'Trans kids' prescribed MORE anti-psychotic meds after beginning gender transition than before: study

A 2021 study of military youth has revealed that not only were minors with severe mental illness allowed to embark upon experimental medical sex changes, but also that prescriptions for anti-psychotic drugs actually increased after hormonal interventions were initiated, reports Fox News.

The study, published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, examined the Department of Defense (DoD) medical records of 3,754 trans-identified adolescents and 6,603 siblings who did not identify as transgender. The findings reveal no improvement in mental health after commencing hormone interventions and an increase in prescriptions for psychotropic medication.

“Among 963 [transgender/gender diverse] youth using gender-affirming pharmaceuticals, mental healthcare did not significantly change and psychotropic medications increased following gender-affirming pharmaceutical initiation; older age was associated with decreased care and prescriptions,” reads the study.

The trans-identified cohort were more likely to have a mental health diagnosis, use more mental healthcare services, and be prescribed more psychotropic medications compared to the sibling cohort.

“The most pronounced increases in mental healthcare were for adjustment, anxiety, mood, personality, psychotic disorders, and suicidal ideation/attempted suicide,” the study noted. “The most pronounced increased in psychotropic medication were in SNRIs, sleep medications, anti-psychotics and lithium.”

One of the co-authors of the study, Dr. David Klein of the David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base, believes that these preexisting serious mental health issues could just “melt away” after the adolescent undergoes sex change interventions.

Speaking to the Urology Times, Klein explained that at first glance, it appears from looking at the study that transgender people are more likely to suffer from psychotic conditions such as schizophrenia, but he suggests that perhaps the anti-psychotic drugs are being prescribed as “adjuncts for severe depression or for insomnia, as opposed to a primary psychotic condition.”

Klein went on to say that rather than there being something inherent about transgender people that makes them more prone to psychotic disorders, it’s more likely that once a medical sex change is underway, their other diagnoses will “start to melt away over time.”

Many proponents of adolescent sex changes argue that the high rates of coexisting mental health issues observed in youth who identify as transgender are the result of the pain of being trapped in the wrong body. The solution, they believe, is to alter the body, then all preexisting mental health issues will disappear.

An alternative theory is that when distressed youth with serious mental health issues come across the concept of gender online or at school, they latch onto the idea that they could be transgender and see a medical sex change as the answer to all their woes.

The stories of detransitioners suggests that for at least some, hormonally and surgically altering the bodies of people with serious mental illnesses is not the magical fix proponents of “gender-affirming care” make it out to be.

Klein was also the co-author of a paper that suggested children as young as 7 were capable of consenting to medical sex changes. The paper called the cautious psychotherapeutic approach of “watchful waiting” for children who suffer from gender dysphoria “conversion therapy.”

"Some well-intentioned military-affiliated clinicians may not be aware that a ‘watchful waiting’ approach has a different risk profile than a gender-affirmative approach (which allows for gender identity exploration), and that ‘conversion therapy’ is unethical, harmful, and generally illegal," said Klein and the team of military doctors. "Patients may face ‘gatekeeping’ and major delays in care, including protracted and pathologizing psychiatric evaluations that question patient motives.”

Criticising recent laws seeking to prohibit doctors from performing experimental sex changes on children, Klein and his team argue that children and parents are capable of consenting to these procedures.

"These laws also assume that [transgender/gender-diverse] adolescents and their parents are incapable of understanding the risks and benefits of gender-affirming medical care and then deciding what is in the youth’s best interest," said the doctors. "Prior research has found that children can begin participating in their medical decision-making as early as age seven years with gradual increases in decision-making capacity, and adolescents prefer shared decision-making.”

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, of Do No Harm, an organization of healthcare providers seeking better care for minors suffering from gender distress, called such claims “laughable."

“The notion that 7-year-old children are capable of such decisions is beyond laughable,” Goldfarb told Fox News at the time. "The existence of a large, perhaps as much as 25 percent cohort of 'detransitioners,' suggests the folly of assuming the soundness of childhood decisions.”

“Just because a child states that they understand the implications of gender transitioning does not mean that they can conceive of their future regret,” he added.

“These physicians should examine the literature and face the reality that the reason that Finland, Norway, Denmark, and the UK have opted to severely restrict the use of puberty blockers and sex-characteristic altering hormones is that we have little if any evidence that we are not hurting more children that we are helping.”

The number of children and adolescents taking psychotropic medications has skyrocketed in recent years, with many teens being prescribed multiple drugs at once. Little is known about the effect such cocktails of drugs has on the developing adolescent brain.

As of 2021, 8.5 percent of American children under 18, or 1 in 12, were taking psychiatric drugs.