FDA quietly adds warning to the use of puberty blockers in children, but HHS continues to insist that the treatments are risk-free

The Food and Drug administration (FDA) has released a warning regarding potential dangers of puberty-blocking drugs, even as high-profile members of the Biden administration, medical associations, and LGBT activists continue to claim that “gender-affirming care” is safe and necessary.

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Quick Facts

• Critics have noted the risks of gender transitioning drugs for years.
• The FDA published a warning on puberty blockers after several children using the drugs were found to have brain swelling and other neurological symptoms.
• The Biden administration has nonetheless issued guidance endorsing gender transitions for minors while decrying state legislative efforts to block them.
• The Tavistock Clinic, the United Kingdom’s only gender clinic, is being shut down after an independent review found that providers there were rushing children into treatment.

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After years of pushing back on the contention that gender-affirming treatments are risky to children, the FDA has quietly and officially added a warning to gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists, also known as puberty blockers, in children. This happened after six girls, ages 5 to 12, treated with puberty blockers, were reported to have signs of pseudotumor cerebri, or elevated fluid pressure in the brain. The girls also experienced symptoms that included headache, nausea, blurred vision, and dizziness.

Puberty blockers are used to stop early-onset puberty, also known as precocious puberty, but they are also used in gender-affirming treatment. Five of the six girls were taking the drugs for precocious puberty and one was taking them for transgender affirmation. Onset of symptoms started 3 to 240 days after first taking the drugs.

The timing is particularly interesting, considering that the warning was actually published on July 1. This was more than two weeks before United States Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine criticized state laws that restrict the use of drugs and surgery to gender transition children, saying, “So we really want to base our treatment and to affirm and to support and empower these youths not to limit their participation in activities in sports and even limit their ability to get gender-affirmation treatment in their state.”

In fact, the administration knew about the cases months ago.

The evidence that these drugs are harmful goes back much further, however. Studies have shown that these drugs weaken bone density and cause sexual dysfunction. What’s more, those taking the drugs “reported greater self-harm with these particular medications, and girls exhibited greater emotional problems and dissatisfaction with their bodies.”

Numerous victims of predatory gender transition advocates and doctors have come forward expressing their regret at transitioning. Take the case of Keira Bell in the U.K. Bell was “treated” at the U.K.’s Tavistock Clinic when she was 16, later undergoing a double mastectomy. Her diagnosis was made with no psychological evaluation and no parental consent.

Bell would grow to regret her decision and filed suit against Tavistock. She said, “I made a brash decision as a teenager (as a lot of teenagers do), trying to find confidence and happiness, except now the rest of my life will be negatively affected.”

That same Tavistock Clinic is now being shut down after numerous whistleblowers accused the clinic of rushing children into gender transition treatments. Dr. Hillary Cass conducted a review of the clinic that found the clinic was ignoring broader mental health concerns in favor of an unquestioning affirmative approach.

She said, “The rationale for use of puberty blockers at Tanner Stage 2 of development was based on data that demonstrated that children, particularly birth-registered boys who had early gender incongruence, were unlikely to desist once they reached early puberty; this rationale does not necessarily apply to later-presenting young people, including the predominant referral group of birth-registered girls.”

She warned, “We do not fully understand the role of adolescent sex hormones in driving the development of both sexuality and gender identity through the early teen years, so by extension we cannot be sure about the impact of stopping these hormone surges on psychosexual and gender maturation. We therefore have no way of knowing whether, rather than buying time to make a decision, puberty blockers may disrupt that decision-making process.”

Cass added, “Brain maturation may be temporarily or permanently disrupted by puberty blockers, which could have significant impact on the ability to make complex risk-laden decisions, as well as possible longer-term neuropsychological consequences.”

The Tavistock Clinic will be closed while two other regional centers will be opened. “Staff [at regional centers] should maintain a broad clinical perspective in order to embed the care of children and young people with gender uncertainty within a broader child and adolescent health context,” Cass wrote.

Bell responded to the Tavistock closure by predicting, “Many children will be saved from going down the path that I went down.”

She added, “I went through a lot of distress as a teenager. Really I just needed some mental health support and therapy from everything that I’ve been through. There needs to be mental health support first and foremost.”

Despite the evidence showing that puberty blockers were harmful, the left and various medical groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, denied that there was any risk to gender-affirming treatment. Instead, they insisted that denying such treatment would lead children to commit suicide.

In March, the Biden administration issued guidance on gender-affirming treatments and criticized efforts by states to block the treatments on children. The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Population Affairs recommended the treatments as well, stating, “For transgender and nonbinary children and adolescents, early gender-affirming care is crucial to overall health and well-being as it allows the child or adolescent to focus on social transitions and can increase their confidence while navigating the healthcare system.”

The administration falsely claimed, “There is no scientifically sound research showing negative impacts from providing gender-affirming care.”

The Biden administration knew there were risks to puberty blockers in children. The evidence, though somewhat limited due to the experimental nature of such acts, has been clear for some time that puberty blockers were harmful.

However, did they really need evidence? Every drug has side effects, yet U.S. medical experts and others in positions of authority would have us believe that using drugs to stop puberty, giving massive amounts of cross-sex hormones to children, and surgically mutilating them is somehow safe and beneficial. The fact that there have been very few studies, and none conducted over the long-term, should have been more than enough reason for physicians and public health officials to act with extreme caution.

So why does the administration continue to lie and promote gender-affirming treatment in children? Why do LGBT groups continue to pour millions of dollars into pressure campaigns to generate praise for these treatments? Why the extensive recruiting of children, with government officials, teachers, the media, and activists telling them that their body is wrong and that they need drugs, hormones, and surgeries to be happy?

This isn’t about gender dysphoria, a legitimate mental health condition that affects a minute fraction of a percentage of the population, overwhelmingly male. Instead, we have a coordinated, intentional effort to reshape people, a transdemic. Since the pressure campaigns began, the number of children diagnosed with gender dysphoria has skyrocketed, but it’s not just males. Researchers predominantly are seeing young girls suddenly develop rapid-onset gender dysphoria, the commonality being that they spend a large amount of time on the Internet and social media and have a friend who has come out as transgender.

Society has invented its own undoing. Rather than nurturing its youth, mankind is experimenting on them. What we are left with are broken individuals rendered mutilated, sterile, and mentally inhibited.

In Genesis chapter 1, the Bible describes each day of creation, and each day God saw that what He created was good. However, when He created humans, He created them in His image and He created them male and female. After this, verse 31 tells us that God saw what He had made and determined that “it was very good.” What God made was very good, but in man’s attempt to remake man in his own image, he has taken God’s most cherished creation and made it something very tragic.

Only by resisting transgender ideology and by clinging to the truth of God’s Word, can mankind save itself from the imminent destruction that awaits.