I’m glad Damien has finally caught up to my criticism of puberty blockers post the Cass report..
Soooo are we going to talk about puberty blockers for Trans Teens?
…now my permanent guest on The Working Group podcast (the number 1 weekly political podcast that is not funded by NZ on Air), Damien Grant is wrong on most things, indeed the Media Council only last week reminded us of this…
The NZ Media Council upholds complaint about Hamas opinion piece against Stuff
…Damien’s farcical defence of Israel is so ridiculous he may as well be their honorary ambassador to NZ the way John Key is for China and his economic libertarian pronouncements are the chatterings of a fringe political movement with less support than the Hitler Youth, but with a relentless intellectual curiosity, he remains one of the most important Newspaper Columnists in NZ and he proves it again with his post today on Puberty Blockers in the wake of the Cass Report…
Damien Grant: Pay attention to review into gender care for youth
…look.
Damien Grant is a dangerous libertarian lunatic who will be the first up against the wall when the Revolution comes, of that there can be no doubt, but it will be a clean painless shooting because he’s the best Newspaper columnist in the game!
He’s earned a quick death!
I believe a Newspaper Columnist takes the events of the week and provides a deeper more reflective view that contextualises beyond the headlines.
A good columnist makes us rethink our perspectives, makes us laugh and actually adds to the debate.
Damien was one of the few to highlight the horror of Oranga Tamariki’s reverse uplifts and he has criticised the Right with as much passion as he criticises the Left and his refusal to simply accept the demands of the mob make him a worthy critic.
When it comes to the whole Trans debate, I’m old fashioned. I think finding your true self and being comfortable in your own skin is one of the most important journeys of the human experience.
The idea that there are some men who believe they are women and some women who believe they are men and some people who believe they are both and some people who believe they are neither is as uncontroversial to me as the range of human skin, eye and hair colour.
Referring to someone by their preferred pronouns and identity is just basic good will courtesy offered to every fellow citizen.
If a trans person wishes to share a prison cell or locker room with me, I don’t care, but where I get cancelled by the woke is when I also agree that biological women have a right to philosophically and intellectually challenge some of the identity politics dogma that is being used here.
There is a legitimate debate between gender critical feminists and trans activists but what does it say about that debate when gender critical feminists have been pushed all the way over to the side of Posie Parker?
I have many self declaring feminist women who privately tell me they have real misgivings with some of the Trans woke dogma but are terrified of saying anything because the Fourth Wave Feminists, non-binary activists and trans ally vegan mommy bloggers rip them to pieces on social media.
Part of the problem is that the Trans activists themselves have helped make this debate so radioactively toxic with their cancel culture dynamics.
And that’s where the woke have led us, an intellectual war cul de sac where we just hand the Right culture war ammunition.
Puberty blockers ARE an issue but anyone who dares question it receives a Wellington woke kamikaze pile on.
We want to be respectful of people living their true selves, but the cancel culture absurdity of the woke has made the debate impossible.
Unfortunately there is no way any of the middle class Welly Woke will EVER admit any of this despite losing 10 000 voters every single time Shannel Lal opens their mouth.
Let’s hope 50 years from now we can look back on the whole Trans debate and privately remind ourselves that was how to lose a debate.
We need far less cancel culture and far more reasoned debate using science.
That Stuff had the moral strength and ethical courage to publish Damien’s column critical of puberty blockers is a reminder of how genuinely important Stuff are in the media landscape and that this is an important moment for Free Speech.
I don’t agree with everything Stuff prints but I defend their right to print it!
Now watch the Woke go into a death roll trying to destroy Damien, Stuff, Damien’s family, his pets and any children that the Stuff editorial team might have.
This will also be a test for the Political Left.
Are we going to allow these identity politics fanatics to destroy our movement, continue to hand the Right culture war ammunition and alienate voters making a 2026 victory impossible or are we going to step up to them and tell them to fuck off?
