Transing kids is high risk -- with little evidence it helps gender dysphoria

I remember "recovered memory syndrome" back in the 1990's. People came to believe that childhood sexual abuse could be completely forgotten, then recovered under the care of a therapist. There were many false accusations, sometimes intersecting with "memories" of Satanic baby-killing rituals. Then it imploded. There was no evidence for it.

Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices, a report by the Department of Health and Human Services, finds little medical support for the idea that children with gender dysphoria are best treated with cross-sex hormones, writes Jesse Singal in The Dispatch.

"Multiple European countries — including Finland, Sweden, and most recently the United Kingdom via its particularly comprehensive Cass Review — have all conducted evidence reviews that reached a similar conclusion," he writes. The quality of the research is "very low."

We do know about the risks of "disrupting young people's natural puberty" and giving them high doses of cross-sex hormones, the report states. The harms range "from sexual dysfunction and infertility to problems with bone health and, potentially, psychosocial development."

Since many children who report gender dysphoria also have "multiple mental health concerns," it would make sense to offer psychological counseling to "help patients develop self-understanding, engage with emotional vulnerability, and build practical strategies for managing distress," the report suggests.

Sadly, writes Singal, the debate over youth gender medicine is so politicized -- by Biden and now by Trump -- that the review may be dismissed by true believers.

"No good evidence-based research supports children undergoing irreversible sex reassignment as they enter puberty, Andrew Sullivan writes in the Weekly Dish. "Banning these procedures for minors is not 'anti-trans.' It’s pro-child. It’s pro-human."

"Boys who are transed in early puberty will never experience orgasm," he writes, citing the report. Children can't make an informed judgment about this.

Parents have been scared into consenting to transition by the risk of suicide, yet the report finds “no evidence that pediatric medical transition reduces the incidence of suicide, which remains, fortunately, very low,” writes Madeleine Kearns in The Free Press. Risks include: “infertility/sterility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone-density accrual, adverse cognitive impacts, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders, psychiatric disorders, surgical complications and regret.”