Today the High Court has agreed that children can be given puberty blockers.

Any trial program is going to be dealing with parents who have been fully informed about the potential risk,
I think the point here is that no-one knows the risks .... hence the trial.

Luckygirl3

In the same boat here Iam64.

Agree with both of you.

That is why it is a difficult belief system to move on from, the parents are never going to be able to admit that it was a mistake, how can they? As a society we should never have pretended that it was possible to change sex, we sold people a damaging lie.

Lathyrus3

Actually butter and jam that’s not how cancer drugs work, especially for children.

There is a protocol for all drugs before they are tested on humans and cancer drugs follow that too.

I know headlines in the media sometimes give the impression that a drug has come from nowhere and doctors are “giving it go” but it really doesn’t work like that.

There may be unexpected side effects but, as far as it is possible to have tested the drug in laboratory conditions that will have been done, before it is released for human trial.

The same applies to the hormone drugs used as puberty blockers. They have been tested, approved, and used for other medical circumstances, adverse side effects/longterm damage known.

Just as the adverse side effets of approved cancer drugs and treatments are known, but the potential benefits might outweigh the risky downside. Which is why parents accept those negative risks for their child with cancer.

Any trial program is going to be dealing with parents who have been fully informed about the potential risk, and (for whatever reason) those parents have come to the view that their childs situation justifies the risk. I don't believe any parent will do that lightly.

In the same boat here Iam64.

Iam64

Thanks Luckygirl for your comments here. We have a young trans person in our family. ASD diagnosis at 8 years old. Very intelligent, sensitive , socially isolated and always felt like an outsider . The high incidence of young people with ASD diagnosis who express concerns about gender needs more research imo

Yes because from my limited experience with children with ASD who express “concerns about gender,” they think it will solve some of their ASD problems.

I agree Luckygirl but if I say anything to my children I’m shouted down , I know a youngster with a very vocal and overbearing mum , Munchausens immediately describes her

Thanks Luckygirl for your comments here. We have a young trans person in our family. ASD diagnosis at 8 years old. Very intelligent, sensitive , socially isolated and always felt like an outsider . The high incidence of young people with ASD diagnosis who express concerns about gender needs more research imo

*In this case, "worse result" could be desperate teenagers buying hormone drugs online and self medicating. Or self-harm and serious mental illness.

For parents in that situation, the least-worst option might be to consent to puberty delay under the most rigorous of conditions and expert medical supervision.*

The unknowns are the issue. Clearly some young people with gender dysphoria can be very distressed and this is a huge challenge for their parents as they live in the here and now fearing that their child will become mentally ill or self harm. This is a dreadful situation for them to be in.

However the solution is not to to give children drugs that can cause long term ill effects, many of which are not known. The solution is the ready availability of high quality support services to those children - and we all know how sparse that is. CAMHS is a crumbling service. Drugs with unknown effects should not be used to fill that gap.

When a new cancer drug is used on a child who is already terminally ill, trying this new treatment is very clearly the least worst option. Trying a new drug that feeds into the mental disturbance that a child is suffering is a completely different scenario. It is buying into the false beliefs and risking long term physical harm in doing so.

The answer is societal - abandoning gender stereotypes so that people can simply be themselves and dress and behave as they feel is right for them with no judgement, as long as they are decent law-abiding citizens.

My additional concern is that there will be lots of parents who are genuinely knocked sideways by what is happening with their child but there will be others who will lap it up in an almost Munchausen's by proxy fashion. Theroux did a programme about this in the US and the attitudes of some of the parents were very concerning. The UK trial depends on parental consent but some parents might not be the right people to give that consent.

It is a significant factor that so many children with an ASD diagnosis self ID as trans. These children feel like outsiders already

No.
This should never be permitted by law.

Luckygirl said

"The trial is to look at the long term effects of puberty blockers and it feels unacceptable to give children (who are too young to even begin to understand the ramifications of it all) drugs with the specific purpose of finding out if it will harm them in the long term with no hope of reversal. It does not feel right at all."

I completely agree with Luckygirl and am dismayed that this will go ahead. Who knows the outcome of the long-term use of these drugs and where it will leave the children in their later lives. Why are the parents supporting this? They are turning them into lab-rats!

Actually butter and jam that’s not how cancer drugs work, especially for children.

There is a protocol for all drugs before they are tested on humans and cancer drugs follow that too.

I know headlines in the media sometimes give the impression that a drug has come from nowhere and doctors are “giving it go” but it really doesn’t work like that.

There may be unexpected side effects but, as far as it is possible to have tested the drug in laboratory conditions that will have been done, before it is released for human trial.

GrannyGravy13

In the U.K. a child under 16 cannot give consent to be part of a clinical trial, they will need a parent or guardian to consent for them.

I just cannot see how stopping the natural progression of puberty on a young persons body and brain ever being the morally right thing to do.

Counselling, counselling and more counselling should be the way forward until they reach 18 and are fully aware of what they are going to do to their body and the consequences of their decisions on their future health, both physically and mentally.

So we are giving children drugs that we don’t know are safe and effective. We are experimenting on them.

