Cases of gender dysphoria after prenatal exposure to diethylstilbestrol (DES)

Brief history of diethylstilbestrol

Better known throughout the world by its abbreviation D.E.S., and in France by its main brand name Distilbène® (see A Monumental Medical Error: The Children of Distilbène¹, or Distilbène, the hormone by which the scandal arrives²...), diethylstilbestrol is a synthetic estrogen, in other words an artificial sex hormone, which was marketed in the 1950s in many countries, by different pharmaceutical laboratories (UCB Pharma, M. Borne, Eli Lilly…), and under various names.

In France, D.E.S. was marketed under the brands names Distilbène® (mainly), Stilboestrol-Borne® and Furostilboestrol® (delayed release form).

Touted as a “wonder drug”, it was prescribed to pregnant women to prevent miscarriages, premature births, and endometriosis. (Because of its abortifacient nature, it would later be prescribed as a postcoital contraceptive, otherwise known as the morning-after pill…)

At the time, doctors believed that the drop in levels of certain hormones, observed during a miscarriage, was the cause of the miscarriage, thus confusing the effect with the cause.

Thanks to a study by W.J Dieckmann, it was known in 1953 that this treatment was ineffective in pregnant women for all its indications³. Despite this, DES continued to be marketed and prescribed.

In France, DES was prescribed for many other indications, such as acne, amenorrhea, dysmenorrhea, etc. Abroad, it was prescribed in particular to inhibit the growth of girls who were at risk of becoming “too tall” or to dry up the breast milk of young women who had unjustly had their child taken away by English social services.

Find the complete list of DES indications on our What is DES? page.

Since Distilbène® was sold on the black market, transsexuals, i.e. men who felt that they belonged to the opposite sex rather than to their biological sex, were able to obtain and consume Distilbène® without any medical supervision in order to develop secondary sexual characteristics normally associated with women, in conjunction with a so-called “sex change operation”; this was the case, for example, of the cabaret artists Marie-Pierre Pruvot, a.k.a. Bambi, and Jacqueline-Charlotte Dufresnoy, a.k.a. Coccinelle⁴.

In 1970⁵ and 1971⁶, A.L. Herbst, an American physician and researcher, published two studies showing an increased incidence of a very rare type of cancer in young women exposed to the molecule in utero: clear cell adenocarcinoma (CCA) of the vagina or cervix.

For more information, see “What is clear cell adenocarcinoma?”

Following these studies, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) issued a warning that DES was now contraindicated in pregnant women.

In France, it wasn't until 1976 that the French Ministry of Health removed the indication “risk of abortion” from the Vidal dictionary, and in 1977 that the French Medicines Agency published a note stating that manufacturers' package inserts must henceforth state that diethylstilbestrol is contraindicated in pregnant women — causing thousands more victims…

You can find the full chronology of events on our DES Timeline page.

Current use of Distilbène in France

As confusing information about Distilbene has been circulating on the Internet recently, we need to set the record straight: Distilbène® is currently only prescribed for prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is a so-called hormone-dependent cancer because it is sensitive to sex hormones (estrogens and androgens). Depending on the extent of the cancer, hormone therapy is the standard treatment, sometimes combined with chemotherapy.

Among these hormone-based drug treatments are synthetic estrogens, in this case Distilbène®. The goal is to saturate the estrogen receptors. In this respect, Distilbène®, in addition to being poorly tolerated, does not provide any significant improvement in the treatment of prostate cancer⁷.

Another type of hormone therapy involves the administration of synthetic “anti-androgens” such as finasteride, which is an inhibitor of 5-alpha reductase (an enzyme). Specifically, it prevents the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Dihydrotestosterone is an androgenic hormone that promotes prostate hyperplasia and hair loss.

Finasteride (in lower doses) is also used in the context of female-to-male transitions to prevent androgen-dependent alopecia (a form of baldness). These women are actually being supplemented (off-label) with testosterone, which is likely to be converted to dihydrotestosterone, causing hair loss.

In the context of a male-to-female gender transition, when feminizing hormones are prescribed (off-label), patients are also likely to be taking finasteride to counteract the visible effects of androgens, such as baldness — androgens that they naturally produce in large quantities in the absence of a genetic abnormality, disease, or castration because they are biologically male.

Distilbene is not officially recommended for any other pathology in France. Prostate cancer is therefore its only indication⁸.

From the exposure to the Diethylstilbestrol Syndrome

Diethylstilbestrol is the cause of many disorders and pathologies in people exposed in the womb (the second generation of victims), but also in the children of these children (the third generation)⁹.

