All but one
Is the edifice starting to topple?
The BBC reports on a study the Tavistock clinic just published:
All but one child treated for gender dysphoria with puberty-blocking drugs at a leading NHS clinic also received cross-sex hormones, a study has shown.
…
The Tavistock and Portman Trust has argued the treatments are not linked.
The study began in 2011 and enrolled 44 children aged between 12 and 15 over the following three years. At the time, only those aged 16 and over were eligible for puberty blockers in the UK.
When BBC Newsnight covered the study and its preliminary findings last year it highlighted how previous research suggested all young people who took blockers went on to take cross-sex hormones – the next stage towards transitioning to the opposite gender.
The Tavistock’s newly published findings appear to confirm this, with 43 out of 44 participants – or 98% – choosing to start treatment with cross-sex hormones.
The cheer-up myth is that blockers are just a pause, a breathing space, time to think – but if almost all the kids who take them go on to cross-sex hormones then that myth is a lie.
Earlier this month, the High Court ruled that children under-16 were unlikely to be able to give informed consent to treatment with puberty blockers.
The relationship between blockers and subsequent treatment with cross-sex hormones was a core feature of the case.
Lawyers representing the claimants said there was “a very high likelihood” children who start taking hormone blockers will later begin taking cross-sex hormones, leading potentially to infertility and impaired sexual function.
The Tavistock argued puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones were entirely separate stages of treatment and one does not automatically lead to the other.
And that turns out to be bullshit.
And this isn’t minor bullshit – this isn’t “oh well, no harm done” bullshit. This is tampering with the physical (and hence psychological) development of teenagers in a very drastic way. We’re being subject to an avalanche of propaganda to the effect that it’s fine, it’s awesome, it’s The Authentic Self – but the propagandists don’t know any of that, it’s just something they say.
The published study showed that treatment with the blocker brought about no change in psychological function.
This differs from Dutch findings “which reported improved psychological function,” upon which many gender clinics have based their treatment.
Ah. Interesting. The experimentees are no happier, and their bodies are messed up. Win win?
As someone who was completely taken in by the false rhetoric and claims, I say this admission is not soon enough, and not fast enough, to save a lot of people from a great deal of anguish. But I do hope it stops future children being horrifically mutilated and set on a lifetime of medical (and surgical) interventions. One day (soon, I hope) people will be wondering how it was ever thought to be a good idea, and why wasn’t it stopped sooner?
(My inner pessimist is saying “How long before the next pseudo-scientific cult?”, and I wish it wouldn’t do that).
@1 I agree. Looking back it will seem Frankensteinesque to take a perfectly well young person (with possibly some mental issues and confusion), and turn them irreversibly into something they are not. It’s actually horrifying that it’s not fiction. The trans cult is very short sighted, narrow minded, and tragically destructive, and the ‘groomers’ should be criminalized.
So that’s 43 children too you to consent to puberty blockers, taking not only puberty blockers but also cross sex hormone therapy. If puberty blockers are too far reaching for a minor to reasonably make an informed decision, what the fuck does that imply about hormone therapy?
(^ rhetorical of course)
I’ve argued against puberty blockers with several advocates, and their defense to this is twofold:
1.) If it’s physically possible to not get cross-sex hormones after taking puberty blockers, then saying their use is very likely lead to sterility is a lie. If they don’t do it on their own, that’s enough to call it a “pause button.”
2.) Since only genuine transgender people would take puberty blockers in the first place, those high statistics just show how good and careful the Affirmation approach is.
The rebuttals to these rebuttals aren’t difficult to come up with. But the belief that being transgender is just like homosexuality— innate, fixed, harmful to suppress and part of the wonderful tapestry of expression and diversity of humanity — blinds them to the flaws.
This is surely just a coincidence. And another coincidence. And…
I think it might be good to move away from using “puberty blocker” to describe drugs like Lupron. Puberty blocking isn’t even an on-label use for these drugs. It’s a sex hormone blocker, and puberty is only one of the things that sex hormones do. “Puberty blocker” makes it sound so neat and clean, like it just keeps a little child a little child. That’s not really what happens. It turns a little child into an anomaly, not the child they were before and not the child they were supposed to be.
And lest we forget,
I’d like to see that recited more often than TWAW.
“Keeping a little child a little child” is horrifying enough as it is. Children need to grow and mature and develop into adults, especially when all their peers are doing so.
There’s a reason why “adult mind in a child’s body” is a trope of horror films (e.g. Interview With a Vampire).
Sastra:
This is the thing that drives me nuts. It’s not even clear what that sense of transgender even means.
I’m amazed they aren’t rationalizing this away: ‘if 99% of children who’s puberty has been ‘blocked’ go on to have cross-sex hormones, that means our diagnosis is 99% correct!’
But that would involve admitting to 1% error.
That’s the Inquisitor’s argument. Everyone we accuse of witchcraft, demon worship, or heresy confesses to those crimes, which means our accusations are 100% correct.