Another Unfortunate Experiment?

One of the best things about reprising stories I wrote four years ago about this gender insanity is recalling the views of the world’s first openly mayor and later Member of Parliament, Georgina Beyer. Beyer, whose image was used as a trans icon in the Albert park melee in 2023, was critical of trans activists’ eagerness to affirm young people. She urged caution and said sagely that medical professionals who fail to take proper care may have their actions thrown back at them at a later date.

However what follows is not about Georgina Beyer but Professor Michael Biggs. It was to be the sidebar to the Listener story.

In 2017, when three students in his University of Oxford Masters of Sociology class advised Associate Professor Michael Biggs that he could celebrate, but not apply scientific analysis, to the transgender phenomenon sweeping Britain, his curiosity was piqued. “I don’t like being told what to think.” 

His subsequent investigation into the medicalisation of transgender children saw the New Zealander write a paper on this issue, front the media and eventually become a key witness in the current case against the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service, The case was taken by a 23-year-old detransitioned woman given hormones to change her gender as a teenager. She now says she had not understood the nature of the treatment at the time. Her case is also supported by the mother of a 16-year-old girl who wants to transition to live as a boy. As a specialist in social movements and collective protest, Biggs was no stranger to this area of research but he was shocked by what he found. 

He quickly discovered that the Tavistock treatment of gender dysphoric children with GnRHa (gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist commonly referred to as puberty blockers) began with an experiment whose results have never been published and that no country has ever licensed these drugs for this purpose. 

The Dutch were the first to prescribe puberty blockers for adolescents labelled as juvenile transsexuals beginning in 1994. A study of the first 70 children treated this way showed all went on to have cross-sex hormones and major surgery. One died as a result of the genital surgery. However the Dutch never tested their treatment with a randomized trial, as is the usual protocol. Follow-up immediately after the hormone treatment and surgery revealed a low rate of regret but long-term follow-up has never been done. 

Up to 2011 the Tavistock prescribed GnRHa for adolescents when they reached 15 or 16 but the experiment allowed them to treat 12 to 15 year olds. The theory was that by inhibiting their puberty at a young age they would require less surgery later since secondary sex characteristics would never develop. 

But the patient information sheet omitted the fact that GnRHa have never been licensed as safe and effective for treating gender dysphoria. Also the words “experiment” and “trial” did not appear. Some side-effects were listed such as uncertainty about the effect on bone development and the possibility the drug could affect “memory, concentration and the way you feel.” But side effects such as depression, hot flushes, weight gain and, in the case of boys, stunted genitals were not mentioned. This means that should a boy wish to undergo genital surgery later there will not be not enough skin on his penis to create a vagina so a piece of his bowel will have to be used.

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The sheet also failed to mention that GnRHa prevents the development of normal sexual function. Indeed the first patient in the Dutch experiment, a transman, at 35 scored high for depression and owing to shame about his genital appearance and feeling of inadequacy in sexual matters, could not sustain a romantic relationship. 

Before the experiment ended, GnRHa treatment became the official policy of the Tavistock. Biggs concluded the experiment was a pretext to lower the age at which GnHRa was administered rather than contribute to the medical evidence base. The psychological effects on the children in the experiment have never been published but Biggs uncovered evidence that shows most of the preliminary results were unfavourable. Evidence that showed improvement in outcomes only applied to children who also received psychological support so attributing this to medical intervention is unjustified he says. 

The Tavistock has no information on the long-term outcomes of the children in this experiment and admitted they lose track of patients once they turn 18. 

Puberty blockers are often touted as giving the child time to think about their gender identity but Biggs found that instead of pressing pause, “it was more like pressing fast forward into cross-sex hormones and ultimately surgery.” 

He believes gender dysphoria needs to be treated seriously but before medicalising a child, the causes of the distress should be explored. 

Also before the introduction of puberty blockers, around 80 percent of young children with gender dysphoria would grow out of it naturally typically becoming gay, lesbian or bisexual adults. Thus Biggs asks how can any medical professional be sure the child is trans? There is no objective test to confirm or deny this diagnosis. 

Biggs argues that the slender limited evidence of the small Dutch study “has been padded out and amplified by enthusiastic clinicians and transgender activists such as AAP (American Association of Paediatricians) and WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health).” As well, data on the experiment remains unpublished. 

”After a quarter of a century of experimentation, the proponents of pubertal suppression have never conducted a randomised control trial to test the safety or effectiveness of GnHRa.” 

Biggs is also a member of the newly formed Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine, an international group of almost 100 clinicians and researchers concerned about the lack of evidence to support hormonal and surgical interventions as first line treatment for young people.

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Biggs likes to say he followed the career path of John Money, the New Zealand psychologist/sexologist who studied at Victoria University and went on to Harvard just as Biggs did before entering Oxford though in his case “I’m trying to remedy the damage he did.” Money is infamous now for encouraging the parents of a twin boy, who suffered a botched circumcision in 1966, to bring up the boy as a girl. That boy committed suicide at 38 while his brother died of a drug overdose. The parents blamed Money’s methodology for the death of both sons. Money welcomed the Dutch innovation of puberty blockers. 

He also sees parallels in the Tavistock case with the ‘unfortunate experiment’ conducted at Auckland’s National Women’s Hospital on women with cervical cancer. The experiment was exposed in the 1980s by two feminist health advocates who uncovered evidence that the women were part of an experiment without their consent. Since then, informed consent was regulated in the Code of Patients’ Rights. 

In his paper Biggs concluded that “Tavistock has failed not just the scientific community but, more importantly, the children in its care.” 

To the Listener he said “This treatment is effectively chemically castrating children.”