Ban on puberty blockers to be made indefinite on experts’ advice

[IDareSay]

Good news, just released:

“The Commission on Human Medicines (CHM) has provided independent expert advice that there is currently an unacceptable safety risk in the continued prescription of puberty blockers to children. It recommends indefinite restrictions while work is done to ensure the safety of children and young people.”

www.gov.uk/government/news/ban-on-puberty-blockers-to-be-made-indefinite-on-experts-advice

@MissScarletInTheBallroom
In short, puberty blockers can only ever be beneficial to children who have already been irreparably psychologically harmed.

Quite!

the children who are following in our footsteps

I don't suppose the Pied Piper imagery was what this poster meant to invoke. But it's what immediately came to my mind.

I think Butterfly is referring to the Dutch study from the early 1990s, in which all the test subjects were male, and the results of which its own authors don't agree support the use of puberty blockers the way they are used today.

I agree that this announced 'ban' will help parents who want to say no to puberty blockers.
But those hildren with sceptical parents already had an advantage to esscape the harm of this ideology unscathed anyway. The parents ones celebrating thier trans kids and with trans flags in their bios will be the one signing their kids up for the research and tohse were the most vulnerable kids any way.

In reality I think the GC's on here and Butterflyhatched are using the same argument: we know the outcome for puberty blockers on kids so there should be no need for a trial.

It's just the GC think we have prooef they are harmful, BH thinks we have proof they are beneficial.

Unfortunately for both Cass only concluded we didn't have enough evidneec so trials will (I think) happen much the upset of the GC and the TRAs.

I hope there are real safeguards in the trials to identify vulnerable childrem (proably all of them) and the numbers are very limited (preferably non of them) but unfortunately I think this won't happen, as the new clinics are staffed by WPATH style TRAs, and the trial status will allow lots of children join.

It looks like we may have another generation to go before the 'evidence' allows this to be concluded and their is a real ban.

I really don't this announcemnt today is the conclusion.

You really have no idea do you?

I had no idea puberty blockers even existed when I, and all the other trans kids in my cohort, asked for help nearly three decades ago.

Our parents had no idea they existed either.

My parents tried to talk me out of it.

So did the staff at the Tavi.

It didn't work.

Because for some gender dysphoric children, averting the source of their gender dysphoria is the right course of action. As any of us can tell you. As the international community of clinicians who have been working with gender incongruent children all their lives can tell you. As Cass herself, who compiled and reviewed their research, has personally said on record.

So, you are only referring to the evidence listed in the Cass Report then?

There is no evidence that Dr Hillary Cass' team missed in their review in your opinion?

Shall we test parachutes, scuba equipment and seatbelts with a control group as well?

Yes, we do already know the outcome of using puberty blockers.

We know that:

Children who take puberty blockers have a near 100% rate of going on to take cross sex hormones.

Children who take puberty blockers suffer from a multitude of negative side effects, including but not limited to loss of future sexual function, loss of future fertility, decreased bone density and impaired brain development (and probably more we don't yet know about).

Boys who take puberty blockers are very unlikely to have a successful vaginoplasty in later life because there is not enough tissue to work with.

Children who do not take puberty blockers mostly desist.

That's why Butterfly objects to any kind of clinical trial where there is a control group.

The outcome of jumping from a plane without a parachute or going deep sea diving without scuba equipment is obvious, and we have decades and decades of data about car safety (as well as crash test dummies).

The likely outcome of a "trans child" not taking puberty blockers is not that they will die. It is that they will grow out of it and go on to become a normal adult.

I think you have to build a culture. There's a long way to go but we've started on the right path. If puberty blockers are not a first line of treatment then the response to a child who expresses a cross-sex identity changes. It changes for the health professionals, the teachers, the parents - even if it's just the confidence for them to follow their instincts. If it's no longer acceptable to socially transition a child and deal with the consequences with drugs later then children will have to be supported to face the distress of puberty and get through it. And we know that for most gender-distressed children, puberty is the cure. For some children, just a delay in taking any steps towards transition will be enough of a benefit.

I'm sure some people will be determined enough to obtain illegal hormones, or to use any loophole they can but culturally this will be seen differently.

