Dr. Thomas Steensma is a Dutch doctor who has long advocated for “treating” children with gender dysphoria by putting them on puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones. Now, roughly a decade after his much-cited study advocating for the “Dutch Protocol” was released, Dr. Steensma is concerned. “The rest of the world is blindly adopting our research,” he told a Dutch media outlet recently.

Medical experimentation on children ought to be universally rejected, but shockingly, it is quickly becoming unquestionable. Partially to blame for this development is the “Dutch Protocol” which encourages doctors to give minors with gender dysphoria puberty-blockers followed by cross-sex hormones. Steensma’s study, arguing that this was in the best interest of children, played a significant role in popularizing this approach. Recently, Steensma has begun urging caution, saying that more research is needed.

Doubtless Steensma is watching the fallout of the Tavistock trial in the UK and does not want to see his research associated with future scandals. However, his insistence that more research is needed suggests that he wants to continue using the Dutch Protocol in at least some cases. Regarding the long-term effects of the Dutch Protocol, he admitted,

Little research has yet been done on the treatment with puberty inhibitors and hormones in young people. That is why it is also seen as experimental. We are one of the few countries in the world that conducts ongoing research into this.

Steensma’s call for “ongoing research” means that he is hoping to see more experimental research on children. He is right to be concerned that the rest of the world is blindly accepting his research, but he somehow believes that more experimentation on children would be a good thing, even while admitting that he does not know the full extent of the long-term health effects this will cause.

There isn’t a good argument for subjecting any child to these treatments. 80-95% of children with gender dysphoria eventually become comfortable with their bodies if they do not undergo social or medical transition. “Treating” someone with gender dysphoria by subjecting them to puberty-blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries sets them on a trajectory for life-long medical interventions. When used long-term, puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones can lead to dangerous complications including stunted bone growth in children, pulmonary embolisms, and increased risk of heart attacks. Transgender surgeries are irreversible and surgeries and cross-sex hormones can both cause permanent infertility. 

Given the serious harm caused by medical “transition” and the research showing that transition does not improve mental health outcomes in the long run, it makes no sense to funnel children into this lifestyle when they are almost certain to become comfortable with their biological sex if the adults around them adopt an approach of watchful waiting, instead of embracing the transgender agenda.

As the transgender lobby relentlessly pushes for transitioning minors, the voices of those urge caution and warn about the potential life-long consequences of these decisions are drowned out. The evidence in favor of “transitioning” children has always been shoddy, and recent years have continued to reveal the harm being done by this ideology as its victims begin to speak out.

Encouraging people to adopt an identity that is at odds with reality is not in their best interest and subjecting children to medical interventions that disrupt healthy, normal development is harmful. The purpose of medicine is to heal. The methods advocated and pushed by the transgender movement do the exact opposite and cause serious harm to children.

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