Transgender Surgeries for Minors Based on ‘Low Quality’ Evidence: Leading Medical Group

One of the nation’s leading surgical organizations has refused to endorse the practice of carrying out transgender surgeries on minors, saying the evidence cited by supporters of adolescent surgeries is “low quality/low certainty.”

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), an 11,000-member professional society represents more than nine out of 10 practitioners in the United States and Canada, has declined to endorse “any organization’s practice recommendations for the treatment of adolescents with gender dysphoria.”

“ASPS currently understands that there is considerable uncertainty as to the long-term efficacy for the use of chest and genital surgical interventions, and the existing evidence base is viewed as low quality/low certainty,” the organization told Leor Sapir, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “As members of the multidisciplinary care team, plastic surgeons have a responsibility to provide comprehensive patient education and maintain a robust and evidence-based informed consent process, so patients and their families can set realistic expectations in the shared decision-making process.”

Plastic surgeons commit double mastectomies to remove healthy breasts, as well as vaginoplasty and metoidioplasty (which creates an imitation phallus by removing skin from a girl’s forearm). Yet an ever-increasing number of detransitioners have noted their permanent regret — and begun to sue the doctors who promised them that so-called “gender-affirming” surgery would cure their pre-existing, underlying mental health comorbidities. For instance, Kayla Lovdahl has sued Kaiser Permanente and plastic surgeon Winnie Tong for carrying out a double mastectomy to treat her gender confusion in 2017, when she was only 13 years old.

Most U.S.-based psychologists have adopted a “gender-affirmation” model: If a patient identifies as a member of the opposite sex, the doctor immediately agrees and steers the patient onto the pipeline of potentially-sterilizing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and often “top” or “bottom” surgeries that permanently mutilate the child’s body. The studies underlying this method have come under growing scrutiny around the world.

“In Canada and the United States, patients are eligible for invasive surgeries and/or potentially irreversible and medically harmful dispensation of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones at a much younger age than is the case in Europe,” noted a study released late last month by the Aristotle Foundation.

“Perhaps because it has never really depended on evidence, this doctor-group consensus has shown remarkable resilience in the face of major system shocks, including several whistleblowers, revelations from court documents that WPATH manipulated scientific evidence reviews, the Cass Review, a bipartisan commitment in the U.K. to roll back pediatric medical transition, and a growing international call for a developmentally informed approach that prioritizes psychotherapy over hormones and surgeries,” noted Sapir in City Journal.

While other nations move away from such a process, the U.S. has largely shut out the voice of the international community on proper transgender treatments.

“That is a travesty and a testament to the power of the radical-left LGBTQ+ lobby in the USA," Peter LaBarbera, president of the Center For Morality and publisher of AmericansForTruth, told The Washington Stand.

"“Of course we welcome any movement by doctors and American professional organizations away from the dangerous cult pushing so-called ‘gender medicine’ on children,” LaBarbera told TWS. “But the progress toward sanity and protecting children is too slow, especially given that pro-trans ‘progressives’ are fighting harder than ever for their truly evil agenda. In fact, they are winning in Democrat-run states like Governor Tim Walz’s Minnesota, which is now a ‘sanctuary state’ for horrific, oxymoron ‘gender-affirming care’ targeting confused and vulnerable youth.”

“No American should fully celebrate until the ‘butchers and liars,’ as detransitioner Chloe Cole calls the ‘health’ professionals profiting off of harming children's bodies, are shut down completely in these United States.”