Paxton is Investigating Dell Children's Medical Center Over "Gender Transitioning Procedures" for Minors

[Anastasis 23472]

I think that some of you can still assess the information at hand based on the scientific methods without letting your ideological leanings run wild.  

The evidence to support medicalised gender transitions in adolescents is worryingly weak

The effectiveness and side-effects of the most common treatments are not well understood

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/04/05/the-evidence-to-support-medicalised-gender-transitions-in-adolescents-is-worryingly-weak

 

[Pato del Muerto 52502]

Technical writing shouldn’t use adjectives or adverbs that aren’t strictly defined. “Worryingly” in the headline already biases me against whatever is in the body. 

[Anastasis 23472]

3 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Technical writing shouldn’t use adjectives or adverbs that aren’t strictly defined. “Worryingly” in the headline already biases me against whatever is in the body. 

That's a very strong take.

[ChuckNorrisActionJeans 2678]

Here we go again. Ana is really really het up over the private medical decisions of families but only on this issue for some reason

[Sawbonz 27565]

To my knowledge there are no puberty blockers that are under patent. Therefore there is no incentive for pharma to fund trials for them. Because of this, no level one or even level 2 or 3 data is likely to be forthcoming wrt efficacy. We know from decades of use for precious puberty the safety profile of these meds. That leaves us with position statements. It would be great if the groups who are convinced that these treatments are child abuse would fund a level one study. I wonder why none has

[Anastasis 23472]

Just wait. Give it a few posts and we will retread that the Nordics are anti-trans and don't known how to assess the epi data. 

1 minute ago, Sawbonz said:

To my knowledge there are no puberty blockers that are under patent.

[Anastasis 23472]

3 minutes ago, ChuckNorrisActionJeans said:

Here we go again. Ana is really really het up over the private medical decisions of families but only on this issue for some reason

In this house we believe in science. 

If you are in the spot where you want to give your kids puberty blockers, go for it. 

It's only a reflection of the dysfunction of our system that in our particular country ideology is able to trump the science.

Edited May 7, 2023 by Anastasis

[Sawbonz 27565]

1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

Just wait. Give it a few posts and we will retread that the Nordics are anti-trans and don't known how to assess the epi data. 

Tell me which ones are

[Anastasis 23472]

3 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

Tell me which ones are

Are you referring to the patents?  Or the content of the post as quoted?  Cause if the former you haven't really been paying attention buddy. I mean I find it hard to keep up with all the prostate cancer treatments too, but if you are reducing this to conspiracy $$$$ there are plenty of angles to explore here, whether you want to limit to Pharma or others. 

[Sawbonz 27565]

 

1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

Are you referring to the patents?  Or the content of the post as quoted?  Cause if the former you haven't really been paying attention buddy. I mean I find it hard to keep up with all the prostate cancer treatments too, but if you are reducing this to conspiracy $$$$ there are plenty of angles to explore here, whether you want to limit to Pharma or others. 

I asked a simple question. Which commonly used puberty blockers are under patent

[Anastasis 23472]

Just now, Sawbonz said:

I asked a simple question. Which commonly used puberty blockers are under patent

I don't know the state of the art wrt what is used in clinic, or the ideologically captured treatment guidelines.  But if I was going to administer a gnrh blocker to a kid I would probably consider one of the orally bioavailable ones over the injectables. Is this a serious question bonz?   

[Sawbonz 27565]

1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

I don't know the state of the art wrt what is used in clinic, or the ideologically captured treatment guidelines.  But if I was going to administer a gnrh blocker to a kid I would probably consider one of the orally bioavailable ones over the injectables. Is this a serious question bonz?   

It’s definitely a serious question are you going to answer it?

[Anastasis 23472]

1 minute ago, Sawbonz said:

It’s definitely a serious question are you going to answer it?

I already have. Maybe ask the posters working in the puberty blocker clinics what their Rx distribution looks like.  We're talking gnrh antagonists here right? There are injectables and orals.  The orals are $3k+ a month and under patent. For whatever that is worth in this discussion, it is a point that you brought up.  You are the one talking about patent nonsense and research funding like the quacks. Don't be a quack bonz.  You aren't a quack. Just got to take a step back.  

[Sawbonz 27565]

1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

I already have. Maybe ask the posters working in the puberty blocker clinics what their Rx distribution looks like.  We're talking gnrh antagonists here right? There are injectables and orals.  The orals are $3k+ a month and under patent. For whatever that is worth in this discussion, it is a point that you brought up.  You are the one talking about patent nonsense and research funding like the quacks. Don't be a quack bonz.  You aren't a quack. Just got to take a step back.  

You listed the puberty blockers that are being used that are under parent? I know I’m not the brightest can you link the post?

[Anastasis 23472]

9 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

You listed the puberty blockers that are being used that are under parent? I know I’m not the brightest can you link the post?

You need me to tell you what orally administered gnrh antagonists are under "parent"? Is this real life? Should we change direction?

Edited May 7, 2023 by Anastasis

[Sawbonz 27565]

2 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

You need me to tell you what orally administered gnrh antagonists are under "parent"? Is this real life? Should we change direction?

Humor me

[Anastasis 23472]

3 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

Humor me

At risk of just giving brain damaged people like @HornOnTheBayou more opps, relugolix. 

