Articles Covering Medical Risks of Treating Trans Youth
News Commentary
GHQ is a pro-LGBT website. However, liberal-leaning news sites refuse to address any of the possible downsides to minors medically treated for gender dysphoria. Two recent articles on conservative news sites review some of these downsides. The problem with this dynamic is that it polarizes the issue in a way that it should not be. The overall health and safety of all youth should be the goal.
The article in The Federalist “Gender Clinic Doctor: Plenty Of Kids I’m Giving Trans Drugs Have Already Been Prostitutes” speaks to the precarious mental health of trans-identified youth who are being put on powerful hormones, often with little follow-up. It also speaks to the poor quality of Johanna Olson-Kennedy’s NIH study due to high rates of “lost to follow-ups.” This is a common problem in trans research.
At that conference Olson-Kennedy described the mental-health struggles of her cohort of patients. “Thirty percent of my sample had moderate to severe depression symptoms. Thought about suicide, 49 percent. . . . Attempted suicide, over 30 percent. . . . A lot of drug use . . . A lot of kids were sexually active, and a not insignificant number of my kids have actually done . . . sex work [prostitution].” Many patients, she reported, have been homeless or in foster care.
Olson-Kennedy also admitted that 40 percent of her patients, to whom presumably she administered GAT, were “lost” to follow-up since her previous study. Are these kids still even alive? We’ll never know, but the good doctor apparently is content to assume the best.
The conservative website PJ Media “Medical Expert: Doctors Are Actually Giving Trans Kids a Disease, and It's Child Abuse” reviews some of the realities of giving youth large doses of cross-sex hormones.
Some quotes about the side-effects of medical transition from Dr. Laidlaw, an endocrinologist:
"I call it a development blocker — it’s actually causing a disease," Dr. Michael Laidlaw, an independent private practice endocrinologist in Rocklin, Calif. who consults with Sutter Roseville Medical Center, told PJ Media. The disease in question is hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. It occurs when the brain fails to send the right signal to the gonads to make the hormones necessary for development…
While endocrinologists — doctors who specialize in hormones and the endocrine system — are familiar with the disease and gladly treat it when a patient has been diagnosed, many of them are effectively causing their patients to contract the same disease in an attempt to affirm gender identity, Laidlaw said…
When people are given far more of the opposite sex hormone than their bodies can handle, they are at "increased risk for cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular death, deep vein thrombosis. They’ve looked at adults taking these hormones and have seen already these cardiovascular risks." When these drugs are administered to children, "one would presume it's the same or even worse, in the long run."…
In a healthy human body, the pituitary gland "sends signals to the gonads to produce testosterone or estrogen." By preventing this natural secretion of hormones, Lupron in kids "blocks development of their organs, and their growth is stunted. If it’s started in early puberty, these kids will not develop mature sperm or eggs, they will be infertile. If they have gonads removed, they will be sterilized."
"They’re going to end up with lower bone density, perhaps stunted brain development," the doctor explained. "A lot of the brain impact is unknown. There seems to be some brain development that is sex hormone-dependent."
He comments on how young the children are who are on these drugs:
Indeed, two doctors involved in the transitioning of children, Ilana Sherer and Johanna Olson-Kennedy, explained in a video that they give "puberty blockers" to children at age 8 or 9, when they are in third and fourth grades. Olson-Kennedy has received a $5.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a 5-year study on mastectomies done on girls as young as 13. The documents unearthed due to Laidlaw's FOIA request showed the minimum age for cross-sex hormones in the study had been lowered to 8 in 2017.
It’s obvious in the tone of articles on sites like this that they are not supportive of LGBT issues. At times they even make statements that diminish the reality of trans people’s experiences. It would be in the best interests of dysphoric youth to have non-politicized discussions about the risks of medical transition in the news beyond right-wing websites.
Reference:
O'Niel, T. (2019, August 25). Medical Expert: Doctors Are Actually Giving Trans Kids a Disease, and It's Child Abuse. PJ Media. Retrieved from https://pjmedia.com/trending/medical-expert-doctors-are-actually-giving-trans-kids-a-disease-its-child-abuse/
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In Medical Effects Trans, Trans Youth Ethics Tags trans children & teens