The night before his 11-year-old daughter started taking puberty blockers, Brad* sat down with her to have an important conversation.
he didn’t want convince her not to do it; He just wanted her to know what would happen to her developing body if she took the medications an Australian doctor had prescribed for her after she began questioning her gender identity.
It was a conversation that could have cost him everything.
By questioning the wishes of his ex-partner and the medical establishment, he risked being considered the “villain” of his daughter’s story. Worse yet, he could have lost custody for not maintaining her.
For those unfamiliar with puberty blockers, they were initially developed to delay early puberty in boys, but today they are also prescribed to preteens with gender dysphoria so they can “have more time” to better understand their identity.
The medication is controversial. It’s still available in Australia, but Britain has just banned it for under-18s following an independent safety review. Several US states have also restricted trans healthcare for minors, including puberty blockers.
Brad’s story is familiar to any parent of a tomboy. Her daughter was “girly” until age 10, when she became withdrawn and “conscious of her changing body.” He began wearing baggy clothing and then began saying that he identified as a boy and wanted a male name and pronouns. Finally she came out as trans..
When Brad nonjudgmentally asked her why she felt that way, she said It was because she didn’t like the way women were treated and was afraid of being sexually assaulted.
Australian father claims gender clinic encouraged his 11-year-old daughter to take puberty blockers (file image posed by models)
Brad would do anything for his daughter, including accepting her as his son if she were genuinely trans. But his little girl’s sad admission about her fear of men convinced him that she wasn’t suffering from gender dysmorphia, but rather was dealing with that terrible realization that all women must face: that the world simply isn’t safe for them.
Fearful of the effects that puberty blockers could have on his daughter’s development, Brad knew that medical intervention would be a terrible, even irreversible step.
‘My concern was that this wasn’t about gender identity; It was a response to learning what it can mean to be a woman,” she says.
But his daughter’s The mother, with whom she shares joint custody, considered that they should affirm her son’s new gender to avoid the risk of self-harm and suicide.
The family attended the gender clinic at Adelaide Women’s and Children’s Hospital where, after two 45-minute psychiatric interviews with the three present, a diagnosis of gender dysphoria was given. On a second date, from which Brad was excluded, he says without explanation, he was prescribed puberty blockers.
Brad says he filed a written objection, but the hospital’s ethics committee decided to provide the medications without his consent.
“I would have had to go to Family Court to prevent my son from participating in what is essentially a medical trial; I was stunned,” Brad tells me.
“All the literature here would indicate that both parents have to agree, but one A lawyer who works in this field said puberty blockers are now considered so routine that they would have to go to court to stop them.
“And if you do, the court will simply order a second opinion and this will come from another children’s hospital, and it’s not likely to be any different from what the Adelaide one said.
“My legal advice was that I would be wasting my time and tens of thousands of dollars.”
So, in a last-ditch attempt to get his daughter to at least consider delaying treatment, he sat down with her and together they read – “line by line” – a fact sheet provided by the clinic on puberty blockers and instructions for use from the manufacturer of the drug, Lucrin.
The fact sheet produced by the South Australian government warns that taking puberty blockers such as Lucrin can have irreversible effects and the risks are not yet fully understood.
“The short- and long-term effects of puberty blocking on social and cognitive development are unknown,” he states clearly. “There may be risks of puberty blockers that are not yet known.”
The 11-year-old girl attended the gender clinic at Adelaide Women’s and Children’s Hospital (pictured) where she was diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
However, the leaflet says that most side effects are reversible and that puberty will begin again if treatment is stopped, although there are “potential irreversible effects on height and unknown long-term effects on bone density.”
“Studies have shown that while taking puberty blockers, bone density does not increase as it normally would during puberty,” he says.
“This may be partially reversible with treatment with gender-affirming hormones (stage 2), however long-term data are limited and the full effects are unknown.”
It goes on to warn about the risk of osteoporosis in the future and the need to “support bone health” with diet, exercise and supplements while taking puberty blockers.
