Vatican, 14 July, 2023 / 8:03 pm (ACI Africa).
A group of 21 doctors from countries around the world wrote publicly on Thursday that the ongoing push to provide young children with transgender “transition” procedures is unsupported by current evidence and that medical officials should shift their approaches to managing youth gender dysphoria.
The open letter, published in the Wall Street Journal on July 13, responded to a June letter in the Journal by Endocrine Society President Stephen Hammes.
In that letter, Hammes claimed that transgender medical treatment “improves the well-being of transgender and gender-diverse people and reduces the risk of suicide.” Hammes referred to “lifesaving gender-affirming care,” which often involves the use of synthetic hormones and irreversible surgeries on reproductive organs, sometimes for children younger than the age of 18.
In their response this week, the group of clinicians and researchers — from countries including Finland, France, South Africa, and the United States — argued that the risks of cross-sex hormone usage for youths “are significant and include sterility, lifelong dependence on medication, and the anguish of regret.”
A number of European authorities and international medical groups “now recommend psychotherapy rather than hormones and surgeries as the first line of treatment for gender-dysphoric youth,” the doctors wrote.
