Italy has become the most recent European country with a professional health body that has issued a warning against the use of puberty blockers for kids.
The Italian Psychoanalytic Society (SPI) sent out a letter earlier this past month to Giorgia Meloni, the Prime Minister of Italy, in which they expressed “great concern” about the “ongoing experimentation” of drugs meant to halt the effects of puberty in kids and calling for “rigorous scientific discussion.”
“The diagnosis of gender dysphoria at prepubertal age is based on the statements of the individuals concerned and cannot be subject to careful evaluation while the development of sexual identity is still in progress,” explained the letter.
The letter, which was published on the website for the society after being penned by president Sarantis Thanopulos, explains the “contraindications” to puberty-halting drugs which should be “seriously considered.”
“Only a minority of children who state that they do not identify with their gender confirm this position in adolescence, after puberty,” the letter explained. A body of research seems to highlight that close to 60-90% of kids who claim to identify as transgender but do not take steps to either medically or socially transition, almost always stop identifying as transgender as they enter adulthood.
“It is important to initiate a rigorous scientific discussion on the issue of children with gender problems, to which the Italian Psychoanalytic Society will gladly contribute,” finished the letter.
As the first female prime minister of Italy, Meloni was vocal with skepticism about the idea of radical gender theory throughout a speech she gave while in Spain last June, in which she stated, “Yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology …”
There is an expanding consensus on an international level that minors going through gender dysphoria should be handled with psychotherapy at first, not by skipping directly to medical intervention. Health authorities across Finland, Sweden, and the U.K. have all agreed in the wake of systematic reviews of evidence for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones that the overall uncertainties and the inherent risks far outweigh any supposed benefits.
Far from “completely safe and reversible” and “a pause button on puberty,” as most of those advocating this “gender-affirming care” seem to claim, the kids who started taking these drugs at the first onset of puberty and go forth to take cross-sex hormones, which constitute the vast majority” end up becoming sterilized and may never actually be able to achieve orgasm.