Do No Harm Files Amicus Briefs in Support of President Trump’s Gender Executive Order

Today, Do No Harm filed two amicus briefs in support of President Trump’s executive order aiming to cut off taxpayer funding of child sex change interventions.

Earlier this month, LGBT interest group PFLAG National and several Democrat-led states sued the Trump administration over the executive order, arguing it discriminated against “transgender” children in violation of federal civil rights law.

Now, the plaintiffs in the lawsuits are seeking preliminary injunctions against President Trump’s executive order.

Do No Harm’s briefs support the Trump administration’s position opposing the preliminary injunction and lay out the scientific evidence – or lack thereof – behind so-called “gender-affirming care.” They further explain why the court must protect children by denying the request for a preliminary injunction.

The briefs explain how systematic reviews are the highest form of medical evidence, and that every major systematic review has found no reliable evidence to justify the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones as a treatment for gender dysphoria in minors.

These include reviews performed in multiple countries like Sweden and Finland, and by researchers at York University that were in turn incorporated into the Cass Review, the 388-page report commissioned by the National Health Service (NHS) of England examining the efficacy of medical treatments for gender dysphoria. The Cass Review found “remarkably weak evidence” to support the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for gender distressed children.

Next, the briefs dismantle the underpinnings of the plaintiffs’ arguments, citing evidence to disprove the claim that denying minors access to sex change interventions increases the rate of suicides. The briefs also cite Do No Harm’s Stop the Harm Database to disprove the notion that minors aren’t regularly receiving sex change surgeries.

Finally, the briefs use statements made by the plaintiffs’ own experts to illustrate how little is known about gender dysphoria and its so-called “treatments.”

In October, Do No Harm filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court urging the justices to uphold Tennessee’s law restricting minors’ access to sex change interventions, and refuted similar arguments made by the plaintiffs in that case.

The fact of the matter is this: there is no reliable evidence to justify medical interventions as treatments for gender-distressed children.

Courts must do the right thing for our country’s children and allow common-sense protections to go into effect.