SO-CALLED GENDER AFFIRMING CARE IS INCREASINGLY BEING RECOGNIZED AS UNSCIENTIFIC

National Review

 

‘Gender-Affirming Care’ Is Increasingly Being Recognized as Unscientific

By IAN KINGSBURY

January 9, 2024 6:30 AM

 

New studies raise more red flags on pediatric gender medicine.

 

American medical associations are doubling down on their support of so-called gender-affirming care for children even as lawsuits mount and European countries reverse course. America’s public reckoning with the harms inflicted on kids by pediatric gender medicine ticks closer by the day, and indeed several studies published in recent weeks bring the tragic and profound risks into sharper focus.

 

A study headed by Finnish researcher Riittakerttu Kaltiala examines the psychiatric needs of gender-dysphoric individuals in Finland. The researchers observe that the dysphoric population was substantially more likely than age-matched peers to have received specialist-level psychiatric contact before their first visit to a gender clinic. Worryingly, mental-health needs intensify after they begin the process of medical transition. Whereas 15 percent of patients who underwent gender-reassignment interventions had received psychiatric treatment before visiting a gender clinic, 53 percent had psychiatric contact after their first visit.

 

“Experts” profess certainty that “gender-affirming care” alleviates mental-health distress. They arrive at this conclusion through deeply flawed studies that rely on patient self-reports of mental health. But other clinical indicators suggest that medical transition in fact exacerbates mental-health distress. A 2021 study found that prescriptions for psychotropic medications increased after kids initiated medical transition. A 2011 study from Sweden meanwhile found that those who underwent sex-reassignment surgery had an appreciably lower life expectancy than the general population, in part due to an increased incidence of suicide.

 

Lower life expectancy among those who medically transition is also likely attributable to the regimen of cross-sex hormones that transitioners take. Previous research has documented that cross-sex hormone therapy is associated with increased risk of heart disease and obesity. A new study published by University of California, Davis, researchers also hints at greater cancer risk. Specifically, the researchers observe that natal male veterans who were diagnosed with gender dysphoria and/or prescribed estrogen or estradiol have almost double the incidence of thyroid cancer compared with other male veterans. The researchers note that “estrogen probably has a role in the pathogenesis of thyroid cancer,” a good indication that the higher incidence is not simply correlational or coincidental but a direct result of hormone therapy.

 

It is unclear whether doctors are advising teenage boys that cross-sex hormones potentially increase their risk of thyroid cancer, and another matter altogether whether teenagers possess the mental maturity to provide informed consent to such weighty medical decisions.

 

Two other studies drive home the enormous risks of making “gender-affirming” medical interventions available to children. A study in PLOS One features interviews with Canadian detransitioners. Canada, like the United States, has remarkably low guardrails around “gender-affirming care.” Interviews with 28 detransitioners reveal a consistent theme that they were not properly informed of the risks, complications, and limitations of the treatments. “Reflecting back, they felt they lacked insights such as the extent to which their sexual orientation, mental illness, or neurodivergence may have intersected with dysphoria or desire to transition and many said they would have benefitted from ‘neutral’ therapy.”

 

Disturbingly, the American Academy of Pediatrics advises that watchful waiting is “outdated” and that expressions of gender diversity in children should be immediately affirmed by parents and clinicians. The experiences of these detransitioners prove why watchful waiting and differential diagnosis is in fact pivotal for child safeguarding.

 

In another study, Lisa Littman and co-authors revisit the topic of “rapid onset gender dysphoria.” Littman coined the term in a previous study to describe the phenomenon whereby kids suddenly arrive at a trans identity because of trauma, mental-health challenges, or social contagion rather than persistent feelings of gender dysphoria. Trans activists deny the rapid-onset phenomenon, but the new study provides good evidence of its existence. In the study, Littman and colleagues interviewed 78 Americans who previously identified as transgender but desisted in that identity. The researchers find that by retrospective reporting, fewer than 17 percent of participants met clinical diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria in childhood. Moreover, 53 percent of participants responded affirmatively when asked if their dysphoria appeared “suddenly” during or after puberty.

 

Activists insist that trans-identifying kids simply “know who they are” and that medicalization of their expressions of dysphoria is a sensible and compassionate intervention. Littman’s new study indicates the opposite: Many trans-identified children are vulnerable and confused. Pushing them into receiving irreversible medical interventions is irrational and cruel.