, lifesaving and as giving children a pause to work out who they are. They are part of the 'trans affirmative' healthcare demanded by activists and to question this is to be deemed transphobic. The more children who identify as trans, the more these drugs that block the production of oestrogen or testosterone are given out. This week, though, the New York Times performed a reverse ferret with an investigation into what these drugs actually do and whether they are risk-free. When ideology is set aside and the evidence studied, it is clear that not enough is known about them. In its piece, the newspaper found studies showing significant links to osteoporosis: 'It's increasingly clear that the drugs are associated with deficits in bone development.' There are problems with understanding the long-term effect){kind=link}
After years of demonising ‘terfs’, the paper finally accepts that more research is needed on puberty blockers
The New York Times, a bastion of liberal thought, has until recently pursued but one line in the war over gender identity. All things “trans” are good, and anyone who even questions any of this stuff is a vile bigot.
It has occasionally had to commission garbled articles explaining why some British women are not on board with having to give up our rights to single-sex spaces or being erased through language where we become menstruators or people with a cervix. But the paper was so assured of its stance that, in February, it even ran an ad campaign featuring a young woman with the caption: “Lianna is imagining Harry Potter without its creator.” At a time when J K Rowling was subject to death threats, it was apparently acceptable to imagine she did not exist, all because of her views: biology is real.
One of Rowling’s concerns, and indeed, mine is the medicalisation of distressed children who are gender dysphoric. The prescribing of puberty blockers to kids nearly always sets them on the path to cross-sex hormones and surgery. In the US, they can be given to those as young as eight or nine.
These drugs have been described as reversible (although the NHS is not so sure), lifesaving and as giving children a pause to work out who they are. They are part of the “trans affirmative” healthcare demanded by activists and to question this is to be deemed transphobic. The more children who identify as trans, the more these drugs that block the production of oestrogen or testosterone are given out.