That free speech is not hate speech and that we stand with rational scientific analysis beyond cultural fads, ideology and cancel culture!
This is a moment for the Political Left to step up and tell these identity extremists their tactics and their philosophy is warped and broken, and that the adults are taking back control of the movement’s direction.
They can sit quietly on the bus and bitch about it on Mastodon, Bluesky or whatever padded social media echo chamber they like.
LESS THAN 1% OF THE POPULATION ARE TRANS FFS! We can not allow our bloody movement to continually be hijacked by the fringes when 100% of us will be impacted by climate change!
No family in poverty is sitting around the kitchen table cancelling each other for misusing pronouns!
We need a Left movement that looks to common ground Broadchurch solidarity, not a pure temple woke dogma that excludes with its ‘inclusion’.
I salute Stuff for having the courage to publish.
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It will be a bitter fight.
If the Woke can’t destroy Damien/Stuff/the Cass Report, then the many, many Woke parents of trans kids will have to face up to what they did to their children.
Much easier emotionally to say Damien and Cass are evil and then pour another wine.
Its called social progress Ada. You dont like it, feel free to move to Uganda.
It’s only social progress until a person under 16 says there was no consent and the doctors are sued.
It’s all a lie.
Nothing short of genetic interventions will ever make XY into XX, and pretending that they might is a cruel fantasy.
Progress needs to be truth based – the contemporary trans social contagion is not truthful. It is not progress, and the sooner it is abandoned the better.
People have been transitioning for over 60-70 years, no one really made a big thing of it then as they do now. I dont recall Georgina Beyer or Carmen getting misgendered, when even back in 1999/2000 people were more conservative.
Anyway, as I said, I never thought you would throw your lot in with the Christian Taliban, next thing you will be calling for abortion, birth control and homosexuality to be outlawed.
Georgina Beyer and Carmen lacked the UNBELIEVABLE arrogance to demand to be referred to in a particular way. They didn’t invade bathrooms, cheat their way into women’s sports, or legislate the right to tell ridiculous and medically dangerous lies to vulnerable children.
I supported LGB for decades – but recent trans demands, and their death threats, and assaults have burned every last iota of credibility they ever possessed.
Fuck ’em. They can fuck right off, and the sooner the better.
Hey Millsy, so you’re happy to chop body parts of healthy teenagers, condemn them to a life of sexual dysfunction, being infertile for their entire life, which will be no doubt shorthened and full of medical complcations, because of a social media fad in the early 2020s?
You are on the wrong side of hostory. “Trans kids” will be looked at in the same light in years to come as we now look at slavery
I’m 100% convinced of this
You seem quite fucked in the head with your proscribed fear based ideology. What is wrong with you that you are so rejecting of another human being who does not want to be described as a he or a she?
And by “facing up to what they did to their children” you mean being seen on the right side of history for supporting their kids’ rather than disowning them for not fitting into our post-cononial view of gender as many transphobic parents do?
I’m the sibling of a trans person, it took a while for me and our parents to understand their struggle but I can tell you hand on heart that they are in a much better place now that we accept them than they were when they came out.
Raijin .
I salute you for posting this.
Thank you .
post-cononial view of gender?!? what?!?
Grant is entertaining at times but a Champaign libertarian, he picks and chooses his moral stance.
Good on him for copping his evident cowardice over trans rights hysteria here.(confusing issue for a libertarian no doubt with right to freedom of expression)
Now he needs to do the same over his limp urban anti stance on sensible firearms law. He’s all for less government and more freedom when he’s personally affected.
At the end of the day, Keep, we shouldnt be leglisating Biblical morality.
Who do you imagine is legislating biblical mortality, millsy?
Or anyone’s ideology
And yet you pick and choose when you like Grant’s views, KCCO, oh the irony.
You seem confused, squeaky.
I’ve never made claim to being a libertarian. I have a range of views which I pretty much canvas the political spectrum depending on topic.
Whereas a monotone pro Labour bot like your boring self couldn’t irony your underpants unless Jacinda or Chippy mandated it first.
