On May 1, 2025, the MAGA Party Administration (under temporary supervision by autocrat Donald J. Trump) Department of Health and Human Services released a “Review of Evidence and Best Practices” regarding “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria”.
This ideologically-driven diatribe is a prime example of a conclusion in search of an explanation.
These pages will identify the most likely collaborators and contributors to this anti-human document, and expose the propaganda and disinformation contained therein with links to evidence-based, objective research and clinical data that demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that gender-affirming care is both safe, effective, and life saving.
The Executive Summary: Where This Hate Begins
| HHS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SAYS: “Over the past decade, the number of children and adolescents who question their sex and identify as transgender or nonbinary has grown significantly. Many have been diagnosed with a condition known as “gender dysphoria” and offered a treatment approach known as “gender-affirming care.” This approach emphasizes social affirmation of a child’s self-reported identity; puberty suppressing drugs to prevent the onset of puberty; cross-sex hormones to spur the secondary sex characteristics of the opposite sex; and surgeries including mastectomy and (in rare cases) vaginoplasty. Thousands of American children and adolescents have received these interventions.” | In fact, the visibility of transgender, nonbinary, Two-Spirit and otherwise gender-expansive children and adolescents who either already have a gender identity that is different from the binary-limited assigned gender role they were give at birth, or that are questioning their experience of gender on one level or another has been rising for several decades. This rise in visibility is due to a number of positive factors: * Increased education for mental health care providers * Increased education for primary/pediatric physicians * Increase in parents & caregivers * Increased education for educators & social service providers * Expansion of human rights & legal protections for LGBTQ+ * Increased access to pubertal suppression and gender-affirming hormone therapy as part of Gender Affirming Care |
| “While sex-role nonconformity itself is not pathological and does not require treatment, the use of pharmacological and surgical interventions as treatments for pediatric gender dysphoria has been called “medically necessary” and even “lifesaving.” Motivated by a desire to ensure their children’s health and well-being, parents of transgender-identified children and adolescents often struggle with how best to support them. Many of these children and adolescents have co-occurring psychiatric or neurodevelopmental conditions, rendering them especially vulnerable. When they seek professional help, they and their families should receive compassionate, evidence-based care tailored to their specific needs.” | The use of parentheses (“”) in this first sentence serves a dual purpose; it is both an actual quote from a great number of evidence-based scientific, research, and clinical based studies on the health and well-being of trans-spectrum adolescents and teens, and…in current cultural usage, it can also be used to imply “fake” or “woke” terminology. This second usage is the one intended by the hucksters who wrote, and/or edited this Executive Summary. It is true that parents and family struggle with “how best to support them”, and for that very reason, access to objective, evidence-based information that has not been manipulated to create anti-trans propaganda is vitally important. |
“Many of these children and adolescents have co-occurring psychiatric or neurodevelopmental conditions, rendering them especially vulnerable.”
In using the non-specific term “many”, the MAGA Party continues the often repeated technique their autocratic leader Donald Trump uses when he does not know the specific details of what he’s speaking of, or even more to the point, when there are no specifics to share that would support the tangential ranting about people he and the MAGA Party hate.
There are statistics on the prevalence of “co-occurring psychiatric or neurodevelopmental conditions”….however they are NOT favorable to the HHS Report’s hate motivated intentions.
| HHS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SAYS: “Society has a special responsibility to safeguard the well-being of children. Given that the challenges faced by these patients intersect with deeply contested issues of moral and social significance—including social identity, sex and reproduction, bodily integrity, and sex-based norms of expression and behavior—the medical practices that have recently emerged to address their needs have become a focus of significant controversy.” | Society does indeed have a special responsibility to safeguard the well-being of children. That responsibility includes knowing when to intervene with the rights of parents to raise children as best they can, using their own judgment come to through education, qualified, objective guidance, and life experience. In this instance, however, when it comes to the health and well-being of transgender, nonbinary, Two-Spirit and other gender-expansive minors, the Federal government and some state governments are making the choice to come between the parent, their child, and the best-evidence for gender affirming care supported by every reputable medical, mental health and social services organization in the United States of America. To be crystal clear, the attempt by HHS and the MAGA Party to frame gender affirming care as an issue of “moral and social significance” is profoundly misguided, and dangerous. It reveals their true intentions in pursuing this intervention and infliction of cruelty on children, adolescents, young adults, their parents, caregivers and families. The MAGA Party, through this HHS Report, and Donald Trump’s Executive Orders want the morality of Extremist Christian Nationalist doctines to define and restrict access to healthcare, including (but not limited to) access to gender affirming care, women’s reproductive healthcare, Medicaid, and Medicare. There is nothing about the ethical, and evidence-based delivery of medical care that should ever be subject to patriarchal, misogynist “norms of expression and behavior”. Further, if there is “significant controversy” about delivery of gender affirming care, it is the result of entirely manufactured, genocidal anti-trans propaganda which fall smack-dab on the doorstep of The Heritage Foundation, The American Academy of Pediatrics, the MAGA Party, Fox News, the Catholic Church and many others complicit in this abuse of our transgender children and their families. |