These disorders and pathologies are called iatrogenic, since they are caused by the medical act — in this case the administration of the drug, and were therefore created from scratch.

They have given rise to the definition of a rare disease "Diethylstilbestrol Syndrome" but, as there is no associated Reference Centre, no National Diagnostic and Care Protocol (PNDS), it is currently impossible for a patient to be diagnosed.

Orphanet, the portal for rare diseases and orphan drugs, defines diethylstilbestrol syndrome as “a malformation syndrome reported in offspring (children and grandchildren) of women exposed to diethylstilbestrol (DES) during pregnancy and is characterized by reproductive tract malformations, decreased fertility and increased risk of developing clear cell carcinoma of the vagina and cervix in young women. Reproductive malformations reported in DES syndrome include small, T-shaped uteri and other uterotubal anomalies that increase the risk of miscarriages in women and epididymal cysts, microphallus, cryptorchidism, or testicular hypoplasia in men.”

... but here's the thing: since the definition of diethylstilbestrol syndrome, scientific studies have revealed many more effects on human health that would justify its updating, such as endometriosis in women exposed in utero and their daughters, or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in the third generation of patients (women and men).

In France, 200,000 women were prescribed diethylstilbestrol and 160,000 children are estimated to have been born from these pregnancies. Since the initial estimate was made on the basis of laboratory sales records, without any other source of verification, updating or evaluation of the third and fourth generations of patients, the real number of people affected is unknown.

Since there is no patient registry, the prevalence of the disease is, unsurprisingly, unknown.

All this time, patients have been left to fend for themselves, abandoned to their fate by the competent authorities — who are clearly not.

Thus, the "victims of Distilbene" — according to the well-known formula, are also victims of medical and administrative invisibility.

What's more, we usually only mention the drug's main commercial name, Distilbène® (clearing the name of M. Borne laboratory and its Stilboestrol-Borne®), which completely obscures the pathologies caused by exposure to the poison diethylstilbestrol.

Indeed, people exposed in utero to diethylstilbestrol are commonly referred to as “Distilbene children”; thus, “Distilbene daughters” and “Distilbene sons” are respectively women and men whose mothers received a drug containing diethylstilbestrol during pregnancy; “Distilbene granddaughters” and “Distilbene grandsons” are the children of these exposed patients.

This won't happen with a wave of a magic wand, as habits are sometimes harder to break than a spell, but the ideal would be to switch from the formulas “Distilbene daughter” or “Distilbene son”, to “carrier of diethylstilbestrol syndrome”.

It takes longer to say, but it says more.

Does prenatal exposure to diethylstilbestrol predispose to gender dysphoria?

Defining a few terms

In order to present the results of the study that prompted this article, we must first take a few moments to define certain terms that are essential to their understanding — the authors do the same in their introduction. We will rely here mainly on the DSM and Orphanet. And a little on our feelings.

It is important to understand that in France, there are two schools: those who are waked, and those who sleep standing up. Or the other way around.

Also, in French, the terms male and female are not used exactly the same way as in English. We more often speak of a man and a woman, because the terms male and female essentially refer to biology. For example, we do not say a male to female transition, but a man to woman transition.

- Gender: For a long time, gender was based on biological, innate sex, male or female. But, surreptitiously, these two notions have been dissociated. Today, gender refers to a social role, which can be masculine or feminine.

- Gender identity: Regardless of one's sex at birth, a person's feeling of being male or female, or neither fully male nor fully female, gender now being considered by some as a spectrum, like autism.

- Gender dysphoria: According to the DSM-5¹⁰, this term describes “the distress that may accompany the incongruence between one’s experienced or expressed gender and one’s assigned gender”. It refers to the psychological suffering that a transgender person may experience in the face of a mismatch between the physical sex he or she was born with, and his or her gender identity.

- Transsexualism : In the previous version of the DSM, DSM-4¹¹, transsexualism was included in the category "Gender Identity Disorders", and defined as a: "Severe gender dysphoria, coupled with a persistent desire for the physical characteristics and social roles that connote the opposite biological sex".

In the DSM-5,the category “Gender identity disorder” disappears in favor of a new category called “Gender dysphoria”, in which transsexualism does not appear anymore. The term "transsexual" is however present and defines as follows: "Transsexual denotes an individual who seeks, or has undergone, a social transition from male to female or female to male, which in many, but not all, cases also involves a somatic transition by cross-sex hormone treatment and genital surgery (sex reassignment surgery)."

