NIH Study: Drugs, Hormones Don’t Help Sexually Confused Youth
The National Institutes of Health funded a multimillion-dollar study where sexually confused children were given puberty blockers and opposite-sex hormones: The experiment showed no improvement in their mental health.
That’s right, taxpayers financed a Mengele-esque experiment, where children as young as eight were injected with powerful puberty blockers and opposite-sex hormones in order to find out if these “transgender” medical interventions improved their mental health.
Participants received gift cards for allowing health care workers to damage their bodies.
The study was first approved under the Obama administration in 2015.
The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project released the final report to The Daily Signal, which described the study:
The National Institutes of Health first allocated a nine-year grant of up to $10 million for the study through the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. The study was led by Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, who specializes in “gender-affirming care.”
“Gender-affirming care” is a euphemism for social and physical interventions for mentally confused children who reject their God-given bodies and attempt to live as the opposite sex.
As the Signal reported:
The study included people as young as 8 years old. The sample receiving puberty blockers included participants up to age 16, while the sample receiving hormone treatments included participants up to age 20.
The results?
Well, first of all, as reported by The New York Times two years ago, Dr. Olson-Kennedy initially would not even publish the results “because of politics.” In actuality, she already knew the results showed no mental health benefits:
The leader of the long-running study said that the drugs did not improve mental health in children with gender distress and that the finding might be weaponized by opponents of the care.
Two years later, “Mental and Emotional Health of Youth after 24 months of Gender-Affirming Medical Care Initiated with Pubertal Suppression” was finally published online at medRxiv(med-archive). The study states:
[T]he mental health of youth as reported by both themselves and their parents/guardians is relatively stable from baseline over 24 months after starting medical intervention with GnRHa [a puberty suppressant].
So the children’s mental health remained the same: There was no benefit from puberty suppression and opposite-sex hormones.
Dr. Olson-Kennedy has long been an activist for transgenderism. As previously reported by the Daily Citizen, she is “married” to Aydin Olson-Kennedy, a woman who attempts to live as a man. She is a licensed clinical social worker who works as a therapist and as a lecturer and consultant “on topics centered around the social and clinical needs of transgender individuals and their families.”
Dr. Olson-Kennedy also produced a study on the mutilation of young girls, “Chest Reconstruction and Chest Dysphoria in Transmasculine Minors and Young Adults,” which examined a group of 68 gender confused teens and young women – between the ages of 13 and 24 who had their breasts removed within the past five years.
The girls were given a 10-minute survey about “chest dysphoria,” and the results compared with a non-surgical, gender-dysphoric group.
Dr. Olson-Kennedy, former Medical Director of The Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, gained notoriety when a video of her surfaced teaching that adolescents make big decisions all the time, so breast removal is no big deal:
And here’s the other thing about chest surgery. If you want breasts at a later point in your life, you can go and get them.
She is now on staff at Prosilio Care’s Gender Confirmation Center, in Pasadena, California.
The Signal published a second story about the study, reporting:
A long-suppressed, taxpayer-funded report on transgender youth found that treatments with puberty blockers and hormones could have lasting negative impacts on bone density and heart health, among other health issues.
In May 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an important evaluation of the evidence for how best to treat children and adolescents with “gender dysphoria.” The report listed other damages to children receiving this “care”:
The “gender-affirming” model of care includes irreversible endocrine and surgical interventions on minors with no physical pathology.
These interventions carry risk of significant harms including infertility/sterility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone density accrual, adverse cognitive impacts, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders, psychiatric disorders, surgical complications, and regret.
Thankfully, HHS and the Department of Justice are working to shut down the mutilation of children through these unscientific procedures. We look forward to the day when all health care providers view “gender-affirming care” with the same horror that we view lobotomies and bloodletting with leeches.
Related articles and resources:
American Society of Plastic Surgeons Backs Away From Supporting ‘Transgender’ Surgeries
Expert in ‘Transitioning’ Children Admits ‘We Were Wrong’ About Puberty Blockers
Focus on the Family Counseling Consultation and Referrals
Helping Children with Gender Identity Confusion
Hospitals and Doctors “Transition” Hundreds of Children with Drugs, Hormones and Surgery
INVESTIGATION: Taxpayers Fund Transgender Experiments on Children
New Video Equips Parents and Counselors to Help ‘Gender Dysphoric’ Children
Questioning Drugs, Hormones and Surgery for Youth Confused about Their Sexual Identity
Transgenderism and Minors: What Does the Research Really Show?
U.K.’s Review of Child Gender Policy Reveals Profound Failures That U.S. Still Defends
The WPATH Files Exposes ‘Surgical and Hormonal Experiments on Children’
The WPATH Files – Transgender Interventions Are ‘Unethical Medical Experiments’
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