Trans-Affirming ‘Doctor’ Hides Evidence Kids Are Being Harmed
Everything about Big Trans in America is a lie — a lie propped up by a complicit public health bureaucracy.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons, several of whose members are currently being sued by detransitioners, has reportedly distanced itself from the practice of providing children with sex-change mutilations, casting doubt on such procedures' value and efficacy.
The organization, which represents roughly 11,000 members in the U.S. and Canada, recently told Manhattan Institute fellow Leor Sapir that it "has not endorsed any organization's practice recommendations for the treatment of adolescents with gender dysphoria" — an apparent reference to the recommendations advanced by the radical and scandal-plagued World Professional Association of Transgender Health.
The ASPS also acknowledged that there is "considerable uncertainty as to the long-term efficacy for the use of chest and genital surgical interventions," adding that "the existing evidence base is viewed as low quality/low certainty."
Sapir noted:
In evidence-based medicine, "low quality" evidence means something very specific: that the true effect of an intervention is likely to be markedly different from the results reported in studies. As one expert in evidence-based medicine put it, low quality "doesn't just mean something esoteric about study design, it means there’s uncertainty about whether the long-term benefits outweigh the harms."
The feedback from the ASPS echoes some of the conclusions reached in the groundbreaking Cass Review, which effectively hammered the final nail into the coffin for the "gender-affirming care" narrative earlier this year.
Dr. Hilary Cass, a British medical doctor who previously served as president of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, was appointed by the National Health Service in England in 2020 to lead an independent investigation into Britain's sex-change regime and its youth-facing services.
Blaze News previously reported that the Cass' 388-page final report, which was released in April, revealed that:
While the report proved consequential in the U.K., it has been less impactful on this side of the Atlantic, at least with major medical associations.
'I think that's where you're misleading the public.'
The American Academy of Pediatrics, for instance, still has WPATH recommendations included in its guidance. Last summer, the organization — which represents around 67,000 pediatricians — reaffirmed its support for child sex changes.
Cass told the New York Times in May that the AAP is "holding on to a position that is now demonstrated to be out of date by multiple systematic reviews."
"It wouldn't be too much of a problem if people were saying, 'This is clinical consensus and we're not sure.' But what some organizations are doing is doubling down on saying the evidence is good. And I think that's where you're misleading the public. You need to be honest about the strength of the evidence and say what you’re going to do to improve it," said Cass.
Sapir learned of ASPS' uncertainty after contacting the group last month for comment about the leaked World Professional Association of Transgender Health internal documents detailed by Environmental Progress and discussed at length by nationally syndicated radio host and co-founder of Blaze Media Glenn Beck.
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WPATH members were quoted in Environmental Progress researcher Mia Hughes' report discussing giving irreversible medical treatments to mentally compromised patients incapable of providing consent; the inability of parents and adolescents to comprehend the long-term fallout of so-called gender affirmation; putting a gloss on post-operation regrets; and the fallout of sex-change mutilations.
The ASPS told Sapir that it is aware that WPATH suppressed systematic reviews of evidence while developing its so-called standards of care.
Blaze News previously noted that the Biden-Harris administration's transvestic assistant secretary of Health and Human Services successfully pressured WPATH to remove minimum age requirements from its standards of care document.
The ASPS indicated it is now "reviewing and prioritizing several initiatives that best support evidence-based gender surgical care to provide guidance to plastic surgeons."
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The World Professional Association for Transgender Health is the organization responsible for the "gender medicine" guidelines regarded as authoritative by various American health institutions and groups, including the American Medical Association, the Endocrine Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
While Britain's landmark Cass Review and other studies have demonstrated WPATH's recommendations to be largely indefensible, a report published in March by Environmental Progress revealed that the organization may not be wholly interested in sound defenses. After all, some of its members appear to be freewheeling radicals happily engaged in horrifying pseudo-science.
According to Mia Hughes' 242-page report, WPATH members "demonstrate a lack of consideration for long-term patient outcomes despite being aware of the debilitating and potentially fatal side effects of cross-sex hormones and other treatments."
Internal documents and videos detailed in the report revealed that WPATH members have knowingly given irreversible medical treatments to mentally compromised victims incapable of providing consent; acknowledged minors cannot comprehend the long-term consequences of so-called gender affirmation; glossed over the regrets of victims of sex changes; and manufactured fake body parts in elective surgeries that do not "exist in nature."
Despite WPATH's clear lack of mooring in science and ethics, the organization is still apparently not extreme enough for the Biden administration.
