Parents Call on Medical Associations: Reject WPATH as Authority on Gender Dysphoria
We are parents of children who suddenly, seemingly out of the blue, decided they were unhappy with their natal sex and began identifying as the opposite sex, or some other “gender”. We are gravely concerned about the rush to “affirm” our children’s new identities without ever stopping to ask why they have become unhappy with their natural bodies. The “affirmation approach” prescribed by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) is dangerously misguided and only serves to solidify our children’s newly-created identities, setting them on a course for social, medical and surgical transition. There is little evidence that this approach is effective in alleviating their distress, yet it poses serious risks of causing irreversible harm. We are calling for all medical organizations to reject the WPATH guidelines and adopt a more psychologically and developmentally informed approach to our children’s care.
WPATH members are unethical and careless
The WPATH Files have confirmed what we have known all along: WPATH members are shockingly unethical and careless in their approach to our gender dysphoric children, young adults and those with severe mental illness. Privately, WPATH members acknowledge that many of their patients are too young, too anxious or too mentally ill to provide informed consent, yet publicly they insist that they are able to fully understand the consequences of the interventions.
WPATH members know many patients are unable to provide informed consent
Pursuant to the video conference in the WPATH Files from WPATH’s Identity Evolution Workshop held on May 6, 2022:
Dr. Jamison Green states that he “knows for a fact people, even adults, well-educated, older adults accessing care for the first time, . . . and look at the informed consent form … and don’t take any of that in yet, just so, show me where to sign. . . .And they don’t really take in the information.”
Dr. Dianne Berg struggles with the fact that kids don’t understand. She states
“I kinda want the kids that I work with whether they are 9 to you know like 13 and looking for puberty suppression or hormones in some ways to be to be little pediatric endocrinologists.
WPATH members know they may be harming their patients, but continue to treat them
Privately, WPATH members express concern that their treatments may cause harm, or that their patients may be too mentally ill to undergo treatment (but they treat them anyway). All the while, they publicly insist that their treatments are safe, necessary and “life saving’.
When discussing patients with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) or Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, not one medical provider in the discussion advised to hold off from treatment.
The WPATH files quotes a provider as stating:
“With one client who had DID we worked with all alters giving consent to HRT [hormones] before it was started. They had alters who were both male and female gender and it was imperative to get all of the alters who would be affected by HRT to be aware and consent to changes. Ethically, if you do not get consent from all alters you have not really received consent and may be open to being sued later, if they decide HRT or surgery was not in their best interest.”
Notably, the concern was the potential of being sued, not the fact that the patient was suffering from a rare and severe psychological delusional state.
WPATH members dismiss or trivialize the irreparable harm they caused to detransitioners
There is an increasing number of detransitioners who have been permanently harmed by WPATH’s guidelines. Distressingly, their complaints are dismissed or trivialized by WPATH members and framed as though what happened to these misinformed patients was merely just part of a natural development stage – euphemistically called their “gender journey”. Most critically-minded people understand that removal of healthy body parts and irreversibly changing secondary sex characteristics is not a natural stage in human development.
This medical provider, posing a question about a 17-year-old female who is irate over her two-years of testestorone asserting that she was “brainwashed” into believing she was a boy, cannot even accept or admit that this young girl is female. Instead, in an extraordinary affront to this female teenager, the provider uses “he/him” pronouns,” while responding providers discuss whether “gender journey” should be used instead of “detransition” in a game of semantics designed to lessen any responsibility towards this anguished child. (See page 99 of the WPATH Files.)
“We have a patient, 17yrs FTM, that just graduated high school and has decided to de-transition. . . . We followed all of the guidelines and [he] has been on testosterone for 2+ [making her 14 or 15 years old when she began] He is very distraught and angry . . .”
WPATH shows no interest in conducting proper studies or follow up on their patients
WPATH shows no interest in conducting placebo-controlled studies to find out if the affirmative approach is better than far less-invasive alternatives such as watchful waiting. Nor do they care to follow up with their patients to see how they’re doing years later. Instead, they are more concerned with the patient’s immediate happiness and simply “assume” their patients will continue to do well later.
Dr. Dan Metzger admits that his priority is not the future happiness of his child-patient but the “here and now” happiness.
“We try to talk about it [fertility] but most kids are nowhere in any kind of brain space to really, really, really talk about it in a serious way. I, that’s always bothered me, but you know, we still want the kids to. Be happy, happier in the moment, right?”
While WPATH may have no interest in conducting proper studies, other entities have done so. Recently, the UK conducted a rigorous systematic review which found that the evidence to support gender-affirming care was very weak. As a result, they rejected the WPATH guidelines and have adopted a more cautious approach. Other countries, including Sweden, Finland, and Norway have followed suit. Finland recently reported that suicides of trans-identified youth (under 23 years of age) are not elevated after controlling for other psychiatric issues. Additionally, transitioning a youth has no positive statistical data demonstrating that such treatment prevent suicides.
Unfortunately, the issue continues to be heavily politicized and honest, scientific debate is often censured. In the US, the American Academy of Pediatrics refused to entertain requests for a systematic review until last year, when it finally agreed. However, until the results of this review are published, the AAP continues to follow the recommendations from WPATH’s Standards of Care (SOC8).
Medical organizations who follow WPATH guidelines are causing irreparable harm
By following the WPATH guidelines, medical professionals are causing irreversible damage to our children’s bodies, their mental health and their fertility—all without any evidence that the recommended treatments will improve their gender dysphoria. Our children deserve better.
We, the parents of gender dysphoric children, call upon health regulators, medical and professional bodies and healthcare providers the world over to immediately cease reliance on WPATH as an authority on the appropriate treatment for those with transgender ideation and to pause all medical interventions. We implore health regulators to put ideology and politics aside and immediately cease all gender interventions until guidelines are created based upon longitudinal data that are both psychologically and developmentally informed and based on solid evidence. This issue must be addressed immediately. The well-being of our children is at stake.
Addressees
Australia
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP)
Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators (RACMA)
Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP)
Paediatrics and Child Health
Australasian Chapter of Sexual Health Medicine
Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS)
The Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists
Australian Psychological Society
Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA)
Mark Butler-Federal Health Minister
Ryan Park-NSW Minister of Health
Minister Of Health Victoria
Minister of Health Tasmania
Minister of Health South Australia
Minister of Health ACT
Minister Of Health Queensland
Minister of Health NT
Minister of Health WA
AVANT
MDA
MIGA
MIPS
Australian Medical Association (AMA)
Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne CEO
Westmead Hospital Centre for Child and Adolescent Health
Women’s and Children’s Hospital Adelaide CEO
Maple Leaf House
Perth Children’s Hospital
Queensland Children’s Hospital
Canada
Federal & Provincial Ministers of Health
Medical & Psychological Regulatory Associations
Boards of Directors of Major Children’s Hospitals
Heads of Gender Clinics
Provincial Ministers of Education
United Kingdom
The Secretary of State for Health
NHS England
Care Quality Commission
Royal College of General Practitioners
General Medical Council
Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) – http://www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org/
Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) – https://arolygiaethgofal.cymru/
National Institute for Clinical Excellence
United States
State Governors
American Academy of Pediatrics,
American Psychiatric Association
American Academy of Pediatrics
Endrocrine Society
Johns Hopkins
United Health Care
Blue Cross/Blue Shield
CIGNA