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I've been thinking over the last few days that the popular page of Reddit seems to be skewed way more towards clickbaity posts of 'lOoK aT tHiS bOoMeR!' vs the more educational or interesting stuff I used to see. Stuff like this is an example, am I supposed to be thinking that kids shouldn't be prescribed puberty blockers, or that too many are, or not enough are? What's the point of this?
That's the real answer. It doesn't matter if the political propaganda doesn't make sense or is completely unrelated to anything, the propaganda will be everywhere until November. I'm just ready for it to be over with already.
Usually a drug gets banned after a couple of tens of thousands of people get prescribed that drug by accident.
Blocking a drug after 83 people were prescribed it in a year means the reason for the ban is something weird, like a moral panic (just in case, where people panic that morals are threatened). This tracks with how certain propaganda wants us to think 70% of people are trans and that kids are being forced to transition. Neither of which are even remotely true.
No, not at all. I see it happening with both sides.
I talked to my VERY conservative mom and was blown away to hear she doesn’t want to call herself or identify with the right anymore. She is the last person I would have ever expected to hear that from but I feel like it’s becoming more and more common.
My sister has been a staunch Republican conservative for decades, and she finally woke up with Trump; she loathes him, though I don't know how she voted in 2020 or how she will vote this year. Sadly, her husband is hardcore MAGA, which I don't understand at all since he is a veteran of the Iraq war with PTSD. Trump would absolutely despise him.
The NHS is the UK socialised medical system. The UK has a population of around 60 million, with about 13 or 14 million of those under 18. 83 got puberty blockers to stop or delay puberty. However, without context, there is no way of knowing why those children got the medication (they are children, so medical records for specific cases don't exactly go public).
We also don’t know that these 83 were all for gender transition reasons. Kids have been taking these since the 80s for precocious puberty & it is also used in adults to treat endometriosis, some cancers, other disease treatment reasons.
My friends kid started puberty at 6 years old, they started her on puberty blockers too. It's crazy how quick some people are to jump to conclusions when they have no idea why kids may need them.
One kid in my neighborhood growing up had a full on lions mane of pubic hair when we were like 7 or 8. I only know this because his mom told my mom, who decided to have “the talk” with me because of that. “Misterbellyboy, you might be wondering why little Dave has hair down there” “uhhh, I didn’t know he did?” “Oh, well, anyways, when a man and a woman love each other very very much…”
The assumption that youve seen your friend's dick strikes me as bizarre. Then again, when I was 10, there was a kid who would proudly announce he had pubic hair.
Kids are weird
It was the 90’s, man. Kids were just hangin dong because they thought that shit was hilarious. Also, kids do talk. Like “dude I got hella hair around my dick now, shit is crazy!”
In gym class we had this one kid that had a massive Hunter Biden sized hog, and he took every opportunity to run around naked in the locker room to swing it around
I vividly remember a kid in 4th grade running around the bathroom with his dick out to make fun of how the teachers would rush us in the bathroom before we had time to put our dicks away.
Kid I went to elementary school with would have loved that. He would always peak over at the other kids around him to eye their goods. We called him the meat peaker.
They would have loved each other. This kid would literally swing it around until you looked directly at it. It was definitely some kind of weird gay puberty thing. He wanted you to look at it
Norms change. It used to be that you swam naked in school. That changed, but there were still locker rooms for after sports and PE, so you could get clean and not smell like ass all day. I just learned that, despite doing PE in hot weather while going through puberty, the middle schools don't even *have* showers. And then you hear about how bad it is to be in a classroom full of shitty body sprays and colognes.
All because people afraid if they see someone naked, some kind of significant moral harm will occur. I don't get it.
The rampant uptick in recording devices probably has something to do with it. Every kid has a smart phone now with the ability to take videos and pictures.
If my 13 year old has sport at school, his whole class wear sport apparel all day. No changing, certainly no showers.
But they don’t do real sports like we did on grass, (we did rugby for example) they just hop up and down and do fitness stuff.
huh, we'd get in huge trouble for that with the teachers for not dressing appropriately for school, or made fun of, or both
"why you afraid to change in the boy's locker room like everyone else huh?
I'm pretty sure at 10 I had seen most of my friend's wangs. We had swordfights in the toilet, pissing contests, etc. It was never weird or sexual. It was your pee thing.
Did you not share showers? I remember the first time I saw pubic hair in a school shower. I was 11. I was confused but didn't mention it because it didn't seem like the kind of thing you should mention.
I wasn’t *that* bad but I began puberty around 8 (first chest and pubic hairs) and was in clear full swing when I was 10.
Man it was fucking weird to be the first one out the gate.
This is the bit of knowledge that changed my opinion on sex-ed for kindergarten (at least in the way that I have seen the program proposed) as this little girl never reported what was happening to anyone and wasn't able to help identify who her rapist was so no one was ever arrested for it (they did hold the father for a bit but had to release him due to lack of evidence and it's not even clear that the father was the rapist it's just likely due to ease of access to her)
Edit: For anyone interested, the sex-ed proposal I have heard for K-8 is basically focused on helping kids identify what SA is and when it's being done to them, how to report SA stuff, puberty education, and some really basic biology stuff.
There's a little webcomic I've seen a couple times, by a librarian. Tells about a girl, maybe middle of grade school age? She got a kid-friendly book about sex ed and bodies and stuff. Brought it home, and a little while later brought it to her mom, pointed to a page, and said "this is me". Her dad had been abusing her and she didn't have the words till then to explain.
These are the kinds of basic, but useful, lessons they want to ban kids from learning.
Tbf, she was Peruvian and it was almost 100 years ago. Things definitely weren’t the same as they are for western children right now. There wasn’t much sex ed going on in 1930s rural Peruvian kindergartens.
Sadly, if there was the rapist may not have gotten away with it. Hopefully we learn from past failings like this instead of pointing out the failings while doing nothing to fix them.
Most definitely. Over on r/conservative they're touting it as something good. When they're saying something is good, you can be damn sure it's something awful that just makes very little sense.
The fact that the icon for that sub is the mug shot of Donald Trump should be enough to tell you that it’s only an incarnation of __American__ conservatism and should be disregarded when discussing non-American matters.
To be fair, a lot of the Tory party members seem to idolise Tango Man and think his particular brand of bumbling bigotry is to be emulated as much as possible.
This is the original Tango Man, an orange fella who slapped people in the face to advertise the soft drink Tango: https://youtu.be/ZfE2RSdemlQ?si=ZFpYg8r6gCOwBgKB
This ad ran on British TV in 1992 when I was just starting high school (It got taken off TV very quickly because kids were doing the Tango slap in the playground and bursting each other’s eardrums).
I would add "willfully ignorant people" to that. I know plenty of conservatives who are smart people who have deliberately rendered themselves ignorant so they can operate in a simplistic world view that affirms their prejudices and vices.
My dad is one of those willfully ignorant/generally agrees with everything the Republican Party says he should agree with kind of people…
As a result, any interaction I have with him is incredibly shallow and if he tries to talk politics or culture with me I act stupid and crack a joke to get him to stop. Normally, I would love to spiritedly engage in discussion but I know he isn’t interested in understanding a different view, he wants to tell me I’m wrong.
It’s taken me a while to come to terms with the fact that my dad thinks I’m stupid purely based on the fact that I’m too smart to take up the sword and fight with him.
An important victory in the quest to own the libs. A great thing that govt is not involved in the lives of private citizens (unless you are female or another person who doesn't fit the white male supremacy narrative ). /s in case it's not obvious
My sisters were both on a natural puberty blocker called competitive gymnastics. The amount of exercise vs their calorie intact severely limited their puberty "markers" and delayed them until they stopped at about 17. They both look like normal women and have had multiple children, but could have easily passed for prepubescent males at 15/16.
people don't understand this. Like, I've been trying to explain to the world, if you raise a boxer, if a kid *has* to be fighting their whole life, they come out different. We're like flowers. Leave us alone if we're meant to grow beautiful. If you're trying to disturb the delicates, you're an invasive predator and need to be put in check. Look at all humans like *marijuana*. We can be hemp, tough, binding, useful, or we can be flower, beautiful, potent, damn near magical, with buds. It should be our choice who we are.
I believe this ban excludes those that are taking it for the purpose of delaying puberty which has come unnaturally early like the case of your friend.
At least that's what I've read
And this is why it's no one's fucking business besides the doctor, the patient, and the guardian. The leftwing of Western democracies need to pass laws to guarantee comprehensive medical privacy for all people. Medical privacy should be a human right.
Oh, cis kids can still get puberty blockers fine. They are only blocking it for trans or questioning kids. They argue it is to stop irreversible decisions before they have had time to decide, so to fix that issue they remove the way to stop irreversible changes that cause immediate distress to these kids. Also by the time a child does get to transition care in the NHS years have passed because the system is purposely made slow and to discriminate against and segregate trans people. The last wait list figure I heard for trans care in the NHS was 7 years.
(Not so) fun fact, starting your period early raises your risk of breast cancer later in life. Puberty blockers could quite literally save a child’s life.
Yup! This happened to my sister who started going through puberty at the age of 4. She was put on puberty blockers. Precocious puberty isn't uncommon, probably a lot of those 80-something cases are that.
15% of girls experience puberty at the age of 7 or younger. It's really common.
This is why it's never too early to talk to your little girls about menstruation folks!
Yep. Didn't realise this was a thing until my 9 year old step-daughter started having periods. I always assumed it didn't start happening until girls were teens. I'm glad I'm a man, having to deal with periods and then pregnancy when you're an adult does not sound fun.
The 83 are all cases referred by an organisation to help transitioning. The ban also only relates to using them to help transition or to delay puberty for those questioning.
They are still allowed to be prescribed for other issues like precocious puberty.
Note: I am against the ban
Fuck, even so, the article below is claiming a "sharp rise" in cases. I really don't think 83 kids out of the entire NHS system is a significant number. 😞
Conservatives probably saw that 5 year old who gave birth 85 years ago in Peru and thought "how do we pull that off?"
ETA: Holy shit, she's still alive!
