41 - WPATH, Part VI - Resources Revealing the Truth
“Gender affirmation is not proven long-term safe, not proven long-term effective, not shown to improve mental health, and does not reduce suicides.”
In the United States, neither puberty blockers nor sex hormones are approved by the Food and Drug Administration for children’s gender care. The National Institutes of Health said there’s limited evidence about long-term effects.[1]
- Dr. André Van Mol, “a family physician in California and co-chair of the American College of Pediatrician’s Committee on Adolescent Sexuality.”
The fact is a huge number of organizations all over the world have accepted WPATH to be the standards without asking should they be the standards.
…It needs serious clinicians and doctors and hospitals and schools to say, “Hang on a second. If you've got WPATH - if you're running by WPATH guidelines, you need to seriously look at what you're looking at. Because you probably don't know much about this subject, because it's very dense and difficult to find out. And secondly you're working with [a] discredited organization.[2]
– Stella O’Malley, Psychologist
In this last part of our series on WPATH, we will review resources to help you get the message across about this unreliable organization. We have quoted extensively from “Suing Over Medical Transition: The Case Against Considering Wpath as a Competent, Reasonable Body of Expert Opinion” by Peter Jenkins, Genspect Dec. 10, 2022, and it is an excellent article to refer to. Those looking for a podcast can go to episode 94 — WPATH’s Bizarre 8th Standards of Care on the Gender: A Wider Lens Podcast, which reveals even more disturbing details. From the show notes:
WPATH is a fringe organization. Many doctors are influenced by WPATH without knowing it. The Standards of Care are misguided and fully represent the citations they are based on.
…The document is more about political will than clinical care. Sasha shares the nonsensical parts of SOC8, referencing the non-binary chapter. Many items are categorized under gender but are truly body modifications. Many website references cited in the document include unsavory information. Detransitioners are badly depicted in SOC8 and the definition of a detransitioner is abhorrent.
Another great resource was posted by the Manhattan Institute on Oct. 17, 2022: “Trust the Experts’ Is Not Enough: U.S. Medical Groups Get the Science Wrong on Pediatric ‘Gender Affirming’ Care,”[3] by Leor Sapir, PhD. Sapir, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has done a ton of careful analysis of the available research on gender dysphoria, and in this 7-page document he provides a bullet-point summary of much of what is found in this R4R series. It is available as a free PDF download. In this paper he not only addresses what WPATH has gotten wrong, but also includes a critique of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and the Endocrine Society.
There is one point Sapir made in this paper where I’d suggest an alternative example. On top of page 3 of the PDF version, he correctly notes, “There are plenty of examples of American medical organizations being wrong on the science.” He goes on to point to recent instances including the opioid epidemic. While that is a valid example, it involves physicians being lied to by the pharmaceutical industry. A more easily recognized and relevant example would be the misguided use of lobotomies,[4] where an extremely invasive and destructive procedure was used in an attempt to “cure” mental health conditions.
Other countries are taking a different turn regarding working with this population. On Dec. 16, 2022, the Swedish Board of Health and Welfare published new treatment guidelines for youth with gender dysphoria, rejecting the "affirmation only” model of WPATH’s SOC7 or SOC8, citing three reasons:
This judgement is based mainly on three factors: the continued lack of reliable scientific evidence concerning the efficacy and the safety of both treatments [2], the new knowledge that detransition occurs among young adults [3], and the uncertainty that follows from the yet unexplained increase in the number of care seekers, an increase particularly large among adolescents registered as females at birth [4].1
Please consider bringing these resources to the attention of administrators and boards of schools, hospitals, your government leaders, parents, and anyone around you who has bought into the idea that gender ideology is the way to help those with confusion regarding their gender identity.
The truth is individuals who experience discomfort, confusion, and/or insecurity regarding their biological sex are in need of compassionate care. They need competent individuals who will help them sort through co-morbidities such as depression, peer pressures, abuse, depression, autism, or other challenging things in their lives.
After these dark chapters, we will be turning to some good news on the cultural front, find encouragement in stories of redemption, and hear of a courageous chaplain in England in future editions of R4R.
[1] https://wng.org/roundups/new-transgender-standards-remove-age-limits-1665428818
[3] https://www.manhattan-institute.org/how-to-respond-to-medical-authorities-claiming-gender-affirming-care-is-safe
[4] https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-surprising-history-of-the-lobotomy#purpose
1 https://www.socialstyrelsen.se/globalassets/sharepoint-dokument/artikelkatalog/kunskapsstod/2022-3-7799.pdf See also: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1604233730473590784.html
