According to just released court records obtained by National Review, a senior Biden Administration wellness official has repeatedly urged a powerful trans advocacy group to reduce the proposed era minimums for transgender medical procedures from its policy guidelines. According to emails sent by members of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health ( WPATH), assistant secretary of health Rachel Levine, who first identified as a woman in 2011, believed that the publication of recommended age minimums for transgender procedures would “result in devastating legislation for transgender care.”
Levine asked the association if references to” certain ages” had become “taken out” of its proposed guidelines, expressing concern that having age minimums, particularly for surgeries, had “affect access to health care for trans youth and even adults to”. WPATH, which describes its goal as the development of “evidence- based treatment, education, research, advocacy, common policy, and respect in transgender health”, had earlier released draft guidelines recommending a variety of age minimums for transgender procedures. These included age limits of 14 for hormonal treatments such as puberty blockers, 15 for mastectomies, 16 for facial alteration surgeries and breast augmentations, and 17 for genital surgeries and hysterectomies. Levine pushed for WPATH to outlaw the age restrictions in the recently released final version of its guidelines.
Levine and the White House both expressed concern that the endorsement of age minimums could help state-level efforts to restrict transgender practices for minors. They stated that” [a ] pparently the situation in the USA is terrible and she]Levine ] and the Biden administration worried that having ages in the document will make things worse.”
After Levine’s intervention and an “ultimatum” from the American Academy of Pediatrics threatening to “withhold]its ] endorsement” and “publicly oppose” the guidelines if they included recommended age limits, WPATH bypassed its usual consensus- based processes for changing medical guidelines and removed the age minimums from the guidelines ‘ final version.
Additionally, the documents include communications from WPATH members outlining their disagreement with the organization’s choice to veer off from Levine’s pressure and considering possible political implications when formulating its recommendations. If our concern is with legislation ( which I do n’t believe it should be ), then would n’t including the ages be beneficial if we should be basing this on science and expert consensus if we’re being ethical? one member wrote. ” I need someone to explain to me how eradicating the ages will contribute to the fight against the conservative anti-trans agenda.”
In a federal court case brought by progressive advocacy groups challenging Alabama’s ban on transgender procedures for minors, Levine’s emails were included among court records. James Cantor, a well-known clinical psychologist and long-time critic of transgender procedures for minors, submitted the materials as part of a court exhibit. According to Cantor, the emails demonstrated that Levine and the Biden Administration “attempted to and did influence the substantive content” of the WPATH guidelines “based on political goals rather than science.”
In recent years, the number of transgender-identifying youth who seek chemical and surgical transgender treatments has dramatically increased. In response, several Western countries, such as Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, have moved to limit access to transgender procedures for minors. Sweden, for example, restricted hormone treatments to “exceptional cases”, while Britain’s publicly- funded National Health Service no longer offers puberty- blocking drugs.
Consensus has been harder to come by in the United States, where progressive organizations and LGBT advocacy groups have been vocal critics of state-level efforts to restrict access to transgender procedures for minors.
In the United States, there are still controversies over transgender procedures for minors, which reflect wider societal and political divides regarding the rights and protections of transgender people, particularly in youth.
