The medical watchdog organization, Do No Harm, is urging the FTC to investigate whether the American Psychological Association violated Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act by promoting gender transition procedures despite being aware of the inadequate evidence base. Do No Harm points out that the APA has tried to play both sides of the gender debate without altering its stance—a position I also argued in City Journal—by defending a controversial 2024 policy statement that unambiguously endorses medical transition while simultaneously asserting to federal regulators that the evidence base is weak and that psychotherapy and psychosocial support are its primary treatment recommendations. The APA, however, has maintained that both positions are consistent. “By promoting two irreconcilable positions, the APA is deceiving the FTC, psychologists, and minor patients and their guardians,” Do No Harm Medical Director Kurt Miceli told the Post.
In response to subpoenas from the Department of Justice seeking patient records connected to potential health-care fraud related to “affirming care,” California Democrats have proposed a bill which would making it more challenging to acquire records by requiring more bureaucratic red-tape and specific affidavits. Specifically, the law would require an affidavit for each subpoena declaring that the record request is not related to abortion or transition procedures, which are legally protected under state law. Recipients of any subpoenas would also be required to notify the AG within 7 days, and to notify patients and physicians impacted by the request. “It wraps the doctors, the clinics, the gender industry in a legal blanket and says, ‘You are protected from accountability no matter who you harmed.’ There is no blanket for me,” said detransitioner, Layla Jane.
The Supreme Court has declined to weigh in on a case involving two parents who accused the Ludlow school district in Massachusetts of socially transitioning their middle schooler without their knowledge or consent in violation of their constitutional right to direct the education and upbringing of their child. The parents filed suit in 2022, but a federal district court dismissed the case, and this was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit. “Our Constitution's guarantee of parental rights in a pluralistic society rings hollow for millions of Americans if it offers no protection to nonreligious parents whose children are encouraged to social transition by their public school without their parents' notice or consent — or over their parents' vociferous objections,” said lawyers for the parents. Although the court declined to take this case, a similar case brought by parents in Florida could provide another opportunity.
One of the first pediatric endocrinologists to practice youth gender medicine in Canada, Dr. Karine Khatchadourian, has stressed the need for more transparency about the lack of data supporting medical interventions for minors and the necessity of reinstalling appropriate assessment and screening guardrails. In an interview with National Post, Khatchadourian stressed that she was not a critic of “affirming care” per se, but that she had come to believe that “with everything I now know...I would challenge medicalizing the majority of youth that are presenting to clinics.” Khatchadourian cited concerns about the evidence, the risks of treatment on fertility, changes in the patient population, and the rise of non-binary identities. “I didn’t see anyone identifying as non-binary ten years ago when I was training,” Khatchadourian said.
Ben Ryan released a 2022 video featuring WPATH SOC-8 coauthor, Dr. Scott Leibowitz, misrepresenting the justifications for removing age-limits in WPATH’s latest clinical practice guidelines. Although we know from discovery in Boe v. Marshall that WPATH ultimately removed age limits in its guidelines after pressure from both then Assistant Secretary for Health, Rachel Levine, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, Leibowitz told members that age limits were removed to champion “individualized” care and because developmental maturity doesn’t necessarily correspond with age. Leibowitz went on to add that an age limit “also adds an arbitrary element to the guidelines,” but still assured the audience that the age-limit issue “was thought through a lot, and there was a lot of discussion about it.”
United Nations independent expert Reem Alsalem has issued a letter defending Australian Psychiatrist, Dr Jillian Spencer, from termination by Queensland Children’s Hospital for public comments she’s made about the risks of “affirming care.” In her letter, Alsalem cited the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its guarantee of “the right to freedom of expression, including in relation to public-interest speech by professionals and whistleblowers.” Alsalem also cited “the freedom indispensable for scientific research” under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In March, someone filed a formal complaint against Spencer’s social media activity with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.
In Washington Examiner, Colin Wright explains how social constructionist accounts of biological sex escape the academy and come to influence public perception and law. Wright goes on to analyze how the Montana Supreme Court upheld an injunction blocking enforcement of the state’s sex-definition law, which limited gender marker changes on drivers’ licenses and birth certificates, based on a confused understanding of sex. In a 5-2 ruling, the state Supreme Court ruled that “transgender discrimination is, by its very nature, sex discrimination.” “Existing legal terms were instead reinterpreted and redefined. ‘Sex,’ once understood as a biological classification, was gradually made to include ‘gender identity,’ a subjective feeling. Once an objective biological anchor is gone, policy will go wherever activists want to pull it. Montana tried to reinstate that anchor and failed,” Wright explains.
Joseph Figliolia
Policy Analyst
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