I noticed an article about puberty blockers on Daily Caller, that I thought would be really useful in a debate. Normally, transing kids involves 1) social transitioning, 2) puberty blockers, 3) hormone replacement therapy, 4) sex mutilation surgery. Pro-transing doctors often tell parents that puberty blockers are “reversible”. But are they really?

The article says:

Prominent World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) physicians acknowledged that puberty blockers are more invasive than portrayed in the media and can have irreversible effects on minors such as infertility, bone loss and disruption of brain development, according to WPATH educational sessions obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

WPATH is a transgender medical organization that has published influential clinical guidance for the sex reassignment industry, called Standards of Care, which recommend children receive puberty suppression, cross sex hormones and sex reassignment surgery. However, during educational sessions recorded in September 2022 that were part of a transgender medicalization certification program offered to WPATH licensed clinicians, WPATH doctors revealed that the consequences of puberty blockers for minors are often far more disruptive than portrayed in the media.

Calcium stores:

In an educational session titled “Foundations in Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy: Adults and Adolescents,” Dr. Daniel Metzger, a WPATH certified pediatric endocrinologist, explained how puberty blockers impede adolescents from developing the calcium stores needed to prevent osteoporosis later in life.

Brain development:

“Obviously teenagers, their brains are changing. They’re unwiring, they’re rewiring. And if we’ve started one kid unwiring and half rewiring, and then we changed their puberty the other way and we’re unwiring, people have been trying to figure out what this does for kids’ brains,” said Metzger.

“They seem to do reasonably the same as their friends but we’re not looking at their IQ and their learning ability and lots of other things.”

Fertility:

During a question and answer segment, Metzger discussed the impact of puberty blockers on a child’s fertility, explaining how puberty blockers stop males from developing sperm. He said it was unknown if girls placed on puberty blockers during the initial stages of puberty, as recommended by WPATH, would have eggs mature enough for fertility preservation.

“Kids have zero idea about their fertility,” said Metzger.

Reversible?

During a session titled, “Foundations in Clinical Care for Transgender and Gender Diverse Adolescents,” Dr. Scott Leibowitz, a co-lead in the development of the adolescent chapter of the WPATH Standards of Care and member of the WPATH Board of Directors, challenged the reversibility of puberty suppression.

“I think when we just say, ‘Oh puberty blockers are just reversible and it’s a very noninvasive treatment,’ I would say it’s more invasive than often times the media makes it out to be or other people,” he said.

Leibowitz explained how puberty blockers suppress the release of sex hormones (estrogen and testosterone) that cause puberty, stopping puberty and the essential brain and bone maturation that occurs during pubertal development, calling the body’s need for binary sex hormones a challenge.

“There’s challenges with puberty suppression that we have to acknowledge and that’s why it’s ‘reversible asterisks,’” Leibowitz said. “One cannot be on puberty suppression endlessly. You get to a place where physiologically we need hormones.”

So, the take-away lesson from this is that puberty blockers are less reversible and more invasive than is portrayed by the media. And that’s according to the people who know the most about it, and who push for it the most.