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Original poster

Update on the puberty blockers trial

137 replies

Hoardasurass · 19/06/2026 14:53

They're going ahead with the puberty blockers trial and it will be open to girls as young as 11 and boys from 12. So it looks like we're going to have to fight again to stop this eugenics campaign of sterilising predominantly gay and autistic children

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/4b3e2839923e3d87

Girls as young as 11 set to be handed puberty blockers

Experiment revived despite potential ‘long-term biological harms’

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/4b3e2839923e3d87

OP posts:
Thread gallery
16
HoppityBun · 22/06/2026 15:53

BeMoreBear · 22/06/2026 15:19

@HoppityBun I have also just seen that you "hopped" yourself onto this thread specifically and only to berate me. Interesting. I now conclude that, actually, you are the one who didn't like what I said. I wonder why?

Why speak on behalf of someone else you don't even know, rather than speak on behalf of yourself? If you have an opinion about this trial, I'm sure we'd be interested to hear it.

That’s the second time you’ve responded aggressively to someone. You’ve drawn incorrect inference. I have no interest in justifying myself to you

JanesLittleGirl · 22/06/2026 16:00

Why are trans children such a thing now when they didn't exist in the last century?

Update on the puberty blockers trial
FarriersGirl · 22/06/2026 16:12

Seethlaw · 22/06/2026 15:39

I guess modern fundamentalist gender believers see you as too 'liberal' and your viewpoint challenges their belief system

Which is funny, because they obviously see themselves as the liberal ones, and me as the bigoted one :P

It feels like the goalposts moved very quickly with gender ideology and caught a lot of us (scientists, feminists, concerned parents) off guard. What do you think caused this shift?

I'm really no historian, so take my opinion with a truckload of salt.

I think the shift came as a result of a full-frontal collision.

The T movement has been going on for as long as the LGB one; it was just a lot less visible. But right from the 1960s, there were people campaigning for T rights, and countries passing anti-discrimination laws, and so on. Then more and more people transitioned in the public eye, and the public became accustomed to the existence of trans people, and to granting them small, gradual rights.

The problem, as I see it, is what several others have mentioned on FWR here and there: unlike LGB rights, which respect the integrity of others' rights, T rights ultimately necessarily demand the dismantling of some of the others' rights.

So while LGB activists could go on demanding full equality without encountering practical obstacles, only ideological ones, T activists eventually realised that this approach wasn't going to work for T rights. And they went on the offensive, redefining words, presenting other people's rights (and by people, I mean mostly women) as anti-trans discrimination, and embrigading the young.

Basically, I think the TRAs realised that it was a matter of "Us vs Them", unlike for LGB rights, which were a matter of "Us alongside Them". And from there, it wasn't a quest for T equality anymore, but a quest for T dominance, hence the shift.

Again, that's just what I can see from where I'm standing.

Show quote history

Can I just say that I find your insights on this debate fascinating. I'm sure others on this thread will agree. Thank you!!

BeMoreBear · 22/06/2026 16:14

HoppityBun · 22/06/2026 15:53

That’s the second time you’ve responded aggressively to someone. You’ve drawn incorrect inference. I have no interest in justifying myself to you

Show quote history

That’s the second time you’ve responded aggressively to someone.

It seems you have a very low tolerance for difference of opinion. That will be difficult for you in FWR, because women here speak their minds.

You’ve drawn incorrect inference.
I have no idea what this means, but I really don't care, so please don't waste your time trying to explain.

I have no interest in justifying myself to you

OK, fine by me!

Seethlaw · 22/06/2026 16:15

JanesLittleGirl · 22/06/2026 16:00

Why are trans children such a thing now when they didn't exist in the last century?

I can see at least three reasons.

  1. To retroactively justify the older men coming out as transwomen. They are not fetishists, see; they are just poor little trans kids who were forbidden from living their true lives. Don't you pity them?
  2. To make it personal: it could be your child. You don't know; you can't know. So maybe you should be more open-minded, unless you want to hurt your own child.
  3. To de-sexualise the image of trans people (who used, remember, to be called transsexuals.) The "gay kid" narrative helped a lot in giving a more wholesome image to gay people in the eyes of the general public, who too often imagined only hypersexualised gay men. The "trans kid" narrative tries to do the same with regards to hypersexualised transwomen.
nocoolnamesleft · 22/06/2026 16:19

Hoardasurass · 19/06/2026 23:47

I'm not sure if you are aware of this but being put on puberty blockers even for precocious puberty has lifelong consequences for the patients/victims which is why theirs a massive class action lawsuit by women who were given lupron (a brand of puberty blockers). Also women and girls who take puberty blockers for more than 6 months risk being put into permanent premature menopause and the pbs also prevents brain maturation.
Honestly pbs need to be considered an X drug (ie 1 that is never given) for children

Show quote history

I think a preschooler going through precocious puberty is so damaging that puberty blockers can have a place. But not for children going through a normal puberty.

