After the Keira Bell verdict An English ruling on transgender teens could have global repercussions - Court of Appeals overturns verdict

[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.economist.com/internatio...-repercussions

After the Keira Bell verdict
An English ruling on transgender teens could have global repercussions
Worries grow over treatments that can leave children sterile
International
Dec 12th 2020 edition

IN 2018 ANDREA DAVIDSON’S 12-year-old daughter, Meghan, announced she was “definitely a boy”. Ms Davidson says her child was never a tomboy but the family doctor congratulated her and asked what pronouns she had chosen, before writing a referral to the British Columbia Children’s Hospital (BCCH). “We thought we were going to see a psychologist, but it was a nurse and a social worker,” says Ms Davidson (both her and her daughter’s names have been changed). “Within ten minutes they had offered our child Lupron”—a puberty-blocking drug. “They brought up the drug directly with our child, in front of us, without discussing it with us privately first.” There was no mention of other mental-health issues, which are known to increase the likelihood of gender dysphoria, the feeling that you are in the wrong body. “There was no therapy on offer and we were just brushed aside when we raised it.”

Meghan belongs to a wave of children across the Western world who have identified as transgender in recent years. America had one gender clinic in 2007; now it has more than 50. Piecemeal evidence around the world suggests that three-quarters of children expressing gender dysphoria at such clinics are adolescent girls, whereas until recently it was roughly evenly split. An increasing number are also de-transitioning, choosing to revert to their previous gender. Unfortunately, if children have already begun a medical transition, including hormone treatment, it can leave them infertile and unable to have a full sex life...

[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...8wRe3KrfhE4GgE


'A live experiment on children': Mail on Sunday publishes the shocking physicians' testimony that led a High Court judge to ban NHS's Tavistock clinic from giving puberty blocking drugs to youngsters as young as 10 who want to change sex
By Sanchez Manning Social Affairs Correspondent For The Mail On Sunday
Published: 18:01 EST, 9 January 2021 | Updated: 19:40 EST, 9 January 2021

The shocking evidence that convinced a High Court judge to effectively ban an NHS gender clinic from giving puberty-blocking drugs to children can be revealed for the first time today.

Until now a court order has prevented the testimony of eminent physicians being made public. But lawyers for The Mail on Sunday successfully argued there was a significant public interest in disclosing the material.

Among the devastating statements that can now be divulged is one from Professor Christopher Gillberg, an expert in child and adolescent psychiatry, who believes prescribing drugs to delay puberty – a first step in gender treatment – is a scandal and tantamount to conducting 'a live experiment' on vulnerable children.

'In my years as a physician, I cannot remember an issue of greater significance for the practice of medicine,' he said.

'We have left established evidence-based clinical practice and are using powerful life-altering medication for a vulnerable group of adolescents and children based upon a belief.'

In their statements, Prof Gillberg and other leading medical experts revealed:

Puberty-halting drugs can harm a patient's brain and bone development;
Clinics are urging gender-changing teen girls to choose sperm donors to fertilise eggs before freezing them;
Medics are failing to warn about the infertility risks posed by puberty blockers;
Children who regret treatment find themselves 'locked' into new bodies;
Internet sites persuade autistic children they are transgender when they simply have 'identity issues'.

The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) clinic in London, also known as the Tavistock Centre, began prescribing puberty blockers to under-16s in 2011. There has been growing concern ever since about the irreversible, life-changing dangers...

