No child is born in the wrong body - Kemi Badenoch. Letter to Wes Streeting

[IwantToRetire]

Saw this being shared on facebook. Quote:

No child is born in the wrong body.

I cannot believe we are back to square one, with NHS England backing an experimental trial of puberty blockers on healthy, vulnerable children, ignoring the damage already done.

The No1 rule of medicine is "do no harm".
This is activist ideology masquerading as research.

I'm urging MPs of all parties to sign this letter from me and Shadow Health Secretary Stuart Andrew for Daventry, calling for Wes Streeting to step in and stop this trial before more damage is done to children who are too young to understand what they are doing to themselves.

https://www.facebook.com/kemibadenoch/posts/pfbid02c3rSBKCtNCY5qHeLVtJN94j4MhB7fZnoW159VXbzJUBdrMrDDbC3C4v6KX3W7MEbl

I don't know all the details but I imagine if they had access to more information they would have considered it.

Like bone density scans, cognitive tests, that kind of thing?

They are the ones who should have provided that data, they had the patients and then either had no curiosity to follow up on what the outcomes were or the outcomes were shite so they decided to ignore them (with the notable exclusion of the handful of whistleblowers) because ideology was more important than patient outcomes.

As opposed to chronic depression, anxiety, suicidality & suicide?

I feel for Dr Cass & clinicians because they are put in very difficult positions where the consequences can be a life of misery or can be fatal. Parent's begging for help to save their children's lives can't be an easy thing to deal with.

No, she didn't refer to experience. She referred to them having a passionate belief in beneficial effects. Anecdotes and beliefs are not evidence. The anecdotes are even less compelling when they come from someone with a passionate belief in a particular outcome being preferable.

“I suspect they weigh up the potential side effects with the potential negative mental health outcomes if treatment is withheld”

How does any clinician now deal with potential negative mental health outcomes if this treatment is withheld when the cohort about to enter this trial has been told by so many people that these drugs are the only chance they have to become what they, at the time, believe they are? How does any clinician counter this very loud messaging?

And what exactly are they treated for? Matching their appearance to their identity based on a philosophical belief that can never be material reality?

There is a huge difference between treating a medical issue such as precocious puberty while allowing puberty to continue, just later vs never allowing puberty to continue and complete. Including the time on those drugs. Treatment for ‘gender identity’ can mean those children are on the drugs for more than a year. Some I have read have taken puberty blockers for more than three years.

How do you evaluate a potential negative mental health outcome?

They had all the information. They were the ones who carried out the study.

By implication that's clinical experience. Why else would doctors be 'passionate' about a treatment if they hadn't seen for themselves positive outcomes?

I. think the words 'passionate belief' is being interpreted to carry a little more weight than it should.

That's because the evidence was not collected or collated. There must be hundreds of young people who passed through the Tavistock over the years who could be traced - given the will.

I'm sure there are many studies you can google that describe how they do that.

Because doctors can also be captured by an ideological belief, clearly.

Yes, but it also sounds like Tavistock wasn't managed well so I'm not convinced the data can be relied upon.

The Cass report isn't holy writ - and maybe Wes should be making sure all the other recommendations are implemented and the Pathways longitudinal study is completed BEFORE jumping to a human paediatric trial of puberty blockers. Follow on transition services were recommended - have those been commissioned? Cross sex hormones were not recommended but are proposed as an end goal for children completing the Horizon clinical trial - so basically this trial is a reopening of the previous, discredited Tavistock pathway.

Fundamentally this is a badly designed trial which fails to provide basic background human data on the condition of interest, and lacks any animal data as well.

Personally I think that if we really want to know what permanently stopping puberty does to brain and bone development we should be using monkeys, not humans. This has never been done in monkeys - it's appalling to be going straight to human for this sort of 'research'. Comparisons with Nazi 'scientists' using prisoners of war and civilians to 'research' hypothermia (and worse) are entirely valid.

All these parameters should have been followed up. How do you know that PBs and cross sex hormones alleviated depression and anxiety when you have no data of the outcomes. There is some data that mental health didn't improve for a large number of children on PBs and XSH.
Cass and clinicians have been put into a difficult positions by activists and ideologues and the almost complete lack of politicians to stand up to them.

Unfortunately, one of the issues was the total lack of follow up or any subsequent interest after the 'treatment'. And as you must be aware the issue of de-transitioners is a very thorny one with trans activists. Activists woukd prefer they did not exist, or if they did they must be very small in number.

Yes, but that applies to all medical treatments & if we don't dismiss a consensus of medical practitioners there why would we here? The standards have to be applied universally.

Preventing a child from becoming a fully functioning and healthy adult is not "saving their life".

You seem to think that castrating a child will lead to them being happier than allowing them to grow up to be a healthy adult capable of enjoying sex and able to have children if they wish.

What has led you to this conclusion?

There has never been any consensus on gender medicine. It is laregly practised by a small cabal of activist practitioners.

What data? Have you read the Cass report?

According to meta analysis of studies by WPATH's in SOC 8 the treatments help.

Ultimately, its a consensus of medical experts that are only qualified in these areas.

Were gender struggling children killing themselves in droves before the 90s when puberty blockers started being used in this way? I don't think so. If this wasn't a problem before the so called cure existed, then it's not the problem you're suggesting it is.

NB there isn't actually any evidence that gender struggling children are any more suicidal than any other group of children with mental health disorders. But even if there was, it would have to have been a problem throughout the whole of history AND the numbers of suicidal children would have to have decreased since the 90s in order for us to accept that puberty blockers are the right treatment. If the numbers of suicidal gender struggling children increased commensurately with the advent of puberty blockers as treatment then the problem isn't a lack of puberty blockers, it's something else entirely.

I just follow doctors advice, I don't write it.

Anxiety and depression and suicidality are all highly treatable with talk therapy. They don't even need drugs. They are temporary states, sometimes known as feelings, that will pass with the correct treatment. Even untreated hospitalisable depression resolves in over 80% of cases within a year.

Some studies have shown an increase in suicidal thinking after 'transition' - as the dysphoria simply shifts after the initial 'euphoria' to another body part, or onto another issue. The reason for this is clear. Treating mental and emotional health issues with drugs is not a long term solution, especially not for young adults and children.