MAJOR NEWS - NZ restricts Puberty Blockers

[fromorbit]

After examining the evidence NZ health ministry comes to the conclusion which many other countries have:

Additional safeguards for puberty blockers
Publication date:21 November 2024
The Ministry of Health is today releasing an evidence brief and position statement on the use of puberty blockers for gender identity issues and outlining a more cautious approach to their use.
The evidence brief shows a lack of good quality evidence to back the effectiveness and safety of puberty blockers when used for this purpose...

The appropriate and safe care for this group of young people is critically important.
Any additional safeguards in the form of regulations would be to protect against the risk of future harm to vulnerable individuals.

https://www.health.govt.nz/news/additional-safeguards-for-puberty-blockers

The dominos are continuing to fall.
It was all lies.
The TERFs were right.

It was on the 6pm TVNZ news last night.

Wow! I don't watch the news on TV, but surprising it's not on the main news sites.

Yeah I was ASTONISHED that they covered it. I think there are a few articles floating around, on RNZ, NZ Herald and Stuff. I haven't read them though.

NZH article, not entirely encouraging. Includes a link to another article that states:
New Zealand is prescribing up to seven times more puberty blockers to young transgender patients than other similar countries, new analysis shows.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/puberty-blockers-to-be-prescribed-more-cautiously-in-new-zealand-after-review/UTYF74GEOBE5FL5UVDSSZJJQGM/

The statement is promising but the detail is more pesimistic. It is pretty much business as usual. They are basically fudging, no clear guidelines have been given and instead they have sent a rather confusing message with this latest puberty blocker guidance.

Despite the statement they haven't added a layer of protection as they have given no concrete guidelines or restrictions to clinicians. Instead the Ministry of Health has opened public consultation with the public “organisations that represent people who may be affected by safety measures or that may be involved in how safety measures are used in practice”.

Which sounds like an invitation to gender ideologues. it is very concerning.

It doesn't look quite as great as I initially thought. The media release from Speak Up For Women says that nothing much has changed. It's a lot less than they were hoping for. Disappointing.

On one hand the statement appears to indicate acknowledgement and acceptance of the findings of the widely read Cass report - that there is a lack of high quality evidence of any benefit of the use of puberty blockers in young people with gender dysphoria. On the other hand, the statement asks only that clinicians exercise caution when prescribing blockers - something that surely should have been occurring anyway, given that the blockers are prescribed to minors, off-label, and with no clinical trial evidence available.

www.speakupforwomen.nz/post/media-release-ministry-of-health-sends-confusing-message-with-latest-puberty-blocker-guidance?utm_campaign=afb5478c-4615-47e5-9f44-fde2d115ca02&utm_source=so&utm_medium=mail&cid=0dbad9cb-401a-48ab-9dbd-ef39f8b4e2f9

I take the point that there is no imminent ban. However, it is a considerable shift from the enthusiastic promotion that existed before. Another point to consider is simple budget constraints. The government is cutting costs everywhere and I think they would welcome any reason to restrict treatments for that purpose, and there are clearly more decisions to come.

Wellington is basically a southern hemisphere Brighton, and NZ is a small country where consensus quickly forms among those with power (and being outside that consensus can be brutal.) So, it's definitely a change.

Sadly, I don't think the NZ change is due to an understanding of the facts. We have, I hate to say, a particularly D. U. M. B. government right now. They don't pay attention to facts about the economy, the environment, regulation of industry, anything. So why would they start with trans issues?

This is politically motivated (as it is in Australia? which currently has a Labour government).

Which probably means that as soon as the politics turns over, we'll be right back to twaw-twaw-twaw.

Until the world gets away from the stupidity of deciding facts don't matter and women matter even less, this stuff will keep going back and forth until crushed by reality.

All fair points. I don't think there's any politician willing to make a culture war over this let alone a principled stand. There's no Badenoch here. Winston Peters would be the closest I think. David Seymour is more concerned with free speech (and causing turmoil over the Treaty) than trans issues in themselves.

I don't see a change of government at the next election though. TPM and the Greens are a turn-off to centrists I think.

Yes, the government at D.U.M.B. but the last good PM in my view was Helen Clark. She'd have been full TWAW though, I suspect.

Tanya Unkovich (NZF) comes the closest - she regularly speaks out on the importance of fairness in women’s sports, the right of women to single sex spaces and restricting puberty blockers. Obviously this gets her no coverage in the media.

Listen to Leah Panapa’s interview (she is very good) with Chief Medical Officer Dr Joe Bourne to get an idea of how little things have changed. It’s appalling.

x.com/rosey_nz/status/1860093550207336955?s=46&t=omuKeAgAjscgni2jfxrNng

Does anyone know about a group / organisation called THEATA?

Crazily NZ government opened up public submissions on whether puberty blockers should have further restrictions. This unleashed a huge campaign from heaps of groups (some of them govt funded) and media stories trying to get people to submit pro-puberty blocker submissions. I wrote a bit about writing a submission and shared my submission here "Puberty blockers are ghoulish" (I write a NZ-focused Substack on gender issues (long time lefty feminist and Mum)).