You know what gets me about this whole situation? People who are against the use of puberty blockers nearly always cite the fact that the vast majority children who get them for gender-related reasons later go on to take cross-sex hormones. And like, yeah, if puberty blockers are hard to get (and they are) then only the most obviously trans teens are going to have them prescribed. And guess what? A teen who is super, obviously trans is almost certainly going to want/need hormones.
It's just an infuriating twisting of statistics to try and paint puberty blockers as an irreversible decision that teens are unable to make when that's just not true if you think about it for half a second.
All in all, the whole "let's force trans kids to experience the wrong puberty because there's a microscopic chance that maybe a cis kid might experience the wrong puberty if we let trans kids be happy" pisses me off to no end.
People who are against the use of puberty blockers nearly always cite the fact that the vast majority children who get them for gender-related reasons
I really don't feel like going and reading that garbage again, but iirc that was actually a big part of the ruling. The judge said that because most people who get puberty blockers eventually go on to get HRT, the decision to get puberty blockers is actually a massive life-changing decision and not something that can be reversed later on with relatively little consequence. She also kept complaining that they haven't collected data on every random thing she could think of (e.g. what percentage of people on puberty blockers are autistic) and inferred from that that it's actually a highly experimental treatment.
Everything about this is just so outrageous. The fact that they got to cherrypick two highly atypical people to bring the case - a detransitioner and a parent trying to stop their kid from transitioning - while no trans people or organizations were allowed to intervene. The fact that the sole defendant (the part of the NHS that provides gender services to kids) is not exactly fully on board with trans people and failed to vigorously defend themselves, e.g. they declined to argue that parents could consent on behalf of their kids even if the kids themselves can't. The fact that the judge who wrote the ruling is the daughter of a fucking baron and went to an exclusive private school.
And supposedly some of the people involved in bringing the case were mainly motivated by trying to weaken the principle that kids can get medical treatment without their parents' approval or knowledge, provided that they're capable of understanding it. Now they've successfully argued that puberty blockers are just too fucking complicated for 15-year-olds to understand (and even 17-year-olds, unless they have a judge helping them), they're probably going to try and make the same arguments about abortion, contraception, STI tests and who knows what else.
I hadn't even thought about the fact that this ruling could very easily be used to undermine reproductive healthcare for teens. That makes me sick. And using transphobia as a weapon to do it, that's awful. Layers and layers of awful.
You know what gets me about this whole situation? People who are against the use of puberty blockers nearly always cite the fact that the vast majority children who get them for gender-related reasons later go on to take cross-sex hormones. And like, yeah, if puberty blockers are hard to get (and they are) then only the most obviously trans teens are going to have them prescribed. And guess what? A teen who is super, obviously trans is almost certainly going to want/need hormones.
It's just an infuriating twisting of statistics to try and paint puberty blockers as an irreversible decision that teens are unable to make when that's just not true if you think about it for half a second.
All in all, the whole "let's force trans kids to experience the wrong puberty because there's a microscopic chance that maybe a cis kid might experience the wrong puberty if we let trans kids be happy" pisses me off to no end.
I really don't feel like going and reading that garbage again, but iirc that was actually a big part of the ruling. The judge said that because most people who get puberty blockers eventually go on to get HRT, the decision to get puberty blockers is actually a massive life-changing decision and not something that can be reversed later on with relatively little consequence. She also kept complaining that they haven't collected data on every random thing she could think of (e.g. what percentage of people on puberty blockers are autistic) and inferred from that that it's actually a highly experimental treatment.
Everything about this is just so outrageous. The fact that they got to cherrypick two highly atypical people to bring the case - a detransitioner and a parent trying to stop their kid from transitioning - while no trans people or organizations were allowed to intervene. The fact that the sole defendant (the part of the NHS that provides gender services to kids) is not exactly fully on board with trans people and failed to vigorously defend themselves, e.g. they declined to argue that parents could consent on behalf of their kids even if the kids themselves can't. The fact that the judge who wrote the ruling is the daughter of a fucking baron and went to an exclusive private school.
And supposedly some of the people involved in bringing the case were mainly motivated by trying to weaken the principle that kids can get medical treatment without their parents' approval or knowledge, provided that they're capable of understanding it. Now they've successfully argued that puberty blockers are just too fucking complicated for 15-year-olds to understand (and even 17-year-olds, unless they have a judge helping them), they're probably going to try and make the same arguments about abortion, contraception, STI tests and who knows what else.
I hadn't even thought about the fact that this ruling could very easily be used to undermine reproductive healthcare for teens. That makes me sick. And using transphobia as a weapon to do it, that's awful. Layers and layers of awful.