According to an unsealed court document in the federal case Boe v. Marshall, Biden's transvestic assistant secretary of Health and Human Services successfully pressured WPATH to drop its recommended minimum age requirements for sex-change mutilations.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, and various other leftist groups have been working in Boe to undermine the democratic will of the residents of Alabama by axing the Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act. The act banned the administration of sterilizing puberty blockers, sex-change mutilations, or cross-sex hormones to minors.
The unsealed document that details conversations between the organization's leadership and Rachel Levine regarding WPATH's "Standards of Care Version 8" — as well as other subpoenaed materials WPATH apparently fought in court to keep hidden — is part of a broader report submitted in the case by Dr. James Cantor in support of Alabama's ban.
One internal WPATH message noted, "I have just spoken to Admiral Levine today, who — as always is extremely supportive of the SOC 8, but also very eager for its release — so to ensure integration in the US health policies of the Biden government. So, let's crack on with the job."
Another WPATH message indicated that Levine not only sought to rush the process but had communicated to the organization via his chief of staff, Sarah Boateng, that the "biggest concern is the section below in the Adolescent Chapter that lists specific minimum ages for treatment."
The New York Times indicated that the draft guidelines initially recommended age minimums of 17 for genital mutilations, 15 for healthy breast removals, 16 for breast implants, and 14 for hormone treatments.
Levine wanted these minimums eliminated and to expose vulnerable children to unnecessary surgeries WPATH members elsewhere acknowledged they could not consent to — not because of scientific evidence but because of politics.
"[Levine] is confident, based on the rhetoric she is hearing in DC, and from what we have already seen, that these specific listings of ages, under 18, will result in devastating legislation for trans care," said the internal WPATH message. "She wonders if the specific ages can be taken out and perhaps an adjunct document could be created that is published or distributed in a way that is less visible than the SOC8, is the way to go."
"The issue of ages and treatment has been quite controversial (mainly for surgery) and it has come up again," said another internal WPATH message. "We sent the document to Admiral Levine. ... She like [sic] the SOC-8 very much but she was very concerned that having ages (mainly for surgery) will affect access to health care for trans youth and maybe adults too. Apparently the situation in the USA is terrible and she and the Biden administration worried that having ages in the document will make matters worse. She asked us to remove them. We have the WPATH executive committee in this meeting and we explained to her that we could not just remove them at this stage."
In a subsequent message, WPATH confirmed that in response to Levine's requests, the organization had made changes to how the minimum ages were presented in the documents.
The court document indicated further that rather than admit Levine's influence in the face of questions over its abrupt and visible removal of recommended age minimums, WPATH "fabricated a false explanation."
WPATH suggested that the changes were the result of an effort to place the "emphasis back on individualized patient care rather than some sort of minimal final hurdle that could encourage superficial evaluations and treatments outside of the thorough and comprehensive pathway recommended by WPATH standards."
Cantor told the Times, "What's being told to the public is totally different from WPATH's discussions in private."
Mia Hughes, whose report exposed WPATH earlier this year, reached a similar conclusion, but went farther, telling Blaze Media co-founder and nationally syndicated radio host Glenn Beck last month, "The Hippocratic Oath has long been abandoned by these people."
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The British medical establishment was long captive to gender ideology. It is now coming to terms with the error of its ways, having realized that the supposed "right side of history" where the trans-activist flag waves proudly is actually the province of pseudoscience, misery, and mutilation.
Dr. Hilary Cass, a British medical doctor who previously served as president of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, hammered the final nail into the coffin for the "gender-affirming care" narrative in April.
Cass, a highly esteemed recipient of the Order of the British Empire, was appointed by the National Health Service in England in 2020 to lead an independent investigation into Britain's sex-change regime and its youth facing services. Her 388-page final report — released shortly after England effectively banned the prescription of puberty blockers and shuttered the infamous Tavistock child gender-identity clinic — made abundantly clear that the evidence in support of "gender-affirming care" was "weak" at best.
In addition to highlighting unreliable science and the fallout of sex-change interventions, Cass noted that sex-change procedures did not impact suicide risk or deliver on other promised results and that mutilated children may likely have otherwise outgrown their confusion.
These conclusions sent various radicals into fits of rage. Cass has since become a popular target, even for some leftist lawmakers.
Cass recently expressed amazement that whereas Britain is now pumping the brakes on its mutilatory practices — joining the ranks of other Western nations like Finland and Norway — the American medical establishment is ostensibly speeding along with reckless abandon.
'Do what you've been trained to do.'
In a recent interview with the New York Times, Cass was confronted with recent reactions stateside to her findings.
The Endocrine Society reportedly said, "We stand firm in our support of gender-affirming care," suggesting that it is "needed and often lifesaving."
While the American Academy of Pediatrics reportedly declined to comment on the specifics of Cass' landmark report, its woke president, Ben Hoffman, said, "Politicians have inserted themselves into the exam room, which is dangerous for both physicians and for families."
