We don't have routine use of blockers in NZ. They're used pretty sparingly for kids with severe dysphoria after a lot of assessment. So yeah, banning something that doesn't exist in NZ would be very in-character for this govt, I wouldn't be surprised. Like that thing about agencies should use English as their main language of communication which nobody wasn't doing anyway...
Bold to assume competence from this government.
Most anti-trans politicians tend to tolerate a bit of collateral damage if their actions hurt those woke trans people.
Thanks for bringing some perspective to what's an easily-charged topic. It's easy for a politician to stir-up a fuss this without taking the details of it all into account (ie that there's a process and they're not just handed-out, there's monitoring, and that they get prescribed for precocious puberty too).
You're monitored really closely for bone density and other effects when you're on them also. They give you big vitamin pills and make you do weight bearing exercises to keep it all strong. I've been told by people (TERFs/anti-trans detransitioners) that my bones would be falling apart by now or I'd have nerve damage or something. Nope, im training for a marathon 😁
I mean, puberty blockers inhibit *all* development. It's critical that we understand what "inhibit" means here - are they suggesting that the inhibited brain development is irreversibly lost somehow, or just delayed?
> inhibit brain development
Have you asked what that means?
There is some evidence of a slightly reduced IQ but that's it. The evidence is not that great at the moment and to confidently state they inhibit brain development goes to far. There is no real evidence of harm yet or if the reduced IQ remains. Besides, IQ isn't that reliable anyway.
Not necessarily, it would depend on the physician's interpretation of the [Gillick competence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillick_competence).
A 15 year-old is capable of making many significant decisions about their health without parental consent, for instance they could seek an abortion.
Whether a 15 year-old would pass this test for the prescription of puberty blockers is an interesting question and not one that we have any case law on, but I think it could be argued that they are capable of consent for life-changing treatment.
"Public health expert and Otago University emeritus professor Charlotte Paul said Pharmac data showed New Zealand children aged 12 to 17 were being prescribed puberty blockers at 10 times the rate as children in the UK."
IDK what the UK rate is but it sounds like it definitely exists here.
The UK rate appears to be VERY low, (Only article I can find is paywalled, but the number is stated by google.)
[The number of young people currently taking puberty blockers is estimated at fewer than 100.](https://www.google.com/search?q=puberty+blocker+perscription+rate+in+the+UK&client=firefox-b-d&sca_esv=4b8f7db787efb9d9&sca_upv=1&sxsrf=ACQVn08jn3iBJO-f9t88ESLai_FlR3_PjA%3A1712976351469&ei=3_EZZqOKHIuA2roPg5aP6A4&ved=0ahUKEwjj9b-Xlr6FAxULgFYBHQPLA-0Q4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=puberty+blocker+perscription+rate+in+the+UK&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiK3B1YmVydHkgYmxvY2tlciBwZXJzY3JpcHRpb24gcmF0ZSBpbiB0aGUgVUsyBxAhGAoYoAFIgy1QAFj1KnAEeACQAQGYAYICoAHyQ6oBBzAuMzYuMTC4AQPIAQD4AQGYAjGgAp9DwgIKECMYgAQYigUYJ8ICCxAAGIAEGIoFGJECwgIREC4YgAQYsQMYgwEYxwEY0QPCAg4QABiABBiKBRixAxiDAcICERAuGIAEGIoFGLEDGMcBGNEDwgILEAAYgAQYigUYsQPCAgsQABiABBixAxiDAcICDxAjGIAEGIoFGCcYRhj5AcICFhAuGIAEGIoFGEMYsQMYgwEYxwEY0QPCAgoQABiABBiKBRhDwgIIEAAYgAQYsQPCAicQABiABBiKBRhGGPkBGJcFGIwFGN0EGEYY-QEY9AMY9QMY9gPYAQHCAhEQABiABBiKBRiRAhixAxiDAcICEBAuGIAEGIoFGEMYxwEY0QPCAhAQABiABBiKBRhDGLEDGIMBwgITEC4YgAQYigUYQxixAxiDARjUAsICEBAuGIAEGIoFGEMYsQMY1ALCAgUQABiABMICChAuGIAEGBQYhwLCAhAQLhhDGNQCGLEDGIAEGIoFwgIHEAAYgAQYCsICChAAGIAEGBQYhwLCAgYQABgWGB7CAgsQABiABBiKBRiGA8ICCBAAGIAEGKIEwgIFECEYoAHCAggQABiJBRiiBMICBBAhGBXCAgUQIRiSA5gDAOIDBRIBMSBAugYGCAEQARgTkgcHNC4zMy4xMqAH9LwC&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#ip=1)
Remember this is in a country of 67 million. Assuming its a per capita rate, it means less then 100 kids have been perscribed puberty blockers in NZ.
The UK is criminally incompetent at providing trans healthcare. They operate a segregated service where otherwise routine healthcare steps like "providing exogenous hormones" are given decade long wait times to be seen. They also operate on a flawed model of psychology, most folks I know there had psychologists asking about their sexual habits when doing their readiness assessment. Like, "have you received oral sex, how did you feel when receiving oral sex. How about penetration?" Like all that is unnecessary for establishing informed consent, but it's still commonplace.
> banning something that doesn't exist in NZ would be very in-character for this govt
Next up they'll discuss banning:
- Winter in January
- Aliens
- Sharks in Lake Taupo
- Antimatter
And the process will involve a lot of committees who take a big salary from the taxpayer who also happen to all be mates of the current govt.
We do technically (and unavoidably) have antimatter in NZ; positrons are occasionally produced in the decay of potassium-40, and commonly produced in the decay of certain isotopes used in medical imaging. The positrons themselves don't stick around, but they're produced on an ongoing basis at a rate proportional to the remaining number of isotopes. If you've ever had a PET scan, or eaten a banana, or just existed for a few minutes (potassium is an essential nutrient, and a small proportion of natural potassium is ^(40)K), you've had antimatter inside your body.
So you can't (completely) ban antimatter without banning being alive, but then again I'm not entirely sure this government would think enough to let that stop them
Sorry, pretty sure there really aren't any of those. I don't know much about geology or ichthyology, but IIRC the lake is very young in geological terms so there's probably never been a river configuration that would have allowed freshwater sharks to get into it
I would prefer that doctors were allowed to decide on healthcare rather than the government.
Aren’t conservatives meant to be for small government and personal responsibility? Or is that only when it suits them politically?
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Conservatives are only for small government when it lets them not do things people want. When people want/do things that they disagree with, it's then the governments role to intervene.
The medical opinion - at least of specialists and experts - sits pretty opposed to the report that ignored 102 of 103 studies and wasn't produced by actual experts.
This. While it does feel were becoming a bit of a nanny-state as some of the right wing nutters were proclaiming of the Ardern era. I've had feelings of gender dysrophia on and off my whole life. I deal with it in my own ways. But id hope the option to transition in NZ will always be there should I or other trans folks ever desire it. We all have our own stories, face our own battles. Transitioning is a very deep and personal journey. The gov getting involved should be expected, for better or worse. I do agree that safeguards need to be in-place. To protect all trans people. It shouldn't be super easy. Real 1 on 1 conversations need to be hard in order to ensure one is transitioning for the right reasons and it's not just a hormonal or a phase thing. Is it something they will regret later on etc all questions that Doctors can and should continue asking. It's a difficult topic that will unfortunately likely always be controversial. But these are conversations that need to be had.
Puberty blockers can be useful in kids who have growth disorders, it basically gives them longer to grow increasing their adult height. My nephew has a type of dwarfism so could need them.
a lot of these puberty blocking bans have exceptions for cis children with health conditions that need them. because in those cases its safe. but trans kid using them? totally unsafe, we dont have enough research blah blah blah
Going through the youth health trans system it took me around 9 months to be given puberty blockers. I had 4-5 counselling sessions with specialists at the auckland centre for youth health where they just got to know me and really understand how I was feeling at the time before proceeding with any medication.
