Family · Nationwide · September 1, 2026
NIH Study Finds Puberty Blockers Don't Improve Mental Health in Kids
A federally funded study on puberty blockers, delayed for years, has finally been released showing the drugs failed to improve mental health outcomes in gender-dysphoric children, according to The Federalist. The NIH-backed Trans Youth Care study, led by Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, tracked roughly 95 youth ages 8 to 16 over 24 months, measuring depression, emotional functioning, and parent-reported behavior. Mental health metrics remained largely unchanged after treatment. The report only surfaced after the Oversight Project sued for its release; The New York Times reported in 2024 that researchers withheld the data, saying they feared it would be "weaponized." The article also notes that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has finalized a rule ending Medicaid and CHIP funding for these procedures on minors, and that WPATH is now arguing in an FTC lawsuit that its "Standards of Care" are merely "opinions" amid genuine medical uncertainty. Charles Schwab and Walmart have dropped coverage for pediatric gender procedures from employee plans; roughly 560 companies reportedly still cover them.
Source: thefederalist.com
Why Bible-Believing Christians Should Care
Scripture teaches that God made humanity male and female and that children are to be protected, not medically experimented upon to affirm a rejection of their created bodies. This story matters because taxpayer-funded researchers reportedly suppressed evidence for years to preserve a preferred narrative, and institutions with reputations for medical authority — government agencies, professional associations, employer health plans — continued treating unproven, irreversible interventions as settled medicine. Christians should recognize this as a case where science, once honestly examined, confirms what biblical anthropology already teaches: tampering with a child's God-given sex is not compassion but harm. Churches, employers, and parents need clear eyes about what is actually being funded and justified in the name of care.
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. — Matthew 18:6
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From the book
Legitimate expertise is technical competence exercised under moral authority, like a mathematics teacher explaining algebra. False expertise is ideology wearing the costume of science in order to usurp moral authority, like a counselor telling a child that his parents are unsafe because they hold biblical views on gender.
— Chapter 18, “The Expert Against the Parent”
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