Yesterday, there was a Women and Equalities Select Committee (WESC) hearing on evidence around the safety and effectiveness of puberty blockers. Three professors were asked for their advice, and they claimed that there were potential benefits to giving puberty blockers to children.
Paediatric endocrinologist Professor Gary Butler, bioethicist Professor Simona Giordano and Oxford Professor Emeritus Ashley Grossman all took part. Yet these expert witnesses are every bit as blinkered by their belief in gender ideology as the trans activists on TikTok, only with more clout. Their commitment to the idea that some children are innately trans, and that their cross-sex identity ought to be affirmed with drugs, shone through every answer.
The WESC session was held to examine the medical evidence for an indefinite ban on puberty blockers and how a research trial, as recommended by the Cass Review, should be set up. Rather than sitting within the remit of a health committee, the meeting was hosted by the WESC, as if a discussion about clinical treatments for children was a matter of inclusion and equality.
When asked about the safety of puberty blockers, Butler dismissed âanxiety around bone densityâ and claimed that the drugs are ârecognised as a reversible treatmentâ. Yet this is at odds with NHS guidance which was updated in 2020, warning that it’s ânot known whether hormone blockers affect the development of the teenage brain or childrenâs bones. Side effects may also include hot flushes, fatigue and mood alterations.â In March 2024, NHS England went further and stopped prescribing the drugs.
The paediatric consultant went on to claim that he was aware of hundreds of young patients across the country who had been prescribed puberty blockers without ill effects. Yet, the Cass Review is clear that the outcomes of patients treated with the drugs since 2011 are unknown due to poor records and a lack of follow-up. This went unremarked upon by WESC chair Sarah Owen.
Butler had an ally in Giordano, who denied knowledge of any studies showing that puberty blockers reduce bone density or have a psychological impact. She then referred to the restriction of their use to a trial as âdraconianâ.
Meanwhile, Grossman was at least a little more circumspect, acknowledging that there were risks to putting children on a âmedical conveyor belt to transitionâ. He admitted that there was no way to distinguish between those who he believed âmight benefitâ and those who grow out of their trans identities as they head toward adulthood.
Independent MP Rosie Duffield was the only WESC member to ask probing questions. âIt was a shame the panel of witnesses was not more balanced in their views,â she said afterwards. âDr Hilary Cassâs serious and expert review took four years and I’m not certain the session today added anything at all to the debate. One witness even appeared not to know that the NHS had actually banned puberty blockers, and not Parliament.â
Duffield was correct to point out the partiality of the panel. Giordano sits on the ethics board of the World Professional Transgender Health Association (WPATH). The most recent guidelines from the trans lobby group recommend that men who identify as eunuchs ought to be supported to remove their testicles. Treatments and surgeries for individuals who believe they are ânon-binaryâ are also promoted as best practice with no lower age limit â aside from for phalloplasty surgeries. Cass criticised WPATHâs international guidelines for transitioning as lacking âdevelopmental rigourâ.
Meanwhile, at an address to WPATHâs European arm EPATH, Butler gave a speech in which he complained that NHS gender identity services (Gids) had been the subject of âliesâ in the media, publicly questioning the need to change how the now-closed facility at the Tavistock operated.
In the audience was a woman who will bear the weight of such expert opinions for the rest of her life. Detransitioner Keira Bell, who took on Gids in court, was watching proceedings. Today, she has scars across her chest, a deepened voice and is uncertain about her fertility, because professionals chose to believe that some children are innately trans. Despite Duffield pointing out Bellâs presence, the professors did not turn around. We should not be surprised that they still wonât face up to their mistakes.
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SubscribeThis sounds so similar to the Assisted Dying committee reported on recently. Selective choices of the “expert witnesses” to advance an agenda rather than any attempt at honest and balanced discussions around such important issues.
Is it any wonder that so many of us are skeptical about our democracy and those elected to represent us?
Anyone giving such drugs to children should be thrown in jail.
And why aren’t they?
Because our politicians are perverted scum
What, all of them? Any particular perversions?
What can you.do when everyone in a Select Committee is lying?
What can you do when Starmer lies? When Rachel Reeves lies? When the Attorney Generall can’t remember?
When Unherd won’t hold Starmer to account?
When Unherd won’t publish any article critical of Feminism?
You can ask these questions at least. And hold Unherd to account in their role in the lying mess that is England today.
Give quitting a try.
Are you sure you’re not Champagne Socialist’s alter ego?
Since you’ve started posting they’ve vanished
Seriously though, whilst you do make the occasional valid and well argued comment, your constant mono subject trolling in pretty much every article is getting very tiresome and frankly making people just scroll past without bothering to even glance at the content.
If you hate Unherd so much why are you still here? Cancel your subscription and find a better suit ted home. There are many on Substack.
So you don’t care that this Butler is lying in Parliament and no one can do anything about it? In Starmer’s Britain lying is consequence free. You don’t see the problem?
Do you understand what a cover up is?
Yes, we do understand, and we also understand that you’re not what you seem to be either. No-one with any integrity would ruin their cause by littering almost every Comments section with the same sloganeering.
