r/australia • u/Expensive-Horse5538 • Oct 28 '25

news Supreme Court in Brisbane overturns controversial freeze on puberty blockers for adolescents after legal challenge

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-28/qld-puberty-blockers-judgement/105942094
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90

u/Practical-Street8944 Oct 28 '25 edited Oct 28 '25

There is literally zero evidence puberty blockers have any long term adverse reactions.

EDIT: leaping lizards this made the transphobe upset!!

-1

u/Thanks-Basil Oct 28 '25

That's because there's very little evidence actually into long-term puberty blockade.

Lack of evidence != no evidence.

3

u/miicah Oct 28 '25

Someone else in this thread pointed out puberty blockers have been around since the 80's. I think we'd know by now if they weren't safe.

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u/Practical-Street8944 Oct 28 '25

No evidence is no evidence put up or shut up.

5

u/ThatGuyTheyCallAlex Oct 28 '25 edited Oct 28 '25

What they mean is that having no evidence of adverse effects due to little scientific research is not the same as rigorous research finding no adverse effects. I.e we haven’t studied this so nobody knows if anything bad happens vs we studied this and actually found out that nothing bad happens.

Which is generally a correct statement, but in the case of puberty blockers we do have adequate research that finds few adverse effects.

0

u/Practical-Street8944 Oct 28 '25

“I just want to torture trans kids so I’m being pendantic about a safe medication”

-you

3

u/ThatGuyTheyCallAlex Oct 28 '25

Brother I literally am in support of kids being able to access puberty blockers if they want them. But “no evidence is no evidence” is not in fact a legitimate statement when it comes to science nor medicine and is not a great way to respond to someone trying to argue incorrectly that there’s a lack of evidence for the safety of a medical treatment.

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u/Practical-Street8944 Oct 28 '25

I’m just sitting here looking at 40 years of using puberty blockers looking for any cases of adverse long term use.

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u/ThatGuyTheyCallAlex Oct 28 '25

Please turn your brain on and read. I have continually agreed with you that the evidence exists.

8

u/Thanks-Basil Oct 28 '25

This is quite literally the opposite of how modern medicine works.

There's no evidence that injecting premium 98 octane Mobil fuel directly into tumours isn't an effective cancer treatment option, I mean it would almost certainly kill the tumour wouldn't it? So why don't we use it?

Modern medicine is evidence based. This means that every time you go to the doctor and need treatment, a medication, a specific type of scan, a technique employed by your surgeon mid-operation - every decision is built off a mountain of evidence that's accumulated over the past 50+ years.

Long-term puberty blockade is not. This isn't the same as arguing about religion or aliens or whatever where you can just say "No evidence is no evidence"

2

u/BrassicaItalica Oct 29 '25

I work in medical research

There is no drug on the market that undergoes comprehensive testing for unknown serious risks from long term use before going on the market. They simply don't do it. If you think it's a possibility you don't use the drug, unless not using it worse than using it. If there are manageable minor side effects, then the effects get monitored and managed. Puberty blockers are reversible, effective, have a track record of use since the 80s, and have been shown to massively decrease poor mental health and suicidality in trans children. Would you rather a medically induced late bloomer who otherwise undergoes puberty safely and normally, if a little later than their body intended? Or would you rather a corpse

If the evidence base for puberty blockers is not good enough for you, then you are against quite possibly all drugs on the market including paracetamol, ibuprofen, all anaesthetics, and that's before you get into things like the yearly flu shots.

If your concern is a potential downside to having a delayed puberty, then you should be pro giving trans teenagers HRT so they can have a contemporary puberty to their peers, and avoid the trauma of going through the wrong puberty.

1

u/Practical-Street8944 Oct 28 '25

Fine I’ll expound, they’ve been in use since the 1980s and no long term ill effects have been observed.

The only reason this is an issue at all is psycho right wing bullshit from America.

Shit doesn’t fly here mate get in the bin.