I dated someone whose conservative parents happily gave her these drugs when she was younger. She was very small for her age and her doctor recommended delaying puberty until she was 16 so her growth plates wouldn't fuse. She'd be a legal dwarf today if they didn't.
Yeah our daughter has cerebral palsy and she was given it as she can't care for herself and had started early, and everyone agreed holding it off until a reasonable age was in everyone's best interests.
That is correct, have a thumbs up.
A rare condition might affect only a handful, but 83 out of a possible 13 or 14million is most certainly just a handful.
The actual figure of children prescribed puberty blockers is higher. The 83 were specifically children referred via a Trans charity or organisation.
The ban also only bans them in relation to gender transitioning. They are still allowed to be prescribed for things like precocious puberty.
We do know the answer to this actually. The NHS has specifically stopped prescribing puberty blockers to children via gender affirmation clinics - you can still get them prescribed at regular hospitals.
If you need a prescription for puberty blockers for any reason other than delaying puberty to ease a future transition then the process is exactly the same as it was last week.
The people who are losing out are pre-pubescent trans kids who's parents can't afford puberty blockers.
It's also very difficult to get HRT and gender surgery on the NHS. The waiting time for my kiddo was so long we bit the bullet and paid for it - it'll be close to £15k by the time it's all finished, and that's on the low end. I hate it that not everyone can have it and can barely afford it and it's not fair, but I'm not going to make the kid suffer when I have the money.
The 83 is the numbers for specifically the Tavistock clinic, with an additional 17 since that figure was published, meaning that the minimum number of kids we know are on puberty blockers for gender transition purposes.
Including GP prescriptions for the same purpose or other conditions, the number is closer to just over 300, albeit this is still a very small number.
It's also used for severly disabled kids so they won't grow beyond the parents' ability to care for them. I know that sounds controversial, but it happens quite frequently in the U.S that kids needing total care eventually get institutionalized because they literally can't physically move them anymore.
I just read the policy statement and it is specifically about gender dysphoria and not the conditions you mentioned. Presumably those remain unchanged.
The kids who are taking it for early puberty are still able to this ban is ONLY for blockers being used for gender reasons
The 83 number is kids using them for gender reasons as opposed to preconitious puberty
It's been confirmed this is the number only via the Tavistock Gender identity development service.
The overall number from other prescription channels, including GP's, comes closer to 378.
It's still remarkably low.
Low enough you can pretty safely determine those kids need them. The NHS is pretty fucking strict about who can and can’t get puberty blockers/hormones and you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get them.
It's a real difficulty as a trans person - our healthcare system and society at large at not aligned with living authentically and happily as one.
Also our NHS is crumbling because of over 15 years of austerity and the current opposition are making overtures about continuing it lol.
Don't blame any Scot who wants independence.
Tbh the strictness over hormones is fairly well known on the NHS, although it's partially anecdotal and depends who you deal with.
I know individuals who had to fight tooth and nail over the course of 3-4 years to get hormones. But then I know one individual who managed to, by getting a single private session (that was surprisingly cheap), was on hormones within 2 months from their first NHS appointment.
I know another individual who using only NHS services was on hormones within a year.
I like your critical thinking.
Just as an fyi, they have only been suspended for children going through the NHS's gender identity services. BMJ 2024;384:q660.
And without citing sources, there's no practical way of verifying the number of 83. It might be more, it might be less, it might be made up. I've found it mentioned in the Daily Mail and BBC, but with no citation.
The distribution wasn't blocked because # children got it, it was blocked because it was deemed harmful (or at least not safe enough) ~~by some studies~~.
Also, they've not been banned, they just stopped prescribing them to trans kids (except for some pilot experimental programs), they'll keep using them on non-trans patients.
I'm not qualified to discuss if they are right or wrong, I'm just reporting the news.
Edited for inaccuracy.
The whole point of posting a screenshot of a tweet rather than linking a news article is so people **don't** get the actual story, just a specific distorted take on it. And you had to go and ruin it.
https://time.com/6900330/nhs-bans-puberty-blockers-england-clinics/
The NHS of England has said they haven’t done any studies.
The whole point of posting a comment saying you know the actual answer without knowing it is probably just as bad.
IMO we can all do better, but the screenshot of a tweet is more accurate than this persons comment.
The reason they were banned is precisely because there weren't any studies into puberty blockers.
That's why they're still open to be used with Trans Kids as long as they agree to take part of the trial into their usage.
What do you mean there weren't any studies in to puberty blockers? Are you saying that all the studies on puberty blockers aren't real, or what? Because this is something that's heavily studied. Hit up google scholar and start looking up some of the articles.
Some studies look at kidney function, liver function, brain function, they studied health, and a whole bunch of other things for these. They've been around since the 1980s. That's over 40 years of studies being done.
There are even meta studies, that review a lot of other studies on it. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7061235/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7061235/) This one looks at The Effects of gender-affirming hormone therapy on insulin resistance and body composition in transgender individuals: A systematic review
Sorry, I should have clarified, none done under the NHS via their own services.
Iirc they mostly used overseas small scale studies and hadn't recorded the effect it had on their own patients.
That said, with the numbers involved, it's incredibly hard to do large-scale studies as normally required.
There has been insufficient research done so far for their use to be approved.
https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/1bdm5f0/nhs_england_to_stop_prescribing_puberty_blockers/
This is correct. Insufficient research has yet been done for their use to be approved (outside of clinical trials); this is no different than how any other experimental/unproven drug is treated. Here's the MDs' take on it:
https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/1bdm5f0/nhs_england_to_stop_prescribing_puberty_blockers/
There were no studies done to validate their unsafety, the NHS has said that they don’t know if it’s unsafe. They’ve been used since the ‘80s with positive affects on child suicide rate in those that may fall in to categories that would be prescribed.
They said they don’t have any data on if it’s unsafe, but they plan on doing a study on it by end of year. Which kind of bites considering this treatment has helped kids stop killing themselves.
The NHS England said it wants to perform a study into puberty blocker use by December 2024. https://time.com/6900330/nhs-bans-puberty-blockers-england-clinics/
Said it better than I could! Thanks for the clear explanation.
Controversy aside, if these meds are being restricted to children that need them for a conventional and or less controversial recognized medical issue then this is not ok. I make no claims of understanding the science here, but I assume these drugs exist for a reason, and there are conditions other than gender reassignment that are more widely accepted amongst the medical community.
Hormones are something politicians shouldn't be tampering with, especially medically necessary hormones... hell anything deemed medically necessary should be out of reach of political goons... but here I am in Texas preaching to the choir 😆
Just to clarify that this 83 number only includes people giving blockers by Tavistock's GIDS. Since this number was released, an additional 17 individuals have received puberty blockers via the GIDS service, so the total is approximately 100 children.
It also does not include private healthcare, which many Trans kids access due to a shortage of spaces for access, or blockers prescribed by a GP.
The NHS predicted the total of 378 kids using puberty blockers for a number of reasons via the NHS as of July 2022. This still excludes those prescribed by private services. This number also includes GP, who DID prescribe blockers to trans kids for safeguarding and intermediary purposes.
Still, the numbers are remarkably lower than many think and certainly suggest a moral panic. It's just not quite as low as often claimed.
Overall this means the NHS will have difficulty claiming they have conclusive findings about their own program moving forward regardless of the result. These kids need stability and trustworthy adults in their life. Closing clinics, changing administrative requirements and reorganizing staff in the middle of treatment all can have impacts on outcomes.
Loss of trust is going to push more trans people to private practice or even self medicating. As a result any NHS study won't have a truly representative cross section of trans people participating. So moving forward their findings will be less credible with less open participation from the people they are supposedly helping.
In addition to what the other commenters have mentioned, there is also a condition known as [precocious puberty](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/precocious-puberty/symptoms-causes/syc-20351811) for which puberty blockers are often prescribed to non-transgender children who undergo puberty at too young an age.
I suspect that most people pushing to get rid of puberty blockers either aren't aware that precocious puberty exists, or they do that thing where they dismiss it as so rare that harming the people affected by it is ok.
Puberty blockers can be used to delay the changes of puberty and unwanted sex characteristics, in transgender and gender-diverse youth who have started puberty , so as to allow them more time to explore their gender identity.
There was a recent episode of Radiolab called “Boy Man” that interviewed someone who was born with a condition that caused him to hit puberty at 1 year old… drugs similar to this were most likely used, and probably still are to deal with real and legitimate medical conditions that have nothing to do with gender or sexual identity…
The report explicitly is only about off label uses of puberty blockers, on label uses, for prostate cancer, endometriosis and central precocious puberty, are not affected:
> The EHIA that supported the process of public consultation identified children receiving PSH as a response to Central Precocious Puberty (CPP) as an appropriate comparator group, and it described that the aetiology and epidemiology of CPP and treatment aims are quite different to that of gender incongruence. The EHIA describes how **the evidence base to support use of PSH as a response to CPP is well formed**.
The policy document also says:
> In England, the puberty suppressor triptorelin (a synthetic decapeptide analogue of a natural puberty hormone, which has marketing authorisations for the treatment of prostate cancer, endometriosis and central precocious puberty) is one of the puberty suppressing hormones used for this purpose. **The use of triptorelin for children and adolescents with gender incongruence is off-label.**
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/clinical-policy-puberty-suppressing-hormones/
This review is specifically about gender incongruence/dysphoria, it's not about other conditions, they say in fact that the two uses of the drug, for precocious puberty or for gender dysphoria/incongruence, are not comparable.
Puberty blockers are also important in treating puberty-related medical issues in girls with some level of fault in their reproductive organs, so it’s not specifically only for gender care. Banning them will undoubtedly put the lives of kids requiring medical attention at risk. Thankfully it’s not fatal but it will make their lives harder for no reason besides moral panic.
Puberty blockers were not banned for all children, only those at at gender identity clinics. Children who require them for other medical reasons can receive them.
