“Gender-affirming care” is the latest buzz phrase being used to support the use of drugs and surgery to alter gender. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), gender-affirming care “is a supportive form of healthcare” that consists of medical, surgical, mental health and non-medical services for transgender and nonbinary people.
During puberty, the gender-affirming care may include the use of puberty blockers, which are hormones that pause pubertal development.1 Gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists (GnRHas) are a key part of this treatment, with Lupron (leuprolide acetate) being one of the most well-known.
Many who take the drugs, however, aren’t aware of their significant dangers or, as A Midwestern Doctor put it, “the scandalous 40 year saga that has allowed them to be unjustifiably used for a wide range of medical conditions.”2
How Does Lupron Stop Puberty?
GnRHas are a class of medications that act by initially increasing and then subsequently decreasing the secretion of gonadotropins — hormones that stimulate the gonads, meaning, in males, the testes, and in females, the ovaries. This leads to a decrease in testosterone levels in males and estrogen levels in females. Midwestern Doctor explains:3
“There are a variety of ways you can block the production of hormones in the body. Since the signal to produce sex hormones (e.g., estrogen and testosterone) begins in the brain, cutting that signal off mostly eliminates the body’s production of hormones.
The most powerful hormonal blockers, the GnRH agonists, work by overstimulating the brain’s GnRH receptors so that they become ‘burned out’ and no longer respond to the natural release of GnRH in the body, thereby short-circuiting the body’s production of sex hormones (which in many cases is a permanent short-c).”
Lupron increases the release of luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) from the pituitary gland, which leads to a temporary surge in sex hormones — testosterone in males and estrogen in females.
However, continuous administration of Lupron then leads to a downregulation of LH and FSH levels, which significantly reduces the production of sex hormones by the gonads. This reduction in sex hormones effectively pauses the progression of puberty, preventing the development of secondary sexual characteristics, such as deepening of the voice and growth of facial and body hair in men and the development of breasts in women.
The use of GnRH agonists in transgender youth is said to provide a temporary halt to puberty that can be reversed when the medication is discontinued. HHS is among those that describe puberty blockers as “reversible.”4 Yet, there are many unanswered questions about how these drugs change human development, as nearly all of those who take them go on to use cross-sex hormones. According to a report by Britain’s National Health Service:5,6
“The most difficult question is whether puberty blockers do indeed provide valuable time for children and young people to consider their options, or whether they effectively ‘lock in’ children and young people to a treatment pathway, which culminates in progression to feminizing/masculinizing hormones by impeding the usual process of sexual orientation and gender identity development.
Data from both the Netherlands and the study conducted by GIDS [Gender Identity Development Service] demonstrated that almost all children and young people who are put on puberty blockers go on to sex hormone treatment (96.5% and 98% respectively). The reasons for this need to be better understood.”
Meanwhile, there’s no evidence that the use of puberty blockers is safe for youth, while permanent physical harm may result. For starters, the American College of Pediatricians explains:
“Temporary use of Lupron has … been associated with and may be the cause of many serious permanent side effects including osteoporosis, mood disorders, seizures, cognitive impairment and, when combined with cross-sex hormones, sterility.”
Lupron Is a Lucrative Drug
Despite its long list of significant side effects, Lupron is prescribed for a wide range of off-label uses. Initially approved for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer, it transitioned to being used for all prostate cancers and is not also approved to treat advanced breast cancer, endometriosis and uterine fibroids in women and to treat early puberty in children. In the case of advanced prostate cancer treatment, Midwestern Doctor noted:7
“[I]n addition to Lupron offering a very small survival benefit, a strong case can be made that since it is frequently observed to causes a variety of severe complications (e.g., a large increase in fatal heart attacks or diabetes), its reduction in the prostate cancer death rate is actually an artifact of it killing the patients before a slow growing prostate cancer would.
This perspective for example was shared by the Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of the American Cancer Society.”
Lupron is also used for a variety of off-label uses, including gynecological problems, in-vitro fertilization and egg donation, chemical castration for sex offenders, increasing height in children and blocking puberty in transgendered youth.8
Midwestern Doctor points out that Lupron succeeded in becoming such a widely used drug despite its high risks due to “one of the most overt acts of physician bribery I’ve seen in American medicine.” Specifically:9
“Since Lupron initially did not sell well, Lupron’s manufacturer took advantage of the existing ‘standard,’ which allows chemotherapy drugs to be sold for a very high price and be ‘forgiven’ for their extreme toxicity.
This was done by reformulating Lupron into a long-acting monthly shot urologists could directly administer to their (prostate cancer) patients and hence directly profit from marking up when they resold it (e.g., Medicare paid $1,200 per shot — or roughly $2,400 in today’s dollars, and in many cases urologists charged far more, all of which allowed many urologists to make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year administering the shots).
To further sweeten the deal, Lupron’s manufacturer frequently bribed urologists and gave them free Lupron samples they ‘resold.’ This was illegal — and eventually resulted in an $875 million fine … but no pharmaceutical executives going to prison.
Because Lupron was immensely profitable, more and more urologists jumped on it, and by the late 1990s Lupron treatments were costing almost a billion dollars per year and accounted for 40 percent of all Medicare payments to many urology practices in the late 1990s …
This in turn led to a rapid proliferation of new off-label ‘uses’ for the drug … Remarkably, despite the fact Lupron has been on the market for decades, it is still extremely expensive. Lupron hence is a very lucrative drug.”
