Health insurance claims data for treatment of gender dysphoria in children aged 6-17 years shows puberty blocker prescriptions have doubled since 2017, and claims for cross-sex hormones also doubled up until 2021.
According to data compiled by Komodo Health Inc for Reuters in October, in 2021, 42,167 children and teens between the ages of 6 and 17 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria, three times the number in 2017.
Data analysis revealed at least 121,882 children and teens in that age range were diagnosed with gender dysphoria from 2017 through 2021.
Prescriptions for puberty blockers, which suppress the release of the sex hormones testosterone and estrogen in males and females, respectively, doubled between 2017 and 2021.
At least 4,780 children and adolescents who started on puberty blockers had a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis over the past five years.
In 2017, 633 young people were prescribed puberty blockers for gender dysphoria. That number climbed to 1,390 by 2021.
The drugs used to treat young people diagnosed with gender dysphoria are approved for the treatment of prostate cancer, endometriosis, and early onset of puberty. Still, they are used off-label to treat gender dysphoria.
According to the Komodo data analysis, at least 14,726 minors began cross-sex hormone treatment following a diagnosis of gender dysphoria between 2017 and 2021.
In 2017, the number of claims for hormone therapy was 1,905, compared to 4,231 in 2021.
As the Daily Mail reported earlier this month, data from the University of California, San Francisco also reveal the number of “top surgeries,” or elective double mastectomies, performed on young girls aged 12-17 has increased 13-fold within the last decade.
Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) told The Star News Network these data are “horrifying,” given that children are being “prescribed dangerous drugs or subjected to mutilating surgery for ‘affirming’ a false diagnosis.”
Orient elaborated:
Real medical conditions not caused by an infectious agent do not increase like this. “Recognition” of a formerly rarely recognized condition, in immature, easily exploited persons, comes about because of suggestion.
There is no trans gender. There are boys and girls who are unhappy and are being told that they can be made happy by interfering with their normal maturation process or anatomy.
According to a recent report from Grand View Research, the transgender surgery industry will likely reach $5 billion by 2030.
The transgender surgery market was valued at $1.9 billion in 2021 and is predicted to expand at a compound annual growth rate of upward of 11 percent between 2022 to 2030.
“The rising incidences of gender dysphoria and the increasing number of people opting for gender confirmation surgeries are expected to boost the growth during the forecast period,” the analysis stated.
“There are growing numbers of ideologically or financially motivated professionals who can achieve recognition and/or revenue by offering interventions that cannot be called health care,” Orient observed. “A person in a state of health does not need lifelong medical treatment.”
“There is no science here,” she added. “There is no plausible biological mechanism, no control group, no long-term follow-up, no validated measures of diagnosis or treatment outcome.”
“The treatments are unethical because there is no possibility of informed consent, there is always harm, and no way to measure a presumed benefit,” Orient asserted.
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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Doctor Visit for Child with Mother” by Los Muertos Crew.
