Arguments for puberty blockers

I am not denying what you say re health implications Galaxy and as you may remember from previous discussions totally agreed with the Cass Review.

However, what matters is there being adequate resources for young people to access in order to give the opportunity for a full consideration of the "wants" to trans, factoring in any neurodiversity,

BUT - for the small number of those who are suitable, for puberty blockers to be available from 18 to enable them to live the life not just of their choice but what is decided by appropriate professionals to be a heathy choice for that individual.

The fact the research was done in 2017 isnt wholly relevant, because it does show what I alleged - that there are many people living in a gender (not sex of course) they were not born into, and living well. That hasn't changed.

Wyllow, there are many people doing all sorts of things that they have been doing for a long time. That's (usually) fine, but it doesn't mean that adapting the bodies of children is ever going to be a good thing. I can understand a girl who wishes she were a boy not wanting to grow breasts, but who knows how a none year old will feel at 29 if she can't have babies and has been otherwise affected by hormones and/or surgery? We don't allow children to make irreversible decisions on many things, and definitely not where medicine is concerned - doctors and parents must make them for them, for good reason.

Also, puberty generally begins long before the age of 18, so puberty blockers have to be given to much younger people (ie children) if they are to have any effect at all.

If someone wants to dress as a member of the opposite sex, change their name, do whatever else they see as appropriate to that sex, I can see no harm in it. But men insisting on being in spaces where women go for safety, competing against women in professional sport, taking women's prizes etc is very different, and pretending that they were 'assigned' the wrong 'gender' at birth is meaningless. Gender norms are not innate - they vary across time and place, and are societal, not natural.

We don't as a rule base medical treatment on wants unless there is good evidence for it. Yes giving puberty blockers at 18 is generally too late because people have usually gone through puberty.
The date of research is relevant because of the changes in cohort particularly the sudden increase from around 2012 ( I think) in young girls, and the latest figures (decease in transitioning) which may indicate social contagion. If you are asking me to trust the medical professionals on this, I don't, I think some of them should never practice medicine again.

I know that it's less effective to give puberty blockers at 18 but unless and until we have a well resourced system that enables safe choices to be made under that age I see no alternative. Also this is hardly an argument against choosing that route in life, but the safest one we can offer currently.

Doodledog I have said many times I do not think that people born as men can ever take part in women's sports.

But I do believe that some people are born - who knows, nature or nurture? Who will only ever be happy in the gender of their choice, and are happy in the gender of their choice, all their lives. There always have been, and there is likely always going to be.

But again, why does the fact that something has been happening for a long time mean that it should continue? That argument is often used by the trans lobby, and I don't understand why.

I know you don't approve of men in women's sport, Wyllow, but if we go down the road of people being what they say (or think) they are, where does it stop? The WI spokesperson says that transwomen are women, and they aren't alone in spreading that misinformation. If that is (believed to be) the case, why can't they participate in sport as female? Or use women's facilities? Why bother having sex-based facilities or protections at all? Who decides where the lines are drawn?

I don't have instant answers. I think further legislation and guidance needed as we still have the 2004 Gender Act in place.

It's up to individual organisations presently.

To me, it's not the label stuck to our foreheads, but how we treat each other, day by day, week by week, whatever our sex, whatever our gender.

Not to bully or threaten another person, do no harm, as far as we can in our lives.

There are so many people around who do just that completely outside of the trans debate, in RL and on social media, in work situations, in schools..

Whitewavemark2

Cabbie21

My eldest grandchild is transitioning but nothing started before the age of at least 20. I just hope s/he knows what s/he is doing ( 24 now).
I think this new trial is proposed for early teens- not old enough to open a bank account, someone said, far too young in my view to consent to something so major.

I think for every child who is muddled about their sexuality, the vast majority end up happily in their birth sex.

