Lauren Dempsey, MS in Biomedicine and Law, RN, FISM News
Some experts estimate that the prevalence rate of actual gender dysphoria in children is less than 1%.
However, according to Dr. Jeremi Carswell, a pediatric endocrinologist and director of Boston Children’s Hospital Gender Management Service (GeMS), the number of adolescents entering gender programs has skyrocketed over the last several years. Carswell’s program treats children aged 3 to 25 years old.
According to Carswell, who is a proponent of gender treatments in minors, the department receives dozens of calls per week for new patients and at one point had “maxed out on our capacity to see patients,” but after “a bit of rearranging” they expect to be able to take on a higher patient caseload.
As first reported by the Daily Wire, Carswell spoke at the Advancing Excellence in Transgender Health (AETH) conference in 2020. In a recorded webinar called “Puberty Blockers and Hormone Therapy for Gender Diverse Youth and Adolescents” on the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center website, she discussed how easily physicians prescribed puberty-blocking drugs to children while knowing that the medications came with lifelong risks.
Despite what many medical professionals and gender ideology proponents claim, puberty blockers have proven to not be a completely safe or reversible treatment option to halt puberty while gender-confused children figure out their identity. Research has shown that these drugs can cause sterilization, heart disease, risk of cancer, psychosis, and decreased bone density.
Carswell explained in the video that the “vast majority” experience some side effects.
Yet, Carswell stated that physicians continue to prescribe these medications “a lot like candy.” Carswell acknowledged that there should be more conversations around the potential consequences of giving these drugs to children, saying that these drugs cannot keep patients in perpetual adolescence forever.
“You need to understand that you don’t get to have this like Peter Pan life,” Carswell said.
Carswell also explained that evidence-based interventions are essentially ignored “as providers get very, very, very swayed by our patients.” She warned that this sets a dangerous precedent.
“We don’t need a generation of people who are having all these health issues because we didn’t want to wait and be a little more cautious with our treatments,” Carswell said.
Knowingly prescribing life-altering medications to children under the pretense of being able to change your mind whenever you want, as has become widespread in “gender-affirming care”, appears to be a violation of the Hippocratic Oath in which physicians promise to “Do No Harm.”
Additionally, medical practitioners and parents who disagree with the current pro-trans narrative or caution against so-called gender-affirming care are often labeled as science deniers. Some have even recommended that children be removed from parents who do not seek out gender-affirming care for gender-confused children.
The Journal of Medical Ethics published a paper that encouraged the use of state intervention as the best solution for this situation to act in the best interest of children, insinuating that Child Protective Services and the government are better equipped to care for these children than their own parents. California adopted legislation earlier this month that would strip parents of their decision-making rights if they were to oppose gender-denying medication or surgery on their children.
It has been reported by Breitbart that Carswell was financially compensated as a consultant by Endo Pharmaceuticals, a company that produces the puberty-blocking medication Supprelin LA (histrelin). This drug, along with others, is used to treat gender dysphoria, even though the drugs are not FDA-approved for that specific use. When prescribed for gender-affirming care, it is considered an off-label use of the medication.
The FDA quietly added a warning in July about the potential risks associated with taking puberty blockers.
However, with some medical professionals and organizations claiming that children know they are transgender from “the minute they were born,” even “from the womb,” it is clear that there are both political, social, and financial incentives to continue to promote that this is a safe, effective, and reversible treatment for children.