HHS REPORT EXPOSES THE RISKS OF GENDER EXPERIMENTATION ON CHILDREN

National Review

 

HHS Report Exposes the Risks of Gender Experimentation on Children

By The Editors

May 2, 2025 6:30 AM

 

At the beginning of the year, President Trump announced an executive order that directed the secretary of health and human services to publish a review of “the existing literature on best practices for promoting the health of children who assert gender dysphoria, rapid-onset gender dysphoria, or other identity-based confusion” within 90 days.

 

And it turns out that the “best practices” for so-called “gender-affirming care” are simply to not do it at all.

 

The HHS review was published Thursday, and the results shouldn’t be surprising. The researchers found that the available studies on “gender-affirming care” for minors are poorly conducted, and there isn’t evidence to show that such interventions effectively treat gender dysphoria or improve mental health. More importantly, the researchers note what hasn’t been published in the scientific literature: The studies largely fail to appropriately consider the possible harms of these medical interventions.

 

The HHS report is an umbrella review of 17 preexisting systematic reviews on pediatric gender-related medicine, some encompassing more than one topic. The researchers evaluated the quality of these reviews, and of the 17 considered, seven were rated as having a “high risk of bias overall,” while others similarly suffered from methodological flaws. Ultimately, the researchers concluded that the “overall quality” of the evidence is “very low.” That finding mirrors what the Cass Review, an independent review commissioned by the U.K. National Health Service on similar medical treatments, said in 2024: “This is an area of remarkably weak evidence.”

 

Indeed, the HHS report notes that the common defenses of gender-related medicine for minors — such as the claim it is “lifesaving” — are entirely unsupported by the data. Although we’ve all been told to “trust the science,” the report gives us good reasons to be extremely critical of the available literature. Some systematic reviews arrived at positive evaluations of gender-related interventions even when the studies in question either contradicted or didn’t support such an outcome.

 

But perhaps the most valuable insight of the HHS report is that the available studies neglect important outcomes. The researchers note that design flaws throughout the literature, ranging from small sample sizes to short periods of monitoring, mean that important questions are left unanswered. The fact is that there is very limited data about the long-term effects of these gender-related interventions on sexual function, cognitive abilities, bone density, cardiovascular diseases, and other areas of physical health. The HHS researchers neatly summarize the logical error that allowed these treatments to be offered, even encouraged: “The absence of evidence of harms in published studies is not equivalent to evidence of absence of harms.”

 

The review is an accomplishment for the Trump administration; this type of report is long overdue. Although the review itself does not make recommendations for the regulation of these treatments, it is reassuring to see that the United States — like the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Finland — is getting on the right track.

 

No new policy can undo the harm that has already been inflicted on young, vulnerable children. These kids arrived at the doctor’s office for treatment, only to be further damaged when they most needed help. As the report notes, children with gender dysphoria often present at gender-medicine clinics with co-occurring neurodevelopmental disorders and mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and suicidality, among others. Radical activists and health-care professionals treated struggling children like guinea pigs, and sadly, the nationwide experiment isn’t over. The full consequences of this disturbing medical practice have yet to be seen.