‘There is no good evidence for the routine use of puberty blockers’: Top experts call for a major change in the treatment of transgender children as studies suggest the damage is permanent

A leading scientist from the University of Oxford has added his voice to a growing list of experts warning about puberty blockers for transgender children, saying they could be harmful and irreversible in the long term.

Professor Ashley Grossman, an endocrinologist, says there is ‘no good evidence’ showing that puberty blockers help trans children. This points to a new study showing that they damage the testicles and sperm of boys who take them.

This study, and Professor Grossman’s comments, call into question the ‘reversibility’ of puberty blockers – a key claim made by the transgender campaigners who promote the drugs, saying they ‘pause’ puberty and buy time for trans children to make decisions about their sex.

Grossman’s comments come ahead of the publication of the long-awaited Cass Review in Britain, which will confirm a shift from the medicalized treatment of trans children to treatment based on support and talk therapy.

Trans activists say puberty blockers and other gender-affirming care are lifesaving among group prone to suicide

“Studies have shown that there is no good evidence to support the routine use of puberty blockers,” Grossman said in a statement.

‘There is indeed some recent early data – although not yet peer-reviewed or published – which suggests that some of their effects on the testes and sperm may not be reversible.’

Grossman said blockers may be “helpful” for some trans children, but the drugs were too risky to be given out to the “greatly increased” number of young people who identify as transgender today.

“Routine puberty-blocking treatments for this use have not been adequately studied, and many of these children may have other problems for which they need help,” he added, citing a growing body of evidence showing that gender-confused youth often have other, have underlying problems. mental health problems.

His comments address one of the most controversial issues of our time: whether it is providing medications and surgeries to children who experience gender confusion or “dysphoria” and turn to their parents or doctors for help.

Puberty blockers were originally developed to suppress the hormones of minors who have entered puberty too early.

Today, they are prescribed off-label to a rapidly growing number of trans children.

Proponents of gender-affirming care, as it is known, say it is lifesaving for a group prone to suicide, and that puberty blockers help pre-teens “pause” their puberty and buy time to weigh life-changing decisions.

Prescriptions for puberty blockers continue to rise in the United States

Most children treated with puberty blockers transition to cross-sex hormones, like this patient at the Blue Mountain Clinic in Montana

Critics warn of a rising number of young people identifying as transgender, saying puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries are often unnecessary and likely dangerous.

Republican lawmakers have banned puberty blockers and other forms of transgender care for minors in nearly two dozen states.

Norway, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Britain are among a growing list of European countries that have limited or completely halted trans interventions in children.

Britain is preparing for the long-awaited publication of a review by leading pediatrician Hilary Cass, which will shape NHS England’s future care for trans children and young people on Wednesday.

Early reports suggest it will warn about the lack of data on the safety of transhormones for children, and propose a more holistic care package that assesses whether young patients suffer from mental health problems other than gender anxiety.

This puts Britain at odds with the influential American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which recently suggested it is child abuse to deny gender-affirming care to minors.

America’s leading pediatric group said that “denying gender-affirming care harms children and amounts to state-sanctioned medical neglect and emotional abuse.”

The AAP made the claim in a consensus statement released in late December, and the statement was in response to a wave of age restrictions on puberty-blocking drugs and surgeries for children in Republican states.

Although its views are not medically binding, the panel is made up of 70,000 of the nation’s top pediatricians and its recommendations are considered the gold standard.

Chloe Col, 19, who transitioned to a man at the age of 13 before later regretting her decision at the age of 16, is among a growing number of young people who are regretting their trans treatments and trying to undo them to make. She says she regrets taking puberty blockers at age 13

Puberty blockers are being prescribed off-label to a rapidly growing number of trans children

Transgender campaigners reacted angrily to the Cass Review’s direction.

They argue that trans children are stigmatized and face abuse, and that many will commit suicide unless doctors give them the hormones and surgeries that affirm the gender with which they identify.

“Trans children face harm and injustice every time,” said the TransSafetyNow account on X/Twitter.

‘The Cass Review’s final report does nothing to ensure that trans children can have happy, healthy, safe and confident childhoods.’

A Mayo Clinic study published this month found that puberty blockers can lead to withering testicles, fertility problems and even cancer in the trans children who take them, in the latest study to sound the alarm about transgender medicine.

They found that puberty blockers harm testicular development and sperm production in ways that are not completely reversible and could affect users’ ability to have children when they grow up.

The Mayo Clinic’s 33-page study revealed puberty blocker damage at the cellular level

“At the tissue level, we report mild to severe gonadal atrophy in children treated with puberty blockers,” geneticist Nagarajan Kannan and others wrote in the 33-page study.

‘We provide unprecedented histological evidence demonstrating adverse childhood gonadal responses to the drugs.

Researchers highlighted the case of a 12-year-old boy who had been taking puberty blockers for 14 months.

Nearly 60 percent of his gonads were “completely atrophied,” they said.

There was also talk of ‘the appearance of microlithiasis’, or small clusters of calcium associated with testicular cancer.

In a 14-year-old patient who had been taking puberty blockers for four years, they discovered that his sperm production cells were hampered.

Scientists at the world-famous clinic said the results were worrying but more research was needed.

The evidence of gonad atrophy and abnormalities from the histological data raises potential concerns about the full ‘reversibility’ and reproductive fitness of sperm in boys taking puberty blockers, the report said.

The study followed the so-called ‘WPATH files’ – leaked messages from the world’s top organization for gender-affirming care, which revealed that doctors were acting more like activists and keeping quiet about the enormous harms of trans medicine.