Puberty Blocker Trial Paused

[CrocsNotDocs]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/e0a6d8e8751dbca8

Good start. Now shut it down.

The pathway my daughter followed began with extensive assessment through GIDS, which at the time involved multiple appointments over many months, exploring her history, her feelings, her mental health, family dynamics, and whether there were other factors contributing to her distress. It wasn't a single conversation and a prescription.

So, Sarah after multiple appointments over months, examining the family dynamics other factors, and your child's mental health,what was the diagnosis??

Why does your child have gender dysphoria?

What did they say the reason was??

She is glowing and thriving, so I don't care about your definition of adult female. By using that definition, nobody was born as woman then

She's attracted to boys, which as a trans girl would make her straight, not gay.

That is same sex attracted.

My definition is the only available definition.

They didn't give a reason. That's the honest answer.
The diagnosis was gender dysphoria. The assessment confirmed that her distress was persistent, consistent, and longstanding. That it wasn't better explained by other factors they could identify. That she met the criteria for treatment.
But did they say "your daughter has gender dysphoria because of X"? No. They didn't. And at the time, I didn't push for that answer as hard as perhaps I should have, because I was focused on helping her and she was in so much distress.
I can see why that troubles you. It troubles me too, when I sit with it. Medicine is supposed to understand the cause before it treats. We don't give chemotherapy without knowing someone has cancer.
But I also watched what happened when she was treated. I watched her come back to life. I watched her stop talking about not wanting to exist. I watched her start making friends, planning for the future, laughing again.
Does that prove the treatment was right? Maybe not in a way that would satisfy you. But when your child is drowning, and someone throws a rope, and it works, you don't always have the luxury of demanding a full explanation of rope mechanics before you let them grab it.
I don't know why my daughter has gender dysphoria. Neither did the clinicians, not really. If you think that means no one should ever be treated until we have that answer, I understand the logic. I just couldn't apply it to my own child when she was suffering in front of me.
Is there a version of "we don't fully understand why" that you could accept alongside "but the treatment appears to help this individual"?

Your son is gay. If he's attracted to boys, he's gay. Same sex attraction is about sex, not gender identity.

Perhaps you don't agree with having a gay son?

She's attracted to boys, which as a trans girl would make her straight, not gay. So "transing away the gay" doesn't fit her.

No. That means your child is same-sex attracted because while you might change someone’s gender you can’t change their sex.

I know lesbian groups who have had to go underground because it was the only way to keep out males who identified as lesbian, so yes, this does feel personal.

I understand the desire for a neat explanation. I'd quite like one myself.

And yet ...

I have a gay son and straight trans daughter. Where do your conclusions come from? Really, you are in bad shape.

Is there a version of "we don't fully understand why" that you could accept alongside "but the treatment appears to help this individual"?

If you haven't really got to grips with the idea that your child's sex can't be changed, it seems that there is a problem.

Your definition is only your definition. You are not entitled to decide that is the only definition available for the rest of the world

Not really, no. People don't prescribe lifelong medication that can make a child infertile, have no sexual function, reduce their IQ, and damage their bones, without any evidence of what they've got wrong with them.

But did they say "your daughter has gender dysphoria because of X"? No. They didn't. And at the time, I didn't push for that answer as hard as perhaps I should have, because I was focused on helping her and she was in so much distress.

But how can you help your child, if you have no idea what's wrong with them?

If your son was attracted to girls, would that make him a lesbian?

If we can't use clear accurate language when we talk about medical treatment, there is a problem.

Before this thread descends into a (hopefully, avoidable) squabble, @sarahd89 most people contributing here will not accept that your son is a woman.

It's not a particularly helpful or interesting chain to argue about definitions.

Either way, your son (whom you refer to as your trans daughter) is attracted to men and boys, so it clearly could be a case of "transing away the gay".

I watched her stop talking about not wanting to exist.

Is this a reference to the "would you rather have a trans [daughter] or a dead [son]" meme?

What's wrong with the research we've already done in the UK? Why can't we review that before looking at more research.

I'm getting sick of ploppers coming on her and saying puberty blockers are safe because of my teenage (male) child shows this.

It's a complete and absolutely lack of understanding of research to the point that I question how parents never mind kids have the capacity to make adequately informed decisions.

Anyway...

this appears to me to be an exceptionally clear, real life demonstration of why the trial needed to be stopped.

Society works when definitions are widely understood and backed up by law.

Last year's Supreme Court decision confirmed that the words "women" and "girl" do not apply to your son. As a boy he still has sex-based rights for example if he was worried about a lump on his testicles and wished to see a male doctor.

Until relatively recently a 16 year old with male genitals caught in a sexual encounter with another male would have faced serious legal and social consequences. Happily same sex attraction inc marriage is now legal. This campaign was not won by mangling words and pretending that same sex relations are only ok if one party pretends to be the opposite sex.

