WPATH's own surgeon admits blockers cause permanent loss of sexual function
Robby Starbuck said:
“These are the words of Marci Bauer, who is with WPATH, by the way, is a transgender surgeon who identifies as trans, and they've done a bunch of these surgeries. Okay, so I'm not using my words. This isn't speculative on my part. This is that person from the very organisation that you touted as an expert organisation who has admitted that there is a loss of sexual function and ability to orgasm.”
Citing a named surgeon from within WPATH itself makes this sound like an insider admission rather than an external attack, and the specific claim about orgasm is concrete and alarming.
The surgeon's name is Marci Bowers, not Bauer, and what Bowers actually said is worth understanding precisely, because it is more careful than this summary suggests. Bowers raised a specific clinical question: whether starting puberty blockers very early, before any pubertal development has occurred, might affect later sexual function, and called for more research into that timing question. That is a legitimate concern about a particular clinical scenario, and one that WPATH's own standards of care already require clinicians to discuss with patients and families as part of informed consent. It is not a confession that gender-affirming care as a whole destroys sexual function, and presenting it that way takes a nuanced caution from inside the field and turns it into a reason to shut the door on every young person considering blockers, which is exactly who pays the price when this version travels.
Young people and families trying to make informed decisions about puberty blockers, who deserve accurate information about real uncertainties rather than a distorted version designed to foreclose the option entirely.