(Article by Peter LaBarbera republished from WND.com)
"The different approaches between the United States and Western and Northern Europe lead to a concerning reality: In the U.S., much younger patients are eligible for invasive surgeries and/or potentially irreversible and medically harmful dispensation of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones," the report, "Reassigned," states.
This is because "extreme gender ideology drives the United States to provide transgender medical care to younger children, while Europe goes a safer and more scientific route," the report states.
The U.S. also leads European countries in allowing youth to pursue legal gender "transitions," such as changing their designated sex on official government documents, according to the report.
Do No Harm describes itself as a "diverse group of physicians, healthcare professionals, medical students, patients, and policymakers united by a moral mission: Protect healthcare from a radical, divisive, and discriminatory ideology. We believe in making healthcare better for all — not undermining it in pursuit of a political agenda."
"Reassigned" compares the U.S. to European countries using nine "transgender"-related criteria:
- Legal requirements to change gender
- Minimum age to change gender in civil registry
- [Allowing] legal gender other than male or female
- Notable requirements for medical transition
- Minimum age for puberty blockers
- Minimum age for cross-sex hormones
- Minimum age for sex-reassignment surgery
- Number of youth gender clinics
- Notable changes in protocols for treating minors
Fox News reports in covering the DNH report: "Laws vary in the U.S. by state, but overall, [compared to European nations] transgender youth in America have greater access to gender clinics, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries, in some cases without parental consent."
"Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are routinely prescribed to minors in the U.S., and many patients experiencing gender dysphoria have undergone double mastectomies as minors to present as male," WND reported last year with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Dr. William Malone, a board-certified endocrinologist, told Fox News big money drives the current contagion of extreme (often irreversible) trans operations and hormone therapies performed on vulnerable youth.
"We are dealing with what may be the biggest medical and ethical scandal of modern times," Malone said. "Transgender medicine is big business, and youth who are transitioning today will be medical patients for life, for the next 60-plus years. Mental health among youth is at an all-time low, making them particularly vulnerable to solutions that suggest an ‘easy fix.’"
He said the pro-LGBT political environment — what many call the "woke" agenda — keeps many doctors from critiquing "gender transitions" because they fear backlash from powerful groups like AAP and politicians catering to pro-transgender activists. In the U.S., the Democratic Party is the party of transgenderism, with President Biden and his appointees escalating their rhetoric in support of trans activist policies, including medical youth "transitions." In December, Biden even likened opposing transgender surgeries to anti-Semitism.
"The Biden administration has promoted puberty blocker and cross-gender hormone treatment drugs for transgender children even as it spent roughly $17 million on studies to analyze the dangers and uncertainties of the drugs from 2021 to 2022 through the National Institutes of Health. These dangers include the possibility of increased cardiovascular risks, weakened ability to fight sexually transmitted infections and infertility," Fox reports.
The Do No Harm report highlights the role of the influential American Academy of Pediatrics, or AAP, in driving America's "gender affirmative" approach, which "remains standard across most of the United States," and which caters to LGBT activist groups:
The American approach to transgender medical treatment for children is known as “gender affirmation,” which assumes that gender incongruence can manifest as early as age four and that questioning a minor’s gender self-definition is harmful and unethical. The [AAP] has embraced an affirm-only/affirm-early policy since 2018, and most states abide by its guidance despite withering medical and scientific criticism.
The report states that, with some exceptions such as Florida, liberally pro-gender-transition medical procedures continue in the U.S., while "several countries, including the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Finland, have explicitly abandoned it in recent years in part due to fear that medical intervention has become overprescribed (studies show that only 12 percent to 27 percent of cases of childhood gender dysphoria persist into adulthood)."
It notes that in a "sharp departure" from America's "gender affirmation" model, "these countries now discourage automatic deference to a child’s self-declarations on the grounds that the risks outweigh the benefits, while also calling for months-long psychotherapy sessions to address co-occurring mental health problems."
Walt Heyer, a man who went through the full transsexual "sex change" regimen before rejecting his "trans woman" identity and returning to live again normally as a man, was not surprised by the DNH findings. Heyer told WND that he expects the tide will shift in the United States when "detransitioners" — men and women like him who return to live as their God-given sex — have their influence on the political and cultural environment.
"What's happening is they are doing so many people [doctor-supervised 'gender transitions' through extreme surgeries and hormone therapy] that we're going to have an onslaught of detransitioners that will change the whole dynamic," said Heyer, founder of the Sex Change Regret website. "They got slap-happy and did too many people. Now it's going to come back to haunt them."
Here is a portion of the comparison of the United States to Sweden, which recently reversed its approach to trans "gender transition" medical procedures performed on youth (emphasis added):
Sweden: "Requires diagnosis of gender dysphoria (DSM-5) and treatment from an interdisciplinary medical team. The key prerequisite for hormonal treatment of youth is the prepubertal onset of gender dysphoria that is long-lasting (a 5-year minimum is mentioned), persists into adolescence, and causes clear suffering."
United States: Diagnosis of dysphoria is required for insurance purposes, but an individual paying out of pocket could medically transition without such a diagnosis. A diagnosis is typically, though not exclusively, made by a psychologist or psychiatrist. Testosterone is a controlled substance, so depending on state law there are restrictions on which practitioners can prescribe it. Clinics that use WPATH [the pro-trans-activist World Professional Association for Transgender Health] guidance impose few or no other limitations to receiving hormonal or physical treatment. ... Prescribing gender affirming hormones is well within the scope of a range of medical providers, including primary care physicians, obstetricians-gynecologists, and endocrinologists, advanced practice nurses, and physician assistants. Depending on the practice setting and jurisdiction, other providers with prescriptive rights (naturopathic providers, nurse midwives) may also be appropriate to prescribe and manage this care."
Heyer, who lives every day with the bodily "harm" enabled by trans "gender change" ideology, puts a clarifying point on the debate, telling WND, "Nobody yet in world history has actually 'transitioned' from one biological sex to another, and it's never going to happen."
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