“GENDER” POLITICS IN THE US
Our international friends — particularly in northern European countries — are sharply altering policies on gender medicine. They are taking steps to protect vulnerable youth from unnecessary and dangerous interventions because their experts are realizing that the risks of illness and regret outweigh the benefits.
Meanwhile, here in the U.S. (and Canada), any attempt to expose the lack of evidence for the mental health benefits of removing the breasts of distressed 13-year-old girls or putting children who still believe in Santa Claus on bone-damaging puberty blockers is met with cries of “bigot” and “transphobe.”
According to a report from Reuters, as of October 2022, "the number of gender clinics treating children in the United States has grown from zero to more than 100 in the past 15 years," a growing industry all guided by the discredited World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), an organization that recognizes “eunuch” as a gender that could be medically treated by elective castration. With none of our major medical associations policing their own, as of May 2024, 25 states (all of them “red”) have passed legislation to limit opposite-sex hormones and surgeries for gender-confused minors. The blue states are refusing to acknowledge the science, let alone follow it. Time for our party — and our country — to catch up with what much of the world already knows: gender medicine is a shameful medical scandal.
RECENT HISTORY AND POLICY CHANGES IN OTHER COUNTRIES
In 2014, Dutch researchers published an account of their experience transitioning 55 youth diagnosed with gender dysphoria. This paper and a 2011 Dutch study are the foundation on which subsequent policies and practices on youth medical transition (collectively known as the “Dutch Protocol”) were built. In less than ten years, hormonal and surgical “transition” of teenagers and young adults spread across Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many other parts of the world.
Subsequently, European countries began to report poor outcomes, patient regret, and harms following several years of applying the Dutch Protocol. As a result, many national health authorities conducted systematic evidence reviews, including NHS England's comprehensive Cass Review, completed in April 2024. According to the Cass Review, “While a considerable amount of research has been published in this field, systematic evidence reviews demonstrated the poor quality of the published studies, meaning there is not a reliable evidence base upon which to make clinical decisions, or for children and their families to make informed choices.” Despite the inability of researchers to replicate the results of the Dutch studies, medical "transition" has gone mainstream and become a standard part of general medical practice in many countries.
Based on the mounting (lack of) evidence, the European countries listed below are now in the process of changing (or at minimum, vigorously debating) their national health policies for youth with gender distress.
(last updated August 2024)