Menopause in the teen years

[rellies]

On Radio 4 now is a program called Menopause Matters about a young woman who went through menopause as a teenager due to a medical condition called Persistent Ovarian Insufficiency. As I understand it this is what happens to young girls put on puberty blockers. It will be interesting to hear the effect it's had on her and I'm hoping this might be a start to a conversation on the real affects of medical transitioning.

I saw that but haven't yet listened.

They do get it do they. Join the bloody dots!

I'm listening. I have to say I felt a little weary because clearly this is a menopause programme with a difference! Boring menopause is just something that 51% of the population will go through, we need a new angle! So they're talking about teenagers who go through it for extremely unusual medical reasons, and I think I heard them trailing the 'male menopause' (by a bloke) because obviously THAT's got an evidence base ... It's as if we boring middle-aged women don't deserve coverage of something we will all go though if we're lucky to live long enough.

However, I hadn't realised that the medical syndrome that very rarely affects girls is similar to what might happen on puberty blockers. I would put money on this not being mentioned in this programme, though.

While I'm against teens transitioning I don't think you can compare the stopping of periods due to a hormone therapy given to alleviate gender dysphoria with teen menopausal in someone who has a condition that means their body does this naturally when they don't want it to.

It doesn't do either groups any favours to pretend it's the same thing.

Elaine Miller has done a very good video on the early menopause that girls go through if put on puberty blockers then cross sex hormones. The puberty blockers are damaging enough, but if the girls, as many do, go onto testosterone, the effects are permanent and dreadful.

It doesn't do either groups any favours to pretend it's the same thing.

It's not about saying it's the same thing- it's recognising the extreme importance of female hormones on the developing female body. And the impact of loosing them at such a young age.

Creating a false version of this awful rare condition due to what is essentially mixture of misogyny, homophobia and fashion, is child cruelty.

There was a piece on woman's hour not so long ago whereby a GP is very passionately leading initiatives into hrt for recovering anorexic girls and women to support bone density. This is the age when a lot of density is laid down thanks to oestrogen.