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From Contrary:
On the safety of medical treatment for children:
This Sunday Times articles gives a good balanced view of where things are at regarding the sudden upsurge in giving children (that feel unhappy with their body) a range of medical drugs that include what is known as puberty blockers. The article says there is to be a judicial review – about time in my view – but does not give details on when or where. The drugs being used are all passed for certain uses, just not for the combination being used or for pre-pubescent children, that is, there is no research data to say what the actual lifelong effect may be, but it is postulated sterility is the outcome, which makes it a very drastic choice for someone so young. They are told it is a ‘pause’ in physical development, but if there is no choice afterwards, it’s a very long life-changing pause. It would be better to read the whole article, if you are interested of course, because it’s hard to extract just key quotes: (link and snippets below to borrow a phrase):
Giving puberty blocker to ‘trans’ children is a leap into the unknown
Giving puberty blocker to ‘trans’ children is a leap into the unknownBy Janice TurnerAn 11-year-old child is probably years from his or her first kiss. Yet the drug they are about to take will almost certainly lead to a medical pathway which will leave them sterile. Since their
The balance of argument:“These are the ethical issues which make puberty blockers the most controversial of medications. On one side are “affirmative” clinicians and trans activists who believe that halting the onset of natal puberty is the only way to alleviate the distress of gender dysphoria, a sense of being “born in the wrong body”. On the other is a growing number of psychotherapists, doctors and endocrinologists concerned that blockers are administered too readily and, since they are prescribed “off-label” with no research into the long-term outcome for patients, amount to conducting a medical experiment on children.”
The judicial review:“The plaintiffs argue that prescribing hormone blockers to under-18s is illegal because, unable to understand their far-reaching consequences, children cannot consent to take them. They say the Tavistock is “materially misleading” child patients and their parents, omitting to say that “nearly 100 per cent of children who commence hormone blockers go on to take the irreversible cross-sex hormones”.” [that is, once started on the puberty blockers, the drug companies have life-long customers thereafter]
And UK government review:“Meanwhile, in the light of a 3,000 per cent increase in referrals to GIDS in the past decade, the government has announced a long-awaited independent review, chaired by Dr Hilary Cass, a former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, to assess children’s gender services and make “evidence-based recommendations about the future use of these drugs”.”
I’m not actually that sure I trust any government (uk) independent review on anything, being overly skeptical, but we can see what that throws up. And the article is positive about it:
“That such controversial drugs will come under the scrutiny of a judicial review and a public inquiry should be welcomed. Dr Hilary Cass proved herself a fearless whistleblower in 2013 when working at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, exposing how poor management was endangering patients. She will need to be robust to deal with the inevitable vicious accusations of transphobia which greet anyone probing gender ideology and medicine.”
The drugs:“So what are puberty blockers and how did they come to be used on children worldwide? The group of drugs, GnRH agonists, release a form of the human hormone gonadotropin to stop the testicles and ovaries from producing sex hormones. Triptorelin, the most widely used, is licensed to treat advanced prostate cancer in men and endometriosis in women, to “chemically castrate” male sex offenders and in children to halt rare cases of early puberty, but not to treat child gender dysphoria.”
A statistic on the effects of treatment:”But would they have transitioned anyway? Most likely not. A statistic, undisputed by GIDS and North American gender clinics, is that without medical intervention around 85 per cent of gender dysphoric children come to terms with their biological sex after puberty. As GIDS notes: “‘Persistence [in identifying as trans] was strongly correlated with the commencement of physical interventions such as the hypothalamic blocker.” Moreover the vast majority of these non-conforming kids seen by clinics — girls who prefer short hair and skateboarding, boys who love Barbies — will grow up into lesbians or gay men. In the maelstrom of adolescence, are they confusing same-sex attraction with being trans?”
“Clinicians believe the natural cascade of sex hormones at puberty can resolve bodily self-hatred. Yet if puberty is thwarted this cannot happen. Moreover, the claim that blockers are fully reversible, that natal puberty will just spark up even years later if you stop taking them, is largely untested — because almost no one does that”
Not enough research:“Remembering that triptorelin is used off-label, shouldn’t every gender clinic conduct exhaustive long-term research, monitoring every patient to ensure that their radical drug regime works? In 2011 GIDS embarked on a study of 44 young people and Dr Michael Biggs, associate professor at Oxford’s Department of Sociology, has analysed the results that GIDS has only published in dribs and drabs. This includes findings that children — although happier and more confident after six months — noted “internalised problems and body dissatisfaction, especially in natal girls” after a year. Most alarming was a significant increase in patients agreeing with the statement: “I deliberately try to hurt or kill myself.” Given that parents are repeatedly told (wholly erroneously) their children will kill themselves if they don’t take blockers, this surely requires more scrutiny.”
” Dr Cass might ponder why Ferring Pharmaceuticals, which produces triptorelin, not only financially supported a trial into the Dutch protocol but since 2013 has donated £1.4 million to the Lib Dems, the most vocal supporters of gender self-ID.”
“Doubts about puberty blockers have come from senior clinicians, from LGBT campaigners worried that gender clinics are performing “gay conversion therapy” on future homosexual kids, and from feminists appalled that girls who do not conform to sexist gender stereotypes feel they cannot be girls. Already a growing number of “de-transitioners”, mainly young women, are coming forward, angry that doctors rushed them into irreversible treatment.”
There are many questions that this article brings up – one being, are we still so homophobic as a society we would prefer to encourage harming children? I would like to think not.
From a Scottish perspective: I hope that the judicial review and independent review will put a pause on the current fast-paced promotion of untested and controversial policies, affecting the children of Scotland, by the Scottish government – this is separate, but not wholly so, from the GRA reform bill. As adults we can fight our own battles, but children are vulnerable and need to be protected from any kind of exploitation.
