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1./ Puberty blockers. Yesterday's High Court judgement says "children must fully understand their impact". But can kids really do that when they're being exposed to an onslaught of online promotion which presents Blockers as an almost magical "cure"? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/01/children-who-want-puberty-blockers-must-understand-ewhat
2./ More than 50% of those treated with PB at the Tavistock were under 16. Brave, young Kiera Bell's evidence said that from 14 she was exposed to videos encouraging her to medically change her body. Let's explore just some of that online propaganda
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Bell-v-Tavistock-Judgment.pdf
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Bell-v-Tavistock-Judgment.pdf
3./ In this video from @mygenderation a 14 year old celebrates P Blockers saying "everything feels so much better now" and "you can carry on as yourself" but "don't have to go through all the things that biological females have to". Oh and there's some fun skateboarding
4./ An array of similarly happy, confident kids online promote P Blockers as a first step in an exciting journey to "self-realisation". Here's a transboy who started on PB at 10 being celebrated in an exhibition. Effectively kids are being told they can become a poster boy/girl.
5./ Here he is at age 10 saying he'll be PERFECT if he gets blockers. Listen to the urgency in his voice as he worries about developing the normal secondary sex characteristics of a female. Many experts argue concerns like this may be, in part, due to parental influence.
6/ One reason some parents push their child towards a trans identity could be homophobia. Even if it's not always conscious. As a recent @BBCNewsnight revealed some parents would rather have a straight trans kid than a gay one. https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1279948306446245888?s=20
https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1279948306446245888?s=20
7./ Some parents may also love attention. No one is going to make a doc about YOU and your child if you just have a kid that's heading towards good old fashioned "gaydom". But OMG...a kid that's living THIS year's BIIIIIG new trend? Here's a returnaable series. Kerching
8./ Forget that familes wouldn't get filmed if the boy who thinks he's a girl liked boxing or football. Or if the girl that believes she's a boy liked wearing make-up. TV doc producers end up reproducing 1950s stereotypes while claiming to challenge them.
https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1279948314067247104?s=20
https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1279948314067247104?s=20
9./ It's not just doc producers. @REDProductionCo made undiluted drama-propaganda for ITV with "assistance" from lobbyists @Mermaids_Gender. The show's climax was injections of blockers; drugs presented as life-enhancing and entirely unproblematic.
10./ Then there's the constant garbage "science" based on gender identity BS. Here's an Australian presenter claiming a biological boy has the "unmistakeable signs of a female brain". At no stage did she clarify what is a "female brain". Or how its "signs" could be unmistakeable.
11./ No wonder kids end up seeing Blockers as essential. Not least because they're presented as just the first step towards transition. This @mygenderation video offers transition as a hormone paradise in which "my body became an ever-changing landscape that hormones resculpted".
12./ It appears to suggest hormones will allow you to have great sex and even get rid of fat. Imagine the impact on a 14 year old hearing that. This video from @mygenderation suggests the earlier you transition the better. "I wouldn't have had to go through the wrong puberty".
13./ Videos like this boost the DEMAND from kids by selling a fabulous future. What about the SUPPLY? I loathed my puberty. Luckily I didn't meet this therapist from @GIRESUK who seems to be on a mission to put little boys on Puberty Blockers as early as possible.
14./ Then there's profiteers. Helen Webberley who wrote a column in Pink News yesterday bemoaned the judgement. She was fined for running an unlicensed transgender clinic from her home in south Wales and suspended by the General Medical Council. Kerching https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chemist-sells-hormones-for-trans-children-online-cbgtxlbdr
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chemist-sells-hormones-for-trans-children-online-cbgtxlbdr
15./ Their business was also ruled by a Judge to have breached the Care Standards Act. After she and her husband were suspended for breaching guidelines they upped sticks and moved abroad. Their sense of public duty knows no bounds. Kerching. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7049283/Doctor-ran-unlicensed-transgender-clinic-moves-business-Spain-continue-operating.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7049283/Doctor-ran-unlicensed-transgender-clinic-moves-business-Spain-continue-operating.html
16./ In October an online pharmacy in the UK was slammed by the General Pharmaceutical Council for dispensing puberty blockers to kids using prescriptions from the Webberleys' clinic. No wonder she didn't like the judgement. Kerching. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8894267/Pharmacy-home-delivered-puberty-blockers-transgender-children-patients-risk.html
17./ Blockers can also rely on cheerleaders like Pink News. They ridiculed evidence about a a study of Blockers on sheep. This was the biggest animal trial conducted on the drugs, was run in association with Norway's leading GI clinic and revealed serious mental impairment.
18./ Our side is often accused of not caring about young trans people. It's a lie. But what kind of disinterest explains Pink News' attitude to worrying animal studies into a powerful drug they advocate giving to young trans people? It's unconscionable. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453016305595
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453016305595
19./ Why does this matter? Advocates of blockers say they give kids time to think. But the BRAIN does our thinking. And if the adolescent brain is to develop the ability to do that properly it has to go through puberty which changes it dramatically, as @sjblakemore explains.
20./ Teens are ill-equipped to consent to taking powerful drugs while their brains are in the throes of such a radical transformation. Whatsmore we already know teens take many more risks and understand their consequences less than adults. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2011/10/beautiful-brains/
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2011/10/beautiful-brains/
21./ And attitudes to risk becomes less rational when they're with their friends. Laurence Steinberg's work shows teens feel peer pressure viscerally and it makes them take greater risks. Gender non conforming teens have a tribe of peers online willing them on to take blockers.
22./ Here's a trans man telling kids blockers "are a really great thing" which will stop the effects of a puberty "you were mentally not meant to go through" and it will stop "all the changes you don't want to happen". He's the online equivalent of a mate saying drive faster!
23./ Unfiltered advice from kids online is immensely powerful for kids. Personal testimony has a ring of authenticity. But this often presents blockers as a magical cure all. Here a young trans man describes how they "gave me such a boost in happiness" and reduced anxiety.
24./ The High Court says kids "must understand the impact" of Blockers. What chance have they got when they're assailed by non-stop propaganda from young advocates, charlatans, profit-making pharmacies and idiotic TV producers? That's an impact no child could possibly understand.
