A guidance document recommending gender transition procedures for minors disappeared on Tuesday from the website of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), after leaked files revealed the activist organization’s awareness of the dangerous and experimental nature of these procedures. The web link for the 8th edition of WPATH’s transgender “Standards of Care” (SOC) remained vacant on Wednesday, generating a “Page Not Found” error message, although the 7th edition, released in 2011, was accessible.
A banner on the WPATH website said it was “currently experiencing an internal system issue, and we are currently working to restore it.” Below, WPATH placed an external link to a version of the 8th edition SOC hosted by Taylor and Francis, an online repository of academic papers.
“Controversy has plagued its 8th edition,” noted Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, “which removed age restrictions on sex change treatments for patients.” In its original form, the 8th edition SOC recommended a minimum age of 15-18 for different forms of gender transition surgeries, a minimum age of 14 for cross-sex hormones, and puberty blockers at the first signs of puberty. However, WPATH revised the guidance hours later by removing all discussion of minimum ages. According to the latest version, WPATH still recommends almost all types of gender transition surgeries for minors.
“They’re claiming that there [are] internal web problems happening right now, but it’s curious that something like that would happen following the release of the WPATH files,” said Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for Education Studies at Family Research Council, on “Washington Watch.” Software engineer Ted Hudacko confirmed to TWS, “The changes in the WPATH site this week cannot be attributed to an accidental glitch. Multiple unrelated changes had to have been deliberately made. For example, links [to] the versions of the SOC and the membership database changes are completely unrelated. They are scrubbing the site.”
Earlier this month, a left-wing think tank called Environmental Progress released internal WPATH communications indicating its members “consistently violate medical ethics and informed consent” and “demonstrate a lack of consideration for long-term patient outcomes despite being aware of the debilitating and potentially fatal side effects.”
According to the files, WPATH members acknowledge gender transition procedures can cause “sterilization, loss of sexual function, liver tumors, and even death,” as Perkins summarized, yet they provide these procedures even to people with personality disorders like schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder, as well as to homeless people.
“The leaked documents exposed a lot of sloppiness, a lot of careless talk, a lack of real concern over some serious issues related to the procedures,” Kilgannon explained. “Many of them … suggested they knew that what they were proposing was experimental [and] had health implications, but that didn’t seem to slow them down,” added Perkins.
At the same time, WPATH has publicly argued that any attempt to regulate or restrict gender transition procedures, even for minors, amounts to an attempt to “erase transgender people from American society.” In March 2023, WPATH President Marci Bowers asserted, “Anti-transgender health care legislation is not about protections for children but about eliminating transgender persons on a micro and macro scale.” The leaked documents cited Bowers as saying that any age limit on gender transition procedures is “arbitrary.”
Perkins declared the WPATH files were “pretty explosive in revealing that this is an organization driven by ideologues.” Kilgannon responded that the ideological, not scientific, motivation underlies the efforts to push gender transition procedures on minors. “Politically, what they’re doing is creating a constituency, so that they can develop this area of law called ‘transgender rights,’” she said. “What better, more sympathetic group than children, who have been affirmed in the wrong sex? … So, you have adults using children for their own political and sexual agendas.”
Thus far, WPATH has enjoyed widespread credibility among mainstream medical organizations. “The American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, etc., etc. — all the main medical groups rely on WPATH for their Standards of Care,” lamented Kilgannon. Since WPATH is “the organization that spearheads pushing policies that allow for transgender surgeries,” said Perkins, the American medical establishment does too. “Until some of the major medical groups pull back from WPATH, things won’t change very much,” Kilgannon continued.
“But we are hopeful,” added Kilgannon, “that the continuing media coverage of [WPATH’s medical and ethical shortcomings] will make that happen.” In 2023, WPATH lost 60% of its membership. In September, the Indiana State Medical Association became the first mainstream organization to publicly break with WPATH’s policy agenda and oppose gender transition procedures for minors. Now, after leaked documents undermined the scientific and ethical credibility of WPATH’s Standards of Care, the latest version of that document has mysteriously disappeared from their website.
Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.
