CV NEWS FEED // A pro-“transgender” doctor is postponing publishing her research that indicated puberty blockers do not improve children’s mental health, the New York Times reported on October 23.
According to her physician’s profile on the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy “has been providing medical intervention for transgender youth and young adults including puberty suppression and cross sex hormones for the past 16 years, and is considered a national expert in this area.”
The two year long study Olson-Kennedy led was a part of the “Impact of Early Medical Treatment in Transgender Youth” project which, to date, has received $9.6 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study started in 2015.
Olson-Kennedy told the Times that the data from the study is not published because “I do not want our work to be weaponized. It has to be exactly on point, clear and concise. And that takes time.”
Olson-Kennedy “said the findings might fuel the kind of political attacks that have led to bans of the youth gender treatments in more than 20 states, one of which will soon be considered by the Supreme Court,” Azeen Ghorayshi reported in the Times.
Another reason for the delay in publication, according to Olson-Kennedy, is that the NIH lessened some of the project’s funding.
Ghorayshi reported that in the study involved 95 children, whose average age was 11, who were subjected to puberty blockers. These children reportedly were experiencing gender dysphoria at the time of the study’s beginning, and Olson-Kennedy’s proposed hypothesis was that after two years on puberty blockers, the children would show improved mental health.
The results did not match the hypothesis. Olson-Kennedy told the Times that the study found that the puberty blockers did not improve the children’s mental health. She claimed this was because the children had good mental health when the study started.
“They’re in really good shape when they come in, and they’re in really good shape after two years,” Olson-Kennedy told the Times.
Ghorayshi pointed out that an earlier report by Olson-Kennedy’s research group detailing “the initial psychological profile of the children” in the study indicates otherwise. The report published in 2020 states that 7.9% of the children in the study reported a previous suicide attempt and almost one fourth of them had reported having suicide ideation within their lifetime. Further, 28.6% of the children showed “elevated depression symptoms,” and 22.1% showed “clinically significant anxiety.”
In response to follow-up emails from the Times asking about this difference, Olson-Kennedy explained that “in the interview, [Olson-Kennedy] was referring to data averages and that she was still analyzing the full data set,” Ghoraysh reported.
Olson-Kennedy told the Times that she does plan to publish the data from the study, but no timeline for publication was reported.
In April, a United Kingdom-based report on treatment of children and teens experiencing gender dysphoria stated in its findings that “[N]o changes in gender dysphoria or body satisfaction were demonstrated” through puberty blocker interventions, according to a previous CatholicVote report.
The overview of the report also states: “The rationale for early puberty suppression remains unclear, with weak evidence regarding the impact on gender dysphoria, mental or psychosocial health.”
>> Finnish Study: ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ Does Not Reduce Youth Suicide <<
Also in April, the Vatican released the declaration Dignitas Infinita, which addresses issues including sex change and gender theory.
The declaration quotes Pope Francis, who said, “We are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created.’” Dignitas Infinita then states, “It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.”