This is hardly new. Children with cancer, for instance, need to be treated right away; even if the treatment is so new nobody yet knows the effect those drugs could have on a baby, on an undeveloped body, brain etc.

Surgeons perform new procedures even though there is no guarantee of success, and a risk of harm/death. Because doing nothing might have worse results. Someone always has to take those decisions on behalf of children to young to understand .

In this case, "worse result" could be desperate teenagers buying hormone drugs online and self medicating. Or self-harm and serious mental illness.

For parents in that situation, the least-worst option might be to consent to puberty delay under the most rigorous of conditions and expert medical supervision.

It feels like one step forward and six steps back Iam.

An 11 year old can't have the capacity to consent and how can their parents consent to something that they have no idea of what the long term affects may be?

Smileless2012

^It does not feel right at all^ no it doesn't Luckygirl. It's frightening that the High Court can make such a ludicrously and potentially harmful ruling .

It doesn’t seem right at all is such a straightforward response. It really just feels wrong on every level. Increasingly, we are told brains don’t mature till age 25. How on earth an 11 year old can have the capacity to consent is beyond me

Legalised child abuse!

It does not feel right at all no it doesn't Luckygirl. It's frightening that the High Court can make such a ludicrously and potentially harmful ruling .

I agree with you Luckygirl3

It is a trial, but I suppose that the disturbance that people feel is over the fact that it is a trial on children with a treatment that is not medically essential.

I am sure that in the past there have been trials of cancer drugs on children with terminal diagnoses; but this new trial is on normal healthy children, many of whom are neurodivergent (including my GC).

There is no other aspect of neurodiversity which we say is normal - we help these young people to find ways of overcoming the problems. It is only with gender dysphoria that we take a different approach and endorse it. I do not know whether that is the right thing to do.

I am also aware that it can be something that parents get on board with rather more readily than they might any other psychological problem, and find themselves standing up for their children's rights as a way of life.

The trial is to look at the long term effects of puberty blockers and it feels unacceptable to give children (who are too young to even begin to understand the ramifications of it all) drugs with the specific purpose of finding out if it will harm them in the long term with no hope of reversal. It does not feel right at all.

In the U.K. a child under 16 cannot give consent to be part of a clinical trial, they will need a parent or guardian to consent for them.

I just cannot see how stopping the natural progression of puberty on a young persons body and brain ever being the morally right thing to do.

Counselling, counselling and more counselling should be the way forward until they reach 18 and are fully aware of what they are going to do to their body and the consequences of their decisions on their future health, both physically and mentally.

So we are giving children drugs that we don’t know are safe and effective. We are experimenting on them.

Every other drug trial has criteria that must be followed, including extensive laboratory experimentation. The drug cannot be trialed on humans until it has been shown to be reasonably safe and participants in the trial fully understand the parameters of risk.

Surely the laboratory requirements should be fulfilled first, as required for every other new drug.

How children can be made aware of the risks and give consent is a question ethics. That also is a standard part of drug trials that has been ignored in this trial.

butterandjam

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Madness in my opinion. Wilful damage to children.
I’d call it abuse to be honest.

Its a go ahead for an NHS TRIAL, on a restricted group of patients.

Exactly butterandjam and in line with the Cass review specific recommendations. The purpose of the trial evidently is to scientifically find out whether puberty blockers are safe and effective.

Puberty is not just about bodily maturing including sexual development it is very much involved with normal brain development. Blocking puberty has many unwelcome side effects which is why drugs are only used in some but definitely not all cases of precocious puberty and then only for the minimum time possible.
I too think in years to come this passage in our history will be viewed with total horror and incredulity. If an eleven year old is informed of their potential future sterility and lack of sexual function will they consider it fully with real understanding? We don't allow them autonomy in much less impactful circumstances but this seems to be viewed as some holy grail. I despair.
Any physical interventions should be left until adulthood in my opinion, but support and counselling is a must for troubled children.

Luckygirl3

Is this the Pathways Trial that came out of the Cass report?
If so my understanding is that it can only be used from age 11 or 12 ... by which time the boat will have sailed for many children.
I looked up what other countries do. Scandinavia seems to be strictest with psychological support being the first line treatment, with other European countries only allowing under very strict conditions.
It would seem that this madness is global.
I speak as GM to a transgender GC who decided they wanted to change their gender as soon as their periods began.
The only treatment that was given wss the pill to stop their periods till they were old enough to decide for themselves and they now buy testosterone privately from their savings. It breaks my heart to see them ... as they really do look weird sadly, but at least they were not assaulted with drugs as a child.

I feel that this is the most sensible thing for girls.

I genuinely do think no other kind of treatment should be offered to young people until they reach at least 18. Then it should be a very long journey, starting with a lot of counselling and therapy and medical assessments.

I have a ex-colleague married to a transgender, from female to male, it was entirely the right thing for this person. They have never been happier, but they were in their twenties before anything hormonal happened.

Someone else I know has a GC who is on the spectrum and since puberty has become TG, nothing physical nor hormonal has taken place, though they do wear binding over their breasts and often won’t go out in public unless wearing a mask.

At 15, I would suggest that this is a very troubled adolescent, who luckily has amazing parental and grandparent support and love.