WHO publishes 'controversial gender guidance'

I note they also did a piece on Ashley yesterday (although seem to have missed an editor's note when publishing).

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12969191/Win-DM-com-World-Health-Organization-quietly-removes-transgender-extremist-panel-gender-dysphoria-story.html

Comprehensive article from the DM.

It's amazing what a bit of investigative journalism can uncover. Now that #nodebate is finally dead, they're finding some rich pickings from the adults intent on transitioning children. Suspect this may be the tip of a very murky iceberg.

Do I detect backpedaling?

Also... I wonder if this is a change from their stated position a month ago? I'm optimistically hoping that "of note" and "new" indicate a shift.

Obviously hormone intervention is still an issue, particularly for females as the irreversible changes have more of an impact than for males. However, surgery being out of scope for "care" would be a positive.

This is a significant step forward. Thank you for sharing.

I hope the CQC have read it, given they have just approved Gender GP giving cross-sex hormones to 16 year olds. There is a separate thread on this.

There is far more to do to recognise (in this field of care) that important pubertal brain development, particularly the ability to weigh up risk more effectively, still takes place up to the age of 25. But this is an important step in the right direction. It's frustrating that this known cognitive limitation is being applied to criminal sex offence cases, with more leniency given to rapists under 25 for example, yet it's still not being applied in the case of young people and their consent to medical interventions for which there is a lack of empirical evidence.

So the WHO are not so completely captured that they refuse to listen to criticism. Good to know.

I agree.

If the WHO has had to backtrack, will the lobby groups start to try to pivot? I doubt it, they have sunk too much into this. But then they will start to look rather negligent if they don't respond.

Which should be enough to order a complete overhaul of the organisation. Who can trust them?

However, it does show that by now even the WHO has to admit that they did not do due diligence on there guidance and have allowed a group to have significant influence on their policy. And that they have indulged in allowing an ideologically driven group to shape the world's health policies.

Where does Cass go after this?

Just coming to post this update rogdmum This is good news.

The WHO have also produced a FAQ which includes a statement that the evidence base for an affirmative approach for children and adolescents is “limited and variable” (ie why they are not including children and adolescents in their scope)

https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/hq-hiv-hepatitis-and-stis-library/tgd_faq_16012024.pdf?sfvrsn=79eaf57f_1

At least the hope of sliding it in unnoticed has been scuttled.

Florence Ashley is no longer on the panel and the deadline for comments has been extended by the WHO

https://x.com/jamiewhistle/status/1747077903076978822?s=61&t=8CxL28ZCFDq66yuIWhY6_Q

Reem Alsalem’s letter is covered in the Guardian today- thankfully by Amelia Gentleman

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/09/un-envoy-criticises-one-sided-who-approach-trans-health-guidelines

Yes. At least they won't be able to claim nobody at all raised concerns.

You just feel so grateful that one lone voice of reasoned and measured response is being raised in the howling wilderness where the words woman, female and mother are under threat of disappearance or becoming meaningless. Whether she can accomplish anything is a different matter.

I'd like to mention just how fucking stupid and counterproductive and harmful it is to have mental health conditions excluded from medical insurance. Solidarity doesn't look like getting condition X redefined as not mental health, but as getting all mental illnesses onto insurance coverage.

For a bunch of people who harp on about intersectionality, TRAs sure suck at it.

Excellent letter.

Reem Alsalem UN Special Rapporteur VAWG has written a letter

https://twitter.com/UNSRVAW/status/1744393560592351442?t=LxjOkOqmBxczcIjbOSqz_g&s=19

I’d ditto OldCrone’s question. Generally speaking, insurance companies in the US historically resisted providing “gender affirming care”. I’d be interested to know which ones lobbied the WHO to change the ICD.

It was just an announcement a couple of years after the change to the US medical listings

What are you talking about here? ICD-11 isn’t a “US medical listing.” Are you mixing it up with the DSM? The potential changes to ICD-11 were discussed and publicised well before 2018 and went through a lengthy process. At the time, the main challenge to the changes was the fact that gender incongruence was being included in the ICD at all- continued inclusion was viewed as only a partial depatholization. The decision was made to include it so individuals in countries with medical insurance would not find barriers to coverage if it were removed.

ICD-11 was the WHO pushing the patient led affirmative medical pathway via removing psychological gatekeeping. Google Geoffrey Reed if you want the background.

Right now the issue is not how we got here but how/whether the WHO can be influenced/persuaded to rethink the balance on the panel and approach to developing their guidelines.