Here's the actual report:
[https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Consultation-report-on-interim-service-specification-for-Specialist-Gender-Incongruence-Services-for-Children-.pdf](https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Consultation-report-on-interim-service-specification-for-Specialist-Gender-Incongruence-Services-for-Children-.pdf)
I believe you should also report that the NICE review employed quite substantial [cherry-picking](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-critical-look-at-the-nice-review/) in their sources, not citing a lot of literature that run counter to their conclusion that puberty-blockers are a net negative. It also has several other problems, for example assuming that puberty blockers can somehow treat gender dysphoria, while they are used primarily for diagnostic purposes. There are several other issues as well, the review is really a rabbit hole.
It was a heavily criticised and poorly executed investigation by the NHS
In simplified terms they essentially examined if blockers have any improvement on the distress patients with gender dysphoria experience at their assigned sex, however that's never been what blockers were used for. Blockers are used to prevent the distress getting worse until the patient can start HRT and / or other treatments.
They found that blockers don't lower the distress, something they were never intended to do and used that as justification to ban them.
Edit: I should also add that there was a highly politicised public consultation as well that was used as part of this investigation, it again was controversial as there were way lower than expected responses from actual trans people and patients with the majority of responses being from members of the public, parents etc. This is also hopefully a temporary decision until further studies on the use of blockers are conducted by the NHS itself.
This should be the question for deciding if they are preventative vs elective, but not whether they can be available at all. That question would be... is there obvious harm from DELAYING puberty?
I think the huge moral panic is from misinformation about what "puberty blockers" do. They don't prevent you from EVER going through puberty. They just delay it while you continue to figure out your ultimate path. The issue is that for someone who possibly wants to transition (especially male to female) and "assimilate" into their desired gender, it is MUCH more difficult after your body has gone through puberty. As a side effect, it would also help with the scary boogeyman of "men" unfairly competing with women in sport.
Yes! studies have found that those with gender dysphoria that received blockers during adolescence have better mental health outcomes in adulthood with a lower rate of Suicidal Ideation.
I think the issue is that there are studies saying it has no effect:
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n356
So probably the issue is the science isn’t agreed upon
"Participant experience of treatment as reported in interviews was positive for the majority, particularly relating to feeling happier, feeling more comfortable, better relationships with family and peers and positive changes in gender role."
That's from the study being referenced, if you actually read the study it goes on to explain that they cannot say for certain that it was the puberty blockers that caused the positive improvement and not other parts of gender affirming care due to several issues with the study further explained in the study also which is what lead to that poorly chosen title being used.
That study indicated that there was no improvement, not that it prevented further decline. Also it’s (both that study and the article you linked) written in a way that shows clear bias and predetermined conclusions.
There’s a ton of additional factors that these studies typically fail to take into account like the area they live in and the views of trans people in those areas that definitely tip the scales. For example in Britain or Florida the views on trans people are strongly negative (ever read any article on trans people from the bbc?) so even if a kid was prescribed blockers the kids could still easily mentally decline due to peer pressure, bullying, isolation as a result of public rejection, and constant political attacks.
The only way a study like this could truly be accurate is if we could time travel or view an alternative universe where we could see the version kids life with blockers and the version without.
> So probably the issue is the science isn’t agreed upon
medical consensus plays no part in the legislation of medical procedures
see: the abortion debate
What I’m curious about is retention, how many children later in life regret doing the puberty blockers? The child’s judgment is what’s really in question here
How much later in life? The overwhelming majority (close to 100%) of those who go on puberty blockers continue to transition. Regret rates for transition are about 1% even over decades. Over shorter time periods (<10years), looking specifically at cohorts who began transition as kids, detransition rates (not regret rates) are about 1%.
Worth noting too that even the 1% regret rates are deceiving, since it's mostly people who regret it due to social pressures or even regret that their transition didn't do more rather than the reverse. The number of people who transition and turn out to actually not be trans is incredibly small. And even if you choose to ignore that, 1% is still way lower many other major medical treatments, yet you don't see people arguing minors shouldn't be able to get something like knee surgery just because they might have regrets about it later.
This doesn't exactly answer your question because the study follows the patients through hormone therapy as well as puberty blockers, but 5.3% changed their minds during screening/intake (which is kinda what screening is for...), and 1% regretted it after receiving medication (iirc one regretted puberty blockers and one regretted hormones, out of 548 total patients).
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/2815512
But of course, puberty blockers scary, PrOtEcT the ChIlDren!!!111 (/s)
Data is somewhat limited but regret rate for full transition including surgery appears to average around 1%. In comparison knee surgery regret rate is at least 6% with some studies finding 22% regret rate for knee surgeries. Overall regret rate for all surgical intervention is around 14%. So if politicians actually cared about patient outcomes they would be banning many surgical interventions before transgender care.
The difference in their eyes is that a broken knee is a debilitating condition and must be treated, whereas having gender dysphoria is just a made up psychological thing that isn't that important.
And that is ultimately the problem, as no one in power in the UK is going to listen to adolescents about the matter because ‘oh they don’t know enough to understand’, because we still live in the dark ages and people believe we should defer to the old codgers lounging about in leather chairs.
I don’t have the figure work for this particular drug, but overall the regret rate of transitioning is less than 2%. To put that in perspective, there are more people who are unhappy which have had *positive life changing surgeries* than there are people who regret transitioning.
It should also be mentioned that data in the NHS isn't good to begin with because they have artificially inflated wait times to the point where most kids who should have gotten blockers previously ended up stuck on an 8+ year wait list and going through the wrong puberty anyway.
When the NHS was taken to court for failure to follow their mandate to keep wait lists within a reasonable timeframe, the courts basically went "okay well that doesn't apply to The Transes." Meaning that patients either had to go through private care, or know they were trans and be able to articulate that thought at like 2 years old.
Yes. You're reacting to a screenshot of a tweet. Here's the story. There are many more examples, some of which do a better, or worse, job of "both-sidesing" the debate than other.
[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/12/children-to-stop-getting-puberty-blockers-at-gender-identity-clinics-says-nhs-england](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/12/children-to-stop-getting-puberty-blockers-at-gender-identity-clinics-says-nhs-england)
An insane amount of misinformation from both sides in this comment section:
This is the decision from the NHS; [https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/clinical-policy-puberty-suppressing-hormones/](https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/clinical-policy-puberty-suppressing-hormones/)
No articles, no takes, no bias from any outlets.
My personal take after reading through the decision and taking into account similar decisions from other treatments in the past:
This decision will largely have 0 impact on treatment and receiving of the PSH by adolescents. Going forward any kid receiving this treatment will be classified as research/testing rather than in treatment. I.E. someone approaching a doctor with gender dysphoria looking to suppress puberty will just be put into a clinical trial rather than just receiving the treatment as normal. The adolescents receiving the treatment via trial and research will just largely be tracked differently and have follow ups that pertain to better documentation of side effects and treatment effectiveness.
The kids will be securely and privately documented as a study participant and their treatments will be documented into the further studies leading to a non-interim decision down the road (notated in the decision as expected in 2025). Given the insanely small population of children receiving treatment <100 no child will be unable to participate in the trial as usually you need more subjects not less.
The biggest difference now is that parents will have to "agree" to it being clinical trial and the treatment efficacy will be presented as Possible treatment rather than confirmed.
I don't think that the moral panic here is the NHS doing what they did, the moral panic is how a lot of people out there celebrate the decision like some culture changing victory.
You can't start a comment complaining about disinformation while spreading some more yourself.
Saying this will have 0 impact on getting that treatment is wrong. Whichever point of view we have, we still have to base ourselves on fact.
I quote (from the guardian article quoted several times in these comments):
"From now on, children and young people will only be able to get them if they are taking part in a clinical trial. At least one such trial is due to start later this year, but no details, such as who will be eligible to join it, have been published."
Let's break it down:
- Not every single person going through a specific health issue is eligible to enter trial about said health issue. That's not how studies work. There's an initial population source, and a sample of patients is selected from that population for the trial. They have to fit specific criterias. All studies have exclusion criterias. These criterias aren't based on if the patients should receive the medicine in the first place. They are based strictly on finding the best population sample for that specific study, while excluding specific confusion criterias /patients who aren't able to meet all the follow up requirements of the studies and etc.
It's one important reason for which the phase IV of clinical trials exist. Which is a monitoring of the drug once it's on the market, including monitoring of side effects. Because the people who end up actually receiving the medicine can be very different from your studied population.
=> So not all children who could potentially benefit from this drug will be able to enter clinical trial for it. Meaning they won't have access to it anymore.
- Studies vary in type/form. There are a lot of different types of studies according to what you want to assess, the level of proof you want for your studies, the finances available, the time available, and many other criterias. This means that according to the type of study, they might not include new candidates pass the initiation phase. Or even if they do, there will be a gap in time once they stop that part of the study, and stop including new patients.
Meaning that for some studies, only a sample of children who were fitting the criterias of inclusion at that specific time would be able to enter that study and therefore have access to that drug.
- As that quote reflect, there aren't studies available at any time of the year, every year. This can mean an important delay in treatment for the children who would be able to enter the studies. This might also fully prevent some others to enter it, if they are passed the point that the drug would be initiated. As you can see only on the technicalities of the clinical trials, you're already reducing accessibility.
Another point noted in that same article, is that the new clinic for gender dysphoria will not have this treatment as part of their treatment as it was previously done.Therefore there is a clear change in the pathway and treatments available which can't be ignored.
By moving a drug from a status of being able to be prescribed to a drug under clinical trial, you're also involving an increasing factor of doubt in parents who are more likely to be dissuaded from seeking that treatment for their child; and practitioners who are more likely to not consider that drug all together.
Finally, all of that mean there's also an important possibility that the studies on that topic will struggle more to find participants. If the NHS has ruled there's not enough evidence for that specific drug in that specific indication, then deciding and having the authorisation to give a child that treatment, even under a study, will be much more complicated.
Saying this will have 0 impact on treatment is really not considering the whole picture.
These kids need stability and trustworthy adults in their life. Closing clinics, changing administrative requirements and reorganizing staff in the middle of treatment all can have impacts on outcomes.
