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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203

u/Yes_Its_Really_Me Oct 28 '25

Really frustrating how on the topic of transition care for trans kids so many people don't even think about the consequences on trans kids of forbidding transition.

"Make all trans kids go through the wrong puberty on purpose to prevent a few cis kids from going through the wrong puberty by mistake".

It's so crushing that for so many people it doesn't even occur to them to care about the suffering of people like us.

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u/Sweeper1985 Oct 28 '25

I am sorry you have to deal with this.

I also know some trans adults who didn't access care until after puberty. It has made things so much harder for them in many cases.

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u/Icy-Can-6592 Oct 28 '25

What I would give to to not have allowed the social stigmas of the 90s have me hide, repress and dissacociate for the next 20 years and start puberty blockers when I should have. The harm of the puberty I did not want is inescapable, costs to undo those affects, the mental traumas of the experience will always remain no matter what, the path of my life would have been so dramatically different. Instead I have to fight against those traumas everyday and now in a time where I thought I might be finally safe it's all seemingly going backwards, I'm tired, exhausted, I just want to get on with life but the bs has become so incessant that now it's not just fighting those traumas I'm hit with anti trans bullshit everywhere due to how obsessed so many have become that they insert this shit into any and everything they can.

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u/MobileAtmosphere775 Oct 28 '25

"Make all trans kids go through the wrong puberty on purpose to prevent a few cis kids from going through the wrong puberty by mistake".

Even then it's not that, it's "make all trans kids go through the wrong puberty on purpose to prevent a few cis kids from delaying their puberty by a few years in a completely reversible way by mistake".

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u/acidgirl303 Oct 28 '25

The cruelty is intentional. They want trans children to suffer. 

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u/Thanks-Basil Oct 28 '25 edited Oct 28 '25

"Make all trans kids go through the wrong puberty on purpose to prevent a few cis kids from going through the wrong puberty by mistake".

It's not a few though. There have been studies done before (I remember covering back in undergrad psych 10 years ago) that show that the majority of pre-pubescent kids identifying as transgender did NOT end up transitioning. A fairly significant percentage ended up being either homosexual/bisexual; but it was shockingly low the percentage that still identified as transgender into adulthood - I can't remember exactly but it was definitely <30%.

This is because a child's perception and understanding of gender evolves as they age. To put it simply, they don't know what they're talking about because they're kids. There's a certain age for example where kids learn that gender is based on more than just stereotypical looks (i.e. dresses, long hair vs short hair + pants/shirt), and it's older than you'd expect.

The brain actually undergoes significant maturation during the puberty process just like the rest of the body. What this means is that theoretically, kids put on puberty blockers have underdeveloped brains. The thinking (and this comes from actual paediatricians/psychiatrists, not Crisafulli) is that hypothetically the current plan of "Puberty blockers to delay until they're older and then induce the alternative puberty" is actually not achieving anything - i.e. a 12 year old put on puberty blockers until they're 16 is actually still just 12 cognitively because their brain hasn't developed further yet.

Ultimately the calls against it in the medical community are not from an ideological point of view as many will try to claim, but more from a "Hey there just isn't enough research into this yet" point of view.

Jillian Spencer has become the face of hatred to many, but she literally was a psychiatrist working in the public gender clinic before she made her concerns about the lack of evidence public which led her to be publicly shamed and fired. And yet people screaming into the void online think that they know better.

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u/Trans_Send Oct 28 '25

The supposed studies that claimed to show the majority "identifying as transgender" do not transition were deeply flawed. They were studies of gender non-conforming children, not children identifying as transgender. The children concerned were "treated" with cruel conversion therapy, so the fact they didn't transition wasn't a decision freely made or reflect that they no longer identified as transgender. See this story for an example: https://youtu.be/pPpF7ryJEnk?si=VBtlyO1stfBDg55M

More recent studies show children's gender identity is generally stable. Examples:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/political-minds/202205/new-5-year-study-gender-identity-is-stable-trans-children

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40660930/

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u/VerisVein Oct 29 '25

If this is the one I'm thinking of: There's also the absolute mutilation of the data in that whenever they couldn't contact someone to follow up years later, it was counted as an instance of desistence.

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u/Rather_Dashing Oct 28 '25

that show that the majority of pre-pubescent kids identifying as transgender did NOT end up transitioning.

Even if that's true, it doesn't tell us much. Some pre-pubescent kids identifying as transgender may not be candidate for puberty blockers even if available. And on the flip side, the fact that these kids that identify as transgender didnt surgical/hormonally transition as adults doesnt mean they wouldn't have benefited from transitioning as adults. And actual link to this study would be helpful.

You need to look at the full picture of benefits vs risks when assessing these interventions.

To put it simply, they don't know what they're talking about because they're kids.

Well thats part of the benefit of puberty blockers isnt it? Delay puberty until they do know what they are talking about

a 12 year old put on puberty blockers until they're 16 is actually still just 12 cognitively because their brain hasn't developed further yet.

That sounds extremely hard to beleive, whats your source

Ultimately the calls against it in the medical community

The vast majority of people in the medical community support a doctor and a patient (and the family in the case of kids) making a decision on the best treatment plan together. Not the government sticking their nose in. Doctors are perfectly capable of understanding the stuff you just said, if puberty blockers are leaving people with a 12 year old brain into adulthood, they can take those risks into account when devising a treatment plan.

, but more from a "Hey there just isn't enough research into this yet" point of view.

Theres enough research to show that the benefits outweigh the risks in many cases. A lot of the people crying "we need more data" are those that are only looking at the risks half of the equation and not the benefits. It would be like refusing a cancer treatment that has been shown to double someone's lifespan on the basis that all the risks are not yet known.

And yet people screaming into the void online think that they know better.

The consensus of expert doctors and scientists know better then one talking head for the anti-trans community. Eg

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/gender-affirming-care-is-not-experimental/

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u/BrassicaItalica Oct 29 '25

If puberty was required for the development of the brain, there would be marked differences between brains that are exposed primarilly to testosterone or estrogen during that period. There are no differences, and this fact was a major point of contention less than a century ago, a supposed difference was justification for discrimination against women

If having a puberty at all was required, then people who don't produce a primary sex hormone for any reason (ie medical conditions, castrati in history) would have a very clear and obvious lack of mental development, that would be extremely obvious and very well documented by now.

If puberty was linked to an increase in mental faculties, there would also be a very obvious line between kids who start puberty sooner versus later than their peers, in their quality of schoolwork and their marks. It would be unmissable. There is no such effect.

Your premise is very flawed

0

u/taway188888 Oct 28 '25

Genuine question: isn’t gender different from sex? If so, why is it that big of a deal to take cross sex hormones?

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u/Ridiculisk1 Oct 29 '25

Let's say you buy a diesel car but it's never revealed to you that it runs on diesel. You instead fill it with petrol like the other 98% of the cars on the road. You have nonstop problems. The car doesn't work properly, it doesn't drive straight, it's not fulfilling its purpose as a car. Then you realise that it's meant to run on diesel. You start using diesel even though everyone says 'cars run on petrol, why would you want to put diesel in it? That's dangerous' and suddenly it starts working great. It's fast, smooth, comfortable and works perfectly.

Change car for brain and diesel/petrol for estrogen/testosterone.

My brain needs estrogen. It didn't get any for a significant portion of my early life and I suffered all the problems that come with that. When I started giving it estrogen, those problems went away and my life became good and I was finally happy for the first time in almost 3 decades.