Edited May 7, 2023 by Anastasis

[ChuckNorrisActionJeans 2678]

21 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

ideologically captured treatment guidelines

Ana loves to play like he's smarter than everyone else with put-downs and sarcasm but it's always substance-free "asking questions." Transparently ego-driven need to "win" an argument. And for some reason, he has a hard-on for treatment of trans kids above everything else now that he lost on Trump-Russia 
 

[Anastasis 23472]

1 minute ago, ChuckNorrisActionJeans said:

Ana loves to play like he's smarter than everyone else with put-downs and sarcasm but it's always substance-free "asking questions." Transparently ego-driven need to "win" an argument. And for some reason, he has a hard-on for treatment of trans kids above everything else now that he lost on Trump-Russia 
 

Lots of baseless ad hominem to deflect. I am sure that you are quite proud of your yard sign though. 

[Sawbonz 27565]

4 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

At risk of just giving brain damaged people like @HornOnTheBayou more opps, relugolix. 

If that truly is the most prescribed blocker used off label there should be an rct underway

[Anastasis 23472]

Just now, Sawbonz said:

If that truly is the most prescribed blocker used off label there should be an rct underway

I see your hedge.  We probably agree on more than we disagree on when we talk medical evidence and how to build that evidence base. But between you and me, we both know that this is not about evidence, methodology, or science. We've gone down the ideological rabbit hole in this country. 

[Sawbonz 27565]

1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

we both know that this is not about evidence, methodology, or science

I think it is. I guarantee troph and safe sex would love level one evidence on this. 

[Anastasis 23472]

 

1 minute ago, Sawbonz said:

I think it is.

 

Your posts testify to the contrary. 

[Sawbonz 27565]

Just now, Anastasis said:

 

 

Your posts testify to the contrary. 

Show your work 

[Anastasis 23472]

Just now, Sawbonz said:

Show your work 

Not the first time that I have argued with you that this breaks down to ideology over methodology, wrt the medical evidence. Keep ostriching though. Or deflecting about the patent conspiracies like the late stage HCQ ivermectin guys.  

[Sawbonz 27565]

Just now, Anastasis said:

Not the first time that I have argued with you that this breaks down to ideology over methodology, wrt the medical evidence. Keep ostriching though. Or deflecting about the patent conspiracies like the late stage HCQ ivermectin guys.  

Yet you never back up your methodology. And once again you do not show your work.  Keep on keeping on. 

[Anastasis 23472]

1 minute ago, Sawbonz said:

Yet you never back up your methodology.

Be best bonz. 

[TwiceHorn 31484]

1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

Not the first time that I have argued with you that this breaks down to ideology over methodology, wrt the medical evidence. Keep ostriching though. Or deflecting about the patent conspiracies like the late stage HCQ ivermectin guys.  

Is it really ideology, though?  Or medical professionals that see people in discomfort and try to help them.

I see a lot of ideology on the other side.  Demagoguery even.

Almost the whole of pharmacological psychiatry doesn't have a lot of robust medical evidence behind it.  And some of those drugs have pretty hefty side effects.  Yet you don't see a great lot of extra-medical regulation, even when prescribed to children, which happens with some frequency.  Everyone's content to let docs, parents, and children make those decisions.

[Sawbonz 27565]

1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

Be best bonz. 

all you have to do is link it. I know one click is a hassle but you can do it

[Sawbonz 27565]

2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Is it really ideology, though?  Or medical professionals that see people in discomfort and try to help them.

I see a lot of ideology on the other side.  Demagoguery even.

Almost the whole of pharmacological psychiatry doesn't have a lot of robust medical evidence behind it.  And some of those drugs have pretty hefty side effects.  Yet you don't see a great lot of extra-medical regulation, even when prescribed to children, which happens with some frequency.  Everyone's content to let docs, parents, and children make those decisions.

We use level 4 and 5 evidence all the time in clinical practice. Anastasis knows this

 

ETA and it is not ideal but sometimes it is the best we have. 

Edited May 7, 2023 by Sawbonz

[Anastasis 23472]

1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

Almost the whole of pharmacological psychiatry doesn't have a lot of robust medical evidence behind it.

LFG!

In all seriousness though, what is your take on the economist article? Or your independent assessment of the various national health plan perspectives articulated?

[Sawbonz 27565]

1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

LFG!

In all seriousness though, what is your take on the economist article? Or your independent assessment of the various national health plan perspectives articulated?

How about you link pubmed and not the economist if you want to have a serious discussion 

[safe sex 11735]

If there was a way he could profit from hormone blockers/HRT, he'd be all for it.

And, as I have stated many times, I don't work in a clinic that provides puberty blockers. Fuck off with your "just asking questions" bigotry.

[Anastasis 23472]

Just now, Sawbonz said:

How about you link pubmed and not the economist if you want to have a serious discussion 

I wish that I could link some high quality data one way or the other. It does not exist. 

[Sawbonz 27565]

Just now, Anastasis said:

I wish that I could link some high quality data one way or the other. It does not exist. 

And doing nothing in the absence of high quality data is not what we do in clinical practice. And you know this which is why your takes on this topic are dishonest and worthy of ridicule 

[Anastasis 23472]

Just now, Sawbonz said:

And doing nothing in the absence of high quality data is not what we do in clinical practice. 

