7 European Countries That Are Restricting So-Called “Gender-Affirming Care” for Minors

CV NEWS FEED // President Joe Biden is voicing staunch opposition to Republican-led legislatures restricting so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ for minors. The president has called laws banning such procedures “outrageous” and “immoral.” European countries, however, are moving in the opposite direction to the Biden administration.

From banning puberty-blockers to warning against so-called “social transitions,” the European nations putting restrictions on radical and irreversible gender dysphoria treatments include a few historically secular and progressive nations. Here are seven nations that are currently “following the science” of gender dysphoria more closely than the United States is. 

The United Kingdom

With gender transition surgeries up fivefold in the three years from 2016 to 2019 alone, concern has been growing among England’s medical community about the extreme measures many children and their families are taking. 

England’s National Health Service is reportedly warning doctors not to encourage children to change their name and pronouns after finding that most kids who think that they are transgender are merely going through a “transient phase.”

From The Daily Signal: 

The National Health Service plans to restrict the treatment of young people under the age of 18 who are questioning their gender, The Telegraph reported. Those plans include a ban on prescribing young people puberty blockers outside of strictly-conducted clinical trials, the publication reported, and the plans emphasize that there is “scarce and inconclusive evidence to support clinical decision-making.”

France

The Academie Nationale de Medecine, a medical research organization, issued a report in February 2022 urging medical professionals to use “great medical caution” when treating “transgender” children.

The report emphasized that medical supply for “gender transition” treatments has met the demand, which they call an “epidemic-like phenomenon,” and that children must receive psychiatric care before any hormonal or surgical intervention. 

“The risk of over-diagnosis is real, as shown by the increasing number of transgender young adults wishing to ‘detransition’. It is therefore advisable to extend as much as possible the psychological support phase,” states the report. 

Sweden

The historically progressive nation, which became the first country in the world to legalize “gender reassignments” in 1972, proposed a law in 2018 allowing children as young as 12 to legally change their gender, access “transition surgery” at age 15, and no longer need parental consent for “gender transitions.”

However, after a 1500% rise in cases, Sweden decided in February 2022 to halt hormone therapy for minors except in very rare cases. In December 2022, the National Board of Health and Welfare said mastectomies for teenage girls wanting to “transition” should be limited to a research setting.

“The uncertain state of knowledge calls for caution,” Board department head Thomas Linden said.

The Netherlands

Often thought of as Europe’s most permissive and progressive nation, The Netherlands was one of the first countries to experiment with hormone replacement and “gender-transitioning” for minors. 

However, Dutch researchers began sounding the alarm last year, pointing out that “gender-affirming care” research from a decade earlier is no longer valid given the scope of the epidemic. According to one prominent researcher: 

We conduct structural research in the Netherlands. But the rest of the world is blindly adopting our research [emphasis added]. While every doctor or psychologist who engages in transgender health care should feel the obligation to do a proper assessment before and after intervention.

While there is movement in the scientific and medical community to now limit “gender-affirming care,” the practice is still legal in the country, with clinics able to prescribe puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones to children as young as 15. 

Finland

Like other European countries that adopted the progressive “Dutch Protocol” – which prescribes the use of puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones to treat adolescent gender dysphoria – Finland has been backtracking on its approach given the enormous rise in cases and inconclusive data. 

Surprisingly, one of the leading advocates of more restrictions has been Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala, whom American supporters of “gender-affirming care” have often cited as an authority.

Kaltiala has pointed out that since the explosion of gender dysphoria cases are occurring primarily in adolescent females, and “there is no scientific knowledge about the constancy of this experience,” their gender self-identification should not be reflected in state documents.

Furthermore, she has characterized the arguments of many American transgender activists as based on misinformation. From Tablet Magazine:

Turning to the question of suicide, which has become virtually the only argument that “gender affirming” activists make in support of their preferred practice, Kaltiala did not pull her punches. The popular “transition or suicide” narrative used by activists to push back against state reform efforts is, in Kaltiala’s words, “purposeful disinformation, and spreading it is irresponsible.”

Poland

“Sex transitions” before the age of 18 are illegal in Poland – as are “gender reassignment” surgical procedures. Even for those over 18, the country has a long list of requirements for legal “transitioning” that includes a requirement to get a divorce (as gay marriage is illegal in Poland), having an official diagnosis of “transexualism” by a psychiatrist and a phychologist, and having to commit to undergoing an “irreversible change” medical procedure. 

Polish President Andrzej Duda has been one of the world’s most outspoken leaders against radical LGBT ideology, saying parents are responsible for the sexual education of their children. 

Hungary

Like in Poland, subjecting children to “sex-reassignment” surgeries and hormone therapy is illegal in Hungary. In 2022, the country also approved a referendum to prohibit LGBT content targeted at children in schools and some forms of media – a move which has led to a lawsuit by the European Union. 

While critics in the American media have increasingly framed Hungary as anti-Democratic, voters in the country approved the referendum by voting “no” on the following questions: 

Do you support holding information events on sexual orientation to minors, in public education institutions without parental consent?

Do you support the promotion of gender reassignment treatments to minors?

Do you support the unrestricted exposure of minors to sexually explicit media content, that may influence their development?

Do you support showing minors media content on gender changing procedures?

“Almost 3 million people sent the message: Hungarian parents have the exclusive right to educate their children/leave our children alone,” said Judit Varga, Hungary’s Minister of Justice. “We have never signed any international convention or treaty that would transfer the power of raising children to anyone other than Hungarian parents.”