In the 10th edition of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10), “transsexualism” was in the category of "gender identity disorder", and was defined as follows: "A desire to live and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex, usually accompanied by a sense of discomfort with, or inappropriateness of, one's anatomic sex, and a wish to have surgery and hormonal treatment to make one's body as congruent as possible with one's preferred sex."

In its most recent edition, ICD-11, which came into effect in January 2022, the category “gender identity disorder” disappears, and with it the diagnosis categories of “transsexualism” and “gender identity disorder of children”, which are respectively replaced with “gender incongruence of adolescence and adulthood” and “gender incongruence of childhood”. Gender incongruence is defined as “marked and persistent incongruence between an individual's experienced gender and the assigned sex”.

As we can see, the term “transsexual” has fallen somewhat out of favor. What those concerned report often is that this term was too strongly associated with sexuality and sexual orientation, whereas — according to them — it is primarily a matter of changing one's social gender. This is why they prefer the term "transgender". For us, a trans person who goes as far as genital surgery can be called a transsexual.

- Transgender : It's a bit of a catch-all term, including transsexualism and gender transition. According to the DSM-5, a transgender person is one who “transiently or persistently identify with a gender different from their natal gender”. Thus, a transgender man (or trans man) is a woman who identifies herself as man and seeks to adopt the characteristics of a man. We prefer the clearer term transmasculine woman. Similarly, a transgender woman (or trans woman) is a man who feels like a woman and is making a gender transition in that direction. We prefer the term transfeminine man.

While there are co-morbidities¹², notably psychiatric (personality disorders, depression, etc.) and neurological (autism, ADHD), transgenderism — unlike intersex — has no clearly established biological cause.

- Intersex is an umbrella term that covers a a wide range of congenital medical conditions. The primary sex characteristics (such as chromosomal sex—determined at fertilization, or reproductive system) and/or secondary sex characteristics (such as body hair or breast development) of an intersex person do not fit the usual definition of male/female. (Note that the term intersex has, in the medical field, been abandoned in favor of Disorder of sex development.)

These medical conditions include, for example:

• Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (or MRKH), characterized by congenital aplasia of the uterus and upper two-thirds of the vagina, a female phenotype and a 46,XX karyotype — a rare syndrome found 20 times more frequently in women whose grandmother received diethylstilbestrol than in the general population¹³. According to Orphanet¹⁴, the treatment of vaginal aplasia consists in the reconstitution of a neovagina (either by vaginal dilatation with a dilator, or by surgery), allowing patients to enjoy a normal sexual life. Psychological support is essential;
• 5-Alpha-reductase deficiency (the enzyme mentioned above) type 2, is a rare disease that only affects patients with an XY karyotype, i.e. genetically male. It is defined according to Orphanet¹⁵ as a “rare difference of sex development (DSD) due to a defect in metabolizing testosterone to dihydrotestosterone and characterized by incomplete intrauterine masculinization which ranges from a female genitalia with a blind vaginal pouch to a fully male phenotype with pseudovaginal posterior hypospadias and micropenis.” It's worth noting that dihydrotestosterone (DHT) plays a key role in the formation of male genitalia, including the prostate, during embryonic life. It is this failure to masculinize the fetus that gives rise to sexual ambiguity. The disease is caused by mutations in the SRD5A2 gene, which provides instructions for the production of the 5-alpha reductase enzyme;

The classic demands of intersex people are: no surgery or hormone treatments without medical necessity and without the free, prior and informed consent of the people concerned¹⁶. Some feel that they are too often subjected to widespread medical abuse, while others report outright genital mutilations. To find out more, we invite you to view Mö's testimony, entitled “Intersexuation: the story of violence”, featured in episode 5 of Season 2 of Océan, a three-season autobiographical documentary webseries by French transgender actor Océan¹⁷.

While it must be acknowledged that unnecessary surgeries are performed on intersex children to “normalize” the appearance of their genitalia, some operations are, on the other hand, presented as medically necessary to avoid potential health problems. This includes urinary tract infections or the development of cancer.

- Gender transition: this is the process of social, administrative and medical changes that a transgender person does to move from the gender imposed by nature to the gender they desire.

- Gender-affirming hormone therapy: this involves taking synthetic and/or natural and/or bio-identical hormone treatments, with the aim of developing secondary sexual characteristics of the opposite sex; also known as cross-sex hormones.

