Streeting declares the puberty blocker trial 'safe'

[ArabellaSaurus]

https://archive.ph/CFzK4

'On Monday, Mr Streeting reiterated that he was not “comfortable” with the trial, which involves more than 200 people under the age of 16, but said there were significant “checks, balances and safeguards” that made it safe.

He told Sky News: “The thing I’ve had to continually weigh up is that for lots of people who have been through this sort of gender identity treatment, they describe it as life-affirming and life-saving. But there is an understandable degree of public anxiety and concern.

“The crucial reassurance is that not just anyone will be able to sign up to this trial. They will go through extensive assessment by expert clinicians locally that will be reviewed nationally, and every young person would need to assent.
“They’re not old enough to consent. They would need to assent, and they would <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/CFzK4/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/17/children-cannot-consent-puberty-blocker-trial-wes-streeting/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">need the consent of parents.

“And so there are lots of checks, balances, oversights and safeguards and constant monitoring in a way that disgracefully wasn’t there before. That’s what gives me the confidence and assurance of knowing this trial is safe.

“There is a debate about whether this is the right thing to do. I understand that, and there’s one thing we’ve learnt about this particular area of policy is that we shouldn’t silence, debate, dissent, disagreement.

“So we’ll continue to have that, and we’ll continue to be subject to scrutiny and challenge.”

Mr Streeting admitted that the children who will be involved in the trial are “very young” and that the drugs are “very strong”.

But he claimed he had tried to take the “politics out of what has been an extremely <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/CFzK4/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/25/nhs-puberty-blockers-trial-repeat-tavistock-whistleblowers/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">difficult and sensitive issue”.

Despite the research going ahead, the Health Secretary added: “I think there are still big questions about how we ever ended up in this situation where these sorts of drugs were being routinely prescribed with and we’re continuing to get into that and looking.
“There’ll be another study looking at what’s happened to that cohort of young people over time.”'

Is there any research on the number of women who "come out" as "trans" in mid life?

Well there's at least one middle age women who has recently declared herself to be a gay man. 😂 Women can be bonkers too.

What women don't appear to have is a sex addiction rear up as part of a midlife crisis.

The big bulge of women and girls transitioning is teens, as if for some unfathomable reason girls are terrified of having to grow up to be women in this society. As if being a man is going to be better. Safer.

Ive not seen any independent research, or many daily mail featuring women finding their authentic self when their children start their GCSE.

The GRC figures don't split by age and sex, but last year, something like 70% of people obtaining a GRC were under 35 and around 45% women.

Compare with the first year, when 15% were under 35, and 22% women.

So, if GRC are any indication, it looks as if there isnt that many mid life female transitioners to research.

So if the male middle aged population are claiming that they "knew" they were in the wrong body from their earliest memories and therefore we should be putting male children on sterilising drugs, where are the women claiming the same as "evidence" that female children should be put on sterilising drugs?

If this is innate and there from birth, then where are all the female adults from before children got dragged into this to back that up?

It's curious how little critical analysis seems to have been undertaken about the premise of this trial.

So, if GRC are any indication, it looks as if there isnt that many mid life female transitioners to research.

You'd think that might make people pause for thought, but there seems very little thinking involved in so much of this.

A gay male friend of mine who is quite involved with the'scene' tells me he knows of a few middle aged and older women ( lesbians) who are now declaring trans identities, and one is even going so far as having a prosthetic phallus created ( out of the skin from her arm)

He's a bit bemused by it all.....for the last 15 years or more he had been living in Cambodia......he comes back to Britain and everyone is now 'trans'.

The one thing I'm taking from this is that Hilary Cass started from a biased position and believing in the concept of trans kids (which is a flawed position as you have to start from a neutral there could be / could not be) AND SHE STILL concluded that affirmation only was bad and that schools should put the breaks on because kids were being harmed DESPITE already having a political opinion on whether there should be a trial or not.

Interesting article - mostly for how emblematic it is of the BBC's attitude to this issue.

The trial has been paused because "the watchdog" had concerns. No mention of the major public outcry over the issue. The protest on their own doorstep? The petition circulating here on Mumsnet, that had 100k signatures last time I looked?

And who do they choose to represent the voice of dissent on the issue? Hannah Barnes, "journalist at The New Statesman and author of Time To Think". Nothing against Hannah, who was one of the first voices to break through on this subject and deserves to be heard from. But it's notable the BBC chose to platform a fellow journalist, and present the issue as the system (the watchdog) working as it's supposed to. As if all this happened without outside prompting. Meanwhile they completely ignored us normies. It reeks of snobbery and trying to manage the issue.

