Ignore risks of puberty blockers - Human Rights Commission

The Submission made by the Human Rights Commission to the Ministry of Health team considering puberty blockers displays their hostility to families and the welfare of children.

I want to take you through the Submission made by the Human Rights Commission to the Ministry of Health team considering puberty blockers – you know, the medication that transactivist doctors and their allies give to confused children because they think they want to and believe they can change their sex, so the doctors facilitate the interruption and disruption of the natural process.

It’s quite an eye-opener. But it also displays how deeply rotten the Human Rights Commission is and why it should immediately be closed – despite some positive recent appoints.

Now ironically, the submission is made not the Human Rights Commissioner, not even the Race Relations Commissioner, but by the Disability Rights Commissioner.

Disability!

Isn’t that an awkward admission even before we start on this?

Now just before we look at what this activist organisation has submitted, I want to remind you what real doctors, real medical professionals have found out – and why more and more countries around the world are pressing pause and even cancel on these puberty blockers.

So last year, the Ministry of Health published its review of puberty blockers.

Activists try to argue that this chemicalisation of children gives them time to think about whether they want to change their sex and potentially chop off healthy body parts in an attempt to be the opposite sex (a biological impossibility).

Here’s the key thing to understand. They don’t pause. They predict. The overwhelming number of children on puberty blockers will go on to wrong sex hormones.

For boys, they slow the growth of facial and body hair, prevent voice deepening, and limit the growth of the penis, scrotum and testicles. For girls this treatment limits or stops breast development and stops menstruation.

Sounds problematic, doesn’t it. Whenever you interfere with the natural process, and especially puberty, there’s always going to be issues.

The Ministry of Health has published their review – and it admits there is a lack of good quality evidence for the effectiveness or safety of puberty blocking treatment.

NZ has been prescribing puberty blockers – and at a rate 10x higher per head of population than the UK where puberty blockers have just been stopped because of what’s known as the 4-year long CASS review which concluded that:

Puberty blockers should no longer be prescribed to children except in the context of research due to these powerful drugs’ effects on brain development and bone health

Cross-sex hormones — estrogen and testosterone — should be prescribed to trans-identifying 16 and 17-year-olds only with an “extremely cautious” approach, and there should be a “clear clinical rationale” for not waiting until the teen is 18

The CASS report also destroyed the suicide trope – better a live son than a dead daughter – which is used to manipulate parents

· Young people facing gender-related distress had no significantly different levels of suicide risk to other young people with similar levels of complex presentations.

· No evidence that gender-affirming treatment reduces suicide risk.

Here’s the problem.

Te Whatu Ora / Health NZ contracted a group to write up the guidelines. And they contracted none other than PATHA to write the original guidelines. PATHA (professional association of transgender health Aotearoa) is a group of transactivists. They supported so-called conversion therapy bans, but they want to practice conversion therapy on kids. Ironic, isn’t it. Virtually all their leadership team and advisory board are transgender and are closely affiliated with the massively discredited WPATH – the world body.

As I mentioned last week, last year’s Finnish study found that the suicide risk in a large group of adolescents was predicted by the psychiatric problems that often accompany gender distress, not by the gender distress itself.

Chloe Cole who detransitioned at 16 years old and spoke at our conference in July also didn’t think about the consequences. She said it was the last thing she thought about.

The media don’t want to know about Chloe.

And the Human Rights Commission aren’t too interested in Chloe’s human rights either. They’re on a mission – as we will soon see.

By the way, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US issued a warning label about the risk of puberty blockers in 2022. They sounded the alarm back in 2022.

Puberty blockers - "lack of good quality evidence" but have some anyway

So – what did this Ministry of Health review find.

The Evidence Review found a lack of good quality evidence for the effectiveness or safety of puberty blocking treatment in young people with gender dysphoria. We do not have good evidence to say that the medicines used improve the longer-term outcomes for young people with gender-related health needs – nor that the potential longer-term risks are low.

Wow – that is damning.

That should be the end of it. When would you prescribe something that lacks good quality evidence, and has no evidence that improves outcomes or how bad the risks are.

Yes you wouldn’t.

But then the Ministry of Health which is now between a rock and hard place (because deep down they really want to keep pushing puberty blockers) say:

The Ministry is considering whether further measures need to be put in place to ensure no children or young people are unduly exposed to unknown risks….

