Category: Health Care

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Why Puberty Blockers Are Bad Medicine: Form, Telos, and the Abuse of Consent

If you walked into a hospital and asked, “What is medicine for?”—most people would offer some version of the same answer: to heal what’s broken.

But what if medicine stopped healing and started interrupting?

What if a medical intervention didn’t restore nature, but halted it?

And what if the patients were children?

That’s the debate surrounding King’s College London’s new trial on puberty blockers for 226 kids under sixteen—a trial whose central question is not whether puberty blockers should be used, but when they should be administered.

And that, right there, reveals everything.

Today, we need to talk about why puberty blockers are not just risky, not just poorly evidenced, and not just morally incoherent—but why they are, in the deepest Christian sense, bad medicine.

TWO KINDS OF MEDICINE

Let’s begin where Mary Harrington begins in her article Why Puberty Blockers Are Bad Medicine. She distinguishes between two kinds of medicine:

1. Medicine that heals—which restores a natural process that’s gone wrong.

2. Medicine that disrupts—which interrupts a natural process on purpose.

Restorative medicine is Christian through and through. Jesus heals. The Church heals. Doctors heal. And we are thankful for all of that.

But the trial at King’s College isn’t trying to heal anything.

Puberty isn’t a disease. It’s not a malfunction. It’s not an affliction. It’s the God-designed process by which a child becomes an adult in body, mind, and soul.

Harrington notes that puberty is a “complex set of naturally occurring changes intrinsic to the human genetic template.” But the King’s College trial doesn’t ask whether halting these changes is moral or wise. It only asks:

Should we delay puberty blockers—or give them earlier?

And there’s the problem: the worldview underneath the trial has already decided that human nature is raw material—neutral matter that exists for us to re-engineer.

But Christians don’t believe in engineering the human being.

We believe in receiving what God has made.

NOTICERS VS. ENGINEERS

Harrington describes two kinds of people in this debate: Noticers and Engineers.

Engineers

Engineers look at the world the way Francis Bacon did in the 17th century:

The world is stuff. Stuff can be rearranged. And the job of science is to overpower nature “for the relief of man’s estate.”

There’s no form.

No telos. (The Greek word for ‘goal’ or ‘end’.)

No given meaning.

Puberty, therefore, isn’t a stage of creaturely development—it’s an expressive option. Something you can modify according to your inner sense of self.

Noticers

Noticers, on the other hand, see the world as Christians have always seen it:

Creation has shape.

Creation has direction.

Creation has purpose.

This is Aristotelian1Something the Greek philosopher Aristotle taught. It’s Thomistic. It’s also John Paul II. (Saint John Paul the Second.2Pope from 1978 to 2005)

It’s Genesis.  It’s Jesus. (Gen 1:26-283Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
; Matt 19:4-64[Jesus] answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”)

Our bodies are not blank canvases. They are icons—physical revelations of invisible truths. Male and female are not costumes. They are modes of being human.

And as Harrington puts it, even in the most secular scientific contexts:

“Form and ends never really go away.”  

You can deny nature only so long before it comes roaring back.

THE LIMITS OF CONSENT

One of the most powerful parts of Harrington’s argument is her explanation of how our culture replaced metaphysical limits with the single moral requirement of consent.

After the horrors of the 20th century—eugenics, forced sterilizations, and the experiments of Josef Mengele5Josef Mengele was a Nazi physician notorious for brutal experiments at Auschwitz—Western ethics focused intensely on coercion. The logic became:

As long as a subject consents, the action is morally permissible.

But this missed the deeper problem.

The Nazi doctors weren’t evil only because they coerced people. They were evil because they treated human beings as manipulable material—as lab rats.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

If your worldview treats the human body as raw material to be reshaped for psychological comfort, you’ve accepted the same metaphysical mistake that drove eugenics.

Harrington writes:

“Never mind consent, it’s an offense not just against that child, but against reality itself: an atrocity only distinguishable from those of Dr Mengele in its having manipulated the victims into seeing it as ‘medicine.’”  

That sentence should shake us.

It isn’t hyperbole.

It’s moral clarity:

If children are persuaded to view the disruption of healthy development as “care,” the wrongness isn’t lessened. It is compounded.

