Do No Harm Tells Federal Appeals Court ‘There Is No Reliable Evidence’ For Policies Supporting ‘Social Transition’

Last week, Do No Harm filed an amicus brief supporting the plaintiffs in Wailes v. Jefferson County Public Schools, a case currently before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, laying out how policies aimed at promoting the “social transition” of minors lack an evidentiary basis. 

The plaintiffs in the case, several concerned parents, are challenging their children’s school district policy that requires students to be “assigned to share overnight accommodations with other students that share the student’s gender identity” rather than sex. 

Among other claims, they allege that the policy violates their parental rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. However, the district court dismissed the case. In doing so, the court relied upon a previous Third Circuit decision that, as Do No Harm’s brief argues, “rested on a seven-year old amicus brief submitted by politicized medical interest groups” supporting “gender-affirming care” and social policies for children. That brief, which the Third Circuit essentially accepted as determining the constitutional standard, was submitted by medical associations including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Medical Association (AMA), two of the more prominent proponents of child sex change interventions.

Do No Harm’s amicus brief highlights the ideological agenda motivating these groups; explains why evidence-based medicine doesn’t support “gender-affirming care” such as “social transition” policies to address gender dysphoria; and urges the Tenth Circuit to reject unreliable evidence when setting the constitutional standard and reverse the district court’s decision.

More specifically, Do No Harm’s brief first demonstrates the lack of evidence supporting “gender-affirming care” policies similar to that of Jefferson County Public Schools. 

As the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) found in its comprehensive evidence review earlier this year, “the impact of social transition on long-term [gender dysphoria], psychological outcomes and well-being, and future treatment decisions such as hormones or surgeries remains poorly understood.” Do No Harm’s brief then references the two available systematic reviews evaluating the impact of social transition, citing the systematic review conducted by researchers from York University. Finding social transition as a means of treating gender dysphoria to be unsupported, the researchers further noted that social transition may potentially worsen gender dysphoria.

Do No Harm’s brief also reveals the ideological biases of the medical associations upon which the Third Circuit’s decision relied. Examples include statements and materials from these groups endorsing hot button social issues that have no relation to the groups’ purported expertise, ranging from critical race theory and race-based admissions in higher education to immigration, climate change, and beyond.

Finally, the brief explains how Jefferson County Public Schools relied upon the declaration of one Dr. Jack Turban, an activist in favor of gender ideology who has been “regularly criticized for producing deeply flawed research.”

In short, Do No Harm’s brief explains that reliable scientific evidence simply does not support “social transition” policies, like the defendant-school’s policy forcing girls to share a bed or bedroom with trans-students who are biological boys.

In practice, “social transition” is a waystop along the transgender medicalization pathway, encouraging children to undergo life-altering medical interventions to “transition” into the opposite sex and attempting to drag bystanders along for the process as well.

For the aforementioned reasons, Do No Harm’s brief urges the Tenth Circuit to reverse the district court’s dismissal of the case.

Read Do No Harm’s full brief here.