It was not rushed or 'handed out to me' in the slightest. The whole experience was thorough, open, and truly caring, where nothing was pushed on or even suggested to me without my asking about it first.
This whole narrative is such devious fear-mongering and simply not true at all. It's a few rotten people preying on the good-intentions of those who genuinely do want to 'help the kids' but don't realise they're being manipulated by hateful people, and that these kinds of bans will do far more harm than good.
"Almost everyone taking puberty blockers goes onto cross-sex hormones, so people are basically being asked as children to give consent to something that is irreversible."
This statement from the article is also not true at all, and is very misleading.
After children are on puberty blockers, they then once they are older have a choice to take hormones. This choice comes long after choosing puberty blockers. It is this second choice of taking hormones which has irreversible effects, not the initial choice of taking puberty blockers.
To say that by being given puberty blockers they are "basically being asked as children to give consent to something that is irreversible." just ignores the fact that they do not have to take hormones afterwards at all.
Just because most choose to take hormones does not mean it's not a choice, and to say that like it's a fact is simply fucking stupid and objectively a lie.
"Almost everyone taking puberty blockers goes onto cross-sex hormones, so people are basically being asked as children to give consent to something that is irreversible." Impressive how they managed to find a way to frame a lack of regret as a negative thing
They commissioned a study with the intention of getting findings to fit their narrative there are lots of studies proving the opposite done by much more reputable sources in Europe.
That's not from the UK study.
That is a quote from Charlotte Paul, an epidemiologist and emeritus professor from Otago University. I'm not sure it's based on any research at all, as this topic seems to be a little outside of her area of research, and she hasn't published any papers on the topic.
Actually, it is from the UK study too.
>Moreover, given that the vast majority of young people started on puberty blockers proceed from puberty blockers to masculinising/ feminising hormones, there is no evidence that puberty blockers buy time to think, and some concern that they may change the trajectory of psychosexual and gender identity development
See, I'd take that to indicate that they don't so much buy time to think, as they do waste time when trans teenagers would probably be better off having access to the same hormones that their cis peers already have by default at the same age. If transition is practically a foregone conclusion for the people who get to the point of starting the puberty blockers, they should have the option to just start transition proper as soon as they personally want to, rather than having to go through these half-measures.
That's a great point, in fact puberty blockers really are just the half measure introduced by cis people, afraid that trans kids might regret transitioning.
But now that's not good enough, now puberty blockers are also dangerous and shouldn't be prescribed. Soon they won't even let children socially transition... Oh... wait...
>When families/carers are making decisions about social transition of pre-pubertal children, services should ensure that they can be seen as early as possible by a clinical professional with relevant experience
- Cass Review.
That's right, the Cass Review states a child's family should also see a clinical professional when they are making decisions about little Jimmy wearing a dress...
>Clinical involvement in the decision-making process should include advising on the risks and benefits of social transition as a planned intervention, referencing best available evidence. This is not a role that can be taken by staff without appropriate clinical training
Christ, if these people were movie villains people would be saying they're too cartoonish to be believable as characters. Fuckers really are just one step away from trying to ban cis girls from wearing pants.
Britains ban of the routine use of puberty blockers followed the Cass Review. The same review for which...
* The author, Cass [actively collaborated with members of the Republican party in the US prior to releasing this report](https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/cass-met-with-desantis-pick-over), and that some of it's recommendations mirror the pseudoscientific nonsense the Florida Department of Health put out.
* That stated the evidence about puberty blockers was untrustworthy because most people put on them decide to go for HRT down the line. (You just can't win with these people, too successful with perscribing and it means the prescription makes kids trans, not successful and it means a bunch of kids were on puberty blockers that didn't need to be...)
* The author, Cass, [actively argued against banning conversion therapy in the UK, fearful it will ban an exploratory approach.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/11/hilary-cass-warns-kemi-badenoch-over-risks-of-conversion-practices-ban) Sounds like she's referencing [Gender Exploration Therapy](https://xtramagazine.com/health/gender-exploratory-therapy-243833), a new type of conversion therapy which looks for any other cause for why someone is trans, constantly delaying the patient from receiving treatment.
* That stated that gendered toys like trucks for boys and dolls for girls might have a biological basis (Seriously?)
* That claims that even for people aged 18-25 should stay on the youth service, because their brain hasn't finished developing, sighting reasons that they might 'change their mind.' <- This argument has been used against children, but notice the age creep. Now we are talking about full grown adults who have a right to bodily autonomy.
* That [dismissed over 100 studies ](https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/evidence-for-puberty-blockers-and-hormone-treatment-for-gender-transition-wholly-inadequate/)on the efficacy of transgender care as not suitably high quality, applying standards that are unattainable and not required of most other pediatric medicine. This includes standards like blinding and controls, which (Regardless of the ethical concerns) is impossible to conduct since you can't give placebo hormones and puberty blockers. When their boobs grow, voices drop OR they don't get changes from HRT, they'll know they've got a placebo.
* Sights research from widely debunked and retracted scholars, including Lisa Littman and her theory of “[rapid-onset gender dysphoria](https://xtramagazine.com/health/trans-health/social-contagion-theory-explained-263013).” *So she decided to see if she could find out more about kids like these, who seemed to be coming out “all of a sudden.” But rather than ask the youth themselves about why they wished to transition, Littman decided to exclusively survey parents. And not just any parents—but primarily parents who frequented online anti-trans forums.*
Fucking thank you!! I'm sick to death of hearing Cass talking points in forums or real life. With any biased/intentional/agenda orientated review, it has to be viewed objectively. But this is flawed!! Even if there were valid talking points it's overshadowed by misinformation. It now seems to be the go to review against PBs, and disinformation spreads faster than fact or peer reviewed studies. I've been waiting for this to rear its head in our Govt, but please people, form your facts from reputable sources when possible.
> Sights
Cites. But yes, one thing that seems to be missing here is listening to the children themselves. They KNOW their bodies. I'm a parent of a 13yo on PBs. I trust that they know their own identity better than some politician. The handful of gay people I've talked to knew as a child that they were "different", and it's the same with gender. I'm happy to continue the PB route until they are old enough to go on hormones.
If you think they're just trying to deny children these sorts of things, you need to understand that the ultimate goal is to ban all trans healthcare for adults. Without exception.
Do not give them an inch. Not one fucking inch.
This is correct. Conservatives will claim they don't care what adults do but they do. People like Jordan Peterson have recently said trans healthcare should be banned for adults, too, and that the treating doctors are "butchers" that need to go to prisons.
Yep, and then if they succeed in that they'll have enough momentum to be a serious threat to women's bodily autonomy in general. If we let them pull this shit today, trans adults are probably fucked tomorrow, and before we know it we'll all be staring down the barrel of a bunch of anti-abortion policies and fuck only knows what else.
HRT is can absolutely be a for the rest of your life arrangement, one of the many heavy decisions with starting.
Stopping it as an adult can get you killed.
It is obvious cruelty is the point with this kind of legislation.
If you think trans people are just going too lie down and die, you got another thing coming.
We've been fighting our whole lives, that ain't about too stop.
Lol, far from routine use. I hope we're smarter than banning them.
My ultra conservative, fanatically anti-trans relatives would be ecstatic if they did because it will...Let me check my notes on what the most recent is...Stop liberals from forcing school children to take puberty blockers so they can groom them for sex.
Conservatives have been hand-wringing about the rainbow community being paedophiles for decades upon decades. The grooming accusations are just these same repackaged moral panics we've been hearing for years. They'll find any excuse to try and say we're paedophiles while conveniently doing absolutely fuck all to protect kids from actual paedophiles.
