There is an article in the New York Times today regarding American medical bodies’ refusal to accept the findings of the Cass Review. I’ve pasted what I think is an important part of the article below:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/12/opinion/gender-affirming-care-cass-review.html
https://archive.is/gq2ba
‘It’s hard to imagine another clinical protocol in which such serious medical decisions, with potential risks and permanent consequences, is so heavily grounded in a young patient’s self-diagnosis. In this light, gender transition treatments for minors can even be considered unethical.
This is not to say that doctors are in any way trying to harm children. Nor that all doctors and mental health professionals necessarily believe in every aspect of gender-affirming care or interpret it the same way. Many members of professional organizations, and many Americans, have embraced gender-affirming care because it has been portrayed as the most compassionate approach for an often marginalized group.
Already the gender-affirmation model is taught in leading medical schools, and all the major professional medical organizations in the United States have officially embraced it in their guidelines, a fact often cited by advocates as evidence of their validity.
This wholesale adoption of gender-affirming care is also a result of the differences between a centralized public health system like Britain’s and a privatized, diffuse health care system like ours. “Doctors are paid for each intervention, and thus have an incentive to give patients what they ask for,” The Economist noted in a recent editorial urging the United States to catch up with recent developments in gender medicine.
Given how entrenched the gender-affirmating model has become, reversing course won’t be easy. If the medical profession turns away from the notion that transitioning young people is necessary and lifesaving, it could open itself up to malpractice suits. Consider that in Britain, a lawsuit by a gay girl named Keira Bell against Britain’s leading gender clinic instigated the investigation that led to the Cass Review.
“I’m already hearing from the boards of directors and trustees of some hospital systems who are starting to get nervous about what they’ve permitted,” Erica Anderson, a former president of the U.S. Professional Association for Transgender Health and a transgender woman, told the British Medical Journal in May. In recent years, a number of detransitioners in the United States have brought suit charging malpractice or the failure to provide informed consent. If American doctors admit their approach was wrong, it’s going to be a costly and politically explosive practice to undo.’