{"id":1715327,"date":"2022-10-28T16:48:10","date_gmt":"2022-10-28T20:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1715327"},"modified":"2022-10-28T16:48:30","modified_gmt":"2022-10-28T20:48:30","slug":"u-s-medical-groups-get-the-science-wrong-on-pediatric-gender-affirming-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/u-s-medical-groups-get-the-science-wrong-on-pediatric-gender-affirming-care\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Medical Groups Get The Science Wrong On Pediatric \u2018Gender Affirming\u2019 Care"},"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\">24<\/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%2Fu-s-medical-groups-get-the-science-wrong-on-pediatric-gender-affirming-care%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=1715327&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--><p>Medical organizations in the U.S. that endorse the \u201cgender affirming\u201d model of care lack evidence to substantiate the medical treatment of trans-identified minors.<\/p>\n<p>Activists often point to the authority of medical institutions that support \u201cgender-affirming\u201d care for minors to dismiss any and all criticism. A close inspection in the form of a new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.manhattan-institute.org\/how-to-respond-to-medical-authorities-claiming-gender-affirming-care-is-safe?utm_source=twitter&#038;utm_medium=social#notes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">resource guide<\/a> by Manhattan Institute fellow <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LeorSapir\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Leor Sapir<\/a> found that the most prominent organizations in favor of \u201cgender-affirming\u201d care lack evidence to back up their position and depart from a growing international consensus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile it is understandable that doctors and their patients should want to follow guidelines issued by professional medical groups, it is important to recognize that these groups don\u2019t always get the science right,\u201d said Sapir.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGender-affirming\u201d care discourages medical professionals from questioning a minor\u2019s self-reported transgender identity or exploring possible underlying factors that may be causing their dysphoria. The standard protocol for gender affirmation is administering puberty blockers, followed by cross-sex hormones, and then surgery, if desired. Proponents generally argue that parental approval should not be a requirement and reject medical \u201cgatekeeping.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The three most influential medical organizations to have released guidelines recommending \u201cgender-affirming\u201d care for minors are the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the Endocrine Society (ES), and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). The American Medical Association, as well as other organizations, have made public statements supporting the \u201caffirming\u201d model without citing evidence, or have deferred to one or more of these three, Sapir noted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn the issue of medical treatment for youth gender dysphoria in particular, American medical organizations have demonstrated a preference for ideologically driven conclusions over cautious review of the available research,\u201d Sapir said.<\/p>\n<p>According to Sapir, the AAP\u2019s central conclusion is negated by its citations and flawed logic. The AAP\u2019s position is based on a 2018 <a href=\"https:\/\/publications.aap.org\/pediatrics\/article\/142\/4\/e20182162\/37381\/Ensuring-Comprehensive-Care-and-Support-for?autologincheck=redirected?nfToken=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">policy statement<\/a>, authored by Dr. Jason Rafferty and published in Pediatrics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRafferty\u2019s central claim in that article is that \u2018watchful waiting,\u2019 a therapeutic approach in which clinicians delay social and medical transition as long as possible in order to exhaust all efforts to help youth in distress feel comfortable in their bodies, is a form of \u2018conversion therapy,\u2019\u201d said Sapir. The citations used to defend this claim had nothing to do with gender self-identification and were all based on the discredited practice of trying to get gay and lesbian adults to \u201cconvert\u201d to heterosexuality.<\/p>\n<p>Rafferty argued that clinicians should always \u201caffirm\u201d the gender self-declarations of their pediatric patients. In 2020, Dr. James Cantor of the Toronto Sexuality Centre published a thorough <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/31838960\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fact-check<\/a> of Rafferty\u2019s article in another journal. The fact-check revealed that the AAP policy contained \u201cegregious omissions and misrepresentations of the available research on youth gender dysphoria,\u201d said Sapir.<\/p>\n<p>In 2017, the Endocrine Society published <a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/jcem\/article\/102\/11\/3869\/4157558\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">guidelines<\/a> that invalidate their own strength of evidence by rating the guidelines as being \u201cweak recommendations\u201d and citing the quality of evidence for hormonal interventions for minors as being \u201clow\u201d or \u201cvery low.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) recently published the 8th edition of their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/26895269.2022.2100644?scroll=top&#038;needAccess=true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Standards of Care<\/a>, notably removing their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/leading-transgender-health-association-releases-new-guidelines\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">minimum age recommendations<\/a> for minors to receive medical interventions, their guidance on ethics, and adding a chapter on \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/leading-transgender-health-association-seeks-to-include-eunuch-as-gender-identity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">eunuchs<\/a>\u201d that has alarmed medical professionals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWPATH is an explicitly ideological organization that now includes \u2018eunuch\u2019 as a valid \u2018gender identity\u2019 that children can supposedly know they have at a very early age,\u201d Sapir said.<\/p>\n<p>Their guidance for adolescents seeking hormones are based largely on a single study from the Netherlands, often referred to as the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S1743609515336171\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dutch study<\/a>,\u201d and related, the Dutch protocol. Aside from its \u201cbiased methodology\u201d and \u201cunimpressive results,\u201d which have been the subject of widespread <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/0092623X.2022.2046221?tab=permissions&#038;scroll=top\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">criticism<\/a>, it does not apply to the vast majority of teenagers in the West seeking hormonal interventions today.<\/p>\n<p>The Dutch study and its \u201cprotocol\u201d selects candidates who must fulfill certain criteria to be eligible. Data shows the majority of youth seeking hormonal interventions in recent years are adolescent girls with no prior history of dysphoria and <a href=\"https:\/\/cass.independent-review.uk\/publications\/interim-report\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">very high rates<\/a> of mental health comorbidities, that would automatically disqualify them from the Dutch protocol, rendering the WPATH\u2019s application of it practically worthless.<\/p>\n<p>Additional <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/researcher-debunks-claim-trans-youths-mental-health-improves-with-gender-affirming-care\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">studies<\/a> cited by the WPATH \u201call suffer from methodological shortcomings, most commonly lack of adequate controls for confounding factors like psychotherapy and very short follow-up times,\u201d said Sapir.<\/p>\n<p>None of these U.S.-based organizations have done systematic reviews of the evidence, while arguably more progressive European countries like <a href=\"https:\/\/segm.org\/segm-summary-sweden-prioritizes-therapy-curbs-hormones-for-gender-dysphoric-youth\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sweden<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/genderreport.ca\/finland-strict-guidelines-for-treating-gender-dysphoria\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Finland<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/englands-national-health-service-abandons-gender-affirming-model-of-care\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">England<\/a> have. After reviewing the evidence for the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in treating pediatric gender dysphoria, health authorities in all three countries have decided to abandon the \u201cgender-affirming\u201d model, finding the costs outweigh the benefits.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe main purpose of systematic reviews is to prevent cherry-picking of studies to produce desirable conclusions,\u201d said Sapir. \u201cNeither the AAP, nor the ES, nor WPATH have conducted systematic reviews of the research. Indeed, in its latest Standards of Care<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Medical organizations in the U.S. that endorse the \u201cgender affirming\u201d model of care lack evidence to substantiate the medical treatment of trans-identified minors. Activists often point to the authority of medical institutions that support \u201cgender-affirming\u201d care for minors to dismiss any and all criticism. A close inspection in the form of a new resource guide &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1715330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1715327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1715327","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=1715327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1715327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1715330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1715327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1715327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1715327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}