Puberty Blockers Reduce IQ and Stunt Cognitive Development
What Are Puberty Blockers Doing to Kids’ Brains?
We know there is a huge debate among many about the use of Lupron (leuprolide acetate) as a puberty blocker for adolescents, and its occasional use for precocious puberty, which is rare. However, what we are seeing is that this drug can cause far greater harm, not just to the body but also to the minds of children. It is considered experimental in this context. Lupron has been used to sterilize rodents, such as rats and capybaras. The drug is also used to treat prostate cancer patients. Whatever the intended use of the drug, its harmful effects are unnecessary, especially when it comes to the natural processes of pubertal development.
When you chemically alter the body, it is never 100% reversible. It takes time for the body to return to its original state and often requires another chemical process. As a detransitioner myself, after ending hormone replacement therapy with cross-sex hormones, the drugs I took have still left my body in a feminized state, particularly my chest. So, when we consider this, children placed on puberty blockers like Lupron may also need time to return mostly to their original state.
When you stop the development of the body with Lupron, brain development stops as well. It can lock the brain in a state where it no longer develops naturally. The brain may not progress beyond an adolescent state because development either stops completely or remains on a spectrum of only partially returning to its original state.
NOTE: There are no longitudinal studies on the long-term effects of Lupron as a puberty-blocking agent in children.
There are serious ramifications to using a drug that affects brain development, including cognitive and behavioral issues such as lower IQ and mental health problems. According to a study by Sallie Baxendale, “There is no evidence that cognitive effects are fully reversible following discontinuation of treatment.” She further states, “There is some evidence of a detrimental impact of pubertal suppression on IQ in children.”
It could be suggested that changes in children’s brain function associated with puberty blockers are comparable to a traumatic brain injury, as these drugs may induce a pause in aspects of brain development. However, there is no direct evidence supporting this comparison. Anecdotal reports suggest a possible correlation between the use of puberty blockers and an increase in behavioral issues. These issues may manifest as more severe behavioral problems among individuals under the age of 25. This age is often cited as the point at which full brain development typically occurs. Children and young adults under this age may be affected by these drugs not only physically, but mentally as well.
According to The University of Queensland, brain development occurs at key stages, including approximately 35 days, 100 days, 9 months, adolescence (around age 14), and is generally considered complete by around age 25. It can be argued that delays in overall human development may also affect the brain, potentially leading to lasting impacts on cognitive function and behavior, particularly in children whose brains are still developing. Lupron is a drug used to block puberty in young patients. Delays in natural development due to such treatments may have lasting effects, potentially impacting not only children but also young adults.
✍️: Patrick — Patriot Man from Let's Talk, America! on Substack.
📰: Michael, Editor-in-Chief
In school in the early 80s, when I was about 12-13, we had sex education and learned that puberty involved far more than the obvious changes one can see and hear, like body hair, broader shoulders, breast development, voice changes, body odor, ejaculation, and menstruation. These obvious markers of sexual development were the stuff that made us giggle, because SEX.
Our instructor made it clear, though, that a lot more was happening to us that wasn’t so obvious to the ear and eye (and nose). The transformation of a child into an adult is triggered by the release of chemicals from the brain that stimulate the gonads to release massive amounts of hormones to shape growth and development. The hormones travel through the bloodstream, which means they are going everywhere, feeding every cell of the body. That means every major system of the body goes through a complete transformation during puberty.
We were told that the brain gets stewed in these hormones, and this would mean mood swings like a roller coaster, especially the type of swings that told us any embarrassment or disappointment was the end of the world, and life therefore “wasn’t worth living.” We were told to beware of these adolescent pubertal brain misfires, and that a sad, small percentage of us would succumb to suicide, but don’t be one of those unfortunates who believed the lies their adolescent, hormone-soaked, volatile and overreacting brain told them in moments of crisis.
We were also told about cardiovascular development brought on by these hormones, in addition to bone development, muscle development, skin changes— all in the service of reproduction. Reproduction, they told us, is not just a matter of the mature gametes being available to each other through sexual intercourse. Reproduction is holistic, it depends on us being able to master adult relationships. This is in order to ensure that the offspring will be raised in stable environments. To remain ever a child, with a child’s mind and perspective, would not be supportive of reproduction of the species. It also isn’t convenient to having a productive career, or successful life in general.
I have to say I’m impressed with the level of sex education I received back in the early 80s. We had to be able to mark a diagram of both the male and female reproductive systems with the proper Latin names, like seminal vesicle and vas deferens, labia majora and cervix. Heady stuff for 13-year-olds. This biology is the foundation of adulthood, if you are grounded in physical reality.
As soon as I heard in 2015 that there were cases where puberty was being blocked in order to avoid the sexual development changes one can see and hear, I thought, “But what about all the hormone-induced developmental processes in the brain, heart, lungs, liver, muscles, and bones?” I could not believe that endocrinologists (who should understand this important stuff far better than I would, as a layperson who only had high school biology) would administer these debilitating treatments to children, solely for aesthetic purposes, to answer emotional distress. In a child.
I watched “I Am Jazz” as it was being aired, and I felt sick inside. I tried, as a “good progressive,” to accept this brave new idea. Male secondary sex characteristics, as we all know, are nearly impossible to carve away to make a man “pass” aesthetically as a woman as an adult. Was it a mercy, then, to prohibit their development in the first place? But what if these little effeminate boys are just going to be gay? Why remove their genitalia? And what about all those other disastrous consequences of denying a male his pubertal growth?
Then it was revealed that GIRLS were having their puberty blocked for these same sorts of aesthetic reasons. This I simply could not fathom. I had seen women who had poisoned themselves with testosterone well after they’d completed puberty, and they were “passing” as men pretty convincingly. Arguably, more convincingly that a girl who had been blocked from developing her matured, woman’s body. So what could the justification possibly be, to weaken a girl’s bone and brain development, starve every major system of her body from the feminizing hormones essential to healthy growth, simply to make her seem more masculine? It wouldn’t even be aesthetically effective. Why rush to remove her breasts before she’d ever had a sexual encounter? Why, why, why???
Oh, right, the “devastation” of breasts and menstruating. Well, back to the adolescent brain, then… the one I was advised about as a 12-year-old. The one that gives false messages, is at times fatalistic and nihilistic in the face of setbacks, embarrassments, discomforts and disappointments… we were told to roll with that, to do our level best to survive it. But certainly we were NOT told to cave in to it, and it certainly was nothing to “celebrate,” the emotional lability, instability, and suicidal thoughts.
I blame endocrinologists for abdicating their responsibilities to operate ethically. I am beginning to think many endocrinologists have a “god complex,” and are not fit for the purpose of supporting healthy children who are falling prey to fads, cults, and the “stinking thinking” of their teenage brains.
What an incredible travesty, to administer such powerfully destructive chemicals to an otherwise healthy child, as an aesthetic intervention. We used to recoil at foot binding and corsets, especially for children. Now we see a top-down encouragement for loss-of-function elective cosmetic chemical and surgical sex trait modifications. For young and vulnerable people. It’s astonishing and horrifying to me. Because I see no evidence here of ethical practice and “first, do no harm,” I am called a “hateful bigot.”
If you want to see this in action, just go watch episodes of I AM Jazz on TLC or take a look at Jazz Jennings’ social media accounts. He’s a young adult but still speaks and acts like a child. It’s bizarre.