“There is no evidence of a large rise in suicides in young patients attending a gender identity clinic in London, an independent review has found.”
"Prof Appleby’s review concludes “the data do not support the claim”.
And he added that the way the issue had been discussed on social media was “insensitive, distressing and dangerous”.
“A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said decisions on children’s healthcare must follow the evidence at all times.”
“We only saw a small rise, so until statistically significant numbers of children kill themselves, the brutality will continue.”
Why is “suicide” the metric for healthcare to begin with? Imagine if dentists acted like this. “No one committed suicide from not receiving a root canal in the last 3 years, so we’ve determined them to be medically unnecessary.”
It’s not used as a healthcare metric. This is just debunking reports that a healthcare policy was directly causing an “explosion” in suicides.
Except they also say “The evidence on suicide risk in children and young people with gender dysphoria is generally poor.”
That’s not debunking. That’s denial of the problem.
That’s not denial, it’s looking at the evidence.
More like suggesting there is no reliable evidence.
As the law of funding bias says, only research that corroborates powerful interests will get the funding necessary to create a reliable body of evidence.
“We investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong.”
Mr Maugham said the review considered “current and former” Gender Identity Development Service patients, while his figures were directed to the larger group of “those on the waiting list”.
The DHSC has insisted that patients on waiting lists were included in the review as well.
They literally didn’t, from the review:
I have examined the figures provided by NHSE on deaths in each year between 2018-19 and 2023-24. They are based on an internal audit by the Tavistock of deaths among current and former GIDS patients
Sooner or later, a trans woman forced through male puberty by arbitrary rules/culture-war politics will snap and attempt to assassinate the PM or health minister. Then the other boot will come down: the Daily Mail will demand a crackdown, and the usual voices in the Guardian will join in, and the government will follow.
Not especially surprising, given how difficult it is to get any form of healthcare for trans kids. The change has actually quite limited scope.
I have known plenty of young people who had a phase of self hatred who thought being trans can fix their problem. Unsurprisingly it didn’t. Thankfully many of them snapped out of it before they could get their hands on medication/surgery.
My understanding is that puberty blockers just delay things, letting them work that out without making permanent changes in either direction?
I thought this before, but then the Cass review came out saying we actually didn’t have enough data to know whether or not they did or didn’t make permanent effects ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not knowing about permanent effects still seems better than definite permanent effects 🤷♂️ would help learn about them too
Yeah but it would still need to be on a measured scale including placebos, etc.
Randomised Controlled trials like you’re asking for are neither ethical nor practical in this situation. Even the Cass report stated that. Patients and doctors will know PDQ whether puberty is happening or not.
You’re right that more data is needed. More data is always needed, especially on anything regarding a marginalised group. And, in many of these situations where we know the outcome of puberty is irreversible, makes transitioning afterwards more difficult, with a decent threat of mental health decline without the treatment, waiting around and doing nothing is more harmful than pausing puberty temporarily, where, based on the 30 years worth of research done for puberty blockers to treat precocious puberty, we see the most likely risks are for them to wind up a little shorter than they might have, and maybe fatter.
If you’re worried the teenagers receiving this treatment may become sterile, the above linked precocious puberty article found no evidence, but here’s an article on a recent study where they used a placebo on rats (because, again, we’ll never have a randomised controlled trial done on humans). It adds to the body of data that shows reproductive activity returns to normal very quickly after stopping treatment, for the teens who do discover they’re OK with their assigned gender identity. We also shouldn’t ignore the good percentage of teens who realise they are trans, and benefit from this in more ways than just buying time.
Then why are different studies saying different things? Another thing is that puberty can be a cure for dysphoria, as I know many were uncomfortable with their body or the idea of puberty as teenagers, but they grew into it.
I’ve said this before and I doubt it will be the last, but this ban is not about child safety. It’s about reducing the number of trans kids because they’re a political inconvenience to a slice of the establishment. If it was about how unsafe they are, it wouldn’t only be for kids experiencing gender dysphoria/incongruence. The ban would extend to intersex adolescents:
However, [Streeting] overlooks the fact that this ban does not include teenage patients with a difference of sex development (DSD), more commonly known as intersex. These individuals are prescribed puberty-blocking medication when they unexpectedly commence a puberty that is at odds with their gender identity. DSD patients are taking the medication for much the same reason as transgender patients – ie the puberty they are undergoing is causing distress, and pressing pause will probably manage that distress and minimise harm while a continuing care plan is developed. If we follow Streeting’s logic, the medication would also be banned for this patient cohort.
