The Olsen-Kennedy study is released - Mental and Emotional Health of Youth after 24 months of Gender-Affirming Medical Care Initiated with Pubertal Suppression

They appear to have made a huge tower of assumptions, in the hope that nobody will notice that the conclusion perched on top is: 'A cohort that did not significantly differ from the general population remained much the same over a short period.'

The hugh dropout rate and playing up the importance of non-findings looks very much like the previous high-profile study of mental health in trans identified children. Which also found that: 'A cohort that did not significantly differ from the general population remained much the same over a short period.'

So this is what they have come up with after what, a year of it being supressed and looked at by every activist researcher that could possibly re-interpret the findings?

Reading bits of the abstract/discussion, I'm shocked that even the authors can't spin it in a more positive (for their thesis) way. It will be interesting to see if the analyses that were pre-registered with the trial were all carried out. A 30% loss to follow up, if confirmed, is really high!

illogical conclusion that it's worthwhile sacrificing normal healthy development to prevent mental health worsening

The strongest statement this study should be giving is that there was no evidence that the mental health of the children surveyed worsened when taking puberty blockers for 2 years. (This is assuming that the statistical analysis they have conducted is robust - I'm not familiar with LCGM to comment on that).

They provide no evidence that the mental health of the children would worsen if they didn't take puberty blockers.

I commented earlier that they hadn't reported the drop out rate. From looking again, they report recruiting 94 children. The only place I can find the numbers followed up for the full 24 months is fairly hidden in Table 4 where they have 59 children answering the depression & suicidality questionnaire at 24 months.

This suggests they lost 35 children to follow up over the 2 years (or 37%). I would want to know why they have lost such a high proportion of their cohort over two years (and you should be suspicious that they are trying to cover it up). What happened to those kids? What was their mental health like?

You have to question the medical abilities of someone who says this.

Yes, they can get fake things that look like breasts superficially. They can't get actual breasts that have the capacity to produce milk or in any way physiologically resemble real breasts. They're 100% fake.

The study seems to have more holes than swiss cheese and their illogical conclusion that it's worthwhile sacrificing normal healthy development to prevent mental health worsening has to surely be medical malpractice? This is not the standard of evidence on risk and benefit required for any other medical intervention.

Pure evil

JOK is also being sued for medical negligence by a young woman who she medically transitioned.

https://x.com/ForWomenScot/status/1865077398535836049

https://nitter.net/ForWomenScot/status/1865077398535836049#m

JOK is also the woman who said that if girls whose breasts she had removed changed their minds in the future, they could just go get new breasts.

I doubt it.

JOK's partner is trans I believe. And I think works in the area too.

These people are so up to their neck in this. Personally, professionally, socially, politically. They can't afford to have any doubts.

The research that I would really like to see, although God knows how they'd do it, is what happens to kids' brains on puberty blockers.

It just sounds like something from a science-fiction film, where they are in suspended animation. So anything they are thinking and feeling will be forever that of an 11-year-old.

This 'the treatment will prevent something happening in a future that we know nothing about' seems very similar to the poster insisting they knew that 'this happened in the past and nobody knew about about it' on another thread.

Fairies, ghosts, UFOs, and alien abductions. Goodbye reality, goodbye truth.

In 2019, 22.3% of middle school youth reported ever thinking about suicide, 14.7% reported ever making a suicide plan, and 9.3% reported ever attempting suicide in their lifetime.

Fucking hell, nearly 10% of 11 to 14-year-olds have tried to kill themselves??

Yes indeed.

Agree with @Seethlaw that this conclusion it is likely that puberty blockers prevent the deterioration of mental health is doing a hell of a lot of heavy lifting.

This is a pre-print so worth pointing out that it hasn't been peer reviewed.

Just from a quick read through, there's a lot to critique about this. It's essentially a survey every 6 months for 2 years of kids who have started puberty blockers. Did they have any drop outs from the surveys? Did any kids stop taking puberty blockers in that time? Why does their analysis not match up to the protocol?

This says a lot really:
Recognizing the limitations in fully capturing the diversity of gender identities among TNB (trans and non-binary) individuals, the sample was categorized and stratified based on DSAB (designated sex at birth) to facilitate analysis

MH was poor, PB did nothing to alleviate it. Ffs

my immediate thoughts, talk about twisting the results.

Props to them for doing the study and publishing it, eventually.

I wonder if it keeps any of them up at night.

Funny how those who "designated" the babies' sex at birth managed to put them into two distinct boxes which showed significant differences. If the sex at birth designations were as random as the word suggests this wouldn't happen.

Sex differences in gender treatment seems a screaming anomaly.

If that study shows one thing, it's sure as fuck that sex matters.

On the effects of covariates section, age had significant impact, also:

'Designated sex at birth was a significant predictor of baseline withdrawn depressed scores β= −4.58, 95% CI: (−8.08, −1.13), with those assigned male at birth having significantly lower baseline mean withdrawn depressed scores than those assigned female at birth. In addition, designated sex at birth was a significant predictor of change in several domains of the CBCL. '

I'm afraid you probably really do, Igneo.

Depression commonly accompanies gender dysphoria and has been routinely reported as higher among youth with gender dysphoria than the population of youth at large.

Do I really have to bring out the good old "correlation is not causation" ?