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A physician and leading transgender activist deliberately withheld a major study finding that puberty-blocking drugs do not help adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria, The New York Times reports.
The study reportedly went unpublished for political reasons and for fear it would undermine so-called gender-affirming care.
The study itself is horrific. It was conducted by Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a physician who “specializes in the care of gender non-conforming children and transgender youth.” She is the medical director for the nation’s largest youth gender clinic, The Center for Transyouth Health and Development at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.
Starting in 2015, Dr. Olson-Kennedy and her colleagues “recruited 95 children from across the country and gave them puberty blockers, which stave off the permanent physical changes – like breasts or a deepening voice,” The Times reports.
The study was funded by a $9.7 million government grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, then directed by Francis Collins.
It found that “Puberty blockers did not lead to mental health improvements,” The Times reports. According to the researchers, that’s because the children in the study are “in really good shape when they come in, and they’re in really good shape after two years.”
But as The Times notes,
That conclusion seemed to contradict an earlier description of the group, in which Dr. Olson-Kennedy and her colleagues noted that one quarter of the adolescents were depressed or suicidal before treatment.
Dr. Olson-Kennedy and her team still have not published the data.
The doctor told The Times that her team has not released the results because it “might fuel the kind of political attacks that have led to bans of the young gender treatments in more than 20 states.”
In other words, the study might undermine the basis for providing transgender medical interventions in the first place.
And if you’re a transgender-rights activists like Dr. Olson-Kennedy, you can’t let the science get in the way of the transgender agenda.
“I do not want our work to be weaponized,” she said.
J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter book series and a women’s rights activist, has been courageous and fierce on the issue of transgenderism. She posted her satirical summary of Dr. Olson-Kennedy’s position on X:
Mrs. Rowling is spot on.
This incident exposes once again that “gender-affirming care” is not scientific.
Just a few months ago, the Daily Citizen covered the Cass Report, a robust 388-page independent report conducted over a four year period by Dr. Hilary Cass, a former president of the U.K.’s Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. The report was commissioned by NHS England to analyze how best to treat adolescents struggling with gender dysphoria.
Summarizing her findings, Dr. Cass stated,
The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender related distress.
As the British Medical Journal stated in their review of the report, “The evidence base for interventions in gender medicine is threadbare” and this is true for “whichever research question you wish to consider – from social transition to hormone treatment.”
The Cass Report led to NHS’ decision to stop proscribing puberty blocking drugs outside of clinical trials.
Dr. Cass also spoke to The Times, criticizing Dr. Olson-Kennedy’s team for refusing to release the data.
“It’s really important we get results out there so we understand whether it’s helpful or not, and for whom,” Dr. Cass said. She added that delays in the publishing of research have “led the public to believe that puberty blockers improved mental health, even though scant evidence backed up that conclusion,” The Times notes.
Indeed, many parents have been falsely led to believe that “gender-affirming care” will help their child struggling with gender dysphoria. Transgender activists have used the false, and emotionally abusive question, “Would you rather have an alive son or a dead daughter?”
As a result, a shocking 13,994 minor patients received gender-transition treatments between January 2019 and December 2023, with 5,747 undergoing transgender surgeries with 8,579 receiving hormones and puberty blockers.
Patients submitted nearly $120 million in insurance claims as a result. For many hospitals and clinics, “transgender medicine” is big business and good money.
Children struggling with gender confusion deserve compassion and real support – not drugs, hormones and surgeries.
According to the Institute for Research and Evaluation, if parents help their gender dysphoric child through counseling and “watchful waiting,” rather than through transgender medical interventions,
There is strong evidence showing that the vast majority (averaging about 85%) of children who experience gender dysphoria will resolve their gender identity confusion and accept their biological sex by the time they reach young adulthood, that is, if they are not subjected to “social transition” or cross-sex medical intervention.
All children have the right to bodily integrity and an intact sexual identity. And those who conduct science that could truly help children struggling with gender dysphoria have an obligation to publish their results – even if it may undermine their own ideological agenda.
Focus on the Family exists to help families, and that includes help navigating the issues of homosexuality and transgenderism. Focus offers a free, one-time counseling consultation with a licensed or pastoral counselor. To request a counseling consultation, call 1-855-771-HELP (4357) or fill out our Counseling Consultation Request Form.
Related articles and resources:
Counseling Consultation & Referrals
Addressing Gender Identity with Honesty and Compassion
The Journey Back to My True Identity
American Society of Plastic Surgeons Backs Away From Supporting ‘Transgender’ Surgeries
U.K.’s Review of Child Gender Policy Reveals Profound Failures That U.S. Still Defends
The WPATH Files Exposes ‘Surgical and Hormonal Experiments on Children’
The WPATH Files – Transgender Interventions Are ‘Unethical Medical Experiments’
Do Not Fall for the ‘Affirm Them or They Will Die’ Lie
Transgenderism and Minors: What Does the Research Really Show?
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