The decision by all health authorities in the United Kingdom (UK) to suspend so-called “gender-affirming care” medical treatments for children and teens is a “welcome” move, says a top United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council-appointed expert on violence against women and girls.
As noted Thursday on the news website of the UN, Reem Alsalem, a UN Special Rapporteur, expressed appreciation for the extensive systematic review by a team, led by British pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass.
The Cass report found that “remarkably weak” evidence for benefits of medical intervention for children expressing gender dysphoria.
Cass’ review “has…very clearly shown the devastating consequences that policies on gender treatments have had on human rights of children, including girls…its implications go beyond the UK,” Alsalem said in a statement released Wednesday.
The UN expert also “welcomed” the commitment by the UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to implement the Cass review’s recommendations, as well as the announcements of decisions by National Health Service (NHS) Scotland and the Welsh Government to halt the prescription of puberty blockers to children following the report’s findings.
“We echo the views of Dr Hilary Cass that toxicity around public debate is impacting the lives of young people seeking the care of our service and does not serve the teams working hard to care and support them,” said Scotland’s Dr Emilia Crighton, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) Director of Public Health.
The Cass’ long-awaited final report, released April 10, revealed the approach to gender confusion in young people which subjects them to puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones is based on evidence stemming from “poor quality” studies, “misinformation,” and “expectations of care” that are “far from usual clinical practice.”
Alsalem underscored several areas of the Cass report that particularly draw alarm for young girls, including:
- A spike in referrals for gender dysphoria amid high levels of anxiety and depression in girls, who “are more prone to low self-esteem and body image dissatisfaction.”
- A need for a “holistic” approach to treatment that does not first turn to experimental drugs for children, but addresses “the root causes of their distress, while considering the high rates of co-existing neurodiversity and mental health issues.”
- Support for detransitioners, whose suffering “has been ignored or discounted” for “far too long.”
- Stop equating psychological therapy to determine underlying causes of gender identity issues with “conversion therapy.”
- Acknowledging the “toxicity of the debate” and stressing “the need to ensure that individuals, including researchers and academics, who express their views on such interventions ‘are not silenced, threatened or intimidated simply for holding and articulating such views.’”
The policies promoting “gender-affirming” medical intervention for children and teens “have breached fundamental principles, such as the need to uphold the best interest of the child in all decisions that affect their lives, and the right of children to the highest attainable standards of health,” Alsalem concluded.
The Wall Street Journal reported in June 2023 that while European nations, such as France, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and the UK, are urging caution in the use of experimental drugs and procedures to treat gender dysphoria in children and adolescents, the United States, under the Biden administration, is an “outlier.”
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The Biden administration, with one of its top Health and Human Services (HHS) officials – transgender Rachel (born Richard) Levine – has promoted gender transition medical interventions for children and adolescents as “life-saving” and preventive of suicide, framing its stance as a human rights, and even a parental rights, issue.
As CatholicVote reported, Leor Sapir, Ph.D., a fellow at Manhattan Institute, said on a recent episode of Dr. Phil Primetime that while LGBT activists claim parents should be allowed to decide what is best for their children – a narrative that may sound “very American” – putting the decision on parents, who often know very little about the medical complications from these treatments, “is wrong.”
Sapir asserted:
Doctors should not be offering this in the first place. Doctors have a moral obligation and a professional duty to first “do no harm.” And to put this on parents, with threats of suicide, strikes me as parental abuse by the medical establishment. We need to stop putting this on parents, we need to stop saying let the parents decide. We should have doctors act responsibly as medical professionals.
As the Daily Wire reported in February, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by nonprofit watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust led to Levine admitting that his claims about gender transition procedures for children being “life-saving” and “necessary” were based on a two-page document citing a study by LGBT activist group the Trevor Project.
Levine made the familiar claim in February 2023 to staff of the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center’s (CCMC) gender clinic that mental health issues which might be prevalent in youth with gender dysphoria are due to the “bullying, the harassment, and discrimination that transgender youth face.”
“[G]ender-affirming care is suicide prevention care,” the Biden administration official asserted.
The same month, Levine was exposed for an email discussion with an official from Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital about “potential revenue and ROI [return on investment] associated with having a Gender Clinic Social Worker” involved in the transgender treatment process to allow the hospital to bill private insurance or Medicaid for the elective double mastectomies of girls.
