In a shocking turn of events, a renowned American doctor has admitted to delaying the publication of the study on the mental health effects of puberty blockers in youth with gender dysphoria for nine years, fearing that the findings of this taxpayer-funded study would be “weaponised” and used to justify restrictions on so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors. This fear stemmed from the fact that the study showed puberty blockers treatment did not result in improved mental health of the subjects.
Speaking to the New York Times, Dr Johanna Olson-Kennedy, who runs the largest youth gender clinic in the US, said that she and her colleagues had postponed the publication of findings from a two-year-long study funded by the National Institutes of Health because they were concerned that the findings would be “weaponised” and used by opponents of transgender procedures for minors.
“I do not want our work to be weaponized,” Dr Johanna Olson-Kennedy said.
This $10 million taxpayer-funded study tracked the growth of 95 children from throughout the country to determine if their mental health improved after receiving puberty blockers. Olson-Kennedy claimed that treatment with puberty blockers did not result in mental health benefits, most likely because the children were doing well when the trial started.
However, the unreported data contradict an earlier study published by Olson-Kennedy and colleagues in 2022, which revealed that roughly one-fourth of the children were depressed or suicidal before receiving either puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.
“Elevated depression symptoms were endorsed by 28.6% of GnRHa cohort youth, and 22.1% endorsed clinically significant anxiety. About a quarter (23.6%) endorsed lifetime suicidal ideation, with 7.9% reporting a past suicide attempt,” the 2022 Psychosocial Characteristics of Transgender Youth Seeking Gender-Affirming Medical Treatment report reads.
Notably, Olson-Kennedy is the medical director of the Centre for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. As per the data on Stop The Harm, created by the medical advocacy organisation Do No Harm, during 2019 and 2023, the CTYHD prescribed 103 minor patients cross-sex hormone or puberty blocker therapy and performed 165 cross-sex surgical procedures on children. The numbers are outrageous given her own research shows that puberty blockers do not help mental health and yet Olson-Kennedy fears that the critics of puberty blockers will ‘weaponize’ it against them.
Olson-Kennedy also confessed that she feared that the study’s findings about the absence of mental health improvements would be used in court to argue that “we shouldn’t use blockers.” She also blamed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and ‘politics’ for a cut in funding to justify the delay in revealing the research findings, however, the NIH refuted Olson-Kennedy’s claims.
Notably, Puberty blockers or simply hormone blockers, are drugs used to delay the beginning of puberty in children, especially those suffering from gender dysphoria. These blockers temporarily restrict the release of sex hormones, preventing the development of secondary sexual traits such as breasts or facial hair.
While the woke doctor is blatantly defending the deliberate delay in publishing the findings of the research, one of her fellow researchers has said that “the decision flies in the face of research standards and deprives the public of really important science in a field where Americans remain firmly divided,” as NYPost reported.
The reports of Dr Johanna Olson-Kennedy causing a deliberate delay in publishing the research results since it indicated that there were no mental health improvements in the children has triggered outrage.
JK Rowling, the Harry Potter author who is often in headlines for her strong opinions on gender identity politics criticised Olson-Kennedy in a sarcastic post saying, “We must not publish a study that says we’re harming children because people who say we’re harming children will use the study as evidence that we’re harming children, which might make it difficult for us to continue harming children.“