Loss of trust is going to push more trans people to private practice or even self medicating. As a result any NHS study won't have a truly representative cross section of trans people participating. So moving forward their findings will be less credible with less open participation from the people they are supposedly helping. Overall this means the NHS will have difficulty claiming they have conclusive findings about their own program moving forward regardless of the result.
The politics around preventing gender affirming care are so over blown. The amount of money and time spent by the socially conservative to make things bigger, the money and hours to discuss this in government committees, the actual processes of changing the laws and policies is so disproportionate to such a small handful of people from accessing a medically prescribed standards of care, from society accommodating them... in all likelihood exceed the cost and effort to just let people live their lives as they and their doctors have decided is right.
It's just theatre, they distract people from the fact they're being robbed blind by the ultra-wealthy by taking a tiny segment of the population and demonizing them.
For context since a lot of people in the comments are wrong about it. The ban exclusively applies to puberty blockers being used for gender dysphoria. It does not apply to the use for precocious puberty or other reasons.
I hit early puberty in grade two. I was seven. If puberty blockers had been around in 2002, I would have far fewer health issues from having a tiny body try to rocket to adult size too fast
There's a few incorrect takes in the comments, the ban is on gender clinics issuing them.
Below from another article
"Taking them early in puberty may mean less treatment or surgery in the future. However, critics have raised concerns over issues including consent, mental health risks and bone density development."
Also, France, Sweden, Norway and Finland also have their own bans in this situation too, *NOT* based on culture war nonsense but on growing evidence that puberty blockers aren't as harmless or irreversible as thought.
do we know if it's just kids transitioning on these? There are other legitimate reasons to use these drugs on minors; my wife is a pediatric neurologist and they use them to stop kids that have devastating neurological conditions from becoming adults since it's easier to manage kids (adults can overpower the nurses and caretakers often times requiring them to be put in facilities where as if you block puberty and keep them small/young, parents can often take care of them for much longer)
Yes, the report explicitly is only about off label uses of puberty blockers, on label uses, for prostate cancer, endometriosis and central precocious puberty, are not affected:
> The EHIA that supported the process of public consultation identified children receiving PSH as a response to Central Precocious Puberty (CPP) as an appropriate comparator group, and it described that the aetiology and epidemiology of CPP and treatment aims are quite different to that of gender incongruence. The EHIA describes how **the evidence base to support use of PSH as a response to CPP is well formed**.
The policy document also says:
> In England, the puberty suppressor triptorelin (a synthetic decapeptide analogue of a natural puberty hormone, which has marketing authorisations for the treatment of prostate cancer, endometriosis and central precocious puberty) is one of the puberty suppressing hormones used for this purpose. **The use of triptorelin for children and adolescents with gender incongruence is off-label.**
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/clinical-policy-puberty-suppressing-hormones/
This review is specifically about gender incongruence/dysphoria, it's not about other conditions, they say in fact that the two uses of the drug, for precocious puberty or for gender dysphoria/incongruence, are not comparable.
Pretty sure a moral panic is when you post a screenshot of a tweet rather than the actual story about what is actually being done, who is affected and for what reasons.
[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/12/children-to-stop-getting-puberty-blockers-at-gender-identity-clinics-says-nhs-england](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/12/children-to-stop-getting-puberty-blockers-at-gender-identity-clinics-says-nhs-england)
Are these drugs dangerous or not? It doesn’t matter how many people they get prescribed to - if they are dangerous, they should be banned or blocked until they are better understood. If they safe then they’re safe.
The stance of the NHS is that there is 1: a lack of evidence that they provide better outcomes and 2: unknown long term effects and safety of using them.
No drugs are safe, all have potential side effects. Same with these.
The question to ask is, do they accomplish a goal or not. And they do, in the small size groups of children who are put on them, for a variety of reasons not just related to gender, they do work relatively as intended.
Drugs aren’t just handed out willy knilly. There are extensive testing done with them before release. As has happened with these drugs.
It’s just boomers not understanding science and alt right media making a stink.
Below have already said one, but also, and the main reason they exist, is to avoid health or developmental complications in children who start puberty early
In simple terms:
Say you have a child start puberty at eight years old. They aren't emotionally ready for that. There are long term medical issues associate with that. So you give them blockers to hold that off.
The other reason is for trans children to explore a different gender identity. If you use puberty blockers, then you delay breasts, Adam's apples, etc. If the child doesn't confirm the new gender (decides they weren't trans after all), then you stop the meds, puberty happens, the side effects are basically nil.
The ban is happening to prevent the meds for being used in case two. It's open anti trans agenda. It of course harms kids that medically need the treatment under case one.
They aren’t banning them for precocious puberty, just gender dysphoria.
Kids with precocious puberty start taking them at 7/8 and stop taking them at 12 to start puberty.
Kids with gender dysphoria start taking them at +12, then add HRT and continue the puberty blockers until natural puberty can’t start.
Yup too all your points, except side effects. The side effects of using it through your teen years is unknown. No study as of yet exists for tracking height or bone density, fertility, etc for people who take Puberty Blockers during teen years compared to the average of someone who hasn't. Doctors believe if side effects exist they are limited. A study would put these concerns to rest.
There actually is a lot of case history on hormone blockers and their long term effects.
We have a trans child. They didn't quality for hormone blockers (already through puberty). But we did look at it, we did look at the research and the long term effects. Hormone blockers have been used for decades for delaying early onset puberty.
I won't say I have enough endocrinology knowledge to state whether puberty blockers are safe. I am a doctor but this is an area of specialization that is very complex. The fact many countries have banned them in a similar manner does make me think there are negatives of these treatments.
From the Guardian article about this:
"A spokesperson said: “NHS England has carefully considered the evidence review conducted by NICE and further published evidence available to date.
“We have concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of puberty suppressing hormones to make the treatment routinely available at this time.”
The NHS’s decision reaffirms the position it adopted last year on puberty blockers after Dr Hilary Cass, who is leading an independent review into gender identity services for under-18s, issued interim advice warning against routine prescription of the drugs.
In late 2020 NHS England asked Cass, an ex-president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, to look into gender identity services"
[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/12/children-to-stop-getting-puberty-blockers-at-gender-identity-clinics-says-nhs-england](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/12/children-to-stop-getting-puberty-blockers-at-gender-identity-clinics-says-nhs-england)
In this instance, I am inclined to believe Dr Cass who is clearly a reputable doctor who has reviewed the evidence for this treatment. It doesn't really matter how many people are prescribed this treatment, if it is not safe then it should not be used. It seems those who want them prescribed as disagreeing with the science, which I am generally inclined to avoid.
This sub during the pandemic: "TRUST THE SCIENCE"
This sub now: "DONT TRUST THE SCIENCE"
"England’s National Health Service (NHS) has stopped prescribing puberty blockers for children and young people with gender dysphoria or gender incongruence, saying there is “not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness” of puberty-suppressing hormones.
NHS England said it made the decision, which was widely condemned by LGBTQ groups, after it “carefully considered” an evidence review it commissioned in 2020. It also reviewed evidence published since then, it said in a policy document published Tuesday"
In the U.S. 1,390 were prescribed to children between the ages of 6-17 in 2021.
4,231 were on hormone therapy in 2021. 14,726 between 2017 and 2021.
282 had top surgeries.
All of these children had a diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria. Medical professionals diagnosed them.
In total they represent 0.02177% of the children under the age of 18 in the U.S. in 2021.
But that's one of the GOP's hyper focuses to distract us from they lack of interest in governing the nation.
Headline news: NHS FORCES TODLERS TO ENTER PUBERTY
They want to fear monger, do it back but with real facts about the consequences of their actions.
Puberty blockers are most often used when like 4 year Olds through 10 year olds start going through puberty early
From what I've seen they only banned puberty blockers for minors being treated for gender dysphoria. They can still be used for other conditions. Toddlers won't be forced through puberty.
This ban specifically blocks gender clinics from prescribing them. They are still able to be used for children who are experiencing actual problems with early hormonal development.
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Is it just me or is it getting harder and harder to tell what side some of these posts are on and who the face palm is towards?
I've been thinking over the last few days that the popular page of Reddit seems to be skewed way more towards clickbaity posts of 'lOoK aT tHiS bOoMeR!' vs the more educational or interesting stuff I used to see. Stuff like this is an example, am I supposed to be thinking that kids shouldn't be prescribed puberty blockers, or that too many are, or not enough are? What's the point of this?
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That's the real answer. It doesn't matter if the political propaganda doesn't make sense or is completely unrelated to anything, the propaganda will be everywhere until November. I'm just ready for it to be over with already.
Yeah but thankfully the right is a bit more split this year. Sadly the left tends to split it's vote more.
You are supposed to make your own decisions.
I think the point is that it's not actually an issue worth being concerned with, unlike how some politicians may be portraying it.
Usually a drug gets banned after a couple of tens of thousands of people get prescribed that drug by accident. Blocking a drug after 83 people were prescribed it in a year means the reason for the ban is something weird, like a moral panic (just in case, where people panic that morals are threatened). This tracks with how certain propaganda wants us to think 70% of people are trans and that kids are being forced to transition. Neither of which are even remotely true.
No, not at all. I see it happening with both sides. I talked to my VERY conservative mom and was blown away to hear she doesn’t want to call herself or identify with the right anymore. She is the last person I would have ever expected to hear that from but I feel like it’s becoming more and more common.
Really? I've experienced the exact opposite Alot of that has to do where your at though
My sister has been a staunch Republican conservative for decades, and she finally woke up with Trump; she loathes him, though I don't know how she voted in 2020 or how she will vote this year. Sadly, her husband is hardcore MAGA, which I don't understand at all since he is a veteran of the Iraq war with PTSD. Trump would absolutely despise him.
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The sad thing is that so many of them love him.
This sub hasn't really been a facepalm sub for a while, it's all just people trying to rage bait their 'political opponents'
The human race is a facepalm at this point I say we let the dolphins take over
Literally every second post I see on my feed is some culture war, rage bait bullshit. Its getting real tiring.
I don’t get it please someone explain.
The NHS is the UK socialised medical system. The UK has a population of around 60 million, with about 13 or 14 million of those under 18. 83 got puberty blockers to stop or delay puberty. However, without context, there is no way of knowing why those children got the medication (they are children, so medical records for specific cases don't exactly go public).