Agree Kcc the left lacking imagination and the ability to take care of themselves require the state to tell them to do.
Mr.Sqeaky reinforces/confirms my opinion daily.
Damien is an accountant and a shonky one at that.
He should stick to his knitting and stay out of medical/psychology matters which he is in no way qualified to comment on any more than I am qualified to comment on the development of COVID vaccine.
Sounds right to me, Grant ain’t no prof in the field, unless one of his kids are one and then that would be a personal journey of acceptance, hopefully.
There are more and more people coming out as trans, which could be to do with greater social acceptance or possibly endocrine disrupting chemicals in the environment blurring the lines.
If a parent if a trans child, what to do? If they want drugs and surgery, some parents say wdit until you are older and can make that decision as xn adult and pay hir ig yourself. Maybe that’s not a viable choice for other parents or other trans kids.
But, why are trans people such a political football. Leave them the hell alone life is tough enough as stats tell us. And they have been around of centuries not decades, always a minority. They used to be called Mollies. And yes, it was a disparaging term. It’d not an easy life and from her trans people I have met and known, not a choice either. It just is.
Very good and timely article by Damien.
I am not optimistic about the Ministry of Health’s impending Evidence Review. The 2 people they’ve chosen to peer review it are on the side of affirmative care and puberty blockers for minors, especially Dr Bagshaw. Also, Health NZ has contracted NZ’s PATHA to produce the guidelines following the MOH’s Evidence Review.
PATHA is aligned with WPATH that has been leading the world into the puberty blocker, affirmative approach, quagmire. The Cass report said WPATH had been doing this based on poor evidence, and PATHA has been highly critical of the Cass Review. Also, The Cass Report rave PATHA’s existing guidelines a very low rating.
Once the medical profession’s indemnity insurers start running for the hills (see https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/professional/insurance-cut-for-gender-affirming-care-sends-such) it will take a brave doctor to recommend treatment for minors.
I am backing T.O.P. because of the emphasis on evidence based policy, not stuff based on emotion.
Will the real left wing parties stand up and be counted? Good question. Every day the left does not start working as a cohesive unit is another is one less day to get ready for an election that might come before 2026.
I wonder if Damien would be allowed onto the campus at Victoria University of if he’d be too provocative and an obvious proponent of hate speech and disinformation.
Perhaps if he was escorted on secretly at night so that he didn’t trigger anyone
You might be confusing a journalist with a novelist.
As I was saying to Sinead just the other day, I look forward to Damien’s book.
socialists, why need a gun/
Breath, who us, of course, socialists, they shoot, hope they shoot straight.
Go, gee us trades skill, jobs, with a 35 a hour.
Martyn, as the sibling of a trans person I can tell you from second hand experience that gender dysphoria is often at it’s worse during teenage years as that’s when most people go though puberty…
Medically transitioning is like going though a different form of puberty than someone would go though naturally, when trans people talk about “being born in the wrong body” the changes they experience during their natural puberty are exactly what they’re talking about. All puberty blockers do is allow a trans teen to wait until they’re older to decide which puberty they want to go though (ironally what many people opposing them claim to want) they’re also not just pescribed to trans teens but also cis girls who get their period earlier than expected, so a ban will have more wide reaching impacts than just the trans community.
The UK didn’t find any evidence that puberty blockers were dangerous, only a lack of evidence that they are safe, which sounds like a reasonable enough standard to ban them for teens until you realize how high the self harm and suicide rate is for trans youth… If we ban puberty blockers then it’s not at all hyperbolic to say many teens won’t survive long enough to make that informed decision to transition they’re intended for.
I’ve heard you say before on The Working Group that you want our trans whanau to have the same agency that all citizens enjoy, well allowing them to choose the puberty they want to go though rather than forcing them to go though a form of puberty they may not is one of those forms of agency that most cisgender folk don’t even have to think about, for those it affects however it can literally be life or death!
