The sooner youâre finished up your maternity leave the better kid
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That article is a pile of tabloid bullshit.
Thatâs a lovely bookend to the day for you
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"Iâve outlined my thoughts on this in an honest manner but have been repeatedly accused of being anti trans each time.
The original medical understanding as outlined by experts in the field in the 70s-90s- was that if you treat the dysphoria then around 90% of people who suffer from dysphoria would eventually accept their body post puberty and for the most part would be same sex attracted.
We then saw this movement of anti-religious far left types spring up around the time Dawkins blew up and from here seemed to stem this gender ideology with itâs core message being that nothing was binary⌠they became extremely militant and have cancelled many a medical expert in the area and the original prognosis was binned for more âgender affirmingâ care.
This âcareâ tho created far more problems than it solved. It ignored the dysphoria and treated the symptoms. It also endeded up ensnaring a lot of teenage / young adult autistic people into receiving care when they had never displayed any notion of gender dysphoria which typically begins quite young and is consistent. There was also a huge social contagion- particularly among teenage girls experiencing difficulties with changes to their bodiesâŚbut again who had never displayed any signs of gender dysphoria.
When we use terms like - born in the wrong body - who does this serve? Itâs impossible to be born in the wrong body and itâs not anti trans so hold this view. You are your body, you donât exist independent of it.
Most western countries have now u-turned back to the original way of treating gender dysphoria after a decade of a complete horror show. Treat the dysphoria and the majority will come out the other side. Thats not to take away from how hard dealing with dysphoria must be but i dont think breaking from reality, saying thereâs more than male/female or you can be born in the wrong body, is doing any one any favours. Itâs absolutely ludicrous that our legislators are even engaging with it not to mind passing laws on it.
The one thing many ideologues often pushed is the suicidal tendencies of those that suffer from dysphoria⌠as a kind of emotional blackmail to allow drug therapy or surgery. While the tendencies are indeed there, What they never disclose is that suicide tendencies remain as high in those that have transitioned⌠because the dysphoria is still present and was never treated.
Thereâs no such thing as trans really . Thereâs certainly no such thing as a trans child⌠and itâs certainly not a gender. Thereâs people who suffer from gender dysphoria - the rest is stuff pushed by a mixture of far left, wokey types and attention seeking parents that need their child to have some sort of special condition in life.
I do whole heartedly believe that those who canât beat the dysphoria should be allowed live as they want. I just donât believe i should be coerced into suspending science and logic so they can do so."
I think this is largely in line with sensible paediatric thinking.
You arenât a child though.
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Some plastic surgeons should.
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I think it is in line with most sensible peopleâs thinking.
Sorry, bro.
Are you okay? ( edited )
Iâm the best Iâve ever been.
Are you ok?
Middling
Thatâs completely irrelevant. Children undergo eye operations every day with risk attached, and thus the possibility of regret. There are all sorts of eye operations that are elective. Strabismus, epiretinal membrane, laser treatment, floater only vitrectomies. They all make a great positive difference to a personâs sight and thus quality of life if they go well, but they all carry some risk of worsening a personâs situation.
Yes but itâs the case in pretty much all fields of medicine that some people shouldnât be working in them. The amount of insane quacks with degrees in medicine we saw come out of the woodwork during Covid demonstrated that beyond any doubt and these sort of people are only going gain more prominence as Trump and the rest of the worldwide far right seeks to promote them.
What you think is irrelevant. There is such a thing as trans people, and no amount of reality denying is going to change that.
American right wing nutcases spend their lives denying the existence of trans people.
However they also think Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris are men.
And apparently any man who votes for a woman is automatically transitioning to be a woman when they do so.
Personally I think any person who comes out with this stuff has transitioned to become a blancmange, or at least their brain has.
https://twitter.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1849472847644676586
All these ârespectedâ media organisations have their own pet anti-trans âjournalistsâ to keep the clicks coming on this issue. They know anti-trans stuff sells.
I mean the New York Times gave Bari Weiss a platform for years. Weiss isnât just a hateful anti-trans zealot but sheâs horrifically genocidal against Palestinians and has made a career out of being deliberately wrong, insultingly wrong, about everything she ever writes about.
In recent weeks, several studies have emerged focusing on transgender individuals. One study in the prestigious journal Nature Human Behavior, for example, reported up to a 72% increase in suicide attempts in states passing anti-trans legislation, including healthcare bans. Another study, with minimal loss to follow-up, found extremely low detransition rates among transgender youth over 6 to 10 years, along with high levels of satisfaction regarding their care. Yet, you wonât find these stories on The New York Timesâ website. Instead, as has become routine at the paper, thereâs yet another hit piece on transgender careâone that, upon closer inspection, offers a distorted and unfounded portrayal of the current research and one researcher who has helped push that research forward.
