But...I do want one set of studies. Follow up. Those who were started in 2007. How are they doing, what are they doing?
2010.
2012
2015
2020
The ones on hormones were expected to take them for life. What are they doing now? How are they doing? They have to constantly refill prescriptions to continue.
How about the surgeries?
People make claims for the effects of these interventions. I don't want them to start a new group. Tell us what happened to the tens of thousands of minors and under 25's already being treated.
Those older, too, while they are at it. I see no lack of training programs to teach MDs to give out these drugs and do these surgeries. How are their patients at 5 years? 10? 15? Not satisfaction - distress, functioning, etc.
The evidence you've asked for will be difficult to find as a lot of clinics carrying out the 'treatments' were/are not particularly interested in long-term follow up appointments and research. It seems they'd affirm, provide the drugs and then push their patients out of the door without a backward glance. It's almost as if they didn't want to know what happened afterwards. It makes you wonder why doesn't it?
That's so. No-one is recording the overall numbers of people who are using medication or getting surgery. No-one follows up how people are living a year later or five years or ten years or more down the line. There is no interest at all in the outcomes of the 'treatment'. You can make an utterly life-altering decision which will affect your health and well-being forever and no-one who facilitated the changes you've made is bothered about the outcome. It's horrendous.
Finally! This article! All I can conclude is that there is so much money invested in continuing this research and outlook. I used to think it was a strategy to gradually win people over, but it’s high time to tell the truth and break down the entire house of cards. Thank you, Mia Hughes!!
It was so disheartening to read the final Cass Review reporting on the lack of any evidence to support these obviously harmful interventions, and then see that she called for more research on the very treatments she admitted were dangerous and based on essentially fraudulent claims. Thank you for calling it out. I believe we DO need more research into the mental illnesses underlying so called "gender dysphoria." Autism, bipolar, schizophrenia and other comorbidities have causes, and we should have known them long before now, if the medical establishment in developed countries had focused more on this than on making money with "innovative' interventions.
Of course, I agree with you. But may I suggest framing this in terms of medical protocol? This should be thoroughly studied in animals before jumping to studies on humans, especially minors who cannot give informed consent. Furthermore, given the decades of experimentation in children, study proponents should be required to follow up on at least, let's say 100 or 1000, children to assess results for common side effects. Please feel free to reach out to me. https://www.fda.gov/patients/drug-development-process/step-3-clinical-research
I hope the NIH and other research bodies take this to heart. For years now, I have been wondering why anyone would even think that there is a hypothetical case for benefit from these interventions. Yeah, I know the argument is for "mental health" benefit to feel like the opposite sex (which is still affirming a delusion), but there is no reason to expect any physical benefit from puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries that take healthy parts of your body and destroy them. In fact, the ONLY reasonable expectation is that these interventions would make life worse, not better.
The mental health outcomes .... they can't seem to produce a reliable study (moderate or high quality) showing they do better.
The Olson-Kennedy etc collaboration study on hormones (Chen et al., 2023) was short term, only 2 years, but even there, no benefit for males and slightly any for females, and many of the important outcomes they said would improve...weren't even reported. (Guessing the outcomes were not what the clinicians wanted but maybe I am wrong about that.) Those data are just sitting there, paid for by US taxpayers, and they haven't told us how they did.
Research is desperately needed on how to detransition. Further, y'all know and I know how dangerous and inappropriate these treatments and procedures are, but they are still the gold standard in the US to treat life dissatisfaction (now called "gender dysphoria"). High-quality studies rigorously demonstrating the perils of cross-sex hormones and of surgical attempts to obfuscate sex might help turn the tide. Common sense and decency don't seem to have done the trick.
Yes! I agree with these.
But...I do want one set of studies. Follow up. Those who were started in 2007. How are they doing, what are they doing?
2010.
2012
2015
2020
The ones on hormones were expected to take them for life. What are they doing now? How are they doing? They have to constantly refill prescriptions to continue.
How about the surgeries?
People make claims for the effects of these interventions. I don't want them to start a new group. Tell us what happened to the tens of thousands of minors and under 25's already being treated.
