An influential American physician has admitted to delaying, for nine years, the publication of a taxpayer-funded study on the mental health effects of puberty blockers in youth with gender dysphoria for fear that the results could be used to support prohibitions of so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors.
Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a leading Los Angeles physician who runs the largest youth gender clinic in the United States, told the New York Times that she and her colleagues have delayed publication of results from a two-year-long study funded by the National Institutes of Health because they worried that the findings would be used by critics of transgender procedures for minors.
“I do not want our work to be weaponized,” Olson-Kennedy told the publication.
The nearly $10 million study followed the development of 95 children from across the country to see if their mental health improved following treatment with puberty blockers.
Olson-Kennedy said that treatment with puberty blockers did not lead to mental health improvements, likely because the children were doing well when the study began.
“They’re in really good shape when they come in, and they’re in really good shape after two years,” she said.
But the unpublished findings contradict preliminary research released by Olson-Kennedy and colleagues in 2022, which found approximately a quarter of adolescents were depressed or suicidal before starting either puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.
It also contradicts the seminal Dutch study that has become the foundation for most gender clinics worldwide, which concluded that puberty blockers significantly improve the mental well-being of children with gender dysphoria.
Olson-Kennedy is the medical director for the Center for Transyouth Health and Development through Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
According to the Stop The Harm database, produced by the medical advocacy group Do No Harm, the CTYHD, between 2019 and 2023, prescribed 103 minor patients cross-sex hormone or puberty blocker therapies, as well as performed 165 cross-sex surgical procedures on minors.
Improving research on the efficacy of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone therapies has been a point of contention within the medical community in the United States and internationally as transgender medicine for minors increasingly becomes a point of political contention.
Multiple European countries, including those that pioneered “gender-affirming care” techniques, have begun reversing course on hormonal therapies for minors, citing a lack of longitudinal medical evidence to support their use.
In the United Kingdom, renowned pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass in April published an extensive report on the efficacy of hormonal therapies for youth with gender dysphoria. The report found that there has consistently been weak evidence for puberty blockers and noted significant risks for the treatment protocol, including future problems with bone growth, fertility, and cognitive development.
The Cass report prompted the U.K. National Health Service to stop prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for gender dysphoric patients outside of a new clinical trial aimed at gathering long-term data.
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Nearly half of all U.S. states have enacted some sort of prohibition on gender transition medicine for minors, including several that have banned the use of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria.
The Supreme Court on Dec. 4 is set to hear oral arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. It will be the first time that the Supreme Court will weigh in on transgender issues.