The latest piece, which went viral in anti-trans circles on Wednesday, was written by Azeen Ghorayshi, who has a track record of publishing anti-trans articles, including a glowing profile of Jamie Reed, an anti-trans clinician who shared private information about patients at her clinicâsome of which was later proven false. This new article makes explosive claims that Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a prominent gender researcher, is withholding potentially negative research on the risks and benefits of puberty blockers for transgender youth.
A further analysis of the article finds the central premise to be highly misleading.
Claim: Joana Olson-Kennedy is withholding research from the Trans Youth Care because of a charged American political environment over transgender people.
Fact: Twenty-eight studies have been published from the Trans Youth Care (TYC) Network study, including from patients on puberty blockers.
âAn influential doctor and advocate of adolescent gender treatments said she had not published a long-awaited study of puberty-blocking drugs because of the charged American political environment.â
Ghorayshi opens with a claim that Olson-Kennedy is withholding research on puberty blockers because of a âcharged American political environment.â The research in question comes from the Transgender Youth Care (TYC) Network study, funded by the National Institutes of Health to evaluate the effectiveness of gender-affirming care for transgender youth. In her interview with Olson-Kennedy, Ghorayshi cites a quote from what was described as a âwide-ranging interviewâ on the researcherâs work. Olson-Kennedy explains that she is being meticulous with one of the registered studies on puberty blockers because she doesnât want her findings âto be weaponized,â adding that the work âhas to be exactly on point, clear and concise.â Ghorayshi then uses this quote to imply that Olson-Kennedy is withholding research for political reasons.
A closer look at the NIH-funded projectâs research record shows that the teamâs output has been extraordinarily prolific; if Olson-Kennedy is withholding research, her extensive publication history doesnât reflect it. The project has resulted in 28 peer-reviewed papers, many with Olson-Kennedy as a co-author. These studies include those who are on puberty blockers, such as one on the height growth rate of transgender youth on puberty blockers, another comparing the effectiveness of puberty blocker implants, and a third showing that patients who presented for puberty blockers had better mental health than those who either waited, or were forced to wait, for hormone therapy. This is in addition to numerous influential studies the team has published on the positive effects of hormone therapy and other key characteristics of transgender youth.
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Claim: Puberty blockers do not lead to mental health improvements, and this is being hidden.
Fact: Earlier initiation of puberty blockers were found in Olsonâs research to be linked to better mental health than youth who waited to start hormone therapy. This finding has been confirmed by later studies. The purpose of puberty blockers is not to âimproveâ mental health but to prevent deleterious effects of puberty.
But the American trial did not find a similar trend, Dr. Olson-Kennedy said in a wide-ranging interview. Puberty blockers did not lead to mental health improvements, she said, most likely because the children were already doing well when the study began.
While Ghorayshiâs piece portrays puberty blockers as ineffectual and suggests that research is being hidden, Olson-Kennedyâs publications tell a different story. For instance, in one of her studies on youth presenting for hormone therapy and puberty blockers, she found that those starting puberty blockers âappear to be functioning better from a psychosocial standpoint than [Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy] cohort youth," highlighting the potential benefits of accessing gender-affirming treatment earlier in life.
While Ghorayshi acknowledges the study, she omits critical context by not comparing those who received puberty blockers with those who didnât. Instead, she highlights depression and suicidality numbers in isolation. âDr. Olson-Kennedy and her colleagues noted that one-quarter of the adolescents were depressed or suicidal before treatment,â Ghorayshi writes, seemingly to contradict Olson-Kennedyâs claim that those seeking blockers were generally doing well. What Ghorayshi fails to mention is that among those who didnât receive blockers, suicidal ideation was much higherâ66%, more than twice as high. These figures, notably, come from the same TYC project Ghorayshi accuses Olson-Kennedy of withholding data from.
One reason Olson-Kennedy may be cautious about her data on puberty blockers alone being misused is the small sample sizeâjust 95 youth. The study had a much larger sample of those beginning hormone therapy, and indeed, more studies have been published on that cohort, including one showing improvements in life and body satisfaction, along with reductions in depression and anxiety. Ghorayshi acknowledges this study but follows with the claim that two patients died by suicide, seemingly to undermine the findings. However, the study wasnât designed to measure such rare events or statistically powered to do so. Publishing a study on puberty blockers alone with a small sample size today might lead to similarly misleading claims from journalists like Ghorayshi, and so it is reasonable that researchers like Olson-Kennedy are cautious to do so.