I watched a friends teenage daughter who from her early teens was adamant that she wanted to transition to a male, she changed her name to male wore male clothing etc, etc, now in her early 20s she has completely settled in her birth sex, with boyfriend, in tow and in fact is very glamorous. Imagine if she’d persuaded the clinicians of her need to change gender! It would be a tragedy.

yes this was me. I wanted to be a boy right up to puberty, and if I had been of that vintage, I would have changed my name etc. But with puberty that changed for me, and although I've never been a feminine women I am a proud mum, grandmum & female.
If you have puberty blocked, then surely you are blocking something that is part of the orientation process & skewing people's choice?
We need to be holistic about treating people, & these drugs do not just delay puberty, they are influencing physical and mental processes, to say otherwise is simplistic.

My very first post on GN was asking why we can't be more accepting of those who want to behave in ways more usually seen as for the 'other sex' rather than force people into transitioning (particularly wrt the young) and I was roundly told to 'educate myself' and stop being transphobic.

I am not transphobic, but that sort of attitude has probably made me less tolerant than I was. Since then (I think it was a year or so before lockdown, so about 2018-19) a lot has happened. The pendulum swung to a ludicrous place and is now swinging back. If 'transitioning' is a natural thing that has always been with us, the figures will stay level. If, OTOH, it has been a trend encouraged by contagion and anti-feminist politics, I hope we will see them fall.

I'm told that there are fewer young people insisting on teachers using self-designated pronouns and so on in schools, which is probably a good sign.

Wyllow3
But I do believe that some people are born - who knows, nature or nurture? Who will only ever be happy in the gender of their choice, and are happy in the gender of their choice, all their lives. There always have been, and there is likely always going to be.

Few people would argue with that, but does that have tomean arguing with and suppressing the half of you that is your birth sex? In the past trans people have happily and successfully lived in the gender of their choice without any physical change, because it was not available.

Back in the 1980s I knew one such women, living entirely and convincingly as a man.

Valdavi
yes this was me. I wanted to be a boy right up to puberty, and if I had been of that vintage, I would have changed my name etc. But with puberty that changed for me, and although I've never been a feminine women I am a proud mum, grandmum & female.

I could have written every word you wrote because I was the same, right down to choosing the name I would have if I was a boy.

As an adult I studied what was considered a 'male' subject and university and worked mainly in a male environment where I felt entirely comfortable. On various occasions other women have accused me of thinking like a man, but like you I am married, with children and grandchildren and love all of them

I cannot think of one reason.

M0nica

Wyllow3
But I do believe that some people are born - who knows, nature or nurture? Who will only ever be happy in the gender of their choice, and are happy in the gender of their choice, all their lives. There always have been, and there is likely always going to be.

Few people would argue with that, but does that have tomean arguing with and suppressing the half of you that is your birth sex? In the past trans people have happily and successfully lived in the gender of their choice without any physical change, because it was not available.

Back in the 1980s I knew one such women, living entirely and convincingly as a man.

That partly depends what you want from your intimate life, your life with a partner, and how able you are to live with bits of you, that you do not feel are actually "part of you"? I cant fully imagine the situation, but I think I'd hate to have those dangly bits!

Wyllow3

I know that it's less effective to give puberty blockers at 18 but unless and until we have a well resourced system that enables safe choices to be made under that age I see no alternative. Also this is hardly an argument against choosing that route in life, but the safest one we can offer currently.

Doodledog I have said many times I do not think that people born as men can ever take part in women's sports.

But I do believe that some people are born - who knows, nature or nurture? Who will only ever be happy in the gender of their choice, and are happy in the gender of their choice, all their lives. There always have been, and there is likely always going to be.

But I do believe that some people are born - who knows, nature or nurture?

I don't understand that statement, sorry, Wyllow.

Nature or nurture?

Nature is one thing, nurture another.
Nature relates to our DNA, our genetic makeup.
Nurture relates to our upbringing and other influences as we are growing up.

Both are relevant.

As regards any possible genetic pre-disposition, we don't yet know.

Tt may be, nurture wise possible it is more likely to come out in some families more than others, but again there isn't any evidence that would indicate what the factors are, if indeed there are any.

