The US should follow England in banning ‘irreversible’ puberty blockers for children under 18 years old, senators and doctors told DailyMail.com today.
England’s national health service revealed Tuesday it would no longer prescribe the drugs to patients with gender dysphoria under 18 after finding there was not enough evidence about how safe they are or whether they are clinically effective.
The UK government welcomed what it described as a ‘landmark decision’, saying it was ‘in the best interests of children’.
Now US doctors and politicians have told this website it should serve as a a ‘wake up call’ to the health industry in America — which continues to back the use of hormone drugs for trans children. Some also urged doctors to be more cautious about when they prescribe puberty blockers.
Senator Roger Marshall from Kansas, who is also a physician, said: ‘For many children, the NHS’ ruling will be too little too late, but I am proud to see science and, quite frankly, common sense prevail in the UK.
‘Now, let my message to America and the radical gender ideologues be clear: Wake up.
Chloe Cole, 18, who transitioned to male at 13 before later regretting her decision at 16, says breast removal operations on trans kids are ‘like Nazi-era experiments’. She also regrets taking puberty blockers at the age of 13 years
Kansas senator and physician Roger Marshall said that common sense was prevailing in the UK, and urged the US to follow suit
‘The irreversible and irreparable damage these drugs have on kids is dangerous and is medical malpractice to perform and prescribe to children.’
The US is increasingly becoming an outlier with its treatments for transgender youths. Other European countries including Sweden and Denmark have also rolled back their use for under-18s.
Dr Jane Orient, an internal medicine physician in Arizona, also described the decision in the UK as a ‘wake up call’ for the US.
She said: ‘Puberty blockers for children are drugs that are meant to be used for those undergoing cancer treatment or for precocious puberty.’
She added that they have not been studied extensively in trans children for safety or efficacy.
Dr Orient added: ‘They may be touted as reversible, but they almost certainly are not.
‘They delay growth and they delay intellectual development as well, so the result is likely to not only be sterility but also interference with the brain.’
Known medically as gonadotrophin-releasing hormone analogues, puberty blockers were invented to stop early puberty in very young children — when it strikes when they were as young as three years old — and for cancer patients.
But they are also now used ‘off label’ for transgender care in children because of their ability to delay the physical changes of puberty — such as the development of breasts or a deeper voice.
Many doctors warn over their use in this group — saying there are few studies on the long-term impacts the drugs have.
But there are suggestions they can cause everything from ‘irreparable changes’ to the body to delaying growth and leading to fertility issues.
Dr Erica Anderson, a psychologist and trans women in California who helped advise the UK’s review of its gender-affirming care, said she was ‘surprised’ by the country’s health service decision to go as far as no longer offering puberty blockers.
She added, however: ‘We should be extremely cautious when it comes to how we regard the gender questioning of young people.
‘In individual situations, we do have a child that is persistently trans and that is deserving of whatever support we can give them.
‘But what has happened, and this is not well understood internationally, is that there has been a departure from the practice where we wait until a little later in puberty to initiate puberty blockers.’
She said: ‘Early innovators using them with gender issues with children used to wait until [around 13 to 14 for natal girls and 15 to 16 for natal boys].
‘But in America, people are rallying around the use of them at the very beginning too — and that is where some of the issues come concerning bone mineralization, development of genitalia and, of course, fertility.’
She added: ‘We don’t have the kind of research, we don’t have the kind of solid evidence on the safety and efficacy of puberty blockers.’
Elon Musk also tweeted about the news
Puberty blocker prescriptions are continuing to rise in the United States
More and more children are also being prescribed hormone therapy
About 300,000 children under the age of 18 years are estimated to be transgender in the US.
There are no good estimates for how many are on puberty blockers, but data shows a total of 17,800 prescriptions for puberty blockers or hormone treatments were started among children from 2017 to 2021.
Doctors may offer the drugs alongside other treatments such as hormones, which can make the body appear more masculine or feminine, as well as surgeries.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says transgender care — including puberty blockers — is vital for children whose gender does not match the one they were assigned at birth and can reduce the risk of suicides.
Other top medical organizations in the US including the American Medical Association and the Endocrine Society also support their use in children.
The FDA approved the drugs in 1993 for use in children with early puberty, also allowing doctors to prescribe them ‘off label’ to treat gender dysphoria.
Dr Marshall also claimed issue had been overly politized in the US.