GCScot · 22/06/2026 18:55

PachacutisBadAuntie · 22/06/2026 18:41

Show quote history

Wow 🙁

Can we count this bit as a small piece of positive news? "The overall size of the waiting list, meanwhile, has fallen by 34 per cent in a year, which may reflect fewer referrals"

GCScot · 22/06/2026 18:58

JanesLittleGirl · 22/06/2026 16:00

Why are trans children such a thing now when they didn't exist in the last century?

I guess TRAs would argue that they always existed, and now they are being diagnosed and understood as such?

(I don't agree with this, I think it's due to social contagion, but I'm guessing this is what they would say)

WarriorN · 22/06/2026 19:00

GCScot · 22/06/2026 18:55

Wow 🙁

Can we count this bit as a small piece of positive news? "The overall size of the waiting list, meanwhile, has fallen by 34 per cent in a year, which may reflect fewer referrals"

Show quote history

cautiously hopeful unless they’re somehow getting it privately / abroad

I can’t help thinking younger kids now have had much better representation more recently- it’s going out of fashion?

lionesses etc

GCScot · 22/06/2026 19:05

Seethlaw · 22/06/2026 15:39

I guess modern fundamentalist gender believers see you as too 'liberal' and your viewpoint challenges their belief system

Which is funny, because they obviously see themselves as the liberal ones, and me as the bigoted one :P

It feels like the goalposts moved very quickly with gender ideology and caught a lot of us (scientists, feminists, concerned parents) off guard. What do you think caused this shift?

I'm really no historian, so take my opinion with a truckload of salt.

I think the shift came as a result of a full-frontal collision.

The T movement has been going on for as long as the LGB one; it was just a lot less visible. But right from the 1960s, there were people campaigning for T rights, and countries passing anti-discrimination laws, and so on. Then more and more people transitioned in the public eye, and the public became accustomed to the existence of trans people, and to granting them small, gradual rights.

The problem, as I see it, is what several others have mentioned on FWR here and there: unlike LGB rights, which respect the integrity of others' rights, T rights ultimately necessarily demand the dismantling of some of the others' rights.

So while LGB activists could go on demanding full equality without encountering practical obstacles, only ideological ones, T activists eventually realised that this approach wasn't going to work for T rights. And they went on the offensive, redefining words, presenting other people's rights (and by people, I mean mostly women) as anti-trans discrimination, and embrigading the young.

Basically, I think the TRAs realised that it was a matter of "Us vs Them", unlike for LGB rights, which were a matter of "Us alongside Them". And from there, it wasn't a quest for T equality anymore, but a quest for T dominance, hence the shift.

Again, that's just what I can see from where I'm standing.

Show quote history

Which is funny, because they obviously see themselves as the liberal ones, and me as the bigoted one :P

Ha! You are a heretic 😁

Do you think it is a conscious realisation amongst TRAs that it is 'us Vs them'? It does seem like it to me. Whereas I think the young women I know who see themselves as trans allies genuinely don't think there IS any clash between TRA demands and women's rights. They seem to genuinely think women like JK Rowling are just nasty bigots

BeMoreBear · 22/06/2026 19:08

GCScot · 22/06/2026 18:58

I guess TRAs would argue that they always existed, and now they are being diagnosed and understood as such?

(I don't agree with this, I think it's due to social contagion, but I'm guessing this is what they would say)

Show quote history

I've definitely heard that said. Standard (wrong) response.

Seethlaw · 22/06/2026 19:41

GCScot · 22/06/2026 19:05

Which is funny, because they obviously see themselves as the liberal ones, and me as the bigoted one :P

Ha! You are a heretic 😁

Do you think it is a conscious realisation amongst TRAs that it is 'us Vs them'? It does seem like it to me. Whereas I think the young women I know who see themselves as trans allies genuinely don't think there IS any clash between TRA demands and women's rights. They seem to genuinely think women like JK Rowling are just nasty bigots

Show quote history

Ha! You are a heretic 😁

I'm already a religious heretic after rejecting my childhood and youth church, so I might as well keep going 😂

Do you think it is a conscious realisation amongst TRAs that it is 'us Vs them'? It does seem like it to me.

Well, we know that some very powerful and influencing people have set it up that way for sure, going right after women's rights. So yeah, I do think that some TRAs are consciously aware of it, and quite a few others subconsciously act on it. The misogyny coming off from so many TRAs is probably a mix of personal inclination and taught anti-women ideological beliefs.

