Puberty blockers are "a terrible trap"

A University of Otago epidemiologist breaks New Zealand’s shameful media silence

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

If you have a friend who still believes that puberty blockers are ‘safe and reversible’, consider buying them a copy of the December 2023 edition of North and South magazine.

Overseas, mainstream media has repeatedly highlighted the dangers of youth medical transition.  (Medical transition is the use of artificial hormones and surgeries to mimic the superficial appearance of the opposite sex). Here in New Zealand, with few exceptions, the mainstream media has uncritically promoted these unproven medical treatments. This has meant that people who read mostly local media have often been unaware of how controversial these treatments are.

That’s why it’s wonderful to see University of Otago emeritus professor Charlotte Paul speaking out about this issue. It’s even better to see her article appear in North and South, a venerable part of the establishment media that can be found in newsagents across the country.

Dr Paul’s article, “A terrible trap”, will help bring many of the issues I’ve written about in this Substack to mainstream attention. Her strong academic credentials support her article’s credibility and make her arguments hard to dismiss. While I encourage you to buy the magazine and read the full article, here are a few of the key points she makes.

Youth medical transition is widespread in New Zealand

I’ve previously described evidence suggesting that youth medical transition is a particularly serious problem in New Zealand, compared with overseas. Dr Paul describes similar findings:

New Zealand is becoming more of an outlier in our increasing use of puberty blocking hormones. In 2022, 416 young people aged 12-17 were taking puberty blocking hormones, compared to 48 in 2011, the first year of use for gender dysphoria. We have 11 times the rate of use as England: 110 per 100,000 versus 9 per 100,000. We also have no minimum age for prescribing... Comparison with Australian gender clinics... shows a levelling off there since 2018, while New Zealand use continues to increase exponentially.

Many New Zealand medical professionals feel bullied into silence

As Dr Paul points out, outlets such as the British Medical Journal, the Economist, and the Australian have all sounded the alarm about gender medicine. Many doctors here are well aware of the controversy, so why haven’t more spoken out publicly? Dr Paul explains:

Wholly understandable sympathy among doctors for children who identify as trans has led to guidelines and practices that are frankly misleading and likely to do more harm than good... Last year, I wrote at the urging of younger medical colleagues who feared being labelled as transphobic if they spoke out. They were seeing young people in their clinics who had changed their minds about wanting to transition away from their biological sex and were left with their serious mental health problems unaddressed...

Since I wrote, dozens of people have shared with me their disquiet about puberty blockers for children, and also about cross-sex hormones (testosterone for those born as girls and oestrogens for boys) for young people who were transitioning... A GP wrote: “Like others I am very afraid that in the guise of helping, medicine may risk doing considerable harm”. Another welcomed my “acknowledgement that a lot of clinicians are fearful of speaking up”... The most troubling responses were from parents who felt sidelined by clinicians who had encouraged their children down a medical path... 

Our education system is making this problem worse

I’ve previously argued that the promotion of gender ideology by our schools and libraries is contributing to youth gender distress. Dr Paul makes a similar point:

We are teaching children in school that biological sex is not binary, they were assigned their sex at birth, they have a “gender identity” - an inner sense of being male or female - they might have been born in the wrong body, and they can change sex. As a consequence, among the longitudinal study Growing Up in New Zealand cohort, aged 12, 8 percent of children who were born girls now report seeing themselves as transgender or gender diverse: “a boy, mostly a boy, or somewhere in the middle”, and 1.5% of those born boys reported the converse.

Young people who are harmed by medical transition need to report it

Helpfully, Dr Paul points out that young people harmed by gender medicine have avenues to report the damage done to them, and contribute to positive change:

Many clinicians in New Zealand have contacted health authorities to voice their concerns; more should do so. Parents and people who regret youth transition are able to take complaints to the [Health and Disability Commissioner (HDC)]; the Commissioner should be prepared to investigate them. The Medical Council should also uphold its standards for the profession.

Medsafe, the medicines regulator, is responsible for monitoring the safety of medicines and receives notifications of adverse effects. Every person who regrets medical transition (or their doctor) can notify this confidentially as an adverse effect to Medsafe (via the Centre for Adverse Reactions monitoring - pophealth.my.site.com/carmreportnz).

Most people are probably unaware of these avenues for complaint. While Dr Paul reports that both the HDC and the Medical Council have declined to investigate existing complaints, it’s vital that people keep trying. If you know someone who’s been harmed by gender medicine, please consider sharing this information with them.

Change is urgent

Meanwhile, our health system is carrying on, seemingly oblivious to the concerns raised by Dr Paul and many other researchers and clinicians. Health NZ recently revealed plans to fund even easier access to cross-sex hormones and other medical transition services, presumably including for minors. Their request for proposal instructs providers that “We want decisions around the provision of gender-affirming healthcare to be driven by service users”. In other words, they are planning to further extend the disturbing lack of safeguarding that I’ve written about in previous articles (and that is also noted by Dr Paul).

Dr Paul closes her article by calling for an independent review of gender medicine in New Zealand. We can only hope that our new government will be receptive to this call.

Update: If you’re a member of a public library, you may be able to read ‘A terrible trap’ and other North and South articles for free using the Libby app. Here are links to instructions for accessing Libby through Auckland, Christchurch, and Wellington public libraries.