A blockbuster report just came out from the Department of Health and Human Services with overwhelming medical evidence that points directly away from so-called “gender affirming” care for children and adolescents. This 400- plus page report lays out the medical landscape and comes to the not-surprising conclusion that there is little evidence supporting the treatments routinely given to vulnerable children in the last several decades to attempt their transition to the opposite sex.
The executive summary says, “The umbrella review found that the overall quality of evidence concerning the effects of any intervention on psychological outcomes, quality of life, regret, or long-term health, is very low.”
“The quality of evidence... is very low.” As most of you know, hospitals and private clinics offering medications and sometimes surgery to minor children to try to change their biological sex, exploded in number about fifteen years ago. Billions of dollars have gone into this gruesome industry, and there’s massive media and activist pressure to embrace and continue these Frankenstein treatments.
Yet now, praise the Lord, under the budget cuts by the Trump administration, as well as legislation banning these treatments in some states (like Ohio), many of these gender clinics for children have closed down. In the U.K., the medical profession is generally backing away from most such treatments on children.
This new report describes the unique nature of this area of medical treatment, that “...the diagnosis of gender dysphoria is based entirely on subjective self-reports and behavioral observations, without any objective physical, imaging, or laboratory markers. The diagnosis centers on attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that are known to fluctuate during adolescence.”
Exactly. And that’s why the treatments pushed on confused children and worried parents are not working. Wanting to be the opposite sex is not a normal condition and before recent years, that desire was always considered evidence of an underlying emotional problem. But recently the approaches of “watchful waiting” and counseling have been swept aside for radical interventions: opposite sex hormones and sometimes surgery.
And this report summarizes just how that has turned out: “These interventions carry risk of significant harms including infertility/sterility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone density accrual, adverse cognitive impacts, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders, psychiatric disorders, surgical complications, and regret, and there has been inadequate research into the frequency and severity of these harms...”
And let’s always remember that these strong drugs and irreversible surgeries are being done on children with no physical illness. But the physical results have been a disaster in many cases.
It’s troubling how much politics, not science, has influenced this realm of medical care delivery. The HHS report found that the group WPATH, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, routinely shuns objectivity. It has been very careless with recommendations for treating minors, has been subject to political pressures to recommend treatment for younger and younger children, and actively suppresses documenting negative outcomes.
And here is a truly alarming statement from the report: “The ‘gender-affirming’ model of care, as practiced in U.S. clinics, is characterized by a child-led process in which comprehensive mental health assessments are often minimized or omitted, and the patient’s ‘embodiment goals’ serve as the primary guide for treatment decisions. In some of the nation’s leading pediatric gender clinics, assessments are conducted in a single session lasting two hours.”
Some major medical organizations refused to participate in this study, like the American Academy of Pediatrics, which many of us now view as a far-left medical activist group controlled by a handful of doctors, not an objective, trustworthy professional association. The report states that there is not widespread consensus about pediatric medical transition but instead, the current practices are driven by a small number of committees under the influence of WPATH.
The report also outlines the obstacles that have faced detransitioners and whistleblowers in being able to share important information, with their reports “discounted, dismissed, or ignored” by influential advocates.
What do we do going forward? This information is critically important to share especially within medical circles. If we keep our voices insistent, those who are not following the science on this—and doing what is best for children—will hopefully either change direction or relinquish their professional activities.
Those of us who are Christians know that ultimately, we must seek the truth ourselves, relying first on the word of God, because the institutions and experts we once trusted have in some cases been thoroughly compromised.
And on this topic, the Lord is clear, that He created each of us male or female. Every child deserves to receive medical care from only those who understand this foundational truth.