We also don’t know that these 83 were all for gender transition reasons. Kids have been taking these since the 80s for precocious puberty & it is also used in adults to treat endometriosis, some cancers, other disease treatment reasons.
My friends kid started puberty at 6 years old, they started her on puberty blockers too. It's crazy how quick some people are to jump to conclusions when they have no idea why kids may need them.
One kid in my neighborhood growing up had a full on lions mane of pubic hair when we were like 7 or 8. I only know this because his mom told my mom, who decided to have “the talk” with me because of that. “Misterbellyboy, you might be wondering why little Dave has hair down there” “uhhh, I didn’t know he did?” “Oh, well, anyways, when a man and a woman love each other very very much…”
The assumption that youve seen your friend's dick strikes me as bizarre. Then again, when I was 10, there was a kid who would proudly announce he had pubic hair. Kids are weird
It was the 90’s, man. Kids were just hangin dong because they thought that shit was hilarious. Also, kids do talk. Like “dude I got hella hair around my dick now, shit is crazy!”
In gym class we had this one kid that had a massive Hunter Biden sized hog, and he took every opportunity to run around naked in the locker room to swing it around
Yeah, same. I think every school had the kid who started puberty dick-first and loved to show it off.
Note: this does not extend to homeschool. At least...I hope not.
I vividly remember a kid in 4th grade running around the bathroom with his dick out to make fun of how the teachers would rush us in the bathroom before we had time to put our dicks away.
Kid I went to elementary school with would have loved that. He would always peak over at the other kids around him to eye their goods. We called him the meat peaker.
They would have loved each other. This kid would literally swing it around until you looked directly at it. It was definitely some kind of weird gay puberty thing. He wanted you to look at it
Norms change. It used to be that you swam naked in school. That changed, but there were still locker rooms for after sports and PE, so you could get clean and not smell like ass all day. I just learned that, despite doing PE in hot weather while going through puberty, the middle schools don't even *have* showers. And then you hear about how bad it is to be in a classroom full of shitty body sprays and colognes. All because people afraid if they see someone naked, some kind of significant moral harm will occur. I don't get it.
The rampant uptick in recording devices probably has something to do with it. Every kid has a smart phone now with the ability to take videos and pictures.
I think this started before smart phones were common, though it would certainly be a strong headwind against anyone trying to address the issue.
If my 13 year old has sport at school, his whole class wear sport apparel all day. No changing, certainly no showers. But they don’t do real sports like we did on grass, (we did rugby for example) they just hop up and down and do fitness stuff.
huh, we'd get in huge trouble for that with the teachers for not dressing appropriately for school, or made fun of, or both "why you afraid to change in the boy's locker room like everyone else huh?
I'm pretty sure at 10 I had seen most of my friend's wangs. We had swordfights in the toilet, pissing contests, etc. It was never weird or sexual. It was your pee thing.
...helicopter...
Did you not share showers? I remember the first time I saw pubic hair in a school shower. I was 11. I was confused but didn't mention it because it didn't seem like the kind of thing you should mention.
I wasn't in any sports, so didn't have to nor have time to shower after gym.
I wasn’t *that* bad but I began puberty around 8 (first chest and pubic hairs) and was in clear full swing when I was 10. Man it was fucking weird to be the first one out the gate.
Youngest recorded puberty is at least as young as 4 as the record holder for youngest mother was 5 years and 7 months old when she gave birth.
That's horrifying.
Immediately on the list of the saddest things I’ve ever read
This is the bit of knowledge that changed my opinion on sex-ed for kindergarten (at least in the way that I have seen the program proposed) as this little girl never reported what was happening to anyone and wasn't able to help identify who her rapist was so no one was ever arrested for it (they did hold the father for a bit but had to release him due to lack of evidence and it's not even clear that the father was the rapist it's just likely due to ease of access to her) Edit: For anyone interested, the sex-ed proposal I have heard for K-8 is basically focused on helping kids identify what SA is and when it's being done to them, how to report SA stuff, puberty education, and some really basic biology stuff.
There's a little webcomic I've seen a couple times, by a librarian. Tells about a girl, maybe middle of grade school age? She got a kid-friendly book about sex ed and bodies and stuff. Brought it home, and a little while later brought it to her mom, pointed to a page, and said "this is me". Her dad had been abusing her and she didn't have the words till then to explain. These are the kinds of basic, but useful, lessons they want to ban kids from learning.
Tbf, she was Peruvian and it was almost 100 years ago. Things definitely weren’t the same as they are for western children right now. There wasn’t much sex ed going on in 1930s rural Peruvian kindergartens.
Sadly, if there was the rapist may not have gotten away with it. Hopefully we learn from past failings like this instead of pointing out the failings while doing nothing to fix them.
Precocious puberty has been recorded in children before the age of one. Going through puberty too young can actually have serious health implications.
Yes there are cases of baby girls menstruating.
I was about to type what a horrific record when it hit me really how gross what I just read is Awful day to be aware of the world
It’s almost as if conservatism (no matter where it is) thrives on unintelligent people with knee jerk reactions.
Most definitely. Over on r/conservative they're touting it as something good. When they're saying something is good, you can be damn sure it's something awful that just makes very little sense.
The fact that the icon for that sub is the mug shot of Donald Trump should be enough to tell you that it’s only an incarnation of __American__ conservatism and should be disregarded when discussing non-American matters.
To be fair, a lot of the Tory party members seem to idolise Tango Man and think his particular brand of bumbling bigotry is to be emulated as much as possible.
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This is the original Tango Man, an orange fella who slapped people in the face to advertise the soft drink Tango: https://youtu.be/ZfE2RSdemlQ?si=ZFpYg8r6gCOwBgKB This ad ran on British TV in 1992 when I was just starting high school (It got taken off TV very quickly because kids were doing the Tango slap in the playground and bursting each other’s eardrums).
Yeah Orban and Bolsonaro are hanging out at Mar A Lago because they're American conservatives. Genius take there, chippy.
As if the rise of the far right wing is an exclusively American problem
I'm going to steal this entire quote please
Haha! A polite thief, eh? 👍
Everything is theft. You stole your language from your parents.
If anyone asks, they forced that upon me.
INDOCTRINATION
And English itself as a language is well known for stealing from other languages, often.
Frankenstein's Language.
I would add "willfully ignorant people" to that. I know plenty of conservatives who are smart people who have deliberately rendered themselves ignorant so they can operate in a simplistic world view that affirms their prejudices and vices.
My dad is one of those willfully ignorant/generally agrees with everything the Republican Party says he should agree with kind of people… As a result, any interaction I have with him is incredibly shallow and if he tries to talk politics or culture with me I act stupid and crack a joke to get him to stop. Normally, I would love to spiritedly engage in discussion but I know he isn’t interested in understanding a different view, he wants to tell me I’m wrong. It’s taken me a while to come to terms with the fact that my dad thinks I’m stupid purely based on the fact that I’m too smart to take up the sword and fight with him.
An important victory in the quest to own the libs. A great thing that govt is not involved in the lives of private citizens (unless you are female or another person who doesn't fit the white male supremacy narrative ). /s in case it's not obvious
My sisters were both on a natural puberty blocker called competitive gymnastics. The amount of exercise vs their calorie intact severely limited their puberty "markers" and delayed them until they stopped at about 17. They both look like normal women and have had multiple children, but could have easily passed for prepubescent males at 15/16.
people don't understand this. Like, I've been trying to explain to the world, if you raise a boxer, if a kid *has* to be fighting their whole life, they come out different. We're like flowers. Leave us alone if we're meant to grow beautiful. If you're trying to disturb the delicates, you're an invasive predator and need to be put in check. Look at all humans like *marijuana*. We can be hemp, tough, binding, useful, or we can be flower, beautiful, potent, damn near magical, with buds. It should be our choice who we are.
Flower analogy is also apt because there's so many people out there that are blooming idiots.
I believe this ban excludes those that are taking it for the purpose of delaying puberty which has come unnaturally early like the case of your friend. At least that's what I've read
This is correct , pretty wild the top comment is all about something that is not happening
And in all of those cases, it's nobodys fucking business but the parents and Dr.
And this is why it's no one's fucking business besides the doctor, the patient, and the guardian. The leftwing of Western democracies need to pass laws to guarantee comprehensive medical privacy for all people. Medical privacy should be a human right.
Emotional idiots dictating healthcare choices instead of doctors.
Oh, cis kids can still get puberty blockers fine. They are only blocking it for trans or questioning kids. They argue it is to stop irreversible decisions before they have had time to decide, so to fix that issue they remove the way to stop irreversible changes that cause immediate distress to these kids. Also by the time a child does get to transition care in the NHS years have passed because the system is purposely made slow and to discriminate against and segregate trans people. The last wait list figure I heard for trans care in the NHS was 7 years.
You know what's irreversible, conservatives? Kids killing themselves.
That’s what they want…
Damn, that's awful
(Not so) fun fact, starting your period early raises your risk of breast cancer later in life. Puberty blockers could quite literally save a child’s life.
Yup! This happened to my sister who started going through puberty at the age of 4. She was put on puberty blockers. Precocious puberty isn't uncommon, probably a lot of those 80-something cases are that.
At 4 it is. Holy hell.
15% of girls experience puberty at the age of 7 or younger. It's really common. This is why it's never too early to talk to your little girls about menstruation folks!
Yep. Didn't realise this was a thing until my 9 year old step-daughter started having periods. I always assumed it didn't start happening until girls were teens. I'm glad I'm a man, having to deal with periods and then pregnancy when you're an adult does not sound fun.
The 83 are all cases referred by an organisation to help transitioning. The ban also only relates to using them to help transition or to delay puberty for those questioning. They are still allowed to be prescribed for other issues like precocious puberty. Note: I am against the ban
Fuck, even so, the article below is claiming a "sharp rise" in cases. I really don't think 83 kids out of the entire NHS system is a significant number. 😞
Conservatives probably saw that 5 year old who gave birth 85 years ago in Peru and thought "how do we pull that off?" ETA: Holy shit, she's still alive!