He told DailyMail.com: ‘The embrace by the left of child mutilation surgeries and hormone cocktails like puberty blockers to adolescents is morally wrong and a slap in the face to our profession as physicians and all of us who take an oath to ‘above all, do no harm’.
‘These dark days in American history will have long-lasting and devastating consequences.’
Dr Anderson said: ‘I have been hoping for some time that the authorities would pay attention to the concerns I have been raising and conduct a review of the evidence, as in the UK and in Europe.
‘Some of my colleagues in the US have rebuffed the idea that Europe and the UK can teach us anything.
‘I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to hear some people proclaim that the science is settled about gender use care for minors. It is not. Science is never settled.’
Harms from the drugs include delayed growth, weaker bones and sterility among others because of their impact on hormones.
The Mayo Clinic says it can also lead to the genitals not growing, which they said can cause issues at a later date for gender-affirming surgeries.
The UK has shuttered its gender health identity clinic, the Travistock Center (pictured), which was run by the NHS
A rising number of detransitioners — who regret having the irreversible procedure — have also come forward in recent months and claimed they were not challenged enough as children.
A US patient who received the drugs at age 13 years, after expressing gender dysphoria at age 12, said she later regretted taking them.
Chloe Cole, from California, said she was co-erced into taking the drugs — and warned last year that other minors were being pushed into similar treatments.
One ex-patient given the drugs in the UK said yesterday it was ‘insane’ that children were ever allowed to take the medications.
Keira Bell, who previously took the NHS to the High Court claiming she had not been challenged enough before being prescribed puberty blockers at just 16, said more investigation was needed into how these drugs were ever considered safe in the first place.
‘It is insane that these drugs were ever offered on a national publicly funded health service, which is supposed to be entirely evidence-based and a service that provides assured safety and care,’ she told a local publication.
Other doctors who spoke to DailyMail.com on condition of anonymity also praised England for the move, warning over the harms the drugs can do to children.
Elon Musk also reacted to the announcement last night, saying: ‘Puberty blockers aka sterilization drugs will no longer be prescribed to children in Britain, due to potentially severe negative effects.’
The National Health Service (NHS) move in the UK means puberty blockers will now only be available via clinical research trials in the country. They could also be obtained from private clinics.
The NHS made the move after a public consultation on the use of the drugs and an independent review of gender identity services for under-18s in the country.
The review — commissioned in 2020 — was prompted by a surge in referrals to gender identity clinics to more than 5,000 children from 2021 to 2022 compared to under 250 a decade earlier.
The NHS decision is not an outright ban on the drugs, just a new routine for prescribing.
The some 100 children already receiving the drugs will be allowed to continue their treatment to its conclusion.
The health service is also planning to launch a clinical trial using the drugs by the end of the year, to further evaluate their risks and effects.
UK health minister Maria Caulfield welcomed the move, saying: ‘We have always been clear that children’s safety and wellbeing is paramount, so we welcome this landmark decision by the NHS.
‘Ending the routine prescription of puberty blockers will help ensure that care is based on evidence, expert clinical opinion and is in the best interests of the child.’
Jay Richards, a research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington DC, said: ‘It’s good news that the NHS has announced that it will no longer prescribe puberty blockers to minors for ‘gender-affirming interventions’ — which, in effect, are often sex-erasing.
‘Gender-transition partisans have claimed for years that these drugs are reversible pause buttons for gender-dysphoric kids.
‘In fact, they are very often irreversible fast-forward buttons. They can harm the physical and intellectual development of children and put them on a different timeline from all their peers.’
A spokeswoman for the Endocrine Society added: ‘More research data is always welcome to help ensure the highest quality medical care is being provided to transgender and gender-diverse individuals.
‘Several European countries have taken this approach.
‘Making gender-affirming care available via clinical trial does not present an issue as long as the process doesn’t unnecessarily delay or restrict access to evidence-based care.’
Dr Jennifer Osipoff, a pediatric endocrinologist who treats transgender children, told this website that England had made a ‘very dangerous decision’.
‘As a pediatric endocrinologist, I use these puberty blockers frequently both for what they were developed for as well as in my gender dysphoric population.
‘I’ve seen huge improvements in children’s mental health on the drugs.
‘I’ve seen kids literally contemplating their life while going through puberty changes they are not comfortable with change before my eyes and become much more happy and outgoing and productive members of society.’
