Delayed Study Finds Puberty Blockers Don’t Help Kids

A major taxpayer-funded study initiated in 2015 to observe the effects of puberty blockers and opposite-sex hormone therapies was finally released. The results are anything but shocking.  

While the authors were hoping to demonstrate that these unsupported therapies would prove beneficial, the study confirmed what every other credible study has shown: These drugs do not deliver the promised positive health outcomes for minors. 

The long-delayed findings from the NIH-funded Trans Youth Care study led by Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy have now been reported. It is notable that the final report was released only after the Oversight Project sued. Without these efforts, this data might still be buried.  

The study followed roughly 95 youth ages 8 to 16 on puberty blockers and tracked depression symptoms, emotional functioning, and parent-reported behavioral measures over a 24-month period. The results showed no significant improvement. Nada. 

Mental health metrics remained essentially “stable,” which was a kinder way of saying that the serious mental health conditions of the patients before receiving these controversial treatments remained serious afterward. There was no evidence of the positive clinical gains that had been repeatedly asserted to justify these interventions on developing children. These children not only had to continue suffering from their unfortunate mental health issues; now these medical “professionals” just piled on with the resulting lifelong physical harms.  

This was clearly not the outcome the study’s lead investigator wanted. As The New York Times reported in October 2024, Olson-Kennedy and her team withheld the data for years, stating they did not want the findings “to be weaponized.” Millions of taxpayer dollars funded the research. The public paid for the truth. Publication was delayed because the results upended their preferred ideological narrative. That is a profound betrayal of scientific integrity. And of our children.

It wasn’t long ago in medical history that prefrontal lobotomies — the gruesome procedure that involved surgically severing connections in the brain — were widely accepted as a mainstream psychiatric “treatment,” despite no medical evidence of their effectiveness. These operations had devastating long-term effects. After thousands suffered, the world eventually recognized the grave mistake and put an immediate end to these abusive practices. No responsible health care plan would cover them today.

Fast-forward. Today, so-called “gender-affirming” — or, more appropriately, sex-rejecting — interventions on minors use surgery to remove healthy body parts, injections of wrong-sex hormone therapies, and the administration of puberty blockers, all of which lead to irreversible consequences. Loss of fertility, diminished bone density, chronic infections, sexual dysfunction, and interference with normal development are just a few of the many adverse effects. For years, advocates claimed without evidence that puberty blockers were safe, reversible, and lifesaving. Many employee health plans quietly funded these experimental procedures on children — and still do. 

When a federally funded study designed to demonstrate benefits finds none for puberty blockers in early pubertal youth, the case for routine use collapses further. Independent reviews in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, and Norway have already led those countries to sharply restrict or abandon the practice. The 2025 HHS evidence review reached similar conclusions about weak evidence and significant risks.

Recent developments make the picture even clearer. The Trump administration, through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has finalized a rule ending federal Medicaid and CHIP funding for sex-rejecting procedures — puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries — on minors. The government is following the science and protecting children. Private employers should do the same.

HHS’s Wolves in White Coats report further exposes how doctors, hospitals, and financial incentives drove the rapid expansion of these experimental interventions on minors, including problematic insurance coding and perverse profit motives that created “captive patients.”

Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission, alongside several states, continues the lawsuit against the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). The group, whose “Standards of Care” underpinned much coverage justification, has now argued in court that its guidance consists merely of “opinions” in a field of “intense medical debate” marked by “medical and scientific uncertainty.” 

Translated, this means that the so-called “Standards of Care” for gender dysphoria peddled by WPATH and its co-conspirators and used by activists, health care workers, politicians and others to justify the abuse of children just went up in smoke. There is nothing left to point to that says these inhumane prescriptions are “medically necessary.”   

Yet hundreds of major companies — at least 560 according to 1792 Exchange research — still treat these unproven interventions as standard benefits for minor dependents. They use shareholder resources and employee premiums to finance experimental medicalization with profound lifelong consequences. It does not have to be this way.

Charles Schwab and Walmart removed coverage for these procedures on minors from their employee health plans. They recognized that facilitating permanent, catastrophic destruction of children’s bodies is neither evidence-based medicine nor sound corporate governance. These decisions reflect a returned focus to core business priorities rather than ideological capture. Every other company still funding these diabolical science experiments on minors should follow suit immediately. 

Corporations do not exist to advance radical ideologies — especially when our precious children are the victims. They should focus on creating value for shareholders, serving customers, and supporting the well-being of employees and their families, not underwriting bizarre medical experiments on minors. Those that persist in covering these procedures for minors will face continued scrutiny as well as financial and reputational risks.

The Olson-Kennedy study was funded to generate knowledge and a better understanding of how adults can best help children suffering from gender dysphoria. In a way, it did.  

While the nearly buried report failed to match the preferred narrative, the results spoke loudly. Subjecting our children to these life-altering, experimental treatments is not the way we serve them. Corporate America cannot claim to care about employee well-being or social responsibility while financing these devastating sex-denying interventions on the most vulnerable.

The data is public. The risks are real. The responsible path is clear: Stop funding these treatments for minors, return to evidence-based medicine, and let companies get back to business. Our children deserve nothing less.

Doug Napier is executive chairman and CEO of 1792 Exchange, a nonprofit that helps companies get back to business through data, research, and confidential engagement with boards and executives.