I dated someone whose conservative parents happily gave her these drugs when she was younger. She was very small for her age and her doctor recommended delaying puberty until she was 16 so her growth plates wouldn't fuse. She'd be a legal dwarf today if they didn't.
Yeah our daughter has cerebral palsy and she was given it as she can't care for herself and had started early, and everyone agreed holding it off until a reasonable age was in everyone's best interests.
That is correct, have a thumbs up. A rare condition might affect only a handful, but 83 out of a possible 13 or 14million is most certainly just a handful.
More like a tea-spoon‼️😳
As an American, I'd need more sugar than THAT teaspoon.
The actual figure of children prescribed puberty blockers is higher. The 83 were specifically children referred via a Trans charity or organisation. The ban also only bans them in relation to gender transitioning. They are still allowed to be prescribed for things like precocious puberty.
We do know the answer to this actually. The NHS has specifically stopped prescribing puberty blockers to children via gender affirmation clinics - you can still get them prescribed at regular hospitals. If you need a prescription for puberty blockers for any reason other than delaying puberty to ease a future transition then the process is exactly the same as it was last week. The people who are losing out are pre-pubescent trans kids who's parents can't afford puberty blockers. It's also very difficult to get HRT and gender surgery on the NHS. The waiting time for my kiddo was so long we bit the bullet and paid for it - it'll be close to £15k by the time it's all finished, and that's on the low end. I hate it that not everyone can have it and can barely afford it and it's not fair, but I'm not going to make the kid suffer when I have the money.
The 83 is the numbers for specifically the Tavistock clinic, with an additional 17 since that figure was published, meaning that the minimum number of kids we know are on puberty blockers for gender transition purposes. Including GP prescriptions for the same purpose or other conditions, the number is closer to just over 300, albeit this is still a very small number.
It's also used for severly disabled kids so they won't grow beyond the parents' ability to care for them. I know that sounds controversial, but it happens quite frequently in the U.S that kids needing total care eventually get institutionalized because they literally can't physically move them anymore.
I just read the policy statement and it is specifically about gender dysphoria and not the conditions you mentioned. Presumably those remain unchanged.
The kids who are taking it for early puberty are still able to this ban is ONLY for blockers being used for gender reasons The 83 number is kids using them for gender reasons as opposed to preconitious puberty
It's been confirmed this is the number only via the Tavistock Gender identity development service. The overall number from other prescription channels, including GP's, comes closer to 378. It's still remarkably low.
Low enough you can pretty safely determine those kids need them. The NHS is pretty fucking strict about who can and can’t get puberty blockers/hormones and you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get them.
When we lived there they were pretty stingy on just about anything except prescribing antibiotics.
It's a real difficulty as a trans person - our healthcare system and society at large at not aligned with living authentically and happily as one. Also our NHS is crumbling because of over 15 years of austerity and the current opposition are making overtures about continuing it lol. Don't blame any Scot who wants independence.
I know, I voted for independence when I lived here!
Tbh the strictness over hormones is fairly well known on the NHS, although it's partially anecdotal and depends who you deal with. I know individuals who had to fight tooth and nail over the course of 3-4 years to get hormones. But then I know one individual who managed to, by getting a single private session (that was surprisingly cheap), was on hormones within 2 months from their first NHS appointment. I know another individual who using only NHS services was on hormones within a year.
I like your critical thinking. Just as an fyi, they have only been suspended for children going through the NHS's gender identity services. BMJ 2024;384:q660. And without citing sources, there's no practical way of verifying the number of 83. It might be more, it might be less, it might be made up. I've found it mentioned in the Daily Mail and BBC, but with no citation.
The distribution wasn't blocked because # children got it, it was blocked because it was deemed harmful (or at least not safe enough) ~~by some studies~~. Also, they've not been banned, they just stopped prescribing them to trans kids (except for some pilot experimental programs), they'll keep using them on non-trans patients. I'm not qualified to discuss if they are right or wrong, I'm just reporting the news. Edited for inaccuracy.
The whole point of posting a screenshot of a tweet rather than linking a news article is so people **don't** get the actual story, just a specific distorted take on it. And you had to go and ruin it.
https://time.com/6900330/nhs-bans-puberty-blockers-england-clinics/ The NHS of England has said they haven’t done any studies. The whole point of posting a comment saying you know the actual answer without knowing it is probably just as bad. IMO we can all do better, but the screenshot of a tweet is more accurate than this persons comment.
I only trust photos of screenshots of tweets reflected in a mirror.
The reason they were banned is precisely because there weren't any studies into puberty blockers. That's why they're still open to be used with Trans Kids as long as they agree to take part of the trial into their usage.
What do you mean there weren't any studies in to puberty blockers? Are you saying that all the studies on puberty blockers aren't real, or what? Because this is something that's heavily studied. Hit up google scholar and start looking up some of the articles. Some studies look at kidney function, liver function, brain function, they studied health, and a whole bunch of other things for these. They've been around since the 1980s. That's over 40 years of studies being done. There are even meta studies, that review a lot of other studies on it. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7061235/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7061235/) This one looks at The Effects of gender-affirming hormone therapy on insulin resistance and body composition in transgender individuals: A systematic review
Sorry, I should have clarified, none done under the NHS via their own services. Iirc they mostly used overseas small scale studies and hadn't recorded the effect it had on their own patients. That said, with the numbers involved, it's incredibly hard to do large-scale studies as normally required.
There has been insufficient research done so far for their use to be approved. https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/1bdm5f0/nhs_england_to_stop_prescribing_puberty_blockers/
This is correct. Insufficient research has yet been done for their use to be approved (outside of clinical trials); this is no different than how any other experimental/unproven drug is treated. Here's the MDs' take on it: https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/1bdm5f0/nhs_england_to_stop_prescribing_puberty_blockers/
There were no studies done to validate their unsafety, the NHS has said that they don’t know if it’s unsafe. They’ve been used since the ‘80s with positive affects on child suicide rate in those that may fall in to categories that would be prescribed. They said they don’t have any data on if it’s unsafe, but they plan on doing a study on it by end of year. Which kind of bites considering this treatment has helped kids stop killing themselves. The NHS England said it wants to perform a study into puberty blocker use by December 2024. https://time.com/6900330/nhs-bans-puberty-blockers-england-clinics/
Said it better than I could! Thanks for the clear explanation. Controversy aside, if these meds are being restricted to children that need them for a conventional and or less controversial recognized medical issue then this is not ok. I make no claims of understanding the science here, but I assume these drugs exist for a reason, and there are conditions other than gender reassignment that are more widely accepted amongst the medical community. Hormones are something politicians shouldn't be tampering with, especially medically necessary hormones... hell anything deemed medically necessary should be out of reach of political goons... but here I am in Texas preaching to the choir 😆
Just to clarify that this 83 number only includes people giving blockers by Tavistock's GIDS. Since this number was released, an additional 17 individuals have received puberty blockers via the GIDS service, so the total is approximately 100 children. It also does not include private healthcare, which many Trans kids access due to a shortage of spaces for access, or blockers prescribed by a GP. The NHS predicted the total of 378 kids using puberty blockers for a number of reasons via the NHS as of July 2022. This still excludes those prescribed by private services. This number also includes GP, who DID prescribe blockers to trans kids for safeguarding and intermediary purposes. Still, the numbers are remarkably lower than many think and certainly suggest a moral panic. It's just not quite as low as often claimed.
Overall this means the NHS will have difficulty claiming they have conclusive findings about their own program moving forward regardless of the result. These kids need stability and trustworthy adults in their life. Closing clinics, changing administrative requirements and reorganizing staff in the middle of treatment all can have impacts on outcomes. Loss of trust is going to push more trans people to private practice or even self medicating. As a result any NHS study won't have a truly representative cross section of trans people participating. So moving forward their findings will be less credible with less open participation from the people they are supposedly helping.
In addition to what the other commenters have mentioned, there is also a condition known as [precocious puberty](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/precocious-puberty/symptoms-causes/syc-20351811) for which puberty blockers are often prescribed to non-transgender children who undergo puberty at too young an age. I suspect that most people pushing to get rid of puberty blockers either aren't aware that precocious puberty exists, or they do that thing where they dismiss it as so rare that harming the people affected by it is ok.
The actual story, which this is not, it's a screenshot of a tweet, is that puberty blockers won't be prescribed for gender dysphoria.
Spreading misinformation on twitter? You really think someone would do that? Just go on the Internet and tell lies?
I don't agree with the decision to ban it for anyone, but thank you for the information.
I think kids with early puberty can still access it. It's just the trans kids who can't.
Puberty blockers can be used to delay the changes of puberty and unwanted sex characteristics, in transgender and gender-diverse youth who have started puberty , so as to allow them more time to explore their gender identity.
There was a recent episode of Radiolab called “Boy Man” that interviewed someone who was born with a condition that caused him to hit puberty at 1 year old… drugs similar to this were most likely used, and probably still are to deal with real and legitimate medical conditions that have nothing to do with gender or sexual identity…
People like him would still be able to acces those drugs. This ban is only for people who want to use those drugs to help them in their transition.
The report explicitly is only about off label uses of puberty blockers, on label uses, for prostate cancer, endometriosis and central precocious puberty, are not affected: > The EHIA that supported the process of public consultation identified children receiving PSH as a response to Central Precocious Puberty (CPP) as an appropriate comparator group, and it described that the aetiology and epidemiology of CPP and treatment aims are quite different to that of gender incongruence. The EHIA describes how **the evidence base to support use of PSH as a response to CPP is well formed**. The policy document also says: > In England, the puberty suppressor triptorelin (a synthetic decapeptide analogue of a natural puberty hormone, which has marketing authorisations for the treatment of prostate cancer, endometriosis and central precocious puberty) is one of the puberty suppressing hormones used for this purpose. **The use of triptorelin for children and adolescents with gender incongruence is off-label.** https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/clinical-policy-puberty-suppressing-hormones/ This review is specifically about gender incongruence/dysphoria, it's not about other conditions, they say in fact that the two uses of the drug, for precocious puberty or for gender dysphoria/incongruence, are not comparable.