Those older, too, while they are at it. I see no lack of training programs to teach MDs to give out these drugs and do these surgeries. How are their patients at 5 years? 10? 15? Not satisfaction - distress, functioning, etc.
The evidence you've asked for will be difficult to find as a lot of clinics carrying out the 'treatments' were/are not particularly interested in long-term follow up appointments and research. It seems they'd affirm, provide the drugs and then push their patients out of the door without a backward glance. It's almost as if they didn't want to know what happened afterwards. It makes you wonder why doesn't it?
The people on hormones are receiving them *every month*. Somewhere.
Surgeries are harder but then the question should be raised of every institution providing them-why don't you know what has happened to them?
Also, the UK Tavistock had 9000 patients...what are their outcomes so far?
That's so. No-one is recording the overall numbers of people who are using medication or getting surgery. No-one follows up how people are living a year later or five years or ten years or more down the line. There is no interest at all in the outcomes of the 'treatment'. You can make an utterly life-altering decision which will affect your health and well-being forever and no-one who facilitated the changes you've made is bothered about the outcome. It's horrendous.
Finally! This article! All I can conclude is that there is so much money invested in continuing this research and outlook. I used to think it was a strategy to gradually win people over, but it’s high time to tell the truth and break down the entire house of cards. Thank you, Mia Hughes!!
It was so disheartening to read the final Cass Review reporting on the lack of any evidence to support these obviously harmful interventions, and then see that she called for more research on the very treatments she admitted were dangerous and based on essentially fraudulent claims. Thank you for calling it out. I believe we DO need more research into the mental illnesses underlying so called "gender dysphoria." Autism, bipolar, schizophrenia and other comorbidities have causes, and we should have known them long before now, if the medical establishment in developed countries had focused more on this than on making money with "innovative' interventions.
Oh, and the boys surged too...not as much as the girls,but a huge increase. Look at the tavistock chart. (Not as much in Finland for some reason....)
Of course, I agree with you. But may I suggest framing this in terms of medical protocol? This should be thoroughly studied in animals before jumping to studies on humans, especially minors who cannot give informed consent. Furthermore, given the decades of experimentation in children, study proponents should be required to follow up on at least, let's say 100 or 1000, children to assess results for common side effects. Please feel free to reach out to me. https://www.fda.gov/patients/drug-development-process/step-3-clinical-research
I hope the NIH and other research bodies take this to heart. For years now, I have been wondering why anyone would even think that there is a hypothetical case for benefit from these interventions. Yeah, I know the argument is for "mental health" benefit to feel like the opposite sex (which is still affirming a delusion), but there is no reason to expect any physical benefit from puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries that take healthy parts of your body and destroy them. In fact, the ONLY reasonable expectation is that these interventions would make life worse, not better.
The mental health outcomes .... they can't seem to produce a reliable study (moderate or high quality) showing they do better.
The Olson-Kennedy etc collaboration study on hormones (Chen et al., 2023) was short term, only 2 years, but even there, no benefit for males and slightly any for females, and many of the important outcomes they said would improve...weren't even reported. (Guessing the outcomes were not what the clinicians wanted but maybe I am wrong about that.) Those data are just sitting there, paid for by US taxpayers, and they haven't told us how they did.
Could not agree more! Thank you for writing this and everything else you do in this area, Mia!
Research is desperately needed on how to detransition. Further, y'all know and I know how dangerous and inappropriate these treatments and procedures are, but they are still the gold standard in the US to treat life dissatisfaction (now called "gender dysphoria"). High-quality studies rigorously demonstrating the perils of cross-sex hormones and of surgical attempts to obfuscate sex might help turn the tide. Common sense and decency don't seem to have done the trick.
Mia, you might have come across this new paper on the evidence that we need: "Emerging and accumulating safety signals for the use of estrogen among transgender women" (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44192-025-00216-3), covering the gamut of associations of increased risk from just estrogen administered as a cross-sex hormone. This was Genspect's press release: https://genspect.org/new-study-sounds-alarm-on-estrogen-risks-for-natal-males/
Well said Mia! Thank you.