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More and more teenagers in Belgium are taking puberty blockers to halt the sexual development of their bodies during adolescence. In just three years, 60% more of them have been prescribed these hormone treatments by their doctors, in an attempt to relieve the unease they feel about their biological sex. They are 684 young people between the ages of 9 and 17 in 2022, compared with 432 in 2019, reveals a survey carried out by the De Morgen (24/01/2024). Half of them are being treated at the gender clinic* at Ghent University Hospital (UZ Gent).
This increase in the use of puberty blockers mainly concerns young girls wishing to make the transition to male sex.
Medication or endocrine disruptors?
"With these substances, you are putting an important moment in the body's development on hold", worries NV-A MP Kathleen Depoorter. Puberty blockers are often referred to as "medicines" in the context of "gender therapy", when in fact they interfere with the normal action of hormones during adolescence. What's more, other harmful effects on the child's body cannot be ruled out, particularly in terms of bone strengthening or future fertility. The reversibility of these treatments is hotly debated, and as the High Court in London pointed out in 2020, the fact is that the vast majority of patients who take puberty blockers subsequently resort to hormones of the opposite sex and are therefore subject to medical or even surgical interventions, with the long-term implications of such operations.
The risks associated with these hormone treatments have led the Swedish and British authorities to curb their allocation (EIB 15/07/2021). The same applies to Finland.
As a growing number of scientists are pointing out (see the studies mentioned by the Observatoire de la Petite Sirène, such as A. Korte, G. Gille, 2023), in most of the adolescents concerned, gender dysphoria is associated with psychological problems that must be treated as such, otherwise the patient will remain prey to his psychosomatic malaise.
*“Gender clinics" are gradually emerging in Belgian hospitals. Their aim is to deal with the gender transition needs of children and adults. After those in Ghent, Liège and Genk, a new gender clinic opened in 2023 at the Brugmann University Hospital in Brussels. The Ghent clinic has a waiting list of over 1,000 people. Petra De Sutter, deputy prime minister and former head of the reproductive medicine department at UZ Gent, has worked hard to increase the number of gender clinics in the country. Petra De Sutter has declared herself a woman since her transition in 2004.