In her piece, Baxendale discusses the few studies about the use of “gender-affirming care” on children that have been conducted and explains why they are deeply flawed. However, she highlights a study showing that prescribing puberty blockers for children appeared to bring about a substantial drop in IQ. In light of this, she wrote a paper detailing these studies and their faults.

Last year, I wrote a paper to summarise the results of these studies. The paper explained in relatively simple terms why we might think that blocking puberty in young people could impact their cognitive development. In a nutshell: puberty doesn’t just trigger the development of secondary sex characteristics; it is a really important time in the development of brain function and structure. My review of the medical literature highlighted that while there is a fairly solid scientific basis to suspect that any process that interrupts puberty will have an impact on brain development, nobody has really bothered to look at this properly in children with gender dysphoria.

I didn’t call for puberty blockers to be banned. Most medical treatments have some side effects and the choice of whether to take them depends on a careful analysis of the risk/benefit ratio for each patient. My paper didn’t conduct this kind of analysis, although others have and have judged the evidence to be so weak that these treatments can only be viewed as experimental. My summary merely provided one piece of the jigsaw. I concluded my manuscript with a list of outstanding questions and called for further research to answer these questions, as every review of the medical literature in any field always does.

The author also noted that she was “surprised at just how little, and how low quality, the evidence was in this field” and became “concerned that clinicians working in gender medicine continue to describe the impacts of puberty blockers as ‘completely physically reversible,’ when it is clear that we just don’t know whether this is the case, at least with respect to the cognitive impact.”

Yet, the paper was rejected three times, each publication giving questionable justifications for the rejections. In one case, reviewers suggested that Baxendale could have missed important studies that could demonstrate the positive aspects of puberty blockers. Another expressed similar concerns, claiming that her paper was too focused on exercising caution with the treatments instead of singing their praises. One publication argued that the professor’s findings might potentially stigmatize transgender individuals.

Her work was eventually accepted by another publication. But the fact that Baxendale had to go through three rejections for flimsy reasons seems to suggest something else at play here.

Proponents of using “gender-affirming care” on children claim that science proves that they are instrumental in addressing mental health problems. However, this claim is about as deceptive as it gets, as plenty of medical professionals have pointed out that using these treatments doesn’t actually yield benefits and can actually be harmful to children. Indeed, it reminds me of a segment that comedian Jon Stewart did with Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge about a law banning “gender-affirming care” for minors. I ripped his arguments apart on my podcast.

The latest instance of leftists arguing in favor of these treatments came when NBC News reported on a study supposedly showing that transgender individuals were happier after they “transitioned” to the opposite sex. However, RedState’s own Brandon Morse pointed out the flaws in the study.

A rule of thumb when it comes to studies and surveys; If the number of people who respond to any given question all agree in some capacity in the 90th percentile...it's probably not true. In fact, with 90,000 people giving their opinion, a number that high is improbable enough to be impossible.

In fact, as it was pointed out, it's all likely a complete lie, and the clues that it is can be found in the breakdown of who was interviewed. As journalist Jesse Singal pointed out, the sample wasn't just skewed in various ways, the people who answered the study's questions actually sought out the study to answer its questions.

"The level of complete statistical illiteracy on the part of people who claim to be watchdogs continues to grate on me," said Singal. "This survey examined those who *currently identify as trans*  and who sought to participate in a study about that! Detransitioners were definitionally excluded."

So not only did the people go into the survey to willingly sing the praises of transitioning to a pro-transgender group, but the survey seemed to exclude anyone who had regrets about doing so, which isn't a small group. Moreover, it was conducted online, making the identity of those who participated immediately suspect. It's also unclear if some of the people who participated in the survey took the survey multiple times.

It is also worth noting that several mental health professionals have publicly spoken out on the effort to use government force to compel therapists to embrace the “gender-affirming care” model for children with gender dysphoria. This is happening at the federal and state levels. If the proof that puberty blockers are wonderful for children is so strong, why would proponents need to use state coercion to force professionals to use it?

The bottom line is that there is no compelling evidence that pushing these treatments on minors will help their mental issues. In fact, there is growing evidence that it will only make the situation worse. The rising prevalence of detransitioners suggests that more of those subjected to “gender-affirming care” will later regret it when they become adults. Unfortunately, for many of them, it will be too late as these treatments are not reversible in most cases.