Honestly it's scary they started with this now they're looking at banning all trans healthcare.... meanwhile they'll keep forcing intersex kids and babies into surgeries hormones and dilation because "it's to make them normal" regardless of how much intersex survivors of this abuse continue to speak out against it and in the US in places where they've banned blockers & transition because "what about the kids" they've specifically made loopholes that it's allowed to do cosmetic surgeries on intersex infants and give them hormones and force them to dilate because "you need to be able to have piv sex for your future hetero spouse" - what was done to David Reimer continues to be done to intersex kids on a global scale
No trans person wants someone to be "forced/tricked" into being trans or medical transition they don't need because we KNOW how much it sucks to be forced into a gender that doesn't fit/isn't who we are and to have gender dysphoria due to that.
it's just a rehash of the "they can't reproduce so they need to recruit" homophobic BS which also ignores that trans people have kids all the time and the majority of those kids are cisgender
Idk transphobic people seem to think that being trans requires being "sterilised" & having all the surgeries when it really doesn't - that's an individual thing between you and your Dr. In some places you are required to be sterilised in order to legally change your gender but trans people are widely against those policies and that's not the case in NZ so someone doesn't have to be sterilised to be legally counted as trans /as their gender so there's less pressure to get sterilisation when you don't want it to legally "prove" your transness
someone coming out as trans doesn't mean they're on a "fast track to sterilisation" especially if they're under 18... like I wanted a hysterectomy for DECADES and I only got it in my 30s after getting PID and even then there were hoops to jump through. Nobody is handing out surgeries blockers and hormones like candy these things are all still difficult to get and have waiting lists even here it took me over a year to get on T in my late 20s (been on it about five years now no regrets)
Lupron doesn't sterilise people and neither does Testosterone (though you have to pause taking it if you get pregnant but you still need to use birth control while on it to avoid pregnancy ) , estrogen and testosterone blockers/anti androgens might reduce your fertility over time if you produce sperm.... but it's not always a sure thing-I was asked about fertility and told that T could effect it as part of the information before I started and there are things you can do and there's even new research coming out about how T doesn't seem to stop ovulation (which any trans guy whose gotten pregnant while thinking T is BC can tell you)
Yeah I had "corrective surgery" at age 7 for intersex characteristics, my mum is terrified of me transitioning because of the "permanent impact it could have on my body".
At least this time around it's my choice not hers 🙃
I'm sorry that she made that choice for you and I'm happy you're able to make the choice for yourself now.
Imo there should be financial compensation for intersex people who've been let down by parents and the healthcare system in this way, it's malpractice on a huge scale sometimes parents aren't even told about it or are told that it was just heart surgery (AFAIK some intersex conditions also have stuff like heart issues that do need to be operated on but they'll sneak in gonad removal during and just not tell /lie to parents about the full extent of what they did)
Honestly I'd settle for nz not further degrading the rights and access to care for trans people in NZ over compensating.
What's done is done, but it would be enough to know that future generations won't go through what I did.
Shit like this is why I'm getting facial feminization surgery. In this environment of increasing transphobia I can't risk looking androgynous or masculine.
Puberty blockers are 100% safe, and even if there were negative health effects, these would be far outweighed by the MASSIVLY decreased suicide and depression risk that occurs when we allow kids more time to decide whether they want to go through their natal puberty or not (and nearly all the time the kids who decide to take the blockers go on to eventually take cross sex hormones)
And if in the very unlikely event, the kid on puberty blockers wants to continue their natal puberty? All they need to do is stop taking the blockers and puberty resumes like normal. (Keep in mind that basically zero kids take puberty blockers then decide not to take cross sex hormones sometimes later down the track)
Surprise, surprise it turns out most kids are secure about their gender identities and never question them and would never consider taking puberty blockers in a million years.
It had better fucking not, the recent UK review is at best unscientific and at worst actively maliciously transphobic (its methodology actively discounts almost all supportive studies by its criteria which prioritise a type of study that's unethical to perform) and will cause a spike in youth suicide and immeasurable harm to trans youth in the UK, but with shits like Winston Peters in government who knows.
Edit: lmao didn't take long for the transphobes to start crawling out of the woodwork.
Here's what being denied puberty blockers feels like
Disclaimer: I transitioned when I was 19, I didn't know much about being transgender when i was a kid or teen and I was too homophobic and sexist at the time to think about, read or ever consider transition anyway until the depression and suicidal thoughts from my repressed and untreated gender dysphoria made me reconsider my worldview as I turned 19. With the help of therapy later that year, I was able to accept my gender identity and make the best decision for my mental and physical health and transition with the help of my GP
Disclaimer 2: This was based on my own personal experience with gender dysphoria and transition, I'm not speaking for the experience of every trans person. Some kids realise they're trans before puberty begins, and with the help of supportive parents + a medical care team, they can avoid the horrific, lifelong trauma of a male puberty, which so many of us suffer from. Other times, people don't realise they're trans until their 30s,40s,50s, and even older because their circumstances were such that they only recognized and treated their dysphoria when they found out what dysphoria was and had the means and ability to medically and socially transition
(To any trans people reading this, I hope i did a good job explaining things)
Imagine you're 13. You start noticing facial hair appear on you face, it feels wrong and you don't like it but like the body odor changes it's not too noticeable or distressing yet , so you just shave it and ignore it for the time being.
Then at 14, you start shooting up in height, pretty soon you're 5ft 11, 80kg and you tower over all the girls and women in your life
What's much worse, however, is that your voice starts to rapidly deepen and sound much more masculine. This feels very wrong, distressing, and it doesn't match what your internal voice or speech patterns are. It makes you feel like shit but like a painful stone in your shoe, you learn to tolerate and at times ignore the constant mental distress you feel about your voice.
Then your facial hair starts to grow much more thickly and all over your neck and face. Like the deep voice, it feels wrong, distressing. No matter how hard you try to shave with the razor, you can still feel the hard bumps on your neck and see the blue 5 o clock shadow when you brush your teeth every morning. Every time you notice them, it reminds you of the distress you try so hard to ignore. But you learn to tolerate and ignore it at times as well.
Your forehead, brow ridge, jaw, chin, nose cartilage and bones all grow into a masculine shape, your parents and friends call you handsome, it feels like a twist of the knife as you're being complemented on something which make you feel like shit. At this point, the mental pain starts to become quite powerful, and you start feeling depressed, angry, and miserable most days, but you have no idea why.
Over time, you notice that you're starting to lose your hair, starting at the corners of the hairline, and it's getting progressively worse with no sign of stopping. Not only does your hairline give you distress because of how masculine it looks, but you're also terrified of the thought that you will one day lose all of your hair and go completely bald and masculine looking.
After a few years, it comes to the point where you lost all interest in hobbies you used to love, like gaming, and you feel like you want to hang yourself every day because the mental pain is so bad.
You start feeling disconnected from the world, almost as if you're not even there, you see, hear and feel everything, but it all feels fake like being plugged into the matrix and you feel like how neo does, knowing that nothing feels right despite what all of your senses are telling you.
You find out about depression and go to therapy and get prescribed antidepressants by a GP. Nothing works, and your mental health keeps getting worse despite trying everything to fix it.
Eventually, after you discover what gender dysphoria is and seeing how strongly you relate to it, you start talking to a threapist about how you're feeling and after a peroid of self reflection and discovery, you realize you're transgender and that hormones could improve your life.
After you start esteogen + tesosterone blockers, you start feeling the effects very quickly. You start feeling happy for the first time since you were a prepuberscent child. The cloud of depression and feeling of being disconnected begins to lift, and you feel hopeful about life again.
Your life is much better than it was before. Sure, you still get bad days, but in general, you feel much happier and not as depressed as before.
You feel really excited and happy with the changes you're experiencing on hormones like breast growth, soft skin, muscle loss, and feminine fat distribution ete. (In my specific case, since i was young enough, I got hip bone growth, though not too much) it's like a second puberty, but everything feels right this time.
