Canada Must Follow The Science & Ban Puberty Blockers For Minors

Byadmin

Feb 3, 2025

Amid the flurry of executive orders signed by Donald Trump on his first day back in office was one taking direct aim at the gender ideology that has held sway over mainstream medical institutions and political policymaking for the past decade or so: he declared that his administration was restoring “biological truth to the federal government” and would “only recognize two sexes, male and female.”

The WPATH FILES | THE WHITE HOUSE ORDERS | Cass Review

Here at home, Pierre Poilievre, being asked his thoughts on this order, declined to condemn it, stating that he was “only aware of two genders,” and that his preference is for a government that leaves people alone to make their own decisions. Meanwhile, two new reviews by Canadian researchers on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for young people concluded there was such low certainty about the drugs that it’s nearly impossible to determine if they help or harm. Harm could include irreversible risks to fertility or brain development.

This apparent shift away from progressive orthodoxy on the topic follows on recent developments in Britain, where the government has announced an indefinite ban on puberty blockers for under-18s who identify as transgender, outside of clinical trials. Health Secretary Wes Streeting stated that the decision follows expert advice that deemed the drugs “an unacceptable safety risk” for young people.

The announcement makes permanent the temporary ban enacted in that country earlier this year after the final report of the landmark Cass Review was published, revealing “remarkably weak” evidence supporting the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to treat young people who identify as transgender. Streeting described the way these drugs have been used thus far as “a scandal.”

Released in April, the Cass Report marked a pivotal moment in the debate over pediatric gender medicine. It was the result of a four-year investigation By Dr. Hilary Cass into England’s youth gender service that stands not only as the most comprehensive review of the contentious field of gender medicine ever undertaken but also as one of the most thorough examinations of any medical treatment ever conducted.

In its wake, Scotland joined England in halting the use of puberty blockers in gender clinics. Doctors in Belgium and the Netherlands called for similar guardrails to be put in place. These nations now join Finland, Sweden, Norway, France, and Italy in restricting or calling for restrictions on these experimental medical interventions for adolescents.

This raises a pressing question: will Canada finally recognize the shifting landscape and take action to protect vulnerable Canadian youth from the same unacceptable risk?

With the notable exception of Alberta, Canada continues to ignore the findings of the Cass Report, preferring instead to pretend that the science is settled and that puberty blockers are a safe and evidence-based treatment for gender-confused youth. The Canadian Pediatric Society even went so far as to attempt to discredit the Cass Review, calling it the work of a “single author” and implying that it has little relevance to Canada. This was coupled by critical coverage from the CBC.

Similarly, the Canadian Medical Association criticized Premier Danielle Smith’s proposed legislation, describing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for adolescents as “evidence-based.” This is, quite simply, misinformation. When every systematic review of youth gender medicine to date has found the evidence to be exceptionally weak, these treatments are anything but evidence-based.

If pediatric gender medicine were based on evidence, the puberty suppression experiment would have been halted from its inception. Puberty blockers were promoted as a reversible way of giving children identifying as trans additional time to decide if they wanted to transition. The gender-affirming hormones were promoted as a way to then induce their desired bodily features.

But foundational Dutch studies upon which the entire practice is built reported a fatality rate of nearly 2 percent and were riddled with methodological flaws so severe that no credible researcher would take them seriously. What’s more, the drastic, irreversible treatment protocol that has the potential to leave adolescents sterile contradicts everything known about child and adolescent development.

It is unfathomable that such an approach entered mainstream medical practice.

Yet it did. Because gender medicine is driven by ideology rather than evidence. The puberty suppression experiment aligned seamlessly with modern trans activism, which insists on affirming transgender identities and falsely equates ethical psychotherapy aimed at reconciling body and mind with conversion therapy.

Cass underscored this ideological influence in her report, describing the affirmative model of care, which has been widely adopted by Canadian gender clinics and applied by some “progressive” family physicians as being “based on a social justice model.”

