in any way unscientific?

Are you entirely relying on a non scientific activists 'opinions'?

This article is now in the usual archive dot sites.

Perhaps because the writer is an activist with no medical qualifications and no expertise in dealing with children and teenagers expressing gender identity and mental health issues. Look at one of the claims against Professor Kaltiala:

telling patients that bottom surgery “seldom functions correctly,

This is entirely factual. Bottom surgery is butchery and people are left with life changing damage. Literally taking a healthy body and making it into a constant medically unfit one.

I think medical evidence by tweet is all we need to know about that 'journalist'. 🤔

I did grimace at the outrage over Dr Kaltiala having the temerity to say that "bottom surgery" seldom functions correctly.

Imagine letting young people hear that very inconvenient fact!

I grimace at adult males encouraging children to take hormones and have surgery. Especially when evidence from countries with top class medical facilities, and a history of being the best in their fields is dismissed as it doesn't suit the trans activists narrative.

Almost like it doesn't matter the damage being done to children, teenagers and young adults. Now why would that be I wonder 😠

Particularly shocking is the almost glee there is about claiming suicide if you don't damage the kids with hormones and surgery.

Just checking the credentials of the journalist Robin has kindly pointed us to.

Wikipedia has a brief page on Erin.

There is discussion as to whether Erin should be called a 'journalist' or a 'blogger' or perhaps a 'content creator'.

My vote would be 'some random on Twitter', fwiw.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Erin_Reed_(journalist)

It’s actually terrifying that TRAs are angry about medical practitioners giving patients a factual assessment of the results of a surgery.

No matter how strongly you feel your identity, it doesn’t somehow stop genital surgery leaving you potentially incontinent for life.

It’s not some social media bullshit video about positive thinking, visualisation, belief and ‘manifestation’. It’s medical advice.

It would be negligent not to be honest with patients about the potential side effects of surgery.

I particularly grimace every single time a male person pushes for a medical treatment protocol that is ideologically based and has more major life shortening and life limiting results for female patients vs male patients. Pushing that agenda that is so brutal to female patients so that male patients can get what they want, or as so often realised, what adult mature male transgender people wanted when it was not available to them so have campaigned for it now without considering the factors driving the motivation of any of the current cohort, looks like misogyny to me.

Yes, the total abandonment of normal protections for children is a huge scandal and the medical establishment is trying to correct course without admitting liability for their abandonment of medical ethics, in my opinion.

Normally for anything non life threatening the precautionary principle would apply - i.e. if you can't adequately quantify risks and benefits then you don't do it. The fact this has been thrown aside is absolutely shocking.

And we don't allow children to drive, drink, marry etc because we know they are not capable of fully considering risks until they are older. And yet in this case, it's all entirely on the say so of the child (who may well have been groomed by adults into what they're saying).

My teen is big enough to drive a car - so why can't she? I'd rather she drive than then be indoctrinated with the idea that anything about her body needs modification because of how she's feeling inside which - being a teenager - changes dramatically from week to week.

You only have to watch the Jazz docuseries to see how badly medical ethics have been abandoned. The parents are aghast that these medical procedures have been done without any evidence base or knowledge of what could happen. They voice this several times. They believed because a doctor was doing it, it was evidenced and put total trust in the doctors. But now they have no choice but to go on. At one point the surgeons are videoed arguing about where to incise what was - previously - a perfectly physically healthy child's body. It's insane that this is being aired on TV and more people aren't waking up.

And/or listen to Marcie Bowers, the transwoman surgeon who operated on Jazz (and attempted corrective surgeries after the fact). Marci is open about the issues of puberty blockers.

I find it dangerous that very young people who are gender questioning or have body dysphoria are told they will commit suicide if they cannot be given transgender hormones and have total affirmation straight away.

So many teenagers feel devastatingly depressed at least sometimes. Worst of all for them this is without the years of experience older people have that a desperately depressed mood usually passes ( it could be the result of a break-up, or even be severe pmt, for example).

Suicide is an obvious idea to get away from the agony, but usually there is a chance that the young depressed person will hold off long enough to naturally feel a little better at least for a while until a new wave hits. But with this tra mantra the child is given a fixed reason and could feel almost honour bound to carry it out.

Imo being a teenager has some absolutely hellish troughs, even for the least troubled.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/infleuntial-trans-care-doctor-once-warned-puberty-blockers-could-cause-permanent-sexual-dysfunction

'"Every single child who was or adolescent who was truly blocked at Tanner Stage 2 has never experienced orgasm. I mean, it's really about zero," she said.
Bowers complained in a talk with Mount Sinai Health System that she was getting heat from the left for "abandoning" the transgender agenda by speaking out against puberty blocking hormones, also called gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues (GnRHa), a class of drugs which suppresses sex hormones by continually stimulating the pituitary gland.
"I had concerns about initiating hormone blockers for children because it affected their surgical results that might affect how they respond sexually.'

Bowers' concern is focussed on sexual function.

Of course, there are multiple other concerns about these surgeries.

This is one study looking at 'vaginoplasty', and it's a favourable study that suggests the surgery produces 'satisfying results'.

'Results showed a great number of adverse events, although functionality preserved'

....

'Progressive obstructive voiding disorder due to meatal stenosis was the main complication observed in 40% of the patients, feasibly corrected during the second setting. Stricture recurrence was found in 15%. Stricture of vaginal introitus was observed in 15% of the cases followed by 12% and 8% of vaginal stenosis and lost of vaginal depth, respectively. Rectal injury was seen in 3% and minor wound healing disorders in 33% of the subjects.'

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22397771/

Here's a more recent study, on phalloplasty:

'Overall complication rate was high at 76.5%, of which urethral complications were high in all reconstructive subgroups (urethral fistula rate of 34.1% and urethral stricture rate of 25.4%).'

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2050052122000129

I think that whatever the particular issue or risk being raised (whether it’s sexual function or anything else), the telling thing is that even doctors in the field who try to have any kind of critical discussion of what they are doing are accused by ‘the left’ of ‘abandoning the transgender agenda’.

Medical practice should never have been caught up in furthering a particular ideological agenda. It’s really quite remarkable that this stuff goes unquestioned.

Those are just a couple of studies I found with a quick Google. I'm sure Robin could find us an expert witness on Twitter to refute them.

The low standard exhibited by RMW should surprise me being as they are a Barrister but it doesn't.

You really are amazing you women, that you can leap forth with brilliant well researched responses so early of a February morning. Totally on the case.
💪👌👏🙏