I know I disagree with Rolfe and Emily's Cat, but as a woman who had gender dysphoria as a teenager and grew out of it, I am mostly on their side. All I am saying is that partitioning off gender dysphoria as no go zone for scientific research is not a good thing. Teen females and I guess teen males suffer from this, it can contribute to suicide, it is not a trivial thing you grow out of for some persons. It is a genuine area for research, but it is a difficult area as Rolfe and Emily's Cat demonstrate.
Anecdotal evidence is low level evidence. Why won't you allow research to be done? I have actually done endocrine clinics dealing with people who are transitioning, so I do have some understanding of the issues; but I wouldn't claim to be an expert. My anecdotal evidence is I don't think transitioning is a great option but for some people it may be the best of available options.
Whilst I appreciate Rolfe and Emily's cat have strong views on the harms caused from puberty blockers, reviews don't support their opinions. the evidence for harms or benefits is not strong. Clearly indicating the need for further research (COI statement I am not currently nor have I previously done research in this area, I am not currently applying for grants to research gender dysphoria.)
Please explain where anyone has attempted to "partition off gender dysphoria as no go zone for scientific research", or indeed where I have said I "won't allow the research to be done." Firstly, this discussion is
only about paediatric medical transition. Treatment of adults isn't even being challenged here. Secondly, I think in pretty much every post I have made, I have said something like, if you want to go ahead with experiments on children, first do a proper follow-up on the thousands of children who were "treated" by the Tavistock before the mounting horror got them closed down. Second, do a comprehensive series of animal experiments on appropriate non-human subjects. Don't dive into a very very poorly designed and ill-thought-out experiment on vulnerable children without these data.
Yes, I am confident that if all this is done, there will be no human experimentation. But
do the bloody preliminary research if you want to justify it.
Another thing that needs done is a rigorous examination of
why blocking puberty might potentially be beneficial. We know the downsides, and there are many. What is actually being achieved by doing it - as opposed to the people who persist in wanting medical transition into adulthood doing it then? Boys may "pass" better, but that seems more in comparison to all the middle-aged men who transitioned rather than the men who transitioned in their twenties. (Bear in mind that Blaire White is an adult transitioner.) Girls aren't going to be any different. The unspoken justification seems to me to be merely "because they want this very badly". That's not good enough.
There's another reason I think it wouldn't go ahead. The trans contagion is on the wane. Although it's still being pushed in schools by indoctrinated teachers, the younger cohort of children are laughing at it all. In a few years the demand for paediatric transition is going to fall off a cliff. It's going the way of indigo children, if you remember that.
And don't you think that the lack of access to the historical data is something a bit suspicious? These children were originally treated as part of a trial! Only no results were published and the Tavistock just opened it up to more and more children without any documented justification or outcomes data. The lack of scientific rigour is breathtaking. But the data exist, even if they're not complete. However the subjects have become adults and have been treated for years by the adult service. Cass bust a gut trying to get them to release these data, anonymised, but was met with a flat refusal. As far as I can recall, some sort of legislation was passed through parliament to require the release of the data, but the clinicians went right on refusing.
Why is this? Is it even possible that they have no patient records? I don't think so. There are no confidentiality issues that can't be addressed by proper anonymisation of the data. The conclusion that these zealot clinicians know very well that the outcomes are terrible is hard to ignore.
You think that for some people transitioning may be the best option. However, I have seen absolutely no evidence to suggest that, even if you could identify these people when they're still pre-pubertal children, their outcome will be any better than if they do it as adults. And you're still ignoring the indubitable fact that without being able to tell which children will desist, the proposed trial would destroy the bodies of the ~80% of participants who would otherwise have become reconciled to their healthy, unharmed bodies after puberty.
The proposed trial is stopping the very process that leads to resolution of the distress in the vast majority of children.
ETA: I missed the "suicide" canard. Children with gender distress are not killing themselves in vast numbers. Suicide in this cohort is in line with suicide rates in other groups of children with comparable psychiatric morbidities. The thread "do you want a live daughter or a dead son" (or vice versa) was regularly used by the Tavistock clinicians to pressurise parents into giving consent, but this was pure coercion, not based in reality.
Another point is the existence of coexisting psychiatric and social morbidities. A ridiculous percentage of these children were autistic or had other conditions such as anorexia nervosa, OCD and anxiety. An eyepopping percentage were from broken homes or in care, and an absolutely gobsmacking percentage had fathers on the sex offenders register. Multiple detransitioners have spoken about the lack of attention to any of these conditions once the "gender" button had been pressed. It was as if this was the over-riding feature that negated everything else, and transition became the solution to everything. The lack of any probing about
why these children wanted to transition was criminal. Some were believed by their clinicians to be fleeing sex abuse. Others, who were pre-gay, seemed to be trying to turn themselves straight by changing sex, due to internalised homophobia. Autistic children, who are often non-conforming misfits, were easy to persuade that the reason for this was that they were "really" the opposite sex. Many friendless children were attracted by the lure of the trans "glitter family" who promised to celebrate them and love them.
All of this has been swept under the carpet by the single "affirm, affirm, affirm" approach, and it's still going on. Surely the best outcome is for these children to become reconciled to reality, and to become comfortable with the healthy bodies they have? But the current approach, and the approach endorsed by this diabolical proposed "trial", is that the minute a child says the word trans, they are on the "Pathway". Just give all these kids puberty blockers, either now or in a year, knowing that ~80% of them, supported to go through puberty unharmed, and treated for their other psychiatric and social ills, would desist anyway. It's a deeply, deeply flawed proposal (read that open letter!) and frankly it's diabolical.