- Sex reassignment surgery: this is what used to be called “sex-change operation”. It involves reshaping the external genitalia. Other operations may be added to this, such as facial feminization surgery (FFS) for transfeminine men or a mastectomy for transmasculine women.

- Neovagina: this is a surgically constructed or reconstructed vagina (vaginoplasty), in certain situations of variation in sexual development such as the MRKH syndrome we spoke of earlier, but also, for example, in the context of a sex reassignment operation during a male-to-female gender transition.

- Cisgender: is a term used to refer to an individual whose gender identity aligns with the one associated with the sex identified at birth. This neologism, constructed in opposition to the term transgender, enables us to avoid the pitfall of pronouncing the obscurantist word “normal”. Anyway, the notion of “norm” seems to have become a total has-been.

Diethylstilbestrol exposure and sexual orientation

An earlier study by Troisi and al.¹⁸ , dating from 2020, had already analyzed the link between prenatal diethylstilbestrol (DES) exposure and sexual orientation. It was also the first time that participants in such a study had been asked about their gender identity.

The results showed that women exposed to DES before birth were less likely to have a lesbian or bisexual sexual orientation. On the other hand, men exposed to DES were slightly more likely to be homosexual or bisexual, although estimates remain imprecise due to the size of the cohort (smaller than the women’s cohort).

The authors state that their results, concerning the relationship between prenatal DES exposure and sexual orientation identity in women and men, are consistent with the fact that DES does not act as a masculinizing agent. This was to be expected, given that the very principle of an estrogen, even a synthetic one, is to be feminizing.

The number of participants reporting a gender identity different from that observed at birth was too small to be statistically analyzed. Indeed, of 3,306 women and 1,848 men participating in the study, only two women, both exposed to DES, and three men (two exposed and one unexposed) reported a gender identity that did not correspond to the sex that had been identified at birth.

Cases of “male-to-female transgenderism” after prenatal exposure to diethylstilbestrol (DES)

First, a few words about the authors

The article we are presenting today is entitled “Early Female Transgender Identity after Prenatal Exposure to Diethylstilbestrol: Report from a French National Diethylstilbestrol (DES) Cohort"¹⁹ , and deals with cases of ’transgenderism” following prenatal diethylstilbestrol exposure. It is the fruit of collaboration between team members from the Pediatric Endocrinology-Gynecology Department at Montpellier University Hospital (CHU de Montpellier), Marie-Odile Soyer-Gobillard, a biologist specialized in cellular and molecular biology and President of Hhorages-France, and Scott Kerlin, independent researcher and founder of the DES Sons International Network.

Hhorages-France (Halte aux HORmones Artificielles pour les GrossessES) is a French association founded in 2002 whose aim is “to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between the use of synthetic sex hormones during pregnancy and all the more or less long-lasting disorders generated in the children born from these pregnancies”, with “particular emphasis on psychological disorders: recurrent depression, anorexia, bulimia, manic depression, schizophrenia, whether or not associated with dysfunctions and/or malformations“²⁰.

It is currently chaired by Marie-Odile Soyer-Gobillard, a researcher and mother affected by DES and other synthetic hormones, who, with the Montpellier University Hospital team, had already presented preliminary work on cases of gender dysphoria following DES exposure at the Colloque de Gynécologie et Obstétrique Pratiques de Paris in 2016.

To learn more about the work of Hhorages-France, we invite you to read the testimonial book published by the association entitled Resilience: a scientist's campaign against synthetic hormones, to which we have dedicated an article.

Scott Kerlin is a DES son*. He founded the DES Sons International Network in 1999, then began researching the effects of DES on exposed men, not just in the USA, but in many countries.

In 2005, Dr. Kerlin, along with colleagues Dr. Dana Beyer and Milton Diamond, presented a breakthrough paper at the International Behavioural Development Symposium describing the impact of DES on intersex and gender variations in humans being.

In April 2023, Dr. Kerlin and Karen Chouinard Fernandes — DES daughter and president of DES INFO, one of our sister organizations — decided to join forces with the aim of broadening the field of investigation into the consequences of diethylstilbestrol exposure. Together, they have created a Facebook group entitled DES Research and Support Group of Dr. Scott Kerlin, whose aims are to provide support to victims and share the latest research on DES: https://www.facebook.com/groups/227933949841546, as well as an information-packed web page entitled DES International Information and Research Network, accessible at https://grad-mentor.com/des-research.

