From Michael Shellenberger's Substack today:

https://public.substack.com/p/biden-administration-ends-support?

Text:

For years, leading medical organizations, the mainstream news media, and Democratic politicians have argued that surgeons should be able to operate on the bodies of minors who identify as transgender. They argued that it would be immoral to prevent adolescents from removing and modifying body parts so they resemble those of the opposite sex. Indeed, they claimed, doing so could end up causing them to commit suicide.

Sure, some of those young people might regret it later, acknowledged The New York Times’s Lydia Polgren in an extended essay last December. But she said, “We allow children to make irreversible decisions about their lives all the time,” and “sometimes they regret those decisions.” Wrote Polgren, “how is it different, really, from the decision I made to quit competitive swimming?”

Gender medicine doctors, therapists, and activists have described such surgeries as part of a “gender journey.”

The Biden administration’s Department of Justice recently indicted whistleblower Eithan Haim, a surgeon at Texas Children’s Hospital, who leaked documents showing that the hospital was secretly performing trangender medical treatments on minors.

And a US Department of Health and Human Services fact sheet on “Gender-Affirming Care and Young People” promotes “gender-affirming care” including “surgery on genitals or reproductive organs.” At the same time, supporters of such procedures insist that they are too rare to be very worried about.

But now the Biden administration has abruptly reversed its position and come out against so-called “gender-affirming surgeries” for minors.

“The Biden administration said this week that it opposed gender-affirming surgery for minors,” wrote the New York Times.

This is far from a total victory for opponents of gender medical mistreatment for children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults. The Biden administration “expressed opposition only to surgeries for minors, not other treatments,” noted the Times. As a result, the Biden administration still supports allowing doctors to block the puberty of children and give adolescents opposite-sex hormones.

Even so, the White House’s reversal is hugely significant. After all, it comes less than a week after it came to light that staff members working for Admiral Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services, had in 2021 successfully pressured the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) to remove age limits for breast and genital surgeries on minors.

And the reversal comes one month after the UK’s National Health Service banned the prescription of puberty blockers to children and adolescents confused about their gender, both in government hospitals and clinics as well as in private ones. Sweden, too, has banned puberty blockers for children and adolescents.

As such, the trend against gender mistreatment is clear. It is only a matter of time before other Democratic officials will be forced to abandon their unethical support for surgeries, puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors and join the UK, Sweden, and Republican-led states in banning them for children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults.

Achieving that goal will take significant work in the months and years to come, to be sure. Surgeons, doctors, and therapists will cause irreversible damage to thousands of children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults in the meantime by sterilizing them and destroying their sexual function.

If we are to shorten the period between now and then, we need to understand why the Biden administration reversed course and why the tide is turning against gender medical mistreatment across the West.

Why The Tide Is Turning

The proximate reason for the Biden administration’s decision came from newly released emails showing that staff to Admiral Levine had pressured WPATH to eliminate age restrictions for transgender medicine. WPATH released draft guidelines in late 2021. The group proposed lowering the minimum age for genital surgeries and hysterectomies to 17 and the minimum age for mastectomies to 15 years old.

A member of the WPATH group creating the guidelines said that Levine’s chief of staff said Levine was worried that the age guidelines would undermine the promotion of “gender-affirming care.”

Wrote the WPATH official, Levine is “confident, based on the rhetoric she is hearing in D.C., and from what we have already seen, that these specific listings of ages, under 18, will result in devastating legislation for trans care. She wonders if the specific ages can be taken out.” The emails were included in a report written by Dr. James Cantor, an expert in human sexuality, in support of Alabama’s ban on gender medical mistreatment.

The emails on their own might not have had much impact were it not for the publication of the WPATH Filesby Environmental Progress in March. Those files included abundant evidence in the form of internal discussions between WPATH surgeons, therapists, and activists that they were not receiving “informed consent” from parents or their children, many of whom did not understand that the drugs and surgeries would or could lead to lifelong infertility and the loss of sexual function.

A few weeks after the release of the WPATH Files, the UK announced its ban on puberty blockers for young people in its clinics, and a few weeks after that it announced a ban on their prescription in private clinics as well. And a few weeks after that, the UK government published The Cass Review by pediatrician Hillary Cass, which raised strong cautions about continuing to prescribe drugs and surgeries to children and adolescents.

Political analysts expect the UK’s ruling Conservative Party to lose the upcoming elections to the Labor Party, which has been more sympathetic to the demands of trans activists.

