The prevalence of radical gender ideology in the United States has driven the nation to offer children greater access to transgender medical interventions than is available in Europe, a study by Do No Harm has found.
Compared to the United States, “Europe goes a safer and more scientific route,” states Do No Harm, a diverse group of physicians, healthcare professionals, patients, and policymakers seeking to “protect healthcare from a radical, divisive, and discriminatory ideology.”
Following its analysis of the laws and policies of European countries, the group concluded, “the United States is the most permissive country when it comes to the legal and medical gender transition of children.”
“Only France comes close,” Do No Harm’s report explains, “yet unlike the U.S., France’s medical authorities have recognized the uncertainties involved in transgender medical care for children and have urged ‘great caution’ in its use.”
In 2022, the movement to safeguard gender-dysphoric youth made pivotal ground. Sweden & England followed Finland in sharply curbing the provision of hormones & surgery. The year ended with a leading Dutch newspaper questioning the Dutch gender clinic./1https://t.co/IuqC51ZhWq
— SEGM (@segm_ebm) January 2, 2023
The European “consensus,” the organization continues, is “grounded in medical science and common sense,” while the U.S. “should reconsider the gender-affirming care model to protect the youngest and most vulnerable patients.”
According to the analysis, children and teens in the United States have greater access to “gender-affirming care,” including to gender clinics, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries.
Parental consent to access transgender treatments is not required in all cases in the U.S., and various medical providers can prescribe gender-affirming hormones in some areas.
Must read— devastating critique of the Dutch Studies that form the foundation of hormonal and surgical interventions for gender dysphoric youth. https://t.co/pYeLCDbwaO
— Will Malone MD (@will_malone) January 12, 2023
Board-certified endocrinologist Dr. William Malone told Fox News Digital the current political atmosphere in the nation that has encouraged the suppression of free speech and debate has led doctors critical of the gender-affirming model to refrain from speaking out because they fear potential repercussions from influential medical associations and boards.
“We are dealing with what may be the biggest medical and ethical scandal of modern times,” Malone said. “Transgender medicine is big business, and youth who are transitioning today will be medical patients for life, for the next 60-plus years. Mental health among youth is at an all-time low, making them particularly vulnerable to solutions that suggest an ‘easy fix.’”
The report cites The New York Times stating in November:
Many physicians in the United States and elsewhere are prescribing blockers to patients at the first stage of puberty – as early as 8 — and allowing them to progress to sex hormones as soon as 12 or 13. Starting treatment at young ages, they believe, helps patients become better aligned physically with their gender identity and helps protect their bones.
The Times article cited Dr. Hilary Cass, a pediatrician who led a review of transgender medical interventions for adolescents in England.
“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,” Cass wrote.
Cass recommended the closure of Britain’s Tavistock & Portman National Health Service (NHS) Clinic which, previously, had led the way in prescribing puberty blockers for young children claiming to be transgender.
The north London clinic had “been accused of rushing teenagers into life-altering treatment on hormone-blocking drugs,” The Times of London reported as the clinic’s closure was announced.
Tavistock had prescribed puberty blockers to children as young as 10 years of age.
Children under the age of 16 are now referred to children’s hospitals which, according to NHS, will provide a “holistic” approach to gender dysphoria that includes “strong links to mental health services.”
Additionally, under-16 children are only to be prescribed puberty blockers in the NHS system as part of a clinical trial, the data will be used to study the drugs’ long-term effects.
The news of Tavistock’s closure accompanied similar announcements in Sweden and France citing “low quality” evidence for hormone treatment for gender dysphoric youth and the need for emphasis on the risks of transgender medical interventions and “their irreversible nature.”
Yesterday, the Swedish Board of Health and Welfare published new treatment guidelines for youth with gender dysphoria. The guidelines explicitly instruct medical providers that psychosocial support should be the first line of treatment. /1https://t.co/0GkXT6NXwv
— SEGM (@segm_ebm) December 17, 2022
Likewise, in 2020, Finland announced it would no longer adhere to transition recommendations for transgender youth established by the controversial World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). Instead, mental health treatment would be urged as the primary treatment for children diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
According to the report by Do No Harm, in terms of requirements for medical transition for minors, Finland now asserts “the dysphoria of a minor seeking hormone treatment must be deemed ‘severe’ and ‘permanent.’”
Many in the United States are warning the nation is already down a destructive path with minors having easy access to transgender medical interventions and the pervasiveness of gender ideology in schools and the culture.
A study published in June by the Heritage Foundation found that, contrary to the message of transgender activists that children and teens must be immediately “affirmed” in their new gender identity in order to avoid suicide, states that allow minors to obtain puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones without parental consent have a higher likelihood of youth suicide.
“Lowering legal barriers to make it easier for minors to undergo cross-sex medical interventions without parental consent does not reduce suicide rates – in fact, it likely leads to higher rates of suicide among young people in states that adopt these changes,” researcher Jay Greene, Ph.D. noted.
Greene’s concerns about the call for “gender-affirming” treatments for minors, based on “research” concluding a delay in transgender drugs until adulthood is likely to lead to even higher suicide rates among gender-confused youth, are readily affirmed by a recent National Public Radio (NPR) interview with transgender U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Rachel (born Richard) Levine.
The Biden health official claimed there is “no argument among medical professionals – pediatricians, pediatric endocrinologists, adolescent medicine physicians, adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, et cetera – about the value and the importance of gender-affirming care,” which includes puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries, such as elective double mastectomies, for young people.
“Trans youth in particular are being hounded in public and driven to deaths of despair at an alarming rate,” Levine told NPR “in prepared remarks” at the end of April.
Condemning state legislation intended to curb child gender transition, Levine quoted the Trevor Project for statistics.
“Fifty-two percent of all transgender and nonbinary young people in the U.S. seriously contemplated killing themselves in 2020,” the LGBTQ activist organization stated. “Think about how many of them thought it was better to die than to put up with any more harassment, scapegoating and intentional abuse.”
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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “A Doctor Checking a Child” by Pavel Danilyuk.
