HHS Issues 409-Page Reality Check Regarding Sex-Change Procedures for Kids

Transgender, ,

A new report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services challenges the idea that children with gender dysphoria should be subjected to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-change surgeries.

Over the past few years, it has become clear that the medical “consensus” regarding transgender procedures on children has been largely manufactured by pro-LGBT groups like WPATH.

Recently, medical professionals in different countries have begun reversing course by adopting policies that protect children from these drugs and surgeries.

For example, the U.K.’s National Health Service reportedly will start advising clinics to assess children who identify as transgender for mental health problems and other conditions. The new guidelines come in the wake of the U.K.’s decision to shutter its transgender clinic and stop giving puberty blockers to children.

In 2021, a major hospital in Sweden announced that it would no longer give puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to kids. The hospital noted that giving puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children “should be regarded as experimental.”

Finland’s Council for Choices in Health Care has reached the same conclusion, writing, “In light of available evidence, gender reassignment of minors is an experimental practice.” In a comprehensive study published last year, Finnish researchers found transgender surgeries did not appear to resolve the underlying emotional and mental issues that youth with gender dysphoria faced.

The 409-page report the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released on May 1 further challenges the idea that children who disagree with their biological sex ought to be subjected to hormones and sex-change surgeries.

The HHS “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria” report reviewed the evidence and best practices surrounding the treatment of children who struggle with their gender identity. In particular, the report focuses on issues like:  

  • Social transition  
  • Puberty-blocking drugs  
  • Cross-sex hormones
  • Transgender surgeries

The report highlights how puberty blockers are physically disruptive for children and can impact fertility, bone density, and neurological development. It also points out that long-term use of cross-sex hormones is linked to increased risk of heart attack and stroke. The report also discusses ethical problems with the way doctors subject children to these drugs and procedures.

In response to the report, the editors at The Wall Street Journal called it “a rebuke of the political and medical conformity that has developed around gender identity, including radical treatments that are opposed by parents.” The Gospel Coalition’s Joe Carter writes, “Knowing that these medical interventions lack a solid evidentiary foundation and carry serious dangers should embolden us to lovingly question the rush to put children on the path to ‘transitioning.'”

All of this underscores why Arkansas was right to pass the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act in 2021.

This good law prevents doctors in Arkansas from performing sex-change surgeries on children or giving them puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.

Reports show that since 2019, doctors in Arkansas have given dozens of children puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. Some children even have undergone sex-change surgeries. Arkansas — and other states — need to protect these children.

Unfortunately, the SAFE Act is currently tied up in court. However, given how medical evidence continues to show these procedures hurt kids, we believe our courts ultimately will uphold the SAFE Act as constitutional.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Guest Column: The Manufactured Consensus Around Trans ‘Medicine’

Transgender,

A question that ought to haunt the Western world is how, over the last decade, an obviously unscientific claim—that men can become women and vice versa—birthed an anti-scientific movement that still, somehow, won the endorsement of virtually the entire scientific and medical community in the developed world? Within a few short years, nearly every association involved in healthcare affirmed not only that a person can be “transgender,” but also a litany of ghoulish, harmful procedures that were called healthcare.  

At least part of the answer to this gnawing question is that the endorsements were the result of close ties between medical groups and radical gender activists. As The Daily Wire recently reported, according to findings by the watchdog group, the American Accountability Foundation, one woman was listed as “managing” or “executive” director on tax documents for 26 major medical organizations around the United States. Sue O’Sullivan holds these numerous roles through her position as co-founder of Veritas Association Management, an Illinois-based professional services company. However, she is also managing director for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, or WPATH. 

Aside from showing up on social media and at WPATH events, O’Sullivan is listed on multiple documents by that organization promoting transgender “medical procedures,” including “putting children on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.” Her organization has led in promoting the most extreme forms of “affirming medicine,” including “removal of breasts for girls who identify as boys,” and has “opposed laws to protect kids from such procedures.” WPATH also condemned President Trump’s recent executive order cutting funding for these practices.    

Tax documents also show that O’Sullivan spent around eight times as many hours working with WPATH on trans issues as she did with any of her other management roles. Those roles included titles at The American Pediatric Surgical Association, The American Society of Andrology, The Society for Cardiovascular and Magnetic Resonance, The Society of Academic Bone Radiologists, The Society for Vascular Medicine, and the Society of Ob/Gyn Hospitalists, to name a few.  

Beyond the organizations that listed O’Sullivan in key roles, this watchdog group identified another 25 names with “ties to Veritas.” Many of these individuals have issued statements in recent years “in support of so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ for children or backing transgender ideology.” In a remarkable understatement, American Accountability concluded that “the ties between O’Sullivan and WPATH could jeopardize the medical integrity of other organizations managed by Veritas Association Management,” specifically by causing “the radical transgender procedures advocated for by WPATH to be normalized in the medical mainstream.”  

This would be laughable and ethically horrible if it had not resulted in the mutilation and sterilization of many children in this country. However, organizations like these lead the American medical establishment and command expected public trust. This trust has been irreparably broken by issuing statements and taking positions as if they were the conclusions of careful investigations by experienced physicians. Instead, it turns out their public statements were the equivalent of marching orders, handed down from headquarters run not by doctors, but by ideologues, who presumably kept doctors in line through fear.  

None of these revelations can undo the damage already done to lives irreversibly changed. Still, it is important to understand how the whole medical establishment was sucked in to this incredible evil. The vast failure of experts to resist what amounted to a pseudoscientific coup must be investigated thoroughly. The last decade has exposed an unbelievable amount of cowardice and incompetence among the medical establishment, especially in protecting children from powerful adults entrusted with their care. To be frank, a lot of people need to lose their jobs. Some should be prosecuted. 

This is also a warning for the future. Every field, even medicine, is susceptible to values and worldview. Basic beliefs about the human person and the sanctity of life have consequences. Physicians and other providers with integrity must have the courage to stand up to ideological emperors, especially the ones with no clothes. And as frustrating as it is to be called “anti-science,” Christians must be prepared to defend created reality, and protect the most vulnerable from the next manufactured “consensus.”

Copyright 2025 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

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U.K. to Perform Mental Health Evaluations on Children with Gender Dysphoria

Transgender, ,

The U.K.’s National Health Services reportedly will start advising clinics to assess children who identify as transgender for mental health problems and other conditions.

The new guidelines come in the wake of the U.K.’s decision to shutter its transgender clinic in 2022 and stop giving puberty blockers to children last year.

A government investigation revealed healthcare professionals at the NHS’s Tavistock gender clinic pressured families into subjecting their children to puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones despite an obvious lack of scientific evidence and inadequate mental health screenings for children with gender dysphoria.

Since then, medical professionals have written extensively about the harm that these gender-reassignment procedures caused.

Under the new NHS guidelines, children in the U.K. with gender dysphoria would be assessed for ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, or mental health problems. These assessments could help identify underlying causes of a child’s gender dysphoria.

All of this underscores why it is so important that lawmakers in Arkansas overwhelmingly passed the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act in 2021.

The SAFE Act is a good law that prevents doctors in Arkansas from performing sex-change surgeries on children or giving them puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.

Since then, reports from Europe and elsewhere have shown time and again that Arkansas was right to pass the SAFE Act.

Unfortunately, the SAFE Act has been tied up in court since 2021. However, we believe our courts ultimately will recognize that the SAFE Act is a good law and uphold it as constitutional.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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