…The Ministry wishes to take into account all information and views before any decisions on further safety measures are made.

In particular, the Ministry seeks input from organisations that represent people who may be affected by safety measures or that may be involved in how safety measures are used in practice.

Does that include Chloe and other detransitioners? Does that include parents whose families have been completely upended by this destructive ideology?

Now before we look at the Human Rights Commission submission, I just want to share couple of paragraphs from Professor John Whitehall, Foundation Chair of Paediatrics and Child Health in Australia who also did a submission to the Ministry of Health.

And this is a medical expert – a real doctor – not UN research, or human rights quango research – not WPATH radical activists – or the views of Shaneel Lal. This is actual medical discussion. He says:

“..[G]iven the recent onset of the epidemic of ‘being born in the wrong body’, the lack of studies confirming positive results of puberty blockers, and the widespread literature on neuronal side effects of blockers and administration of cross-sex hormones , and the sustained refusal of proponents to acknowledge that transgendering almost inevitably leads to chemical if not surgical castration and loss of sexual function, I am forced to conclude the transgendering of children is ‘unregulated experimentation’ the likes of which were condemned in the Nuremberg trials.

That member of the medical profession promote the activity and are supported by factions within leading medical organisations should not justify the continued experimentation: it should be recalled the practice of pre-frontal lobotomy for psychiatric disease was once prolific, was supported by leading medical organisations and that its founder was awarded a Nobel Prize.

Therefore, in the interests of confused children, I submit my brief review of international literature for your consideration. I think gender confused children should receive traditional psychotherapy with specific application of psychiatric care and support for the often associated social dysfunction. They are suffering children, often to usually burdened by co-morbid mental disorder and social disruption and should be supported through their unhappiness with compassionate care that does not challenge neuronal health and ablate reproduction.

And he concludes

… Disregarding the potential long-term risks associated with the unrestricted use of powerful puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, alongside the significant overdiagnosis of children as gender dysphoric, approaches a form of child abuse. Therefore, as the administration of puberty blockers to children is fraught with risks and uncertainties, with profound implications for their physical, neurological, psychological and sexual health, but with no evidence that confirms beneficence, this submission calls for the suspension of the use of puberty blockers as a treatment for gender dysphoria/gender-related distress in children and adolescents. A more cautious, evidence-based, and ethically sound approach that safeguards the well-being of vulnerable children would be the more appropriate pathway.

So let’s have a quick read of the Human Rights Commission submission

They mention:

The Commission urges all actors to ensure that they are working to promote children’s best interests and to limit harm to children in decision-making about process and about substance.

Best interests. Limit harm. Exactly – telling children they can change their sex is not in their best interests. It will do them harm.

We suggest the Ministry undertake further targeted safe consultation with transgender people, including transgender children

Ah nope – this is a medical issue. If we’re discussing treatment for any illness, is the emphasis on the patient or on the medical professional who are looking for a cure. We already know that transgender children will be struggling with mental health issues. Even activists admit that.

Medical decisions should be primarily grounded in scientific and medical research.

Exactly! Completely contradicts what they’ve just said.

…recognise the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

Correct. But then they reveal just how captured they are by the ideology, and make this dumb statement.

It is crucial that access to gender affirming healthcare is maintained and not weakened.

Chemicalise. Castrate. Confuse. Keep it going. It’s a shocking statement.

They then try to bring in the “discrimination” argument. That we must give gender confused children whatever they want because if we don’t, we’re discriminating against them. Interestingly we don’t say that when kids are demanding drugs or alcohol or wanting to operate a vehicle or many other age-restricted things which are designed to protect them.

But the HRC says:

Sex is a prohibited ground of discrimination under the Human Rights Act. It has long been interpreted by the government and the Commission as inclusive of gender identity – which includes transgender and non-binary people.

Nope. It’s been interpreted that way – but that doesn’t mean its correct. It’s been interpreted and pushed by activists and a compliant media and weak politicians.

But the reason they push it is so they can say you can’t discriminate against gender confused kids. You’re not allowed to act in their best interests because it might hurt their feelings.

The enquiry into the “impact of puberty blockers” has been restricted to impact on “gender-dysphoric adolescents”. It is not clear in the consultation documents why the impact assessment has been restricted to this group,

They’re trying to link this whole issue with the correct use of puberty blockers for precocious puberty. The early onset of puberty. But that doesn’t involve attempts to change the sex of a child. It’s just mischief making.