Whereas I think the young women I know who see themselves as trans allies genuinely don't think there IS any clash between TRA demands and women's rights. They seem to genuinely think women like JK Rowling are just nasty bigots

True. I would say that it's because feminism has become the omnicause, defending everything and anything - except women's rights. Women's rights in Western countries are acquired, you know? They are set in stone, there's no need to fight for them anymore (abortion in the US being the one marked exception.) Now feminism is about defending all the other minorities, and most especially trans people. So women like JKR are out-of-touch dinosaurs, who hail from a defunct era of feminism, and end up fighting against modern feminism.

HenriettaSwanLeavitt · 22/06/2026 20:09

@Seethlaw True. I would say that it's because feminism has become the omnicause, defending everything and anything - except women's rights.

I was chatting with a very 'progressive' US family member at the weekend, who truly believes that she is a feminist. She was very vocal about how wrong Trump's war with Iran is (and I agreed with her there) but she was blissfully unaware of the plight of women in Iran and not really interested in engaging with the topic when I tried to explore it. She uses feminism as a weapon to wield against the Right, and that's its only purpose for her.

Seethlaw · 22/06/2026 20:21

HenriettaSwanLeavitt · 22/06/2026 20:09

@Seethlaw True. I would say that it's because feminism has become the omnicause, defending everything and anything - except women's rights.

I was chatting with a very 'progressive' US family member at the weekend, who truly believes that she is a feminist. She was very vocal about how wrong Trump's war with Iran is (and I agreed with her there) but she was blissfully unaware of the plight of women in Iran and not really interested in engaging with the topic when I tried to explore it. She uses feminism as a weapon to wield against the Right, and that's its only purpose for her.

Edited

Heh. Not saying that's necessarily the case for your family member (though she certainly fits the profile), but some feminists have adopted being pro-Muslim as one of their causes. Which obviously leaves them in some very awkward position when the treatment of women at the hands of Islamist regimes is mentioned...

Original poster
Hoardasurass · 22/06/2026 20:24

nutmeg7 · 22/06/2026 08:00

Keeping them off social media might help with the social contagion aspect.

Although not from transhausen parents who don’t want a gender non-conforming or gay child.

eta It’s a bloody stupid notion that this can be done ethically, and I think Cass backed herself into a corner by giving a sop to activists in the report.

Edited
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Of from Scottish schools or the charity sector

OP posts:
Original poster
Hoardasurass · 22/06/2026 20:36

lcakethereforeIam · 22/06/2026 11:48

As much as tras say trans people have always been here the trans child is brand spanking new. I think the only evidence, prior to about 10-15 years ago, is the largely unfalsifiable assertions of older, adult (usually) men. Often approaching retirement or older. Claiming that they felt they were the wrong sex since...insert age when a sexual fetish would be unlikely to manifest. Thus sanitising the whole thing.

I wonder if Cass has swallowed it because she cannot believe that medics, like herself, would be so gullible, would do what they've done to children for no reason that stands up to scrutiny. It would discredit a huge chunk of her profession. I don't think she could take that step. Muddying the waters are the infinitesimal number of children who are now genuinely dysphoric. I suspect in many of them the problems they're suffering wouldn't have manifested as dysphoria if they'd never heard the word.

Thats not exactly true. There was "trans children" however they were seen as suffering from body dismorphia and it was considered a system of underlying mental health issues and was only ever treated with watchful waiting therapy and was never affirmed

OP posts:
HenriettaSwanLeavitt · 22/06/2026 20:43

Seethlaw · 22/06/2026 20:21

Heh. Not saying that's necessarily the case for your family member (though she certainly fits the profile), but some feminists have adopted being pro-Muslim as one of their causes. Which obviously leaves them in some very awkward position when the treatment of women at the hands of Islamist regimes is mentioned...

Show quote history

I think that she would show the same lack of interest, sadly. She is not women-centred politically, despite being a 'feminist'.

IwantToRetire · 22/06/2026 20:55

Children as young as six on gender care waiting list
More than 250 primary age children in line for treatment at NHS clinics, figures reveal
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/22/children-young-as-six-gender-care-waiting-list/

Also at https://archive.is/doM6s

Gerri1992 · 22/06/2026 21:40

AmaryllisNightAndDay · 22/06/2026 14:21

Dr Cass might be right that there may be some children who are not going to change their minds no matter what.

But if that is true, there is still no way at all to identify who those children are. It doesn't matter what an 11 year old says or does, there is still a very high chance they will feel differently a decade or two later, if not less.