But in recent months, the head of the Labor Party, Keir Starmer, has pivoted to a more cautious position on gender issues. Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said, “I’m definitely of the school that says, biologically, a woman is with a vagina and a man is with a penis. I think we can say that quite clearly,” Starmer said, “Yes, Tony is right about that, he put it very well.” A few days later, Starmer said he was opposed to schools teaching “gender ideology,” which holds that people can change their sex.

And neither the WPATH Files nor the widespread media attention that resulted from their publication would exist had there not been a rapidly growing international movement to end gender mistreatment. That movement counts as high-profile supporters, including Harry Potter author JK Rowling and Elon Musk. Many feminists, particularly in the UK, have for years been campaigning to end gender mistreatment and had been joined in the US and Britain by conservatives and Republicans.

That movement included researchers at organizations including Genspect, Sex Matters, SEGM, Manhattan Institute, and other think tanks, as well as a coterie of independent journalists including Helen Joyce, Hannah Barnes, and Ben Ryan, who have steadfastly debunked gender misinformation for years. That misinformation included the denial of sex differences, false claims about the success of “gender affirming care,” and perhaps the biggest lie, which is that individuals will commit suicide if doctors don’t block their puberty, give them opposite-sex hormones, and perform surgeries.

But, ultimately, the turning tide on gender mistreatment owes to the fact that it was always based on a rejection of fundamental biological realities.

It also owes to rising public opposition. Only the most hardcore progressives and Democrats today support gender medicine. A September 2023 poll found that the percentage of Californians who agree that “children who say they identify as transgender should be allowed to undergo surgeries to try to change them to the opposite sex or take off-label medications and hormones” was just 21%. By contrast, 64% were opposed.

Those numbers are similar to the ones found by a Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll in December 2022. In that poll, 68% of voters surveyed said they opposed puberty blockers for minors, and 58% opposed prescribing minors cross-sex hormones.

How Gender Medical Mistreatment Ends

Just because the tide is turning does not mean that the end of gender mistreatment is imminent. Indeed, notes the Times in its piece about the Biden administration’s rejection of trans surgeries for minors, “Federal officials did not elaborate further on the administration’s position.” It’s conceivable that Democratic politicians are attempting to hold the line at surgeries while insisting that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are “reversible” and thus acceptable.

Groups critical of gender ideology and gender mistreatment have exposed the lack of research and science to support such treatments. After years of work by Genspect, SEGM, Manhattan, Do No Harm, the WPATH Files, the Cass Review, and the recent report by Dr. James Cantor, there is not much more new to be said about the lack of evidence for so-called gender medicine.

The Justice Department’s prosecution of Haim may still have a chilling effect, discouraging more healthcare professionals from speaking out and stifling debate. The Biden administration’s prosecutorial overreach could impact future efforts to expose unethical gender mistreatment of minors.

As such, it’s time for opponents of gender mistreatment to press our advantage in the political sphere. The White House’s reversal on surgeries for minors shows that politicians are scared to be seen as promoting these surgeries. And the California polls show that, even in very liberal states, gender medicine is hugely unpopular. While trans issues will likely never become as high of a priority for average voters as crime, homelessness, and the high cost of living, it undermines the Democrats’ claim of being the party of compassion.

Democratic politicians, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential presidential candidate this year or 2028, are uniquely vulnerable, given his championing of gender medicine. In 2022, Newsom signed legislation that made California a “sanctuary state” for children and adolescents from states that have banned gender medical mistreatment.

And now that both the California Senate and Assembly have passed legislation that would prevent schools from requiring teachers to inform parents that their children have changed their gender identity, Newsom has until mid-July to sign or veto the bill. Opponents should make clear that such a law could sharply increase the medical mistreatment, including surgeries, of minors confused about their gender.

As such, change is coming, whether sooner or later. If Newsom signs the bill, he must defend its implications, including the surgeries the Biden administration now opposes. If he vetoes it, he will send a signal to other Democratic politicians that now is the moment for the whole party to pivot away from the pseudoscientific and unethical notion that medicalizing gender confusion is simply a “gender journey,” little different from starting and stopping competitive swimming in high school.

Over the next several months and years, we are likely to see leading medical organizations, the news media, and Democratic politicians walk back their support for the right of surgeons to operate on the bodies of children and adolescents who identify as the opposite sex. In the future, we will look back on efforts to prevent adolescents from undergoing irreversible procedures in the name of preventing suicide as moral, not immoral.