Top pediatric doctors admit that puberty blockers are not “as reversible” or “non-invasive” as “the media touts them,” according to a video obtained by the Pediatric Society. Daily Caller News Foundation.
In an educational session conducted by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, a medical group, prominent doctors warned that puberty blockers can cause harmful side effects in minors, including infertility, bone loss, and impaired brain development. DCNF has confirmed that there is.
The group says it supports so-called “gender-affirming care” for children, including prescribing puberty-suppressing drugs, cross-sex hormones and sex-amputation surgeries. standard of care. However, a September 2022 education session obtained by the news organization revealed that the organization's doctors acknowledged that these interventions are not completely harmless for minors.
In a session titled “Fundamentals of Gender-affirming Hormone Therapy: Adults and Adolescents,” Dr. Daniel Metzger, a WPATH-certified pediatric endocrinologist, spoke about how puberty blockers interfere with calcium stores in children, according to a DCNF report. expressed concern.
“Usually, adolescence is when you put your calcium in the piggy bank. This is how I explain it to my family. Calcium is in your piggy bank. You better get it all by age 25. At 25, you lose calcium. 'They live on that piggy bank,''' Metzger said.
“Puberty blockers significantly slow down the accumulation of calcium in the bones, returning it to prepubertal levels. If you look at a 22-year-old today, if you do all of these things, your health will improve. Even if you want to take hormones by the age of 22, you'll go back to those hormones. They haven't caught up to the age of 22. Now is the time to fill up your piggy bank. What's concerning about this is that not everyone has a full piggy bank. It’s filled with calcium,” he continued.
Metzger also acknowledged that not much is known about how puberty blockers affect brain development in minors.
“Obviously, teenagers' brains are changing. They're unwiring and rewiring. And you unwire some kids, rewire half of them, and then you're going through their adolescence. “If we reversed it and we unwired it, people are trying to figure out what effect this has on a child's brain,” he added. “They seem to be doing reasonably well as their friends, but we don't take into account their IQ, learning ability, and many other things.”
Doctors pointed out that for a man to undergo sex reassignment surgery, he must develop enough genital tissue to surgically create female genitalia.
“When you think about vaginoplasty, creating a vagina in an assigned male, you need tissue, genital tissue, to create that vagina. And let's say we're working with an 11-year-old boy. . He doesn't have much genitalia. If we remove the tissue and stop puberty, we can stop the growth of a vagina in the future,” Metzger explained.
According to DCNF, in another educational session, “Fundamentals of Clinical Care for Transgender and Gender Diverse Youth,” WPATH Board Member Dr. Scott Liebowitz said that puberty blockers are not as effective as they are advertised. It was argued that it was not recoverable.
“Just saying, 'Puberty blockers are reversible and a very non-invasive treatment,' I think it's more invasive than the media and other people make it out to be.” Leibowitz said.
“There is a challenge to adolescent oppression that we must acknowledge, which is why it has a 'reversible asterisk,'” he continued. “You can't suppress puberty forever. You reach a point where your hormones are physiologically necessary.”
According to Leibovitz, medical treatment should not be based solely on evidence. Instead, doctors should “ethics, human rights, [and] Justice for transgender people. ”
“There is an ethical human rights element to the treatment of people, as we have said, regardless of the basis of the evidence, evidence is part of it. We rely on evidence in all the treatment we do in medicine. That's not the case,” he said. “You have to look at the whole thing.”
Dr. Metzger, Dr. Scott Leibowitz, and WPATH did not respond to DCNF's requests for comment.
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