Governor Tom Wolf / Wikimedia Commons
The Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) pressured the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) to remove from its draft guidelines its recommended age minimums for gender hormone drugs and surgeries in order to make it easier to subject children to such interventions, according to newly released court documents.
WPATH’s draft of Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8 (SOC8) was released in late 2021. The court documents, as the New York Times reported Tuesday, were included in filings of a legal challenge to Alabama’s law protecting minors from experimental gender medicine intervention.
The documents reveal Biden’s assistant secretary for health, Rachel (born Richard) Levine, a man who calls himself a woman, pressed WPATH to eliminate the age minimums to foster the Biden administration’s pro-“transgender” political agenda.
Email excerpts from the court documents reveal Levine’s chief of staff urging that the age minimums for the experimental drugs and surgeries be removed from the draft:
- Sarah Boateng, who is Adm. Levine’s chief of staff [said the] biggest concern is the section below in the Adolescent Chapter that lists specific minimum ages for treatment, she is confident, based on the rhetoric she is hearing in DC, and from what we have already seen, that these specific listings of ages, under 18, will result in devastating legislation for trans care. She wonders if the specific ages can be taken out and perhaps an adjunct document could be created that is published or distributed in a way that is less visible than the SOC8, is the way to go.
- The issue of ages and treatment has been quite controversial (mainly for surgery) and it has come up again. We sent the document to Admiral Levine . . . She like the SOC-8 very much but she was very concerned that having ages (mainly for surgery) will affect access to health care for trans youth and maybe adults too. Apparently the situation in the USA is terrible and she and the Biden administration worried that having ages in the document will make matters worse. She asked us to remove them.
Additional excerpts from the court documents reveal WPATH guideline workgroup members describing Levine’s pressure to release the finalized guidelines as soon as possible for political purposes.
In one email, an unidentified member of the WPATH guideline workgroup states: “I am meeting with Rachel Levine and her team next week, as the US Department of Health is very keen to bring the trans health agenda forward.”
Other excerpts include:
- “The failure of WPATH to be ready with SOC 8 is proving a barrier to optimal policy progress and she [Dr. Levine] was eager to learn when SOC 8 might be published.”
- “[T]his should be taken as a charge from the United States government to do what is required to complete the project immediately.”
- “I have just spoken to Admiral Levine today, who—as always is extremely supportive of the SOC 8, but also very eager for its release—so to ensure integration in the US health policies of the Biden government. So, let’s crack on with the job!!!”
The documents were filed by James Cantor, Ph.D., a Toronto-based psychologist who has sought to help U.S. states in efforts to protect children from the experimental, life-changing gender drugs and surgeries that LGBT activists call “gender-affirming care.”
Other excerpts reveal the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) also pushed WPATH for greater access to gender medical procedures for children and adolescents:
- “But AAP issued an ultimatum to WPATH: Should WPATH not delete the age minimums, AAP would not only withhold endorsement of SOC-8, but would publicly oppose the document.”
- “As a result of this additional pressure, on top of that from Assistant Secretary Levine, WPATH capitulated and removed the text in violation of its own process despite the preference of its own committee members to retain the age limits”.
As CatholicVote noted in September 2023, Fox News reported the Biden Department of Justice “intervened to protect” Levine “from discovery in Alabama litigation relating to its ban on transgender sex change procedures for minors.”
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said of Levine: “It is not hyperbole to say that Admiral Levine is the leading public-facing official in the United States government when it comes to transitioning treatments for minors.”
Biden’s top health official, Levine was successfully nominated by the president to the rank of four-star admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, despite having no military experience.
Marshall added:
So if one were putting together a list of potential custodians at HHS concerning transitioning treatment for minors, Levine would be at the top. Levine obviously has communications and documents relevant to this litigation. Yet when Defendants requested that Levine be made a custodian, the United States refused.
The BMJ medical journal stressed in a “news” article published September 27, 2022 the “unexpected” exclusion of minimum age requirements for gender medical intervention.
“New clinical guidelines that will influence the care of transgender people in the US and internationally have removed recommendations on the minimum age for treatment, including hormones and surgery, and left decisions in the hands of clinicians,” the report read, adding:
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) released its “Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8” (SOC8) on 15 September. The omission of minimum age recommendations for treatment was unexpected because they had been included in a draft version last spring.
The final SOC8 was expected to lower the minimum age for prescribing testosterone or oestrogen from 16 (in version 7) to 14 and to set minimum recommended ages of 15 for breast removal, 16 for breast augmentation and facial surgeries, 17 for hysterectomy, vaginoplasty, or removal of testicles, and 18 for phalloplasty.
“The deletion of the age recommendations seemed to have happened at a late stage and after increased attention in social media on gender related surgery among adolescents,” The BMJ stated.
Dr. Michael Artigues, president of the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), released his reaction to the revelation of the court documents:
We are appalled that the AAP and top U.S. health officials put political interests ahead of science and evidence-based healthcare when it comes to children suffering from gender dysphoria, and that WPATH colluded with both. Their actions show that these organizations and the Biden Administration are not truly interested in the health and well-being of children and will stop at nothing to push their political agenda. We call on everyone who is concerned about children’s health to sign the Doctors Protecting Children Declaration that we announced earlier this month.
Mary Rice Hasson, the director of the Person and Identity Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, also referred to Levine’s political pressure as “an appalling display of cruel political calculation,” as the Catholic News Agency (CNA) reported.
Hasson added that the WPATH document exposé shows the organization consists of “radical activists more concerned about pleasing powerful politicians than preventing permanent damage in children.”
“How many children have had their fertility stolen and their bodies mutilated just so the Biden administration could claim a political win?” Hasson asked.