And even if that was true, even if there was a way to know that a child wouldn't change their mind later or would still be dysphoric years later, you would still have to weigh that up against the physical, medical and cognitive downsides of transition. This is a medical treatment - be that puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or surgery - which creates an adult who is less healthy than they would have been if you had not intervened. I cannot see what benefit there is to any child that outweighs those downsides over the years. It's not normal ethical practice to give children drugs for their mental health that we have reason to believe will damage their physical health or fertility or cognition in later life.

At the very least the data linkage study needs to be completed and show that the long-term harms are not that serious and that there are some real benefits. Though I worry that it will turn out that so many young people have been lost to follow-up, and so much information lost to poor record keeping, that it may never be possible to draw any conclusions from it.

I have to disagree with "It's not normal ethical practice to give children drugs for their mental health that we have reason to believe will damage their physical health or fertility or cognition in later life."
That is true for boys but not for girls.
We put lots of teen girls and younger on the pill as a mental health treatment - for mood swings, for being overly tearful etc. Some GPs even now refuse to consider antidepressants until multiple versions of hormonal contraception have been tried, in case it is all down to puberty hormone swings.
This happened to me, and it definitely damaged my long term physical and mental health.
We need to be much more vigilant about what drugs are given to kids across the board, and to demand more trials for the commonly used drugs (like contraception, antibiotics etc) being used at young age groups.

GCScot · 22/06/2026 22:34

impossibletoday · 22/06/2026 20:45

Strange how the puberty blocker trial seems to be the most popular of the Cass report recommendations. Presumably because it's the one that gives a veil of science and respectability to gender ideology

GCScot · 22/06/2026 22:44

Seethlaw · 22/06/2026 19:41

Ha! You are a heretic 😁

I'm already a religious heretic after rejecting my childhood and youth church, so I might as well keep going 😂

Do you think it is a conscious realisation amongst TRAs that it is 'us Vs them'? It does seem like it to me.

Well, we know that some very powerful and influencing people have set it up that way for sure, going right after women's rights. So yeah, I do think that some TRAs are consciously aware of it, and quite a few others subconsciously act on it. The misogyny coming off from so many TRAs is probably a mix of personal inclination and taught anti-women ideological beliefs.

Whereas I think the young women I know who see themselves as trans allies genuinely don't think there IS any clash between TRA demands and women's rights. They seem to genuinely think women like JK Rowling are just nasty bigots

True. I would say that it's because feminism has become the omnicause, defending everything and anything - except women's rights. Women's rights in Western countries are acquired, you know? They are set in stone, there's no need to fight for them anymore (abortion in the US being the one marked exception.) Now feminism is about defending all the other minorities, and most especially trans people. So women like JKR are out-of-touch dinosaurs, who hail from a defunct era of feminism, and end up fighting against modern feminism.

Show quote history

I'm already a religious heretic after rejecting my childhood and youth church, so I might as well keep going 😂

Same! I also was brought up in a religious household and am an atheist as an adult

I really do see a lot of similarities between gender ideology and religion. For example, the belief that de-transitioners were "never true trans" = Calvin's "persistence of the saints" (true believers are predestined to be saved, so anyone who loses their religious belief never had genuine faith in the first place)

GCScot · 22/06/2026 22:54

Seethlaw · 22/06/2026 19:41

Ha! You are a heretic 😁

I'm already a religious heretic after rejecting my childhood and youth church, so I might as well keep going 😂

Do you think it is a conscious realisation amongst TRAs that it is 'us Vs them'? It does seem like it to me.

Well, we know that some very powerful and influencing people have set it up that way for sure, going right after women's rights. So yeah, I do think that some TRAs are consciously aware of it, and quite a few others subconsciously act on it. The misogyny coming off from so many TRAs is probably a mix of personal inclination and taught anti-women ideological beliefs.

Whereas I think the young women I know who see themselves as trans allies genuinely don't think there IS any clash between TRA demands and women's rights. They seem to genuinely think women like JK Rowling are just nasty bigots

True. I would say that it's because feminism has become the omnicause, defending everything and anything - except women's rights. Women's rights in Western countries are acquired, you know? They are set in stone, there's no need to fight for them anymore (abortion in the US being the one marked exception.) Now feminism is about defending all the other minorities, and most especially trans people. So women like JKR are out-of-touch dinosaurs, who hail from a defunct era of feminism, and end up fighting against modern feminism.

Show quote history

I think you're right that there has been a complacency within feminism thinking that the battle for women's rights is already won

Also, intersectionality meaning that just being a woman wasn't seen as 'enough' of an oppression. So you can get bollocks like Amnesty claiming that transwomen are the most oppressed kind of woman, and a whole load of feminists just nod along