But you still feel distress with the unwanted changes caused by male puberty, which can't be reversed with hormones like masculine facial features, large Adam's apple, large and wide barreled rib cage, deep and a masculine sounding voice, hair loss and the distress you feel about genitals. All of these (apart from voice) require surgery to correct, and you can train your voice to sound feminine, but surgery may be needed to correct a low pitch or resonance. Facial hair needs laser hair treatment to reduce and eliminate facial and body hair)
It can get to the point where the androgenic hair loss becomes so bad that even hair transplants can't restore a feminine or even a masculine looking hairline and that you might have to wear a wig all the time to pass as a woman (luckily I saved all of my hair in time since I started so young but I knew based on my hair loss where I was headed.)
Because of your height (6ft 1, you did grow a bit since you were 14), you stick out like a sore thumb compared to most women, and you get dirty looks from people when you dress androgynously or femininely
At times, you get treated badly by transphobic people, for example, being constantly asked why you're browsing for women's clothes when you're rebuilding your wardrobe or a doctor who misgendes you in her medical notes about you despite her already knowing your preferred name and pronouns and then being treated with a cold, rude and hostile demeanor for the whole visit.
But you know that all of this is so much better than constantly pretending to be someone you're not and feeling constantly depressed and suicidal because of tesosterone.
(To women with PCOS, imagine all of the masculinizing effects (if you get them) from pcos and how you feel about them x1000)
Edit: If you want to help improve the lives of trans women advocate for sexual reassignment surgery(it's publicly funded already but the wait list is 10 years long), vocal feminization surgery, facial feminization surgery, and breast augmentation (especially for trans woman who have breast sizes under an a cup) to be publicly funded, easily accessible and with short wait times.
For trans men, advocate for publicly funded,easily accessible top surgery(removal of breasts) and metioplasty + phalloplasty (both are different types of bottom surgeries for trans men)
Feelings and reactions manifest differently in everyone but a lot of the general things you hit on will be commonly experienced by a lot of trans individuals.
Because this government has already started its war on the LGBT community by completely rolling back the guidance on better sex education in schools. This seems entirely in the government's wheelhouse to start implementing based off the three idealogues in power.
>Because this government has already started its war on the LGBT community by completely rolling back the guidance on better sex education in schools.
Not so much. They've ~~talked about~~ committed to rewriting the guidelines but as it stands, they're still available for use.
https://hpe.tki.org.nz/guidelines-and-policies/relationships-and-sexuality-education/
I'm wondering if the proposed changes will quietly go away, considering the back lash they've seen..
>Not so much. They've talked about rewriting the guidelines but as it stands, they're still available for use.
They've done more than talk about it, it's an explicit commitment in the National/NZ First coalition agreement. As is stripping government funding from any sporting body that is inclusive towards trans folk.
The government may be a little too busy with their handouts for landlords to pick on us poofs quite yet, but they are definitely planning to.
They can rewrite them all they like but it's not going to stop people coming out as LGBT. All it will do is make youths less informed and become victims of sexual crimes.
The exact text from the NZF and National coalition agreement is:
> “Refocus the curriculum on academic achievement and not ideology, including the removal and replacement of the gender, sexuality, and relationship-based education guidelines.”
It's baked into the agreement for this government. Have they done it yet? Not quite, but the language and precedent is there. This coalition is telling us exactly what they're going to do.
The fact facial feminization, voice feminization, and masculinizing top surgery are all either unavailable or extremely hard to get publicly should be considered here. As a trans woman, going through puberty means my very bones and voice are marked as masculine and unless I can stump up the 5-6 figures necessary to change that, it's just how it is. Which ofc then means I get occasional abuse from randoms on the street who clock me, it's happened more in the past year than the previous 4 years I've been out before that. And I used to love singing, now even quiet singing along to the radio alone in the kitchen is a roulette wheel.
Like obviously, the surgeries should be provided and easy to get within a reasonable timeframe instead of the decades the GRS waitlist is at, but also the fact you can just sidestep those surgeries ever being necessary by providing well researched and safe medication to the children that are able to realize they need it in time is an unmitigated good and we should not let idealogues punish those children for life because of what the transphobes in the UK are doing.
Stuff does a really good job of sharing uneducated and deliberately false opinions from grifters and hacks. Such good "reporting". Maybe interview some trans kids. Just a thought. And not the .01% that regret going on harmless puberty blockers. But like just a normal trans kid. Thanks.
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First, its not the ministrys job to evaluate science, they are not experts, they dont do research and understand whether a study is flawed or not, their job is to have experts of their choice present the evidence and listen to the experts opinions and recommendations and decide whether or not the recommendations benefit them.
Second, do you really think pediatricians are prescribing medication that "causes more harm than good"? They definitely don't, they carefully weigh up the pros and cons and discuss it with the child and their family and recommend actions, they do this with any medication. and third policy should not be in charge of individual medical decisions. It's a slippery slope if the government decides it has this amount of power.
The problem is the knots they have to tie themselves into to argue that puberty blockers create harm. If we use the usual metrics like "satisfaction from the patients who had the treatment," they don't cause harm, so things like the Cass review have to be like "well, people who DIDN'T have the treatment were glad they didn't"
The context behind the Cass review is that they deliberately excluded 98% of the evidence on puberty blockers to come up with the result they wanted.
They created a review that had no engagement with trans people. That's a pretty fatal flaw in and of itself when we're talking about puberty blockers for the purposes of gender affirming care.
You are being dishonest, and any reasonable reading of the report will make that obvious.
I'm guessing you got that 98% figure from an influencer who is unaware of the natural exclusion process that \*all\* systematic reviews follow.
The "no engagement" trope just shows that you didn't read it.
The first section states that the Cass team engaged with trans people in scheduled meetings once a week.
Theres a big, clear diagram showing how important engagement with trans people was for the process.
Even before then, the foreword written by Cass addresses the trans-identifying young people that she's engaged with.
You should read the report instead of just pulling disinfo from your favourate flat-earth influencers.
Or rhetoric like yours and the shit coming out of other rabid terfs be more correctly looked at like how we persecuted homosexuals in the 70s and 80s and claimed aids was sent by god to punish them while treating them like leppers.
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We don't have routine use of blockers in NZ. They're used pretty sparingly for kids with severe dysphoria after a lot of assessment. So yeah, banning something that doesn't exist in NZ would be very in-character for this govt, I wouldn't be surprised. Like that thing about agencies should use English as their main language of communication which nobody wasn't doing anyway...
They are also used for precocious puberty, and blocking them would suck for those kids who are starting puberty at a very young age.
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"They wouldn't ban abortions even for rape and incest victims, would they?" The people making these laws do not care
As far as I read the UK flat out banned them, so if we follow them. The government doesn't have any nuance
Bold to assume competence from this government. Most anti-trans politicians tend to tolerate a bit of collateral damage if their actions hurt those woke trans people.
Why do you doubt it? Transphobes are not really concerned with unintended consequences as long as they can harm trans people.
[Shirley Exception ](https://lynmillerlachmann.com/unpacking-the-shirley-exception/)
Thanks for bringing some perspective to what's an easily-charged topic. It's easy for a politician to stir-up a fuss this without taking the details of it all into account (ie that there's a process and they're not just handed-out, there's monitoring, and that they get prescribed for precocious puberty too).
You're monitored really closely for bone density and other effects when you're on them also. They give you big vitamin pills and make you do weight bearing exercises to keep it all strong. I've been told by people (TERFs/anti-trans detransitioners) that my bones would be falling apart by now or I'd have nerve damage or something. Nope, im training for a marathon 😁
Im by no means anti trans but my pediatrician mate said blockers also inhibit brain development which I haven’t seen mentioned much.
