The craze over pushing “gender-affirming care” on kids suffering from gender dysphoria is a prime example of what happens when ideology is infused into the medical industry and a glaring example of why politics has no place in such professions.
Medical facilities and schools promoting gender ideology to children appear to be fueled far more by ideological and monetary concerns than evidence-based solutions for those experiencing confusion about their gender.
The result is that countless minors are being subjected to treatments that can cause irreversible damage while not actually doing much to help them with their mental health problems. Author Pamela Paul highlighted this issue in an op-ed titled “Why Is the U.S. Still Pretending We Know Gender-Affirming Care Works?” [Note: The NY Times edited the headline after publication from “In U.S. Gender Medicine, Ideology Eclipses Science. It Hurts Kids.”)
In the piece, Paul sheds light on the impact of ideology on medical practices related to gender issues. Drawing on findings from the much heralded and reviled Cass Review, which prompted the United Kingdom to abandon the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for children, she highlights the absence of evidence that this method alleviates gender dysphoria and reduces the likelihood of suicide.
Despite seeing European nations like the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden, and others pull back from “gender-affirming care” after decades of using these treatments for children, American medical organizations have ignored these developments. Indeed, it appears that whenever this issue is raised, they respond with the equivalent of plugging their fingers into their ears and shouting, “Lalalalala, I can’t hear you!”
“There’s been no response from the Department of Health and Human Services, whose website says that ‘gender-affirming care improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse children and adolescents,'” Paul notes, referring to how the agency has reacted to the Cass Review.
The author discusses the political stakes involved in American medicine, where the gender medicine issue is highly polarized. “The Biden administration has essentially ceded the issue to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, incorporating gender-affirming protocols into Department of Health and Human Services policy,” Paul writes, also noting that “the United States continues to put ideology ahead of science.”
This circumstance underscores why politics and ideology should have no place in the world of medicine. When medical decisions are driven more by political agendas than scientific evidence, the well-being of patients, especially troubled children, is placed at great risk.
We are now seeing a situation in which medical professionals are guided less by searching for what will help minor patients and more by promoting the belief that gender is malleable. This has already had dire consequences for those affected, such as folks who detransition as adults after being subject to “gender-affirming care” as children.
Yet, when the Cass Review became public, the progressives who didn’t completely ignore it responded with their usual tactics, claiming Dr. Hilary Cass, the author, was peddling “right-wing talking points” and accusing their opponents of anti-trans bigotry.
Of course, it is not all about ideology. Money is also a motivating factor for those pushing “gender-affirming care” on children. “Doctors are paid for each intervention, and thus have an incentive to give patients what they ask for,” according to Ryan Chapman in a piece for The Economist, which makes it more difficult to get medical professionals to seek actual solutions instead of ideological adherence.
As Upton Sinclair once said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Nevertheless, something must be done to stop medical ideologues from victimizing kids for money and progressive plaudits. There is a reason why so many other countries have rejected “gender-affirming care” and are looking at more effective ways of treating gender dysphoria in children. It is clear that American medicine isn’t going to embrace evidence-based care on its own, which is why those seeking to protect children need to find other ways of getting them to change course.