The NHS is to give children as young as nine years of age drugs in preparation for ‘gender reassignment’. As the Mail on Sunday [1] reported, a treatment using hypothalamic blockers, “which halt[s] the onset of adulthood, is aimed at youngsters who believe they are trapped in the wrong body.” Monthly injections suppress the production of testosterone and oestrogen. In girls that halts the menstrual cycle and the development of breasts. In boys, they stop facial hair growing and voice changes.
The decision to proceed with such radical medical treatment is based on decades of rigorous longitudinal research, hundreds of publications in peer-reviewed journals, and debates at countless world-renowned conferences.
Only joking. Doctors at The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in North London have just completed a three-year trial involving 12- to 14-year-olds. Yes, you read correctly: they spent a whole three years studying this. Ironically, only two years previously, British guidelines stated that treatment for “gender dysphoria” should not start until puberty had finished.
Although the gender treatment is reportedly reversible, “there are concerns about the long-term effects on brain development, bone growth and fertility.” Again, based on a whole three years of study, how would they know the safety and success of said reversibility?
I’ll admit this is a head-scratcher. Consider that, according to the Mail on Sunday, “undisputed research shows that the vast majority of under-16s who are troubled about their gender do not go on to take the drastic step of surgery. Many turn out to be gay, but no longer feel confused about whether they are male or female.” Just look at research from Sweden [2], that bastion of progressivism, showing outcomes for suicide, suicide attempts, and psychiatric admissions.
In a world where “gender” is considered by such radicals as being as fluid as a vodka martini, sexuality is apparently rock-solid. If a 14 year old boy is confused and uncomfortable about, say, finding a male classmate attractive, these very same people will literally take you to court for counselling him about the possibility that this is just a phase, and that he will eventually realise his sexual feelings for girls.
What I find so ironic is that these radicals lobby for a “treatment” that could, according to research, actually turn a gay boy into a girl. Now, even if such treatment were to be 100% successful, what will have happened is that a gay boy will have eventually been replaced with a straight girl who finds boys attractive.
There are movements that consider cochlear implants for deafness [3], or actual cures for Autism [4], to be literally genocidal. Well, then, what would they call this, if a gay boy is replaced with a ‘straight girl’?
But back to the matter at hand. Are they that arrogant, so immersed in their own propaganda, that they cannot see future fallout from this – to be polite – scientifically unsupported “treatment”? Are they so certain that the confused thoughts of a child are so reliable? One day, I hope these radicals will be treated with the same scorn as yesteryear’s lobotomists, drunk with their politics and hubris. Until then, sadly, we’re faced with another example of how the radicals use the vulnerable [5] to further their causes.