Legal Insurrection readers may recall that in 2022, I did a safety assessment of drugs known as “puberty blockers” that were being given to children were staring “gender affirming care”. I specifically looked at the 2 compounds Planned Parenthood cited in their ads glamorizing the treatment and concluded:

I find it difficult to believe that the shrinking of organs, and effects like bone loss, are either “safe” or “irreversible.” Tweaking hormonal biochemistry in someone’s body on that scale is likely to affect blood pressure, sleep patterns, weight, and many other impacts. Just ask anyone who has experienced significant changes in their hormone levels via menopause!

Now a team at the Mayo Clinic has published a study that aligns with many of the same concerns I had over these questionable claims.

Mayo Clinic experts say puberty blockers can lead to withering testicles, fertility problems and even cancer among the trans kids who take them, in the latest study to raise alarm about transgender medicine.

The findings cast doubt on the ‘reversibility’ of puberty blockers — a key claim of the trans activists who promote the drugs, saying they only ‘pause’ puberty and buy time for trans kids to make decisions about their gender.

Instead, researchers say puberty blockers hurt the development of testicles and sperm production in ways that are not fully reversible and could affect users’ ability to have children when they grow up.

The drugs also lead to changes that have been linked with certain cancers.

In the case of one 12-year-old boy who was treated with puberty blockers for 14 months, nearly 60% of his sex glands became “fully atrophied,” and small clusters of calcium formed in his testicles, according to the study.

These calcium clusters are linked to cancer, several studies have found, although it is not clear whether they are a risk factor by themselves.

The study has not yet been peer-reviewed, and was published on Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s BioRxiv. BioRxiv sees two-thirds of its papers later published in peer-reviewed journals.

The samples used for the study come from the Mayo Clinic’s Pediatric Testicular Biobank for Fertility Preservation. The research aimed at focusing on identifying the actual impacts of puberty blockers on the young.

To address these unknowns, the Mayo Clinic has established the largest collection of testicular samples for patients aged 0-17 years, including those with gender dysphoria who have and have not yet received puberty blocker treatment, creating a database of over 130,000 individual cells for analysis.

Using a novel approach, the research team meticulously analyzed testicular tissue samples from youths undergoing puberty blocker treatment, with those not on puberty blocker treatment serving as controls. This comparison provides important insights into the potential cellular and molecular changes induced by these drugs.

Per the Mayo Clinic research team found mild-to-severe sex gland atrophy in puberty blocker (PB) treated children.

….[C]ombined with the noted gland atrophy and abnormalities from the histology data raise a potential concern regarding the complete ’reversibility’ and reproductive fitness of SSC [spermatogonial stem cell]. The biorepository, data, and research approach presented in this study provide unique opportunity to explore the impact of PB on testicular reproductive health.

Leor Sapir, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, cites other studies that also challenge the woke messaging on puberty blockers.

…The mental health benefits of puberty blockers are highly uncertain, according to multiple systematic reviews of the evidence, the bedrock of evidence-based medicine. The World Health Organization says the evidence is “limited and variable.” There is no research into long-term harms, but some evidence suggests decreased IQ and brittle bones.

Permanent sterility is guaranteed for minors who go through full hormonal “transition.” Sexual dysfunction appears to be extremely common as well. Over 93 percent of kids who take these drugs go on to cross-sex hormones, which lead to permanent physical changes including excruciating genital growth, vaginal atrophy and tearing and much higher risk for cancer and cardiovascular disease.

There is no credible evidence that puberty blockers function as suicide-prevention measures. Finland’s top gender clinician has called the suicide narrative “purposeful disinformation” and “dangerous.”

I will conclude this piece with the assessment of the French Senate on push for sex change procedures on youths.

French Senators want to ban gender transition treatments for under-18s, after a report described sex reassignment in minors as potentially “one of the greatest ethical scandals in the history of medicine”.

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