Globe editorial: The debate over puberty blockers needs more science and less politics

This is sort of a waffling article that doesn’t really say much.

“Some countries are taking a more cautious approach! Others are moving in the opposite direction! We should have the discussion here too!”

I guess the closest it comes to taking a position is a bit of a slap at Alberta for being heavy handed, which…sort of deserved in perpetuity, really.

I get the sense the author of the article is “puberty blocker anxious” and sympathetic to criticism of it as a treatment, but as opinion editorials go this is as close to a non-position as someone can get. Opinion: more data would be a good thing. Incendiary.

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Oh the polls are down and people aren’t interested in Conservatives anymore, time for the SocCons in the media to hyperventilate about Trans medicine.

>But what is the right answer for those youths who believe that they are transgender? For years in much of the Western world, the answer was straightforward: a treatment regime of hormones as close to the onset of adolescence as possible, in order to safeguard the mental wellbeing of a transgender youth and to minimize physical changes from puberty.

Blatant disregard for the truth and nuance of the situation. This piece of shit journalist hasn’t done their homework. The majority of treatment isn’t hormone therapy, it’s psychological therapy and individual based lifestyle adjustments.

They only include statements from a single detractor in the country, which shows the blatant and ideological slant the G&M is pushing with this article. Why bother to clean about the science when you can make loud pronounments about what you think the science is?

The author is a victim of their own ignorance and logic. “There needs to be debate but not with politicians leading the way, but from the science!” Medical science and policy isnt a public forum that allows people who are ignorant equal say. There is one doctor who says she’s seeing the risks that come with hormone therapy as if people didn’t already know that about hormone therapy for decades. There’s no new science revealing shocking data, the side effects and risks to hormone therapies are well known. Puberty blockers are used because they’re the safest treatment for a person with servere bodily dysphoria, which are subset of people who are at risk of committing suicide. This article brings up “concerns” about children’s fertility and bone density as if they’re going to be fertile and have dense bones after they pass away.

Almost all these concerns about fertility are ridiculous. Like imagine refusing to treat ovarian cancer because it risks causing infertility. Social Conservatives have always been in the medical field and forced their ideas on the public and seems like this is the angle some wannabe morality police want to police children into heteronormative behavior. Force children to live in constant suicidal thoughts just because some creeps want to control your ability to give birth.

Institutional Misogyny, folks.

This should be left to doctors, patients, and parents, not the general public who often have very little knowledge about medicine and trans issues. It really shouldn’t be up to the general public or politicians to gatekeep medicine. Far too often we are asking what the general public thinks while neglecting stakeholder opinions (i.e., trans people, doctors, and parents of trans children).

These issues affect so few people, but nowadays everyone has to have an opinion. However, the prominence and prevalence of trans discussions in public discourse is purposeful. American conservative groups and politicians devoted a lot of effort and money into researching how to make people uncomfortable about trans issues. Canadian conservative parties have adopted many of their republican counterparts’ narratives about trans people. Unfortunately, these people are generally unconcerned about the well-being of the trans community, and they have repeatedly used them as a wedge issue for political purposes. The restriction of gender affirming care is nothing other than a cold-hearted utilitarian calculation about how to appease the fears of the general public on a completely manufactured issue that was fostered to engender a political wedge.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/16/us/politics/transgender-conservative-campaign.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/16/us/politics/transgender-conservative-campaign.html)

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I fully believe that if they announced tomorrow that brain tranplants were possible, safe and available to the public, conservatives would argue that trans people shouldn’t be allowed to have them. People hide behind a million reasons but in reality they just dont think transgender people should be allowed to exist and if we have to exist they want our lives to be a miserable as possible.

It’s funny how most of the people saying “we need more science” in the discussion about puberty blockers tend to be social conservatives who then proceed to ignore the science that refutes their ideological position.

This is hilarious. “Science” (i.e. biology) already knows that puberty blockers are a terrible idea. It’s only because of politics (or culture more broadly) that the concept of interrupting your body’s natural development has become a fad.