Children cannot meaningfully consent to the permanent interruption of their own maturation. You can’t sign a permission slip for your future self.

Consent cannot sanctify what violates nature.

THE CASS REVIEW: WHAT IT REVEALED (AND WHERE IT STOPPED SHORT)

In 2024, the Cass Review shook the UK medical establishment by revealing that the evidence base for “gender-affirming care” in minors was astonishingly weak.

It found:

• No robust evidence that puberty blockers improve mental health.

• No convincing data that blockers reduce suicide risk. (The primary concern)

• Significant concerns about bone density, cognitive development, and fertility.

• A clinical model driven more by ideology than by science.

As a result, puberty blockers were banned in the UK—but only until better data could be gathered. And there’s the rub!

King’s College London intends to gather that data.

But here’s the problem:

Cass framed the issue as uncertainty. Christian anthropology frames it as impossibility.

You don’t need “more data” to know that interrupting a child’s sexual maturation is a violation of creaturely design.

The Cass Review was a step in the right direction, but from a Christian point of view, it didn’t go nearly far enough. It never asked the foundational question:

Should we be medicalizing gender distress at all—especially through interventions that halt the very process by which a child becomes an adult?

THE METAPHYSICAL FAULT LINE

Here is Harrington’s most important passage, which I’ll read in full:

“The nub of the King’s College debate, then, isn’t over trial design, or consent. It’s a metaphysical disagreement so deep as to be irreconcilable. Is there any difference between using a drug to restore normal health in a child with cancer or premature puberty, and using the same drug to induce abnormal puberty-less-ness in a child who simply believes themselves to be the opposite sex?”  

Mary Harrington

That is a razor-sharp question.

Now to the Engineer, perhaps, there is no difference.

To the Christian—noticer, realist, creature—the difference is everything.

A cancer drug given to correct disease is medicine. A cancer drug given to abolish normal development is harm.

And Harrington continues:

“The engineers… say it’s all just ‘healthcare.’ But noticers of human nature respond: no, puberty is not an illness… It’s an aspect of our form and telos.”  

Form. Telos. Purpose.

Puberty is the God-given road by which childhood becomes adulthood.

It is ordered toward future vocation, future parenthood, future communion between male and female.

To interrupt it is not compassion.

It is, quite literally, a denial of human nature.

WHAT THE CHURCH MUST SAY

So what do we do with all of this?

First: We tell the truth.

We tell the truth about the body. We tell the truth about creation. We tell the truth about the limits of consent. We tell the truth about the dangers of engineering the human being.

Second: We care for hurting children with compassion—not affirmation of falsehood. A child in distress deserves love, stability, patient listening, and the promise that their body is not their enemy.

Third: We reject the false choice between cruelty and “affirmation.”

There is a third way: truthful love.

Love that does not lie about creation. Love that does not cooperate with gender ideology. Love that sees the child not as an identity project, but as a creature of God.

Finally: We remember that the body is an icon, a revelation.

Your body is not a problem to solve.

It is a gift to receive.

It is a form that speaks.

It is a telos that unfolds.

Puberty is one of God’s good words spoken into creation.

It is not ours to erase.

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Psalm 139 says,

“You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

To receive the body is to receive God’s work.

To reject the body is to reject His wisdom.

And to interrupt a child’s development is to tamper with what God Himself has ordained.

May the Church be a place of clarity, courage, and compassion—a place where children are protected, where truth is spoken, and where the human body is honored as the handiwork of the Creator.

Thanks for listening.

If this episode was helpful, please share it—and join me next time as we continue forming a distinctly Christian imagination for the world God made.

SOURCE: Why Puberty Blockers are Bad Medicine by Mary Harrington

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Celebrate God’s Good Creation

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When Science Silences Itself: Censorship in Gender Medicine Research

In recent years, debates around gender medicine have become some of the most polarized in the scientific and cultural landscape. What was once the realm of cautious inquiry has, in many institutions, hardened into dogma. Researchers who raise empirical or ethical concerns about puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgical interventions for minors increasingly find their work censored or discredited—not through evidence, but through social pressure and editorial gatekeeping.

A new paper by J. Cohn in the Journal of Controversial Ideas shines a bright and uncomfortable light on this phenomenon.

