States that have worked to protect children and teens with gender dysphoria from body-mutilating drugs and surgeries are engaging in “political interference,” blocking “equal rights to health, and equitable access to services” young people “need,” Biden-Harris Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Rachel [born Richard] Levine told doctors on Sunday at the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) national conference.
A top official in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Levine headlined the annual conference in Orlando, Florida, in the wake of a recent exposé that revealed AAP to be a national group of pediatricians “torn over transgender issues,” as the New York Sun reported last Friday.
According to AAP News, Levine “lamented” during his address the “laws and policies that force adolescents to travel to other states to get the reproductive and gender-affirming health care they need.”
The administration official, who claims to be a woman, doubled down on casting legislative protections for children with gender issues as examples of “hatred” and “discrimination.”
“Despite the criticisms that I face … personally I have no room in my heart for hatred or discrimination,” Levine said. “Frankly, I have no time for intolerance. We need to continue to work until everyone living in America can live with equal rights to health, and equitable access to services they need without political interference.”
Though Levine often refers to “gender-affirming” treatment as “evidence-based,” Jane Orient, M.D., executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), told CatholicVote that “evidence-based” is “the catchphrase for approving of medical treatments.”
“But we don’t speak of evidenced-based torture, murder, or mutilation. Evidence or no, some human actions are unethical, reprehensible, or criminal,” Orient explained, adding:
So, is “gender-affirming care” a medical treatment? If so, what does it treat? Autism, delusions, anxiety, depression, self-hatred, or other conditions that these unhappy, suffering children also have?
Off-label use of dangerous drugs approved for cancer, in order to delay puberty, that is, to arrest normal intellectual, physical, and sexual development, has not been subjected to randomized controlled trials. How would you get informed consent? Do you tell the child that the drug might make him sterile, unable to ever enjoy sex, weaker and shorter than he otherwise would be, and possibly afflicted with osteoporosis and frequent fractures? What ethical review board would approve it?
Levine’s comments during the keynote drew the ire of at least one individual who, according to AAP News, “briefly interrupted her early in the speech. At the conclusion of her presentation, Dr. Levine emphasizes the need to keep health care separate from politics.”
Orient challenges Levine’s insistence that state protections for children from a predatory transgender medical industry amount to “political interference.”
“Passing a law against crime is not ‘political interference,’” the AAPS executive director said:
Enabling or subsidizing crime is a crime. It does not display tolerance or compassion. “Equity” is not a good goal if it means equally bad.
Patients experiencing this unhappiness deserve our love, help and support, as do their parents. Those who are exploiting them, for the life-time stream of income from the constant, costly medical and psychiatric care, need to be shut down.
Levine has been unwavering in characterizing as “health care” the treatment of gender dysphoria with experimental medical interventions such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even elective surgeries.
The top Biden-Harris official affirmed that position even after revelations in June that HHS pressured the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) to remove recommended age minimums for gender hormone drugs and surgeries from its draft guidelines in order to make it easier to subject children to such interventions.
As CatholicVote reported, court documents exposed that Levine “pressed WPATH to eliminate the age minimums to foster the Biden administration’s pro-‘transgender’ political agenda.”
In one email, for example, an “unidentified member of the WPATH guideline workgroup stated: ‘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.’”
Levine’s apparent attempt to blur the lines between politics and health care – and then claim his opponents are doing so – continued as the HHS official also included in the AAP address a call to combat “climate change,” which, Levine asserted, is “our biggest existential threat.”
Climate change and health are “two sides of the same coin,” Levine said, according to AAP News. “Collaborative efforts to acknowledge and address climate impacts are going to have to be part of our professional lives.”
The official praised efforts to fund climate change initiatives, saying: “Every dollar invested in prevention, preparation and resilience is a vital step toward a healthier future for all of us.”
Levine’s continued elevation of the “gender-affirming” model of treatment for children and teens flies in the face of the findings of British pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass, who, along with her team from the University of York, conducted a systematic examination of studies and guidelines focused on the use of puberty blockers and other medical interventions used to treat young people suffering with gender dysphoria.
In their widely acclaimed report released in April, the reviewers concluded that the “gender-affirming” model for young people is based on “remarkably weak evidence.”
“The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress,” Cass wrote, observing that puberty blockers – which suppress the natural production of hormones and delay the onset of puberty – were found in “multiple studies” to compromise bone density and fertility and lead to other harmful effects.
The investigators also found that most minors who take puberty blockers move on to cross-sex hormones– a finding that contradicts a common claim by pro-LGBT activists that puberty blockers simply allow young children more time to consider whether to fully embrace a new gender identity.
Cass’ report was welcomed within the UK and in other European nations, but not in the United States where the Biden-Harris administration remains intent on giving free rein to a lucrative transgender/pharmaceutical medical complex.
“As European countries have noted, the evidence for ‘gender affirmation’ is very poor – limited by short follow-up, drop-outs, subjective evaluations, such as surveys, and inattention to a myriad of confounders,” Orient remarked, further explaining the weak research behind the model. “But even the best evidence does not justify doing harm.”