On the subject of SNP as the party in government – they believe themselves to be socially progressive I am sure, and have jumped on this rather strange and illogical bandwagon, just like most other parties. Having considered it, I would like to see sense prevail in the party as a whole (and all the political parties for that matter) – and perhaps articles like this and the reviews will encourage critical thinking – but a small cohort of true believers within their ranks will not prevent me voting for the SNP in future elections (with the usual caveats of a life-long tactical voter), unless they all go over to the dark side, of course. I believe the SNP as government will see sense, their usual rather conservative softly-softly approach could win out.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Some of my cost/benefit analysis on consequences of who to vote for:
Tories: no social conscience so will be unlikely to promote ‘trans-rights’ unless they can make money from it (possible with the privatisation of the NHS etc) – at the moment they are more likely to use the Trans issue for political point scoring and then push medicalisation at a later date, and probably under the radar. Fully in power in Westminster, voting them into power in Holyrood will give them untrammelled access to all scottish assets and will run us into the ground. The Tories in government in the Union Parliament – their policies have directly caused thousands of deaths of disabled and vulnerable people – several UN reports have outlined the Tory government abuse of human rights, which they have ignored. Future… Tories in government in Scotland: we should expect the same devastating impact on disabled people and THEIR rights. Increase in homelessness, increase in drug deaths, less money to NHS and promotion of privatisation, wearing down of criminal justice system, no new Barlinnie building at all, overcrowding in jails (increased sentencing and cancel the minimum term sentencing), no immigration and more depopulation of our country, less money to go into care, further education fee charging,,,, it goes on.
SNP: some of their number need a bit of waking up to reality, regarding child safeguarding, and consequences for society as a whole from their policy and law making. They need to be convinced of the wisdom of others in the party that have more sense. This can be done through telling them the unpopularity of their policy, raising petitions, writing to MPs and MSPs, etc.
Its a choice, in my mind, of (Tories) certain death for large numbers of vulnerable people – people that are actually supposed to have human rights too – and we’ll probably get this same issue coming up 10 years down the line anyway; and trying to convince a party (SNP) that largely has our best interests at heart that they need to be more realistic and practical, and to check empirical evidence before leaping into the unknown.
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I wrote this in reply elsewhere, on the GRA reform bill, and have decided it’s a reasonable summary of why women are protesting against it:
So, briefly:
The Scottish Government claim there are no changes to Women’s protected rights (women’s only spaces etc) – and they do not propose any changes to these laws.
The proposed GRA reform would mean that anyone, absolutely anyone, can claim to be a woman and change their birth certificate to say so: no medical assessment, nothing. If this happens, then anyone claiming to be a woman can – as the equalities act says – enter women’s protected areas. This throws up the question of how are women to ensure they have their legally protected spaces? Anyone can then enter them.
This means that both laws cannot stand – either both have to be altered, or neither. There is a conflict, one the Scottish government claims does not exist. It is claimed by some pro-GRA reform groups that people expressing concern are transphobes, and so they are trying to stop people questioning some very obvious flaws in the logic of making changes to the law.
If this was perfectly safe, and we could all trust each other to behave in a reasonable manner, that’s great. Except, I believe there are people, mostly men in fact, out there in the big bad world that are unpleasant and would think nothing of taking advantage of this ‘trust’ to abuse women, terrorise them in fact. (there are news reports of such things already, as institutions start implementing procedures that are not yet in law, I believe). Inadequate responses about safeguarding of women’s rights has developed into more vocal concerns being expressed.
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It’s a knock-on effect – institutions are already implementing an assumption of ‘you can be any gender you feel like’ so assume no limitations – where we get things like puberty blockers being used on children, male-bodied people can compete against women in sport, male-bodied people can be in women’s rape crisis centres and all the other things – some of them unpleasantly sexual in nature, even though this is not a sexual matter – so that lesbian and gay people are now transphobes just because they are same-sex attracted. These are the reasons it is crucial that any bill defines the limitations of what is meant by ‘gender’ and the scope of access into other protected areas. It does not do that at the moment – and most women’s groups are just asking for clarification, and reasoning, but are getting no answers.
This has all come out of the blue for most of us, with no explanations or reasoning, expecting us to change our whole way of life and way of thinking, and giving us no assurances in return. I know life isn’t fair, but this seems to be taking it a bit far. I would never have believed this would ever happen – we believe there are so many safeguards now within society to prevent any one group having priority over any other, not perfect, but groups that are classically discriminated against, or are vulnerable, are meant to have a fighting chance.
If medical science was advanced enough to actually change someone’s sex – then grand, go ahead and make the choice! Put some regulation on age, and standards of medical treatment, but the principle isn’t unthinkable. If anyone has read Iain M Banks, his Culture novels, you will understand. Medical science is nowhere near close to this though.
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Well, here is a legal summary of how the laws cannot co-exist – very timely!
https://www.scottishlegal.com/article/rebecca-bull-the-impact-of-gender-recognition-legislation-on-sex-based-rights
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Here are the last two paragraphs of the Scottish legal article:
“The statutory code is likely to be incorrect but if it is not, then service providers will be unable to continue to provide single-sex services. Case by case policy application is unworkable putting an intolerable burden on front line staff who may be personally exposed to discrimination claims.
Most importantly, however, the exceptions set out in paragraphs 26 and 27 allowed the public sector to provide the backroom services rendering single-sex service possible; to approve planning permission, contract out, and allocate budget. None of this is permissible under paragraph 28. Gender recognition reform renders public sector single natal sex services unworkable.”
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