Sweden Stops Puberty Blockers & Cross-Sex Hormones For Under 16s; Cites "Lack of Evidence" of Long-Term Benefit, "Extensive And Irreversible Undesirable Consequences," & Kiera Bell Decision (English Version is Shown on Left)

submitted by MarkTwainiac from twitter.com

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[–]SnowAssMan 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Good. Puberty blockers lower the desistance rate to 2%, while without them it's 88%.

[–]Archie 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Do you have a source? It's a super valuable stat

[–]SnowAssMan 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Only 2% desist on puberty blockers:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.01.20241653v1?fbclid=IwAR2nM32LPUtEYQ6zEmGofoHz3h6KibXQ_pAWVPIKBRwGSdQWJq-ok8Ncg70

The older the participants are in the follow-up the greater the desistance rate. Study from 2021 looking at people under 20 finds 88% desistance rate (there was another one that found the same % looking at the same ages, but it's hard for me to find):

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.632784/full

Usually the trans brigade claim that the ones on puberty blockers had "gender dysphoria", while the ones who desisted didn't have GD. Obviously completely made up. Their ideology is all about making up whatever they'd prefer to be true. If men who prefer to be women are women, by virtue of said preference, then obviously people who desist never had GD, despite the study literally stating that most of them did in fact have GD.

[–]MarkTwainiac[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Also, it should be pointed out that the 2% desistance rate might be high. It comes from a study of 44 kids at the UK's youth gender clinic (GIDS Tavistock) in which one child decided to go off the blockers. Most other studies have shown that 100% of kids put on PBs for "gender dysphoria" proceed to cross-sex hormones and other interventions such as major surgeries. In other words, going on blockers locks kids into their "dysphoria" and their "trans" identities, and puts them on a conveyer belt to more medical interventions that they can't get off until it's way too late.

Contrary to what TRAs say, in the vast majority of cases, the enormous changes that kids go through during adolescent puberty seem to cause "gender dysphoria" to dissipate and often to disappear entirely. In other words, the natural process of puberty that TRAs want to block and prevent is in itself what resolves GD. Not interfering with children's puberty - but rather helping them navigate it - constitutes essential therapeutic treatment for GD.

In some cases, puberty results in a total remission or cure; in other cases, the GD recedes to the point where it's no longer so bothersome - and/or it's outweighed by the benefits and pleasures that come with/after puberty, such as increased cognitive capacity, better impulse control, greater feelings of mastery over self and environment, more understanding of self and the world, libido, sexual attraction, ability to orgasm, participating in romantic and sexual relationships - amongst many others.

[–]MarkTwainiac[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

All the published research show that 98-100% of children put on puberty blockers go on to take cross-sex hormones, and many have surgeries in their teens and early 20s as well, particularly double mastectomies in females and to a lesser extent genital surgeries in teen males like Jazz Jennings and Jackie Green.

See Bell v Tavistock. https://www.transgendertrend.com/puberty-blockers/

Also: https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n356

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56601386

https://segm.org/NICE_gender_medicine_systematic_review_finds_poor_quality_evidence

The most recent study showing that 88% of (male) children with "gender dysphoria" who go through puberty end up desisting: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.632784/full

https://twitter.com/ZUCKERKJ/status/1376412177867927560

Please note that as the above study by Zucker and others shows, most of the research on childhood GID/GD - and its persistence/desistance rates - has been done on males. It cannot be assumed to be applicable to the large number of female youth seeking medical treatment for "gender dysphoria" today. The female youth population labelled "gender dysphoric" and "trans" today is markedly different to the male youth population of the past in a number of significant ways.

Moreover, males presenting with childhood "gender dysphoria" in the present-day climate may well be very different to the males of previous eras as well. One reason is that unlike in past eras, nowadays many parents, gender therapists and medical professionals are intentionally and actively taking a host of measures meant to convince kids they were "born in the wrong body" and are trans. Lots of adults are very invested in the new idea of the "trans child" - and are strongly motivated to make the numbers of "trans children" mushroom.

Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine: https://segm.org/

Another organization with lots of research: https://www.genderhq.org/trans-children-gender-dysphoria-desistance-gay

Also, the background to what's happened in Sweden is helpful. Sweden used to be gung ho on the idea of medically transing children. Once the press, the government and the Swedish psychiatric and medical community finally started listening to what detransitioners were saying after the Swedish TV documentary The Trans Train came out several years back, they did a review of the protocols and all the evidence - rather lack of evidence. As a result, Sweden not only now has done a complete U-turn & stopped the use of PBs and CSHs in those 16 and under, it's also stopped doing double mastectomies on teenage girls with GD.

https://genderreport.ca/the-swedish-u-turn-on-gender-transitioning/

Sweden's most famous former youth transitioner, who long has been held up as a poster child for early medical transition, has also come forward to state publicly on TV and to the press that he now wishes he had realized earlier that he could easily have gone through life as a gay man without surgically and hormonally altering his body.

[–]GConly 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

This is great news, because affirmation plus blockers was being used as the paradigm internationally based on what Sweden was doing.

Having them back off is a major step forward.

[–]MarkTwainiac[S] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I believe the treatment model embraced internationally consisting of blockers + CSH at a later date was first devised by clinicians in the Netherlands in the mid-late 1990s. Hence the name, "the Dutch protocol." I don't think Sweden pioneered any particular treatment paradigms.

Also, AFAIK the Dutch clinicians who came up with the blockers + CSH for "trans youth" didn't use or espouse the affirmation-only approach with the patients they tried "the Dutch protocol" on. The boys and girls they put on blockers had undergone some degree of explorative psychotherapy beforehand. It's not like all the places in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland and Australia where the norm became to "affirm" youngsters's opposite-sex gender identities from the get-go, and where kids have been able to obtain blockers and/or CSH after one or two consults with a "gender therapist" without any probing or psychotherapy at all.

As to how/when/why "the affirmation approach" came to be seen as the only acceptable way of treating transgender people of all ages - both by professionals in therapeutic, clinical settings as well by each and every person out there in the wider world, in the media and online - well, that story is a little more complicated. I'll post about it another time.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Hopefully many more countries follow.

[–]BiologyIsReal 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Great news!

[–]peakingatthemoment 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Wonderful news!

[–]lostinthesilence 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Usually Sweden is trying to outwoke the rest of the west, but at least this once they’ve done the right thing.

[–]usehername 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Puberty Blockers Studies Dump:

Loss of sexual function: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26119518/ , https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10221860/

Loss of bone density: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27845262/ , https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/results/NCT00660010?term=leuprolide+and+central+precocious+puberty&view=results#evnt

Lower IQ: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5694455/

From the puberty blockers consent forms at the Children's Hospital Los Angeles: “If your child starts puberty blockers in the earliest stages of puberty, and then goes on to gender-affirming hormones, they will not develop sperm or eggs. This means that they will not have biological children.” https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q-zJCivH-QW7hL25idXT_jITfJZUUm1w/view

Various health problems: https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/02/lupron-puberty-children-health-problems/

NICE admits low evidence for puberty blockers: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56601386

[–]Archie 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

For those interested, I think this is the SBU study mentioned in the image: https://www.sbu.se/en/publications/sbu-bereder/gender-dysphoria-in-children-and-adolescents-an-inventory-of-the-literature/

The downloadable executive summary is in English.

[–]MarkTwainiac[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

https://segm.org/NICE_gender_medicine_systematic_review_finds_poor_quality_evidence