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Gender clinics ignore key studies

Medical treatment offers no benefit in terms of mental well-being and suicidality

Gender clinics prefer medical treatment, arguing that waiting longer is more dangerous and damaging, and mentioning suicide and mental wellbeing. In doing so, they are guilty of ignoring important studies.

• On January 2, 2023, there was the publication, “The Myth of Reliable Research in Pediatric Gender Medicine“, focuses on the two Dutch studies that gave rise to “gender-affirmative” care for youth worldwide. The authors convincingly demonstrate that rather than “solid prospective research” the Dutch research suffers from profound, previously unrecognized problems. These problems range from erroneously concluding that gender dysphoria disappeared as a result of “gender-affirmative treatment,” to reporting only the best-case scenario outcomes and failing to properly examine the risks, despite the fact that a significant proportion of the treated sample experienced adverse effects.
• The American Journal of Psychiatry (August 2020) published an extraordinary correction to a Karolinska Institute publication (Bränström & Pachankis 2019), which claimed to be the first to provide evidence of the long-term mental health benefits of biomedical treatment for adults. After correction, it was concluded that neither hormones nor surgery provide any benefit in terms of long-term mental health and suicidality. This is the largest objective study of its kind to date with fully recorded patient health data.
• A rigorous and extensive Finnish study (February 2024) showed that gender-affirming medical interventions do not reduce the risk of suicide (All-cause and suicide mortalities among adolescents and young adults who contacted specialized gender identity services in Finland in 1996–2019: a register study). For more information: Alarming but false – The “transition or suicide” story is about politics, not evidence.
• A study (Suicide by Clinic-Referred Transgender Adolescents in the United Kingdom – January 18, 2022) from one of the world’s largest pediatric gender clinics, the suicide rate among trans-identified youth was estimated at 0.03% over a 10-year period, which is comparable to young people who register for care with psychological problems.
• There is even a Swedish study (Dhejne 2011) that looked at the general population, which found that those who had transitioned committed suicide 19 times more than controls corresponding to the general population. This tells us that a transition does not prevent suicide.
• Lisa Littman conducted a formal investigation into the explosive increase in young people with gender dysphoria and concluded that there is a clear influence of social contagion. Social media plays an important role in this, but also the influence of activist groups or social movements.
  The study by S. Diaz & J.M. Bailey in March 2023 based on 1655 parent reports further supported the ROGD hypothesis: Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases. This publication was subject to censorship requirements, see: Open Letter in Support of Dr. Kenneth Zucker and the Need to Promote Robust Scientific Debate and Why is my gender research being cancelled? – Activists are taking over prestigious journals (Unherd 26 May 2023 – J. Michael Bailey)
• A 2024 German study of health insurance data – Störungen der Geschlechtsidentität bei jungen Menschen in Deutschland: Häufigkeit und Trends 2013–2022 – showed that gender incongruence does not persist in most cases. After five years, only 36.4 percent still had a confirmed diagnosis, and a diagnostic persistence of less than 50 percent was found in all age groups examined (27.3 percent for women aged 15-19 and 49.7 percent for men aged 20-24).
• On 10 April 2024, the Cass Report was published, the result of a four-year in-depth review of the gender care of minors in the United Kingdom. The report was extremely negative about how health care for children with gender confusion was guided by activism. The report was grounded in seven systematic evidence reviews—the gold standard in evidence-based medicine. One of the reviews, consistent with the others, described the evidence in favor of “gender-affirming treatment” in children and adolescents as “remarkably weak”. The report also noted that the problems were not limited to 18 years, but that the group of young adults aged 18 to 25 years faced many of the same concerns. Following the UMC Amsterdam, the UZ Gent and the ZNA Antwerp also rejected the criticism of the Cass report. Peter Vasterman and Jan Kuitenbrouwer called the response of the UMC Amsterdam astonishing in the newspaper NRC: The Dutch Protocol in transgender care is unsustainable
• May 1, 2025: HHS (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) Releases Comprehensive Review of Medical Interventions for Children and Adolescents with Gender Dysphoria. This review, informed by an evidence-based medicine approach, reveals serious concerns about medical interventions, such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries, that attempt to transition children and adolescents away from their sex.
• June 9, 2025: Another attempt to replicate the pioneering Dutch clinic’s positive findings on puberty blockers has failed. The multi-centre US study led by gender clinician Johanna Olson-Kennedy has reported no mental health improvements for a group of 94 minors, with an average age of 11.2 years, after 24 months on puberty suppression. In their preprint paper, the researchers speculated that mental health would have declined were it not for puberty blockers. Last year, Dr Olson-Kennedy said the discouraging results had been held back because it was feared they would be “weaponised” by opponents of “gender-affirming care”.