Hey, what could sucking horse paste out of a tube hurt?

[Sawbonz 27565]

Just now, Anastasis said:

Hey, what could sucking horse paste out of a tube hurt?

Hey what could acl reconstruction hurt? 

[TwiceHorn 31484]

7 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

LFG!

In all seriousness though, what is your take on the economist article? Or your independent assessment of the various national health plan perspectives articulated?

I dunno.  I admit that the evidence seems far from definitive but it seems like we've been doing this medicine thing without definitive evidence for quite some time.  I have some personal knowledge of psychiatry and some observational knowledge as well as conversations with psychs that admit that there are theories that sometimes line up with results and sometimes don't and there's a lot of trial and error.

I'm sure that's the case in other fields of medicine as well.

I just find it incredibly difficult to believe that the pros in this area are subjugating patient welfare to some political agenda advanced by whom exactly, in a pretty apolitical field.

On the other hand, I have no difficulty believing that fucksticks like Ken Paxton are subjugating patient welfare to a poltical agenda advanced by a very identifiable group of people in a hyperpolitical field.

[TwiceHorn 31484]

Also, I find it kind of interesting that precocious puberty, where you apparently get a big hairy dick or set of DDs at age 10, is recognized as a traumatic thing worthy of hormone blocker treatments to postpone it for five years.

But another kind of uncomfortable puberty can't be postponed at all because those same drugs are too dangerous.

Maybe it's not the drugs that are the issue.

Edited May 7, 2023 by TwiceHorn

[elfenix 34249]

1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

or the ideologically captured treatment guidelines

[Anastasis 23472]

 

4 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I just find it incredibly difficult to believe that the pros in this area are subjugating patient welfare to some political agenda advanced by whom exactly, in a pretty apolitical field.

Here is the article....

Spoiler

Prisha mosley was 17 when she was first given testosterone in a clinic in North Carolina, after she had declared to her parents that she was a boy. She had struggled through her teen years with anorexia and depression after a sexual assault. Luka Hein had both breasts removed as a 16-year-old in Nebraska. Chloe Cole, in California, was a year younger when she had her double mastectomy. She had been on testosterone and puberty-blocking drugs since 13, also after a sexual assault.

All three girls were experiencing “gender dysphoria”, a feeling of intense discomfort with their own sexed bodies. Once a rare diagnosis, it has exploded over the past decade. In England and Wales the number of teenagers seeking treatment at the Gender Identity Development Service (gids), the main clinic treating dysphoria, has risen 17-fold since 2011-12 (see chart 1). An analysis by Reuters, a news agency, based on data from Komodo, a health-technology firm, estimated that more than 42,000 American children and teenagers were diagnosed in 2021—three times the count in 2017. Other rich countries, from Australia to Sweden, have also experienced rapid increases.

As the caseload has grown, so has a method of treatment, pioneered in the Netherlands, now known as “gender-affirming care”. It involves acknowledging patients’ feelings about a mismatch between their body and their sense of self and, after a psychological assessment, offering some of them a combination of puberty-blocking drugs, opposite-sex hormones and sometimes surgery to try to ease their discomfort. Komodo’s data suggest around 5,000 teenagers were prescribed puberty-blockers or cross-sex hormones in America in 2021, double the number in 2017.

Dysphoria furoria

The treatment is controversial. In many countries, but in America most of all, it has become yet another front in the culture wars. Many on the left caricature critics of gender-affirming care as callously disregarding extreme distress and even suicides among adolescents with gender dysphoria in their determination to “erase” trans people. Zealots on the right, meanwhile, accuse doctors of being so hell-bent on promoting gender transitions that they “groom” vulnerable teenagers—a term usually applied to paedophiles. In October supporters and critics of gender-affirming care held rival, rowdy protests outside a meeting of the American Academy of Paediatrics. Several American states, such as Florida and Utah, have passed laws banning gender-affirming care in children. Joe Biden, America’s president, has described such laws as “close to sinful”.

Almost all America’s medical authorities support gender-affirming care. But those in Britain, Finland, France, Norway and Sweden, while supporting talking therapy as a first step, have misgivings about the pharmacological and surgical elements of the treatment. A Finnish review, published in 2020, concluded that gender reassignment in children is “experimental” and that treatment should seldom proceed beyond talking therapy. Swedish authorities found that the risks of physical interventions “currently outweigh the possible benefits” and should only be offered in “exceptional cases”. In Britain a review led by Hilary Cass, a paediatrician, found that gender-affirming care had developed without “some of the normal quality controls that are typically applied when new or innovative treatments are introduced”. In 2022 France’s National Academy of Medicine advised doctors to proceed with drugs and surgery only with “great medical caution” and “the greatest reserve”.

There is no question that many children and parents are desperate to get help with gender dysphoria. Some consider the physical elements of gender-affirming care to have been life-saving treatments. But the fact that some patients are harmed is not in doubt either. Ms Mosley, Ms Hein and Ms Cole are all “detransitioners”: they have changed their minds and no longer wish to be seen as male. All three bitterly regret the irreversible effects of their treatment and are angry at doctors who, they say, rushed them into it. Ms Cole considers herself to have been “butchered by institutions we all thought we could trust”.

