Peer reviews of a federal analysis citing the significant risks of medical interventions were mostly positive.
Newly released peer reviews of a federal report rejecting medical interventions for children with gender dysphoria called the government analysis “scientifically sound” and “compelling.”
The reviews were released on Nov. 19 for a government report titled “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices,” which was commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and originally released on May 1.
The HHS report was prompted by a January executive order from President Donald Trump on protecting children from chemical and surgical mutilation. In part, the order states that the federal government will not “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ’transition’ of a child from one sex to another.”
HHS stated in the report that the issue needed to be examined because of an “emphasis on medicalization” in pediatric gender medicine in the United States. The 409-page report emphasized therapy’s benefits instead.
“Psychotherapy is a noninvasive alternative to endocrine and surgical interventions for the treatment of pediatric gender dysphoria,“ it reads. ”Systematic reviews of evidence have found no evidence of adverse effects of psychotherapy in this context.”
In a Nov. 19 statement regarding the updated report, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called medical interventions such as hormones and surgery “malpractice.”
“The American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics peddled the lie that chemical and surgical sex-rejecting procedures could be good for children,” Kennedy said. “They betrayed their oath to first do no harm, and their so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people.”
National Debate
Leor Sapir, an HHS report author and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, agreed that the report represents an important milestone in how childhood gender dysphoria should be treated.
“At the highest level, this is the closest the United States has ever got, and probably will ever get, to a scientific debate about this topic,” Sapir told The Epoch Times.
National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in the Nov. 19 statement that the report’s evidence documents the “risks the profession has imposed on vulnerable children.”
