How not to report on puberty blockers
The BBC has a shockingly bad and reckless article by LGBT correspondent Ben Hunte on the Tavistock ruling.
The NHS gender identity service is appealing against a High Court ruling that restricts children under 16 from accessing “puberty-blocking” drugs.
The NHS service says the move harms young people with gender dysphoria.
Doctors and parents have told the BBC the ruling could cause distressed trans teens to self-harm or even take their own lives.
And trans young people have been giving their reaction, with one calling the ruling “honestly terrifying”.
That’s the reckless bit. It’s widely agreed that it’s a very bad idea to report “X will cause Ys to commit suicide” this way, because it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
We get eleven paragraphs on a 14-year-old who attempted suicide, full of despair and preference for death, which is just the way journalists are told not to report on the subject. All this is to underline the claim that the ruling is a threat to children and that puberty blockers are not.
A clinician who currently works within the NHS GIDS, told the BBC her patients are now being left alone to deal with distress.
“The young trans people I’m talking to now are experiencing deeply distressing mental health problems,” she says.
“To be a young trans person nowadays requires a bigger fight than ever, but most of the trans people I see do not have any fight left in them.”
The clinician wanted to remain anonymous, because of the backlash that could come as a result of her speaking out.
She says: “I know of several young people who have tried to take their lives, some successfully, and that was before these legal challenges which will only slow down and block our services even more.”
There it is again. The clinician is not so much “speaking out” as making wild and reckless suicide threats on behalf of her patients.
Dr Adrian Harrop, a GP from Liverpool who has defended the right of children to begin transitioning, says trans young people have now had “the rug pulled from underneath them”.
“It makes me terribly worried that there is now nothing there for those children, and nothing that can be done to help them.
“Parents are being left at a point where they’re having to struggle to cope with these children who are in a real state of distress and anxiety. Sadly, there is a very real risk of seeing more suicides,” he adds.
Harrop is a GP but he doesn’t know better than to promote suicide this way. The whole article is one long suicide-promotion. The BBC seems to have lost its mind.
In a letter seen exclusively by the BBC, GenderGP – one of the only private healthcare providers for transgender people in the UK – calls on NHS England’s Medical Director for Specialist Services, James Palmer, to take urgent action.
The letter asks him to provide “interim solutions to prevent harm”. It adds: “The mental health implications of this cannot be underestimated, and the risk of self-harm and suicide must be acknowledged.”
That’s the last para; suicide is almost the last word.
Responses are rolling in.
Hyperbole much?
Sounds like a serious doctoring problem; they should be receiving all the counseling and therapy they need. Puberty blockers are not the only answer (or even a very good one), but the children are being told they are.
Anything like what has happened to J. K. Rowling?
I found the frankly hysterical tone of that BBC arrival and the doctors quoted in it shocking. For a doctor to be claiming that their patients were on their own and had no care is appalling and clearly inaccurate. It also says a lot about those specific doctors that they offer puberty blockers as the first and apparently only option for treatment. That is really the hub of the problem.
In New Zealand, rightly or wrongly, it is not legal to report suicide or likely suicide in the manner done in this article. It’s a controversial stance as it’s seen as old fashioned, but one that medical and legal authorities are still strong on – precisely to reduce the potential for copy cat or cluster suicides. The stance has been relaxed very slightly in recent years. For example, previously suicides were reported as unexplained deaths where police were not seeking any other parties. Now the phrasing is the same, but at the bottom of the article will be a block of phone and web contact details where you can get emergency assistance.
The sheer disregard that TRA’s show toward distressed young people’s health and well being infuriates me.
Yes, some doctors have said that. But doctors have also said puberty blockers will cause bone fragility, reduced size, underdeveloped genitalia, inhibition of orgasm, reduced fertility, and perhaps most indicting of all no relief to gender dysphoria. So, sure, some doctors say A… but other doctors are saying B. Why do they not get a mention? It reminds me of those ‘nine out of ten doctors recommend…’ but the BBC went to the one naysayer.
Also, I think that last bears repeating. Tavistock’s claimed ‘pause button’ on puberty, supposedly allowing a questioning youth a stress-free window to properly consider their options, doesn’t do what they claim it does and they knew this for years yet kept it secret.
They aren’t the good guys.
Given the strong likelihood that gender dysphoria, while genuinely painful, is largely a socially-constructed disorder, it’s interesting to speculate on what would have happened if the TRAs had chosen a different approach regarding suicide. Instead of emphasizing or inflating the statistics, they could have acknowledged them appropriately and then downplayed them in favor of resilience and self-esteem.
For example:
“Children and teens who realize they’re transgender usually find this self-knowledge sufficient and empowering. While some or even many will prefer to present as their true gender, most find it possible (or in some cases desirable) to continue their lives without any need to change their bodies, names, clothes, or other superficial aspects of their appearance.
‘Sure, I’m really a girl inside,’ said Brad, 12 years old, ‘but it just doesn’t matter if other people know that. Sometimes I wear dresses, sometimes it’s jeans. Some people call me “Brad,” some “Brittany.” He him, she/her … whatever. My parents see me as their son, and that’s cool. I know who I am.’ There are many trans kids like Brad. Suicidal ideation or self-harm — particularly when connected with a need for validation — are unusual and always a sign of a serious psychological problem to be addressed through therapy.”
I think this approach would have been possible for gender therapists and TRAs — especially if it had also been a common theme in the media and in online teen hangouts like tumblr. Nothing ruled it out. I’m not sure, though, if it would still be possible. Probably not.