A frequent complaint from those who oppose bans on these controversial interventions is that governments have no business meddling in the doctor-patient relationship. Under normal circumstances, this would be a fair criticism. However, these are not normal circumstances. When it comes to gender medicine, medical regulators and professional associations have shown themselves to be untrustworthy, leaving responsible governments little choice but to intervene on behalf of vulnerable young people to restore patient safety.

In truth, science does not respect national borders. The systematic reviews conducted in England, Sweden, and Finland all show that the evidence for puberty suppression is exceptionally weak.

The same holds true in Canada, presenting an urgent public health crisis that demands immediate action at both the federal and provincial levels.

At the federal level, Health Canada can act now to impose restrictions on these unproven drugs, if and until clinical trials prove otherwise. Typically, Health Canada would conduct its own review of the safety and efficacy of puberty blockers. In this case, it could do so swiftly, using the extensive evidence from around the world that has formed the basis of decisions in other countries.

Puberty blockers are but one part of the ideologically infected field of gender medicine. To ensure evidence takes the place of activism, the federal government should work closely with the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Pediatric Society to insist that they abandon their ideological stance, recognize the findings of the Cass Report, and establish national guidelines restricting the use of puberty blockers in gender clinics. While not under the direct authority of the federal government, these entities are closely connected to it, and like their provincial counterparts, are intertwined with the provincial professional medical colleges.

In the face of potential politicization from the provinces, the federal government could signal its seriousness by indicating a willingness to tie health transfers to meaningful action to not just ban puberty blockers but take action to rid gender medicine of unhealthy activism. In response to intransigence from health associations, the federal and provincial governments could exert indirect pressure through their arms-length influence over the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC), through policy changes to health-care regulation, funding, licensing, and education priorities.

It is a scandal that so many young people have been subjected to irreversible medical treatments without evidence of their safety or effectiveness and without any long-term data demonstrating positive outcomes. Equally shameful is the failure of Canadian politicians to protect these youth from unproven and harmful interventions. Canadian leaders must act to ensure the safety and well-being of the nation’s most vulnerable.

Mia Hughes and Peter Copeland

Mia Hughes specializes in paediatric gender medicine, psychiatric epidemics, social contagion, and the intersection of trans rights with women’s rights. She is the author of The WPATH Files and a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Peter Copeland is the deputy director of Domestic Policy at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Shared from https://thehub.ca/2025/01/27/mia-hughes-and-peter-copeland-canada-must-follow-the-brits-and-the-science-and-ban-puberty-blockers/

The WPATH Files

Leaked files from WPATH reveal widespread medical malpractice on children and vulnerable adults at global transgender healthcare authority

World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) members demonstrate a lack of consideration for long-term patient outcomes despite being aware of the debilitating and potentially fatal side effects of cross-sex hormones and other treatments

READ: THE WPATH FILES AND REPORT
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Press Release: JDA Worldwide for Environmental Progress

March 4, 2024

Newly leaked files from within the leading global transgender healthcare body have revealed that the clinicians who shape how “gender medicine” is regulated and practiced around the world consistently violate medical ethics and informed consent. The files, which were leaked from within the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), were published today by the US-based think tank Environmental Progress.

WPATH is considered the leading global scientific and medical authority on “gender medicine,” and in recent decades, its Standards of Care have shaped the guidance, policies and practices of governments, medical associations, public health systems and private clinics across the world.

However, the WPATH Files reveal that the organization does not meet the standards of evidence-based medicine, and members frequently discuss improvising treatments as they go along. Members are fully aware that children and adolescents cannot comprehend the lifelong consequences of “gender-affirming care,” and in some cases, due to poor health literacy, neither can their parents.

“The WPATH Files show that what is called ‘gender medicine’ is neither science nor medicine,” said Michael Shellenberger, President and founder of Environmental Progress. “The experiments are not randomized, double-blind, or controlled. It’s not medicine since the first rule is to do no harm. And that requires informed consent.”

The raw files have been published in a report called The WPATH Files: Pseudoscientific surgical and hormonal experiments on children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults, which contains analysis by journalist Mia Hughes that puts the WPATH Files in the context of the best available science on gender distress.