Lupron’s Extensive List of Side Effects
In 2017, a Kaiser Foundation article reported that more than 10,000 adverse event reports had been filed with the FDA by women who’d taken Lupron, in many cases a decade or more prior.10 Some of the women took Lupron as children to grow taller or stop early puberty.
Then, in their 20s, a range of debilitating health issues resulted, ranging from brittle bones and damaged joints to chronic pain, degenerative disc disease, mood swings and headaches. Seizures, depression and anxiety were also reported. Lupron’s prescribing information lists a number of significant warnings and precautions, including:11
|
Increase in bone pain |
Ureteral obstruction |
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Spinal cord compression, which may contribute to paralysis with or without fatal complications |
Hyperglycemia and diabetes |
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Increased risk of heart attack, sudden cardiac death and stroke in men |
Convulsions |
It further states, “In postmarketing experience, mood swings, depression, rare reports of suicidal ideation and attempt, rare reports of pituitary apoplexy [sudden bleeding into or impaired blood supply of the pituitary gland], and rare reports of serious drug-induced liver injury have been reported.”12
The FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System now has at least 76,221 Lupron injury reports, of which 41,895 were severe and 11,917 were fatal, according to Midwestern Doctor.13 Among the most common side effects are rapid bone loss, including jaw issues and teeth cracking apart, to the point that some women need dentures in their 30s.
Long-term damage to female menstrual cycles, hormonal issues, sexual dysfunction, including impotence, cognitive dysfunction, IQ loss in children and psychiatric conditions are also commonly reported, along with heart problems, severe arthritis, gastrointestinal disorders and immune suppression.14 Midwestern Doctor reports:15
“Generally speaking, Lupron (like the COVID vaccines) causes the body to age prematurely — which in the case of Lupron provides an important insight on the importance of hormones as these victims provide a unique insight into what happens as the body loses those essential messengers (something which also occurs with age).
This why in addition to profound bone loss, Lupron also frequently causes other degenerative processes like hair loss, vaginal atrophy, receding gums, and declining vision.
For each of those symptoms (and many others), I’ve read countless testimonials describing the anguish of having their body rapidly age in front of their eyes and the general despair that accompanies decades of suffering with these ailments and the fact there is no one who will help them.”
Leaked Emails Show Doctors Know the Risks of Lupron
Leaked emails from doctors who belong to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) also show that gender-affirming health care is not black and white. WPATH has influenced gender-affirming treatment guidelines adopted by England’s National Health Service, but according to Michael Shellenberger, a U.S. journalist who accessed the files, “what is called ‘gender medicine’ is neither science nor medicine.”16 One doctor wrote:17
“I have one transition friend/colleague who, after about eight to 10 years of [testosterone] developed hepatocarcinoma [a form of liver cancer] … To the best of my knowledge, it was linked to his hormone treatment … it was so advanced that he opted for palliative care and died a couple of months later.”
Another, a child psychologist, said children don’t understand the ramifications of the hormone treatment and surgeries, stating:18
“[It is] out of their developmental range to understand the extent to which some of these medical interventions are impacting them. They’ll say they understand, but then they’ll say something else that makes you think, oh, they didn’t really understand that they are going to have facial hair.”
Midwestern Doctor also reviewed the leaks to see what WPATH members actually know about Lupron and other puberty blockers, stating:19
“From reviewing all of it, I learned that much like each other group which has promoted the off-label usage of Lupron, WPATH was:
• Not entirely sure what the long-term consequences of this push for those drugs was and in essence, much of what they were doing was a large experiment.
• Recognized that a variety of significant side effects would occur in children who took the blockers (e.g., some would permanently lose their libido or the ability to have an orgasm and many children would lose the necessary emotional developmental process that occurs during puberty).
• Despite claiming otherwise, they knew the effects of Lupron were often not reversible.
• Recognized that the children they were giving the blockers to were too young to fully comprehend the dangers of these drugs but nonetheless were seeking to initiate their use as early as possible.”
Gender-Affirming Care Is a ‘Human Experiment on Children and Teens’
Dr. Rachel Levine, HHS assistant secretary for health, has widely stated that “gender-affirming care is medically necessary, safe, and effective for trans and non-binary youth.”20 Nonprofit watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records of scientific evidence to support gender-affirming care.
In response to the FOIA, HHS gave only one document totaling two pages in length — a brochure posted on its website, titled, “Gender-Affirming Care and Young People.”21 In a complaint obtained by The Daily Wire, PPT wrote to the HHS Inspector General, calling for an investigation into Levine’s statements — and whether they violate HHS’ scientific integrity policies.22
Describing the FOIA submission as “essentially a piece of marketing material with cherry-picked data and agenda-driven assertions,” the complaint to HHS states:23
“This is the opposite of science and evidence-based policymaking and flies in the face of the agency’s pledge of ‘adherence to professional practices, ethical behavior, and the principles of honesty and objectivity when conducting, managing, using the results of, and communicating about science and scientific activities.'”
Meanwhile, in a Wall Street Journal Opinion piece, investigative journalist Gerald Posner called gender-affirming care “a human experiment on children and teens, the most vulnerable patients,” adding:24
“Ignoring the long-term dangers posed by unrestricted off-label dispensing of powerful puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, combined with the large overdiagnosis of minors as gender dysphoric, borders on child abuse.”
To find out more, the video Trans Horror: The Unspoken Truth dives into the “unspoken reality of transgender sexual reassignment surgery and all of the pain, regret and horrors it entails.”25 You can also learn about how to protect your children from transgender ideology in my interview with Dr. Miriam Grossman, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and board-certified medical doctor.
