Pubertätsblocker - Experimente an Kindern?

Unbeantwortete Fragen

2019 veröffentlichten Professoren der Universität Oxford den Beitrag „Gender-affirming hormone in children and adolescents“ zu deren Wirkungsweisen, Vor- und Nachteile und zu der Begrenztheit der wissenschaftlichen Evidenz. Sie schreiben allerdings auch:

  1. „An Archive of Diseases in Childhood letter referred to GnRHa treatment as a momentous step in the dark. It set out three main concerns:
  1. young people are left in a state of ‘developmental limbo’ without secondary sexual characteristics that might consolidate gender identity;
  2. use is likely to threaten the maturation of the adolescent mind, and
  3. puberty blockers are being used in the context of profound scientific ignorance.“
„There are a large number of unanswered questions that include the age at start, reversibility; adverse events, long term effects on mental health, quality of life, bone mineral density, osteoporosis in later life and cognition.“

„Im Zeichen der Vielfalt wird die Sexualität unterdrückt. Denn die behandelten Kinder haben dann erst mal keine.“ S. Becker

Unsystematisch und unkontrolliert

Bereits 2017 haben führende amerikanische Psychiater detailliert beschrieben, warum sie Pubertätsblocker bei genderdysphorischen Jugendlichen für extrem problematisch halten. Sie meinen:

„the evidence for the safety and efficacy of puberty suppression is thin, based more on the subjective judgments of clinicians than on rigorous empirical evidence. It is, in this sense, still experimental — yet it is an experiment being conducted in an uncontrolled and unsystematic manner.“ „Off-label status reflects that the use has not been proven in clinical trials to be safe and effective.“

“The lack of data on gender dysphoria patients who have withdrawn from puberty-suppressing regimens and resumed normal development raises again the very important question of whether these treatments contribute to the persistence of gender dysphoria in patients who might otherwise have resolved their feelings of being the opposite sex.“

Growing Pains - Problems with Puberty Suppression in Treating Gender Dysphoria (deutsche Fassung)

Dabei wird in der Medizin das Wort „experimentell” eigentlich nur dann benutzt, wenn eine Behandlung im Rahmen einer wissenschaftlichen Studie erfolgt. Dies ist bei Pubertätblockern zumeist noch nicht einmal der Fall.

Druck für alle Beteiligte

„Children and adolescents who are experiencing confusion about gender roles, their sexuality and behavior, and the changes caused by puberty may be especially likely to take up the way of life provided for by a “kind” like “transgender” as a way to make sense of their confusing circumstances, especially when they are subjected to the pressure of being labeled as such by adults in positions of authority, including parents, teachers, psychologists, and physicians.“

Sind Pubertätsblocker wirklich die 'erste Wahl'?

„While there is much that is not known with certainty about gender dysphoria, there is clear evidence that patients who identify as the opposite sex often suffer a great deal. They have higher rates of anxiety, depression, and even suicide than the general population. Something must be done to help these patients, but as scientists struggle to better understand what gender dysphoria is and what causes it, it would not seem prudent to embrace hormonal treatments and sex reassignment as the foremost therapeutic tools for treating this condition.“

The Tavistock’s Experimentation with Puberty Blockers, Transgendertrend, 2020

Lesbians United haben die Beweise zur Unterdrückung der Pubertät mit entsprechenden Medikamenten überprüft und über 100 Nebenwirkungen mit ca. 300 Quellen katalogisiert. 

Pubertätsunterdrückung: Medizin oder Kunstfehler? 2022


Räumliches Gedächtnis

In sheep, GnRHa impairs spatial memory, and this effect remains after the treatment is stopped—thus demonstrating the irreversibility of puberty suppression (Hough et al. 2017a; 2017b). Biggs, 2022


Die psychosoziale Situation

And what about the social situation of the child who has undergone puberty suppression? Here is a child, side-by-side with other children of his or her own age who are showing secondary sex traits and behaving sexually, while he or she is not. To my knowledge no one has studied the ramifications of this psycho-social situation, but to me it hardly reads as a respite, with its potential to magnify difference and stigma, albeit in a suppressed form.

When Doing Less Is Helping More, Clinical and Ethical Considerations in the Treatment of Gender Dysphoric Children and Adolescents, D. Schwartz, 22.11.2021