The Trump administration released a 400-page review of transgender youth healthcare on Thursday that described current best practices endorsed by mainstream medical organizations and professionals as “unproven.”
The report advocates for behavioral therapy in place of gender-affirming medical care for youths with gender dysphoria, or what critics call “conversion therapy.”
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The report blatantly mischaracterizes gender-affirming healthcare as “surgical and chemical mutilation” and “experimentation” on children.
“Our duty is to protect our nation’s children – not expose them to unproven and irreversible medical interventions,” said Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a Trump appointee. “We must follow the gold standard of science, not activist agendas.”
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None of the contributors to the report’s findings were identified. A peer-review process will be conducted following the review’s release, the administration said.
The report issued by Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) questions standards for the treatment of transgender youth issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). That organization and nearly every major American medical association and leading world health authority have endorsed gender-affirming care as evidence-based, safe, and in some cases, life-saving for transgender youth.
What the administration describes as a new “best practices” report is in response to Trump’s executive order issued days into his second term that mandates the federal government not support “chemical and surgical mutilation” of children under age 19.
Unlike the disputed Cass Report on transgender healthcare in the U.K., which took four years to complete before it was released last April, the Trump administration’s new analysis was completed in just 90 days.
The January 28 order and Trump’s “gender ideology” executive order, which asserts there are only two “immutable” sexes, male and female, have both been used to carry out administration policies aimed at erasing transgender identity. Trump has ordered the federal government to identify people as either male or female on official U.S. documents, bar transgender service members from the military, and ban transgender women and girls from school sports. Judges are blocking the enforcement of several of the policies.
GLAAD’s president, Sarah Kate Ellis, condemned the hastily assembled review as a collection of “discredited junk science.”
“This so-called guidance is grossly misleading and in direct contrast to the recommendation of every leading health authority in the world. This report amounts to nothing more than forcing the same discredited idea of conversion therapy that ripped families apart and harmed gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people for decades.”
The Human Rights Campaign described the HHS report as “a politically-motivated document filled with outright lies and misinformation.”
“Instead of assessing the actual evidence supporting the provision of gender-affirming care, this report instead attempts to lay the groundwork to replace that best-practice medical care for transgender and non-binary people with ‘gender exploratory therapy,’ a focus-tested and innocuous-sounding name for the debunked, destructive, and dangerous practice of anti-LGBTQ+ conversion therapy that is advocated for by fringe, far-right groups rejected by mainstream medical and mental health organizations.”
On Monday, the Trump administration released a progress report on the actions the executive branch has taken to enforce Trump’s “chemical and surgical mutilation” order during his first 100 days in office. The White House said HHS has eliminated 215 grants totaling $477 million for research or education on gender-affirming treatment, ahead of the report issued today.
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