26 Comments

I'm sure they'll find some way to denigrate this study, now. "Follow-up wasn't 100%, they can't prove that every single one that failed to follow up didn't die of turbo cancer as a result of the puberty blockers! We need to ban this 'healthcare' now!"

Perhaps I shouldn't be giving them ideas...

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When they get to the point of making the choice to actively do things to change their bodies, they've thought about it a LOT. Social conservatives who want to "save" these kids just can NOT wrap their heads around how some people actually need different things than they would want. Thank you for the corrective note that the URL is https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/2825195

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There's also no smoking gun to prove their theory that doctors and drug companies are just doing this because the profits are so high.

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Next to what Gyula Bujdosó already mentions: the contraceptive pill can literally be the kind of estrogen that transgirls get for HRT.

If somehow transchildren are capable of pharmaceutical companies raking in massive profits, how come that more than 50 times bigger group taking the same drugs isn't the more profitable market?

The same goes for testosterone: more cis-men take testosterone because of misplaced ideas that it will lead to better/bigger and mostly quicker gains in the gym.

And even more for GnRH-analogues/antagonists: Cis-gender children get these drugs as well. And I am fairly sure their numbers are either equal or even bigger than transchildren.

People in IVF treatment get them, treatment against endometriosis and in prostate- and breastcancer treatment, GnRH-antagonists/analogues are used as well.

But sure, they are definitely, suddenly, very dangerous only in transchildren...

I gave a presentation at work about this selective panic in politics and media and people actually remarked at the end they never knew that puberty blockers as drugs in and of themselves were already that old. Some had no clue they were not on the market merely for transchildren, or that they were designed with a different group of patients in mind.

But next to all of this, the argument about "big pharma" conspiracies also falls flat for 2 reasons, 1 of which can be very dependent on the country where you live.

Because in The Netherlands, it is easy to tackle the idea of big pharma by saying 3 words: "Mandatory healthcare insurance".

My HRT is covered by insurance companies. Surgeries are (to a degree) as well.

This ultimately doesn't lower the cost for the procedure in and of itself, but it does prevent the possibility of a hospital or the manufacturer of whatever drugs to just ask whatever price they want.

The second reason is that just like Gyula mentioned, the amount of transchildren (if I would take the total number currently on waiting lists in The Netherlands, around 5600 people below 18, we end up with a percentage of a little over 0,03% of all citizens in The Netherlands) is so incredibly low, that it is weird that people think that that's where the profits can be made, and people suggest that there is where the medical malpractice is happening.

Weirdly enough the exact same people are rarely heard about the actual big pharma conspiracy: the opioid epidemic (which definitely did not pass The Netherlands, but the consequences were less severe than in the US).

I mean, in the opioid epidemic a pharmaceutical company literally decided to make money over people's lives, over dead bodies...

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Those are only baseless allegations and fearmongering. I do not think 0.2 - 0.5% of the market - which are the transgender patients - would worth the hassle and trouble of being professionally persecuted by bigots. It must be difficult to be a trans healthcare provider.

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Wow! Continued great work by researchers - I only wish that the anti-trans voices would actually listen, or at least that legislators wouldn't listen to them!

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They can't, they've completely committed to their job of ruining other people's lives. That's why you see their rhetoric increasing in it's violent and hostile nature: because it is not causing mass-extinction of transpeople, but also because these people are dreading the fear of becoming less relevant and losing followers, they need to up their antics and become even more radical and extremist.

This is very easily visible with Cass: Her Interim Report and the later Final Review started on the basis of not even a handful concerns of parents, and the Bell Case.

Actual complaints however, came from doctors who said that the waiting lists were enormous and as a result of the high workload, they were not capable of doing their job correctly.

Another complaint was how the centralized care made recruiting new personnel different, and made access to it difficult for patients, given the troublesome state of public transportation in England for quite a number of people.

Cass however said she was worried about "the mostly adolescent girls". Which is probably why her review suffered such a massive scope creep and she decided that just because a clinic refused to share medical information of their patients, because this clinic ACTUALLY had the guts to consider patient safety more important than the bigoted nature of Hilary Cass' obnoxious fucking report, she decided it was now time to target transgender healthcare for adults as well.

Her literal reasoning basically being: "They are hiding something if they don't want to share files, something must be up there as well".

And so the Levy Review, LEAD BY A FUCKING ONCOLOGIST was called recently...along with the forced medical detransition based on mental health assessments for over 6000+ transchildren in the UK....

But suuuure, it was all about the "mostly young adolescent girls".

Fun little sidenote: Cass keeps suggesting that psychologists and endocrinologists are fuckwhits who can't effectively judge transboys' wishes for treatment, while condemning the Dutch Protocol.

This Dutch Protocol actually got created by a 10 year trial, and the very first transchild treated with GnRH-antagonists/analogues was a transboy...

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I'm not surprised the Levy Review is headed by an oncologist. Lack of experience in the relevant fields seems to be a requirement for these supposed studies.

I note that in the NHS letter to Cass (August 7) the agency says the Levy Review will "explor[e] the ... concerns and issues reported to you" about adult transgender services and then immediately gives the game away by adding "We appreciate the courage it took for those individuals to speak to you" as if they were whistleblowers who had to be met in darkened parking garages.

So I'm sure will see in the Levy Review the same sort of unbiased analysis and totally not predetermined to match political bias conclusions we found in the Cass Distort.

As a relevant aside, I see where in that same letter the NHS openly avows what we said and knew to be true from the beginning: "[T]he primary clinical approach will be psychosocial and psychological rather than medical," that is, being transgender will be regarded as a mental problem to be "treated" as if it was some kind of delusion.