The AAP, which has repeatedlylashed out against red states for protecting children from child sex-change mutilations, reiterated that its guidance is "grounded in evidence and science."
'What some organizations are doing is doubling down on saying the evidence is good. And I think that’s where you’re misleading the public.'
The AAP's guidance incorporates recommendations from the scandal-plagued World Professional Association of Transgender Health, which Environmental Progress and nationally syndicated radio host and cofounder of Blaze Media Glenn Beck have in recent months exposed as a pseudoscientific activist organization whose members have indicated as much behind closed doors.
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Blaze News previously reported that WPATH members are quoted in Environmental Progress researcher Mia Hughes' bombshell report discussing: giving irreversible medical treatments to mentally compromised patients incapable of providing consent; the inability of parents and adolescents to comprehend the long-term fallout of so-called gender affirmation; putting a gloss on post-operation regrets; and the ruinous side effects of sex-change mutilations.
The AAP appears to still regard WPATH as a credible organization.
Cass took issue with the American organizations' apparent aversion to the facts about "gender-affirming care."
"When I was president of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, we did some great work with the A.A.P.," Cass told the Times. "They are an organization that I have enormous respect for. But I respectfully disagree with them on holding on to a position that is now demonstrated to be out of date by multiple systematic reviews."
Cass suggested it "wouldn't be too much of a problem if people were saying 'This is clinical consensus and we're not sure.' But what some organizations are doing is doubling down on saying the evidence is good. I think that's where you're misleading the public."
"You need to be honest about the strength of the evidence and say what you're going to do to improve it," continued Cass. "I suspect that the A.A.P., which is an organization that does massive good for children worldwide, and I see as a fairly left-leaning organization, is fearful of making any moves that might jeopardize trans health care right now."
Hoffman, prickled by Cass' suggestion, later stated that "any suggestion the American Academy of Pediatrics is misleading families is false."
'What really worries me is that people just think: This is somebody who is trans, and the medical pathway is the right thing for them.'
The esteemed British pediatrician suggested that perhaps if the AAP was not subject to such intense political pressure, "They would be able to be more nuanced, to say that multiple truths exist in this space — that there are children who are going to need medical treatment, and that there are other children who are going to resolve their distress in different ways."
When pressed on what doctors should do moving forward, Cass minced no words: "Do what you've been trained to do."
"So that means that you approach any one of these young people as you would any other adolescent, taking a proper history, doing a proper assessment and maintaining a curiosity about what’s driving their distress," said Cass. "It may be about diagnosing autism, it may be about treating depression, it might be about treating an eating disorder."
"What really worries me is that people just think: This is somebody who is trans, and the medical pathway is the right thing for them," added Cass.
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Miriam Grossman, M.D., is a psychiatrist who has taken a stand against what she describes as the “religion” of gender ideology. Grossman saw a massive increase in young patients who claimed to have gender dysphoria after COVID lockdowns, when kids were isolated online.
“There is no medical or scientific basis for the idea that you can be one sex in your mind and that be at odds with your physical reality of your body,” Grossman tells Glenn Beck.
“Everything you just said, I just believe. But you’re one of the only doctors left on the hill of sanity,” Glenn says. “What happened?”
Grossman notes that parents and therapists have started to “affirm the new identity, celebrate the new identity, and put the child in the driver's seat.”
“It’s what many, many therapists do these days, and it is what almost all of our mainstream medical and mental health associations are telling us to do,” Grossman says, using the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics as examples of organizations she no longer trusts despite being trained to.
“Kids are indoctrinated with this religion as if they are established facts,” she explains. “They are flooded with this from every angle as they go through the day, and they’re led to believe that these are undisputed facts, and nothing could be further from the truth.”
Not only have mainstream medical and mental health associations done a one-eighty on their previous science-backed beliefs — but they’re ignoring the clear life-altering consequences that come with such a decision.
“They take puberty blockers, they then take cross-sex hormones, testosterone and estrogen and other hormones, and then many of them get surgeries, which are extremely expensive,” Grossman says. “Now, once a young person goes on puberty blockers, almost all of them will continue on to cross-sex hormones, which means they will be a consumer of pharmaceuticals for the rest of their life.”
“Could it be that simple, that it’s money, that it’s Big Pharma that’s really pushing this?” Glenn asks Grossman.
“There’s no question that this is extremely lucrative,” she says. “You have to also consider that we are creating a generation of young people who are sterile.”
If they end up wanting to have biological kids, their only options will be IVF or surrogacy.
“That’s a whole other gold mine of opportunity for reproductive technologies,” Grossman adds.
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