Thousands of US children with gender dysphoria mental illness received controversial drug treatments

Providers of the treatments seek to portray the numbers as "low"

• A new “research letter” published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics is being used to wage a political battle against opponents of controversial hormones and puberty blockers for gender dysphoria

• Advocates are hoping to influence an upcoming Supreme Court decision relevant to the controversy

• JAMA receives most of its advertising money from pharmaceutical companies

• The authors of the research letter seek to portray the number of children receiving the drugs as “low.”

• After a comprehensive review, the UK recently banned puberty blockers for children who wish to be the opposite sex

• Doctors in the European Union have found “there is no robust empirical evidence” that puberty blockers help more than they hurt

From 2018 to 2022, thousands of US children were given puberty blockers or hormones as treatment for the mental illness known as gender dysphoria. That’s according to a newly published research letter that attempted to quantify how common the controversial treatments are.

Scientists say patients with gender dysphoria are identified by their desire to become the opposite sex, and may feel as though they are in the “wrong body.”

Studies have indicated that many factors are contributing to hormone disruption in humans. These include medicine, pesticides, plastics, and other chemicals in food and water.

There’s been a great deal of controversy over treating children who have this form of mental illness with medical treatments and procedures to make them look like the opposite sex. Advocates call it “gender affirming” treatment, while opponents call it “gender denying” treatment.

Read on for details.

The analysis in the research letter, published by advocates for the treatments, portray the numbers of children receiving drugs as “low.” The analysis is being used by the authors and the media to claim that it proves Republicans and other opponents have exaggerated how many children are actually getting the treatments.

According to the article, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics, the numbers were gathered from the records of five million privately-insured children aged 8-17. Among them, nearly 1,000 (926) adolescents were given puberty blocking drugs from 2018 through 2022, and nearly 2,000 (1,927) were given hormones. JAMA reportedly gets most of its advertising revenue from drug companies.

In the article, the authors write “Despite its safety and effectiveness, gender-affirming medical care for adolescents who identify as [transgender] is a polarizing topic.”

But in fact, this is contrary to many scientists who have found there is little reliable safety and effectiveness data on the use of these controversial interventions. Puberty blocker are not FDA approved for gender dysphoria, and are being prescribed in so-called off-label use.

After a comprehensive national review, the United Kingdom recently concluded: “There is not enough evidence to support the safety of clinical effectiveness of puberty suppressing hormones to make the treatment routine at this time.”

“The government got Dr. Hilary Cass, a pediatrician, to review the literature,” says British analyst David Cowling. “She did a review and found very shaky evidence for puberty blockers, very shaky evidence for medical procedures. And she said that, you know, in her judgment, looking at all the evidence, that it was far better for kids under 18, young people under 18 to be left alone in the sense of not being given puberty blockers not be given transformative medical surgeries.”

Political leaders on both left and right in Great Britain have said they support this conclusion.

More broadly, the European Academy of Pediatrics agrees. The group says, “The fundamental question of whether biomedical treatments [including hormone therapy] for gender dysphoria are effective remains contested” and “there is no robust empirical evidence that puberty blockers reduce suicidality or suicide rates.”

When it comes to surgery, the Academy writes: “In Europe, unlike the US, both radical and more cosmetic transgender surgery seems confined mainly to adults with capacity.our view as pediatricians is that it is correct to defer irreversible surgery until adulthood.”

In Great Britain, the Tavistock clinic in London became the source of controversy when whistleblowers stepped forward to criticize the way they were treating children with gender dysmorphia. The clinic was shut down last March.