The fact sheet also warns that puberty blockers will slow growth and, as a result, “your final height may be different than it would have been if you had not received treatment.”
Reversible side effects mentioned include nausea, vomiting, dizziness, hot flashes, tiredness, mood swings, reduced libido, and stopping menstruation, and the clinic recommends considering banking eggs or ovarian tissue before starting puberty blockers due to the possible effects that medications have on fertility.
Brad says he was also surprised to discover that gender dysphoria, a condition in which someone believes they are trapped in a body that does not match their gender, is not cited by the manufacturer of Lucrin as a condition that can be treated with the medicine.
According to consumer medicine information provided by Lucrin, the drug is used to treat prostate cancer in men and unusually early puberty in boys, and bone loss is listed as a serious side effect in those receiving treatment for precocious puberty. .
A fact sheet produced by the South Australian government warns that taking puberty blockers such as Lucrin can have irreversible effects and the risks are not yet fully understood.
The fact sheet also warns that puberty blockers will slow growth and, as a result, “your final height may be different than it would have been if you had not received treatment.”
“There has never been a controlled study on the use of puberty blockers for the treatment of gender dysphoria, and the pharmaceutical company does not list gender dysphoria as one of the conditions the drug claims to treat,” says Brad.
“Its use for this purpose is off-label and therefore experimental.”
Brad also explained to his daughter that she was at risk of losing sexual function and never being able to have an orgasm, which she recalls was a “very uncomfortable” conversation..
Although the conversation was difficult, her daughter ultimately decided not to move forward with treatment. He says his decision against puberty blockers “was like dodging a bullet” and, to his relief, he became instantly happier afterwards.
“Within days, his sleep and anxiety levels improved, and the cutting and conversations about suicide stopped,” he tells me.
“Late last year, she re-identified as a girl and returned to using her birth name.”
Brad says the two clinic consultations did not go deep enough to adequately investigate the root causes of his daughter’s distress.
“I didn’t believe in my heart that his feeling wasn’t going to change when he hit puberty, if he was allowed to hit puberty, because I think when you hit puberty you discover a lot about yourself,” he says. .
‘In the gender clinic’s mind, we were in a race against the clock and, approaching the age of 12, puberty was just around the corner for her.
“That my daughter had gone from identifying as a boy to being gender fluid and non-binary and was on her third name change was not a cause for concern.
“There was no effort to explore family dynamics, developmental history and pre-existing mental health conditions and all that – the clock was ticking.”
Brad feels vindicated by his daughter’s progress after deciding against puberty blockers. He says it’s proof that the medical establishment’s “gender-affirming” approach to treatment could be a terrible mistake.
‘(My daughter) recently told me, “When I started puberty, you said I might start to feel different. You were right.”‘
Brad is now calling for a parliamentary inquiry and says Australia is at least three years behind Britain, where the NHS has indefinitely banned puberty blockers, and Sweden, which has begun restricting the gender reassignment of children.
“As much as any medical body says ‘let’s do our own research’ if they don’t look at the UK and the Scandinavian countries, which are ahead of us in terms of reversing this, it’s quite irresponsible, I think,” he says.
“I guess it’s natural that there is anxiety around puberty and we say ‘we have a pill for that,’ but 11-year-old girls can’t make those decisions.”
A spokesperson for the South Australian Women’s and Children’s Health Network, which runs the clinic, said without details the father was unwilling to provide them, could not comment on the case.
Overall, the spokesperson said services for gender diverse young people in South Australia are delivered by clinicians in accordance with national and international clinical practice guidelines.
“Care is provided by experienced clinicians in a multidisciplinary setting with appropriate safeguards,” the spokesperson said.
‘Tutors are also consulted throughout the process. Informed consent is obtained before any medical treatment.
“All youth undergo initial assessment and care as directed by the mental health team prior to assessment or medical care.”
*Not his real name