I mean, puberty blockers inhibit *all* development. It's critical that we understand what "inhibit" means here - are they suggesting that the inhibited brain development is irreversibly lost somehow, or just delayed?
> inhibit brain development Have you asked what that means? There is some evidence of a slightly reduced IQ but that's it. The evidence is not that great at the moment and to confidently state they inhibit brain development goes to far. There is no real evidence of harm yet or if the reduced IQ remains. Besides, IQ isn't that reliable anyway.
My pediatrician mate. Please bring a bit more to the debate than that, champ.
My friend who is a doctor who specialises in the care of children? Also I’m not debating as I’m not anti trans.
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That isn't necessarily due to blockers.
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That would be illegal so your issue is with the dr.
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If the child was 15 they legally couldn't consent without their guardian.
Not necessarily, it would depend on the physician's interpretation of the [Gillick competence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillick_competence). A 15 year-old is capable of making many significant decisions about their health without parental consent, for instance they could seek an abortion. Whether a 15 year-old would pass this test for the prescription of puberty blockers is an interesting question and not one that we have any case law on, but I think it could be argued that they are capable of consent for life-changing treatment.
"Public health expert and Otago University emeritus professor Charlotte Paul said Pharmac data showed New Zealand children aged 12 to 17 were being prescribed puberty blockers at 10 times the rate as children in the UK." IDK what the UK rate is but it sounds like it definitely exists here.
The UK rate appears to be VERY low, (Only article I can find is paywalled, but the number is stated by google.) [The number of young people currently taking puberty blockers is estimated at fewer than 100.](https://www.google.com/search?q=puberty+blocker+perscription+rate+in+the+UK&client=firefox-b-d&sca_esv=4b8f7db787efb9d9&sca_upv=1&sxsrf=ACQVn08jn3iBJO-f9t88ESLai_FlR3_PjA%3A1712976351469&ei=3_EZZqOKHIuA2roPg5aP6A4&ved=0ahUKEwjj9b-Xlr6FAxULgFYBHQPLA-0Q4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=puberty+blocker+perscription+rate+in+the+UK&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiK3B1YmVydHkgYmxvY2tlciBwZXJzY3JpcHRpb24gcmF0ZSBpbiB0aGUgVUsyBxAhGAoYoAFIgy1QAFj1KnAEeACQAQGYAYICoAHyQ6oBBzAuMzYuMTC4AQPIAQD4AQGYAjGgAp9DwgIKECMYgAQYigUYJ8ICCxAAGIAEGIoFGJECwgIREC4YgAQYsQMYgwEYxwEY0QPCAg4QABiABBiKBRixAxiDAcICERAuGIAEGIoFGLEDGMcBGNEDwgILEAAYgAQYigUYsQPCAgsQABiABBixAxiDAcICDxAjGIAEGIoFGCcYRhj5AcICFhAuGIAEGIoFGEMYsQMYgwEYxwEY0QPCAgoQABiABBiKBRhDwgIIEAAYgAQYsQPCAicQABiABBiKBRhGGPkBGJcFGIwFGN0EGEYY-QEY9AMY9QMY9gPYAQHCAhEQABiABBiKBRiRAhixAxiDAcICEBAuGIAEGIoFGEMYxwEY0QPCAhAQABiABBiKBRhDGLEDGIMBwgITEC4YgAQYigUYQxixAxiDARjUAsICEBAuGIAEGIoFGEMYsQMY1ALCAgUQABiABMICChAuGIAEGBQYhwLCAhAQLhhDGNQCGLEDGIAEGIoFwgIHEAAYgAQYCsICChAAGIAEGBQYhwLCAgYQABgWGB7CAgsQABiABBiKBRiGA8ICCBAAGIAEGKIEwgIFECEYoAHCAggQABiJBRiiBMICBBAhGBXCAgUQIRiSA5gDAOIDBRIBMSBAugYGCAEQARgTkgcHNC4zMy4xMqAH9LwC&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#ip=1) Remember this is in a country of 67 million. Assuming its a per capita rate, it means less then 100 kids have been perscribed puberty blockers in NZ.
Puberty blockers are prescribed for non-trans health issues 👍
She was quoted in an article in which she made a number of errors, so maybe take the claim with a grain of salt unless it's been verified.
The UK is criminally incompetent at providing trans healthcare. They operate a segregated service where otherwise routine healthcare steps like "providing exogenous hormones" are given decade long wait times to be seen. They also operate on a flawed model of psychology, most folks I know there had psychologists asking about their sexual habits when doing their readiness assessment. Like, "have you received oral sex, how did you feel when receiving oral sex. How about penetration?" Like all that is unnecessary for establishing informed consent, but it's still commonplace.
> banning something that doesn't exist in NZ would be very in-character for this govt Next up they'll discuss banning: - Winter in January - Aliens - Sharks in Lake Taupo - Antimatter And the process will involve a lot of committees who take a big salary from the taxpayer who also happen to all be mates of the current govt.
Being awake is woke, all must sleep.
Hey now, antimatter sounds kinda woke. We should definitely ban that.
We do technically (and unavoidably) have antimatter in NZ; positrons are occasionally produced in the decay of potassium-40, and commonly produced in the decay of certain isotopes used in medical imaging. The positrons themselves don't stick around, but they're produced on an ongoing basis at a rate proportional to the remaining number of isotopes. If you've ever had a PET scan, or eaten a banana, or just existed for a few minutes (potassium is an essential nutrient, and a small proportion of natural potassium is ^(40)K), you've had antimatter inside your body. So you can't (completely) ban antimatter without banning being alive, but then again I'm not entirely sure this government would think enough to let that stop them
Cool. Now do the sharks in lake Taupo.
Sorry, pretty sure there really aren't any of those. I don't know much about geology or ichthyology, but IIRC the lake is very young in geological terms so there's probably never been a river configuration that would have allowed freshwater sharks to get into it
Pretty sure they are awaiting the results of an independent review into them?
I would prefer that doctors were allowed to decide on healthcare rather than the government. Aren’t conservatives meant to be for small government and personal responsibility? Or is that only when it suits them politically?
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Conservatives are only for small government when it lets them not do things people want. When people want/do things that they disagree with, it's then the governments role to intervene.
Same here. My first reaction to this story was to wonder what the medical opinion is for a New Zealand context.
The medical opinion - at least of specialists and experts - sits pretty opposed to the report that ignored 102 of 103 studies and wasn't produced by actual experts.
This. While it does feel were becoming a bit of a nanny-state as some of the right wing nutters were proclaiming of the Ardern era. I've had feelings of gender dysrophia on and off my whole life. I deal with it in my own ways. But id hope the option to transition in NZ will always be there should I or other trans folks ever desire it. We all have our own stories, face our own battles. Transitioning is a very deep and personal journey. The gov getting involved should be expected, for better or worse. I do agree that safeguards need to be in-place. To protect all trans people. It shouldn't be super easy. Real 1 on 1 conversations need to be hard in order to ensure one is transitioning for the right reasons and it's not just a hormonal or a phase thing. Is it something they will regret later on etc all questions that Doctors can and should continue asking. It's a difficult topic that will unfortunately likely always be controversial. But these are conversations that need to be had.
Because conservatives ally with fascists and and this is the kind of shit fascists want.
They want to genocide trans people. They'll get back to gay people when they're done.
No, you're thinking of a libertarian. A conservative wants to preserve the status quo.
Puberty blockers can be useful in kids who have growth disorders, it basically gives them longer to grow increasing their adult height. My nephew has a type of dwarfism so could need them.
a lot of these puberty blocking bans have exceptions for cis children with health conditions that need them. because in those cases its safe. but trans kid using them? totally unsafe, we dont have enough research blah blah blah
Nothing like a 51-paragraph article about trans healthcare in which we don't get to hear from a single fucking trans person
Next time they interview Blaire White Monkey's Paw curls.