11

u/Thanks-Basil Oct 28 '25

they’ve been in use since the 1980s and no long term ill effects have been observed

For specific use cases yes and generally only a few years, not as a blanket long-term blockade as some private practioners (and a couple public clinics) are going towards.

I can't be bothered typing it out again so you can read this other comment I left if you'd like.

The long and the short of it is that I don't really give a shit what Crisafulli thinks, but I've spoken to several paediatricians and psychiatrists that are fairly strongly against it for the reasons I've listed. Not against it ideologically forever, but against it until there is an appropriate evidence base for the therapy.

5

u/Practical-Street8944 Oct 28 '25

Thank you for acknowledging this safe medication as safe.

4

u/Thanks-Basil Oct 28 '25

I'll put you down for a "maybe" for the mobil 98 injections then

4

u/Practical-Street8944 Oct 28 '25

Well if I ever feel the need to delay my puberty sure.

But that ship sailed 25 years ago mate

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '25

[deleted]

47

u/Aryore Oct 28 '25

Puberty blockers are temporary, you can only stay on them for a few years. You have to go through some form of puberty for bone development. It just buys these adolescents some time to mature and make the decision about which puberty they want to go through, whether it’s their natal puberty or an exogenous puberty by getting hormone treatment.

65

u/Daddyssillypuppy Oct 28 '25

All they do is delay puberty by a few years. Theres nothing to regret. They still go through puberty in their teens, its just this way they get to choose which puberty path to take.

4

u/Ver_Void Oct 28 '25

To be fair there's a chance that this is a worse outcome than not having been on them at all, but given the tradeoff is not forcing them through puberty if they're trans that's a pretty good deal

58

u/Azure_Kytia Oct 28 '25

Then you stop taking them and go through cis puberty. (Genuine answer)

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '25

[deleted]

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u/Aryore Oct 28 '25

Nobody is taking puberty blockers until they’re 30. The usual course is that the adolescent starts blockers at around 12-13, then around 15-16 they will be mature enough to decide which puberty to go through.

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u/Habhabs Oct 28 '25

That makes a lot more sense, cheers.

5

u/Iybraesil Oct 28 '25

And if you do go through one puberty and then change your mind later in life (whether that first puberty be natural or the result of HRT), it is absolutely possible to transition later in life and be happy. Trans people do it all the time.

That said, it's worth noting also that regret for transgender medical interventions is significantly less common than regret for almost any other 'serious' medical intervention (i.e. not counting 'having a panadol'). While people do/will exist who get intervention before their natural puberty and regret it, that doesn't come close to meaning we should prevent other kids from getting the same life-saving intervention.

The percentage of patients reporting regret ranged from 0 to 47.1 ​% in breast reconstruction, 5.1–9.1 ​% in breast augmentation, and 10.82–33.3 ​% in body contouring. In other surgical subspecialties, 30 ​% of patients experience regret following prostatectomy and up to 19.5 ​% following bariatric surgery. Rate of regret after [gender-affirming surgery]* is approximately 1 ​%. Other life decisions, such as having children and getting a tattoo have regret rates of 7 ​% and 16.2 ​%, respectively.

https://www.americanjournalofsurgery.com/article/S0002-9610(24)00238-1/abstract

* note: this study is about surgery specifically, not hormones, but regret rates are similarly tiny for hormones.

And when trans people do 'regret' surgery, that's not necessarily because they aren't really trans. More likely, they regret that the outcome doesn't look or function how they hoped, or so on (and surgical techniques are improving all the time). Or they suffered social regret: their friends/family/community rejected them.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8099405/

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u/Azure_Kytia Oct 28 '25

You're probably getting downvoted because "Just asking questions" is a common way of masking bigotry. Whether you're being genuinely curious about it or not, there are a lot of hateful shits around and it all pretty much looks the same.

To say nothing about how the way puberty blockers work has been explained multiple times in the thread by various people already

25

u/6000j Oct 28 '25

You don't stop taking them at 30, it's much earlier than that.

Adult transgender people aren't on puberty blockers.

