{"id":1604357,"date":"2022-08-13T08:02:50","date_gmt":"2022-08-13T12:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1604357"},"modified":"2022-08-13T08:03:05","modified_gmt":"2022-08-13T12:03:05","slug":"biden-admin-divided-on-transgender-surgeries-for-minors-as-other-countries-pull-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-admin-divided-on-transgender-surgeries-for-minors-as-other-countries-pull-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Admin Divided on Transgender Surgeries for Minors as Other Countries Pull Back"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbiden-admin-divided-on-transgender-surgeries-for-minors-as-other-countries-pull-back%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1604357&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/justthenews.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/social_media_share\/public\/2022-06\/GettyImages-1152963605.jpg?h=79ce468a&#038;itok=Bsmi05Fm\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>As medical authorities and regulators worldwide warn against rushing gender-confused youth into puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and sharply restrict the practice, the U.S. is <a href=\"https:\/\/justthenews.com\/world\/foreign-desk\/florida-state-medical-board-ban-transgender-treatments-minors\">divided not only between state and federal governments<\/a> but among the feds themselves.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, the <a href=\"https:\/\/publications.aap.org\/aapnews\/news\/20636\/Risk-of-pseudotumor-cerebri-added-to-labeling-for?autologincheck=redirected\">Food and Drug Administration added a warning<\/a> to &#8220;gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists&#8221; based on their &#8220;plausible&#8221; connection to spontaneous increases in intracranial pressure in girls, reaffirming <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2017\/02\/02\/lupron-puberty-children-health-problems\/\">years of warnings about Lupron<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/katv.com\/news\/nation-world\/fda-warns-puberty-blocker-may-cause-brain-swelling-vision-loss-in-children-rachel-levine\">undermining the feds&#8217; top transgender official<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>That didn&#8217;t stop the Biden administration from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ca5.uscourts.gov\/OralArgRecordings\/21\/21-11174_8-4-2022.mp3\">asking the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Aug. 4<\/a> to reinstate a Department of Health and Human Services mandate requiring doctors to perform gender transitions on children and some private insurers and employers to cover them.<\/p>\n<p>Medicare and Medicaid weren&#8217;t covered, though. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.transgendermandate.org\/\">Religious liberty law firm Becket<\/a>, which is representing religious healthcare providers, noted <a href=\"https:\/\/becketnewsite.s3.amazonaws.com\/CAG-00446N_proposed_decision_memo_20210211.pdf\">HHS declined to issue a &#8220;National Coverage Determination&#8221;<\/a> on sex-reassignment surgery in 2016, citing conflicting study results on benefits versus harms.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/libertyunyielding.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/FDA-no-records-response-2022-3594-Response-Letter.pdf\">FDA&#8217;s response to a Freedom of Information Act request<\/a> suggests the agency wasn&#8217;t even consulted when HHS&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20220506090615\/https:\/opa.hhs.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2022-03\/gender-affirming-care-young-people-march-2022.pdf\">Office of Population Affairs drafted guidance<\/a> that claims &#8220;early gender affirming care is crucial to overall health and well-being,&#8221; blockers are &#8220;reversible,&#8221; and hormones are &#8220;partially reversible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The March guidance prompted alarm from a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/hhs-guidance-trans-pharmacology-raises-more-questions-it-answers-opinion-1707076\">former FDA official, who wrote in Newsweek<\/a>\u00a0that his colleagues were &#8220;circumvented on transgender clinical pharmacology recommendations by an obscure, obviously unqualified HHS office.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>FOIA officer Meredith Schlaifer told former Department of Education lawyer Hans Bader the FDA had no communications between the commissioner&#8217;s office, media affairs and the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research on the drafting and publishing of the OPA guidance.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/libertyunyielding.com\/2022\/08\/09\/hhs-ignored-experts-in-issuing-guidelines-promoting-gender-transitions-for-minors\/\">Liberty Unyielding essay<\/a> Tuesday, Bader said the agency responded only after he sued the FDA and HHS, which has yet to respond to a similar request.<\/p>\n<p>HHS and FDA didn&#8217;t respond to queries on Bader&#8217;s characterizations.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The American stance is at odds with a growing consensus in the West to exercise extreme caution when it comes to transitioning young people,&#8221; journalist and &#8220;Tomboy&#8221; author Lisa Selin Davis wrote in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.commonsense.news\/p\/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-gender\">Common Sense newsletter<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commonsense.news\/p\/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-gender\">Scandinavian countries have sharply restricted<\/a>\u00a0&#8220;gender affirming&#8221; treatments in the past two years, with Sweden limiting youth transitions to &#8220;exceptional cases&#8221; and Finland banning &#8220;irreversible treatment&#8221; for this &#8220;experimental practice&#8221; of gender reassignment.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/justthenews.com\/politics-policy\/health\/satuks-only-dedicated-child-sex-change-clinic-close?utm_source=justthenews.com&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=external-news-aggregators\">National Health Service is closing<\/a> the U.K.&#8217;s central gender-identity clinic for youth, known as Tavistock, following a high-profile lawsuit by a former patient, Keira Bell, and an <a href=\"https:\/\/cass.independent-review.uk\/\">independent review by Hilary Cass<\/a>, former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics.