TWIBS: Kiwis Deny Science and Ban Blockers, and Gosh I’m PO’d About It
New Zealand is going to do tremendous harm to trans kids for no reason and I’m really mad.
Humor by Aly Gibbs
This Week in Barrel Scraping (TWIBS) is Assigned Media’s longest running column! Every Friday, Aly Gibbs digs deep from the well of transphobia and finds the most obnoxious, goofy thing transphobes have said or obsessed over during the week and tears it to shreds.
According to New Zealand’s Health Minister Simeon Brown, young people seeking necessary and life saving treatment for gender dysphoria are shit out of luck from now on, because their government has banned the prescribing of puberty blockers to minors starting December 19, and I am apoplectic with rage about it.
New Zealand is now known for three things: Being Peter Jackson’s favorite fantasy backdrop, often being confused for Australia both geographically and culturally, and now destroying the mental health of young trans people and potentially costing them their lives. My hands are shaking from anger.
“We are putting in place stronger safeguards so families can have confidence that any treatment is clinically sound and in the best interests of the young person or child,” Simeon Brown said like a dumb chump who has no idea what he’s talking about. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that puberty blockers are safe and reversible, in the unlikely event that a young trans person decides that they don’t want to medically transition after all. We’ve been prescribing them to cis children experiencing premature puberty and trans children experiencing gender dysphoria since the 1980s and 1990s respectively, without incident. So you can understand why I’m so damn angry that I can’t stop my eye from twitching.
Brown, ever the fool, even admits to the blatant double standard at play: “Gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues play an important role in treating a range of medical conditions. We are ensuring they remain available for patients who need them for conditions such as early-onset puberty, endometriosis, or prostate cancer, where there is strong clinical evidence of benefit.”
Blockers for me but not for thee! It’s fine, apparently, for cis kids to be spared discomfort, embarrassment and mental anguish… but if a trans child needs them for exactly the same reasons, with exactly the same results, that is somehow wrong and bad. Oh boy, I hate to tell you guys, but I’m seeing red over this!
Brown claims that there’s “a lack of high-quality evidence that demonstrates the benefits or risks of the use of [puberty blockers] for the treatment of gender dysphoria or incongruence,” but that lie holds as much water as a bottomless canoe. A 2024 systemic review of the efficacy of puberty blockers in treating gender dysphoria for trans minors found that dysphoric kids taking blockers “had fewer emotional and behavioral problems” than their peers whose dysphoria was as yet untreated, and “similar or fewer problems than their same-age cisgender peers.”
Suffice to say, I am so damn angry at these losers.
Why is New Zealand doing this? Well, aside from rank bigoted animus against marginalized children, Brown claims the change will “align New Zealand's approach with the United Kingdom,” a place where no trans children receive the help they desperately need from a broken system that hates them. Hooray! I understand you’re a part of the commonwealth, but might I suggest not bouncing on it quite so hard, queens? It’s an embarrassing look, if I’m being honest.
So yeah, I’m angry. I’m so mad. We keep having this stupid conversation over and over, going around and around in circles purely to satisfy hateful bigots. The science is settled: Puberty blockers are safe and effective, and many trans kids need them to thrive. Some trans kids need them to live, and banning them outright will unequivocally result in children killing themselves. When and how many are semantics; it is an inarguable truth that discriminatory policies like this kill marginalized kids.
The faintest of silver linings, here, is that kids already on blockers won’t have their medication discontinued for now. Starting December 19, however, any young trans people who need blockers will simply be given the middle finger by New Zealand’s Health Minister Simeon Brown, who says the government expects “existing youth gender services to continue supporting young people and their families, connecting them with healthcare professionals who have specialised expertise and can provide evidence-based guidance,” so long as that evidence doesn’t go against the government’s desire to harm trans kids.
Maybe this is a controversial sentiment, but I suspect it’s about time to vacate the islands of these crackerjack diet English dickheads and hand everything back to the Māori.
Aly Gibbs (She/They) is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.
