**This article was written by Family First staff writers.
Data released by Pharmac shows exponential growth in the number of kiwi children being prescribed puberty blockers, despite concerns about safety. In fact, New Zealand is prescribing puberty blockers at higher rates than most other countries. This should be of real concern, but it should also not surprise us.
There is disturbing evidence of an extraordinary increase in teenagers seeking gender transition, and state organisations are seemingly encouraging this. Children in New Zealand are being indoctrinated with gender ideology, starting as young as kindergarten age. Gender Ideology seems to be taking over our education system, and our children are being bombarded with extreme gender and sexuality material on social media and within the education system itself. With so much being hurled at our kids, transgenderism is quickly becoming a mass social contagion.
Children are encouraged to ‘experiment’ with gender, which is only confusing them and ultimately harming them. Not only has this led to exponential growth in kids being prescribed puberty blockers, surgical procedures have also increased significantly, with doctors performing double mastectomies on many healthy teenage girls.
Puberty blockers are unproven, and with serious concerns about their safety. Medical professionals and medical groups – including The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) – recently sounded growing international concern around the use of puberty blockers to treat young people with gender dysphoria because of the low certainty of benefits but the significant potential for medical harm.
According to reports by 1news, “medical epidemiologist Charlotte Paul, an emeritus professor at Otago University, has called for an independent review and tighter rules”.
1news goes on to share the concerns of a mother whose child is more than five years into gender transition, and that her child’s mental and physical health was not better – it was worse. Puberty blockers were not “a simple pause button” as advocates claimed, she said.
“The side effects of those were terrible. It was basically like going through menopause… sweats, irritability, real fatigue, weight gain.”
Source: 1news.co.nz
Yet despite these concerns, our own Ministry of Health (MOH) is still supporting the use of puberty blockers. As previously noted by Family First, the MOH recently updated its website to remove the words “puberty blockers are safe and reversible”. But according to a report by RNZ, the MOH still endorses the Professional Association for Transgender Health Aotearoa (PATHA) guidelines, which states puberty blockers are “considered to be fully reversible”.
While the MOH and PATHA support the use of puberty blockers, the UK National Health Service is much more circumspect, saying:
“little is known about the long-term side effects, the psychological effects or how it affects the development of the teenage brain or children’s bones.”
“Affects the development of the teenage brain or children’s bones” … if this doesn’t raise alarm bells then what will?
In fact, the UK’s Tavistock transgender clinic was recently shut down by the NHS after a scathing review found it is “not safe” for children, and that there is insufficient evidence to recommend puberty blockers.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/28/tavistock-transgender-clinic-shut-nhs-review-finds-not-safe
Family First has called on the New Zealand government to pause the use of puberty blockers for teenagers while further research is undertaken, a sentiment supported by a majority of New Zealanders and an increasing number of medical groups.
New Zealand is not alone in this rapid growth of children seeking to transition. It’s been widely reported that teenage transgenderism is also on the rise in other countries, especially the USA and the UK.
In the UK, young people referred for ‘gender treatment’ has increased by over 4,000 per cent in just 10 years. If this isn’t social contagion then we don’t know what is.
4,000% Explosion in Kids Identifying as Transgender
According to the Telegraph
“Some educationalists have previously warned that the promotion of transgender issues in schools has ‘sown confusion’ in children’s minds and that encouraging children to question gender has ‘become an industry. ”
A major UK review into Gender Identity has so far concluded that:
“There is lack of consensus and open discussion about the nature of gender dysphoria and therefore about the appropriate clinical response.”
It’s unquestionably time to pause the use of puberty blockers for teenagers while further research is undertaken.