Ultimately, the purpose of puberty blockers is not to âimproveâ a trans youthâs mental health. Gender dysphoria arises from a mismatch between a personâs physical development and their internal sense of gender identity. Puberty blockers pause physical changes, ensuring that when a transgender youth is ready to begin hormone therapy, as determined by their medical team, they wonât have undergone unwanted pubertal changes. This role of puberty blockers has become increasingly understood in recent years, with multiple studiesâincluding one from Olson-Kennedyâs datasetâshowing that puberty blockers positively impact mental health compared to delaying treatment.
More recent studies have further confirmed these findings. The most significant of these was published in December 2023 in the Journal of Adolescent Health, showing that âTGD youth who received pubertal blockade at Tanner 2 or 3 were found to have less anxiety, depression, stress, total problems, internalizing difficulties, and suicidal ideation than TGD peers who had been through more of a nonaffirming puberty.â
Claim: Puberty blockers cause bone density problems in transgender youth, and this is being hidden by Olson-Kennedy.
Fact: Olson-Kennedy published a study on bone density of transgender youth presenting for puberty blockers and found that transgender youth actually have more bone density issues prior to treatment due to a lack of exercise and vitamin D. Bone density loss is typically minuscule, and can be treated and prevented with vitamin D and calcium supplementation.
âItâs really important we get results out there so we understand whether itâs helpful or not, and for whom,â Dr. Cass said.
Her report found weak evidence for puberty blockers and noted some risks, including lags in bone growth and fertility loss in some patients. It prompted the National Health Service in England to stop prescribing the drugs outside of a new clinical trial, following similar pullbacks in several other European countries.
One of the most common and misleading critiques of puberty blockers focuses on bone density. In her latest article, Ghorayshi echoes these critiques, referencing the Cass Reviewâs conclusion that puberty blockers may be associated with lags in bone growth for some patients. She also points out that Olson-Kennedy has yet to publish research specifically on how puberty blockers affect bone density, despite her prolific output from the TYC dataset at large.
In fact, Olson-Kennedy has published a study looking at transgender youth before starting puberty blockers, finding that such youth actually experienced bone density problems before any medication at all was taken. This aligns well with a review by researchers at Yale, which states, âThe most recent studies show that puberty-blocking drug therapy either has no effect on bone mineral density (BMD), a proxy measure of bone strength, or is associated with a very small decrease. Calcium supplementation has been shown to protect patients from bone loss.â
The Yale review also found that âpuberty-blocking medication has negligible or small effects on bone development in adolescents, and any negative effects are temporary and reversibleâ and âany reduction in BMD is recovered when adolescents cease taking puberty-blocking medication, whether or not they continue to gender-affirming hormone therapy.â
It is for this reason that when bone density loss is a concern, it is prevented and treated through calcium supplementation and exercise. As such, pediatricians routinely advise calcium supplementation for transgender youth receiving gender-affirming care. The informed consent form explicitly addresses this potential risk and its mitigation, stating, âIt is important that patients on Lupron DepotÂŽ take other measures to protect their bones: keeping active and ensuring good calcium and Vitamin D intake.â
Contrary to insinuations by Ghorayshi, Olson-Kennedyâs research has actually helped understand bone density issues around young transgender youth.
Olson-Kennedy stands as a leading researcher in pediatric gender medicine, with a wide array of studies on the effectiveness of gender-affirming care, the mental health of transgender youth, and differences in treatment protocols. Her expertise gives her a unique perspective on the complexities of studying transgender youth and the risks of poorly analyzed data being weaponizedâsomething Ghorayshiâs article exemplifies.
Contrary to the articleâs framing, Olson-Kennedy has not held back on publishing important articles from the TYC grant. In fact, she has consistently published research on transgender youth, including studies on puberty blockers, from the grant. What she has done is exercise caution, understanding the limitations of her data and recognizing how, in todayâs charged climate, misinterpretation and underpowered studies can be used to harm transgender people. By doing so, she has protected both the integrity of her research and the community it serves.
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That meme very nicely sums up anti-trans creeps.
Iâll tell you what is wrong. The price of a,pack or paracetamol. 29p in Aldi UK. 2.39 Euro here.
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Jaysus. A lad who frequently travels over and back to the UK could make himself a fortune.