Therefore – you have an agenda which you’re not telling us about. And… it’s no use trying to deny it. The only way to change that perception is to stop doing what you’re doing, and just comment with intelligence which you’ve shown you can do.
Do you understand that?
I’ve told you a hundred times. Politics and the media have a mutually dependent relationship.
In UK it is a toxic relationship. The media lie. They control debate and now enforce the government’s narrative too.
And this is why the UK is a woke basket case.
Unherd is a political tool. And they are gaslighting the public.
They are also, in my opinion, in Starmer’s pocket.
Please don’t troll me. If you don’t like what I say just ignore it. If you disagree with what I say, make a decent argument. I haven’t got a cause. I write here to organise my thoughts.
Canât you organise them somewhere else?
you only seem to have one. It canât take much organising!
“Are you sure youâre not Champagne Socialistâs alter ego?”
This is stupid even for you people!
Your definition of âstupidâ seems to be people having the desire to take on board information that challenges their thinking. In this case, this may not be the site for you.
I have similar thoughts about Mr Watson. His comments frequently contain a mixture of intelligent observation – and some innate desire to insult people. Iâm sure many people skip otherwise readable Comments due to the trained expectation of having to also read unnecessary derogatory comments. Thatâs a shame.
From the report we can gather that these experts are more knowledgeable about trans ideology than their declared academic fields. This is not entirely surprising; the pervading influences of postmodernism and identity studies has made some scientists question the very basis of objectivity in the scientific process. Itâs a return to the power of esoteric wisdom and ignorant orthodoxies.
Butler lies in Parliament. No one even blinks. Rachel Reeves lies on her cv. No one blinks.
The UK media no longer holds government to account. It colludes with and enforces the government’s narrative.
This is a disaster.
An appalling speciesism (as well as other dubious “thinking”) underlies gender ideology. Mammals are sexually binary; humans are mammals. As far as Nature is concerned, we are embodied, male and female, to procreate and perpetuate our kind, as are other sexually binary species. We can choose not to reproduce, but we cannot choose to not be the sex we are born for Nature’s purpose. The ridiculous notion that anyone is born in the “wrong” body is an arrogant assertion that the bodies of humans — unlike the bodies of other species — are somehow exceptions to Nature’s design.
We seem to have a huge number of emotionally troubled children who — thanks in part to social media and “experts” of the kind described in this article — latch on to being “trans” as the explanation for their difficulties. They need support to navigate their mental health issues. They do not need to have their physical health also compromised through obstruction of puberty, the most substantial sea change of human existence apart from being born and dying.
Very well put
Thank you.
First, unless you are religious, nature does not have a purpose, nor a design. Your thinking is pre Darwinian.
Second, would you know a trans identifying chimpanzee if you saw one đ I wouldnât.
Third, the evidence is all around for two things: first that we have much in common with other mammals, especially great apes; second, that we are also very different.
Whatever you think of trans, it is certainly real as a human phenomena. It canât be simply argued away by appeal to ânatureâ any more than homosexuality can.
I liked the phrasing. In simple terms, nature does have the purpose of evolving itself to greater fitness.
Actually it doesnât. It has no purpose. The whole point of Darwin is that living things evolve without plan, purpose or design. The most we can say is that those living things which are poorly adapted to their environment die out.
It seems we both probably have a good understanding of Darwinism. My comment relates to the non-scientific (even arty) use of the word ânatureâ as opposed to your correct scientific observation.
Fair enough. Though in moral debate the difference is crucial.
For example, Christianâs were able to make an argument that homosexuality was against nature. The purpose of sex (gods purpose) was procreation – homosexuality does not lead to procreation – therefore homosexuality was unnatural and perverted gods purpose.
A Darwinist cannot make such an argument.
Indeed. Cults are human phenomena; the flagellants, Skopits, Shakers, and now trans, all of these have aspects of nihilistic behaviour in common.
The error with trans has been for progressive liberal democracies and NGOs to reinforce the idea that there is anything normal and/or desirable about the cult. This, on the back of the feminist argument that the sexes are interchangeable, when not interfered with by society and social stereotypes, has encouraged the development of the trans phenomena.
On the feminist thing Iâm inclined to agree. It would be extremely odd historically if these things were not connected.
šnature does not have a purpose, nor a design.”
Perhaps not a preconsidered purpose or design. Parts of nature, as for example the organs of the body, do have functions though (respiration, metabolism, transport, detoxification and so on) and these could be thought of a purposes in a sense. Or if you prefer one could agree that nature, while as far as we know without predetermined designs or purposes, does yet assign functions to its parts. I suppose a purpose might be defined as a function which has become conscious of itself as such. Then one might say that nature is structured in a way that affords the emergence of various functions, and that one of these functions is to acquire purposes.
Good points. And as an approximation itâs true. But it can lead us into problems if we claim something like: the purpose of sex is procreation. This can lead us to the false conclusion that sex which does not lead to procreation is unnatural or even wrong.