* Unlike the antonomasia “Distilbene sons”, “Distilbene children”, etc., which include a French brand name, the formulations “DES pregnancy”, “DES daughter”, “DES grandchildren” and “DES son” are perfectly accepted and widespread throughout the world, in scientific articles as well as in everyday language.

The study in detail

This study* is based on the national retrospective cohort of the Hhorages-France patient association. The authors describe the cases of four men identified as transgender women among 253 men exposed in utero to diethylstilbestrol (DES) and, for one of the cases, exposed at the same time to progesterone**.

* Although DES is known for its transgenerational effects, this study concerns only the second generation of exposed men, the “DES sons”.

** This is synthetic progesterone, not to be confused with the hormone naturally produced by the body. Synthetic progesterone can cause meningiomas in women.

Some of these patients had unilateral cryptorchidism (2 cases), while others had no urogenital malformations (2 cases, including 1 with spina bifida and enuresis until the age of 16).

Abnormalities of sexual differentiation, such as hypospadias, cryptorchidism and micropenis, are urogenital malformations frequently found both in men exposed in utero to diethylstilbestrol (2nd generation patients) and in men whose grandmothers were administered the drug (3rd generation patients).

Some also suffered from concomitant psychiatric disorders (3 cases), such as suicidal ideation, self-mutilation (external genitalia) and depression. Unless, in our opinion, these disorders are simply symptoms of the gender dysphoria from which these men suffer — a dysphoria which is itself a psychiatric disorder, as defined above.

The psychiatric effects of DES in the second generation of patients (exposed in the womb) are now known and well documented: schizophrenia, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, severe depression, sometimes even suicide...

Three of the patients have undergone “gender reassignment surgery” (sex-change operation) and are currently receiving “gender-affirming hormone therapy”. One of the gender transition patients is taking estradiol, but has not undergone genital surgery.

Diethylstilbestrol and epigenetics

Every DES sons presented in this publication who identified themselves as transgender women (or transfeminine men) underwent a karyotyping at the time of their gender transition; this test revealed no abnormalities. And no wonder. Diagnosing patients would have been easier if diethylstilbestrol had been linked to a chromosomal aberration such as sex chromosome trisomy, but this is not the case: there are only epigenetic alterations associated with prenatal exposure to diethylstilbestrol, i.e. changes in gene expression.

A 2017 publication²¹ by Rivollier and al. entitled “Methylomic changes in individuals with psychosis, prenatally exposed to endocrine disrupting compounds: Lessons from diethylstilbestrol” highlighted differential DNA methylation changes in two major genes in psychotic patients exposed in utero to DES: the ADAM TS9 gene and the ZFP 57 gene. Methylation is a chemical modification that can occur at different points in the DNA sequence. This modulation is known as epigenetic and can be inherited through mitosis to subsequent generations. Mitosis is the cell division during which each chromosome splits into two.

The ADAM TS9 gene is involved in controlling the shape of organs, including reproductive organs, during development, and hence sexual differentiation. It also plays a role in the onset of certain cancers and in controlling the development of the central nervous system.

The ZFP 57 gene is involved in neurodevelopment, i.e. the establishment of the nervous system during embryonic development, as well as neuroplasticity, a set of processes enabling neurons to modify and remodel themselves throughout life.

Study results and discussion

The prevalence of transgender woman reported by the study authors (1.58%) is 10 to 100 times higher than the highest prevalence reported in the scientific literature (1/17,000). Also, none of the eldest sons from the same informative families not exposed to diethylstilbestrol (DES) had a female transgender identity. Clearly, men (biological males, XY) making a female gender transition are far more numerous than in the general population, suggesting that DES plays a role in the occurrence of male-to-female transgenderism. The authors add that this rate is probably underestimated, as no epidemiological survey has been conducted on this subject.

The authors point out that the prevalence of transgenderism is higher among individuals with a rare disorder of sex development (DSD) than in the general population²², which is not the case for the four DES patients they present, in whom no DSD has been diagnosed. Indeed, while two of the patients had unilateral cryptorchidism, this alone cannot, according to the authors, be considered a clinical expression of DSD.

In our opinion, if gender dysphoria is much more common in individuals with DSD (intersex), it may be because many doctors have decided to perform unnecessary surgery and prescribe inappropriate hormones, when faced with genital, chromosomal, or biological ambiguity presented by their patients. Once they reached the age where they could question their own identity, these poorly treated patients would have discovered the truth and would have chosen to return to their original, denied gender.

