Kiera Bell launching legal challenge of puberty blocker trial

[Taytoface]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/13/call-off-puberty-blocker-trial-or-legal-action-nhs-warned/

Apparently the trial has not gone through HRA yet. I thought it was due to start recruitment imminently.

If there is a legal challenge I wonder who the respondent would be. The funder, the sponsor, the investigator or the PI?

They definitely seem to be very confident their study will be approved. I don’t understand why you would start recruiting for a trial that hasn’t yet been ethically approved. Is this normal?

Came here to start a thread on this as I've just seen the Telegraph article pop up on my news feed. It's great to see a thread already here. Thanks OP!

Go Keira 💪💪💪💪💪

This is medical experimentation on children's brains** as well as their future sexual function and overall endocrine system.

** The NHS used to say that "It's also not known whether hormone blockers affect the development of the teenage brain" but it no longer has those words on its webpage about gender dysphoria. Here's the archived page:

https://archive.ph/LwIm3

It's under the section "Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones"

Here's the new page:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/treatment/

The risks are positioned in a much more nebulous way in this updated version. Perhaps the NHS realised it was being a little too explicit about the experimental nature of its treatment?

It was those specific words about the brain from the 2021 page (it was still live when I looked in summer 2022... the next archive in the history of that page is May 2023 and it had changed) that led my husband and me to say no when our daughter requested puberty blockers so that she had time to think about whether she was really a girl. That was right at the start of my journey to understand gender identity. Even though I believed that everyone had one at that time (I no longer do believe this) and that aligning your body with your own sounded important, it was obvious that experimental medicine that had unknown effects on the brain was not a good idea. In fact I even remember explaining to my distressed daughter that "I'm sorry but we won't let you be experimented upon". She accepted this and also accepted that I would learn everything I could about the whole subject of gender identity to support her with whatever she needed. Her distress about her body has since been unpicked by health professionals as being an autism-related reaction to puberty.

Just because the NHS would be collecting data in this trial, that doesn't make it OK. Mengele collected data for his experiments on the human body too.

James Esses is involved too

🚨Important Announcement: Keira Bell and James Esses challenge proposed UK clinical trial of puberty blockers🚨

Myself and the indefatigable Keira Bell (@KLBfax) have instructed a legal team to write to the Health Research Authority, warning them that, if the proposed trial goes ahead, we will bring a claim for judicial review.

We made this decision because of our joint concerns for the safety of children and the fact that the proposed clinical trial would violate numerous ethical, regulatory and legislative requirements.

Full details, along with quotes from myself and Keira, can be found in the below press release.

x.com/JamesEsses/status/1890171439732449703?t=B3U4_7_aHw6Z_cKW8HcBUg&s=19

x.com/JamesEsses/status/1890171449530540326?t=B3U4_7_aHw6Z_cKW8HcBUg&s=19

x.com/JamesEsses/status/1890171459198456056?t=B3U4_7_aHw6Z_cKW8HcBUg&s=19

Well done and good luck to KB and JE with the legal challenge!

Meanwhile in Northern Ireland:
Political parties that supported puberty blocker ban in Northern Ireland barred from some Pride events
The parties are all the main parties in NI, right across the communities, Sinn Féin, the DUP, UPP, and Alliance.

What have puberty blockers got to do with Pride?? Is it the 'trans child' connection? So if you are a lesbian or gay person in Northern Ireland, and want to join in your local Pride parade, you may find yourself marching in support of the inappropriate and dangerous medical treatment of children?

This highlights the need for LGB✂T.

Keira is a truly remarkable and brave woman! She has been through all this once. And she is getting up and doing it again.

Keira is an inspiration. I want research to be done, but I don’t see how anyone can justify this potentially harmful experimentation on children.

I agree. The difference between LGB and T is obvious to those who have thought about it. But most people don’t think about it, and don’t see any reason to question the pretty-coloured propaganda.

Linking genderism with gay rights was the smartest move the transactivists made. Totally dishonest, of course, but the whole thing is based on a lie.

So it’s essential to keep explaining why T isn’t just a harmless extension of LGB. That link has to be cut.

Thanks for your post BonfireLady. I hope your DD is doing OK and getting good advice and support. She was so lucky to have a brave and wise mother who said no to puberty blockers, and she obviously trusted you enough to accept that, however unwillingly, at the time.

I read the NHS page on gender dysphoria and possible treatments. On the one hand it's horrific, and disgusting that a national health, service could even contemplate carrying out such treatments on physically healthy bodies.

On the other hand, the list of negative side effects of hormone therapy etc is pretty stark. It's not presented as a one-off miracle 'cure' for 'being in the wrong body'.

I notice though that the list of surgeries is just accompanied by a generic 'As with all surgical procedures there can be complications'.
It doesn't list the specific complications of these surgeries, nor does it explain that when they say 'vaginoplasty' or 'phalloplasty' it's not really accurate, as you don't actually get a real vagina, or a real penis, you get something like a partially-functioning simulacrum.

Trade Descriptions Act, anyone?😶

Good luck Keira

simulacrum - a new word; thanks @MarieDeGournay

It's a good one, it suggests you've read Jean Baudrillard who used the concept a lot, but it doesn't suggest it so much that someone is going to start talking to you about Jean Baudrillard😱

I used it in the context of these surgeries because what the patient gets is something that resembles an original, but it doesn't have the characteristics of the original, just the appearance.

It's a pity the NHS guidelines don't make that clear - your new 'penis' or 'vagina', will have the appearance of the originals, but not their characteristics..

An application by campaigners for a full judicial review of the secretary of state's handling of the issue was rejected on Wednesday afternoon

Dismissing the application, Lady Justice Whipple said "the case had moved on substantially" as a result of the government setting up a review in April.

