State broadcaster says keep doing it
The CBC frowns on all this medical questioning of puberty blockers and the like.
Last month, the Cass Review findings led to a ban on the prescription of puberty-suppressing hormones except for youth enrolled in clinical research.
That’s a move away from the standard of care supported by many international medical bodies, including the Canadian Pediatric Society (CPS), the American Academy of Pediatrics and World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Though several European countries including Sweden have also restricted access to puberty blockers and other medical treatments for youth.
Could that be because “many international medical bodies” lost their goddam minds?
The report cites a systematic review of evidence, commissioned as part of the Cass Review, which found “a lack of high-quality research” that puberty blockers can help young people with gender dysphoria.
While experts in the field say more studies should be done, Canadian doctors who spoke to CBC News disagree with the finding that there isn’t enough evidence puberty blockers can help.
How about the evidence that puberty blockers can harm?
It’s so interesting that so many medical professionals seem determined to err on the side of action, when action is interfering with children’s puberties. You’d think more would want to err on the side of caution.
“There actually is a lot of evidence, just not in the form of randomized clinical trials,” said Dr. Jake Donaldson, a family physician in Calgary who treats transgender patients, including prescribing puberty blockers and hormone therapy in some cases.
“That would be kind of like saying for a pregnant woman, since we lacked randomized clinical trials for the care of people in pregnancy, we’re not going to provide care for you.… It’s completely unethical.”
Except it’s not kind of like that. Not even slightly. Pregnancy is not comparable to wanting to change sex. Pregnancy is not comparable to thinking one is the opposite sex. Pregnancy is a very real, very researched, very well understood physical state. Gender dysphoria is a very contested, barely researched, very confused and confusing mental or psychological state. The two are not comparable at all. The idiocy of saying they are hints at how we got here.
The CBC then goes on and on and on in its defense of transing teenagers. It’s shockingly reckless or worse.
Additionally, Dr Cass’s report does not say “we’re not going to provide care for” these kids. Saying “This popular treatment model is unsupported by evidence and can be harmful” is nothing like saying “let’s stop treating these people.”
True.
Also, I bet there are actually lots of randomised and large scale trials and meta studies on care of pregnant women.
Did CBC really list WPATH as a credible professional body after the recent release of their internal comms? Any journalist giving them unquestioned credence these days needs to go work at Burger King. WOATH is a trans industry lobby group, not a professional body.
Doctor with vested interest defends interest. I bet nobody saw that coming.
OB, you missed the lovely “people in pregnancy” phrase…
IEEE Spectrum (engineering trade mag) had a recent article about some technical advance that could help “pregnant people”.
It’s everywhere.
Well said.
I did miss the “people in pregnancy”. The people in idiocy make it SO hard to keep up.