The authors go on to explain that, in male (XY) individuals, gender identity and sexual orientation are determined by the prenatal action of androgens. A problem in the production or action of androgens during the fetal period can therefore disrupt the brain's male sexual differentiation process.Thus, they alert us to the fact that “fetal exposure to any chemical that may reduce androgen production or action should be considered a transgender risk factor”, and add that Renish and al. in a previous study reported that “male patients exposed in utero to DES appeared to be feminized”.

The authors seem unnecessarily cautious here. It's important to understand that breeders were already giving DES to their cockerels for chemical castration in the 40s. In the 50s, the British State administered it to homosexuals to render them asexual, as in the case of the British war hero Alan Turing²³ , who became impotent and developed gynecomastia. DES has always been known to feminize.

These four men, exposed to DES in their mother's womb, fell into the pot of magic potion concocted by sorcerer's apprentices and distributed by more experienced ones.

To find out the recipe, we invite you to read our DES Chronology page.

DES, the estrogenic compound, also has proven antiandrogenic activity, which results in significant downregulation of androgen-responsive genes upon exposure. Also, DES can stimulate the production of the sex hormone transport protein, SHBG (for Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin) and, according to the authors, reduce the ability of androgens to enter the cell: "By reducing androgen production, bioactivity, and action in target cells, DES should be considered an antiandrogenic substance that can alter male brain sex differentiation and/or internal/external genitalia sex differentiation."

According to a study by Tournaire and al. cited in this article, early fetal exposure seems more important than the doses of medication — lower in France than those prescribed in the USA — in the development of clear cell carcinoma in DES daughters. It would therefore not be so much the quantity of medication as the time it was administered — in this case, the first trimester of pregnancy — that would trigger the disease here, contradicting the famous formula of the alchemist Paracelsus "Everything is a poison, nothing is a poison. It is the dose that makes the poison.". The authors think that this hypothesis is also valid for the DES sons in their study.

This poison-dose story is actually a little more complex, and Corinne Lalo explains it very well in her book Le grand désordre hormonal (only available in French) — to which we have devoted an article, and which we highly recommend. The toxicity and effects of the poison vary depending on the quantity of poison taken, but a low quantity does not guarantee low effect. Let's take the use of DES in prostate cancer: here we are talking about high doses, the aim being to saturate the estrogen receptors (ER), then used as therapeutic targets. Low doses of DES would have a completely different effect, and would for example increase the volume of the prostate²⁴. In this example, low doses prove to be much more toxic than high doses.

At the 2020 Beyond Genes conference on the heritable effects of diethylstilbestrol (DES), Prof. Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou, an environmental engineer and epidemiologist,  presented the results of her most recent study, entitled “Association of Exposure to Diethylstilbestrol During Pregnancy With Multigenerational Neurodevelopmental Deficits”²⁵ . It showed that children whose grandmothers had taken DES during pregnancy were 36% more likely to have ADHD, and these results did not differ according to gender. Also, when we look at the trimester in which the DES was taken, we see that if it was during the first trimester of pregnancy, the risk for DES grandchildren is even greater, rising to 63%.

The first trimester of pregnancy is thus a critical window of vulnerability to DES exposure. The hypothesis put forward by Prof. Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou is that early gestation is a particularly sensitive period for maternal influences, leading to reprogramming of embryonic and germ cells.

Diethylstilbestrol: a powerful endocrine disruptor

The results of the study we presented today raise the question of the influence of endocrine disruptors and their impact on the onset of gender dysphoria.

Diethylstilbestrol (DES) is a powerful endocrine disruptor (EDC). The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines an EDC as “an exogenous agent that interferes with synthesis, secretion, transport, metabolism, binding action, or elimination of natural blood-borne hormones that are present in the body and are responsible for homeostasis, reproduction, and developmental process”.

Although the mechanisms of action of DES are not yet fully elucidated, it can be clearly stated that it is involved in the development of gender dysphoria in male patients exposed in utero.

Given that all endocrine disruptors alter the functioning of the hormonal system, and that hormones, as we have just seen, are involved in the process of sexual differentiation, we may well wonder about their role in the current high prevalence of gender dysphoria, which primarily affects women²⁶.

Finally, we'd like to point out that all “gender-affirming hormonal therapies” involve taking sex hormones, which, like the contraceptive pill, end up in wastewater, then in your tap water, and the circle is complete...

The fact that endocrine disruptors may be involved in the aetiology of gender dysphoria does not, of course, rule out other causes, such as social contagion, a form of depersonalization, identity disorder, all coupled with a lack of grounding... the causes are even most certainly multifactorial.

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Notes & references