In “Censorship of Essential Debate in Gender Medicine Research,” (see below) Cohn exposes a disturbing trend in modern medicine: the systematic censorship of scientific debate in the field of gender medicine. The piece reveals how leading medical journals and professional societies have created an echo chamber that suppresses scrutiny, silences dissent, and promotes ideology under the guise of science.

The Core Problem: Debate Is Being Shut Down

Cohn argues that medical research on gender dysphoria—especially regarding hormonal and surgical interventions for minors—has been overtaken by advocacy rather than evidence. The core claim is simple but explosive: major journals like JAMA and The New England Journal of Medicine routinely reject well-documented critiques of published research, allowing false or exaggerated claims to circulate uncorrected. Letters highlighting factual or methodological errors are blocked, and even platforms like PubPeer have removed accepted criticisms without explanation.

This, Cohn warns, is not merely academic malpractice—it is a corruption of science itself. When editors silence valid scientific debate, public policy and medical practice are shaped by untested assumptions and political pressure rather than by evidence.

What the Evidence Actually Shows

The article points to a striking fact: despite the confident tone of many advocacy-driven statements, there is no scientific consensus on the effectiveness of medical transition, especially for youth. Systematic reviews—the gold standard of evidence—consistently find the evidence base to be weak or of very low certainty. The long-term outcomes of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries remain largely unknown.

Even basic questions about etiology, persistence, and predictors of benefit in gender dysphoria are unresolved. Yet, U.S. medical bodies have promoted these interventions as both safe and necessary—often claiming they are “lifesaving” while dismissing alternatives like psychotherapy or watchful waiting.

False Claims and the Refusal to Correct Them

Cohn provides concrete examples of misinformation that have been published and then protected from correction. Some articles claim that regret rates after transition are “low” or “rare,” despite the fact that true rates are unknown because of poor follow-up and incomplete data. Others assert that randomized controlled trials would be unethical—a claim that is scientifically indefensible, since experimental rigor is what distinguishes genuine medicine from ideology.

Cohn recounts instances where he attempted to submit brief corrections or letters to editors, only to see them rejected without explanation. One such letter challenging NEJM was dismissed; another, initially accepted by JAMA, was later withdrawn before publication. In both cases, his critiques were grounded in empirical evidence.

How Journals and Societies Reinforce Error

The article describes what Cohn calls a “closed loop” between medical journals and professional associations. Guidelines by groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics cite the very same uncorrected journal articles that overstate the evidence for gender transition. The result is a self-reinforcing cycle: advocacy-based claims become the official line, while attempts at correction are buried.

The International Picture: Caution Abroad, Ideology at Home

Outside the United States, several nations have already reevaluated their approach. Sweden, Finland, and the United Kingdom have all pivoted away from automatic medicalization toward a more cautious model emphasizing psychotherapy and holistic care. The 2024 Cass Review in the U.K. and a 2025 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services review both acknowledge the same reality: the evidence for pediatric gender medicine is extraordinarily weak.

Why This Matters

The censorship of debate in gender medicine is not just a matter of professional ethics—it directly affects vulnerable patients and the integrity of public trust in science. When unsupported claims about safety and efficacy are treated as settled facts, doctors cannot give truly informed consent, and policymakers are misled into endorsing experimental treatments for children.

Cohn concludes with a reminder drawn from JAMA’s own editorial policy: “The integrity of the scientific process hinges on the free exchange of scientific ideas grounded in rigorously conducted inquiry.” That principle, he argues, is being betrayed by the very institutions charged with upholding it.

The Way Forward

True science welcomes scrutiny. It is strengthened by disagreement and refined by debate. Cohn calls for the restoration of open, evidence-based discourse in gender medicine—a return to the first principles of inquiry: transparency, humility, and courage. Until that happens, medical journals risk losing what makes them credible in the first place.

The article ends with a simple warning that resonates far beyond gender medicine: when science silences itself, ideology rushes to fill the void.

You can download a PDF version of this article for easy sharing and reference.

