No more puberty blockers for children from the NHS - reported in the Times!

[MrsOvertonsWindow]

This is massive - and long overdue

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/97ce2e81-2884-42f5-bb82-2a2778f2cc91?shareToken=9568e79f0683beea68ffe5e978b05a29

a) nobody knows

b) the risks are there that they won't, and that brain and nervous system and bone development windows have been and gone.

Hannah's detailed take is here. Best summary so far:
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2024/03/no-more-puberty-blockers-for-children-says-nhs-england

Debbie Hayton Spectator
The NHS puberty blocker ban for children is long overdue

Key point:
Finally, there are private providers ready to sell into a market that will pay. Last year, GenderGP asserted that NHS England Specialist Services does not govern what GPs and hospital consultants do in their own services, and has ‘no impact on private doctors and what they decide is the right care for their patients.’ GenderGP says it will ‘continue to provide puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones to patients who need them’.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-nhs-puberty-blocker-ban-for-children-is-long-overdue/

Time magazine contrasts result with the states:
https://time.com/6900330/nhs-bans-puberty-blockers-england-clinics/

Good to know I'm not missing key robust data!

In my experience, children who are a bit different / find school and social interactions difficult find gender ideology, are presented with the idea that everything that's not great in their life is 'because they're really trans' and then become obsessed that having a trans identity will make everything better, which it doesn't.

My anecdotal experience is that children who are already struggling see their grades and academic progress fall off a cliff as soon as they decide that social transition (and possibly wanting medical transition) is the answer and all the focus is on that, rather than other factors making their lives difficult.

Some great posts on this thread. Yes, why isn't Stonewall using its millions to fund robust medical and longitudinal studies? Why don't they want to understand better? Could it be because the answers might not be what they want and it's not all about what's best for children, but promoting a certain agenda?

I am daily perplexed and in disbelief that we've allowed an ideology into schools that tells children who are already struggling that essentially everyone who uses standard English hates them. It's such a huge safeguarding failure. It is emotional abuse.

I must admit I've always been highly sceptical of the claim. There are natural windows for normal development and we know that children can miss the boat in other sad cases, such as the window for typical language acquisition.

I just find it hard to believe that a 17 year old lad with the sexual organs of a little boy could develop into a normal man, for example, even if his body was given the chance.

Victoria Smith takes no prisoners:

Right now, social media is awash with ideologues insisting that <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/M6BvA/twitter.com/DoctorWarmflash/status/1767625228346147115" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">children will die because of this decision. On the contrary: lives will be saved, and it will be due to the work of campaigners who kept naming the madness even when told they had no right to speak.
They will not be thanked for it; far more likely is that they will be blamed for stoking a culture war which made due diligence impossible. Anyone who lies to children about their own bodies will have no difficulty lying about the part they played in this scandal. Still, some part of them will know: it was always insane.

NHS puberty blocker ruling will save lives - UnHerd (archive.is)

Well said. I agree with her

I hope we expose this whole harmful thing and women write about it. Post insanity

There are scenarios where puberty is suppressed by disease or stressed state where it can then begin or resume in later adolescence. Situations like eating disorders, or many of the gymnasts whose bodies were constantly stressed as teens didn’t actually go through puberty till they stopped competing in their late teens/early 20s.

However what is not known is how long you have a direct drug effect on the hypothalamus and then expect it to fully resume its job in initiating puberty. There aren’t many cells of the hypothalamus that are dedicated to this process and complete chemical suppression of those cells for year upon year may be detrimental.

For boys, the other issue they get testicular sclerosis. The testes, after no stimulation, sclerose and cannot produce testosterone. So even if central puberty hormones resume, it might be like banging on the door with no one home. They would then need testosterone to be administered.

The answers to these questions would be fully known if gender questioning children actually did this - stopped puberty blockers and didn’t go onto wrong sex hormones - and we would be able to be told of their experiences and gender clinician doctors could clearly tell everyone what happens.

“We have had [x] number of adolescents who have done this and [x]% resumed after 6 months, [x]% resumed after 1 year…” and so on.

But because they all go onto wrong sex hormones, they can’t tell us this. They can’t tell us the evidence of reversibility for PBs because they never reverse them.

Thank you for sharing that article. Yes to all of it, she is furious, but especially this:

Experiments have been conducted on the bodies of children due to the political cowardice of adults.

@NotBadConsidering Thank you, that's a really helpful summary of the points to consider.

So basically all the talk of 'reversibility' is mostly guesswork on a theoretical level and just plain wrong on a practical level since it's not a scenario that actually occurs.

We are in the weeds now, but @NotBadConsidering it is not true that a definitive diagnosis is needed to run a trial. Early phase trials in cancer for example will often test in all solid tumours, even those with unknown primary origin and unverified histological diagnoses. They are testing safety, not efficacy, but will look for signals of efficacy in particular cancer types to inform future trials.

Also there are many studies that would for example welcome patients with a variety of diagnoses or none, as long as they are experiencing particular symptoms (in your example some symptoms of IBS, chron's and UC overlap in some patients). If positive the treatment can then be used to treat patients with that particular symptom, as opposed to that particular diagnosis.

In these studies, i imagine there is a formally recognosed measure of self reported gender distress/dysphoria, similar to measures of depression. (If there isnt then i have no fucking clue how research in this field is even vaguely possible). Robust self reported measures can be valid outcome measures for trials. But for gender distress, they cant be the only measure.

There doesn't appear to be any discussion on this on mainstream TV/radio this morning. Clearly it's been put into the "too hard" basket and everyone's concentrating on the racist Tory party donor.