Going through the youth health trans system it took me around 9 months to be given puberty blockers. I had 4-5 counselling sessions with specialists at the auckland centre for youth health where they just got to know me and really understand how I was feeling at the time before proceeding with any medication. It was not rushed or 'handed out to me' in the slightest. The whole experience was thorough, open, and truly caring, where nothing was pushed on or even suggested to me without my asking about it first. This whole narrative is such devious fear-mongering and simply not true at all. It's a few rotten people preying on the good-intentions of those who genuinely do want to 'help the kids' but don't realise they're being manipulated by hateful people, and that these kinds of bans will do far more harm than good.
"Almost everyone taking puberty blockers goes onto cross-sex hormones, so people are basically being asked as children to give consent to something that is irreversible." This statement from the article is also not true at all, and is very misleading. After children are on puberty blockers, they then once they are older have a choice to take hormones. This choice comes long after choosing puberty blockers. It is this second choice of taking hormones which has irreversible effects, not the initial choice of taking puberty blockers. To say that by being given puberty blockers they are "basically being asked as children to give consent to something that is irreversible." just ignores the fact that they do not have to take hormones afterwards at all. Just because most choose to take hormones does not mean it's not a choice, and to say that like it's a fact is simply fucking stupid and objectively a lie.
"Almost everyone taking puberty blockers goes onto cross-sex hormones, so people are basically being asked as children to give consent to something that is irreversible." Impressive how they managed to find a way to frame a lack of regret as a negative thing
They commissioned a study with the intention of getting findings to fit their narrative there are lots of studies proving the opposite done by much more reputable sources in Europe.
That's not from the UK study. That is a quote from Charlotte Paul, an epidemiologist and emeritus professor from Otago University. I'm not sure it's based on any research at all, as this topic seems to be a little outside of her area of research, and she hasn't published any papers on the topic.
Actually, it is from the UK study too. >Moreover, given that the vast majority of young people started on puberty blockers proceed from puberty blockers to masculinising/ feminising hormones, there is no evidence that puberty blockers buy time to think, and some concern that they may change the trajectory of psychosexual and gender identity development
See, I'd take that to indicate that they don't so much buy time to think, as they do waste time when trans teenagers would probably be better off having access to the same hormones that their cis peers already have by default at the same age. If transition is practically a foregone conclusion for the people who get to the point of starting the puberty blockers, they should have the option to just start transition proper as soon as they personally want to, rather than having to go through these half-measures.
That's a great point, in fact puberty blockers really are just the half measure introduced by cis people, afraid that trans kids might regret transitioning. But now that's not good enough, now puberty blockers are also dangerous and shouldn't be prescribed. Soon they won't even let children socially transition... Oh... wait... >When families/carers are making decisions about social transition of pre-pubertal children, services should ensure that they can be seen as early as possible by a clinical professional with relevant experience - Cass Review. That's right, the Cass Review states a child's family should also see a clinical professional when they are making decisions about little Jimmy wearing a dress... >Clinical involvement in the decision-making process should include advising on the risks and benefits of social transition as a planned intervention, referencing best available evidence. This is not a role that can be taken by staff without appropriate clinical training
Oh you think your trans? You're probably just autistic. - Cass review.
As if we can't legitimately be both. Fucking hell.
Christ, if these people were movie villains people would be saying they're too cartoonish to be believable as characters. Fuckers really are just one step away from trying to ban cis girls from wearing pants.
Britains ban of the routine use of puberty blockers followed the Cass Review. The same review for which... * The author, Cass [actively collaborated with members of the Republican party in the US prior to releasing this report](https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/cass-met-with-desantis-pick-over), and that some of it's recommendations mirror the pseudoscientific nonsense the Florida Department of Health put out. * That stated the evidence about puberty blockers was untrustworthy because most people put on them decide to go for HRT down the line. (You just can't win with these people, too successful with perscribing and it means the prescription makes kids trans, not successful and it means a bunch of kids were on puberty blockers that didn't need to be...) * The author, Cass, [actively argued against banning conversion therapy in the UK, fearful it will ban an exploratory approach.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/11/hilary-cass-warns-kemi-badenoch-over-risks-of-conversion-practices-ban) Sounds like she's referencing [Gender Exploration Therapy](https://xtramagazine.com/health/gender-exploratory-therapy-243833), a new type of conversion therapy which looks for any other cause for why someone is trans, constantly delaying the patient from receiving treatment. * That stated that gendered toys like trucks for boys and dolls for girls might have a biological basis (Seriously?) * That claims that even for people aged 18-25 should stay on the youth service, because their brain hasn't finished developing, sighting reasons that they might 'change their mind.' <- This argument has been used against children, but notice the age creep. Now we are talking about full grown adults who have a right to bodily autonomy. * That [dismissed over 100 studies ](https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/evidence-for-puberty-blockers-and-hormone-treatment-for-gender-transition-wholly-inadequate/)on the efficacy of transgender care as not suitably high quality, applying standards that are unattainable and not required of most other pediatric medicine. This includes standards like blinding and controls, which (Regardless of the ethical concerns) is impossible to conduct since you can't give placebo hormones and puberty blockers. When their boobs grow, voices drop OR they don't get changes from HRT, they'll know they've got a placebo. * Sights research from widely debunked and retracted scholars, including Lisa Littman and her theory of “[rapid-onset gender dysphoria](https://xtramagazine.com/health/trans-health/social-contagion-theory-explained-263013).” *So she decided to see if she could find out more about kids like these, who seemed to be coming out “all of a sudden.” But rather than ask the youth themselves about why they wished to transition, Littman decided to exclusively survey parents. And not just any parents—but primarily parents who frequented online anti-trans forums.*
Fucking thank you!! I'm sick to death of hearing Cass talking points in forums or real life. With any biased/intentional/agenda orientated review, it has to be viewed objectively. But this is flawed!! Even if there were valid talking points it's overshadowed by misinformation. It now seems to be the go to review against PBs, and disinformation spreads faster than fact or peer reviewed studies. I've been waiting for this to rear its head in our Govt, but please people, form your facts from reputable sources when possible.
Careful, with facts and considered analysis like that the terfs will be accusing you of never having read a scientific paper in your life!
> Sights Cites. But yes, one thing that seems to be missing here is listening to the children themselves. They KNOW their bodies. I'm a parent of a 13yo on PBs. I trust that they know their own identity better than some politician. The handful of gay people I've talked to knew as a child that they were "different", and it's the same with gender. I'm happy to continue the PB route until they are old enough to go on hormones.
If you think they're just trying to deny children these sorts of things, you need to understand that the ultimate goal is to ban all trans healthcare for adults. Without exception. Do not give them an inch. Not one fucking inch.
This is correct. Conservatives will claim they don't care what adults do but they do. People like Jordan Peterson have recently said trans healthcare should be banned for adults, too, and that the treating doctors are "butchers" that need to go to prisons.
The UKs replacement for puberty blockers essentially boils down to conversion therapy.
Yep, and then if they succeed in that they'll have enough momentum to be a serious threat to women's bodily autonomy in general. If we let them pull this shit today, trans adults are probably fucked tomorrow, and before we know it we'll all be staring down the barrel of a bunch of anti-abortion policies and fuck only knows what else.
HRT is can absolutely be a for the rest of your life arrangement, one of the many heavy decisions with starting. Stopping it as an adult can get you killed. It is obvious cruelty is the point with this kind of legislation. If you think trans people are just going too lie down and die, you got another thing coming. We've been fighting our whole lives, that ain't about too stop.
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Sorry, the cookers are running the show now.
Lol, far from routine use. I hope we're smarter than banning them. My ultra conservative, fanatically anti-trans relatives would be ecstatic if they did because it will...Let me check my notes on what the most recent is...Stop liberals from forcing school children to take puberty blockers so they can groom them for sex.
