In England, the prescription of puberty blockers to minors will be banned in the future – this was stated in a publication by the National Health Service (NHS) in mid-March. What happened?
Puberty blockers interrupt the hormonal development of children and adolescents. As a result, the sexual organs remain at the size of a child and fertility does not develop – hand in hand with this the child remains unable to experience an orgasm.
For girls who identify as boys, for example, these blockers have an appeal because they prevent feminine attributes such as periods, breasts and generally feminine appearance. The same applies to trans-identified boys: they keep their childish face, the growth spurt doesn’t occur, and their voice doesn’t break.
No study showing improvements with puberty blockers
In England, puberty blockers have been prescribed to trans-identified children and young people since 2010, and demand has grown exponentially, as can be read in Helen Joyce’s “Facts about Transgender”.
Such trans children were referred to the Tavistock clinic by the National Health Service, which often gave them a prescription on their first visit.
2022 covered Hannah Barnes With the help of some whistleblowers, we exposed the intolerable conditions in this clinic. It was not documented who received which medication, there was no study on the long-term effects, and the diagnosis was very quick and correspondingly sloppy. Tavistock couldn’t even say who they had treated or how often they had prescribed puberty blockers.
A storm of indignation broke out when some young people reported that they had never actually been asked about their problems, that they had never been given the time to think about what they actually wanted. Some had felt that they now had to continue step by step, up to and including castration or hysterectomy.
As a result, Tavistock had to close. A commission appointed found, among other things, that there were no studies that showed whether children actually feel better with puberty blockers. Or what side effects there would be.
England draws the necessary conclusions
A study was then carried out in England into the effectiveness of the blockers. And similar to Swedish or Finnish studies, it came to the conclusion that there are trans-identified children Doesn’t get any better with blockers than without.
At the same time, there have been increasing studies showing that puberty blockers not only stop physical development, but also brain maturation. There were also problems with bone density as well as lowered IQ, lack of sexual maturity and many other side effects. And opposite that no measurable benefit.
The NHS took action in July 2022 and recommended that puberty blockers only be used as part of clinical studies should be used. Although recommending is not ordering, the number of prescriptions fell significantly. Last week fewer than 100 children took part in England Puberty blockers.
What is new is that the recommendation has become an order. In England, all children will now go through their normal puberty – unless they get the blockers by post from Germany.
Germany’s expert committee relies on counterhormones
In Germany, treatment recommendations are not approved by the Bundestag or health insurance companies, but are developed through guidelines by expert committees. These are continually revised to stay up to date. The new guideline “Gender incongruence and gender dysphoria in children and adolescents: diagnosis and treatment” was supposed to be published by December 2023, but is still pending.
is the chairman of the committee Prof. Romer, who is known for his very transactive attitude. For example, he calls for puberty blockers to be prescribed from the first sign of puberty, but for their use to be limited to two years because of the side effects.
Then you should switch to counterhormones (estrogen for boys and testosterone for girls). These counterhormones sterilize the children and their sexual organs can no longer develop to normal size or function.
The first signs of puberty appear around the age of nine or ten – if counterhormones were given, the youngest children would only be eleven years old. This position is a hardline stance even among trans activists.
What is piquant is that the new guidelines announced on the homepage of the AWMF (Association of Scientific Medical Societies) were recently quietly downgraded from S3 to S2k. That sounds like technical jargon at first, but it definitely contains dynamite.
So far only studies that document a lack of benefit
If a guideline is classified as S3, it is evidence-based. There are studies for all recommendations that can precisely demonstrate the effectiveness of the methods. The next level would be S2e, weaker but still evidence based, then comes S2k. There is no evidence of effectiveness for these treatment recommendations.
It is interesting that the guidelines adopted in 2018 were still running under S3. If there is no proof of effectiveness to date, there cannot have been any in 2018 either. The only new studies are those that document a lack of benefit.
But what will this S2k guideline say? To date, there are no restrictions on the use of puberty blockers or counterhormones in Germany. Operations take place from around the age of sixteen.
Nobody knows how many children in Germany receive puberty blockers because nobody keeps count. The guidelines commission includes people who are very keen on prescribing, such as Chairman Romer, but also very critical doctors such as Alexander Short.
However, to date, children in Germany are still allowed to be treated with hormones without there being any evidence that this improves the children’s well-being.
This article represents solely the opinion of the author. It does not necessarily have to reflect the perspective of Epoch Times Germany.