An influential doctor and advocate of adolescent gender treatment has said he was unable to publish much-anticipated research into puberty-blocking drugs because of America’s difficult political environment.
Physician Johanna Olson-Kennedy began the study in 2015 as part of a broader multimillion-dollar federal project on transgender youth. She and her colleagues recruited 95 children from across the country and gave them puberty blockers. This prevents permanent physical changes, such as changes in the breasts or deepening of the voice, that can worsen gender problems known as gender dysphoria.
Researchers followed the children for two years to see if the treatment improved their mental health. An old Dutch study found that puberty blockers improved feelings of well-being, and the results prompted clinics around the world to routinely prescribe the drugs as part of what is now being called gender-affirming care. This gave me an opportunity to do so.
But similar trends have not been seen in American trials, Dr. Olson-Kennedy said in a wide-ranging interview. Puberty blockers did not lead to improvements in mental health, perhaps because the children were already doing well when the study began, she said.
“They’re doing very well when they come in, and they’re doing very well two years later,” said Dr. Olson Kennedy, who runs the nation’s largest youth gender clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
This conclusion seemed to contradict previous descriptions of this group, in which Dr. Olson-Kennedy and colleagues noted that a quarter of the adolescents were depressed or suicidal before treatment.
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