Sociologist Investigates the Use of Hormone Blockers in Children in the U.K.
NEWS
Micheal Biggs is a sociologist at Oxford who has been investigating the Nation Health Service (U.K.) and their policy to give children hormone blockers for the treatment of gender dysphoria due to questions about safety. His recent commentary can be found on Transgendertrend.
Calling this “an experiment,” Dr. Biggs says that in reviewing the data about these practices he:
…discovered unpublished evidence that initial results, after the drugs had been administered for one year, were predominantly negative.
He has asked the clinicians why they haven’t published the results yet of this experiment:
Following my original investigation, I wrote to Professor Russell Viner at University College London (UCL), the experiment’s principal investigator, and Dr Polly Carmichael, Director of the Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), asking why they failed to publish results. I also contacted the Research Ethics Committee which originally granted permission, pointing out that the researchers consistently failed to provide annual progress reports.
He mentions a controversial trans support group, Mermaids, helped the push for administering blockers at younger ages (under 16):
First, in the years before 2011, families and transgendering organizations like Mermaids lobbied vigorously to lower the age at which GnRHa drugs were administered to children, and the Tavistock could not resist this pressure. Second, the researchers could not employ the standard randomized trial to assess the effects of blocking puberty.
With a randomized trial, one can’t know the true effects of social transitions or hormone blockers.
Some of the commentary from Tavistock staff appears contradictory:
Five years ago, in 2014, Carmichael told the Mail on Sunday that the study demonstrated favourable outcomes: ‘Now we’ve done the study and the results thus far have been positive we’ve decided to continue with it’ (italics added). She even appeared in a BBC television programme – ‘I Am Leo’, aimed at audiences aged 6 to 12 – to promote the benefits of GnRHa drugs…
The Tavistock’s statement says remarkably little about the experiment’s outcomes. It cites Carmichael and Viner’s presentation to the 2014 World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) conference showing ‘there was no overall improvement in mood or psychological wellbeing using standardized psychological measures’ (italics added). This finding was presented in February 2014, but just four months later Carmichael claimed ‘the results thus far have been positive’. I cannot find slides from this 2014 presentation, but Carmichael’s presentation to the 2016 WPATH conference apparently recycles the same finding. It also acknowledges that ‘Natal girls showed an increase in internalising problems from t0 to t1 [after 12 months on GnRHa] as reported by their parents’ (italics added). This negative outcome is omitted from the Tavistock’s statement.
There is allegedly some negative data Tavistock has not communicated:
I cannot find slides from this 2014 presentation, but Carmichael’s presentation to the 2016 WPATH conference apparently recycles the same finding. It also acknowledges that ‘Natal girls showed an increase in internalising problems from t0 to t1 [after 12 months on GnRHa] as reported by their parents’ (italics added). This negative outcome is omitted from the Tavistock’s statement.
On the GHQ site, there are many examples of how the identity politics of this complicated subject may be affecting researchers behavior and willingness to admit there may be dangers in child/teen transition protocols.
Other inconsistencies and issues he believes are problems are listed in the article.
Update 07/30/19: TransgenderTrend published another post regarding the Guardian’s total lack of interest in reporting on concerns of clinicians in the GIDS.
It has been a great disappointment to many on the Left that the Guardian has been largely silent on this issue. But two former GIDS clinicians sent a letter to the Guardian back in 2017 to alert them to serious concerns about what was going on within GIDS. One of the authors of the submission to the Guardian commented to us “we really really tried.” However, rather than jumping to publish such a devastating testimony – the kind of exclusive most journalists would give their right arm for – the Guardian chose to ignore it.
The post goes on with the letter the clinicians sent the Guardian in 2017 who had to remain anonymous for fear of their jobs:
At the end of our tethers, in the summer of 2017, we wrote this letter and sent it to the ‘Do you know what I’m really thinking?’ column at the Guardian. Although only a couple of years ago, this was a different time. Gender critical therapists did not yet exist, publicly at least. We thought we would lose our careers if anyone traced it back to us. In fact, we were so paranoid that we posted the letter so it would never be traced. One of us then called the Guardian news desk.
The letter titled “Do you REALLY want to know ‘WHAT I AM REALLY THINKING’?” reflects all of the concerns raised on the GHQ website::
What I am really thinking is that mostly you are caught in a terrible moment of social contagion. You and your children are swirling in a toxic storm of psychological and emotional distress meeting homophobia, sexism, misogyny against the back drop of the most appalling ‘bad science’. There is no such thing as a male or female brain and you cannot be ‘born into the wrong body’. The sloppiness of the language of both the internet and the politicians does you no favours with their conflation of sex and gender. This chimes so well in the era of post Truth anti expert hatred.
The fact these clinicians were afraid to speak out using their names fits a pattern that can be found on our website covering a long history of abusive activist tactics.
REFERENCES:
Biggs, M. (2019, July 22). Tavistock’s Experiment with Puberty Blockers: an Update. Transgendertrend. Retrieved from https://www.transgendertrend.com/tavistock-experiment-puberty-blockers-update/
TransgenderTrend. (2019, July 28). “We Really Really Tried.” A 2017 Letter from GIDS Clinicians Ignored by The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.transgendertrend.com/2017-letter-gids-clinicians-ignored-guardian/?fbclid=IwAR3g8_Z4fEISWtP9oWqLP8uzYIh5wJ-gjWljzbmM1BhWrE_EK7lKeb12KHA