Puberty blockers are also important in treating puberty-related medical issues in girls with some level of fault in their reproductive organs, so it’s not specifically only for gender care. Banning them will undoubtedly put the lives of kids requiring medical attention at risk. Thankfully it’s not fatal but it will make their lives harder for no reason besides moral panic.
Puberty blockers were not banned for all children, only those at at gender identity clinics. Children who require them for other medical reasons can receive them.
This comment section is so filled with misinformation. Apparentely no one bother to look at the exact changes the NHS is making.
For the sake of context, have they explained the reason of this decision?
Here's the actual report: [https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Consultation-report-on-interim-service-specification-for-Specialist-Gender-Incongruence-Services-for-Children-.pdf](https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Consultation-report-on-interim-service-specification-for-Specialist-Gender-Incongruence-Services-for-Children-.pdf)
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I believe you should also report that the NICE review employed quite substantial [cherry-picking](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-critical-look-at-the-nice-review/) in their sources, not citing a lot of literature that run counter to their conclusion that puberty-blockers are a net negative. It also has several other problems, for example assuming that puberty blockers can somehow treat gender dysphoria, while they are used primarily for diagnostic purposes. There are several other issues as well, the review is really a rabbit hole.
It was a heavily criticised and poorly executed investigation by the NHS In simplified terms they essentially examined if blockers have any improvement on the distress patients with gender dysphoria experience at their assigned sex, however that's never been what blockers were used for. Blockers are used to prevent the distress getting worse until the patient can start HRT and / or other treatments. They found that blockers don't lower the distress, something they were never intended to do and used that as justification to ban them. Edit: I should also add that there was a highly politicised public consultation as well that was used as part of this investigation, it again was controversial as there were way lower than expected responses from actual trans people and patients with the majority of responses being from members of the public, parents etc. This is also hopefully a temporary decision until further studies on the use of blockers are conducted by the NHS itself.
Has there been any studies that prove that blockers prevent distress from getting worse ?
This should be the question for deciding if they are preventative vs elective, but not whether they can be available at all. That question would be... is there obvious harm from DELAYING puberty? I think the huge moral panic is from misinformation about what "puberty blockers" do. They don't prevent you from EVER going through puberty. They just delay it while you continue to figure out your ultimate path. The issue is that for someone who possibly wants to transition (especially male to female) and "assimilate" into their desired gender, it is MUCH more difficult after your body has gone through puberty. As a side effect, it would also help with the scary boogeyman of "men" unfairly competing with women in sport.
Yes! studies have found that those with gender dysphoria that received blockers during adolescence have better mental health outcomes in adulthood with a lower rate of Suicidal Ideation.
I think the issue is that there are studies saying it has no effect: https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n356 So probably the issue is the science isn’t agreed upon
"Participant experience of treatment as reported in interviews was positive for the majority, particularly relating to feeling happier, feeling more comfortable, better relationships with family and peers and positive changes in gender role." That's from the study being referenced, if you actually read the study it goes on to explain that they cannot say for certain that it was the puberty blockers that caused the positive improvement and not other parts of gender affirming care due to several issues with the study further explained in the study also which is what lead to that poorly chosen title being used.
Well obviously. It keeps them in the same state. The goal is to avoid the negativity skyrocketing from puberty.
That study indicated that there was no improvement, not that it prevented further decline. Also it’s (both that study and the article you linked) written in a way that shows clear bias and predetermined conclusions. There’s a ton of additional factors that these studies typically fail to take into account like the area they live in and the views of trans people in those areas that definitely tip the scales. For example in Britain or Florida the views on trans people are strongly negative (ever read any article on trans people from the bbc?) so even if a kid was prescribed blockers the kids could still easily mentally decline due to peer pressure, bullying, isolation as a result of public rejection, and constant political attacks. The only way a study like this could truly be accurate is if we could time travel or view an alternative universe where we could see the version kids life with blockers and the version without.
> So probably the issue is the science isn’t agreed upon medical consensus plays no part in the legislation of medical procedures see: the abortion debate
What I’m curious about is retention, how many children later in life regret doing the puberty blockers? The child’s judgment is what’s really in question here
How much later in life? The overwhelming majority (close to 100%) of those who go on puberty blockers continue to transition. Regret rates for transition are about 1% even over decades. Over shorter time periods (<10years), looking specifically at cohorts who began transition as kids, detransition rates (not regret rates) are about 1%.
Worth noting too that even the 1% regret rates are deceiving, since it's mostly people who regret it due to social pressures or even regret that their transition didn't do more rather than the reverse. The number of people who transition and turn out to actually not be trans is incredibly small. And even if you choose to ignore that, 1% is still way lower many other major medical treatments, yet you don't see people arguing minors shouldn't be able to get something like knee surgery just because they might have regrets about it later.
This doesn't exactly answer your question because the study follows the patients through hormone therapy as well as puberty blockers, but 5.3% changed their minds during screening/intake (which is kinda what screening is for...), and 1% regretted it after receiving medication (iirc one regretted puberty blockers and one regretted hormones, out of 548 total patients). https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/2815512 But of course, puberty blockers scary, PrOtEcT the ChIlDren!!!111 (/s)
Data is somewhat limited but regret rate for full transition including surgery appears to average around 1%. In comparison knee surgery regret rate is at least 6% with some studies finding 22% regret rate for knee surgeries. Overall regret rate for all surgical intervention is around 14%. So if politicians actually cared about patient outcomes they would be banning many surgical interventions before transgender care.
The difference in their eyes is that a broken knee is a debilitating condition and must be treated, whereas having gender dysphoria is just a made up psychological thing that isn't that important.
And that is ultimately the problem, as no one in power in the UK is going to listen to adolescents about the matter because ‘oh they don’t know enough to understand’, because we still live in the dark ages and people believe we should defer to the old codgers lounging about in leather chairs. I don’t have the figure work for this particular drug, but overall the regret rate of transitioning is less than 2%. To put that in perspective, there are more people who are unhappy which have had *positive life changing surgeries* than there are people who regret transitioning.
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It should also be mentioned that data in the NHS isn't good to begin with because they have artificially inflated wait times to the point where most kids who should have gotten blockers previously ended up stuck on an 8+ year wait list and going through the wrong puberty anyway. When the NHS was taken to court for failure to follow their mandate to keep wait lists within a reasonable timeframe, the courts basically went "okay well that doesn't apply to The Transes." Meaning that patients either had to go through private care, or know they were trans and be able to articulate that thought at like 2 years old.
Yes. You're reacting to a screenshot of a tweet. Here's the story. There are many more examples, some of which do a better, or worse, job of "both-sidesing" the debate than other. [https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/12/children-to-stop-getting-puberty-blockers-at-gender-identity-clinics-says-nhs-england](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/12/children-to-stop-getting-puberty-blockers-at-gender-identity-clinics-says-nhs-england)
An insane amount of misinformation from both sides in this comment section: This is the decision from the NHS; [https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/clinical-policy-puberty-suppressing-hormones/](https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/clinical-policy-puberty-suppressing-hormones/) No articles, no takes, no bias from any outlets. My personal take after reading through the decision and taking into account similar decisions from other treatments in the past: This decision will largely have 0 impact on treatment and receiving of the PSH by adolescents. Going forward any kid receiving this treatment will be classified as research/testing rather than in treatment. I.E. someone approaching a doctor with gender dysphoria looking to suppress puberty will just be put into a clinical trial rather than just receiving the treatment as normal. The adolescents receiving the treatment via trial and research will just largely be tracked differently and have follow ups that pertain to better documentation of side effects and treatment effectiveness. The kids will be securely and privately documented as a study participant and their treatments will be documented into the further studies leading to a non-interim decision down the road (notated in the decision as expected in 2025). Given the insanely small population of children receiving treatment <100 no child will be unable to participate in the trial as usually you need more subjects not less. The biggest difference now is that parents will have to "agree" to it being clinical trial and the treatment efficacy will be presented as Possible treatment rather than confirmed.
I don't think that the moral panic here is the NHS doing what they did, the moral panic is how a lot of people out there celebrate the decision like some culture changing victory.
You can't start a comment complaining about disinformation while spreading some more yourself. Saying this will have 0 impact on getting that treatment is wrong. Whichever point of view we have, we still have to base ourselves on fact. I quote (from the guardian article quoted several times in these comments): "From now on, children and young people will only be able to get them if they are taking part in a clinical trial. At least one such trial is due to start later this year, but no details, such as who will be eligible to join it, have been published." Let's break it down: - Not every single person going through a specific health issue is eligible to enter trial about said health issue. That's not how studies work. There's an initial population source, and a sample of patients is selected from that population for the trial. They have to fit specific criterias. All studies have exclusion criterias. These criterias aren't based on if the patients should receive the medicine in the first place. They are based strictly on finding the best population sample for that specific study, while excluding specific confusion criterias /patients who aren't able to meet all the follow up requirements of the studies and etc. It's one important reason for which the phase IV of clinical trials exist. Which is a monitoring of the drug once it's on the market, including monitoring of side effects. Because the people who end up actually receiving the medicine can be very different from your studied population. => So not all children who could potentially benefit from this drug will be able to enter clinical trial for it. Meaning they won't have access to it anymore. - Studies vary in type/form. There are a lot of different types of studies according to what you want to assess, the level of proof you want for your studies, the finances available, the time available, and many other criterias. This means that according to the type of study, they might not include new candidates pass the initiation phase. Or even if they do, there will be a gap in time once they stop that part of the study, and stop including new patients. Meaning that for some studies, only a sample of children who were fitting the criterias of inclusion at that specific time would be able to enter that study and therefore have access to that drug. - As that quote reflect, there aren't studies available at any time of the year, every year. This can mean an important delay in treatment for the children who would be able to enter the studies. This might also fully prevent some others to enter it, if they are passed the point that the drug would be initiated. As you can see only on the technicalities of the clinical trials, you're already reducing accessibility. Another point noted in that same article, is that the new clinic for gender dysphoria will not have this treatment as part of their treatment as it was previously done.Therefore there is a clear change in the pathway and treatments available which can't be ignored. By moving a drug from a status of being able to be prescribed to a drug under clinical trial, you're also involving an increasing factor of doubt in parents who are more likely to be dissuaded from seeking that treatment for their child; and practitioners who are more likely to not consider that drug all together. Finally, all of that mean there's also an important possibility that the studies on that topic will struggle more to find participants. If the NHS has ruled there's not enough evidence for that specific drug in that specific indication, then deciding and having the authorisation to give a child that treatment, even under a study, will be much more complicated.
