Puberty blockers to be banned indefinitely for under-18s across UK
Puberty blockers to be banned indefinitely for under-18s across UK
www.theguardian.com
Puberty blockers to be banned indefinitely for under-18s across UK
73 comments
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Only for gender dysmorphia.
Which is still stupid to ban it for that, but a lot better than a total ban.
I don't know why people are so worried about it. I was over 6 feet tall and shaving before I was a teenager, if I had been given the option to press pause for a few years I would have jumped on it.
There is pretty much zero negative side effects to puberty blockers, it literally just delays it and early puberty is an issue and one that continues to trend in the wrong direction.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/puberty-starting-earlier-treatment-children-rcna125441
Obviously it can be much worse for girls than boys, but it was still fucking weird being a child and having people twice your age assume you were a peer.
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I don't know why people are so worried about it
As far as I understand it, there are two main concerns that people have.
- There is very limited data regarding clinical proof that the long term use of puberty blockers is 100% reversible in cases that block puberty during the typical years that you would go through it. Traditionally, puberty blockers would be used in cases where children start puberty at extremely young ages, in these cases the puberty blockers would be withdrawn at an age typical for a child to start puberty.
- Leading on from point 1. Many people don't trust children to make decisions that could impact them for the rest of their lives. Some parents are concerned they will be met with their child who is now a young adult to be asked "why the hell did you let me make that decision, don't you know the brain is still developing at that age?". I would not want to be held accountable for the countless stupid things I said or beliefs I held at a young age, so I can see why it is a concern.
Personally, I'm broadly in support of trans rights and what people want to do when they're adults is their own business (as long as they're not hurting anyone), but I think allowing a child to make a decision that may impact them for the rest of their lives is a grey area to say the least. Until conclusive evidence is available I'd draw the line for a child at anything that's not 100% fully reversible.
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Traditionally, puberty blockers would be used in cases where children start puberty at extremely young ages
Puberty blockers have been prescribed to transgender youth since the 90s, they're use in combating gender dysphoria is just as much a part of the puberty blocker tradition as their use in combating early puberty.
I would not want to be held accountable for the countless stupid things I said or beliefs I held at a young age, so I can see why it is a concern.
This subtle notion that slips into this discourse that being trans is akin to a make-belief thing is deeply frustrating. No, children were not just being given puberty blockers because they suddenly declared that they weren't their assigned gender. Getting puberty blockers required a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, something I can assure you is not an easy thing to get in this country, and even then still needed a specialist's approval.
This is the worst part of this 'debate', people are led to believe that it's the child deciding for themselves that they get puberty blockers despite the very stringent requirements on their use for trans youths. The point of this entire ordeal is not to protect kids (puberty blocker usage has a 4% regret rate), it's to build up the idea that no amount of safeguards can make the prescribing of trans healthcare acceptable to people you don't believe have full bodily autonomy. Where this goes from here is not looking for other areas in which our medical system is failing children, it's expanding the list of trans people who don't have full bodily autonomy. The Cass Review has already said that autistic people need special consideration.
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I think allowing a child to make a decision that may impact them for the rest of their lives is a grey area to say the least.
- It's not a child making the decision. It's typically adults making the decision for the sake of the child, and based on the child's needs. The child is involved but it's not like the adults just go along with a childish whim. The decision is made with caution and care and expert consultation, and it is not made lightly.
- Deciding to go ahead with puberty is also a decision that impacts a child for the rest of their life. In cases of gender dysmorphia this can cause psychological trauma that won't just clear up, and prolong the agony by forcing the person to live into adulthood with a body that feels deeply wrong. At this point, transitioning can be more difficult because the body may already have taken on pronounced characteristics associated with the wrong gender.
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There is very limited data regarding clinical proof that the long term use of puberty blockers is 100% reversible
There is about 40 years of real life use, and I think a good 20 years of study before that?
How much data from clinical studies and real world use do you need to feel comfortable?
Many people don’t trust children to make decisions that could impact them for the rest of their lives
But the permanent effects of puberty blockers are negligible...
What do you think is permanent about them?
I don't think you understand what Puberty Blockers are....
You seem to be wanting to ban something completely different.
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Vaccines can have devastating permanent side effects. Should parents no longer vaccinate their children?
The answer for both is:
Whichever option does less harm should be taken. A delayed puberty, despite potential long-term risks does less harm than a trans child going through the "wrong" puberty.
Besides, due to the start of puberty having a pretty large range there should in theory be little harm until the age of 14 or so. And at that age children are much more capable of deciding on medical treatments than as preteens.
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If puberty blockers are not reversible and if the person decides that they are not trans in later life, then the consequence would be that they are stuck in a body that doesn't match their self-image.
If that sounds bad to you, well ...
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This you at 12?
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except for use in clinical trials
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Let's hope that allows many kids access to the care they need. If there's a real concern about the safety of puberty blockers, then clinical trials are exactly what's needed to find out. I'm not entirely convinced this is really due to medical concern though. It smells like Labour trying to out-bigot the Conservatives, just to prove they're not lefties any more.
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My understanding is by medical standards, the evidence is pretty low quality, which is why GnRH agonists aren't approved by the EMA, MHRA, FDA, or NICE for gender dysphoria.
