Republican senators push for 'transparency' on trans youth care studies

Six Republican U.S. senators are pushing for what they call “transparency” on National Institutes of Health-funded studies on gender-affirming care from transgender youth.

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This comes after the doctor leading a study on puberty blockers revealed that she has not published the results out of fear they could be “weaponized” by opponents of such care.

The letter is led by Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who is the highest-ranking Republican on the of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama. They are joined by Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, and James Lankford and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. It was sent Thursday.

“To be clear, we oppose taxpayer funding going toward gender transition interventions for minors,” they wrote in the letter, sent Thursday. “While we recognize that this particular study is observational, we remain concerned that minors lack the ability to fully understand the lifelong outcomes of the interventions studied in this project and provide their consent. Further, taxpayers have the right to know the outcomes of the research they fund, particularly when the intervention studied has life-altering impacts.”

The study was conducted by Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy of the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and her colleagues. The hospital has the largest gender transition clinic in the U.S., headed by Olson-Kennedy.

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The research began in 2015. Olson-Kennedy and her team administered puberty blockers to 95 young people with gender dysphoria. The youth did not show great improvements in mental health, but that’s likely because they were doing well already, she told The New York Times in October.

“They’re in really good shape when they come in, and they’re in really good shape after two years,” she said.

“That conclusion seemed to contradict an earlier description of the group, in which Dr. Olson-Kennedy and her colleagues noted that one quarter of the adolescents were depressed or suicidal before treatment,” the Times reports.

Olson-Kennedy said she has not published her findings, which are part of a larger NIH research project on trans youth, because she fears they could be used — wrongly — as evidence for bans on gender-affirming care for this population. In the past few years, 24 states have enacted such bans, while two others have banned gender-affirming surgery only, which is rarely performed on minors.

“I do not want our work to be weaponized,” she told the Times. “It has to be exactly on point, clear and concise. And that takes time.” The research has also been delayed by cuts to NIH funding, she said, adding that she will eventually publish the findings.

The Republican senators cited a study out of the United Kingdom that has led the U.K.'s National Health Service to restrict the use of puberty blockers to clinical trials and exceptional circumstances, as the health service reviewed the study and concluded the evidence didn''t support widespread prescription of puberty blockers. However, the NHS review has been criticized.

"The review dismissed over 100 studies on the efficacy of transgender care as not suitably high quality, applying standards that are unattainable and not required of most other pediatric medicine," Erin Reed wrote in her Erin in the Morning column, republished by The Advocate.

Such care is supported by every major U.S. medical organization.

The Republican senators want at least some information on Olson-Kennedy's findings before the end of this month.