Footnote: The NHS letter to which I referred is here: https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/nhs-england-update-on-work-to-transform-gender-identity-services/

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That first line already:

"expanding service delivery, with a specialist service in each of the 7 regions"

Which is probably why endocrinologists previously working at Tavistock have been sounding the alarm because they noticed that their job applications set out by the NHS reform team for the GIDS were not met with successful employment, and how they found out that all of the doctors/psychologists now in the new centers all have to adhere to the "gender exploratory therapy" or "watchful waiting" model... They literally have to sign a waiver that they will do so.

"[T]he primary clinical approach will be psychosocial and psychological rather than medical," << this is also sooooo typical: Why then focusing heavily on the medical aspect to be made a thing of the past? Like, the Levy Review was ordered by Cass who said that "there are serious concerns that adults with depression and autism lack the required oversight to consent to treatment or decide whether treatment is right for them."

Next to how it is indeed obvious that a massive lack of expertise is somehow welcomed and necessary for writing bigoted reports about care someone knows absolutely nothing about, then why focus so heavily on the medical side if the approach is psychosocial rather than medical?

Like, if you are concerned about consenting to treatment, shouldn't you then review the mental healthcare processes? Which, by the way, from what I learned about how Tavistock and Leeds were setup, did NOT abide by the Dutch Protocol (and as such, it was no surprise that I saw Cass making recommendations that are literally part of the Dutch protocol, basically stating that she had no clue what she was talking about).

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These "doctors" advocating conversion therapy should be called by their true name: child murderers. They are a danger to children's health.

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Of course they can't stop. These anti-trans activists and politicians make huge money by ruining other people's lives - their jobs depend on it -, it is easy to make money with that and they lack the ability to make a living with honest work that makes people's lives better. All they are interested in is causing drama around our healthcare this can be converted to votes amongst the gullible.

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And it prevents fixing the actual problem. In Dutch we have the word "ophef", which means, commotion, noise when it comes to certain proposals or ideas (political or not).

A website (OneWorld.nl) launched the word "fophef", which is a combination of "foppen" (to fool someone), and commotion.

Basically the word says that it creates a massive panicstorm about something that is not happening, obfuscating the very real thing that is happening, and that transpeople (in this case) have been sounding the alarm over for years now.

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[EDIT]

*Recruiting new personnel difficult, not different (how in the world did that happen? :D )

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"And so the Levy Review, LEAD BY A FUCKING ONCOLOGIST was called recently...along with the forced medical detransition based on mental health assessments for over 6000+ transchildren in the UK...."

I just wonder who actually which transphobic shit for brains with PhD/doctorate will write that "Levy report" supposedly to support the Cass Distort. It is high time to begin retracting those degrees, they are often abused for ill purposes. I would also retract the degrees of flat-earthers and their ilk, these people are not worthy of it.

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Too many of the anti-trans voices are the legislators. Way past time to vote them out!

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If their constituents don't call them on it legislators are are gonna play dumb and just do what their dark-money overlords tell them to do.

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Wow what a great study, of course I’m sure that the transphobes will demand a 50+ year follow up next…

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They already ignored the 50+ year follow ups.

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At this point I just assume that transphobes A) Can’t read a scientific study. B) Don’t know what they’re talking about and C) Won’t listen no matter what evidence you give them. They’re conspiracy theorists with unfalsifiable arguments. These people will refuse to affirm their child’s gender, coerce, cajole, control and manipulate in an attempt to force their child to desist and then wonder why they’re estranged, or worse…

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Yes, and their followers are concern trolls. Many are not parents, teachers, psychology professionals, doctors or anyone with steaks in the game. Along with politicians and judges who shouldn't have any say in the matter as they are unqualified to hold an educated opinion.

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I've obtained exclusive audio of the right-wing reaction to the publication of this stunning new evidence which disproves all of their lies about trans kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwfdbTvJDaQ

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Nice.

I was expecting something different, like a meme of someone imitating Edvard Munch's "The Scream" or some such, but this will do quire nicely. :-)

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This study shows MAGA’s witch hunt against gender affirming care is totally and blatantly false. Sadly this affects more issues than gender affirming care. I just read a story that an Idaho 13 year old teen 36 weeks pregnant could not even get a pelvic exam because of Idaho’s new law requiring parental consent on nearly all medical care. The great aunt brought her to hospital but could not give consent for pelvic exam. Mother was living in a car on street somewhere and grandmother who was legal guardian was in Boise jail on drug charges. It took 2 hours to find the grandmother to get consent.

These MAGA republicans are so worried about minors accessing gender affirming care or contraceptives that they are punishing everybody else in the process. The great aunt did not guardianship authority in above case since she just took child in days before. What if she died in labor. They don’t care and just want to shove religion down every body’s throat. From what I read they are afraid of even putting a band-aid on a child for fear of being sued because of this law. It is so messed up. End of my soap box. This case so infuriates me. Nobody sees the truth.

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If the abortion bans remain, states like Idaho and others with restrictive laws are fucked long term regarding health care in general.

They've already seen a brain drain and diminishing services for all sorts of care because doctors are fleeing those states.

Give it a decade or two of restrictions and general health access in those states could massively suffer.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/05/09/1250057657/medical-residents-starting-avoid-states-abortion-bans

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I'll bet they'd allow abortion for any child known to be intersexed before birth

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Science has always been on our side and it's nice that it's continuing to be so. Unfortunately, science is irrelevant compared to the interpretations of religious dogma that too many in power share.

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