mercatornet.com
2024-04-13
WPATH, or the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, is respected as the peak body for transgender medicine. Its "standards of care" (SOC) were once regarded as a benchmark for ethical and effective treatment for minors and adults. The eighth edition (SOC8) , which was released in 2022, has been translated into ten languages.
Its prestige, however, has been tarnished by the leak of hundreds of posts from an internal messaging forum. These are evidence of doctors basing their surgery, even on young people, on trial and error, not on medical research. The internet went wild over the leak. The Times of London called WPATH quack medicine, and Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Lauren Schwartz, MD stated: "WPATH has evolved into one of the most egregious disfigurements of medical practice our profession has ever encountered."
However, the real scandal emerges not just in leaks of confidential discussions but in what is publicly known about WPATH's authorized procedures. The word "kinky" comes to mind over and over again. I wonder if President Joe Biden had these in mind in his message to the trans community on Easter Sunday: "You are loved. You are heard. You are understood. You belong. You are America, and my entire Administration and I have your back."