That's the question I've asked myself more times than I can count.
And I don't have an answer that will satisfy you. I'm not sure I have one that fully satisfies me.
What I can tell you is what I weighed at the time. On one side, a child who was disappearing. Who had stopped eating properly. Who wouldn't leave her room. Who talked about not wanting to be here anymore. Whose distress was so acute that I was afraid to leave her alone.
On the other side, a treatment pathway with risks and unknowns. Professionals who couldn't tell me why, only that the presentation was consistent with the diagnosis and that this was the recommended approach.
I chose to trust the clinicians and to trust what I could see. Maybe that was wrong. I don't know yet. She's 16. The full picture of her life hasn't been written.
But I bristle slightly at the framing of your question, because it implies that doing nothing was the safe option. It wasn't. Doing nothing had its own risks. Children in that level of distress don't simply wait patiently while adults figure out the perfect answer. The suicide rates among untreated gender dysphoric youth aren't a myth invented by activists. I was watching my daughter disappear and I made the best decision I could with the information I had.
Was it the right one? I believe so. She's alive. She's happy. She's doing well at school. She talks about the future.
Could I be wrong? Yes. I sit with that possibility. But I also sit with the possibility that if I'd refused treatment, insisted on waiting until we had perfect understanding, she might not be here at all.
How do you weigh those two risks against each other when it's your child?

I understand the point you are making about a squabble, but without mutually understood definitions how do you establish consent?

I understand your frustration, and I'm not going to pretend my daughter's experience is research. It isn't. Anecdote isn't data. I know that.
But I'd push back on the implication that parents like me are simply ignorant. I've read the research. I've read the criticisms of the research. I've read the Dutch studies and the questions about whether their protocol can be generalised. I've read the concerns about bone density, about the lack of control groups, about the changing demographics of who's presenting.
And since you mention the UK research, I've also read the peer-reviewed critiques of the Cass Review itself. A study published in BMC Medical Research Methodology applied the ROBIS tool (a validated instrument for assessing bias in systematic reviews) and found a high risk of bias in all seven systematic reviews the Cass Review relied upon, driven by unexplained protocol deviations, ambiguous eligibility criteria, and failure to integrate these limitations into conclusions.
The Yale Law School's critique pointed out that the Cass Review fails to contextualise the evidence for gender-affirming care against the evidence base for other areas of paediatric medicine, where treatments are routinely provided based on similar quality evidence.
The Canadian Paediatric Society stated there are "significant limitations, biases, and inaccuracies within the Review" and that it includes "incorrect citations of evidence and inaccurate, sometimes scientifically disproven speculations."
Multiple international medical bodies have criticised the methodology, including Germany, Austria, and Switzerland's clinical practice guidelines group, which criticised the Cass Review's methodology, conclusions, and lack of transparency.
I made a decision with imperfect information because that was the only kind of information available, and because waiting for perfect information wasn't a cost-free option when my child was in crisis.
What would you say to a parent whose child is in acute distress right now, today? Not in five years when better research might exist. Today. What's the advice? Wait and hope? Therapy that isn't available because CAMHS is overwhelmed? Watch and see what happens?
I'm not asking rhetorically. I genuinely want to know what you think parents in that position should do, practically, with the child in front of them.

The suicide rates among untreated gender dysphoric youth aren't a myth invented by activists.

Yes, they are.

Chase Strangio agreed in court that there was no evidence to support these claims.

The Cass report showed that there was no evidence that puberty blockers reduced suicide risk.

I'm not going to argue about definitions. You've made your position clear, and I've made mine. We're not going to agree, and that's fine.
But I will address your two substantive points.
On "transing away the gay": the concern there, as I understand it, is that a young person who is same-sex attracted is encouraged to transition so they can appear heterosexual. A gay boy becomes a "straight girl" to avoid the stigma of being gay. That's a legitimate concern to raise.
But think about what you're actually suggesting in my daughter's case. She was assigned male at birth. She's attracted to boys. If she had simply accepted being a gay boy, she would have been... a gay boy. In 2020s Britain. With a supportive family. There's no particular stigma to escape there, certainly nothing that would justify years of medical treatment and social difficulty. The "transing away the gay" hypothesis requires that transition is the easier path. It isn't. It really isn't.
On your second point: no, I'm not referencing a meme. I'm referencing my daughter, in her bedroom, telling me she didn't want to be here anymore. That happened. It wasn't an argument I deployed to win a debate. It was a Tuesday evening in my house.
I understand you're sceptical of parents who report these things. I understand the concern that distress gets weaponised to shut down questions. But I'm not asking you to make policy based on my daughter's experience. I'm asking you to accept that she exists, that her distress was real, and that I made the best decision I could with the child in front of me.

And yet you have absolutely no idea why your son even has gender dysphoria.

And you didn't ask.

And they didn't know anyway.

No wonder it was shut down