<\/p>\n<article class=\"align-center\">\n[embedded content]\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<p>Cass&#8217;\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/cass.independent-review.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Cass-Review-Interim-Report-Final-Web-Accessible.pdf\">interim report<\/a> on Tavistock this spring found &#8220;major gaps in the research base underpinning the clinical management&#8221; of youth, now predominantly girls &#8220;first presenting in adolescence with gender-related distress.&#8221; Staff said they felt pressured to &#8220;adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach&#8221; at odds with the process for &#8220;all other clinical encounters.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A diagnosis of &#8220;gender distress&#8221; also led to &#8220;diagnostic overshadowing&#8221; of other healthcare issues children were having, Cass said. <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/J6SCI#selection-915.0-922.0\">The Times of London<\/a> reported the clinic&#8217;s services will be farmed out to regional children&#8217;s hospitals, with an emphasis on mental health services and &#8220;holistic care.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cass shared her <a href=\"https:\/\/cass.independent-review.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Cass-Review-Letter-to-NHSE_19-July-2022.pdf\">July 19 letter to NHS<\/a> recommending an ongoing research program to study the &#8220;pause&#8221; rationale for puberty blockers now that adolescent girls are the predominant patients. These drugs may disrupt &#8220;maturation of the part of the brain concerned with planning, decision making and judgement.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.academie-medecine.fr\/la-medecine-face-a-la-transidentite-de-genre-chez-les-enfants-et-les-adolescents\/?lang=en\">French National Academy of Medicine warned<\/a> this year that &#8220;the greatest reserve is required&#8221; for the use of blockers and hormones in children and adolescents, &#8220;given the side effects such as impact on growth, bone fragility, risk of sterility, emotional and intellectual consequences and, for girls, symptoms reminiscent of menopause.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It emphasized there is &#8220;no test to distinguish a &#8216;structural&#8217; gender dysphoria from transient dysphoria in adolescence&#8221; and the rising number of detransitioners shows &#8220;the risk of over-diagnosis is real.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ranzcp.org\/news-policy\/news\/position-statement-update-on-gender-dysphoria\">Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists<\/a> updated its position on gender dysphoria last fall to recognize that &#8220;evidence and professional opinion is divided&#8221; on the affirming approach versus talk therapy, given the &#8220;paucity of quality evidence on the outcomes&#8221; for gender-confused youth and particularly the &#8220;long-term effects of medical and surgical affirming treatment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Even as <a href=\"https:\/\/justthenews.com\/nation\/culture\/journal-opens-new-review-challenged-study-dismissing-social-contagion-transgender\">gender-affirming advocates try to tarnish the &#8220;social contagion&#8221; explanation<\/a> for the explosion in gender-confused adolescent girls, the justification for their treatment is under the microscope.<\/p>\n<p>Responding to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5Rv43e9Avhc\">law professor Khiara Bridges&#8217; congressional testimony<\/a> claiming &#8220;one in five&#8221; transgender people attempt suicide due to transphobia, Manhattan Institute fellow Leor Sapir said the &#8220;affirm-or-suicide mantra&#8221; that&#8217;s popular in the Biden administration has little basis in research.<\/p>\n<article class=\"align-center\">\n[embedded content]\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<p>It&#8217;s based on a &#8220;small handful of deeply flawed studies that, at most, find loose correlations between &#8216;affirming&#8217; interventions and improved mental health,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.realityslaststand.com\/p\/pediatric-gender-medicine-and-the\">Sapir wrote in evolutionary biologist Colin Wright&#8217;s newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Surveys of transgender-identified youth (TIY) &#8220;do very little to vet respondents when they say they &#8216;attempted&#8217; suicide&#8221; and compare apples to oranges, he said. TIY &#8220;exhibit extraordinarily high rates of mental health problems&#8221; apart from gender distress that confound comparisons with non-TIY.<\/p>\n<p>This is particularly the case with rapid-onset gender dysphoria, whose adolescent sufferers are &#8220;known to have very high rates of anxiety, depression, history of sexual trauma, anorexia, and eating disorders, all of which typically precede their gender-related distress.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sapir pointed to a <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/33165650\/\">January study in European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry<\/a> that examined suicidality in transgender adolescents, with a median age of 16, at specialty clinics in Toronto, Amsterdam and London. By comparing apples to apples \u2014 similar mental health profiles in TIY and non-TIY \u2014 &#8220;the disparities in suicidal behavior reduced considerably,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As medical authorities and regulators worldwide warn against rushing gender-confused youth into puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and sharply restrict the practice, the U.S. is divided not only between state<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1604588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1604357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1604357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1604357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1604357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1604588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1604357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1604357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1604357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}