A new analysis of a study done on British “trans” teens who took puberty blockers has revealed that 71% of them saw either no improvement or a deterioration in the state of their mental health when on the medication.
In 2011, 44 children were studied by a team from the Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service, the only NHS hospital that specializes in “care” for trans-identified youth. Amongst the services offered are the prescription of puberty blocking-hormones, a controversial treatment which is used to halt the process of puberty. Many trans activists argue that puberty blockers enable youth to put the “pause” button on their development, and enable them to have better aesthetic outcomes with medical transitioning.
The children studied, aged between 12 and 15, were observed over the course of three years. When the study was first published in 2021, it concluded that taking puberty blockers resulted in “no changes in psychological function” to the minors who took them. As a result of the findings, the National Health Service (NHS) lowered the age in which puberty blockers could be offered.
However, the conclusion that there was “no change” in the mental health of the children is now under scrutiny and may have given an incomplete perspective. It has now been revealed that the results came from analyzing the data by taking the mean figures, ignoring outliers and inflating the average.
A new analysis of the data by Professor Susan McPherson and David Freedman has now been released, revealing that a plurality of the children, 37%, reported no change in their mental health, while 34% reported a deterioration, and only 29% reported an improvement.
The new findings have sparked controversy amongst child safeguarding advocates, who have long refuted suggestions from trans activists that “gender affirming care saves lives.”
In 2020, the NHS quietly reversed its position on puberty blockers after having previously declared that halting puberty was a “completely reversible” process. Shortly after, in 2022, the youth gender identity clinic at Tavistock was shuttered after being deemed “unsafe for children.” Youth in England claiming to be transgender can now can only be prescribed puberty blockers as part of clinical trials.
The wider class of drugs euphemistically referred to “puberty blockers” are the same medications given to chemically castrate recidivist sex offenders, and sex abusers of children in particular. This has caused some medical professionals to directly state that the use of these drugs in children is akin to the “chemical castration of minors.”
