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for the kids's avatar

As if low quality evidence to tell you apples are better or worse than sugary drinks is comparable to low quality evidence saying a minor should be sterilized or have their breasts cut off. Good one Yale!

Thank you for the great informative article!!!

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Vincent Keane's avatar

The Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) Gender service website includes the statement:

“Puberty blockers suppress the development of secondary sex characteristics and are used for adolescents in the early stages of pubertal development. As they are reversible in their effects, should an adolescent wish to stop taking them at any time, their biological puberty will resume”.

In addition the RCH website states that:

“It provides care that is consistent with the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines for Trans and Gender Diverse Children and Adolescents (Version 1.3, 2020)”.

Those treatment guidelines include the statement:

“The long term impact of puberty suppression on bone mineralisation is currently unknown.”

Presumably that implies that puberty suppression could impact negatively on bone mineralisation. If that were the case then the effects of puberty blockers would not be reversable.

That aside, cited below recent changes in NHS website in relation to the ‘reversibility’ of gender blockers:

“GONE is the claim that puberty blockers are considered to be fully reversible:

The effects of treatment with GnRH analogues are considered to be fully reversible, so treatment can usually be stopped at any time after a discussion between you, your child and your MDT.

NEW is the admission that long-term effects are unknown:

Little is known about the long-term side effects of hormone or puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria. Although the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) advises this is a physically reversible treatment if stopped, it is not known what the psychological effects may be.

It’s also not known whether hormone blockers affect the development of the teenage brain or children’s bones. Side effects may also include hot flushes, fatigue and mood alterations”.

It seems that the evidence of the long-term effects of puberty blockers have morphed from ‘reversable’ to ‘unknown’ and who is qualified to state that the next move might not be to ‘irreversible’?

Time will tell!

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