The transitioning of teenagers has its roots in a treatment protocol developed in the Netherlands in the 1980s and 1990s. It is built on three pillars: puberty-blockers (formally known as gnrh antagonists), cross-sex hormones and surgery. The goal was to alter the patient’s body to more closely match their sense of cross-sex identity, and thereby relieve their mental anguish. A pair of papers published in 2011 and 2014 by Annelou de Vries, one of the Dutch protocol’s pioneers, reported on the experiences of some of the first patients. They concluded that symptoms of depression decreased among patients taking puberty-blockers, and that gender dysphoria “resolved” and psychological functioning “steadily improved” after cross-sex hormones and surgery.

Transition ignition

Puberty-blockers do what their name suggests. The idea is that suspending unwanted sexual development can give patients time to think about their dysphoria, and whether or not they wish to pursue more drastic interventions. The same family of drugs is used to treat “central precocious puberty”, in which puberty begins very early. Some countries also use them to chemically castrate sex offenders. As with many other medicines used in children, the use of puberty-blockers in gender medicine is “off-label”, meaning that they do not have regulatory approval for that purpose.

Patients who decide to proceed with their transition are then prescribed cross-sex hormones. Males will see the development of breasts and alterations to how fat is stored on the body. Giving testosterone to females boosts muscle growth and causes irreversible changes such as deepening the voice, altering the bone structure of the face and the growth of facial hair.

Under the original Dutch protocol, surgery was permitted only after a patient turned 18, although as the cases of Ms Cole and Ms Hein show, in some places mastectomies occur at a younger age. Male patients can have artificial breasts implanted. More elaborate procedures, in which females have a simulated penis built from a tube of skin harvested from the forearm or the thigh, or males have an artificial vagina made in a “penile inversion”, are performed extremely rarely on minors.

In 2020 the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (nice), a British body which reviews the scientific underpinnings of medical treatments, looked at the case for puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones. The academic evidence it found was weak, discouraging and in some cases contradictory. The studies suggest puberty-blockers had little impact on patients. Cross-sex hormones may improve mental health, but the certainty of that finding was low, and nice warned of the unknown risks of lasting side-effects.

For both classes of drug, nice assessed the quality of the papers it analysed as “very low”, its poorest rating. Some studies reported results but made no effort to analyse them for statistical significance. Cross-sex hormones are a lifelong treatment, yet follow-up was short, ranging from one to six years. Most studies followed only a single set of patients, who were given the drugs, instead of comparing them with another set who were not. Without such a “control group”, researchers cannot tell whether anything that happened to the patients in the studies was down to the drugs, to other treatments the patients might be receiving (such as counselling or antidepressants), or to some other, unrelated third factor.

The upshot is that it is hard to know whether any of the supposed effects reported in the studies, whether positive or negative, are actually real. Reviews in Finland and Sweden came to similar conclusions. As the Swedish one put it, “The scientific base is not sufficient to assess…puberty-inhibiting or gender-opposite hormone treatment” in children.

Two American professional bodies, the Endocrine Society (es) and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (wpath) have also reviewed the science underpinning adolescent transitions. But es’s review did not set out to look at whether gender-affirming care helped resolve gender dysphoria or improve mental health by any measure. It focused instead on side-effects, for which it found only weak evidence. This omission, says Gordon Guyatt of McMaster University, makes the review “fundamentally flawed”. wpath, for its part, did look at the psychological effects of blockers and hormones. It found scant, low-quality evidence. Despite these findings, both groups continue to recommend physical treatments for gender dysphoria, and insist that their reviews and the resulting guidelines are sound.

One justification for puberty-blockers is that they “buy time” for children to decide whether to proceed with cross-sex hormones or not. But the data available so far from clinics suggest that almost all decide to go ahead. A Dutch paper published in October concluded that 98% of adolescents prescribed blockers decide to proceed to cross-sex hormones. Similarly high numbers have been reported elsewhere.

The reassuring interpretation is that blockers are being prescribed very precisely, given only to those whose dysphoria is deep-rooted and unlikely to ease. The troubling one is that puberty-blockers lock at least some children in to further treatment. “Time to Think”, a new book about gids by a British journalist, Hannah Barnes, cites British medical workers concerned by the latter possibility. They say patients received blockers after cursory and shallow examinations.

The Dutch researchers weigh both explanations. “It is likely that most people starting [puberty-blockers] experience sustained gender dysphoria,” they write. But, “One cannot exclude the possibility that starting [puberty-blockers] in itself makes adolescents more likely to continue medical transition.”

Perhaps the biggest question is how many of those given drugs and surgery eventually change their minds and “detransition”, having reconciled themselves with their biological sex. Those who do often face fresh anguish as they come to terms with permanent and visible alterations to their bodies.

Once again, good data are scarce. One problem is that those who abandon a transition are likely to stop talking to their doctors, and so disappear from the figures. The estimates that do exist vary by an order of magnitude or more. Some studies have reported detransition rates as low as 1%. But three papers published in 2021 and 2022, which looked at patients in Britain and in America’s armed forces, found that between 7% and 30% of them stopped treatment within a few years.

