“Gender affirmation” is the opposite of “care”
Summary of the WPATH Files prepared by Australian Feminists for Women’s Rights
Cited material is from The WPATH Files report
On 5 March 2024 the US-based Think Tank Environmental Progress published The WPATH Files, exposing the poor scientific standards and poor standards of care demonstrated by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).
WPATH has positioned itself as the leading world authority on care for “transsexual, transgender, and gender-nonconforming individuals”, claiming to provide “evidence-based” standards of care.
Yet the WPATH files and accompanying report show that WPATH “is neither scientific nor advocating for ethical medical care”. The files show
- A lack of scientific method: failure to subject risky medical procedures to the usual process of randomised, double-blind testing with longer term followup re outcomes
- A lack of consideration for long-term patient outcomes “despite being aware of the debilitating and potentially fatal side effects of cross-sex hormones and other treatments”
- A lack of knowledge about the long-term effects of puberty blocking and hormonal drugs used in treatments
- A disregard for the impact of severe mental health problems such as schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder on the ability of people to provide fully informed consent to hormonal and surgical interventions
- A disregard for comorbidities such as autism or other vulnerabilities such as homelessness
The files show that WPATH members actively
- Advocate for “the destruction of healthy reproductive systems, the amputation of healthy breasts, and the surgical removal of healthy genitals as the first and only line of treatment for minors and mentally ill people with gender dysphoria, eschewing any attempt to reconcile the patient with his or her birth sex”
- Dismiss concerns raised about these practices and their poor evidence base as “gatekeeping”
- Dismiss the existence or experience of detransitioners as a marginal phenomenon or even the result of “brainwashing”
- Violate the ethical requirement to obtain informed consent: WPATH members admit that young people “cannot comprehend the lifelong consequences of sex-trait modification interventions, and in some cases, due to poor health literacy, neither can their parents”
“It would be criminal for a surgeon to sever the spinal cord of a person who identified as a quadriplegic or to blind a sighted patient who identified as blind. It is just as unethical to destroy healthy reproductive systems and amputate the healthy breasts and genitals of mentally unwell people. To do so without first even attempting to help the person overcome their mental illness, without realistically preparing the individual for the grueling post-op period or warning of the life-long negative effect that the procedures will have on their long-term health and ability to form intimate relationships amounts to medical negligence of the highest order.”