Earlier this month, a UK court issued a landmark ruling in favor of Kiera Bell, now 23, who sued Tavistock gender clinic for causing permanent harm by prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to her when she was in her teens. The court ruled that minors under the age of 16 are not able to consent to puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones because they are not able to fully consider the life-long effects. As a result of the ruling, the clinic has stopped referrals for children under the age of 16.

Shortly after the Tavistock ruling, a study was released showing that all but one of the children who received puberty blockers at Tavistock in 2011 went on to receive cross-sex hormones. Although Tavistock has insisted that there is no link between the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and the transgender movement claims that puberty blockers are nothing but a “pause” button, but the evidence tells a different story.

The vast majority of children who experience gender dysphoria will outgrow it and become comfortable with their body by the time they reach adulthood if they do not undergo social or medical “transition.” In contrast, 43 of the 44 children who were put on puberty blockers at Tavistock in 2011 went on to receive cross-sex hormones. “Far from being “neutral,” the psychosocial effects seem closer to radical,” writes Abigail Shrier. “Suppression of normal bone density development and greater risk of osteoporosis, loss of sexual function, interference with brain development, and possibly suppressing peak IQ are all risks puberty blockers carry.”

Shrier also notes,

[Studies] show is that nearly all adolescents who identify as transgender and are put on puberty blockers go on to take cross-sex hormones in adulthood. Of course, that does not prove that these adolescents “knew who they were”; at most, it proves that if you medically halt a kid’s puberty so that they do not obtain secondary sex characteristics, while also socially affirming their new gender identity, that adolescent will be less likely to later reverse course.

Halting the natural development that happens during puberty is not safe or neutral. It puts kids on course for cross-sex hormones and life-long medical complications. Staff at Tavistock raised concerns about what was going on at the clinic 15 years ago. Back in 2005, the clinic had tens of clients per year and their youngest clients were 15. In the years since then, things have only become more lax, serving thousands of clients per year, some as young as nine years old. Within the past five years, the clinic saw a 400% increase in referrals. Sadly, the clinic was not held responsible prior to Bell’s lawsuit.

The Tavistock court ruling and the study that was subsequently released draw attention to the irreversible harm caused by transgender “treatments” and the lies that teens, children, and families are fed in service of this agenda. The transgender movement affirms a lie and encourages people to live in a way that is at odds with reality. Social and medical transition may give someone the appearance of being a member of the opposite sex, but it cannot change their sex. Not only that, but the rush to “transition” is harmful because it frequently dismisses real mental health concerns that people are struggling with. Patients in the UK and the US have received prescriptions for life-altering hormone treatments within an hour of meeting a doctor. Rather than taking into account mental health history, doctors and therapists have promoted the transgender agenda at the expense of the wellbeing of their patients.  

Puberty blockers are not a “pause” button. This is medical experimentation on children to advance a sexual agenda. There is nothing compassionate or even ethical about putting a child on a medication designed to stop their natural development and “affirming” an identity that is at odds with reality. Children deserve better than to be used as a political prop in advance of a radical sexual agenda.

Image: Flickr, Ted Etyan, CC BY-SA 4.0)