Mick Hartley

The US medical establishment, it seems, is unimpressed with the Cass Report. 

A month after the publication of her report into youth gender services in the UK, Dr Hilary Cass has been doing the rounds in the American media. This week, she gave an interview to the New York Times on her research, which found “remarkably weak” evidence for paediatric gender transitions.

Speaking to the NYT, she said that “the real problem is that the evidence is very weak compared to many other areas of paediatric practice”, adding, “I can’t think of any other situation where we give life-altering treatments and don’t have enough understanding about what’s happening to those young people in adulthood.”

The Cass Report cast serious doubts on the model in use in many Western countries, including the US, in which clinicians automatically affirm children’s trasngender identities and recommend cross-sex medical interventions for minors. While the UK was quick to restrict puberty blockers and other interventions in light of the report, the American medical establishment has doubled down on supporting gender transitions for young people.

The Endocrine Society, which supports puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors, told the NYT this week that the Cass Report “does not contain any new research” that would contradict those guidelines.

Stephen Hammes, the organisation’s president, also defended its position in the Wall Street Journal last year. “More than 2,000 studies published since 1975 form a clear picture: Gender-affirming care improves the well-being of transgender and gender-diverse people and reduces the risk of suicide,” he wrote.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, one of the most vocal champions within the US medical establishment of child gender transitions, declined to comment on the Cass Report for the NYT story and instead reiterated its opposition to legal restrictions on the practice. The AAP’s 2018 statement in support of child gender transitions calls for minors to have access to “comprehensive, gender-affirming, and developmentally appropriate health care”, for doctors to advocate for laws expanding access to such treatments, and for children’s medical charts to reflect their gender identity rather than their biological sex.

The American Medical Association, which supports cross-sex treatments for minors and resolved last year to intensify its lobbying efforts in support of youth access to gender transitions, has not yet made a public statement on the Cass Report.

Meanwhile, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) said Cass’s review was “rooted in the false premise that non-medical alternatives to care will result in less adolescent distress for most adolescents”.

Well yes, there's money to be made from all this "gender-affirming" care. But if that were the whole story, you'd expect the Republicans to be even keener than the Democrats – but that's not the case:

While many Western countries are restricting transgender treatments for children, there’s no end in sight in the US, where the debate has taken on distinctly partisan contours. Red states have attempted to ban the procedures, while the Biden administration has promoted childhood gender transitions throughout the federal government.

At bottom, then, it's about the ideology. The left buys into the gender cult, under the familiar mantra that "gender-affirming care" – puberty blockers and all the rest – reduces the risk of suicide.

Meanwhile:

A new study hot off the press has confirmed what most of us already knew: people who get "gender-affirming" surgery have more than 12 times higher instances of suicide attempts than those who don't get the surgeries.