Netherlands Puberty Blocker Review Comes to Opposite Conclusion, Dismisses Cass Review

[ForZingyCat]

https://www.gezondheidsraad.nl/adviesonderwerpen/behandeling-en-begeleiding/transgenderzorg-voor-jonger

This is just a semantic and rhetorical claim- it's meaningless .

People can undergo a range of physical and social interventions to alter aspects of their physiology and social identity in ways that can reduce distress associated with gender dysphoria. That is what we are speaking of- whatever words we use to describe it.

Oestrogen will bind to the hormone receptors in the body regardless of XY karyotype and induce the development of secondary sex characteristics, as well as changes necessary for bone health and brain development, etc.

We do have interventions that can alter or delay it

This type of language is why I contend you are trying to have it both ways. There is no alter or delay. There is effectively only alter. The route is essentially sealed at the point at which the child is prescribed PBs. Because, you claim, clinicians are so effective at identifying those prepubescent children whose distress will only be alleviated by lifelong medicalisation.

many of the effects of puberty are irreversible

Since the majority of these children are girls, what effects of female puberty are you referring to here?

Nobody knows if what's necessary for brain development can be delivered in this way, if someone's puberty was stopped by puberty blockers before they went onto cross-sex hormones.

Just as with puberty blockers, there is no reliable medical evidence that says cross-sex hormones will lead to healthy brain development.

That isn’t a claim invented in 2026—it’s one of the central reasons puberty blockers were proposed in the first place.

Yes, it was because some Dutch psychologists dealing with adult male transsexuals hypothesised that their continuing poor mental health, even after transition, was due to the fact that they didn't 'pass' due to having been through male puberty.

Let's not forget where this batshit idea came from.

And it is totally irrelevant for girls.

Thanks for reminding us all @Sunnibee .

I do think the stakes are higher for birth males in terms of the long term consequences of endogenous puberty . However there are irreversible effects of female puberty as well.
Primarily breast development and pelvic widening, both of which are irreversible without surgery . There are also permanent skeletal changes associated with female puberty. Those are precisely the changes many natal girls with persistent gender dysphoria find most distressing

We discussed the evidence for this earlier in the thread, but I agree that more research is needed

The longer this groundhog day thread goes on, the more obvious the deliberate and cynical avoidance of any difficult questions becomes. Nothing to see, move along, let the experts do their thing, evidence will be along to prove them right anytime now so let's just all chill and prescribe, ok?

to facilitate any later transition

Except sadly, as it turns out, later transition is actually more complex if puberty has been blocked. See the 'Susie Green laughing' video for details.

I don't recall discussing evidence about the impact of CSH on brain development, just PBs. Perhaps we did though.

Regarding more research, out of interest do you support the data linkage study? I imagine that there will be a lot of valuable data in it. We know that there are ~2,000 children (now adults) who had PBs, some of whom will have had CSHs later as well. Researching that data is a priority IMO, even if the records are limited in quality/information in some cases. Cass said that too until handwaving it away more recently.

those interventions can prevent the development of secondary sex characteristics associated with birth sex , and induce those of the child's experienced sex.

'the child's experienced sex' is nonsense. Nobody can experience the opposite sex.

'Gender' is a social construct...so how can a child ever escape gender distress if their sense of themselves is dependent on other people, usually strangers, validating their sense of themselves as being of the opposite sex?

Thanks for catching that.

Before I lost faith in this poster, (s)he was trying to insist that asumptions about the actual lived experience of the opposite sex aren't a factor in trans identities.

Round and round and round we go, circling the truth but never jumping in.

But he's not "receiving the hormones necessary for pubertal development", because that would be testosterone.

It is possible to learn to cope with distress without doing harm to one's body. Given that gender is entirely based on social prescriptions and perceptions - one can learn to adapt and modify one's responses to negative social stimulus. It is called developing emotional and psychological resillience, and ultimately is the healthiest way to manage one's feelings.

And on and on it goes...

A small cohort of children are distressed about the reality of their sexed bodies. They don't become any less their sexed bodies by taking hormones or surgeries. They might appear differently, but they are not, in fact, any more or less male or female. That's just a fact.

And the reality they face in society remains because truth matters. So let's talk with them and help them figure it out, but by having truth as a framework, not an ideology.

Honestly, sometimes I think yeah have at it! Sterilise yourselves! And your kids! Yeah, you go for it, we'll just let you get on with it!

But I can't and won't because truth matters and children matter.

And the TRAs seem completely incapable of protecting their own from harm (why might that be?).

Honestly, I genuinely cannot fathom why TRAs fight for children to be sterilised. Maybe we should start supporting it. Maybe they'd change tack.

All trans kids to be given puberty blockers immediately!

It’s difficult to know whether you are rejecting the reality of gender dysphoria itself or simply objecting to the terminology used to describe it. Gender dysphoria is a recognised condition involving persistent and significant distress caused by a person experiencing themselves as being in the wrong sex category.

If there is alternative shorthand language you would accept that describes this phenomenon without reducing it to generalised distress or attributing it to something else, I’d be very happy to use it. My aim is simply to find language that allows us to discuss the actual experience being described

My aim is simply to find language that allows us to discuss the actual experience being described

But what is the experience being described? You've talked a lot about "a person experiencing themselves as being in the wrong sex category", but this is meaningless. Can you at least explain what it means or what you think it means?

This has been covered extensively in the thread, including the link to the online blog I shared.

You keep saying 'distressed'. What exactly do you mean?

It has, but none of the descriptions actually explain what is going on. It's just a vague feeling that some people claim to have which doesn't really correlate to anything. It makes sense when they talk about stereotypes, because we can all understand what effect stereotypical expectations have on people - most of us have probably experienced this ourselves. But you say it's not about stereotypes, it's just about feelings, so we're just left with feelings about nothing in particular which make people unhappy.

The only more concrete 'experience' you mentioned was boys/men feeling that they should be able to use women's toilets and changing rooms, because for unexplained reasons (see first paragraph) they feel that's where they belong. Surely that's not all that it's about?

We should remind ourselves that 60-90% of children with gender dysphoria recover from the condition as a consequence of passing through puberty. Cass summarises the various studies in the review that bears her name. Some of these are old 70s and 80s, at least one was published by de Vries of Dutch Protocol fame. IIRC her figures were 60% desistence published around 2015.

I accept that the more embedded the lore that PB are the only kind treatment becomes, the lower the desistence rate is likely to become.

However, any pathway centred on the minority that may persist will harm the majority. There is not yet a way to tell which child will persist and which will desist.

It seems self evident that GAC has created a demand that was not there before (see GIDS referrals to evidence this). A lot of children have suffered unnecessarily.

A focus on genuinely holistic psychological support would stack up much more positively on the risk benefit analysis

Deep psychological suffering/ pain that affects a person’s everyday functioning and wellbeing. This can result in severe anxiety, depression, social withdrawal, emotional dysregulation, dissociation , self-harm, and suicidal thoughts. severe mental health deterioration triggered by dysphoria can also involve other psychiatric symptoms, including psychosis.

I don’t think the issue here is that the concept is vague — I think you’re not accepting the concept being described. It’s frustrating but predictable that what you have taken from this long exchange is boys/men wanting to use the ladies’ toilet. Have to laugh really and accept that you’re responding to a position you’ve already decided, rather than any of the actual points I’ve been making.