It can still be stoped legitimately if the will is there.
Streeting’s team need to compile all the medical and the social research data we have-,which may be woefully small for various reasons- but which may well have expanded since Cass reported.
Then they must robustly in the public interest begin the more nuanced and much more politically challenging scrupulously methodical work of :
-recording that the TRAs have for decades deliberately ensured that this area is under-researched. Major red flag!
and yet that in parallel anecdotally there is enough evidence never to put a child near these drugs again: this lack of properly researched info is not not simply resolved by ‘OK let’s just trial these drugs then’ as Cass has simplistically said.
The TRAs don’t want parents and wider society to know about the known harms, because ‘transitiioned’ poster children are urgently needed for all the reasons well covered on here.
-the sexism of proposing this trial, in that more complex female bodies (evolved to have the capacity to carry pregnancy) are more drastically affected by these powerful drugs. Streeting’s team must interview the survivors of this disproportionality of risk, because in today’s gender identity clinics, distressed girls outweigh distressed boys hugely.
—cultural causes of adolescent MH and distress arising from sexism, homophobia, ableism and racism have led us down this path . That must be tackled as a priority. Why is it so hard for girls to come out as a lesbian, bisexual or uninterested in sexual relationships?. Why at school is it still not socially acceptable for peers to be autistic? Why is there huge unmet need of trauma caused racism, poverty, family breakdown, multiple factors? What are we doing about this as a society? Drugs on top of unmet need do not equal cures in every instance but may pile on further difficulty.
-CAMHS needs years to repair, so for now there isn’t any MH support for many of the kids who need it. A perfect climate for some kids to be misled to feel that a ‘transitioning’ intervention nowill solve their problems. And means to not be able to freely consent to a clinical trial offering that very same scarce expersive treatment. So let’s not offer that trial and offer false hope.
-the self serving testimonies of brave and stunning adult (usually always male) advocates around this, who did not receive PBs, do not mean anything that is generalisable to vulnerable, autistic, gay, or traumatised children with neglected mental health needs today who did receive PBs or who are at risk of being offered them. These unharmed annd highly biased adult views should be discounted.
-where is the funding to enable transmen and female detransitioners to be hugely and disproportionately studied?. Their needs aren’t being met, their stories and medical experiences not captured and shared. This is also a research priority.
—what can we learn from the health care professionals who describe heavy pressure to refer and to not do ‘watchful waiting’. And who were pressured to follow unevidenced unresearched ‘treatment’ protocols in the NHS. What else have they seen amongst the kids already ‘treated’ that hasn’t been reported and that we can learn from?
- parents who buy their kids drugs off the internet which means no research and no follow up at all, how is the NHS reaching out to support their needs?. What are their experiences?
Wes Streeting and Kier Starmer must insist on YEARS of follow up of already ‘treated’ kids before the government would consider ever allowing PBs to be used or trialled again. We owe it to the traumatised, autistic, lesbian and gay or grioomed kids who were let down by CAMHS and were instead given these permanently life altering drugs.
I’d like to government to promote in the meantime that as with exposure to any other extreme ideology, or advocate of self harming behaviours, that children have a right to be protected from it online and to receive support if they become involved with this dangerous form of politics.
it should be stated in law that all children have a right and necessity to go through their own natural puberty so they can become adults and then decide for themselves using their natural post pubertal adult capacities to live their life peacefully and freely how they want obviously, and without hurting anyone else, as is generally applicable to all adults). That is a key ethical foundation stone that no decent adult can dispute.