Mick Hartley

Eliza Mondegreen on the latest gender initiative from the World Health Organisation:

A few days before Christmas, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it would be developing guidelines on “the health of trans and gender diverse people”, with a focus on access to hormones and surgeries (what it calls “gender-inclusive care”) and legal recognition of gender self-identification.

The WHO also announced the formation of a guideline development group. This panel of experts is heavily stocked with apparatchiks from the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), including two former presidents; trans activists employed by the Global Action for Trans Equality network, or GATE; the parent of a trans-identifying child; and at least one member with strong ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

A few of the panellists have especially colourful public profiles, none more so than Florence Ashley, a “transfeminine jurist and bioethicist” whose preferred pronouns are “They/Them/That Bitch”. Ashley believes that “puberty blockers ought to be treated as the default option” for all youth, as opposed to “letting puberty runs its course”. The activist argues that letting this stage of human development progress uninterrupted “strongly favours cis embodiment by raising the psychological and medical toll of transitioning”. Thus:

"Puberty blockers structurally place transgender and cisgender hormonal futures in approximate symmetry. Youth who take puberty blockers have their options wide open, their bodies unaltered by either testosterone or oestrogen. Although much remains unknown about the long-term effects of puberty blockers, limited empirical evidence and clinical experience make us more than justified in assuming that whatever risks puberty blockers have do not foreclose future life paths as much as undergoing puberty does."

That is, everybody should take puberty blockers, so that we don't favour "cis embodiment" – otherwise known as normal puberty. Phew. Did Aldous Huxley foresee this one?

Another panellist, Teddy Cook, described the “actual side effects of gender-affirming medical care” as “a significantly improved quality of life, significantly better health and wellbeing outcomes, a dramatic decrease in distress, depression and anxiety and a substantial increase of gender euphoria and trans joy”, concluding that “we are not at risk of harm by affirming our gender.” 

In other words, it looks like the WHO has been completely captured by trans activists.