Our mainstream media is totally complicit - they've been centring the demands of Mermaids, Gendered Intelligence, Stonewall, Global Butterflies, GIRES & all the other queer theory activist groups who've openly targeted children.

Admitting that they not only bought into their lies but also framed all the courageous adults protesting against this abuse of children as "bigots and transphobes" will be a step too far.

It's going to take more than the admittance that we've allowed the NHS to experiment on thousands of children rendering their future lives wrecked before they acknowledge any complicity. It will need to be dragged out of them as it was with Savile.

Yes and it means adults who were complicit and will want to cover their arse might need to leave before we get some honesty in the media

It’s a long haul. So many have been promoting this they won’t want to be seen as in the wrong.

A tumour is a visibly confirmed entity. There’s a tumour. But I think what you’re describing is historical and unlikely to happen now given it’s pretty unusual to have no confirmed histological or radiological diagnosis of specific type.

Also there are many studies that would for example welcome patients with a variety of diagnoses or none, as long as they are experiencing particular symptoms

Yes. Crap studies that will be pulled apart in the peer review process and if they’re eventually published in a crappy journal will be forgotten because their findings are of little worth.

In these studies, i imagine there is a formally recognosed measure of self reported gender distress/dysphoria, similar to measures of depression. (If there isnt then i have no fucking clue how research in this field is even vaguely possible)

We are talking about treatment for childhood so called gender dysphoria. These are the DSM 5 criteria for that condition:

The DSM-5-TR defines gender dysphoria in children as a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender, lasting at least 6 months, as manifested by at least six of the following (one of which must be the first criterion):

• A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
• In boys (assigned gender), a strong preference for cross-dressing or simulating female attire; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong preference for wearing only typical masculine clothing and a strong resistance to the wearing of typical feminine clothing
• A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play
• A strong preference for the toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender
• A strong preference for playmates of the other gender
• In boys (assigned gender), a strong rejection of typically masculine toys, games, and activities and a strong avoidance of rough-and-tumble play; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong rejection of typically feminine toys, games, and activities
• A strong dislike of one’s sexual anatomy
• A strong desire for the physical sex characteristics that match one’s experienced gender

You need 6 out of 8 criteria and 4 of them rely on stereotypes. Clothes, toys, role play, friends. This is currently what is used to determine whether a child should get puberty blockers. This is the “formally recognised” condition, but it’s dangerous nonsense.

If there isnt then i have no fucking clue how research in this field is even vaguely possible

Exactly. It’s not even vaguely possible to conduct research when the concepts of gender and trans are so poorly defined.

In these studies, i imagine there is a formally recognosed measure of self reported gender distress/dysphoria, similar to measures of depression

And a reminder that in the original Dutch study they asked the patients to self report their “gender distress”. At the start of the study they asked the boys the questions designed for boys and they asked the girls the questions designed for girls. After they had blocked their puberty, put them on wrong sex hormones and done surgery, they asked the boys the questions designed for girls and the girls the questions designed for boys and Lo! Their self reported “gender distress” had improved!

So “robust” has been glaringly missing so far.

• In boys (assigned gender), a strong preference for cross-dressing or simulating female attire; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong preference for wearing only typical masculine clothing and a strong resistance to the wearing of typical feminine clothing
• A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play
• A strong preference for the toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender
• A strong preference for playmates of the other gender
• In boys (assigned gender), a strong rejection of typically masculine toys, games, and activities and a strong avoidance of rough-and-tumble play; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong rejection of typically feminine toys, games, and activities

Crazy how all of these are completely normal behaviour and the only 'treatment' required is to tell the child, "That's fine, people are all different, you can be how you want to be, play how you want to play, dress how you want to dress, have the friends you want."

I do think Evan Davies was given pause for thought yesterday when speaking to Dr David Bell. You could almost hear the gears changing.

Now we need to see some prosecutions.

My heart sank slightly when I realised it'd be ED presenting the first covering of this on the BBC but thanks to Dr Bell it worked out well.

There needs to be urgent retraining of professionals who have been parrotting and promulgating this nonsense, it can't just be hoped that it will filter through. Starting with schools. They must be told in no uncertain terms not to promote this dangerous ideology to children.

What a bloody idiot he's been if he hasn't figured it out by now. It's not as if the evidence wasn't staring everyone in the face.

This: we're talking about experimentation on children and that's before you even get to the emotional abuse that surrounds it.

People need to lose their jobs.

Sallie Baxendale has been doing a lot of research into the research around PBs and it's not good.

x.com/statsforgender/status/1767660317184610814?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

Interesting how this has come out - apparently it was an alleged comment made in 2019- just at the same time as this.

I'm sure I read about the comments having been made in 2019 in an original article but this seems to have disappeared from every article now. The implication is these are recent comments but there is no detail nor is there detail about who has claimed Mr Hester said these things. It'll be interesting if the police find any evidence.

Mr Hester denies he said the racist and sexist slurs. He has however, confirmed he was 'rude' about DA, but whether that includes the comment about being shot I don't know. If he DID make the comment about wanting to shoot DA in 2019 why on earth whoever is reporting it now didn't report to the police then, I don't know.

I smell a rat and the reporting on this is dire - can a proper journalist find out who claims he said this, what their proof is and when the comments were allegedly made?

All this, and the abusive intrusion into Kate's privacy, while there's a load of evidence about the scandal of medical experimentation on children that has been going on by years they could use, but are choosing not to. Cowards.

I also note that MN is not deleting posts that fail to use 'alleged' before any mention of the alleged comments, whilst they delete us for saying some transwomen have AGP. EVEN THOUGH SOME OF THEM SAY IT THEMSELVES e.g. Debbie Hayton.

Definitely