The conflict between the NHS, Gendered Intelligence and GIRES regarding puberty blockers
Despite the Cass Review finding "unclear rationale" and "weak evidence" for early puberty suppression, GIRES and Gendered Intelligence will continue to promote puberty blockers for children
The NHS’s “Independent Review of gender identity services for children and young people”, also known as the Cass Review, found:
The rationale for early puberty suppression remains unclear, with weak evidence regarding the impact on gender dysphoria, mental or psychosocial health. The effect on cognitive and psychosexual development remains unknown.
This puts the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES) and Gendered Intelligence in a difficult position, as this is in strong opposition with what they have been claiming regarding this supposed treatment.
The view of GIRES regarding puberty blockers has been that puberty blockers are a “safe, reversible intervention to interrupt puberty”.
(“Information and support for trans non-binary and non-gender people”, GIRES)
GIRES appears also to have had an influence in creating NHS training material, where is says the “benefit of hormone-blockers are significant”:
So far, when presented with these slides, a comment from a health professional has been that it is “very worrying to think that GIRES have had, and continue to have, such powerful influence on medical bodies and training”.
Whereas the Cass Review says that the “rationale for early puberty suppression remains unclear, with weak evidence”, Gendered Intelligence’s guidance for children experiencing distress with their sex, is that they allow for an “exploration of gender identity”:
puberty delaying treatment (PDTs) or ‘blockers’, and hormone replacement therapy (HRT). PDTs are used to delay the onset of the changes associated with puberty to allow time for exploration of gender identity
(“A Guide for Young Trans People”, Gendered Intelligence.)
Complaints
I made a complaint to Gendered Intelligence, asking them to remove their content that said that puberty blockers “allow time for exploration of gender identity” and they said my complaint was “unjustified”. They did, however, remove the whole of their guide, but said that this was only for a “redesign”.
I similarly made a complaint to GIRES regarding their content, and they replied:
Thank you for your email, we will not be removing any content from our website. In regard to the Cass Review pls [sic] see the statement on our home page: https://www.gires.org.uk/
It therefore appears that, despite the findings of the Cass Review, Gendered Intelligence and GIRES will continue to promote puberty blockers for children experiencing distress regarding their sex.
This puts charities, schools and organisations with connections to GIRES and Gendered Intelligence in a difficult safeguarding position: will they continue to signpost parents and children to these organisations that are promoting supposed treatments to children, which the NHS has found to have “unclear rationale” and “weak evidence”? And if they continue to do so, will they also share in any future moral and/or legal liability, given that these treatments have already harmed children? (Keira Bell case: what are puberty blockers?)
A wider scandal
I see that the issue regarding puberty blockers is indicative of a wider scandal, namely that the narrative that we all have a “gender identity” that is somehow “mismatched” for “trans” people is not the truth, and that teaching this to children causing a social contagion, primarily amongst girls. I have covered this previously in a short, referenced, memo.
It continues to be a dangerous situation, when charities are promoting a supposed medical treatment to children, including thousands of girls caught up in a social contagion, that the NHS says has “weak evidence” and “unclear rationale”.