Health Watch: Does Gender-Affirming Care Affect IQ
- Details
- Category: Medical Science
- Published on Monday, 02 December 2024 10:59
- Written by Dr. Jane M. Orient, M.D.,
If you know someone who is contemplating—or recommending—the use of puberty blockers, you should ask this question, does gender-affirming care affect a person's IQ? The graph below shows test results in one individual.
Puberty involves much more than the development of secondary sexual characteristics such as breasts, facial hair, and a deep voice. It also plays a critical role in the maturation of the brain, including the parts responsible for executive functioning/control and attention, learning, memory, and emotional processing.
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If this critical window is missed, there is no evidence that development can catch up later. Research on the neurocognitive effect of "gender-affirming" care such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones is very sparse. Animal studies show a detrimental effect on learning, the development of social behaviors, and responses to stress.
One small human study showed a decrease of both performance IQ and full-scale IQ after three years. The average 7-point decline was called "not clinically relevant," but at least one patient experienced a loss of 15 IQ points or more, from 138 to 123. For comparison, an average loss of 3 points from leaded gasoline was considered extremely significant.
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"Longitudinal studies are urgently needed to study the educational and vocational trajectories of persons undergoing these treatments." Among President Elect Trump's proposals concerning "gender-affirming care" is a private right of action for victims to sue doctors who have performed these procedures on minors.
Additional Information:
· "Gender Dysphoria in Children and Suppression of Debate"
· "Transgenderism: the New Medical Standard?"
· Extended discussion of right and left-wing views on transgender ideology
Jane M. Orient, M.D. obtained her undergraduate degrees in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Arizona in Tucson, and her M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1974. She completed an internal medicine residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital and University of Arizona Affiliated Hospitals and then became an Instructor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and a staff physician at the Tucson Veterans Administration Hospital. She has been in solo private practice since 1981 and has served as Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) since 1989.
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She is currently president of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. She is the author of YOUR Doctor Is Not In: Healthy Skepticism about National Healthcare, and the second through fifth editions of Sapira's Art and Science of Bedside Diagnosis published by Wolters Kluwer. She authored books for school children, Professor Klugimkopf's Old-Fashioned English Grammar and Professor Klugimkopf's Spelling Method, published by Robinson Books, and coauthored two novels published as Kindle books, Neomorts and Moonshine.
More than 100 of her papers have been published in the scientific and popular literature on a variety of subjects including risk assessment, natural and technological hazards and non-hazards, and medical economics and ethics. She is the editor of AAPS News, the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Newsletter, and Civil Defense Perspectives, and is the managing editor of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
If you would like to discuss these issues, contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Jane M. Orient, M.D., Executive Director, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
