Physician Who Pioneered Transgender Hormone Speaks Out About Dangers

(RepublicanReport.org) – A doctor who helped pioneer hormone treatments for European transgender children recently spoke out about the dangers of altering young people who suffer from gender dysphoria. The researcher shared her experience seeking out what she had hoped would be a breakthrough for the transgender population, only to find many patients’ mental states continue to deteriorate despite treatment.

In 2011, Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala, chief psychiatrist at Tampere University Hospital’s Department of Adolescent Psychiatry in Finland, began overseeing one of the first clinics to treat adolescents claiming they were transgender. The 58-year-old Finnish-born clinician has since helped with the assessment of over 500 patients.

Kaltiala shares that she had gone into the program with high hopes, which she based on a Dutch study that had concluded medical intervention vastly improved the well-being of people with gender dysphoria. But right off the bat, she noticed that the “vast majority” of her patients were teenage girls with severe mental health issues. Common problems between them included depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and self-harming behaviors. She found that roughly one-quarter also suffered from autism.

Kaltiala noted that some of the children she saw had parents who’d received information from LGBTQ+ activists insisting gender identity issues were the real root of their kids’ distress. Others had been influenced by reported positive changes in their lives as a result of medical transitioning. Even more distressing, the psychiatrist found several cases of “social contagion-linked” gender identity crises — children who were simply confused or going along with others. Some patients later expressed regret over their decisions and “de-transitioned” back to their birth-assigned genders.

Long-term observations indicated that treatments to cause gender transition ultimately did nothing to halt the mental deterioration of Kaltiala’s patients. She notes that hormone therapy isn’t a treatment for mental illness and criticizes past research that has offered claims to the contrary. Her research on the issue is available through “Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health.”