EXCLUSIVE: Pediatric endocrinologist claims puberty blockers for 12-year-old girl are completely reversible—then recommends ‘fertility preservation’
“Is there a way to preserve anything in that department?”
Loading the front page…
“Is there a way to preserve anything in that department?”
A New York father is fighting to save his daughter's future. The 12-year-old girl identifies as trans, socially transitioned at school in 4th grade, and under her mother's care, she has been using a new, boy name and presenting as a boy for a few years. Her school uses the boy name as well.
A court has forced the father to refer to her by her chosen name, and to use male pronouns for her. The dad has gone along with it, he is compelled to, but he has not given up on saving his daughter from the trans cult before she is given drugs that stunt her puberty and cross-sex hormones that would cause her to develop male external secondary sex characteristics and likely lead to infertility.
What he's up against, however, is nothing short of a full-court press to get his daughter gender transitioned. Doctors, the child's mother, and even a law guardian in family court are urging this father to allow the prescription of puberty blocking drugs. Despite his concerns, an endocrinologist at Oishei Children's Hospital in Buffalo, New York asked him to change his mind and allow the 12-year-old to be given drugs to stop puberty.
Father, mother, and daughter all met with Dr. Kathleen Bethin, an endocrinologist at Oishei Children's Hospital, who broached the options for gender transition.
The department provides "comprehensive care to infants, children and young adults affected by diabetes or hormonal (endocrine) disorders. These include, but are not limited to: Short stature and growth disorders, Thyroid and adrenal conditions, Disorders of pubertal development and sexual differentiation, Bone health and disorders of calcium metabolism, Overweight and obesity, Type 1 and type 2 diabetes."
A recording of the meeting was obtained by The Post Millennial. Bethin specializes in pediatric diabetes, pediatric endocrinology, and pediatrics. She is also a clinical professor at the University of Buffalo.
"So, a lot of times, we end up, we can stop puberty to give a kid more time," Bethin told the father. "And I don't know if that's something that you would be okay with."
"No," he said, "that's why we're here. Because that's something Golisano (Children's Hospital) tried doing two years ago." He explained that he'd looked into puberty blockers himself, kept up with the international news on pediatric gender transition coming out of the UK, where the Tavistock clinic was closed over concerns of fast-tracking minors into medical sex changes, as well as changes in methodology in France, Finland and other nations.
He explained his understanding that Lupron, a drug that was developed to treat prostate cancer and is now used additionally for the treatment of endometriosis and precocious puberty, is being used off-label by practitioners of pediatric gender medicine. AbbVie, which makes Lupron, recommends that the drug not be used for more than three months. Yet doctors who advocate for pediatric sex changes will prescribe it for multiple years in order to stop puberty for minors who believe they are meant to be the opposite sex.
A letter on "Informed Consent for Lupron Depot for Youth with Gender Dysphoria" from the Canadian children's hospital at the London Health Sciences Centre in Ontario offers detailed information about the potential side effects and issues that come with the application of the drug.
The informed consent letter states that the "long-term effects" of taking the drug "are not fully known." It further requires the girl to confirm that "It has been explained to me that my doctors are suggesting and prescribing Lupron Depot because they believe that this will allow me more time to explore my gender and other developmental issues."
Considerations include that Lupron will stop menstruation, could result in vaginal dryness, a reduction in sex drive, and "estrogen withdrawal," which is essentially menopause. Girls could experience "hot flashes, night sweats, low energy, mood changes," among other things. Lupron also "interferes with fertility."
Loading this lets X set cookies and collect data.
View on X"So we actually use puberty blockers," Bethin said, "a lot for kids that go into puberty too early." She explained that she counsels minors who take these drugs to make sure they additionally take vitamin D and calcium, in an effort to counteract the bone loss that comes as a side-effect of the drug.
"The biggest issue is bone health," she said, "and your bones are still accruing density until like age 25. So I think that as long as it's a temporary thing—" She clarified what she meant by "temporary" when pressed, saying that it would be "for a few years."
"So pausing time, when the body is developing," the father asked, "you believe that can just be turned off and restarted again?" The father asked.
"Yes," Bethin replied, speaking about the patients she had treated with precocious puberty, or puberty that comes on at too young of an age, anywhere from 2 years old up to 9 or so, "because I've seen it in the, so in the kids that have the early puberty, it completely stops their puberty, and then when we stop the drug they can go on."
Dr. Marcia Bowers, a trans-identified male surgeon who presents as a woman and heads the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, has spoken about the use of puberty blocking drugs in conjunction with cross-sex hormones. Among patients Bowers had treated, those who went on this course of treatment were never able to experience orgasm. When Bethin was presented with these facts from her patients' father, she said that she was not aware of this research from Bowers.
"An observation that I had," Bowers told colleagues in 2022, "every single child who was, or adolescent, who was truly blocked at Tanner stage 2, has never experienced orgasm. I mean, it's really about zero." Bowers attested that this reality should change the way "informed consent" is considered. A minor who has never experienced sexual function, or orgasm, cannot be informed well enough to know that they wish to give it up for the rest of their life.
This came up during the meeting with Bethin. When the father presented his arguments about the potential for the drugs to cause a permanent loss of sexual function, his daughter, presenting as male, said "I don't care." Bethin seemed to pause at this, as it's an obvious circumstance wherein the child cannot give truly informed consent about something she has not experienced.
Many of the arguments in favor of allowing minors to undergo sex changes at young ages, and to halt their natural puberty with the intent to force the body unnaturally to go through the puberty of the opposite sex through the application of cross-sex hormones, is that the minor, once an adult, will be better able to "pass" as the opposite sex.
