A new report named the U.S. an “outlier” in promoting the trans agenda to children, while many other Western countries are now taking a more cautious approach. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, “The U.S. is becoming an outlier among many Western nations in the way its national medical institutions treat children suffering from distress over gender identity. … For years, the American healthcare industry has staunchly defended medical interventions for transgender minors, including puberty blockers …”
This is in contrast to several leading European nations, which are now “expressing doubts about that approach.” The medical communities of the U.K., France, Sweden, and Finland have all urged increased caution and even recommended stringent regulations regarding gender transition surgeries and drugs for children who identify as transgender.
In 2021, Sweden’s leading medical center, the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, banned the use of puberty blockers for children. Later that year, Finland followed suit, preferring psychological treatment for minors instead of drugs and surgeries.
France’s National Academy of Medicine warned last year that “great medical caution must be taken in [treating] children and adolescents” who identify as transgender because “many undesirable effects and even serious complications … can be caused by some of the therapies available.” The Academy recommended extending the current period of psychological evaluation mandated before taking life-altering hormone drugs or puberty blockers. In particular, the Academy noted that the recent increase in “gender dysphoria” presenting in children may not be natural but could be a result of “excessive engagement with social media, greater social acceptability, or influence by those in one’s social circle.”
Earlier this month, England’s National Health Service (NHS) banned puberty blockers outside of clinical trials, meaning almost no child will have access to the life-altering drugs. This follows the NHS’s decision last year to close down the notorious gender clinic at Tavistock after a government-commissioned report found the clinic’s staff outright pressured children onto puberty blockers and hormone drugs with little to no psychological evaluation. A reported 96% of child patients were placed on puberty blockers by Tavistock staffers, and concerns were raised over a myopic focus on “gender dysphoria,” instead of considering other psychological factors in recommending drugs or surgeries for minors, which were summarily dismissed. In fact, the chairwoman of pro-trans lobbyist organization Mermaids was actually one of the clinic’s advisors on “treatment” for gender-confused children. After Tavistock was forced to close, lawsuits began pouring in from former child patients who had been rushed or pressured onto hormone drugs or puberty blockers.
In 2011, the Tavistock gender clinic took in about 250 child patients. By 2021, just 10 years later, the clinic had over 5,000 child patients. Like France, the U.K. has seen a sharp increase in children identifying as transgender, especially amongst girls. But this trend isn’t unique to France and the U.K. In the U.S., the number of minors identifying as transgender has doubled just since 2017. Unlike France and the U.K., though, surgeons in the U.S. continue to profit from experimenting on children. In fact, gender transition surgery is expected to become a $5 billion industry by 2030.
While European medical experts — even in progressive strongholds like France — are warning against the potential dangers of transgender “treatment” for children, the U.S. is ignoring those warnings and continuing to promote the practice for children and adolescents, earning the designation of “outlier.”
S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.