The original Dutch studies published in 2011 and 2014 were longitudinal—that is, they followed the same group of patients throughout their treatment. Yet three recent critiques published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy nonetheless find fault with the studies’ data.

One of the new studies’ concerns is the small size of the original samples. The 2011 paper looked at 70 patients. But the outcome of treatment was only known for between 32 and 55 of them (the exact number depends on the specific measure). And even then, the final assessment of outcomes occurred around 18 months after surgery—a very short timeframe for a treatment whose effects will last a lifetime. (The first patient, “FG”, was followed for longer. In 2011, when in his mid-30s, researchers reported his feelings of “shame about his genital appearance” and of “inadequacy in sexual matters”. A decade later though, things had improved, and FG had a steady girlfriend.)

The critiques also suggest that the finding that gender dysphoria improved with treatment may have been an artefact of how the participants were assessed. Before treatment, female patients were asked to agree or disagree with such statements as, “Every time someone treats me like a girl I feel hurt.” This established their desire to be seen as male. After blockers, hormones and surgery the same individuals were asked questions on a scale originally developed for those born male. It offered statements such as, “Every time someone treats me like a boy I feel hurt.” Naturally, patients who preferred to be seen as male disagreed. In effect, the yardstick was changed in a way that might be seen as making positive outcomes more likely.

Finally, the original studies seem to have inadvertently cherry-picked patients for whom the treatment was most effective. The researchers started with 111 adolescents, but excluded those whose treatment with puberty-blockers did not progress well. Of the remaining 70, others were omitted from the final findings because they did not return questionnaires, or explicitly refused to do so, or dropped out of care or, in one case, died of complications from genital surgery. The data may therefore exclude precisely those patients who were harmed by or dissatisfied with their treatment.

In a rebuttal published in the same journal, Dr de Vries insists that the original papers found a significant improvement in gender dysphoria, the condition the protocol was designed to treat. She concedes that the switching of assessment scales is “not ideal” but says this does not imply the studies’ results were “’falsely’ measured”. In response to worries about the relatively short follow-up, she noted that a study reporting longer-term outcomes is due “in the upcoming years”.

Newer longitudinal studies have been published since, but they have drawbacks, too. One published in January in the New England Journal of Medicine by Diane Chen of Northwestern University and colleagues looked at teenagers after two years of cross-sex hormone treatment. Although participants did typically report improvements in their mental health, they were small—generally single-digit increases on a scale that runs from 0 to 100. The study lacked a control group. Two of the 315 patients committed suicide.

What is more, whatever the merits of the Dutch team’s original research, the patients passing through modern clinics are strikingly different from those assessed in their papers. Twenty years ago the majority of patients were pre-pubescent boys; in recent years teenage girls have come to dominate (see chart 2). The findings of older research may not apply to today’s patients.

The Dutch team’s approach was deliberately conservative. Patients had to have suffered from gender dysphoria since before puberty. Many of today’s patients say they began to suffer from dysphoria as teenagers. The Dutch protocol excludes those with mental-health problems from receiving treatment. But 70% or more of the young people seeking treatment suffer from mental-health problems, according to three recent papers looking at patients in America, Australia and Finland.

Despite the protocol’s caution, says Will Malone of the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, an international group of concerned clinicians, the reality is often the reverse, especially in America, with mental-health issues becoming a reason to proceed with transitions, rather than to stop them. “We are now told that if we don’t address young people’s mental-health problems caused by dysphoria with transition, they will kill themselves.”

Gender agenda

The original Dutch protocol emphasises the need for careful screening and assessments, as do official guidelines in most countries. But whatever the guidance, there are persistent allegations that it is not being followed in practice. “I had one 15-minute appointment before I was given testosterone,” says Ms Mosley. Many American patients contacted by The Economist reported similarly brief examinations.

The possibility that many teenagers presenting as trans could instead be gay has long been discussed. The Dutch study of 2011 found that 97% of the participants were attracted either to their own sex or to both sexes. In 2019 a group of doctors who resigned from gids told the Times, a British newspaper, of their worries about homophobia in some patients and parents. They worried that, by turning children into simulacra of the opposite sex, the clinic was, in effect, providing a new type of “conversion therapy” for gay children.

Both within America and without, whatever the loudmouths may claim, the vast majority of practitioners are simply trying to ease the genuine suffering of adolescents afflicted by gender dysphoria. But in America in particular the charged atmosphere has made it very difficult to separate the science from the politics.

European medical systems have not concluded that it is always wrong for an adolescent to transition. They are not trying to erase distressed patients. They have simply determined that more research and data are needed before physical treatments for gender dysphoria can become routine. Further research could, conceivably, lead to guidelines similar to those already in use by American medical bodies. But that is another way of saying that it is impossible to justify the current recommendations about gender-affirming care based on the existing data. 

 

1 minute ago, elfenix said:

 

Truth may hurt for some. 

[Sawbonz 27565]

3 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

 

Here is the article....

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Prisha mosley was 17 when she was first given testosterone in a clinic in North Carolina, after she had declared to her parents that she was a boy. She had struggled through her teen years with anorexia and depression after a sexual assault. Luka Hein had both breasts removed as a 16-year-old in Nebraska. Chloe Cole, in California, was a year younger when she had her double mastectomy. She had been on testosterone and puberty-blocking drugs since 13, also after a sexual assault.