Full report here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg711xevd89o.amp

Keira Bell has already saved so many kids from long term unnecessary damage, she absolutely deserves a public honour.

I really hope that this new move she’s making with James Esses succeeds, such that these protections aren’t going to be reversed. Safeguarding is always essential but must be closely followed for distressed, traumatised and/or neurodiverse children and young people.

Isn't the article saying that they haven't suceeded?

Quoting this bit: “Delivering the judgment rejecting the application for a judicial review, Lady Justice Whipple, sitting with Mr Justice Johnson, said the secretary of state had acted rationally.
She said, "This is an immensely difficult and sensitive area of policy formation where there are strong and genuinely held views on each side of the debate and where there is no consensus."”
As a lay person, I fail to see what is difficult about not prescribing hormones to kids when we have no idea of long term contraindications. Whatever happened to Hippocrates missive of ‘do no harm’. I can’t think in any other areas in the NHS*, where something is prescribed for a physically healthy body, which has the potential to cause physical harm later. The endocrine system still isn’t brilliantly well understood in ‘normal’ function. Pharmaceutical companies have to carry out rigorous research trials, how would any trial get through ethics on healthy children? I suspect this scandal will cost the taxpayer millions down the line in compensation claims.

*NHS as opposed to private healthcare.

@verityveritas
I'm a medical person and I agree with you. We have evidence of harm caused by these drugs, and no clear evidence of benefit. We do not test drugs on children, because it is unethical and they can't consent to it.

One thing I've noticed is that the system has evolved in such a way that each clinician in the chain can deny responsibility. The GP is not an expert, so they refer to the GIC, thinking the patient will receive a comprehensive assessment. The GIC clinicians affirm the patient's belief and diagnose GD, but they don't prescribe the drugs. The patient is referred to an endocrinologist, who thinks the patient has had a thorough assessment at the GIC, and prescribes the drugs (prior to the ban, of course). If the patient goes for surgery, the surgeon sees the referral letter, the GD diagnosis and the prescription, and performs the surgery without having to consider whether it is appropriate, because someone else has already decided. I'm trying to think of another area in medicine where this happens, but I can't. In any other speciality, each patient has a named consultant who is responsible for their care. But not in gender medicine. It's quite strange.

Tbf, they don’t necessarily even have the ‘appearance’ if some of the pics I’ve seen are anything to go by. I mentioned on another thread that some of the girls who get a phalloplasty may never have seen a real love penis so have limited basis for a comparison.

Gosh, that’s a very good point. Sadly I suspect it’s deliberate to limit personal liability.

The doctors doing this KNOW it causes harm - the evidence is out there, they KNOW that kids aren’t old enough to make these decisions - they don’t sterilise a woman under 30 for good reason. What other explanation could there be?

Yes you also see this attempt at plausible deniability in schools and organisations. 'We're just following policy / what someone else has decided' etc.

We need a few court cases demonstrating this isn't a defence. I suspect we'll get a judgement soon making this clear.

I hope so. I've got my ears out for news of the group litigation order against Tavistock, but it's going to take years so I'm not holding my breath. I wonder whether individual patients have already sued but the cases have been kept under wraps.

We have evidence of harm caused by these drugs, and no clear evidence of benefit.

In the news today, there is discussion of expanding the use of chemical castration of sex offenders in prison, using drugs which are "widely used to treat prostate cancer". The news articles are a bit coy about specifying which drugs are used, which some doctors are apparently "uneasy" about using on sex offenders.

What is chemical castration? Here's why doctors will be uneasy about using it on sex offenders | UK News | Sky News

I had a quick look to see if I could find which drugs they were talking about, because I thought this could be the same drugs (GnRH agonists) as those which are commonly referred to as "puberty blockers", since these are often used in the treatment of prostate cancer.

I found this paper published last year.

Evaluation of selective-serotonin reuptake inhibitors and anti-androgens to manage sexual compulsivity in individuals serving a custodial sentence for a sexual offence

To address this gap in the appropriate treatment of PSA in the UK, HMPPS introduced medication as a treatment pathway to manage PSA. In 2007, they facilitated a pilot trial of this novel pathway (Medication to Manage Sexual Arousal; MMSA), which is ongoing. Currently, three types of medication are utilised within the UK prison estate: Anti-Androgens (AAs; Cyproterone Acetate [CPA]), Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Agonists (GnRH Agonists; Triptorelin) and Selective-Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs; Fluoxetine/Paroxetine)

The GnRH Agonist Triptorelin is a "puberty blocker" which is used on trans-identifying children in the UK.

So doctors are "uneasy" about using this drug on sex offenders because of the potential side effects, but there are still those who think it could be ethical to conduct a trial using this drug on healthy children because those children believe that they are transsexual.

I really can't see any medical or psychiatric justification for puberty blockers or cross sex hormones in children with gender dysphoria. Where is the basic science to support these having any benefit for mental health? There is a total lack of any logic to the use of these drugs and a trial is NOT needed.

We don't really know what sodium valproate or topiramate do to IQ in developing foetuses but that's not a reason to do a trial - the current data shows they have an adverse effect so they aren't given to women with epilepsy who are of reproductive age unless they are on highly effective contraception. How much of an effect they have on IQ is controversial - particularly as women with epilepsy have a higher risk of foetal abnormalities anyway (even if on zero medication) and epilepsy can be genetic.

There's enough evidence of harm to ban the use of puberty blockers and cross sex hormones on children. A trial is not needed or justified.

Yes, that’s a good point. Surely before a trial is authorised there should be some evidence that there is benefit.

As I understand it a trial on humans is almost the last stage to confirm what is already established through other methods - not to indulge wishful thinking.