Penna Dexter

Results from a study on the effects of giving cross-sex hormones to young people who identify as transgender were published in the January edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. Cross-sex hormones, described in the article as “gender-affirming hormones,” have the effect of changing people’s bodily characteristics to resemble more closely those of the opposite sex.

The study, entitled “Psychosocial Functioning in Transgender Youth After 2 Years of Hormones,” analyzed 315 participants between the ages of 12 and 20. Of this group, 240 were minors.

The study is being funded by the National Institutes of Health in the form of a five-year grant to Boston Children’s Hospital, the University of California at San Francisco, and Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Summarizing the results, the article states that “appearance, congruence, positive affect, and life satisfaction increased, and depression and anxiety symptoms decreased.”

The authors tout the study’s ‘successes’ even though they acknowledge that two participants committed suicide and eleven experienced “suicidal ideation,” which means they thought about it.

Fifteen members of Congress wrote to the NIH of their “grave concerns” about this government-funded experimentation on children. They asked 14 pointed questions including: Why wasn’t the research halted “after the first and second deaths?”

Pediatric Endocrinologist Quentin Van Meter told Washington Watch host Tony Perkins, that every one of the cross-sex hormone drugs being given to minors “has adverse consequences.” He said, “these poor individuals not only are sterile, but they are sexually incompetent….their organs are fried.”  He pointed to these hormones’ adverse effects on brain development and adolescent bone density.

As former president of the American College of Pediatricians, Dr. Van Meter has witnessed European countries begin to restrict gender transition procedures as they realize how ineffective, and likely detrimental, they are to mental health.

Tony Perkins brought up the 1930s Tuskegee syphilis study on black men. A shameful study, it should also be remembered with “shock and horror.”