Puberty Suppressing Hormones, House of Commons, Wes Streeting taking a firm and intelligent stand

[ScrollingLeaves]

Wes Streeting is doing a good job of calmly holding his own in Parliament on this issue of puberty blockers being banned pending a trial.

Some MPs have been standing up and speaking about ‘trans kids’ and suicide and so on, and how young people currently taking puberty blockers will source drugs from other sources as they will be left so desperate. Certain MPs have shown no inkling of the wider issues concerning gender dysphoria among troubled young people.

WS read out report saying that suicide figures of trans people were skewed, and reporting of it dangerous.

Others have seemed to be more aware. Sir John Hayes has brought up those who were vilified for whistleblowing such as Kathleen Stock, the lives ruined by the Tavistock and how it could have happened? WS has just paid tribute to Hannah Barnes. Women’s concerns.

“I am very disappointed in behalf of our trans children….” Vikki Slade. She says there is no information on suicides for those on a gender waiting list. WS says all child deaths are monitored and reviewed.

Jim Allister asking about parental consent and age for the puberty blocker trial. WS ethical concerns are being taken very seriously.

“A breach of young people’s human rights” Carla Denyer (Green).

Robin Swann County Antrim asking about closing access to puberty blockers through loopholes.

Anyway, it is worth hearing WS. It seems to be the first time someone from Labour, who is allowed to speak, has seemed to have a depth of understanding about gender issues. He also speaks lucidly and with nuance.

I don’t know if he is just very clever, but in the end slippery, or actually someone who will make a difference for the better but was impressed.

Maybe I'm unusual here, but I have no recollection of being horrified by either periods or breasts. In fact when I started my period, my mum said to my dad "daughter's joined the club" and I felt very grown-up and womanly.

I think Carla Denyer was conflating denying puberty blockers with denying treatment altogether. I think she would be right to say that failing to treat a certain demographic would be illegal, but failure to provide whatever treatment is wanted by a given demographic certainly isn't and is line with how all demographics are treated within the field of medicine.

It's hard to believe that MPs genuinely struggle to understand the difference between offering no treatment versus not offering a patient's preferred treatment; or between administering puberty blockers up until a child reaches the age of 10 and starting puberty blockers at the age of 10.

I'm disappointed that Wes Streeting is using the phrase "trans kids" still. I had hoped he had quietly dropped it. By using this phrase, unfortunately he's demonstrating he doesn't have a full enough understanding of the issues.

I haven't watched the video yet (but will do so when I get the chance), but I saw his quoted words in the Guardian. Here's the first paragraph of what he said (my bold):

In a message directly to them, and referencing having come out as gay, he said: “I know it’s not easy being a trans kid in our country today, the trans community is at the wrong end of all of the statistics for mental ill health, self-harm and suicide

Yes, he's making significant inroads into ending this medical scandal but until he adjusts his thinking on this, he will remain in a position where he's unable to see the full picture. Dr David Bell is incredibly clear that there is no such thing as a "trans child" because using this term forecloses on the outcome of any exploration of the child's distress.

If you're reading this Wes (I'd love to think you've now found MN), please keep doing what you're doing but please drop this term. You don't need to say it.

Edited to add link to Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/dec/11/puberty-blockers-to-be-banned-indefinitely-for-under-18s-across-uk

Well said Bonfire and Wes, generally pretty good with room for improvement.

I amazes me how thick some MPs are

It isn't uncommon for autistic girls to struggle with the change and sensory issues involved with puberty and menstruation.

Please would you write to him, @BonfireLady? Maybe everyone who can should write to him?

I had missed that particular part where he said that. Oh dear. It could undermine everything.

I wonder if he was trying to keep the thousands of naysayers on his side, stop the puberty blockers for now, run the trial and see what happens? Or, if he still truly believes ‘kids’ are born trans?

The phrase ‘trans kids’ being used by someone in charge of public health is very worrying because it is deeply ignorant.

Thank you for flagging this up.

Dr Cass referred to “ diagnostic overshadowing” of jumping to affirm children as trans rather than being gender dysphoric for many other reasons. WS should know that.

What children are truly being ‘born’ trans - such that it is right to refer to them as ‘trans kids’ - rather than not necessarily conforming to gender stereotypes, born into a homophobic family when they might be gay, affected a difficulty such as autism, or trauma, or influenced by the internet or copying peers?

They need help in any case but affirmation as trans per se - calling them ‘trans kids’ - is not helping them. That is not watchful waiting but confirming and labelling.

The Cass report said that

• Clinicians are “unable to determine with any certainty which children and young people will go on to have an enduring trans identity”

So how dare any MP including WS ignore this and think they have the right to talk about ‘trans kids’ which cements being trans as an identity?

And many girls who are not autistic in our society are often shocked as their body changes to create hips and breasts because this seems fat and repulsive to them. From this comes endless dieting with eating disorders and poor mental health. Some develop anorexia, others binge eating and purging, (if anorexia doesn’t take hold, as that is a starvation response).

Female bodies are also worrying to their possessors because of unwanted attention from men when they start developing.

All very true.

Wow, is this the first time the Guardian has opened up comments on an article on transgenderism? The times they definitely are a-changing. The standard of debate below the line seems to have remained civilised but I bet the mods were shitting themselves.