I was attempting to differentiate between nature and nurture.

Wyllow3

As regards any possible genetic pre-disposition, we don't yet know.

Tt may be, nurture wise possible it is more likely to come out in some families more than others, but again there isn't any evidence that would indicate what the factors are, if indeed there are any.

But the physicality of your body is the sex it is formed as and that is naure.

But why is is always about making the body meet the mind, why not work to bring the mind and body in sympathy with each other.

Sexual preferences are entirely seperate because people variously are physically attracted to members of the opposite sex and people of the same sex. we have already had transmen having children, after they transitioned.

We don't do it in any other body dysphoria conditions, we don't agree with anorexic that they are indeed fat. It has been medical care driven mostly by an ideology.

To be fair Galaxy, there is a whole, very profitable industry that goes to great lengths to persuade people that their body is not right, (usually to do with the way it looks) and then offers expensive solutions to bring it into line with what that industry has pushed and pushed.

I believe the current trans agenda is driven by the same industry who are making millions with surgery and medication.

And the victims, in all these cases, are those who have been told that their lives can be changed if their bodies are changed.

A force this powerful, that has swept an ideology through this quickly, is not driven by a desire for social change. History tells us that sort of change evolves as people rethink.

As the man said: Follow the money

Follow the money, yes - but also look at who benefits from changes that allow men in female spaces, whether physical, such as changing rooms or cultural, such as Arts prizes and grants, renders statistics and research into sex-based areas such as 'gender gaps' in salaries and differentials in access to pensions meaningless (and much more).

Clue - it is not women.

Yes as I was writing I thought about plastic surgery and the damage it can do. But fir other body dysphoria issues we don't do this, we don't tell anorexics they are fat, we dont cut off healthy limbs, or at least I hope we don't.

No Galaxy - but if someone won't go out and has terrible mental health because of their nose, breasts, eyebrows, teeth, whatever then we DO operate.
This is dictated by the way people see themselves.

Being anorexic is actually dangerous and not the same as hating your nose to distraction.

Galaxy

Yes as I was writing I thought about plastic surgery and the damage it can do. But fir other body dysphoria issues we don't do this, we don't tell anorexics they are fat, we dont cut off healthy limbs, or at least I hope we don't.

Sorry Galaxy but www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yvpx20le2o

Not quite the same though M0nica. The surgeon deliberately damaged his own legs making amputation necessary, he didn't have healthy legs amputated.

Oh yeah I saw that a while ago it isn't standard medical practice.

The realities of all this are horrifying frankly.

Taking puberty blockers messes up children's bodies for the whole of the rest of their lives and affects their fertility when they are far too young to know whether as an adult they might want to reproduce.

Subsequently taking hormones to progress down this route profoundly affects all their body systems: heart, bones etc. And they are not easily reversible. And do not do the trick completely - e.g. men have squarer jaws, bigger hands etc, and no amount of oestrogen gets rid of that.

And the surgery is appalling - a young male friend of mine transitioned via surgery - his penis was scooped out and the resulting skin turned inside out and inserted to form a "vagina" which heals over unless he (now "she") regularly inserts plastic stretchers to keep it open; his balls were removed - it is grotesque and desperately painful and he nearly died from the blood loss.

This is the road we are setting children off on when we give them puberty blockers. It is not just something to keep them childlike for now - it is a lifelong road.

My DGC is on testosterone and looks awful - they look like an old man with acne when in fact they are a beautiful young woman - and top surgery is on the way. While they are sure that this is what they want they are far too young to take these life-changing decisions.

So much of it is led by social pressure - it gives them a tribe to belong to - they join the queer community and have something to fight for. It's not about sex at all. Social media has fuelled the fire; and there are surgeons making millions out of this mutilation.

I absolutely recognise that some people have problems over their sexual identity but there has to be a better way of helping them to live happy lives; and a way that does not commit very young children to "treatments" that they cannot draw back from when they are far too young to decide.