Environmental Progress has made all files available to read at the end of the report. The leaked files include screenshots of posts from WPATH’s internal messaging forum dating from 2021 to 2024 and a video of an internal panel discussion. All names have been redacted other than several WPATH members of public significance, such as Dr. Marci Bowers, an American gynecologist and surgeon who is the President of WPATH, and the Canadian pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Daniel Metzger.

In the WPATH Files, members demonstrate a lack of consideration for long-term patient outcomes despite being aware of the debilitating and potentially fatal side effects of cross-sex hormones and other treatments. Messages in the files show that patients with severe mental health issues, such as schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder, and other vulnerabilities such as homelessness, are being allowed to consent to hormonal and surgical interventions. Members dismiss concerns about these patients and characterize efforts to protect them as unnecessary “gatekeeping.”

The files provide clear evidence that doctors and therapists are aware they are offering minors life-changing treatments they cannot fully understand. WPATH members know that puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries will cause infertility and other complications, including cancer and pelvic floor dysfunction. Yet they consider life-altering medical interventions for young patients, including vaginoplasty for a 14-year-old and hormones for a developmentally delayed 13-year-old.

The WPATH Files also show how far medical experiments in gender medicine have gone, with discussions about surgeons performing “nullification” and other extreme body modification procedures to create body types that do not exist in nature.

A growing number of medical and psychiatric professionals say the promotion of pseudoscientific surgical and hormonal experiments is a global medical scandal that compares to major incidents of medical malpractice in history, such as lobotomies and ovariotomies.

“Activist members of WPATH know that the so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ they provide can result in life-long complications and sterility and that their patients do not understand the implications, such as loss of sexual function and the ability to experience orgasm,” Shellenberger said. “These leaked files show overwhelming evidence that the professionals within WPATH know that they are not getting consent from children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults, or their caregivers.”

Environmental Progress has written to every WPATH member named in the files, as well as additional members whose names have been redacted, to confirm their comments and offer a right of reply. Two people responded – one confirmed that the comments attributed to them were correct, and another did not deny their comments but refuted Environmental Progress’ interpretation of them. Mention of Environmental Progress’ outreach to members via email was then later seen in the form of comments on WPATH’s internal messaging forum.

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For media queries in the United States of America, please contact press@jdaworldwide.com
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Shared from https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/wpath-files

Supreme Court Document

wpath-20241015131826340_2024.10.15 – Ala. Amicus Br. iso TN FINAL Download

The United States of America. Executive Orders

PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM CHEMICAL AND SURGICAL MUTILATION

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1. Policy and Purpose. Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions. This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.

Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding. Moreover, these vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization.

Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called “transition” of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.

Sec. 2. Definitions. For the purposes of this order:

(a) The term “child” or “children” means an individual or individuals under 19 years of age.

(b) The term “pediatric” means relating to the medical care of a child.

(c) The phrase “chemical and surgical mutilation” means the use of puberty blockers, including GnRH agonists and other interventions, to delay the onset or progression of normally timed puberty in an individual who does not identify as his or her sex; the use of sex hormones, such as androgen blockers, estrogen, progesterone, or testosterone, to align an individual’s physical appearance with an identity that differs from his or her sex; and surgical procedures that attempt to transform an individual’s physical appearance to align with an identity that differs from his or her sex or that attempt to alter or remove an individual’s sexual organs to minimize or destroy their natural biological functions. This phrase sometimes is referred to as “gender affirming care.”

Sec. 3. Ending Reliance on Junk Science. (a) The blatant harm done to children by chemical and surgical mutilation cloaks itself in medical necessity, spurred by guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which lacks scientific integrity. In light of the scientific concerns with the WPATH guidance:

(i) agencies shall rescind or amend all policies that rely on WPATH guidance, including WPATH’s “Standards of Care Version 8”; and

(ii) within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) shall publish a review of the existing literature on best practices for promoting the health of children who assert gender dysphoria, rapid-onset gender dysphoria, or other identity-based confusion.