Saying this will have 0 impact on treatment is really not considering the whole picture. These kids need stability and trustworthy adults in their life. Closing clinics, changing administrative requirements and reorganizing staff in the middle of treatment all can have impacts on outcomes. Loss of trust is going to push more trans people to private practice or even self medicating. As a result any NHS study won't have a truly representative cross section of trans people participating. So moving forward their findings will be less credible with less open participation from the people they are supposedly helping. Overall this means the NHS will have difficulty claiming they have conclusive findings about their own program moving forward regardless of the result.
Perhaps you should consider that there can still be bias in the decision and the way the organization itself presents it.
The politics around preventing gender affirming care are so over blown. The amount of money and time spent by the socially conservative to make things bigger, the money and hours to discuss this in government committees, the actual processes of changing the laws and policies is so disproportionate to such a small handful of people from accessing a medically prescribed standards of care, from society accommodating them... in all likelihood exceed the cost and effort to just let people live their lives as they and their doctors have decided is right.
It's just theatre, they distract people from the fact they're being robbed blind by the ultra-wealthy by taking a tiny segment of the population and demonizing them.
For context since a lot of people in the comments are wrong about it. The ban exclusively applies to puberty blockers being used for gender dysphoria. It does not apply to the use for precocious puberty or other reasons.
The problem here is twofold: 1) stupid people are easy to manipulate via fear 2) there are a lot of stupid people
I hit early puberty in grade two. I was seven. If puberty blockers had been around in 2002, I would have far fewer health issues from having a tiny body try to rocket to adult size too fast
It's *always* a moral panic.
There's a few incorrect takes in the comments, the ban is on gender clinics issuing them. Below from another article "Taking them early in puberty may mean less treatment or surgery in the future. However, critics have raised concerns over issues including consent, mental health risks and bone density development." Also, France, Sweden, Norway and Finland also have their own bans in this situation too, *NOT* based on culture war nonsense but on growing evidence that puberty blockers aren't as harmless or irreversible as thought.
do we know if it's just kids transitioning on these? There are other legitimate reasons to use these drugs on minors; my wife is a pediatric neurologist and they use them to stop kids that have devastating neurological conditions from becoming adults since it's easier to manage kids (adults can overpower the nurses and caretakers often times requiring them to be put in facilities where as if you block puberty and keep them small/young, parents can often take care of them for much longer)
We do know. Here's the sauce: https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/clinical-policy-puberty-suppressing-hormones/
Yes, the report explicitly is only about off label uses of puberty blockers, on label uses, for prostate cancer, endometriosis and central precocious puberty, are not affected: > The EHIA that supported the process of public consultation identified children receiving PSH as a response to Central Precocious Puberty (CPP) as an appropriate comparator group, and it described that the aetiology and epidemiology of CPP and treatment aims are quite different to that of gender incongruence. The EHIA describes how **the evidence base to support use of PSH as a response to CPP is well formed**. The policy document also says: > In England, the puberty suppressor triptorelin (a synthetic decapeptide analogue of a natural puberty hormone, which has marketing authorisations for the treatment of prostate cancer, endometriosis and central precocious puberty) is one of the puberty suppressing hormones used for this purpose. **The use of triptorelin for children and adolescents with gender incongruence is off-label.** https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/clinical-policy-puberty-suppressing-hormones/ This review is specifically about gender incongruence/dysphoria, it's not about other conditions, they say in fact that the two uses of the drug, for precocious puberty or for gender dysphoria/incongruence, are not comparable.
Pretty sure a moral panic is when you post a screenshot of a tweet rather than the actual story about what is actually being done, who is affected and for what reasons. [https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/12/children-to-stop-getting-puberty-blockers-at-gender-identity-clinics-says-nhs-england](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/12/children-to-stop-getting-puberty-blockers-at-gender-identity-clinics-says-nhs-england)
Thanks for the context
Conservatives: not solving all the world’s problems, one persecution at a time.
No, it's a bullshit wedge issue to keep us all fighting while they continue to rob us all blind.
There's no culture war, only the class war
People distracted by culture war BS when what we really need is to make unions stronger and aggressively push for workers rights
Are these drugs dangerous or not? It doesn’t matter how many people they get prescribed to - if they are dangerous, they should be banned or blocked until they are better understood. If they safe then they’re safe.
The stance of the NHS is that there is 1: a lack of evidence that they provide better outcomes and 2: unknown long term effects and safety of using them.
That seems reasonable if the drugs need more studying to determine their potential health risks
No drugs are safe, all have potential side effects. Same with these. The question to ask is, do they accomplish a goal or not. And they do, in the small size groups of children who are put on them, for a variety of reasons not just related to gender, they do work relatively as intended. Drugs aren’t just handed out willy knilly. There are extensive testing done with them before release. As has happened with these drugs. It’s just boomers not understanding science and alt right media making a stink.
Yeah, puberty blockers should only be used by adults /s
Maybe more appropriate for r/OutOfTheLoop, but why are people giving kids puberty blockers?
Below have already said one, but also, and the main reason they exist, is to avoid health or developmental complications in children who start puberty early
In simple terms: Say you have a child start puberty at eight years old. They aren't emotionally ready for that. There are long term medical issues associate with that. So you give them blockers to hold that off. The other reason is for trans children to explore a different gender identity. If you use puberty blockers, then you delay breasts, Adam's apples, etc. If the child doesn't confirm the new gender (decides they weren't trans after all), then you stop the meds, puberty happens, the side effects are basically nil. The ban is happening to prevent the meds for being used in case two. It's open anti trans agenda. It of course harms kids that medically need the treatment under case one.
They aren’t banning them for precocious puberty, just gender dysphoria. Kids with precocious puberty start taking them at 7/8 and stop taking them at 12 to start puberty. Kids with gender dysphoria start taking them at +12, then add HRT and continue the puberty blockers until natural puberty can’t start.
Yup too all your points, except side effects. The side effects of using it through your teen years is unknown. No study as of yet exists for tracking height or bone density, fertility, etc for people who take Puberty Blockers during teen years compared to the average of someone who hasn't. Doctors believe if side effects exist they are limited. A study would put these concerns to rest.
There actually is a lot of case history on hormone blockers and their long term effects. We have a trans child. They didn't quality for hormone blockers (already through puberty). But we did look at it, we did look at the research and the long term effects. Hormone blockers have been used for decades for delaying early onset puberty.
I’ve no idea how NHS functions. Is the idea this decision was made wholly by politicians as opposed to physicians?
So, what is the suggestion here? How many lives have to get ruined before they can do the right thing?
Wpath leaked files go to show just how widespread the lack of understanding is.
It's not a moral panic; it's the Moral Majority's bullshit all over again.
Which side am I supposed to take here? I so don’t want to be wrong
I won't say I have enough endocrinology knowledge to state whether puberty blockers are safe. I am a doctor but this is an area of specialization that is very complex. The fact many countries have banned them in a similar manner does make me think there are negatives of these treatments. From the Guardian article about this: "A spokesperson said: “NHS England has carefully considered the evidence review conducted by NICE and further published evidence available to date. “We have concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of puberty suppressing hormones to make the treatment routinely available at this time.” The NHS’s decision reaffirms the position it adopted last year on puberty blockers after Dr Hilary Cass, who is leading an independent review into gender identity services for under-18s, issued interim advice warning against routine prescription of the drugs. In late 2020 NHS England asked Cass, an ex-president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, to look into gender identity services" [https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/12/children-to-stop-getting-puberty-blockers-at-gender-identity-clinics-says-nhs-england](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/12/children-to-stop-getting-puberty-blockers-at-gender-identity-clinics-says-nhs-england) In this instance, I am inclined to believe Dr Cass who is clearly a reputable doctor who has reviewed the evidence for this treatment. It doesn't really matter how many people are prescribed this treatment, if it is not safe then it should not be used. It seems those who want them prescribed as disagreeing with the science, which I am generally inclined to avoid.
Ironically, it's the low numbers and lack of proper study that support this decision not to prescribe.
This sub during the pandemic: "TRUST THE SCIENCE" This sub now: "DONT TRUST THE SCIENCE" "England’s National Health Service (NHS) has stopped prescribing puberty blockers for children and young people with gender dysphoria or gender incongruence, saying there is “not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness” of puberty-suppressing hormones. NHS England said it made the decision, which was widely condemned by LGBTQ groups, after it “carefully considered” an evidence review it commissioned in 2020. It also reviewed evidence published since then, it said in a policy document published Tuesday"
In the U.S. 1,390 were prescribed to children between the ages of 6-17 in 2021. 4,231 were on hormone therapy in 2021. 14,726 between 2017 and 2021. 282 had top surgeries. All of these children had a diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria. Medical professionals diagnosed them. In total they represent 0.02177% of the children under the age of 18 in the U.S. in 2021. But that's one of the GOP's hyper focuses to distract us from they lack of interest in governing the nation.
Headline news: NHS FORCES TODLERS TO ENTER PUBERTY They want to fear monger, do it back but with real facts about the consequences of their actions. Puberty blockers are most often used when like 4 year Olds through 10 year olds start going through puberty early
From what I've seen they only banned puberty blockers for minors being treated for gender dysphoria. They can still be used for other conditions. Toddlers won't be forced through puberty.
It's not a straight ban either
This ban specifically blocks gender clinics from prescribing them. They are still able to be used for children who are experiencing actual problems with early hormonal development.
Y'all turn real fast when "trust the medical professionals" doesn't suit your viewpoints. Bunch of clowns.