Puberty Blockers Finally Booted!
Yesterday was a good day. A superb decision by the Government to ban the prescribing of puberty blockers. A great day for safeguarding children and protecting minors from experimental treatment and irreversible decisions. Bob outlines why it was the only decision the Government could make.
Show script:
Puberty Blockers Finally Booted!
Yesterday was a good day. A great day for safeguarding children and protecting minors from experimental treatment and irreversible decisions.
The Government announced that they are banning puberty blockers.
Finally!
The use of puberty blockers has never been appropriate – it has effectively been the trialling of experimental drugs on children, and this decision is long overdue.
You’ll hear the claims about suicide and phobias.
The problem with those arguments – well there’s a number of problems.
There is a large correlation between people who have other mental health diagnosis and gender dysphoria. Causality is the claim but is never adequately addressed in the studies cited. Yes – the statistics of suicidal thoughts and actions are higher in the LGBT community BUT we need to ask if it’s the lack of “affirmation” and phobia (despite the fact that the marketing campaign for the LGBT community by the cultural elite, media and politicians is off the charts and if you don’t buy in, your ostracised and cancelled) – does the so-called homophobia and transphobia cause the suicide, OR is it a symptom of another mental health issue, such as depression or anxiety or autism or trauma or drug use or prostitution or suicide ideation or many other issues.
It’s definitely the latter.
Sexuality and gender confusion is depressing and stressful.
How can I say this? Because it’s what the research shows.
One of the few rigorous studies, which was completed in Sweden, followed a transgender group of adults from 1973-2003. This study found:
Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care [restore the natural balance within the body-mind system to resolve physical and mental stress) after sex reassignment for this patient group.
In other words, the surgery didn’t solve the mental health issues. No surprise.
A more recent study which I’ve already told you about is from the beginning of last year from Finland. Now remember that the mainstream media were silent on this research – their silence was deafening – because they don’t want to tell you about these types of studies. It goes against the mainstream narrative. But this Finnish study found that the suicide risk in a large group of adolescents was predicted by the psychiatric problems that often accompany gender distress, not by the gender distress itself.
Let me repeat that – the suicide risk in a large group of adolescents was predicted by the psychiatric problems that often accompany gender distress, not by the gender distress itself.
But just as the Swedish study had found, the Finnish study said:
… “Although the rate of suicide [in the Finnish study] is just over four times higher among trans young people than their peers, this is explained by their more serious psychiatric problems. When these psychiatric problems are taken into account, there is no evidence that transgender people have a higher rate of suicide.”
The researchers say in their BMJ Mental Health paper; “It is of utmost importance to identify and appropriately treat mental disorders in adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria to prevent suicide; in addition, health policies need to ensure that accurate information is provided to professionals along these lines,”
Here’s the latest research.
The study was by researchers from the Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas, and was published in Oxford’s Journal of Sexual Medicine. They sampled 107,583 patients.
They wanted to “evaluate mental health outcomes in transgender individuals with gender dysphoria who have undergone gender-affirming surgery, stratified by gender and time since surgery.
They found that those undergoing surgery were at significantly higher risk for depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and substance use disorders than those without surgery.
They found that sex-change surgery doubles depression rates among gender dysphoric individuals rather than reducing them.
Males who underwent surgery had a depression rate of 25.4%, compared to 11.5% in those who did not have surgery. Likewise, females who underwent surgery had a depression rate of 22.9%, compared to 14.6% in those who did not.
Feminizing individuals demonstrated particularly high risk for depression and substance use disorders.
They conclude – “Findings suggest the necessity for gender-sensitive mental health support following gender-affirming surgery to address post-surgical psychological risks.”
Sound familiar?
Perhaps the mental health support should come first.
Rather than cutting the body, heal the mind.
Just as we would do for someone with anorexia nervosa or body integrity dysphoria (BIID), a rare mental condition that causes people to want to amputate a healthy limb or body part.