But then they come back to the “discrimination” – the HRC’s only real argument.

If a restriction on access to puberty blockers was implemented, then discrimination could also arise as compared to other groups of healthcare consumers who remain able to access off-label medications that contain comparable levels of risks, or quality of research or evidence, to that of puberty blockers. It creates an inconsistency - where some consumers have the ability to choose, with informed consent, and subject to professional obligations of the prescribing clinician, to take off-label medication

Puberty blockers are currently off-label. That means they haven’t been approved by Medsafe. So the onus is on medical professionals.

But remember – we’re talking about children that are being experimented on.

And how can a child give consent when they don’t fully understand the consequences. What pubertal child is thinking about whether they can have a child as an adult, or bone density, or other implications.

Adolescents who are subject to discrimination are more vulnerable to abuse, other types of violence and exploitation, and their health and development are put at greater risk. They are therefore entitled to special attention and protection from all segments of society. This means that the state needs to ensure that adolescent healthcare services are “known and easily accessible (economically, physically and socially) to all adolescents, without discrimination”.

Oh yes they’re subject to abuse and exploitation alright. By the radical gender activists.

And think about this statement with a similar illness like anorexia nervosa. Does the HRC want us to give those suffering children weight loss pills and book them in for liposuction and tummy tucking operations so that we don’t discriminate against them?

We heal the mind, don’t we.

children should be provided with adequate and appropriate information in order to understand the situation and all the relevant aspects in relation to their interests, and be allowed, when possible, to give their consent in an informed manner. This is consistent with the right to informed consent.

Exactly.

But then we get to the absolutely worst bit. I hope you’re seated for this. This proves just how radical and ideologically captured the Human Rights Commission is.

The risks identified of puberty blockers should form part of the discussions with adolescents and their whānau, so that an informed decision can be made consistent with the right to informed consent. But such risks should not lead to denial of access. The dignity of risk means having the right to make our own choices and self-determine, even if it could have negative consequences, in order to live an independent life.

….risks should not lead to denial of access

…even if it could have negative consequences

…independent life

We’re talking about children here, you idiots.

Shocking. Does that also apply to drugs, cannabis, P, MDMAs, alcohol abuse, vapes, tobacco, pornography… Give them what they want, irrespective of the consequences or risks.

Finally, they say

The review did not identify any clear and significant risks justifying immediate withdrawal of the medication to all who are prescribed it; rather, it found that the quality of evidence for the benefits or risks is low and there is “a need for high-quality longitudinal data and research to understand the specific needs of gender-dysphoric adolescents”. As above, any such research needs to involve active consultation with transgender people.

Actually, that’s what the research has already done. Shown the effect on transgender people. Including the fact that post-surgery as adults, the mental health problems don’t disappear – even if your natural private parts do.

The HRC is basically saying “You should use this medication until there is proof that it doesn't work, but at least you are doing something about the problem rather than nothing and that makes us all feel better.”

It’s what some call ‘pathological compassion’.

Actually, healing the mind rather than chemicalising, cutting and confusing the body is a far better option.

It’s the option that the adults in the room would choose.

It’s the option that parents would choose – if they had all the facts.

Just finally they finish with:

Research from both New Zealand and overseas shows concerning levels of mental distress for transgender and non-binary people, including high rates of suicidal thoughts and attempts. This includes findings specifically relating to the impact of restricting access to gender affirming care.

Completely made up. The research shows that even with the so-called “gender affirming”, it doesn’t resolve the significant mental health harms, and may actually make them worse.

What the HRC refuses to do is figure out that if you deal with the mental distress, suicide ideation and comorbid disorders, you remove the need for chemicalising, castrating and confusion vulnerable young people.

Oh – here’s another really disturbing thing. I did a word search in the HRC submission for the words “family” “whanau” “father” “mother” “parent”

Guess how many times those words are mentioned in the body of the submission.

Not once! Zilch.

It shows you how dangerous the Human Rights Commission is to families and the contempt they treat parents and whanau with.

The Human Rights Commission also seems more interested in the rights of the transgender industry rather than the wellbeing of our children.

Treat the Human Rights Commission with the absolute hostility it deserves.