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Just how much damage to so-called “puberty blockers” inflict on children? The first thing that must be considered is that one of the most common puberty-blockers, Lupron, is in fact a chemical castration drug, frequently used to punish sex offenders.
That aside, though, what of the claims by transgender ideologues and certain doctors that the effects of the drugs are entirely reversible? Is it even plausible that puberty can be artificially delayed, with no long-term developmental effects? Emerging evidence strongly suggests that bone density and fertility are likely to be permanently affected. Some doctors claim that male children, especially, treated long term with puberty blockers will never fully sexually develop. This means that not only does their penis not grow enough, causing disastrous complications with surgical “transition”, but these neutered children will never be able to achieve full orgasm as adults.
If all that wasn’t enough, a new animal study suggests that puberty blockers may permanently damage childrens’ cognitive function.
The study focuses on Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), a class of drugs that includes the puberty-blocker Lupron. It works by suppressing GnRH receptors in the pituitary gland. But non-reproductive tissues, including areas of the brain such as the hippocampus and amygdala also have GnRH receptors. Not only do axons (brain cells) affected by GnRH extend to other regions of the central nervous system (CNS), but GnRH can also cross the blood-brain barrier and potentially affect other brain functions.
The impact of long-term GnRHa-treatment on hippocampus-dependent cognitive functions, such as spatial orientation, learning and memory, is not well studied, particularly when treatment encompasses a critical window of development such as puberty.
Not only do adolescents famously exhibit risk-taking, exploratory and obsessive behaviours, and emotional reactivity, but:
Adolescence is also a time when many neuropsychiatric disorders, as well as behavioral and emotional problems, become apparent (Eaton et al., 2008, Casey and Jones, 2010). Whether developmental changes in cognition and behavior are directly affected by patterns of GnRH secretion seen at this time, is not known.
Previous studies on sheep have already shown that puberty blockers result in sex specific changes in cognition and behaviour.
GnRHa-treated males were more likely to display risk-taking behavior in a food acquisition task (Wojniusz et al., 2011), and heightened emotional reactivity (i.e. emotional and behavioral responses to a fearful situation) in early adulthood, but decreased emotional reactivity at a later age (Evans et al., 2012).
Consider, for example, trans child star Jazz Jenning’s well-documented ballooning weight, as well as his obvious, ongoing emotional traumas.
The new study set out to examine the effects of puberty-blocking drugs on spatial cognition. Spatial cognition is how we understand and navigate ourselves within space. The study used a group of rams and subjected them to complex maze-navigation tasks. Some were left untreated as controls, and other subjected to both GnRH and testosterone blocking, or GnRH blocking alone.
The animals’ ability to traverse the maze significantly improved with age. They were also able to retain spatial memory better. Another observed effect was an improvement in how distressed they became while performing the task.
Assessment of long-term spatial memory demonstrated that the blockade of GnRH signaling impaired spatial reference memory, and this effect was independent of testosterone replacement. In contrast, spatial working memory was primarily affected by the suppression of gonadal steroid signaling associated with the blockade of GnRH signaling […]
A specific effect of GnRH signaling on long-term spatial memory was evident from the impaired ability of GnRHa treated animals to recall spatial information and that this effect could not be counteracted with the restoration of testosterone signaling.
Science Direct
The upshot of all this is that puberty blockers appear to affect spatial orientation and learning. Combining a GnRHa puberty blocker (such as Lupron) with testosterone blocking “emotional reactivity and motivation to reunite with flock members”. In other words, the puberty-blocked animals were more likely to become distressed and emotionally needy.
While some aspects of spatial cognition could be restored with testosterone treatment, others were more persistent.
The current study was unable to state whether similar effects would be observed in females. Other studies have found similar effects in male rats. This is not unexpected, given that the amygdala and hippocampus are major components of the brain structure of all vertebrates.
This means, in turn, that the effects observed in sheep and rats are highly likely to be similarly seen in humans.
These are alarming findings, with direct and damning implications for the proponents of the so-called “affirmation model”, which urges placing children on the path to gender transition, including puberty blockers, as quickly as possible, no questions asked.