| HHS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SAYS: “This Review is published against the backdrop of growing international concern about pediatric medical transition. Having recognized the experimental nature of these medical interventions and their potential for harm, health authorities in a number of countries have imposed restrictions. For example, the UK has banned the routine use of puberty blockers as an intervention for pediatric gender dysphoria. Health authorities have also recognized the exceptional nature of this area of medicine. That exceptionalism is due to a convergence of factors. One is that the diagnosis of gender dysphoria is based entirely on subjective self-reports and behavioral observations, without any objective physical, imaging, or laboratory markers. The diagnosis centers on attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that are known to fluctuate during adolescence. | The claim about “growing international concern” is more gaslighting of this issue; and attempt at deflecting from the American Christian Nationalist campaign to “eradicate transgenderism” (Michael Knowles/2022), and frame this as a concern of other ‘reasonable’ people beyond the borders of the USA and, the Christo-Fascist politics and ideology of those in power in the USA. In truth, some European nations have undertaken both reviews of, and modification of how they deliver gender affirming Universal Healthcare…a progressive form a taking care of the population that has, so far, escaped the willingness or the grasp of being implemented here. The Report states as fact that “the UK has banned the routine use of puberty blockers as an intervention for pediatric gender dysphoria.” But, have they? According to the Associated Press (AP), published on December 11, 2024, the answer is YES…the UK has banned the use of puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria”. However…the ban does not apply to those already receiving puberty blockers for gender dysphoria, nor does it ban their use in clinical studies of pediatric gender dysphoria. While the ban does impact the ability of individual providers to prescribe puberty blockers or gender affirming hormones to youth, clinical trials in which they DO provide those treatments are available at several clinics around the UK. * The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust The impact of this partial ban, is that waiting lists at the various clinics around the UK are very, very long. This means that youth experiencing depression, anxiety, trauma, and suicidal ideation as their bodies betray their gender identity may, in many cases, complete the puberty Tanner Stages 1-5 before even being seen. This will result in rising, lifelong mental health trauma and suicide attempts and deaths. AND LET’S BE CLEAR…THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT OPPONENTS TO PEDIATRIC GENDER AFFIRMING CARE IN THE UK, THE EU, THE UNITED STATES, AND OTHER PLACES WANT. This HHS Report is nothing more than a homegrown, MAGA Party knockoff of the UK’s Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist ideology screed known as “The Cass Review”. The Cass Review (Yale Critique) is equally devoid of objective science, evidence, or clinical expertise on gender dysphoria. Read at your own peril. Many of the critiques and unethical exposition on this website will also apply to The Cass Review. |
the diagnosis of gender dysphoria is based entirely on subjective self-reports and behavioral observations, without any objective physical, imaging, or laboratory markers.
The diagnosis centers on attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that are known to fluctuate during adolescence.
| HHS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SAYS: “Additionally, the natural history of pediatric gender dysphoria is poorly understood, though existing research suggests it will remit without intervention in most cases. Medical professionals have no way to know which patients may continue to experience gender dysphoria and which will come to terms with their bodies. Nevertheless, the “gender-affirming” model of care includes irreversible endocrine and surgical interventions on minors with no physical pathology. These interventions carry risk of significant harms including infertility/sterility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone density accrual, adverse cognitive impacts, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders, psychiatric disorders, surgical complications, and regret. Meanwhile, systematic reviews of the evidence have revealed deep uncertainty about the purported benefits of these interventions. The controversies surrounding the medical transition of minors extend beyond scientific debate; they are deeply cultural and political. Public discourse is dominated by intensely polarizing narratives. Some view the medical transition of minors as a pressing civil rights issue, while others regard it as a profound medical failure and a sobering reminder that even modern medicine is vulnerable to serious error. In the midst of this highly charged debate, children and adolescents, and their families—who seek only to support their flourishing—have found themselves caught between competing perspectives. They require, and are entitled to, accurate, evidence-based information to guide their decisions. This Review of evidence and best practices was commissioned pursuant to Executive Order 14187, signed on January 28, 2025. It is not a clinical practice guideline, and it does not issue legislative or policy recommendations. Rather, it seeks to provide the most accurate and current information available regarding the evidence base for the treatment of gender dysphoria in this population, the state of the relevant medical field in the United States, and the ethical considerations associated with the treatments offered. The Review is intended for policymakers, clinicians, therapists, medical organizations and, importantly, patients and their families. It summarizes, synthesizes, and critically evaluates the existing literature on best practices for promoting the health and well-being of children and adolescents with distress related to their sex or to social expectations associated with their sex. Treatment of adults constitutes a separate topic and is not addressed in this Review. A summary of the Review’s main findings is presented below.” | This first sentence starts with a completely unfounded opinion, followed immediately by completely debunked ‘junk science’ statement. IT IS A LIE TO SAY THAT GENDER DYSPHORIA “WILL REMIT (stop being felt) WITHOUT INTERVENTION IN MOST CASES.” There are just a two ways in which gender dysphoria “remits” (which this Report would classify as going happily back to their birth assigned gender role) in a VERY SMALL percentage of youth, particularly those whose onset of gender dysphoria begins in early to mid-childhood. 1: The child is embraced and affirmed in their identity as they experience it and share it with parents, caregivers and others and then…as a result of the affirmed exploration THEY decide they’re comfortable with expressing their gender identity in some way that is not defined as transgender. 2. They tragically take their own life, in which case, the emotional and psychological trauma of that child comes to end, and just begins for who love them. The percentage of youth who retransition (not the same as “remitting”) under scenario #1, is between 1% and 10%. Where Does HHS Report Get Their “Most Cases” Data? If you look at the 1% and 10% links above, you’ll see there is an ‘above the line’ listing of “high reliability” sources, rates in green, and a below the line “low reliability” list of resources. For the most part the MAGA Party and it’s hate nourishment systems rely on the bottom seven so-called “studies” on which they base their ‘evidence’. And the primary villains responsible for these statistics, are Kenneth Zucker. |
HHS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SAYS: |