(b) The Secretary of HHS, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, shall use all available methods to increase the quality of data to guide practices for improving the health of minors with gender dysphoria, rapid-onset gender dysphoria, or other identity-based confusion, or who otherwise seek chemical or surgical mutilation.

Sec. 4. Defunding Chemical and Surgical Mutilation. The head of each executive department or agency (agency) that provides research or education grants to medical institutions, including medical schools and hospitals, shall, consistent with applicable law and in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, immediately take appropriate steps to ensure that institutions receiving Federal research or education grants end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.

Sec. 5. Additional Directives to the Secretary of HHS. (a) The Secretary of HHS shall, consistent with applicable law, take all appropriate actions to end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children, including regulatory and sub-regulatory actions, which may involve the following laws, programs, issues, or documents:

(i) Medicare or Medicaid conditions of participation or conditions for coverage;

(ii) clinical-abuse or inappropriate-use assessments relevant to State Medicaid programs;

(iii) mandatory drug use reviews;

(iv) section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act;

(v) quality, safety, and oversight memoranda;

(vi) essential health benefits requirements; and

(vii) the Eleventh Revision of the International Classification of Diseases and other federally funded manuals, including the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition.

(b) The Secretary of HHS shall promptly withdraw HHS’s March 2, 2022, guidance document titled “HHS Notice and Guidance on Gender Affirming Care, Civil Rights and Patient Privacy” and, in consultation with the Attorney General, issue new guidance protecting whistleblowers who take action related to ensuring compliance with this order.

Sec. 6. TRICARE. The Department of Defense provides health insurance, through TRICARE, to nearly 2 million individuals under the age of 18. As appropriate and consistent with applicable law, the Secretary of Defense shall commence a rulemaking or sub-regulatory action to exclude chemical and surgical mutilation of children from TRICARE coverage and amend the TRICARE provider handbook to exclude chemical and surgical mutilation of children.

Sec. 7. Requirements for Insurance Carriers. The Director of the Office of Personnel Management, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, shall:

(a) include provisions in the Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB) and Postal Service Health Benefits (PSHB) programs call letter for the 2026 Plan Year specifying that eligible carriers, including the Foreign Service Benefit Plan, will exclude coverage for pediatric transgender surgeries or hormone treatments; and

(b) negotiate to obtain appropriate corresponding reductions in FEHB and PSHB premiums.

Sec. 8. Directives to the Department of Justice. The Attorney General shall:

(a) review Department of Justice enforcement of section 116 of title 18, United States Code, and prioritize enforcement of protections against female genital mutilation;

(b) convene States’ Attorneys General and other law enforcement officers to coordinate the enforcement of laws against female genital mutilation across all American States and Territories;

(c) prioritize investigations and take appropriate action to end deception of consumers, fraud, and violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by any entity that may be misleading the public about long-term side effects of chemical and surgical mutilation;

(d) in consultation with the Congress, work to draft, propose, and promote legislation to enact a private right of action for children and the parents of children whose healthy body parts have been damaged by medical professionals practicing chemical and surgical mutilation, which should include a lengthy statute of limitations; and

(e) prioritize investigations and take appropriate action to end child-abusive practices by so-called sanctuary States that facilitate stripping custody from parents who support the healthy development of their own children, including by considering the application of the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act and recognized constitutional rights.

Sec. 9. Enforcing Adequate Progress. Within 60 days of the date of this order, the heads of agencies with responsibilities under this order shall submit a single, combined report to the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, detailing progress in implementing this order and a timeline for future action. The Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy shall regularly convene the heads of agencies with responsibilities under this order (or their designees) to coordinate and prepare for this submission.

Sec. 10. Severability. If any provision of this order, or the application of any provision to any person or circumstances, is held to be invalid, the remainder of this order and the application of any of its other provisions to any other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby.

Sec. 11. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

THE WHITE HOUSE,
January 28, 2025.

Shared from https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-children-from-chemical-and-surgical-mutilation/

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