It highlights a wider issue in medicine though, the obsession with randomised controlled trials, which is basically the only evidence the GRADE method considers "high quality". We are seeing exactly the same problem with MDMA assisted therapy, any therapy where blinding is difficult is dismissed by the medical establishment. NICE dismissed (es)ketamine for depression for the same reason. Add to that the fact that GnRH agonists are off patent, so there's no incentive for industry to fund studies.
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In a message directly to them, and referencing having come out as gay, he said: “I know it’s not easy being a trans kid in our country today, the trans community is at the wrong end of all of the statistics for mental ill health, self-harm and suicide."
I just wanted to quote this bit of the article, as I feel this is often used in bad faith arguments such as: "I don't hate trans people, I just want to protect them from the bad outcomes that come with being trans."
Do these people ever stop to think that it may be the way that trans people are treated, talked about, and denied essential medical care that contributes to poor mental health outcomes? Maybe if we didn't treat people shittily, they wouldn't feel shit.
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Will this finally settle the debate so we can focus on more pressing issues?
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It has settled the debate - our government hates trans people, and is actively withholding our human rights and going out of its way to harm us.
If that isn't a pressing issue to you, you are part of the problem and a transphobe.
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No because this was clearly the wrong decision to come to.
#SorryNotSorry you can't silence the LGBT community that easily.
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It will increase suicides in transgender youth
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Is your life a debate to be settled? Could you kill yourself and settle that debate for me?
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God no. People made their mind up that children should be able to permanently fuck up their body and hormones.
That's a hill they will die on.
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Their bodies get "fucked up" by hormones if they do nothing. We all get "fucked up" on hormones to some extent, it's just that puberty blockers allow more opportunity to decide which way to get "fucked up." If you truly wanted to help "brainwashed trenders" not "fuck up their bodies," you'd support puberty blockers. It gives them the most time to decide with as few side effects as possible.
You think transitioning is what happens when treatment fails? You think it's some sort of unfortunate outcome? The data paints a clear picture: transition is the best outcome for us. No other treatment works, and as far as treatments for psychological phenomenon go, it's one of the best.
I wish I could say you're dying on a hill, but you're not. You're throwing screaming children into a pit and burning them alive. You'll face no consequence for your humble contribution outside of possible guilt, but nothing will undo the harm.
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73 comments
Jackass
Who said that? I couldn't find it in the article.
No, sorry it from an interview he did. The full quote is
Reported in the financial times, but also quoted in the Wikipedia bio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Streeting
Could you explain to me how biologically this isn't factual? The baby doesn't pop out with a penis and the doctor go "congratulations! It's a girl with a penis!"
Fucking delusional, you want to shift your hormones and swap sexy bits as an adult? More power to you. Wanna let undeveloped children cause irreversible damage to their body because they had a phase where they liked to cross dress? Get fucked, it's absurd we let 18 year olds even apply to college or vote.
1 in 1,700 people are born with both sexual organs.
If extrapolated to the population of the United States that is 10% of the population of Nebraska that cannot be defined in this manner.
Therefore, that statement is not biologically factual as thousands of people have both.
Since this is a UK forum, the UK has 40,000 citizens who cannot be defined male or female in this manner.
Onto your point about manipulating gender at a young age.
The largest number of gender reassignment surgeries are performed on the population I just described, without their consent, at birth. And believe it or not often doctors get it wrong.
Someone assigned female by a doctor as a baby, well turns out mentally they are a boy, a boy who had their penis removed at birth. That might have some affect on a person, I think you'd agree.
So with that in mind, I agree with you about one thing, that non-reversible gender decisions should not be made without the consent of the individual being assigned a gender, as doctors are currently doing to intersex babies on a regular basis.
So can we stop pretending that gender reassignement is the problem? It's just a wedge issue designed and promoted to keep the lower classes divided so that we don't realize what the rich are doing to us and this planet. I am not your enemy. We are allies. The enemy is up/down, not left/right.
Transgender people just want to exist. Is it an unreasonable demand to exist and be acknowledged? I think not.
Sex isn't gender and puberty blockers don't cause irreversible damage.
You're a shit person who's spewing other people's opinions and thus hate, because you're too intellectually lazy to read about these things to grasp the even the basic concepts being discussed.
So please refrain from going around calling people delusional until you spend at least a single minute reading up on what you pretend to understand.
There's a reason the term "transgender" is used over "transsexual".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex%E2%80%93gender_distinction
What's absurd is how you've formed a strong negative opinion despite it being pretty obvious you're completely clueless about the details of the topic.
Kids aren't just given puberty blockers immediately at their request. A lot of work is done prior, with the parent(s) and medical and mental health providers determining the validity of the situation and working with the child to determine the course of treatment, if any.
It's fine to disagree, but at least educate yourself first. Otherwise you're just another bigot.
This hilarious argument if wasn't just a bad faith argument should be enough for everyone be in favor of puberty blockers, to avoid avoid irreversible change while the person matures and can decide what one wants to do.
Do you know what also causes irreversible damage? Puberty in trans kids
Do you actually have a single thought that's not an hysterical strawman argument?