For years, the gender medicine establishment told us the hormones were "lifesaving." Affirm the child or they'll kill themselves — that was the deal. Oregon went all-in on that bet, prescribing cross-sex hormones to minors at rates four to five times the national average. The data is in. Youth suicides didn't decline. The entire justification was a lie.
But sure, tell us again how anyone who questions pumping teenagers full of testosterone and estrogen is the one putting kids in danger.
A massive study covering nearly 900,000 adolescents ages 8 to 17 in Oregon — roughly 80% of the state's insured minors — found that between 2016 and 2023, nearly 1% were diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Seventy-five percent of those diagnoses were girls. And the prescription rates were staggering: 22% of gender-confused girls were put on puberty blockers or hormones, and 28% of boys. Oregon's rates for 14- and 15-year-olds ran four to five times higher than the national average.
We're talking about roughly 1-in-240 girls in Oregon on testosterone. One-in-630 boys on estrogen. Children.
The data came from the Comagine Health multi-payer claims database, and the analysis was published by research director Mary Gray and others. Gender medicine journalist Ben Ryan, along with Manhattan Institute researcher Leor Sapir, helped bring the numbers to public attention.
But here's the part that demolishes the "affirm or they die" blackmail. Canadian economist Yuan Zhang, founder of Evidence Bridge and affiliated with the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, cross-referenced Oregon's hormone prescription surge against the state's suicide data from the Oregon Health Authority. The result? "At the population level, these trends do not show an obvious corresponding decline in suicide outcomes," Zhang said.
Translation for the activists in the back: "It is, from an ecological level, access to 'lifesaving' gender affirming care has no impact on suicide."
Oregon's suicide-related ER and urgent care visits among youth held steady in the "low to mid 5,000s" annually throughout the study period, dipping only during the 2020 pandemic year to roughly 4,500 — which had nothing to do with hormones and everything to do with lockdowns changing behavior patterns.
This isn't an isolated finding. A Harvard study covering 5.2 million minors from 2018 to 2022 found similar results, published 17 months ago in JAMA Pediatrics. An Oxford University Press study dropped just last month confirming the pattern. And internationally? A New Zealand poll found 56% of the public opposes hormone interventions for minors, with only 23% in support. Among younger adults, opposition ran 61% to 19%.
The walls are closing in on the "gender-affirming care" industry. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been pressing the issue. Cleveland Clinic just committed $2 million toward detransition care and paid $308,000 in combined penalties to the DOJ and Ohio. Texas Children's Hospital got hit with a $10 million penalty. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — the Ninth Circuit, of all places — has weighed in.
Finland pulled back. The UK pulled back. Even the true believers' own data says the hormones aren't saving lives.
They told parents "affirm or your child dies." They used emotional extortion to fast-track experimental drugs on minors. Oregon gave them everything they wanted, and the suicide numbers didn't move. The receipts are in, and the "lifesaving" crowd has some explaining to do.
