Here are the holes in the gender-affirming narrative
There is no area of medicine more controversial than the treatment of children and adolescents who identify as transgender. The leading organization championing the early medicalization model, which recommends that kids receive puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and even surgeries, is the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). That organization, based in East Dundee, Ill., claims that its standards of care follow “the most rigorous protocol in the world to ensure these standards reflect scientific evidence and meet the needs of transgender patients.”
This is simply false.
In evidence-based medicine, trustworthy recommendations must rely on a systematic review of evidence. Prior to writing its latest standards of care, called SOC-8, WPATH commissioned such a review. That report, which included research subjects of any age, not just minors, concluded that there is an association between hormone therapy and improved quality of life for transgender people. But it noted that the quality of evidence for that association was “low,” due to concerns about study designs, small sample sizes and other factors.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Dallas Morning News (paywall)
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Leor Sapir is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
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