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Excellent piece by Lisa Selin-Davis, a Letter from Finland and Sweden as US Democrats double-down on affirmation:
Earlier this year, as the U.S. culture war over trans kids was reaching full tilt, Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare (NBHW) released new guidelines for treating young people with gender dysphoria, or what is increasingly called “gender incongruence.” That means puberty suppressants, cross-sex hormones and gender surgeries—often called “gender-affirming care”—to make one’s body appear more like the opposite sex’s—or increasingly, with nonbinary gender medicine, neither sex.
They read: “The NBHW deems that the risks of puberty suppressing treatment with GnRH-analogues and gender-affirming hormonal treatment currently outweigh the possible benefits, and that the treatments should be offered only in exceptional cases.”
Finland’s Council for Choices in Health Care (COHERE) came to almost the exact same conclusion a year earlier, noting, through a translation: “The first-line intervention for gender variance during childhood and adolescent years is psychosocial support and, as necessary, gender-explorative therapy and treatment for comorbid psychiatric disorders.” And: “In light of available evidence, gender reassignment of minors is an experimental practice.” Gender reassignment medical interventions “must be done with a great deal of caution, and no irreversible treatment should be initiated,” COHERE wrote.
These guidelines were in contrast to those proffered by the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), an advocacy group made up of activists, academics, lawyers, medical and mental health care providers, which creates “standards of care” that many providers elect to follow. WPATH, which will soon issue its 8th iteration of its SOC, is lowering recommended ages for blockers, hormones and surgeries, and adding chapters on medicine for those with gender identities like non-binary or eunuch. (WPATH did not respond to a request for comment.)
Meanwhile, in the U.S., much of the left, medical associations and activists organizations like the ACLU are claiming doctors agree that gender-affirming medical interventions are “life-saving,” and Assistant Secretary of Health Rachel Levine asserted there’s medical consensus as to its benefits—despite some European countries claiming the opposite. Some activists and gender clinicians in the U.S. still find even WPATH too restrictive.
In Sweden and Finland, the health care community itself was taking on this issue. But here in the U.S. it was playing out in legislatures and courts, the science so politicized that it had become a moral, rather than a medical, issue.
In case you missed it (and also in case you care that you missed it—not a given!): I joined Adam of Hous3ofThis for a conversation about gender identity!
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