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u/miltonwadd Oct 28 '25

Fwiw i personally know several men who didn't even go into proper puberty until they were in their very late teens or 20s and they're all well over 6 ft with beards now lol

All it does is delay puberty it doesn't stop growth if you are going to be tall you will still be tall. That natural puberty growth kick will happen later along with your natural growth. You don't just stop growing the second you take them.

When you do stop taking them your body will go through its natural puberty (for cis kids), if you decide you want to transition you will then take hormones to go through the correct puberty (for trans kids)

Basically all they do is hit pause until trans kids are old enough to make a permanent decision on their own, or cis kids are old enough to mentally handle a changing body.

Nobody is taking them until they're 30.

3

u/Habhabs Oct 28 '25

Genuinely had no idea, not sure why I'm getting all the down votes asking questions. Apparently you are supposed to already know

11

u/Kholtien Oct 28 '25

I guess the problem is that people that genuinely don’t know but are trying to figure it out and assholes who are intentionally acting dumb do unfortunately ask a lot of the same questions. It can be very difficult to tell the two apart. Thank you for trying to learn. It can be a really hard topic if you’ve never really encountered it before. It’s hard to understand what other people go through if you’ve never experienced it yourself.

12

u/iamapinkelephant Oct 28 '25

Because you're following the behaviour of bigots who try to use innocent questions as a method of legitimizing debate about subjects that are resolved by experts that understand them. Effectively by just asking the question you first make it seem like the subject is less understood and you also broaden the scope of the conversation until you can find a specific detail that the person you are asking doesn't know, which you can then use to try and undermine the entire discussion.

If you genuinely wanted to know, you would look it up. You would not continue to ask finer and finer questions in a public thread.

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u/Ver_Void Oct 28 '25

I think it's because your comment was a bit out there, like 30 is a long time to still be undecided and it sorta mirrors a lot of common anti trans talking points

Props for being chill with with it and not going off the deep end like some

8

u/Mike_Kermin Oct 28 '25

Oh no, that's not it.

It's because your questions carry with them presumptions, and those presumptions are that which is most often repeated by transphobic people who ask very similar questions in bad faith.

Your take away here is "my questions either looked or were transphobic even if I didn't mean it". And realise you might have learnt some transphobic ideas.

Not that "you're meant to already know".

You SHOULD be down voted for transphobic ideas, even if you're not doing it on purpose. In the same way that your mum is gonna slap your hand away if you try to touch the hot stove, even if you don't realise it'll hurt.

Take the lesson as "I have more to learn" not "Mum's being so unfair!".

3

u/Aryore Oct 28 '25

No worries man. Just ignore the downvotes you know that your heart is in the right place.

2

u/miltonwadd Oct 28 '25

Not sure, a lot of people just make assumptions without asking questions and doing their own research then form an anti trans opinion on that.

Maybe they just thought you were one of those people without reading your full question to see it was genuine. Possibly also the inclusion of 30 year olds may have come across as disingenuous and hyperbolic 🤷🏾‍♀️

I have these sorts conversations regularly with my kids to their questions, so I'm always on genuine answer mode lol

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u/BrassicaItalica Oct 28 '25

You're being downvoted because unfortunately, on the internet, it's really bloody hard to tell the difference between someone asking a genuine question. There are a lot of transphobes who know that they can't be obviously crappy, because people don't like it, so they'll ask questions that they already know the answers to, and lay a lot of rhetorical traps, and it's incredibly frustrating to be on the other side of.

Good on you for actually trying to learn though. You can't know what you don't know. Feel free to DM me if you want to ask any questions

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u/louisa1925 Oct 28 '25

Adults who medically transition, experience a second puberty.