Now New Zealand’s own Ministry of Health in its Evidence Brief released this time last year clearly indicated that the use of puberty blockers must be restricted for those under 18 years of age.
So last year, the Ministry of Health published its review of puberty blockers.
Activists try to argue that this chemicalisation of children gives them time to think about whether they want to change their sex and potentially chop off healthy body parts in an attempt to be the opposite sex (a biological impossibility).
Here’s the key thing to understand. They don’t pause. They predict. The overwhelming number of children on puberty blockers will go on to wrong sex hormones.
For boys, they slow the growth of facial and body hair, prevent voice deepening, and limit the growth of the penis, scrotum and testicles. For girls this treatment limits or stops breast development and stops menstruation.
Sounds problematic, doesn’t it. Whenever you interfere with the natural process, and especially puberty, there’s always going to be issues.
The Ministry of Health has published their review – and it admits there is a lack of good quality evidence for the effectiveness or safety of puberty blocking treatment.
NZ has been prescribing puberty blockers – and at a rate 10x higher per head of population than the UK where puberty blockers have just been stopped because of what’s known as the 4-year long CASS Review which concluded that:
Puberty blockers should no longer be prescribed to children except in the context of research due to these powerful drugs’ effects on brain development and bone health
Cross-sex hormones — estrogen and testosterone — should be prescribed to trans-identifying 16 and 17-year-olds only with an “extremely cautious” approach, and there should be a “clear clinical rationale” for not waiting until the teen is 18
The CASS report also destroyed the suicide trope – better a live son than a dead daughter – which is used to manipulate parents
Young people facing gender-related distress had no significantly different levels of suicide risk to other young people with similar levels of complex presentations.
No evidence that gender-affirming treatment reduces suicide risk.
By the way, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US issued a warning label about the risk of puberty blockers in 2022. They sounded the alarm back in 2022.
So – what did our Ministry of Health review find.
The Evidence Review found a lack of good quality evidence for the effectiveness or safety of puberty blocking treatment in young people with gender dysphoria. We do not have good evidence to say that the medicines used improve the longer-term outcomes for young people with gender-related health needs – nor that the potential longer-term risks are low.
Wow – that is damning.
That should be the end of it. When would you prescribe something that lacks good quality evidence, and has no evidence that improves outcomes or how bad the risks are.
More importantly, how can a child and their parents consent to a treatment that itself is not understood nor has sufficient evidence to support its safety and effectiveness.
Today is a great day. This decision is a great decision.
We had previously written to the Associate Minister of Health Matt Doocey requiring action following the findings of the Ministry of Health’s Evidence Brief. This call and previous calls sadly went unheeded.
This excellent decision just announced means that the Government is protecting vulnerable gender dysmorphic children and teenagers against the prescribing of puberty blockers that have no quality evidence of safety, efficacy or reversibility.
As we’ve always said – we should heal the mind – not chemicalise and cut the body. The actions of the Government this week will start that process.
It is now vital that appropriate mental health services are engaged who are not seduced by the lies of WPATH, PATHA, InsideOut, Burnett Foundation and other radical activist groups that are harming our children with their radical ideology.
Just one other thing
Take time to watch the testimony of New Zealand ‘detransistioner’ Zara.
When Zara was 13, she started ‘socially transitioning’ to be a male with a changed name and ‘preferred pronouns’. By the time she was 15, she was on puberty blockers. When she was 16, she was on testosterone. With the help of the public health system, she had ‘top surgery’ lined up for when she was 18 years old. She was told that if she said she was suicidal, it would help get her through the system quickly – so she did exactly what they told her to do. But just before she was scheduled to have her healthy breasts removed, she ‘de-transitioned’…..
And also our interview with Chloe Cole from the US.
These are two young woman whose experiences speak directly to why puberty blockers and other cross-sex hormones are harmful, as too the current approach to gender dysphoria via WPATH, PATHA, and other activist groups.
Their testimonies can be found on our website – www.FamilyFirst.nz
This decision this week is for you Zara.