 

All three girls were experiencing “gender dysphoria”, a feeling of intense discomfort with their own sexed bodies. Once a rare diagnosis, it has exploded over the past decade. In England and Wales the number of teenagers seeking treatment at the Gender Identity Development Service (gids), the main clinic treating dysphoria, has risen 17-fold since 2011-12 (see chart 1). An analysis by Reuters, a news agency, based on data from Komodo, a health-technology firm, estimated that more than 42,000 American children and teenagers were diagnosed in 2021—three times the count in 2017. Other rich countries, from Australia to Sweden, have also experienced rapid increases.

As the caseload has grown, so has a method of treatment, pioneered in the Netherlands, now known as “gender-affirming care”. It involves acknowledging patients’ feelings about a mismatch between their body and their sense of self and, after a psychological assessment, offering some of them a combination of puberty-blocking drugs, opposite-sex hormones and sometimes surgery to try to ease their discomfort. Komodo’s data suggest around 5,000 teenagers were prescribed puberty-blockers or cross-sex hormones in America in 2021, double the number in 2017.

Dysphoria furoria

The treatment is controversial. In many countries, but in America most of all, it has become yet another front in the culture wars. Many on the left caricature critics of gender-affirming care as callously disregarding extreme distress and even suicides among adolescents with gender dysphoria in their determination to “erase” trans people. Zealots on the right, meanwhile, accuse doctors of being so hell-bent on promoting gender transitions that they “groom” vulnerable teenagers—a term usually applied to paedophiles. In October supporters and critics of gender-affirming care held rival, rowdy protests outside a meeting of the American Academy of Paediatrics. Several American states, such as Florida and Utah, have passed laws banning gender-affirming care in children. Joe Biden, America’s president, has described such laws as “close to sinful”.

Almost all America’s medical authorities support gender-affirming care. But those in Britain, Finland, France, Norway and Sweden, while supporting talking therapy as a first step, have misgivings about the pharmacological and surgical elements of the treatment. A Finnish review, published in 2020, concluded that gender reassignment in children is “experimental” and that treatment should seldom proceed beyond talking therapy. Swedish authorities found that the risks of physical interventions “currently outweigh the possible benefits” and should only be offered in “exceptional cases”. In Britain a review led by Hilary Cass, a paediatrician, found that gender-affirming care had developed without “some of the normal quality controls that are typically applied when new or innovative treatments are introduced”. In 2022 France’s National Academy of Medicine advised doctors to proceed with drugs and surgery only with “great medical caution” and “the greatest reserve”.

There is no question that many children and parents are desperate to get help with gender dysphoria. Some consider the physical elements of gender-affirming care to have been life-saving treatments. But the fact that some patients are harmed is not in doubt either. Ms Mosley, Ms Hein and Ms Cole are all “detransitioners”: they have changed their minds and no longer wish to be seen as male. All three bitterly regret the irreversible effects of their treatment and are angry at doctors who, they say, rushed them into it. Ms Cole considers herself to have been “butchered by institutions we all thought we could trust”.

The transitioning of teenagers has its roots in a treatment protocol developed in the Netherlands in the 1980s and 1990s. It is built on three pillars: puberty-blockers (formally known as gnrh antagonists), cross-sex hormones and surgery. The goal was to alter the patient’s body to more closely match their sense of cross-sex identity, and thereby relieve their mental anguish. A pair of papers published in 2011 and 2014 by Annelou de Vries, one of the Dutch protocol’s pioneers, reported on the experiences of some of the first patients. They concluded that symptoms of depression decreased among patients taking puberty-blockers, and that gender dysphoria “resolved” and psychological functioning “steadily improved” after cross-sex hormones and surgery.

Transition ignition

Puberty-blockers do what their name suggests. The idea is that suspending unwanted sexual development can give patients time to think about their dysphoria, and whether or not they wish to pursue more drastic interventions. The same family of drugs is used to treat “central precocious puberty”, in which puberty begins very early. Some countries also use them to chemically castrate sex offenders. As with many other medicines used in children, the use of puberty-blockers in gender medicine is “off-label”, meaning that they do not have regulatory approval for that purpose.

Patients who decide to proceed with their transition are then prescribed cross-sex hormones. Males will see the development of breasts and alterations to how fat is stored on the body. Giving testosterone to females boosts muscle growth and causes irreversible changes such as deepening the voice, altering the bone structure of the face and the growth of facial hair.

Under the original Dutch protocol, surgery was permitted only after a patient turned 18, although as the cases of Ms Cole and Ms Hein show, in some places mastectomies occur at a younger age. Male patients can have artificial breasts implanted. More elaborate procedures, in which females have a simulated penis built from a tube of skin harvested from the forearm or the thigh, or males have an artificial vagina made in a “penile inversion”, are performed extremely rarely on minors.

In 2020 the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (nice), a British body which reviews the scientific underpinnings of medical treatments, looked at the case for puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones. The academic evidence it found was weak, discouraging and in some cases contradictory. The studies suggest puberty-blockers had little impact on patients. Cross-sex hormones may improve mental health, but the certainty of that finding was low, and nice warned of the unknown risks of lasting side-effects.

