Why the NHS puberty blocker trial is appalling

[Soontobe60]

Stella O’Malley from Genspect telling it like it is - that a state endorsed trial of puberty blockers for gender dysphoric children should NOT go ahead.
the NHS are not walking into this nightmare blindly - there are enough experts out there telling them what will happen happen to these children if they’re given these life changing drugs.
https://x.com/genspect/status/1989896741358113127?s=61&t=gKvvk-rWmOlYFGMZN8QVvQ

What I don’t understand (well, I do, but I would like someone in authority to come out and say it) is why they don’t go and hunt down all the children they have already given puberty blockers to and study them first. Surely that would be a more sensible first step, from both a clinical and an ethical standpoint.

(The fact that they didn’t keep track of them in the first place rather points to the answer to that question, but still…)

And it’s not like there isn’t already evidence of the nasty effects of Lupron on development from when it was given to girls who were thought to be growing “too tall”.

Absolutely.

Much better to do this than potentially harm more children. The problem is the results may actually be too revealing.

I understand why Cass suggested a trial but always felt it would be unethical.

Don't you mean too short?

Lupron is sometimes prescribed for precocious puberty which often results in very short stature without treatment.

From a quick google it seems that Lupron has also been used to delay puberty in very short girls going through puberty at a normal age in order to increase their adult height.

No, there was a fad for a while in the US of deciding that girls who were going to be “too tall” (no empirical criteria for this too tallness) should have their puberty stopped, to prevent them growing too tall. Will see if I can find any of the articles about it.

Annoyingly I’m only finding ones that talk about use of Lupron to help kids grow taller, eg:

https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/02/lupron-puberty-children-health-problems/

But I’m fairly certain there were instances of the opposite. Not finding them easily though (there are Reddit discussions, but nothing particularly notable). It’s possible I’m misremembering.

Long term effects are dire, either way.

Keira Bell and James Esses have sent a pre action letter force greater transparency of the process.

https://x.com/KBtheYoungOG/status/1989392024215212057

Excellent news about Kiera. She deserves to have answers to this.

Re the Lupron for too tall girls - that was indeed a misremembering on my part - instead it was estrogen given to them. This was between the 50s and the 90s:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jan-15-he-staturegirls15-story.html

Again, long term side effects not favourable, unsurprisingly. Who could have guessed that messing with someone’s endocrine system would have health implications?

The trial that was going to start recruiting in spring 2025 and still doesn't have ethical approval? I can't understand why funders are wasting millions on this - it's impossible to randomise or do any sort of cross over design so cannot answer the question being asked anyway.

Interesting that the longitudinal part of the Horizon study only got REC (Research ethics committee) approval in July 2025

https://www.hra.nhs.uk/planning-and-improving-research/application-summaries/research-summaries/pathways-horizon/

No other relevant results when I search for 'Horizon' in the list of REC approved studies - which suggests that the clinical trial still doesn't have ethical approval.

The King's College London website is very unclear on whether the longitudinal observational study is actually open to recruitment yet - no info on participating sites which is unusual.

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/pathways-horizon

Further info - observational study is recruiting from Bristol, GOSH and Alder Hey. Children can only participate is they have had an appointment at a gender clinic - given the huge waiting times that will limit recruitment.

This is solely an observational study (questionnaires basically) which is sensible. Hopefully the trial will never get off the ground.

The clinical director of the Southern hub is ambivalent about recruiting to the trials, but is under considerable political pressure to do so. You really have to question what is really going on here.

Interesting.
We know that Gendered Intelligence, Mermaids and other adult lobbyists have had an excessive influence on this area of child "medicine". Presumably it's been impossible to prize their sticky hands away despite these centres being in hospitals where ethical medical practice and child safety are meant to be centred rather than the ideological demands of transactivists?

Suppose only time will tell.

These centres and their lead clinicians are under excessive scrutiny from no 10, with pressure to recruit despite their own reservations. The lobbyists you speak of must be very powerful indeed.

Girls who were thought to be “too tall” were given high doses of exogenous oestrogen, to close their growth plates.

It’s interesting because it only stopped after girls who were tall were actually asked - how do you feel about your height? - and most thought it was a positive thing.

Indeed - that was what I found when I went back to my saved articles.

I just wish someone had thought to follow all the kids who went through the Tavistock, both those who did and those who didn’t get given PBs - wouldn’t it be interesting to talk to them about their experiences?

Utterly fucking mind blowing that they didn’t.

I’m curious how you know about the lead clinicians and yet have no knowledge of the (to my mind unbelievably well-known) lobbyists.

That's interesting. An article in the Times yesterday about an email from the Cabinet Office that described demonstrators as "Anti Trans" was allegedly written by an "external source". Thus evidencing that trans extremists have direct access to the heart of government and are authorised to write emails on behalf of the Cabinet Office.
Add to that the unbelievable contribution of Government lawyers to the Good Laugh project's challenge to the EHRC guidance where they suggested that single sex spaces for women could be made available to men "on a case by case basis"

The evidence seems to be building up that transactivists determined to undermine child safeguarding along with women's rights have a very powerful hold at the very top of government.

After Cass it was reported that the adult services that received young people from GIDS had refused to hand over their records. Seven hospitals as I recall. They were then ordered by govt to release the records to the research team used by Cass, which should provide some longer term info about those that had been on puberty blockers.

Does anyone know what's happened/happening with this?

It's all sounding very murky, isn't it.

However, I doubt Kiera Bell, James Esses and Stella O'Malley will be relinquishing their scrutiny.

Nick Wallis will be furiously taking notes, too. Uncovering this scandal will be epic.

I don’t think that they were actually ordered to hand over records, there was just talk that they should be ordered to (happy to be wrong about that). I do know that there was a lot of noise in TRA circles telling adult patients that they should refuse to allow their records to be shared, because it would all be twisted against them.

It’s also impossible to get ethical approval as it’s not possible for these children to give informed consent.

'Horizon' is the name of the longitudinal study part of PATHWAYS. The others are 'Trial', 'Connect', which is about the effects of PBs on cognitive performance, and 'Voices', which is about collecting feedback from patients & clinicians. The trial's not approved yet; I don't know about the others, but search for 'PATHWAYS'

It’s being reported in a variety of media including the BBC.

New puberty blockers trial to begin after UK ban https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2k4jg0wkj4o