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

They perhaps decided animal trials would be cruel.

Which makes the study biased and flawed from the outset.

One of the problems with the Tavistock was over bearing parents and parents who were being identified as Munchausen by proxy or potential sex offenders!

It's the very definition of insanity to go ahead with this.

Right. How do we all get behind Kiera’s pre-action action?

The biggest problem of all is:

what is the condition being treated? According to ICD11:

Gender incongruence of childhood is characterised by a marked incongruence between an individual’s experienced/expressed gender and the assigned sex in pre-pubertal children.

What does “experienced/expressed gender” mean?

It includes a strong desire to be a different gender than the assigned sex;

What’s the definition of gender?

a strong dislike on the child’s part of his or her sexual anatomy or anticipated secondary sex characteristics and/or a strong desire for the primary and/or anticipated secondary sex characteristics that match the experienced gender;

Body dislike, hate, desire. “Born in the wrong body”.

and make-believe or fantasy play, toys, games, or activities and playmates that are typical of the experienced gender rather than the assigned sex.

What is “typical” of one particular “gender”?

The incongruence must have persisted for about 2 years. Gender variant behaviour and preferences alone are not a basis for assigning the diagnosis.

What is “gender variant behaviour”, how is it different from the behaviour of play and activities described above that is a criteria, and why is one included and not the other?

In summary, the diagnostic criteria for the condition for which children will be enrolled into this study, indicates that it’s for children who either hate their bodies, and/or comply with stereotypes of behaviour.

Yet incredibly, this passed ethics approval.

This is absolutely shameful.

Which makes the study biased and flawed from the outset.

Yes. The idea is that it will study whether giving puberty blockers is a good treatment on the basis of the benefits it provides where the benefits will be assessed according to subjective reporting by subjects and their parents who are true believers that it's a life-saving treatment.

What could go wrong?

Idiots. What a way to start.

I cannot believe that we in England in 2025 are mandating medical experiments on children. Children age 10-15. It is truly truly shocking. And disgusting. As if these children understand what they’re getting into. We might as well lower the voting age to 10, driving age to 10, why not start training doctors at 10, pilots start training age 10, lawyers in the courtroom age 10. JFC.

Why? She demonstrably isn't.

How the actual fuck is it ethical to test those things on children who will almost certainly not be Gillick competent about those issues?

I don't understand how the trial is supposed to work.

My understanding from the Times article is that the participants will be put on GnRH antagonists for either 1 or 2 years, from as young as 10 years old, and that the study will follow them until early adulthood (19? 20?)

But what happens at the end of 1 or 2 years?

The options seem to be that either

They stop puberty blockers at the end of one/two years and no further medication is given until the child reaches 18, as per current guidelines.

or

They continue with puberty blockers - but then the study is of a child being on puberty blockers for more than 2 years and the treatment becomes long term - has that been approved?

Who has control over how long the drugs are administered?

"Gender variant behaviour"

Who could not find this phrase chilling?

It sounds like something from a sci fi novel.

Here having just read the bbc article. This may be a daft question- but why are they proposing testing on children who have already gone through puberty? Surely the point (if you are into medical experimenting on children) is to intercept before?

They’ve bloody well done animal trials ffs

If a boy plays with dolls sometimes is that gender variant behaviour, but if he plays with dolls all the time does that tick the criteria box?

The biggest problem of all is the idea that what is being treated is settled.

Have they? Long-term ones? Do you have links? (Sorry - this makes it sound like I don’t believe you - I do, I just thought the article said no animal trials had been done…)

what makes a specialist health/science reporter? You’d think her research and publication on this topic would place her in that category.

They did some on sheep I think which found reduced brain function.

Here…

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5333793/

All the pre-affirmation-times studies showed that between 80 and 90 percent of young children with so-called gender incongruence grew out of it during or after puberty. Going through puberty was in fact one of the things that made them realise oh, I’m just a boy who likes pink. Stopping puberty in those cases is beyond unconscionable.

FFS.

It is initiated by those adults. All of them. The people conducting the trials, the parents endorsing their dc take part.

I like how the Times article ended with a quote about the harm that would be done if this goes ahead: 'There are grave legal concerns about conducting a trial on children using a treatment which may lead to irreversible lifelong harm, and which research has already shown provides limited, if any, benefit.'

Meanwhile, the BBC decides to end with the TRA perspective - a Stonewall quote: 'We urge the government and policymakers to invest in delivering excellent healthcare for trans young people and to make sure the voices of trans young people and their families are at its core.'

BBC article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2k4jg0wkj4o

https://fundingawards.nihr.ac.uk/award/NIHR167530

£10.6 million. I'm unclear on the sponsor - is it King's College? I'm not used to reading this type of info.

Hannah Barnes probably knows more about this subject than any other journalist in the country. It's absurd. Probably that's precisely why they didn't allow her to attend.

More generally, this is about what Helen Joyce calls "tooth fairy science". The basic premise - that children can somehow be born in the wrong body - is entirely false. As she says:

'In principle, you could run trials to answer all sorts of tooth-fairy-related questions. Do bigger teeth earn bigger payouts? Does it help if the child writes a note? It’s all nonsense because there is no tooth fairy. Yet once the results come in, you would analyse them, and out would churn new hypotheses and demands for “further research”.'

Oh, found it - the contracting organisation is indeed Kings College London.

Reduced brain function sufficiently marked to be detectable in sheep? FFS