For both classes of drug, nice assessed the quality of the papers it analysed as “very low”, its poorest rating. Some studies reported results but made no effort to analyse them for statistical significance. Cross-sex hormones are a lifelong treatment, yet follow-up was short, ranging from one to six years. Most studies followed only a single set of patients, who were given the drugs, instead of comparing them with another set who were not. Without such a “control group”, researchers cannot tell whether anything that happened to the patients in the studies was down to the drugs, to other treatments the patients might be receiving (such as counselling or antidepressants), or to some other, unrelated third factor.

The upshot is that it is hard to know whether any of the supposed effects reported in the studies, whether positive or negative, are actually real. Reviews in Finland and Sweden came to similar conclusions. As the Swedish one put it, “The scientific base is not sufficient to assess…puberty-inhibiting or gender-opposite hormone treatment” in children.

Two American professional bodies, the Endocrine Society (es) and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (wpath) have also reviewed the science underpinning adolescent transitions. But es’s review did not set out to look at whether gender-affirming care helped resolve gender dysphoria or improve mental health by any measure. It focused instead on side-effects, for which it found only weak evidence. This omission, says Gordon Guyatt of McMaster University, makes the review “fundamentally flawed”. wpath, for its part, did look at the psychological effects of blockers and hormones. It found scant, low-quality evidence. Despite these findings, both groups continue to recommend physical treatments for gender dysphoria, and insist that their reviews and the resulting guidelines are sound.

One justification for puberty-blockers is that they “buy time” for children to decide whether to proceed with cross-sex hormones or not. But the data available so far from clinics suggest that almost all decide to go ahead. A Dutch paper published in October concluded that 98% of adolescents prescribed blockers decide to proceed to cross-sex hormones. Similarly high numbers have been reported elsewhere.

The reassuring interpretation is that blockers are being prescribed very precisely, given only to those whose dysphoria is deep-rooted and unlikely to ease. The troubling one is that puberty-blockers lock at least some children in to further treatment. “Time to Think”, a new book about gids by a British journalist, Hannah Barnes, cites British medical workers concerned by the latter possibility. They say patients received blockers after cursory and shallow examinations.

The Dutch researchers weigh both explanations. “It is likely that most people starting [puberty-blockers] experience sustained gender dysphoria,” they write. But, “One cannot exclude the possibility that starting [puberty-blockers] in itself makes adolescents more likely to continue medical transition.”

Perhaps the biggest question is how many of those given drugs and surgery eventually change their minds and “detransition”, having reconciled themselves with their biological sex. Those who do often face fresh anguish as they come to terms with permanent and visible alterations to their bodies.

Once again, good data are scarce. One problem is that those who abandon a transition are likely to stop talking to their doctors, and so disappear from the figures. The estimates that do exist vary by an order of magnitude or more. Some studies have reported detransition rates as low as 1%. But three papers published in 2021 and 2022, which looked at patients in Britain and in America’s armed forces, found that between 7% and 30% of them stopped treatment within a few years.

The original Dutch studies published in 2011 and 2014 were longitudinal—that is, they followed the same group of patients throughout their treatment. Yet three recent critiques published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy nonetheless find fault with the studies’ data.

One of the new studies’ concerns is the small size of the original samples. The 2011 paper looked at 70 patients. But the outcome of treatment was only known for between 32 and 55 of them (the exact number depends on the specific measure). And even then, the final assessment of outcomes occurred around 18 months after surgery—a very short timeframe for a treatment whose effects will last a lifetime. (The first patient, “FG”, was followed for longer. In 2011, when in his mid-30s, researchers reported his feelings of “shame about his genital appearance” and of “inadequacy in sexual matters”. A decade later though, things had improved, and FG had a steady girlfriend.)

The critiques also suggest that the finding that gender dysphoria improved with treatment may have been an artefact of how the participants were assessed. Before treatment, female patients were asked to agree or disagree with such statements as, “Every time someone treats me like a girl I feel hurt.” This established their desire to be seen as male. After blockers, hormones and surgery the same individuals were asked questions on a scale originally developed for those born male. It offered statements such as, “Every time someone treats me like a boy I feel hurt.” Naturally, patients who preferred to be seen as male disagreed. In effect, the yardstick was changed in a way that might be seen as making positive outcomes more likely.

Finally, the original studies seem to have inadvertently cherry-picked patients for whom the treatment was most effective. The researchers started with 111 adolescents, but excluded those whose treatment with puberty-blockers did not progress well. Of the remaining 70, others were omitted from the final findings because they did not return questionnaires, or explicitly refused to do so, or dropped out of care or, in one case, died of complications from genital surgery. The data may therefore exclude precisely those patients who were harmed by or dissatisfied with their treatment.

In a rebuttal published in the same journal, Dr de Vries insists that the original papers found a significant improvement in gender dysphoria, the condition the protocol was designed to treat. She concedes that the switching of assessment scales is “not ideal” but says this does not imply the studies’ results were “’falsely’ measured”. In response to worries about the relatively short follow-up, she noted that a study reporting longer-term outcomes is due “in the upcoming years”.