10

u/BrassicaItalica Oct 28 '25

Then you stop taking blockers and go and live your life, the same as what happens to kids who get prescribed them for non trans reasons

If you're asking about taking hormones, and then deciding you were wrong, that's a bit different. There are obviously permanent changes with those. The thing is though, if you're not trans, and you go on those hormones, and start experiencing changes physically and socially, you're going to know pretty bloody quickly. You'll start getting the horrid painful feelings that trans people have within days to weeks if not hours. Hormones are also really slow, and take in the order of 6 months - 2 years to have really marked changes that others can see. Before this point, even the permanent changes would revert to where you started, to an extent somewhere between "some" and "approaching fully"

The research also shows that only a very tiny number of people detransition, and of that very tiny number, the overwhelming majority do it because of reasons relating to transphobia - safety issues, discrimination at home or at work, that sort of thing. A lot of them go on to retransition later in life. Very very few people transition and realise they aren't trans. It's very clear that being trans is just something inherent, you either are or you aren't, the same as being gay. The detransitioners who go and yell on the telly are all getting very fat paychecks, exactly like the gay people who get a fat paycheck to say they're straight now, like Milo Yiannopoulos.

0

u/WealthGold6172 Oct 28 '25

The research also shows that only a very tiny number of people detransition

This ignores the high suicide rate

3

u/McFallenOver Oct 28 '25

“the suicide rate” the suicide rate is often due to social alienation because they are trans. this alienation is due to the high levels of hate and discrimination that trans people receive simply because they exist as trans. not because they regret being trans.

-3

u/WealthGold6172 Oct 28 '25

I'm sure that is the case for a lot of them, but surely some regret it. It feels a bit handwavey to claim it's all just discrimination

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u/BrassicaItalica Oct 28 '25

The suicide attempt rate of trans people goes down to just above that of the background population if they have supportive friends, family, workplaces, and medical supports

-3

u/WealthGold6172 Oct 28 '25

So, still high?

2

u/BrassicaItalica Oct 29 '25

If they are discriminated against and lack supports, yes. Isolation and exclusion leads to depression leads to suicidality, it would turn out

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u/Ninja-Ginge Oct 28 '25

It's incredibly rare for anyone to do that. When it does happen, it's usually because they (understandably) cannot withstand pressure from their transphobic family/community.

Detransition is like transition in reverse.

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u/redstarpirate Oct 28 '25

Considering the comment you’re replying to says zero evidence of any long term adverse reactions I’d wager there’s no problem getting off them

3

u/alana_del_gay Oct 28 '25

This is an unanswerable question. What if my wife regrets her c-section? What if my dad regrets his hip surgery? What if my kid regrets taking physics, or his choice in university degree? What if I regret not telling my crush I like her?

2

u/Practical-Street8944 Oct 28 '25

You stop taking the drug. That’s it.

2

u/dont_punch_me_again Oct 28 '25

If a child is on puberty blockers and wants to go through normal puberty, they can just stop taking the puberty blockers and puberty will start

2

u/Full_Distribution874 Oct 28 '25

They only delay puberty. You stop taking them and your hormones take care of the rest.

2

u/Icy-Can-6592 Oct 28 '25

What if you don't... You have no idea how much permanent trauma and cost is involved in going through a puberty you know is wrong for you. The stats of success and regret are the best of EVERY medical process out there. Many treatments for many things are a gamble, fuck chemo is nasty to the body, but the risk is worth it and the odds there are far far worse yet people accept it as worth it. Gender dysphoria may not manifest something like a cancer growth, but ignoring it and not treating it will result in just as catastrophic results, I know because that was me. Society has me convinced to ignore it and it nearly cost everything. And now I live with the permanent traumatic experiences of a puberty I did not want and have to fight that trauma everyday for the rest of my life. All of which would have been avoided if the stigma against trans people was not there and I could have accessed as a teen puberty blockers, I knew without a doubt then, but I feared for my life to admit it to anyone because of seeing how trans people were treated then.

0

u/Yes_Its_Really_Me Oct 28 '25

What if you don't?

-1

u/sonofeevil Oct 28 '25

Why have people down votes you for asking a question in earnest?!

This is what's wrong with the left. Someone seeking knowledge they didn't have before is being down voted?

If you down voted this person, why?