Doctors gave puberty blockers to 9-year-old — despite admitting ‘shoddy’ research: report

Doctors at a gender clinic in California doled out puberty blockers to kids as young as 9 — despite reportedly admitting behind the scenes that some research backing gender-affirming care for children was “shoddy.”

The revelations were laid bare in a trove of emails from top doctors at the University of California San Francisco’s Child and Adolescent Gender Center, which were recently obtained by The Daily Caller as part of a Freedom of Information lawsuit.

The cache of emails from UCSF medical directors, Maddie Deutsch and Stephen Rosenthal, which were among the 2,491 pages of records turned over, included an admission that a 9-year-old child had previously been given puberty blockers.

Deutsch and Rosenthal are co-authors of the World Professional Association of Transgender Health’s Standards of Care version 8, which helps inform clinical practices across the world.

In one email exchange from October 2022, Rosenthal was asked to respond to a request from journalists about reports that an eight-year-old involved in a National Institute of Health study had developed a bone condition after being given puberty blockers.

Rosenthal, who co-founded UCSF’s gender center, apparently fired back — telling those within his organization internally that the youngest participant was actually aged nine.

His response led to the inquiring reporters being told that the notion that an 8-year-old had been given the blockers was “incorrect.”

“There is no such participant in our study,” the email read, according to the outlet.

Separately, another email exchange from May 2022 captured Rosenthal responding to accusations he and a colleague, Dr Diane Ehrensaft, had relied on “shoddy research” in an op-ed they penned for the San Francisco Chronicle. 

The research that they quoted cited a controversial study — spearheaded by Stanford professor Diana Tordoff — that suggested puberty blockers helped lower depression in gender-confused youngsters.

“You cite the Diana Tordoff study from Seattle Children’s Hospital as evidence of the ‘clear mental health benefits’ of gender-affirming care. Except that, apparently, that study says no such thing,” the email from an unidentified sender read.

“The same shoddy research is wheeled out again and again.”

In his reply, Rosenthal fessed up that he wished he had known about “significant methodological concerns” prior to the opinion piece being published.

“I completely agree with you about the Tordoff et al. paper, and wish that I had realized the significant methodological concerns,” Rosenthal wrote in the email.

“We are still actively involved in our 4-site NIH study and now publishing articles on the impact of the first two years of gender-affirming care… I couldn’t agree more for the need for long-term follow-up, and that is exactly what we are committed to do.”

The trove of emails was turned over after Judicial Watch — a conservative foundation — sued UCSF on behalf of the Daily Caller when the school refused a request for any communications referencing, in part, the phrases “gender-affirming hormone therapy” and “puberty suppression.”

“There is something rotten in the state of California: UCSF and LA Children’s Hospital were conducting transgender drug and surgical experiments on little children – and trying to cover it up,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.

The Post reached out to UCSF about the emails, but didn’t hear back immediately.