Health of transgender children tracked for years in major study

[Igneococcus]

I fear Prof Simonoff is showing some bias here
"The new study is being led by Professor Emily Simonoff, head of child and adolescent psychiatry at King’s College London, who said the UK is “taking the bull by the horns” and helping to build an evidence-base on important questions about gender care.
"A lack of evidence base allows toxic views [about transgender issues] to be more rampant and more free flowing. We’re here to provide an evidence base to guide greater knowledge about outcomes for children and young people and what interventions seem to be most helpful for them,” said Simonoff
"
https://www.thetimes.com/article/711e767a-ef32-4c60-a7f5-f1092ab15f66?shareToken=84c2203a6bd8b4f6090bfcb7ea3bd533

Bias exists in all research. Sounds like a good study.

Yes, sure, but I do find the claim about toxic views being more rampant and free flowing a little concerning.

Yes, bias does often exist and it needs to be accounted for and negated as far as possible. That is part of the scientific method.
Bias and assumed outcomes is one of the reasons we have a remarkably 'weak evidence base' for outcomes.
The study sounds like it might be exactly what's needed but if the people running it have already made their minds up, then the questions they ask may be leading and the variables they decide to measure (or not measure) may not provide all the data needed. That is a concern. They need robust, relevant data if it is to be of real value

Tbf to Siminoff, she doesn't really specify which views she thinks are toxic, she might mean confirmation and the claim that PBs are harmless are toxic views, but it just really doesn't come across to me like that.

Finding an unbiased “expert” for this kind of study was always going to be nearly impossible. Starting from the point of a belief in “trans children” or “gender identity” is problematic, but then Cass left that door open, unfortunately.

Various women pointed it out at the time, but there has been an influential “GC” group with a medical slant who have been trying to take a “middle path” in an attempt to avert accusations of extremism. Unfortunately, this is a side-effect of that pathway.

I think it sounds like she’ll aim for neutrality
I’m sure she’ll have a strong link to Cass and her work.
the pb trial seems much more problematic. I don’t know how they are going to get it past ethics!

Looks good to me. I think that she is simply talking in general about a need to shift discourse back where it should be - away from angry politics and social media and into the evidence.

Don't like the headline though -- "transgender children" rather than, say, "gender-distressed children"

Why don't they find and check on all the ex Tavistock patients first?!

“After giving thousands of children experimental treatments for 20 years, we are now going to do the research to see if it helps them.”

Five years. So an 8 year old will just be 13 and even a 13 will only be 18 at the end of followup.

World’s biggest study of trans children to include toddlers treated by NHS

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/df251187347817d0

And it is led by a psychiatrist, not physical health specialists.

Will they also look at the psychological impact on other children being forced to uphold the subjects fantasy?

So at the END of the study there will still children who believe Father Christmas is real and be excited to be getting their first pound from the tooth fairy.

I think a study like this is a disastrous idea. It simply fosters the erroneous belief that it's possible to change sex. Why are we lying to children?

Archive https://archive.ph/7MXVw

Pathways Horizon with useful links: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/pathways

Plain language summary and scientific abstract:
https://fundingawards.nihr.ac.uk/award/NIHR167530

There’s a link in that last link to the protocol.

Thanks RethinkingLife
I've got alarm bells ringing.

PATHWAYS Engagement advises the research team on how we study gender incongruence, including the questions asked and what the results mean. Young people with gender incongruence and their parents have already influenced the research ideas and now we will ask advisory groups to further guide the research team throughout the study. These groups will include young adults with experience of gender incongruence and parents of young people experiencing gender incongruence. PATHWAYS Horizon will include all young people attending a UK NHS Gender Service who want to take part, and their parents. It will track young people’s physical, social and emotional well-being, and the care and support they receive over time.

PATHWAYS Engagement advises the research team on how we study gender incongruence, including the questions asked and what the results mean. Young people with gender incongruence and their parents have already influenced the research ideas and now we will ask advisory groups to further guide the research team throughout the study. These groups will include young adults with experience of gender incongruence and parents of young people experiencing gender incongruence. PATHWAYS Horizon will include all young people attending a UK NHS Gender Service who want to take part, and their parents. It will track young people’s physical, social and emotional well-being, and the care and support they receive over time.

Sorry for the repeat, got my clipboard mixed up

Will they be recruiting detransitiers?

PATHWAYS Engagement is an advisory group of young people/adults with experience of gender incongruence and parents, who will advise on all aspects of the programme, including outcome measures, patient involvement in research and strategies for long-term patient engagement, interpretation and communication of findings. The research team will work closely with the advisory boards and the wider community to ensure all the findings are accessible and clearly communicated to patients, families and the lay public, alongside dissemination to the scientific community and policy makers. The study will be overseen by independent advisory groups and subject to all usual independent regulatory and ethics procedures for UK research.

'Gender incongruence' - that's a new one to me. It sounds very inexact so I googled it and found this

Gender incongruence is a marked and persistent experience of incompatibility between a person's gender identity and the gender expected based on sex at birth.

So hands up anybody who has or has had a marked and persistent experience of incompatibility with girly stuff, sorry 'gender expected based on sex at birth.'
Hmm... that is rather a lot of us, isnt it?😏

The words 'gender expected..' are so open to debate and interpretation.

I've been called a lot of things in my day but I've never been called 'incongruent' before, and I like it. 'INCONGRUENT' T-shirt please, size M

Genspect have been campaigning on this

https://genspect.org/blocking-the-puberty-blocker-study/

And there has been, or may be, a legal challenge (Keira Bell and James Esses)

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

yes.

Cass was problematic.

a lot will be built on top of that problematic foundation, with the viewpoint Cass was A-Okay. Therefore consequential “un biased” research will in fact be biased.

Will they be recruiting detransitiers?

That would be twansfobic! It is literal violence not to be affirming.

The plain language summary from the funding award link defines what they mean by “gender incongruence”.

Gender incongruence is when a person feels their gender identity differs from the sex that they were given at birth. Some people with gender incongruence want their bodies to be more like their gender identity.

It’s worth a look at the protocol for other matters.

Only the observational study protocol is available online - nothing for the clinical trial yet and no ethics approval for any of it. No way will a trial be recruiting this year and I'd be surprised if their observational study is.
Inclusion and exclusion criteria are very broad for the observational study which seems appropriate, but not much being asked about bullying & possible social contagion from friends/ school.

Parents are being asked about gender and sex which includes an option for them to say 'don't know' for their 'sex assigned at birth' - if you've got a biological child and you haven't figured out your sex then heaven help us.

I do find it very odd that the NHS will try and treat gender incongruence by pretending you're the opposite sex. It's in complete opposition to treatment of any eating disorder or any other type of body dysmorphia. Plenty of people want a different body - the NHS won't help you get thinner or bigger unless you are morbidly obese or malnourished. It won't give flat chested women breast implants or make short men tall. Why is gender dysphoria treated at all?

Not "the sex they were given at birth". It should be "the sex they acquired at conception".