The words you're looking for are "public outcry", Auntie.

Well, let’s be generous here - the research with her name on the front concluded that.

It’s not clear that she personally changed her mind, and I’m beginning to think she didn’t.

https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/pausing-puberty-blockers-trial-is-bizarre-says-cass

'I have not changed my position an inch since I wrote my report, and yet, suddenly, people from the gender-critical side of the debate seem surprised or discomforted that I'm supporting a trial,” she said.

“But I called for a trial two years before the report, and I said in the report that everything that we do to these young people needs to be done in the context of a proper research programme, because otherwise we can't improve what we're doing for them.”'

There we go, then.

'Cass said the trial was necessary because “we genuinely don’t know if some children will benefit or have no benefit”.

By raising the age limit to 14, it would cut out children who might benefit, which “will make the results invalid”, Cass said. “It would make the design really, really flawed and you should not be subjecting children to a flawed study'

She cals the MHRA letter 'bizarre':

“There were some bizarre things [in the letter], that children won’t be able to tell you if they’re bleeding. Well, anyone who can’t tell you if they’re bleeding can’t consent to this treatment. That seemed completely bizarre.”

Cass said the trial was necessary because “we genuinely don’t know if some children will benefit or have no benefit”.

Cass has carefully avoided the third option 'causes harm' - I wonder why?

She clearly doesn't understand the principle of "first do no harm". If the intervention could harm you don't do it. It's that simple. Even if non invention also may have consequences.

The point of neutrality is not intervening. You only intervene if you are sure it won't produce significant harm.

There is enough evidence to suggest the possibility of significant harm through intervention. She says this when she says most kids desist without intervention. That's before we talk about bone density issues which are known.

It's shocking.

We know that a huge number of girls who take 'gender affirming' doses of testosterone become incontinent and have other terrible symptoms.

There's lots of evidence from detransitoners that many women who think they are transmen deliberately minimise the symptoms because they want to keep taking T.

It's incredibly naive of Cass to think that kids on the trial would faithfully report their symptoms if they know it means they'll be excluded from the trial and taken off blockers.

I don't think it was quite so much "can't tell you" as "won't tell you" - because that would mean they'd have to stop the trial.

Cass has now made it very clear that she believes in the concept of “true trans” children - the tiny percentage of kids who present with gender dysphoria/distress/whatever the word du jour is who do not just grow out of it [eta: and who will therefore need cosmetic surgery to make their bodies look like that of the opposite sex.] And despite the fact that we currently do not have a way of identifying these children before they have, well, grown out of it, she also seems wedded to the belief that in order to see if blocking puberty will help these children, we should test to see if it helps all children who present with gender distress.

All of the evidence from what she has said points to the fact that she does not question the possibility that true trans children actually exist. Her problem with the whole concept of paediatric trans medicine is not that it shouldn’t be happening, but that it hasn’t been done “properly,” with the appropriate trials etc.

So, of course she is going to be confused about why the trial has been stopped. As far as she is concerned, the report with her name on it was not a message saying “this whole branch of medicine is barbaric and should never have been even contemplated” but rather saying “look, no one has done proper research in this area of medicine - that is, done the medical interventions but in a controlled way - therefore we should start doing that.”

They are safe. My child went on them for a quite a few years. I won't bore you with the 16 year story. In the end they decided to stop treatment and they went through a normal puberty. Irreversible changes only happen if you add in hormones ie estrogen or testosterone.

That's a really odd comment.

The children aren't going to be giving consent for this treatment. The parents will be giving consent, since the research team seem to have finally realised that a child can't give consent for a treatment which could leave them infertile and with impaired sexual function.

The children will be asked only for "assent", which as far as I can make out means that they will be given some information, which they will then repeat back to the research team who will take this as evidence that the child has understood. (They have obviously never met a child.)

How does she not know that children are not being asked for consent for the trial?

I thought the girls were being put on the drugs because they were likely to be distressed by puberty - but they are supposed to be happy to cope with vaginal bleeding?

How old was your child when put on puberty blockers, and are they male or female?

What made your child decide to stop with the blockers?

Male. 13 when started. Around 18/19 when stopped.

Adults take GnRH inhibitors for years for other reasons.

There is no guarantee that the side effects are reversible.