Commentary
Is Accountability Finally Coming for the Child Transgender Industry?
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For years, Do No Harm has sounded the alarm over the false and misleading claims promoted by the child transgender industry and echoed by major medical associations.
Too often, these organizations refuse to meaningfully engage with study after study finding a lack of credible evidence to support sex-denying medical interventions for minors.
And too often, these organizations gloss over the harms and consequences of life-altering medical procedures, instead falsely downplaying their severity.
Now, it seems like for some organizations, their history of promoting dangerous and misleading statements may be catching up with them.
Earlier this week, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced a lawsuit against the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the Endocrine Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, accusing them of violating Florida law prohibiting unfair and deceptive trade practices.
The lawsuit points to the organizations’ promotion of sex-denying medical interventions for children, which lack credible evidence to support their use.
The lawsuit highlighted the claim that puberty blockers are “reversible” as an example of a deceptive statement.
Puberty blockers can cause diminished bone density in minors, with research showing that they negatively affect “bone mineral density, especially at the lumbar spine, which is only partially restored after sex steroid administration.” Artificially preventing a child from going into puberty is inherently experimental.
Moreover, research shows that nearly all children subjected to puberty blockers go on to take cross-sex hormones, which carry long-term risks of infertility and impaired sexual function.
“The years-long coordinated campaign by WPATH and other medical organizations to disregard the serious health risks of sex change interventions on minors will go down as the most egregious medical scandal in modern history,” said Do No Harm Medical Director Kurt Miceli, MD.
“These groups have obfuscated risk and misrepresented the low quality of evidence to support puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and surgeries for children—interventions that can cause lasting harm,” said Dr. Miceli. “It is encouraging to see our elected officials hold these organizations accountable for spreading misinformation.”
Accountability is a critical step to restoring public trust in medicine.