Must say I wasn't as happy and others seemed to be due to his speech. I'm sure I heard him say something about suicide risks; I haven't had time to go back and check.

I keep hoping that it's all rhetoric to appear "sensitive" but I don't trust anything yet.

The children I teach have extreme communication and sensory difficulties as part of their autism.

Puberty can be extremely challenging for them, especially the girls, and also all their care givers from a sensory pov.

Sorry @BonfireLady, yes you've pot on the exact quote that really concerned me

I agree. While welcoming the ban, statements like this from Streeting do concern me. I hope he is just trying to appease.

"In the past few months, I have met young trans people, who either have been, may be, or will be affected by the decisions that I and my predecessor have taken. I have listened to their concerns, fears and anxieties, and I want to talk directly to them. I know it is not easy being a trans kid in our country today. The trans community is at the wrong end of all the statistics for mental ill health, self-harm and suicide."

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2024-12-11/debates/03C1AD39-5B5E-4568-BFF3-FC6DB87575E6/Puberty-SuppressingHormones

I cried. I felt very sad that I was turning into an adult/woman tbh.
I had wanted to be a boy when I was younger, starting my period was perhaps the end of the gradual process of realisation that this would actually never happen.
I also didn't want to be grabbed, groped an leered at by boys and men, which was of course what started happening when I developed fairly large breasts and curvy hips.
However, I wouldn't have wanted to be sterile with no sexual function, so I'm really glad all this trans stuff wasn't around when I was a child. I think my mum would have been all over it tbh. She trusts the NHS and if there was a "treatment" available for me wanting to be a "boy" I think she may have taken me down this pathway 😱

Re:
”The trans community is at the wrong end of all the statistics for mental ill health, self-harm and suicide."

At another point about 22 minutes in

WS did read out the findings of a report by Professor Louis Appleby saying the claims of suicide were not borne out by the evidence collected, and also criticising the reporting this because it is in itself harmful.

On reflection, you may be right. I went back to the start of the questions. He opened by referencing ‘transpeople if all ages’. That according to some parents could be two year olds.

At about 16 minutes in a woman MP Rebecca Barr spoke of the scandal if pubert blockers. Then she asked,

“Does the Secretary of State agree with me that no child should ever be told by a health care professional that they were born in the wrong body?”

He answered by bringing up “holistic healthcare” “the nature of a particular child’s needs” “ evidence based healthcare”
“patients with gender dysphoria”

”But he did not in fact answer her question.

I understand that autistic girls may struggle with this, and I definitely remember 13 year old peers of mine who felt afflicted by developing larger breasts earlier, precisely because of that unwanted attention. But I don't think it's helpful to girls in general if we automatically assume pubertal changes are a huge challenge rather than a natural progression in growing up. I have a 24 year old SGD and an almost 13 year old DGD, both of whom started their periods at 11 and very much took it all in their stride.

The point is that an MP was speaking about one of her constituents to whom she referred as ‘he’, a young woman who feels she is a boy, as someone finding their periods unbearable therefore leading them to anorexia to stop them- the message being that this child feels this way because she is transgender, and she needs puberty blockers urgently in order to stop her periods.

Many girls feel unhappy about periods for whatever reasons. They don’t need to be transgender to feel this way. Many other factors need to be discussed before coming to the certainty, as this MP has, that this child is transgender.

If a girl wants to stop her periods couldn’t she simply take contraceptive pills?

I think the key is to acknowledge that some girls (whether neurodivergent or allistic) will struggle with the changes puberty brings and some won't.

Being distressed by your body changing is a perfectly valid and normal female response to puberty for anyone, as is welcoming it or sailing through.

@ScrollingLeaves I agree with you. Obviously girls who struggle don't have to have gender dysphoria or be transgender to feel that way. The point I'm trying to make is that such a struggle is not universal and that if girls in general are encouraged to see puberty as a natural and desirable progression towards adulthood it might be easier to help girls who do struggle with body and emotional changes to go with the flow. As it is - and perhaps I feel this way because of the focus on the struggling ones - I wonder if girls are being expected to see it as a struggle and a challenge and thereby making it a bigger thing than it needs to be.

2.25 ish on the film of yesterdays debate, after Nadia Whittome, Wes does give a blistering rebuttal re using suicide rhetoric from online sources. He quotes a paper published last summer and reminds members of the house to not stir up drama (my words) with unsubstantiated bs from social media.

The quotes he takes from that are at odds with what he says in his main speech.

I haven't listened to any of it yet but I'm wondering if perhaps he's making a distinction between the general low mental health (and suicide risk associated with this) of people who identify as trans, without implying which causes which, and the clear rebuttal to all the hyperbole that preceded the Louis Appleby investigation into whether suicide was linked to PBs being stopped or not.

I'm basing this purely on the Guardian quote I shared above. Nobody is denying that people who identify as trans often have poor mental health, which in itself can sadly lead to outcomes like suicide. But the TRAs always position it one way round.

Obviously I may be wide of the mark, having not listened to it yet.

I am so glad this seems to have moved to being an evidence-based healthcare issue rather than a magic ideology issue (well, by the health secretary at least - and a Labour health secretary at that).