Mayo Clinic Says Puberty Blockers Hurt Trans Kids' Fertility

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.

'At the tissue level, we report mild-to-severe sex gland atrophy in puberty blocker-treated children,' the geneticist Nagarajan Kannan and others wrote in the 33-page study.

'We provide unprecedented histological evidence revealing detrimental pediatric testicular sex gland responses' to the drugs.

The study has not yet been peer-reviewed, but has been endorsed by Genspect, a global advocacy group against medical transitions, 'Harry Potter' author J K Rowling, Benjamin Ryan, a prominent science writer, and others.

It takes aim at one of the most controversial issues of our time — whether to provide drugs and surgery to kids who experience gender confusion or 'dysphoria' and ask their parents or doctors for help.

Puberty blockers were originally developed to suppress the hormones of minors who started puberty too early.

They are nowadays prescribed off-label to a fast-growing number of trans children.

Advocates of gender-affirming care, as it is known, say it's life-saving for a suicide-prone group, and that puberty blockers help pre-teens 'pause' their puberty and buy time to weigh life-altering decisions.

Critics warn of surging numbers of young people who identify as trans, and say puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries are often unnecessary and likely dangerous when counselling gets better results.