Censorship of Essential Debate in Gender Medicine ResearchDownload

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Grace and Truth

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‘You Cannot Change Sex’: Veteran NHS Doctor Challenges Gender Medicine

Step into the Light

In a strongly worded open letter, Dr. Joseph Chrysostom warns young people against what he calls “deceptive” gender medical practices, including irreversible surgeries and hormone treatments. He claims these interventions do not create functioning sexual organs, but rather permanent wounds and dependencies on the medical system. He also accuses institutions of failing to protect youth and predicts growing accountability in the years ahead.

Open Letter to British Youth Considering Gender Surgery

Dear Young People, I am Dr. Joseph Chrysostom, a medical doctor who has served in the NHS for over 25 years. I am writing to you out of deep concern and genuine care — to warn you about what I believe to be some of the most harmful and deceptive medical practices currently happening in our country. These include the use of cross-sex hormones and surgeries such as vaginoplasty, orchidectomy, and phalloplasty, offered both within and outside the NHS. What I write here reflects my professional opinion and sincerely held belief based on my knowledge of human biology and surgical practice.

You have been told that you can “change sex.” But biologically, that is impossible. Every one of your body’s trillions of cells carries either XX or XY chromosomes — a genetic signature that cannot be altered by hormones or surgery. To claim otherwise is, in my view, deeply misleading. Any doctor or institution promising to “feminise” or “masculinise” the human body without changing its DNA is, in effect, deceiving you.

I believe this deception began early — in schools, through Relationship and Sex Education materials that claimed gender is fluid and that sex is “assigned at birth.”

That is false. Sex is determined at conception, and by the seventh week of foetal development, it is already biologically clear whether a person is male or female. By teaching that doctors might have “assigned” you the wrong sex, these materials planted a dangerous idea — one that could easily take hold during adolescence, a time when self-doubt and confusion are common.

In my view, this was not education but indoctrination. Schools were instructed to hide these matters from parents — the very people best placed to support you through emotional confusion. This isolation mirrors the pattern seen in cult-like ideologies: separating young people from those who love them most. Once detached from parental guidance, vulnerable youth become easy targets for ideologues and, later, for those in medicine who profit from these falsehoods. Sadly, some doctors, surgeons, endocrinologists and psychologists — knowingly or not — have become part of this system.

Cross-sex hormones are being prescribed despite well-documented long-term complications. Surgeons have begun to perform irreversible operations on healthy bodies. When challenged, the professional institutions — Royal Colleges, GMC, NHS England, and the Department of Health — all pass responsibility between themselves. No one will say these surgeries are not deceptive. Yet none will take accountability either.

Let me be clear about what these procedures truly involve:

Vaginoplasty does not create a vagina. It creates a deep surgical slit-like narrow space lined with skin. It is a wound tending to heal and contract, not an organ. It lacks the glands, microbiome, glycogen-rich inner lining, acidic pH (to protect against infections) and natural functions of a female reproductive tract.

Phalloplasty does not create a penis. It forms a mound of skin and fat from another part of the body. It cannot perform erection, emission, or ejaculation — the defining functions of male sexual anatomy.

Mastectomy cannot make a female chest into a male one. It leaves irreversible scars and removes healthy breasts permanently leaving you incapable of lactation. These are not restorative surgeries — they are destructive ones. In my opinion, they have the potential to turn healthy young people into lifelong patients, dependent on the medical system for repairs, revisions, and mental health support.

What you truly need is not surgery, but psychotherapy — compassionate, skilled counselling to help you understand and accept your biological reality.

You deserve truth, not ideology. You deserve to be treated with honesty, not with the promise of impossible transformations. I believe that within a few years, many of those who underwent these surgeries will express deep regret — but by then, it will be too late. Lost organs cannot be replaced. The physical and psychological scars are permanent.

I urge you: step away from the conveyor belt that starts in classrooms and ends in operating theatres. Parents and professionals across the world are now awakening to the dangers of gender ideology. Within the next few years this conveyor belt will be empty due to the alertness of current generation of parents.

Accountability is coming. I believe, those who performed, assisted, promoted, or profited from these procedures will one day have to answer for them. Thank you for reading this letter with an open mind. I write not to condemn you, but to protect you — before irreversible harm is done.

With sincerity and concern,
Dr. Joseph Chrysostom,
MBBS, MS (Gen Surg), FRCSEd GMC 5199143

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Step into the Light