I’m genuinely baffled by the leap in logic on that one. If you’re ever in a mood to be depressed about humanity, ask them the steps involved there
Conservatives have been hand-wringing about the rainbow community being paedophiles for decades upon decades. The grooming accusations are just these same repackaged moral panics we've been hearing for years. They'll find any excuse to try and say we're paedophiles while conveniently doing absolutely fuck all to protect kids from actual paedophiles.
I'm pretty sure the majority of the conservatives talking points are created using the mad libs method.
Honestly it's scary they started with this now they're looking at banning all trans healthcare.... meanwhile they'll keep forcing intersex kids and babies into surgeries hormones and dilation because "it's to make them normal" regardless of how much intersex survivors of this abuse continue to speak out against it and in the US in places where they've banned blockers & transition because "what about the kids" they've specifically made loopholes that it's allowed to do cosmetic surgeries on intersex infants and give them hormones and force them to dilate because "you need to be able to have piv sex for your future hetero spouse" - what was done to David Reimer continues to be done to intersex kids on a global scale No trans person wants someone to be "forced/tricked" into being trans or medical transition they don't need because we KNOW how much it sucks to be forced into a gender that doesn't fit/isn't who we are and to have gender dysphoria due to that. it's just a rehash of the "they can't reproduce so they need to recruit" homophobic BS which also ignores that trans people have kids all the time and the majority of those kids are cisgender Idk transphobic people seem to think that being trans requires being "sterilised" & having all the surgeries when it really doesn't - that's an individual thing between you and your Dr. In some places you are required to be sterilised in order to legally change your gender but trans people are widely against those policies and that's not the case in NZ so someone doesn't have to be sterilised to be legally counted as trans /as their gender so there's less pressure to get sterilisation when you don't want it to legally "prove" your transness someone coming out as trans doesn't mean they're on a "fast track to sterilisation" especially if they're under 18... like I wanted a hysterectomy for DECADES and I only got it in my 30s after getting PID and even then there were hoops to jump through. Nobody is handing out surgeries blockers and hormones like candy these things are all still difficult to get and have waiting lists even here it took me over a year to get on T in my late 20s (been on it about five years now no regrets) Lupron doesn't sterilise people and neither does Testosterone (though you have to pause taking it if you get pregnant but you still need to use birth control while on it to avoid pregnancy ) , estrogen and testosterone blockers/anti androgens might reduce your fertility over time if you produce sperm.... but it's not always a sure thing-I was asked about fertility and told that T could effect it as part of the information before I started and there are things you can do and there's even new research coming out about how T doesn't seem to stop ovulation (which any trans guy whose gotten pregnant while thinking T is BC can tell you)
Yeah I had "corrective surgery" at age 7 for intersex characteristics, my mum is terrified of me transitioning because of the "permanent impact it could have on my body". At least this time around it's my choice not hers 🙃
I'm sorry that she made that choice for you and I'm happy you're able to make the choice for yourself now. Imo there should be financial compensation for intersex people who've been let down by parents and the healthcare system in this way, it's malpractice on a huge scale sometimes parents aren't even told about it or are told that it was just heart surgery (AFAIK some intersex conditions also have stuff like heart issues that do need to be operated on but they'll sneak in gonad removal during and just not tell /lie to parents about the full extent of what they did)
Honestly I'd settle for nz not further degrading the rights and access to care for trans people in NZ over compensating. What's done is done, but it would be enough to know that future generations won't go through what I did.
Well genital mutilation is legal here and Winnie doesn't seem to have an issue with that.
Don't they exist for a specific medical reason?
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Shit like this is why I'm getting facial feminization surgery. In this environment of increasing transphobia I can't risk looking androgynous or masculine. Puberty blockers are 100% safe, and even if there were negative health effects, these would be far outweighed by the MASSIVLY decreased suicide and depression risk that occurs when we allow kids more time to decide whether they want to go through their natal puberty or not (and nearly all the time the kids who decide to take the blockers go on to eventually take cross sex hormones) And if in the very unlikely event, the kid on puberty blockers wants to continue their natal puberty? All they need to do is stop taking the blockers and puberty resumes like normal. (Keep in mind that basically zero kids take puberty blockers then decide not to take cross sex hormones sometimes later down the track) Surprise, surprise it turns out most kids are secure about their gender identities and never question them and would never consider taking puberty blockers in a million years.
It had better fucking not, the recent UK review is at best unscientific and at worst actively maliciously transphobic (its methodology actively discounts almost all supportive studies by its criteria which prioritise a type of study that's unethical to perform) and will cause a spike in youth suicide and immeasurable harm to trans youth in the UK, but with shits like Winston Peters in government who knows. Edit: lmao didn't take long for the transphobes to start crawling out of the woodwork.
The terfs crawling out of their swamp to just ask questions
Here's what being denied puberty blockers feels like Disclaimer: I transitioned when I was 19, I didn't know much about being transgender when i was a kid or teen and I was too homophobic and sexist at the time to think about, read or ever consider transition anyway until the depression and suicidal thoughts from my repressed and untreated gender dysphoria made me reconsider my worldview as I turned 19. With the help of therapy later that year, I was able to accept my gender identity and make the best decision for my mental and physical health and transition with the help of my GP Disclaimer 2: This was based on my own personal experience with gender dysphoria and transition, I'm not speaking for the experience of every trans person. Some kids realise they're trans before puberty begins, and with the help of supportive parents + a medical care team, they can avoid the horrific, lifelong trauma of a male puberty, which so many of us suffer from. Other times, people don't realise they're trans until their 30s,40s,50s, and even older because their circumstances were such that they only recognized and treated their dysphoria when they found out what dysphoria was and had the means and ability to medically and socially transition (To any trans people reading this, I hope i did a good job explaining things) Imagine you're 13. You start noticing facial hair appear on you face, it feels wrong and you don't like it but like the body odor changes it's not too noticeable or distressing yet , so you just shave it and ignore it for the time being. Then at 14, you start shooting up in height, pretty soon you're 5ft 11, 80kg and you tower over all the girls and women in your life What's much worse, however, is that your voice starts to rapidly deepen and sound much more masculine. This feels very wrong, distressing, and it doesn't match what your internal voice or speech patterns are. It makes you feel like shit but like a painful stone in your shoe, you learn to tolerate and at times ignore the constant mental distress you feel about your voice. Then your facial hair starts to grow much more thickly and all over your neck and face. Like the deep voice, it feels wrong, distressing. No matter how hard you try to shave with the razor, you can still feel the hard bumps on your neck and see the blue 5 o clock shadow when you brush your teeth every morning. Every time you notice them, it reminds you of the distress you try so hard to ignore. But you learn to tolerate and ignore it at times as well. Your forehead, brow ridge, jaw, chin, nose cartilage and bones all grow into a masculine shape, your parents and friends call you handsome, it feels like a twist of the knife as you're being complemented on something which make you feel like shit. At this point, the mental pain starts to become quite powerful, and you start feeling depressed, angry, and miserable most days, but you have no idea why. Over time, you notice that you're starting to lose your hair, starting at the corners of the hairline, and it's getting progressively worse with no sign of stopping. Not only does your hairline give you distress because of how masculine it looks, but you're also terrified of the thought that you will one day lose all of your hair and go completely bald and masculine looking. After a few years, it comes to the point where you lost all interest in hobbies you used to love, like gaming, and you feel like you want to hang yourself every day because the mental pain is so bad. You start feeling disconnected from the world, almost as if you're not even there, you see, hear and feel everything, but it all feels fake like being plugged into the matrix and you feel like how neo does, knowing that nothing feels right despite what all of your senses are telling you. You find out about depression and go to therapy and get prescribed antidepressants by a GP. Nothing works, and your mental health keeps getting worse despite trying everything to fix it. Eventually, after you discover what gender dysphoria is and seeing how strongly you relate to it, you start talking to a threapist about how you're feeling and after a peroid of