Long-Awaited Puberty Blockers Study Is Out In Pre-Print, Finding No Change In Kids' Mental Health

The New York Times reported in October that the lead author, Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, had held off from publishing the study, which did not see mental health improvements, for political reasons.

Leading pediatric gender care physician Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, lead author of a new paper on puberty blockers that found that children’s mental health markers did not change while they were on them.

A much-anticipated study on the use of puberty blockers among a group of nearly 100 minors with gender dysphoria has finally emerged in pre-print form. The study found that, contrary to what Dutch researchers who founded the field of pediatric gender medicine in the 1990s and 2000s found in their seminal 2011 paper, children’s mental health markers did not improve while on the drugs. Instead, the children had fairly good mental health overall that simply remained constant during the year or two they spent on blockers.

In October, New York Times reporter Azeen Ghorayshi reported that the study’s lead author, Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, had long withheld the study, which finished gathering its data in 2021, from publication for political reasons. She did not want its null findings, which sh…