(As a footnote itâs empirically clear that sex is about way more than that: bonding obviously, but conflict reduction in bonobos and hiding paternity in chimpanzees).
Replacing religion with Darwinism doesn’t give it any final say. Science is always open to questioning and rediscovery. Chimps, and other animals, can’t ‘identify’ with being ‘trans’; it’s a human social phenomenon. Nature has anomalies, which can also be compounded by social factors, and unravelling the difference about what is ‘real’ is difficult. It’s best not to jump to conclusions.
‘unless you are religious’ . . . to say ‘nature’ does not have a ‘purpose’ is a religious view, and one that is impossible to substantiate. it is, in fact, blind faith. wake up!
And the Unherd trans obsession goes on! Good job that they have the assistant editor at The Critic on the case to correct those know-nothing professors!!!
It’s not an obsession if you are highlighting a harmful obsession it’s good journalism
Absolutely. I would particularly salute GB News for âbanging onâ endlessly on this subject until the Cass report exposed the issues formally.
This seems likely, though not certain, on current evidence, and given the ubiquity of trans phenomena across times and cultures.
What is not certain is whether this accounts for all those currently identifying as trans as children. This has the appearance of a social phenomena. And some may genuinely just grow out of it (or come to terms with it in some way).
It also does not automatically follow that surgery and chemical control are the best answers.
Trans is now a commonly discussed and sometimes abrasive phenomenon that seems destined to run and run. It seems fraught with ideology and psycho sociology. I realise this article is essentially about treatment but, personally speaking, I would like to see the subject also discussed in terms of physiological causation.
As a one time farm vet, I came across the extreme and unfortunate subject of genuine intersexes, or freemartins, in cattle. Freemartinism is a condition that can result from the twinning of a heifer calf with a bull calf. It affects the heifer twin, and is characterised by an underdeveloped reproductive tract. The condition arises when the blood supplies of the two placentas of the twins merge together so that the calves share a common blood supply and the male hormones, which become active first, affect the development of the female reproductive tract. Only around 10% of heifer twins are not affected.
Does this happen in human twins of different sexes? Well, having had twins myself, albeit both boys and way back in history, I looked to see if it had become a modern salience. And some reports think that it may happen âjust a little bitâ. See a 2018 article on Rumpus Original entitled âThose Freemartin Girls.â Written by a vet who was pulled in by the phenomenon – and as a girl twinned with a boy sheâd had some personal concerns.
I havenât researched this subject widely but it seems to me that there may be other situations in which âjust a little bitâ of something similar could be happening.
Eg. an article in âPsychology Todayâ : âGender Fluidity and Hormone Disruptorsâ reports strange things happening to frogs. Polluted ponds could be turning male frogs into females. Interestingly, some of the affected frogs were capable of reproducing but produced all male offspring that had the effect of crashing the population, Such problems are not, apparently, restricted to wildlife. They are also found in humans leading their lives in apparently clean homes and non toxic environments. One casualty of under-the-radar hormone disruptors is gender development. Itâs a short read for anybody interested in the concept of hormone disruptors.
Thanks for a great post. Itâs often assumed that itâs solely about chromosomes, but in the womb things can get messy for a number of reasons.
I think a few of us wonder if hormone disrupters play a role. Is it a coincidence that the explosion in trans and non binary identifying people coincides with reductions in testosterone and sperm count.
Like you I would like to see more research and more open discussion – and less hate.
Many thanks for all this information.
As DM has mentioned this has never been all about chromosomes and particularly since the X and Y varieties do not just code for the obvious anatomical differences but a raft of hormonal admixtures that vary from person to person and from minute to minute over an entire life span.
It is clear to me from talking with now, three trans women (two of them in their 60s and one in her late 20s) and reading Jan Morris’s “Conundrum” that there are a group of individuals (true numbers unknown at present) who are quite sure from an early age, that they are inhabiting the wrong flavour of body.
As far as regret and detransitioning while taking puberty blockers is concerned, there is one semi decent study on this subject, from the Netherlands. The data is from a clinic that has been running for 20 years so there were a reasonable number of individuals who had been receiving gender affirming medication for over a decade. Since the Dutch have a centralised registry for these medications there was close to 100% follow up.
Of the young people treated at the Dutch clinic, only about 5% stopped taking medications. Even at the longer follow-ups, the rate of medical detransition was low. This is an indicator that the level of regret in this particular population was not particularly significant.
Disturbingly, although this study is referred to in the Appendices of the Cass review, it isn’t cited in the discussion of detransition, although an anonymous survey of Redditors (?!) is. This is one of several reasons why I look at the Cass review somewhat askance.
The Cass review is also very clear that more research is required. The chances of the necessary long term (5 – 15 year) studies ever being funded adequately I would say is zero. So various other beliefs will continue to be touted until we know much more about how our minds and how we think and feel are determined, not just by the anatomical bits we can see and synapses firing but the neuro-hormonal cocktail our brains soak in 24 hours per day.
Thank you for such a thoughtful post.
The word “expert” should be banned
These so called experts should be drummed out of the profession for child cruelty