Gender Dysphoria in Young People: a brief update

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Had this article shared with me (the author was one of those cited in Time to Think. Article in Health Matters More concerns raised about the likely permanent effects of puberty blockers in children.

A brief update, but an exceptionally damning one.

Those study information leaflets are horrifying - absolute statements on the lack of harm and the certainty of benefit that would be totally inapproriate for any research of that type even if there weren't already published research contradicting them.

Drop-out numbers from 44 to 14 in a 3 year study. And no subsequent follow up despite it being almost a decade from end of trial.to publication. (Although not surprising - who's left to follow?)

Bone density plummeting at an age when it should be piling on.

And no sign of the audit data. I wonder why?

It makes me understand why responsible paediatric endocrinologists are so cautious about prescribing puberty blockers in the children with precocious puberty, for whom the intervention was designed. And that's a group with an actual pathological process going on. Use in children with previously healthy bodies must surely be far more cautious. You'd think. I'm really worried what has happened to safeguarding in all of this.

What are the potential benefits of taking part?Early blocker treatment is reversible and does not have harmful effects on physical or psychological development.They absolutely did know that that claim is an unequivocal lie.Finally, in February 2024, Professor Sallie Baxendale, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at UCL, and Consultant Clinical Neuropsychologist at UCLH, has published, in pre-print, in Acta Paediatrica, “The Impact of Suppressing Puberty on Neuropsychological Function” (8); a review of the known studies exploring the effects of puberty blockers on neuropsychological function in mammals. Of the studies reviewed, 11 were on animals and 6 on humans. All papers indicated negative effects on cognitive development in the areas of interactions with the environment, responses to stress and performance on cognitive tasks, additionally, impairment in sexual function was noted; these negative effects were not fully reversible.It is, however, worth highlighting one of Baxendale’s references to a paper published by Mul et al 23 years ago (2001) (9). 25 girls were treated for precocious puberty and prescribed GnRHa (the licenced treatment in young people), and were tested on the Weschler Intelligence scales both before treatment and three years after treatment had commenced. An average decrease in IQ scores of 7 points was reported for the group and the girl with the highest IQ, 138, experienced a drop of 15 points to 123. Prompted by this, I noted the dates of Baxendale’s references demonstrating negative effects on neurological development and found that a significant number had been published by the time that the GIDS/PE study was recruiting participants between April 2011 and April 2014, including Mul et al (2001). I also scanned the references in the study’s published paper of February 2021 (3) for references to neurological development but found none.
They have no excuse, they cannot claim that they didn't know.