Raijin.
Spot on.
Heterosexuals have no damn idea.
Most teens who commit suicide in NZ are LGTB and a large chunk of those are trans.
The anti trans anti trans medical care is nothing but an assault on the whole lgtb community by the right organised by the far right .
The same methodology was used between 1969 and 1986 over the homosexual law reform.
All the medical bullcrap and christian religious bullcrap out of the usa was thrown into the mix.
The same is happening right now.
What you say is absolutely correct.
“The UK didn’t find any evidence that puberty blockers were dangerous, only a lack of evidence that they are safe, which sounds like a reasonable enough standard to ban them for teens until you realize how high the self harm and suicide rate is for trans youth… If we ban puberty blockers then it’s not at all hyperbolic to say many teens won’t survive long enough to make that informed decision to transition they’re intended for.”
Lets also remember NZ HAS THE HIGHEST YOUTH SUICIDE RATE IN THE WESTERN WORLD.
Do we really want to make it worse by denying trans teens access to what they medically need when they need it.
So Raijin I BACK YOU 100%
Being a gay boomer living through the hell of the 69 to 86 law reform period was hell.
“Most teens who commit suicide in NZ are LGTB and a large chunk of those are trans”’
I can’t find any proof of this at all. The major factors from the three sources I found are being male and Māori. Gender issues increase a person’s risk but that isn’t the same.
It’s really informative and great to hear from you two Rajin and Geoffrey, because from what I can read it’s people who have no experience whatsoever of the Trans community or it’s individuals who are dominating the conversation.
People like JK Rowling, who has a real bee in her bonnet about trans people using the public toilets etc …because you know women’s only spaces. But this argument is waaaaay out of proportion to the reality. So what really is her and her ilk’s beef?? Against a tiny minority population that is primarily vulnerable and suffers persecution, harm and hate crimes resulting in murder or suicide?
Why are these rabid anti trans people, who far out number the rabid ‘woke’ trans aggressors so offended by the other they condfm the lot. It’s clearly a fear based ideology that’s gotten way out of proportion. Calm the fuck down and leave trans people alone, they have enough to contend with.
J K Rowling got standing on the subject from the constant death threats from so-called ‘pound shop ninjas’.
Trans started this war with their ‘no debate’ position. You don’t get to call ‘no debate’ in a democracy – you have to make your case.
And, as the Cass report has shown, there is no trans case – they made war on a false premise of minimizing harm. They are done.
Yep, at the the end of the day, this is about people wanting to impose biblical definitions of sexuality and gender roles on others, by force if need be. And so called ‘feminists’ like Anker, Carolyn, and queen Weka over at The Standard are throwing in their lot with the Christian Taliban even though bloody well know that Christians, Muslims, Jews and Buddhists will always ensure that women are subservient to men,
And the end of the day, a group of activists infiltrated a major party and forced through a piece of cult nonsense, shouting down and ignoring the overwhelming weight of submissions, in arrogant defiance and subversion of our democracy.
That vocal and morally bankrupt minority will be reviled for generations for dictating outcomes to a trusting population like the hateful, tyrannous, scientifically illiterate wankers they have proven to be.
“Let’s mutilate children!” say LGBT
“All your stupid games are over!” says society at large.
Yes, there are some people who are extremely distressed by their sexed bodies. However, there is no way to tell which ones will benefit from taking opposite sex hormones and/or have surgeries that change some of the external appearances that relate to secondary sex differences. Some benefit, and some people, especially young females, seriously regret medical and surgical intervention. There is most often several years before regret strongly sets in, and individuals decide to desist/detransition.
There is no robust research to show the extent of regret in the long term, or the extent to which people benefit from taking puberty blockers.