There was a time when there was nothing stopping the posting of pro-anorexia material online. That no doubt contributed to more girls developing the condition but we tackled that and we raised awareness so although you're always going to have some content and you'll always have people developing eating disorders, there is a collective, protective response from health professions, teachers, etc. We need to get there with cross-sex ideation too.

Cass did leave open the possibility that there may be some children for whom medical transition may be the correct pathway.

We just don't know who.

If that were true how would we know who without a trial?

Cass only went as far as she could which wasn't to say there is no evidence this treatment will only harm and never be beneficial.
Wes is only able to say today they should not be prescribed without/ until we have the evidence.

We need to get wise to that reality and fight the trials instead of arguing what we wish Cass had said.

Are you entirely unconcerned by the harms associated with not going through puberty? Are you not interested at all in a risk vs. benefit evaluation?

I left teaching in 2010...and ''transgender' simply wasn't a thing, even then.....nobody had heard of it. That's not to say that children have not always struggled with their developing identity/sexuality...but the 'trans' gave them a label and a pathway on which to peg their distress.

A dear friend of mine has the BRCA gene; her aunt died young from ovarian cancer. As soon as she knew, she signed up to all the clinical trials available, and offerered her personal data for ongoing research. Compare and contrast with the furious reaction to obtaining adult transition data.

The nation's cats and dogs have received better evidence-based healthcare at the vets than gender-distressed children over the past decades.

No, I object to torturing children by saying they are getting time-critical life-changing treatment which they know full well is their sole ticket to escaping a life of direct transphobia, but actually witholding it for some of them.

I wholeheartedly support letting kids choose whether or not to take it and recording the long-term outcomes of either in detail.

There is no need for a ban to do that. What purpose does a ban serve if it's safe enough to run a trial and safe enough for current patients to continue?

It's a flex; an appeasement gesture. A sacrifice.

And yet Cass concluded there was not evidence for the benefits, and who might benefit.

You (and I) may think there is no such thing as a trans child who needs medical transition, but that is not what Cass concluded.

We have to deal with the reality of that.

Cass only commented on medical evidence, we have to also win the argument on the ideology that there are no trans children to really stop any children being given these medications.

Or we wait for the clinical trials to conclusively show that this is a messed up idea with no benefits but that will rquire another generatation of kids mediacised first.

It would be informative and in the public interest if the nature of these trials was detailed, or certianly out-lined. Whch children? At what point? For how long? Do parents have to sign consent forms etc?

What are you afraid of the trials finding?

Presumably you don't object to the torture element.

Do you consider a trans outcome to always be disastrous?

And yet record keeping on those cases was suppressed and lost. Weird. It’s as if they didn’t think it worked…

Surely children would be be best "not to have to suffer life time of transphobia" by being helped to come to terms with the fact that they cannot really change sex, and that going along a pathway which suggests they can is not the best one in the end. I mean look at your example........you can hardly be said to be at peace with yourself, or accepting of the fact that you are not female.

I'm reminded of the fabled grandparent who smoked sixty cigarettes a day since they were a toddler and lived to be a ninety. I'm sure such people exist but it's not a lifestyle that should be encouraged.

Torture is a little testerical.

The fact that they have no way of telling which kids might benefit is just another argument in favour of giving no kids puberty blockers.

"I wholeheartedly support letting kids choose whether or not to take it and recording the long-term outcomes of either in detail.
There is no need for a ban to do that. What purpose does a ban serve if it's safe enough to run a trial and safe enough for current patients to continue? "

@ButterflyHatched is probably right here about what will happen, I think that is what the trials will be: kids and parents who want the blockers will sign up for the trial.

They will also be the same kids who are being socially transitioned so puberty is terrifying as it will undo the lie theyve set out on.

And schools and psychologists are still supporting social transition. The school guidance and Cass have not yet stopped that.

there is still a long way to go people.

@ButterflyHatched do tell us what sort of caterpilla you were before?

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5228440-child-safeguarding-win-puberty-blockers-have-been-indefinitely-banned-across-the-entire-of-the-uk-for-off-label-use-precocious-puberty-use-remains?reply=140469670

Yep, by a load of revolting, exploitative ghouls. The fault lies with the trans ideologues. Only.