The push for children's sex changes has much to do with creating an adult who presents as the opposite of their natural sex while being perceived as the opposite sex. Sex changes for minors are about ensuring that the child, once grown, is perceived as the opposite sex and treated as though they are the opposite sex in society at large. The medical sex change of minors is not so much about medical health as it is about an attempt to ensure a successful and lasting social transition.
Libby’s Desk
Commentary and must-reads from Libby’s desk, straight to your inbox.
TPM Newsletter
The Post Millennial’s top stories, delivered to your inbox.
Another concern with puberty blockers was raised by the Food and Drug Administration, which found that a warning should be placed on the medication due to extremely serious side effects. Those include a dangerous surge of spinal fluid pressure in the brain that can cause headaches, nausea, double vision, and even permanent vision loss.
Bethin didn't understand what Bowers had said about sexual function, but said that if the 12-year-old goes on puberty blockers, then a few years down the road decides that she is not actually a male, "and you stop the medicine they will totally get female body parts. But if you have them on the medication, and then you go to testosterone, gender-affirming hormone therapy, then they will never have the female curves, and they will never be fertile. That's what Dr. Bowers is saying is that they'll never be fertile."
Bethin disagreed about the side effect of a loss of sexual function, but did say that there would be a loss of fertility. The 12-year-old said that they were not interested in fertility, either. Then she asked the father, "Would you be okay if we did puberty blockers and took it one year at a time?" He said he was not okay with that. Bethin suggested a second opinion, and gave everyone hand-outs on puberty blockers.
Fertility, however, continued to weigh heavily on the girl's mother, who suggested that they seek a the perspective of a psychologist to "double check your decision to not have kids."
"There's too many people in the world," the young girl said.
"Is there a way to preserve anything in that department?" The mother asked Bethin.
"Not at this stage right now," Bethin said, indicating that puberty was an essential component of establishing fertility.
"You'd have to go through menses," the mother confirmed, "which we're trying to avoid."
"You wouldn't have to go as far as menses," Bethin said. "But the ovaries would have to be further developed."
The two were discussing how to harvest the eggs of a 12-year-old girl who believes she's a boy in order to preserve her ability to have children so that when she reaches adulthood, and perhaps changes her mind, she has not found that the course of treatment undertaken when she was 12 had disrupted her ability to ever conceive and bear children as a woman.
"I really see the puberty blockers as harmless, to give somebody time. Because really, if at age 18, he decided," Bethin said, referring to the girl, "'you know what, I am female' and he would get his breasts and he would get development of his ovaries and uterus."
"After six years of being on puberty blockers?" The father asked.
"Oh, sure," Bethin said.
"You can just replace six years immediately coming off puberty blockers?" He asked.
"Well not, it's not immediately, but it happens, I mean I have—"
"I'm sincerely asking you, after six years of puberty blockers?" He asked.
"Yes," Bethin confirmed, "I have had patients at age 2 start puberty—" Bethin said, comparing giving puberty blockers for the purpose of halting precocious puberty, only to discontinue use at such time as the child is ready for puberty, to a 12-year-old taking blockers, then growing into an 18-year-old adult, and trying to jump-start puberty from there.
The father was incredulous, and Bethin continued to compare the 12-year-old to a 2-year-old. "This would be the similar thing is you're pausing puberty and you stop the medication and then you would resume puberty," Bethin said.
Bethin examined the girl's breasts and realized that she is further along into puberty than she had initially thought given the large t-shirt.
"Would you be okay with doing something to stop periods when they start?" Bethin asked.
"No," the father said.
"I mean, there's different ways to stop it," Bethin continued. "One is progesterone pill. Another is like low-dose oral contraceptives that would stop the periods. So it's something to think about, but I'd also like you to really seriously consider the puberty blocker." Bethin said that the girl had already hit developmental stages Tanner 3 or 4.
"Actually, I don't know you could go to a fertility — reproductive endocrinologist to see about the possibility of freezing eggs because he's further along than I thought," Bethin said.
"So can we get a recommendation on that?" The mother asked Bethin before turning to her daughter. "Do you understand what this means?"
"Kind of," she said.
"I know how you feel right now about kids, but I want to protect your life in this way, in case you change your mind," the mother said.
"So yeah," Bethin cut in, recommending a doctor at the Buffalo Infertility and IVF Associates. "She has seen a number of our patients and we've been very happy with how she explains everything."
"Because we want to do that before any birth control or anything like that," the mother asked.
"Yes," Bethin said, before correcting herself. "Although I don't think that if periods started and we started either progesterone or the low, low-dose birth control pills. I don't think it would matter. I actually had a patient who— a male— a female transgender female patient— who started puberty blockers, one injection, and decided to freeze their sperm and so we stopped after one and they were successful with that."
Bethin confirmed that there wasn't "much time," so "let's get going on this."
Bethin had claimed during the consultation that puberty blockers would be fully reversible, yet now she was discussing the potential of egg harvesting so that when the puberty blockers rendered the girl infertile, she would be able to access her genetic material and bear children.
Neither Bethin nor the mother appeared to realize that both things cannot be true: if puberty blockers are reversible, then why would there be a need to preserve the girl's eggs so that she could bear children at such time as she changed her mind? Either the puberty blockers are reversible and fertility would be back on the table as soon as she stopped taking them, or the drugs come with a permanent side effect of sterility and so-called fertility preservation is unnecessary.
At every step of the way, the father has been faced with doctors, an ex-wife, and legal personnel telling him that if his daughter thinks she's a boy, he must allow her to take experimental drugs to stop her puberty, then allow her to go onto cross-sex hormones, all so that she looks more like a male once she is an adult. Yet, the more he digs into the medical harms that are associated with child sex changes, the more adamant he is that he will stand in the way of this so-called treatment, and fight for his daughter's future.