,
12 tweets,
5 min read
Read on Twitter
“Parents say to us, ‘What do you really know about the long-term effects of puberty blockers? Who has really studied the children for 20 years?’” said Diane Ehrensaft, the UCSF clinic’s mental health director. “We say, ‘That’s what we plan to do.’”
mercurynews.com/2019/03/03/big…
mercurynews.com/2019/03/03/big…
2. Translation: We DON'T know what the outcomes will be for the medical interventions we're administering to minors. This is a live, ongoing experiment on the bodies of children. But it's much more than puberty blockers:
3. The US-taxpayer-funded studies Ehrensaft & other celebrity gender doctors are engaged in also involve permanently sterilizing youth (via blockers followed immediately by cross-sex hormones) & irreversible surgeries. What will be the regret rate in 20-30 years for this cohort?
4. Ehrensaft & Olson-Kennedy, quoted in this puff piece, tout medical transition based on "ages not stages"--no lower age limits for their patients who "know their gender" at a young age. Meanwhile, the Dutch group who pioneered blockers are spun as old fashioned/too cautious. 
*Correction: "stages not ages"
5. The only skeptical view @mercnews included was that of one conservative MD, once again perpetuating the falsehood that the growing pushback/controversy vis-a-vis underage transition is confined to conservatives.
6. The spin: Yeah, we have no longterm data to justify the mass experiment on underage patients, but pioneering US gender docs are stepping in to fill the research gap...via sterilizing, irreversible drug & surgical interventions on a younger cohort than ever studied before.
7. And in case you have any doubts: "Ehrensaft said one of the UCSF clinic’s goals is to allow the patient to express their 'authentic gender, which lies between your ears, not between your legs'."
8. Olson-Kennedy gets the last word: "I have a fundamental problem w/the way autonomy is stripped from trans people...it’s frustrating to me the idea that someone else could know your gender better than you do.”
9. Any questions? The @mercnews journo didn't seem to have any (e.g., about the maturity level/executive function capacity of the 13 year olds Dr. Olson-Kennedy reported on in her recent studies of "chest surgery" and cross-sex hormones).
10. We'll give the last word in this thread to one of the few sane voices in the medical-research establishment, Dr. Eric Vilain.
Adding this video here, since every time we do a thread like this, certain activists deny that blockers+hormones permanently sterilize. Hear it from Ehrensaft herself, who seems to believe parents only balk due to a selfish desire for grandkids:
vimeo.com/185178522
vimeo.com/185178522
