A journalist described the moment researchers and the medical field first realized puberty blockers were not reversible, as they had been previously assured.
Hannah Barnes made the comments during a Monday appearance on the Triggernometry podcast. Barnes, a former journalist for the BBC, has reported extensively on the evolution of the UK medical community’s guidance for transgender-identified kids.
England’s National Health Service (NHS) officially announced plans to ban the use of puberty blockers for minors outside clinical settings in June 2023. The NHS shut down its only pediatric gender clinic, Tavistock Gender Clinic, in July 2022, announcing it would be replaced with regional holistic clinics focused on the mental challenges that gender-dysphoric children faced. The move signaled a more cautious approach towards offering kids puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex change surgeries.
“When was the moment that the medical community started to go, ‘there’s something very wrong going on here,'” host Francis Foster asked. (RELATED: Biden Surgeon General Pressed On Govt-Funded Transgender Study Where Two Participants Committed Suicide)
“It was really when the first bit of data came back from this study that had been done which challenged all the assumptions they had had about puberty blockers,” Barnes responded. “Because what this showed was that of those who had become old enough by that point, every single one of them had gone from the puberty blocker to cross-sex hormones, but also that there had been no psychological benefit from being on the puberty blocker. And so, for Dr. Ana Hutchinson, she describes learning that as her ‘holy fuck’ moment. Because it exploded everything that they were doing.”
‘Not Safe’: England To Shut Down Only Gender Clinic For Minors As Biden Pushes Child Sex Changes https://t.co/Ev9A6iUCN7
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Dr. Anna Hutchinson was a clinical psychologist at Tavistock and part of the research team that conducted a study on the long-term effects of puberty blockers for kids. While blockers are touted as a reversible way for children to deal with their gender dysphoria, the report found there was no positive effect on the patient’s feelings of gender dysphoria, body image, or thoughts of self-harm. More than that, the study found that patients experienced reduced growth in height and bone strength before the age of 16.
Doctors at Tavistock were reportedly pressured to adopt an affirmation-at-all-costs approach at the clinic and that the mental challenges these children faced were often ignored. Reports indicated that the wishes of transgender activists wielded incredible influence over the decisions of doctors at the clinic.