Earlier in the year US President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation”. The order stated that gender reassignment surgeries were “irreversible” and “will be a stain on our Nation’s history”.

As a result of this Executive Order, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services released a review earlier this month titled “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices” which has been damning, to say the least. Many are now comparing it to the UK’s Cass Review.

Unlike the Cass Review, however, the American review is not about improving gender youth medicine, but instead offers an accurate appraisal and summary of the best available evidence for the treatment of gender-confused children.

The review represents yet another major step forward in undoing the harms of child gender treatments pushed by activists around the world.

The review states:

“While the need for respect and compassion resonates with all reasonable Americans, an invasive treatment with lifelong ramifications deserves the highest level of dispassionate scrutiny.

“The question of how to best help these patients hinges on a comprehensive assessment of the evidence base for different treatment approaches, together with ethical considerations. Bringing ethical principles to bear on the evidence is one goal of this Review.”

The review also cites a noticeable lack of evidence driving gender reassignment treatments, recognising that the controversies around this issue are “deeply cultural and political”. 

The review is a worthwhile read as it offers one of the best argued and most dispassionate reviews into treatment for paediatric gender dysphoria yet. It is also entirely committed to protecting children.

“Our duty is to protect our nation’s children — not expose them to unproven and irreversible medical interventions,” NIH Director Dr Jay Bhattacharya said about the release. 

“We must follow the gold standard of science, not activist agendas.”

Other commentators have made stronger statements, with Kristen Waggonner, President of ADF Legal, writing: “[This] report on gender transition procedures should lead to the closure of every gender clinic in America. Doctors who perpetrate these experiments on children should lose their medical licenses and be sued for damages.”

As the global tide of transgenderism rolls back across the Western world, more and more eyes are turning toward Australia who has not yet seen a national review of this magnitude. 

This global trend vindicates  those who have been active in opposing these “gender-transition” procedures for children, often at great professional and personal cost. Among them are Australian child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr Jillian Spencer, stood down by her employer for her stand, and Canadian activist Billboard Chris, who for years has campaigned tirelessly to raise awareness about the potentially life-long damaging effects of such treatment.

HRLA continues to stand by to defend the freedoms of those who speak against transgender ideology, and with the winds of change beginning to turn, we are confident that justice will be served and truth will be restored.