In recent years, puberty blockers have increasingly been presented as a neutral—or even compassionate—medical intervention for children experiencing gender distress. They are often described as “fully reversible” and framed as a simple pause, something that buys time while a child figures things out.
But when we look closely at human development, biology, and the growing concerns voiced by physicians and researchers across the world, a far more troubling picture emerges.
This is not a political issue. It is a developmental, ethical, and moral one.
Puberty Is Not an Optional Phase
Puberty is not merely about outward physical changes. It is a critical window of development involving the brain, bones, hormones, and emotional regulation.
During puberty:
- The brain undergoes significant neurological maturation
- Bone density rapidly increases
- Sexual development occurs
- Emotional resilience and identity formation deepen
Interrupting this process affects far more than appearance. When puberty is suppressed, the body does not simply “wait.” Developmental systems are altered during a time that cannot be replicated later.
The Developing Brain Deserves Protection
Adolescence is one of the most important stages of brain development. Sex hormones such as estrogen and testosterone play a role in shaping neural pathways related to emotional regulation, decision-making, and cognitive maturity.
Suppressing these hormones during this sensitive period raises serious concerns about long-term mental health outcomes—concerns that cannot ethically be tested or fully understood until years later. In medicine, uncertainty is not reassurance, especially when children are involved.
Physical Health Risks Cannot Be Ignored
A growing body of medical literature has raised alarms about reduced bone mineral density in children who take puberty blockers. Adolescence is when the body builds the foundation for lifelong skeletal health.
Interfering with this process may increase the risk of fractures and long-term bone weakness. Claims that these effects are fully reversible remain unproven, and long-term data is still limited.
When the stakes are lifelong health, limited data should prompt restraint—not confidence.
“Fully Reversible” Is a Misleading Claim
Puberty blockers are often described as fully reversible, yet this claim has become increasingly disputed.
What we know is this:
- Long-term, high-quality studies following children into adulthood are lacking
- A significant number of children who begin blockers go on to cross-sex hormones
- Developmental windows, once missed, cannot simply be reopened
Human development is not a switch that can be turned off and back on without consequence.
Children Cannot Consent to Lifelong Consequences
Children and young adolescents are still forming their sense of self. Identity exploration, confusion, and discomfort are normal parts of growing up.
Yet children cannot fully comprehend:
- Fertility loss
- Sexual function outcomes
- Long-term health trade-offs
Informed consent requires the ability to understand risks across an entire lifetime. Children do not have this capacity—and adults have a responsibility to protect them from irreversible decisions made too early.
Children Need Reassurance, Not Rejection of Their Bodies
What children need most is to be told the truth: they were born in the right body, and nothing about them is broken or mistaken.
Telling a child they were “born in the wrong body” is not loving—it is deeply harmful. It teaches a child to hate their own body and to believe that something about them is fundamentally wrong.
Calling it compassion to place a developing child on drugs that interrupt healthy growth, brain development, and fertility reflects a profound distortion of care. Love does not medicalize normal developmental distress, and it does not ask children to bear lifelong consequences for feelings they are not yet mature enough to understand.
A truly loving response says: God created you this way. Your body is good. You were born the right gender.
Support Without Medicalization
None of this means children experiencing distress should be ignored, shamed, or dismissed. Compassion matters deeply.
But compassion does not require medical intervention.
True support begins with affirmation—not of confusion, but of truth. It means reassuring children that they are in the right body, exactly as they were created. It means surrounding them with examples that reflect the beauty and goodness of their sex: stories, films, and role models that show women as feminine and men as masculine, each strong and valuable in their own way.
Children learn who they are by what they see modeled and reinforced. When femininity and masculinity are treated as gifts rather than constraints, children are far less likely to view their bodies as problems to escape.
Parents play a central role here. We set the standard. Mothers must model femininity. Fathers must model masculinity. Not as weird stereotypes, but as grounded, confident expressions of womanhood and manhood. And we must consistently speak life over our children—telling them, again and again, that they are a beautiful young boy or a beautiful young girl, and showing them how meaningful and good that reality is.
Children do need to be reassured and guided in their God-given gender, and protected from gender dysphoria lies. That is real care.
Listening to Detransitioners Matters
An increasing number of young adults are speaking publicly about regret after medical interventions that began in adolescence. Their stories often share common themes: feeling rushed, having underlying trauma overlooked, and receiving medical affirmation instead of psychological support.
Listening to these voices is not crucial.
One well-known detransitioner is Chloe Cole, who began medical transition around age 12, including puberty blockers and later cross-sex hormones. As a young adult, she detransitioned and now speaks publicly about the lifelong physical and emotional consequences she attributes to these interventions. Cole has testified before lawmakers and shared that she was not equipped, as a child, to understand the permanent implications for her health and fertility. Her story is one of many that underscore the need for extreme caution, long-term data, and a willingness to listen to those who were harmed rather than dismiss their experiences as anomalies.
A Call for Caution and Moral Clarity
Medicine must be guided by evidence, humility, and caution—especially when children are involved. When long-term data is limited and the consequences may last a lifetime, the most ethical response is caution.
Puberty is not a problem to be stopped and a child’s body is not a mistake. Protecting children means refusing to call harm “love” and having the courage to say their bodies were never the problem.
