The New York Times, which has become notorious for its bad coverage of trans issues, has at least twice (6/9/23, 11/14/22) uncritically presented the speculative claim that puberty blockers “lock in” kids on a pathway toward subsequent treatment with cross-sex hormones. Both articles cited a portion of a report by Dr. Hillary Cass, commissioned by the English National Health Service to review its gender-identity services:

“The most difficult question is whether puberty blockers do indeed provide valuable time for children and young people to consider their options, or whether they effectively ‘lock in’ children and young people to a treatment pathway,” Dr. Hilary Cass, the pediatrician overseeing the independent review of the NHS gender service, wrote last year.

The Cass review provided no studies indicating that blockers “lock in” children toward a treatment pathway. Instead, it cited two small studies showing that nearly all participants who start blockers (96.5% and 98%) proceed to cross-sex hormones.

Hinkle’s ruling points out two problems with this claim that the Times doesn’t. First, this is correlation, not causation. Second, there’s a more plausible explanation, backed by research, that most kids proceed to cross-sex hormones because they had persistent transgender identities before starting blockers:

The defendants note that 98% or more of adolescents treated with GnRH agonists progress to cross-sex hormones. That is hardly an indictment of the treatment; it is instead consistent with the view that in 98% or more of the cases, the patient’s gender identity did not align with natal sex, this was accurately determined, and the patient was appropriately treated first with GnRH agonists and later with cross-sex hormones.

(Emphasis original.)