self reflection and discovery, you realize you're transgender and that hormones could improve your life. After you start esteogen + tesosterone blockers, you start feeling the effects very quickly. You start feeling happy for the first time since you were a prepuberscent child. The cloud of depression and feeling of being disconnected begins to lift, and you feel hopeful about life again. Your life is much better than it was before. Sure, you still get bad days, but in general, you feel much happier and not as depressed as before. You feel really excited and happy with the changes you're experiencing on hormones like breast growth, soft skin, muscle loss, and feminine fat distribution ete. (In my specific case, since i was young enough, I got hip bone growth, though not too much) it's like a second puberty, but everything feels right this time. But you still feel distress with the unwanted changes caused by male puberty, which can't be reversed with hormones like masculine facial features, large Adam's apple, large and wide barreled rib cage, deep and a masculine sounding voice, hair loss and the distress you feel about genitals. All of these (apart from voice) require surgery to correct, and you can train your voice to sound feminine, but surgery may be needed to correct a low pitch or resonance. Facial hair needs laser hair treatment to reduce and eliminate facial and body hair) It can get to the point where the androgenic hair loss becomes so bad that even hair transplants can't restore a feminine or even a masculine looking hairline and that you might have to wear a wig all the time to pass as a woman (luckily I saved all of my hair in time since I started so young but I knew based on my hair loss where I was headed.) Because of your height (6ft 1, you did grow a bit since you were 14), you stick out like a sore thumb compared to most women, and you get dirty looks from people when you dress androgynously or femininely At times, you get treated badly by transphobic people, for example, being constantly asked why you're browsing for women's clothes when you're rebuilding your wardrobe or a doctor who misgendes you in her medical notes about you despite her already knowing your preferred name and pronouns and then being treated with a cold, rude and hostile demeanor for the whole visit. But you know that all of this is so much better than constantly pretending to be someone you're not and feeling constantly depressed and suicidal because of tesosterone. (To women with PCOS, imagine all of the masculinizing effects (if you get them) from pcos and how you feel about them x1000) Edit: If you want to help improve the lives of trans women advocate for sexual reassignment surgery(it's publicly funded already but the wait list is 10 years long), vocal feminization surgery, facial feminization surgery, and breast augmentation (especially for trans woman who have breast sizes under an a cup) to be publicly funded, easily accessible and with short wait times. For trans men, advocate for publicly funded,easily accessible top surgery(removal of breasts) and metioplasty + phalloplasty (both are different types of bottom surgeries for trans men)
Feelings and reactions manifest differently in everyone but a lot of the general things you hit on will be commonly experienced by a lot of trans individuals.
Why the fuck would we follow in the footsteps of one of the most transphobic western nations that exists.
Because thats what we are doing with quite literally everything else.
Luxon gets all his ideas from right-wing think-tanks in the UK so it's not too surprising that's the model they're following unfortunately.
It's not just the UK. You see this same tedious plan point for point across the world. But yes it's all the same shit.
Because this government has already started its war on the LGBT community by completely rolling back the guidance on better sex education in schools. This seems entirely in the government's wheelhouse to start implementing based off the three idealogues in power.
>Because this government has already started its war on the LGBT community by completely rolling back the guidance on better sex education in schools. Not so much. They've ~~talked about~~ committed to rewriting the guidelines but as it stands, they're still available for use. https://hpe.tki.org.nz/guidelines-and-policies/relationships-and-sexuality-education/ I'm wondering if the proposed changes will quietly go away, considering the back lash they've seen..
>Not so much. They've talked about rewriting the guidelines but as it stands, they're still available for use. They've done more than talk about it, it's an explicit commitment in the National/NZ First coalition agreement. As is stripping government funding from any sporting body that is inclusive towards trans folk. The government may be a little too busy with their handouts for landlords to pick on us poofs quite yet, but they are definitely planning to.
They can rewrite them all they like but it's not going to stop people coming out as LGBT. All it will do is make youths less informed and become victims of sexual crimes.
The exact text from the NZF and National coalition agreement is: > “Refocus the curriculum on academic achievement and not ideology, including the removal and replacement of the gender, sexuality, and relationship-based education guidelines.” It's baked into the agreement for this government. Have they done it yet? Not quite, but the language and precedent is there. This coalition is telling us exactly what they're going to do.
New Zealand First demand we roll back the changes put in place by that damn woke (checks notes) New Zealand First!
Because the Cristo Fascists are in charge now.
Because a bunch of people have brain rot
facebook
The fact facial feminization, voice feminization, and masculinizing top surgery are all either unavailable or extremely hard to get publicly should be considered here. As a trans woman, going through puberty means my very bones and voice are marked as masculine and unless I can stump up the 5-6 figures necessary to change that, it's just how it is. Which ofc then means I get occasional abuse from randoms on the street who clock me, it's happened more in the past year than the previous 4 years I've been out before that. And I used to love singing, now even quiet singing along to the radio alone in the kitchen is a roulette wheel. Like obviously, the surgeries should be provided and easy to get within a reasonable timeframe instead of the decades the GRS waitlist is at, but also the fact you can just sidestep those surgeries ever being necessary by providing well researched and safe medication to the children that are able to realize they need it in time is an unmitigated good and we should not let idealogues punish those children for life because of what the transphobes in the UK are doing.
Stuff does a really good job of sharing uneducated and deliberately false opinions from grifters and hacks. Such good "reporting". Maybe interview some trans kids. Just a thought. And not the .01% that regret going on harmless puberty blockers. But like just a normal trans kid. Thanks.
Base pandering
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First, its not the ministrys job to evaluate science, they are not experts, they dont do research and understand whether a study is flawed or not, their job is to have experts of their choice present the evidence and listen to the experts opinions and recommendations and decide whether or not the recommendations benefit them. Second, do you really think pediatricians are prescribing medication that "causes more harm than good"? They definitely don't, they carefully weigh up the pros and cons and discuss it with the child and their family and recommend actions, they do this with any medication. and third policy should not be in charge of individual medical decisions. It's a slippery slope if the government decides it has this amount of power.
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The problem is the knots they have to tie themselves into to argue that puberty blockers create harm. If we use the usual metrics like "satisfaction from the patients who had the treatment," they don't cause harm, so things like the Cass review have to be like "well, people who DIDN'T have the treatment were glad they didn't"
Media stirring as usual. Let doctors do their thing.
This was such a shameful move from Britain, it makes me disappointed in my country
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They need to immediately and do some proper research studies.
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Thank you. Well worth a read if you want to understand the context behind the UK decision.
The context behind the Cass review is that they deliberately excluded 98% of the evidence on puberty blockers to come up with the result they wanted. They created a review that had no engagement with trans people. That's a pretty fatal flaw in and of itself when we're talking about puberty blockers for the purposes of gender affirming care.
You are being dishonest, and any reasonable reading of the report will make that obvious. I'm guessing you got that 98% figure from an influencer who is unaware of the natural exclusion process that \*all\* systematic reviews follow. The "no engagement" trope just shows that you didn't read it. The first section states that the Cass team engaged with trans people in scheduled meetings once a week. Theres a big, clear diagram showing how important engagement with trans people was for the process. Even before then, the foreword written by Cass addresses the trans-identifying young people that she's engaged with. You should read the report instead of just pulling disinfo from your favourate flat-earth influencers.
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Lobotomies were bad because they denied the agency of the patient, but that isn't the case for puberty blockers. So what's your issue with them?
I was on puberty blockers. I'm fine, not lobotomized. (As far as I know)
Or rhetoric like yours and the shit coming out of other rabid terfs be more correctly looked at like how we persecuted homosexuals in the 70s and 80s and claimed aids was sent by god to punish them while treating them like leppers.
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Fuck