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Notes -
Do you have any evidence that kids in California are being chemically castrated?
Anyone who's on puberty blockers is being chemically castrated. It's the same did ug that's used for both.
Okay, well, that’s not true, but you do you.
Do you have any evidence that it's not true? Like I said, they use the exact same drug, with the exact same purpose (sex-hormone suppression).
Also, answer my question: do you want my views applied globally or locally?
I, too, would like a source for that.
A casual search suggests that the standard for chemical castration is “MPA”, or maybe “DMPA.” At least that’s what California law specified. If I understand it right, that’s a progestin (progestogen??) similar to what’s in the combination birth control pill.
Wikipedia claims the preferred blockers are “GnRH agonists” and maybe antagonists. It mentions progestogens to say they might be cheaper, and the main source is about precocious puberty, not gender identity.
In case Wikipedia is shamelessly misrepresenting the issue, I looked at a couple other sites. Neither suggests (D)MPA or any progestogen.
I think you got too fixated on the DMPA thing, GnRH agonists are also used for chemical castration. Off the top off my head Lupron is used for both chemical castration and puberty suppression.
Looks like I did.
Though I notice we’re talking about voluntary cancer treatments rather than state-mandated sterilization. I get the impression there’s some noncentral uses of “chemical castration.” When you say kids are castrating themselves, are you comparing them to cancer patients taking desperate measures? To predators being made safe for society? No, the central meaning of “castration” is pretty different.
Bringing it back to the progestins. Progesterones? Progestogens? I think you could draw a much less ambiguous line between the California-compliant DMPA and the various hormonal types of birth control. I think it would be easy to collect evidence of how the hormones affect libido, disrupt cycles, and otherwise warp the normal human sexual experience. But it would be really unconvincing to complain that women are “castrating” themselves. Supporters would say something like “yeah, I guess, except it’s reversible and non surgical and doesn’t make us the power behind the imperial throne. So, different in the ways that matter.”
That’s kind of how I feel about the usage here. The load-bearing questions are things like safety, reversibility, political leverage. Calling it “chemical castration” isn’t enough to answer those.
Lupron was used for decades in Australia to chemically castrate sex offenders man. It is now called a puberty blocker. I find it incredibly alarming how difficult it is to find proof of this outside of living in Australia and having a functional memory. I also think it should be a serious red flag for anyone who trusts trans activists, but I guess I've always thought that.
Was chemical castration carried out beyond Australia? That’s surprisingly hardcore for a modern democracy.
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Unless I misunderstood something, we're talking about both. It's not that there are non-central uses, it's that the same drug is also used for cancer treatment.
I'm not sure what you mean about political leverage, but sure. I don't see how you can halt someone's puberty long-term, and then reverse that. Maybe you can grab a source for that?
I mistakenly thought that when states chemically castrate sex offenders, they use the progestogens, but when oncologists chemically castrate cancer patients, they use the GnRH drugs. Then the fact that gender clinics recommend GnRH would suggest their protocols are more like cancer treatment than criminal justice.
As @Fruck pointed out, this isn’t the case if Lupron was used for judicial castration in Australia. I’ll assume he’s correct, and I share his frustration proving it. This was the best I could find. It says that CPA, another progestogen, is the only currently approved option, but cites studies on Lupron and a couple others. Obviously, they saw some use in criminal justice.
“Political leverage” was just a joke about the stereotypical eunuch. In poor taste, perhaps.
I doubt that I can find credible sources for long-term reversibility, since I assume it’s permanent at some point. Maybe 2-3 years, since that’s what the oncology websites cite when they feel defensive about gender politics. I’m not trying to push a political line.
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Adding that I think its a time thing, any kid that goes on puberty blockers for more than a few months will never proceed through all of the puberty phases (even if you give them cross sex hormones) and they hit their 20s unable to orgasm. Not to mention the nasty damage it does to their brains (possibly an entire standard deviation of IQ).
Do you have a source for this?
Perhaps ironically, $3M of the "transgender mice" studies Trump has cancelled were being used to study recovery of fertility following cross-sex hormone treatment.
The source would be WPATH's own top specialists' lectures, and clinical experience.
If you're disappointed that it's not based on a large-scale clinical study, bear in mind we're talking about a drug that's being used off-label, so it was never prescribed based on evidence, and about people with a bad habit of burying results they don't like.
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