So on July 3rd I wrote about the technical stuff. If we are gonna have a discussion about gender affirming care for kids in a grown up manner, then we will have to equip ourselves with knowledge — knowledge is for cutting. Part one opens with a brief description of the reproductive hormone cycle from brain to gonads then moves onto a description of GnRH and it’s role in the neuroendocrine system then it covers the discovery of Lupron and the origins of its use to treat kids with gender dysphoria. A lengthy reference list is at the end. If you haven’t read that 5.6K word piece please do go and digest that one because you will need that knowledge to understand this article — this article assumes you have the level of knowledge I have delivered to you in previous missives.
This 3.3K piece is the first thing I wrote about Lupron. I wrote this after I discovered that BCCH promotes Lupron as a treatment for Gender Dysphoria and that the hospital is able to bill this $400/mo/patient experimental medication to the province under a psychiatric PharmaCare drug plan. There are references at the end of this article also that you can consult. AbbVie donates to the BCCH Foundation. It is illegal for drug companies to promote an off-label use for a drug — are they promoting by donating to institutions that do promote? This is in BC and I don’t imagine it is much different in other provinces across Canada — taxpayers footing the bill for iatrogenic harm to kids.
This 1.5K piece defines Gender Affirming Care and provides the arguments to disprove the claim that Gender Affirming Care saves lives. It provides information about the countries which have scaled back their pediatric gender programs and it provides information about what pioneering pediatric gender clinicians think about current day GAC. This piece gives you a good foundation knowledge base so you can understand why the statement GAC saves lives is wrong and argue intelligently in support of that position.
What Does it all Mean, Tho?
GnRH is a hormone secreted by cells in the hypothalamus, which are triggered awake by a protein called kisspeptin. GnRH tells the pituitary to produce gonadotropins, which in turn stimulate the gonads to produce sex hormone. The sex hormone has a feedback effect on the pituitary and hypothalamus. This is called the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis and it is part of the neuroendocrine system, the invisible system which powers your metabolism and nervous system functioning.
Puberty Blockers are not puberty blockers at all. There is no such thing as blocking puberty — puberty is not an annoying Twitter account. Puberty is a developmental neuroendocrine process, one temporally governed and regulated. Functional restructuring and neural/synaptic pruning of the brain happens at puberty, as does metabolic and bone growth. Children need to experience puberty to have a healthy and safe and fulfilling adulthood. The puberty blocking drug the media calls puberty blocker is a chemical called GnRH agonist, Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone agonist.
This drug is marketed as Lupron and goes by the generic name Leuprorelin. Lupron severs the connection between the gonads and the pituitary, a process called chemical castration. In fact, the original intent of the drug when synthesized in 1973 was to provide a humane alternative to surgical castration for men with prostate cancer, who prior to Lupron needed orchiectomy surgery to slow the growth of the prostate metastasis. It’s a bit messed up that Lupron now leads children to elect to surgically remove their gonads, isn’t it? Do you think the scientists envisioned that their discovery would be used to mass harm neurodivergent and gay children?
Lupron can chemically castrate and it can also stimulate ovulation—the reproductive system is very complex, you simply don’t shut off the GnRH tap at the level of the hypothalamus in a child and think nothing will happen except that you have bought a few years of childhood growing time. Why on earth would any reasonable doctor think you add years to a kid’s life by stopping the gonads growing? Delaying puberty sounds like a cool deferment plan for biological growth. It’s also magical thinking.
Lupron has not been authorized for use in children with gender dysphoria, Lupron is not authorised for use in child sex change. It is fraud for a drug company to promote an off label use for a drug in the USA. It is a violation of the Food and Drugs Act for anyone to promote an off-label use for a drug in Canada. Yet provinces are paying for Lupron to treat gender dysphoric kids, at $400/mo/patient for a lengthy treatment course. In BC, pediatric endocrinologists receive an exemption from the special authority restrictions to prescribe Lupron to kids with GD under Plan G, a plan for psychiatric medications for patients who would otherwise be hospitalized.
Based on the nature of GnRHa and the complexity of neuroendocrine physiology, only a reckless clinician would promote Lupron as a safe and reversible part of necessary care for gender discordant kids. Dualism leads us to believe that the brain and body can be misaligned. It also keeps us from facing the reality that mind-body medicine is horsesh1t. Activists and big money pimps have created a formidable wall of resistance for anyone who challenges Gender Affirmationists.
The evidence against GAC has been slow and it mounts daily. Finland, Sweden, and the UK have each conducted systematic reviews and examined their pediatric gender medicine programs. The Dutch have been outspoken that their protocol has been misapplied, many children transitioned at Tavistock and in the USA never would have met the Dutch Protocol because of pre-existing psychiatric conditions, which were strictly screened out in Holland.
Correlation is not causation. Noticing the trend to higher rates of suicide in the transgender population doesn’t infer causation. It does not infer that denying access to GAC causes suicidality—the study design and statistical methods used limit the story you can tell about the data. Since such studies strip away context to measure levels we cannot offer a remedy for the suicidality rates which the data convey.
One important thing to note is that the degree to which celebrity culture drives the gender movement. Several stars who have spoken out for trans rights do so because their kids are transgender and they feel the need to convince themselves they made the right choice by projecting onto the world around them. Gender Identity and affirmation has become a religion and as such it feels nearly impossible to engage people rationally about Gender Affirming Care and Gender Identity. The topic provokes such strong emotional reaction that discussion and debate often end up in projection volleys.
The way to move people in persuasion is not to browbeat and mock them, it is to connect curiously and without judgements try to understand where they are and how you can help them get where you want them. If you want to solve a problem and you need others to work with you to find a solution then it makes sense not to bash them and abuse them because you need them. Ultimately, no one whom you other will go away simply because you feel that should happen. Feelings can no longer be given free reign to govern like they are. Think. Learn. Get knowledge. Speak up. Engage. Engage with those who think differently than you do. Reach across the aisle. Attempt to understand. Keep engaging purposefully. Never give up. That is how change happens.