[Emily]

“Within ten minutes they had offered our child Lupron”

Lupron is lucrative.

https://www.urologytimes.com/view/do-reimbursement-trends-signal-another-dr-lupron-moment

In urology, one such myth is Dr. Lupron. Dr. Lupron was a great doctor. His specialty was metastatic prostate cancer, and he was a game changer. He was also very well reimbursed, and the joke went, "Why don't urologists work on Fridays? Because Dr. Lupron does.”

https://www.kelseycoalition.org/pubs/Lupron-Victim-Advocate-Issues-Urgent-Warning

Lupron Victim Advocate Issues Urgent Warning

November 11, 2019

It seems that my body is slowly decomposing, and I feel like a hobbled, twisted ruin in agony. My medical records describe me as a “frail, cachectic, chronically ill appearing woman who appears older than stated age.” Because of exhaustion and my accelerated mobility impairment and health decline over these last few years, I’m taking a doubtful view on my longevity. And these thoughts leave me with many concerns, one being the possibility I could leave this world before being able to put a lot more information onto my website.

Before taking Lupron in 1989, I was a healthy 32 year old woman. I was gainfully employed, physically vibrant and very active. I took daily Lupron for only 9.5 months: 6.5 months in 1989 for ‘treatment’ of endometriosis, and a total of about 3 months during several IVF attempts in 1990 and 1991. I tried refusing Lupron for IVF, but was told that I “must” take it. Women in the past often reported that their doctors were shoving Lupron down their throats. In this era and context, these women did not want or seek or request Lupron...

[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.persuasion.community/p/keira-bell-my-story

Keira Bell: My Story
As a teen, she transitioned to male but came to regret it. Here?s how it felt to enter history in the trans debate.
11 hr ago
By Keira Bell

From the earliest days, my home life was unhappy. My parents?a white Englishwoman and a black American who got together while he was in Britain with the U.S. Air Force?divorced when I was about 5. My mother, who was on welfare, descended into alcoholism and mental illness. Although my father remained in England, he was emotionally distant to me and my younger sister.

I was a classic tomboy, which was one of the healthier parts of my early life in Letchworth, a town of about 30,000 people, an hour outside London. Early in childhood, I was accepted by the boys?I dressed in typically boy clothing and was athletic. I never had an issue with my gender; it wasn?t on my mind.

Then puberty hit, and everything changed for the worse. A lot of teenagers, especially girls, have a hard time with puberty, but I didn?t know this. I thought I was the only one who hated how my hips and breasts were growing. Then my periods started, and they were disabling. I was often in pain and drained of energy.

Also, I could no longer pass as ?one of the boys,? so lost my community of male friends. But I didn?t feel I really belonged with the girls either. My mother?s alcoholism had gotten so bad that I didn?t want to bring friends home. Eventually, I had no friends to invite. I became more alienated and solitary. I had been moving a lot too, and I had to start over at different schools, which compounded my problems.

By the time I was 14, I was severely depressed and had given up: I stopped going to school; I stopped going outside. I just stayed in my room, avoiding my mother, playing video games, getting lost in my favorite music, and surfing the internet.

Something else was happening: I became attracted to girls. I had never had a positive association with the term ?lesbian? or the idea that two girls could be in a relationship. This made me wonder if there was something inherently wrong with me. Around this time, out of the blue, my mother asked if I wanted to be a boy, something that hadn?t even crossed my mind. I then found some websites about females transitioning to male. Shortly after, I moved in with my father and his then-partner. She asked me the same question my mother had. I told her that I thought I was a boy and that I wanted to become one.

As I look back, I see how everything led me to conclude it would be best if I stopped becoming a woman. My thinking was that, if I took hormones, I?d grow taller and wouldn?t look much different from biological men...

[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58598186

Ruling limiting under-16s puberty blockers overturned
By Eleanor Lawrie
BBC News
Published 3 hours ago

Keira Bell at the original case hearing in 2020image source, PA Media
image captionKeira Bell (centre) said she should have been challenged more when she decided to transition to male

Doctors can judge if under-16s can give informed consent to puberty blocker use, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

The appeal was brought by the Tavistock Trust, which runs the UK's only youth gender identity clinic.

The decision reverses a 2020 ruling that under-16s lacked capacity to give informed consent to the treatment, which delays the onset of puberty.

The original case was brought by Keira Bell, who says the clinic should have challenged her more over transitioning...