Newer longitudinal studies have been published since, but they have drawbacks, too. One published in January in the New England Journal of Medicine by Diane Chen of Northwestern University and colleagues looked at teenagers after two years of cross-sex hormone treatment. Although participants did typically report improvements in their mental health, they were small—generally single-digit increases on a scale that runs from 0 to 100. The study lacked a control group. Two of the 315 patients committed suicide.

What is more, whatever the merits of the Dutch team’s original research, the patients passing through modern clinics are strikingly different from those assessed in their papers. Twenty years ago the majority of patients were pre-pubescent boys; in recent years teenage girls have come to dominate (see chart 2). The findings of older research may not apply to today’s patients.

The Dutch team’s approach was deliberately conservative. Patients had to have suffered from gender dysphoria since before puberty. Many of today’s patients say they began to suffer from dysphoria as teenagers. The Dutch protocol excludes those with mental-health problems from receiving treatment. But 70% or more of the young people seeking treatment suffer from mental-health problems, according to three recent papers looking at patients in America, Australia and Finland.

Despite the protocol’s caution, says Will Malone of the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, an international group of concerned clinicians, the reality is often the reverse, especially in America, with mental-health issues becoming a reason to proceed with transitions, rather than to stop them. “We are now told that if we don’t address young people’s mental-health problems caused by dysphoria with transition, they will kill themselves.”

Gender agenda

The original Dutch protocol emphasises the need for careful screening and assessments, as do official guidelines in most countries. But whatever the guidance, there are persistent allegations that it is not being followed in practice. “I had one 15-minute appointment before I was given testosterone,” says Ms Mosley. Many American patients contacted by The Economist reported similarly brief examinations.

The possibility that many teenagers presenting as trans could instead be gay has long been discussed. The Dutch study of 2011 found that 97% of the participants were attracted either to their own sex or to both sexes. In 2019 a group of doctors who resigned from gids told the Times, a British newspaper, of their worries about homophobia in some patients and parents. They worried that, by turning children into simulacra of the opposite sex, the clinic was, in effect, providing a new type of “conversion therapy” for gay children.

Both within America and without, whatever the loudmouths may claim, the vast majority of practitioners are simply trying to ease the genuine suffering of adolescents afflicted by gender dysphoria. But in America in particular the charged atmosphere has made it very difficult to separate the science from the politics.

European medical systems have not concluded that it is always wrong for an adolescent to transition. They are not trying to erase distressed patients. They have simply determined that more research and data are needed before physical treatments for gender dysphoria can become routine. Further research could, conceivably, lead to guidelines similar to those already in use by American medical bodies. But that is another way of saying that it is impossible to justify the current recommendations about gender-affirming care based on the existing data. 

 

 

Truth may hurt for some. 

Article from where

[Anastasis 23472]

Just now, Sawbonz said:

Article from where

 

[Sawbonz 27565]

Just now, Anastasis said:

 

I love memes. But seriously link the article

[TwiceHorn 31484]

8 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Both within America and without, whatever the loudmouths may claim, the vast majority of practitioners are simply trying to ease the genuine suffering of adolescents afflicted by gender dysphoria. But in America in particular the charged atmosphere has made it very difficult to separate the science from the politics.

 

That pretty much says it all to me.

I think it's pretty clear that the loudmouths are on the right.  They give not a single fuck about gender dysphoria patients, they're just trying to pass peformative laws that stick it to the icky queers.  Any notions of patient safety are a smokescreen for sticking it to the icky queers.

I will admit that there is now an organized political backlash to that, but I don't think gender dysphoria treatment started in any way, shape or form as a political or ideological "movement."

Edited May 7, 2023 by TwiceHorn

[Anastasis 23472]

1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

That pretty much says it all to me.

Pretty narrow assessment, counselor. 

[naija 2854]

Yes, medicine proceeds afoot without definitive evidence all the time. But it becomes more of an issue when the consequences of said treatment can be very dire. Gender-affirming surgery, if incorrectly assigned to an individual, certainly falls under that rubric.

It is impossible to claim that politics doesn't play a part here. It certainly does. You'd be blind as a clinician to not think it does. The WPATH guidelines reflect this. Removing the need for a mental health examination reflects this. There was no solid reason, other than the offense it gave to some, to remove that guideline. Again, when the effects of a treatment can be dire, you should err on the side of caution. The demands on well-meaning gender-affirming surgeons are only going to grow.

As with many other things in this country, the loudest voices are now being deployed by people at the extremes of the position, even in medicine. People who lay somewhere in the middle, and just want to get good data on the topic are quietly leaving the stage. You certainly aren't going to see many people get up at a national meeting, and start questioning the de facto position, that gender-affirming surgery is a good thing. 

[TwiceHorn 31484]

2 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Pretty narrow assessment, counselor. 

Well, in these other countries, the debate seems to be mostly confined to the medical community, outside the public view.

There's only one place, really, where it's a big legislative fight.  And it just has too much in common with other legislative fights over stupid, performative shit (bathroom bills, regulation of sports, etc.) for me to believe that it is a legimate patient safety issue.

[naija 2854]

12 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

Article from where

It's the Economist article

[Sawbonz 27565]

Just now, naija said:

It's the Economist article

Forgive me if I do not give one shit what the economist has to say wrt any medical therapy