The Cass Report has not recommended all use of puberty blockers by trans identified minors be banned. The report says there needs to be more caution about which minors are put onto puberty blockers with a multi-disciplined team considering all the co-existing conditions eg unresolved trauma, sexual abuse, depression, autism, internalised homophobia or misogyny, are considered for either medical intervention or well-supported waiting for puberty. Research shows that going through a normal puberty resolves gendered distress for themajority of minors who experience gendered distress/
There is also no call for puberty blockers to be stopped for those experiencing early puberty. Like many stages of child and adolescent development there is an optimal age range for certain biological developments to occur eg walking, talking & puberty. If the development does not occur at the optimal time, it can be harder for such developments to adequately happen at a later age.
No one can choose which puberty to go through – it is pre-set at conception. If a young person takes puberty blockers, then goes onto opposite sex hormones, they don’t go through the opposite sex puberty: eg females will go through early menopause. They will not develop testes, etc. Males will not start to menstruate and be capable of becoming pregnant.
There is evidence that there’s cause to be concerned if all the natural developments at puberty are stopped: eg strong increase in bone density, nueurological development, especially the development of the ability to reason and think logically. So blocking puberty can put a pause, not just on necessary physical growth, but it is counter to the argument that PBs give a young person time to make well-reasoned decisions if they want to fully transition. The vast majority go straight onto opposite sex hormones. Any regret usually sets in later years.
So basically it is very important to get better data. NZ prescribes puberty blockers at 11 times the rate of the UK. So we most definitely need the situation to be monitored and reconsidered, as argued here by Charlotte Paul (epidemiologist and emeritus professor in the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine at the University of Otago.)
https://northandsouth.co.nz/2023/12/24/puberty-blockers-new-zealand/
It’s really informative and great to hear from you two Rajin and Geoffrey, because from what I can read it’s people who have no experience whatsoever of the Trans community or it’s individuals who are dominating the conversation.
People like JK Rowling, who has a real bee in her bonnet about trans people using the public toilets etc …because you know women’s only spaces. But this argument is waaaaay out of proportion to the reality. So what really is her and her ilk’s beef?? Against a tiny minority population that is primarily vulnerable and suffers persecution, harm and hate crimes resulting in murder or suicide?
Why are these rabid anti trans people, who far out number the rabid ‘woke’ trans aggressors, so offended by the ‘other’ they condem the lot. It’s clearly a fear based ideology that’s gotten way out of proportion. Calm down and leave trans people alone, they have enough to contend with. As far as medical interventions go, if I had a trans kid I’d want them to wait til adulthood when they can make adult choices. But maybe that’s not an option for some people, but surely that is a family and personal decision.
Wrong about climate change and Israel is all I need to hear. By all means keep him at your side.
Damien Grant might be NZ’s best columnist, if he has outlasted Campbell of Scoop, but the competition is frankly lousy. The fact that his untenable views on Hamas made it into print instead of withering in editorial review is an indictment of our media as much as the man himself.
But it is good that he has recognized the harm in the contemporary trans enthusiasm. That doomed folly is going to set them and their allies back a generation or two.
I think a lot of people are missing a big point about all of this that Martyn keeps trying to point out.
There is no debate. No questions can be asked, no statements or claims must be proven. To challenge or even ask clarification on this stuff in anything other than a “tell me what I’m allowed to do” manner risks bringing down the wrath of all nasty activists on social media.
The “high profile” example of the Riley Gains BS provides an excellent example. I don’t have a single mote of doubt that she is serious about the transition but there are some small facts about the case that raise questions of how to regulate these things properly in order to ensure it’s as fair as possible for everyone.
The debate for puberty blockers will have several other deep questions to ask for clarification and the need to ensure all the situations are handled as well as they can be. But to ask for some double checks and informed consultations is not acceptable. Even if it’s built around the idea of safeguarding people to ensure the minimum long-term risks or damage. The opioid crisis shows how problematic it can be to keep giving out drugs to people who ask without providing safe checks.
I see. I expected better from you and The Standard.
This is the last time I’m going to comment on both sites for a very long while.
I do not enjoy wading through all this stuff about trans people.
Oh good lord boo hoo hoo