On Jan. 28, 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order entitled "Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” That it was one of Trump's first executive orders shows the importance the president attached to protecting children from gender warriors who see foot soldiers for their cause when they look at a child.
The EO barred insurance coverage for pediatric sex-trait modification and barred hospitals from dispensing such care. The order also directed the Department of Health and Human Services to "publish a review of the existing literature on best practices for promoting the health of children who assert gender dysphoria, rapid-onset gender dysphoria, or other identity-based confusion."
For the first time, a hard scientific approach to reviewing treatments for gender dysphoria would be undertaken. That study was concluded last week and has some startling conclusions.
“Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices” is already being compared by some to the groundbreaking study on gender-affirming care in young people conducted in the United Kingdom known as the Cass Review.
In 2020, Baroness Hillary Cass was appointed to lead the independent Cass Review for the National Health Service (NHS) into gender identity services for children and young people. Her recommendations and observations revolutionized the treatment of children with gender dysphoria.
The Cass review examined 9,000 cases of gender dysphoria in children and made some startling observations.
"The report included a variety of recommendations to improve care but concluded that 'for most young people, a medical pathway will not be the best way to manage their gender-related distress,'" reported The Dispatch. Accordingly, the NHS reversed its long-running practice of prescribing puberty-suppressing hormones (PSH) as routine treatment for children.
The report also concluded "that there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of PSH to make the treatment routinely available at this time,” the NHS said.
This report, published more than a year ago, was completely ignored by the American gender care medical establishment.
"This is an area of remarkably weak evidence, and yet results of studies are exaggerated or misrepresented by people on all sides of the debate to support their viewpoint. The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress," Cass writes in the foreword of the review.
It's a devastating indictment of gender care for kids. The study debunks almost every common myth advanced by the transgender fanatics, including the idea that if kids don't get care, they'll kill themselves.
Colin Wright of City Journal examined the HHS report and found similar conclusions.
The report’s central findings are clear and direct: gender-affirming interventions such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries are supported only by low- or very low-quality evidence, while the potential for irreversible harm is substantial. Risks include sterility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone-density and brain development, psychiatric comorbidities, and surgical complications. The report rejects claims that gender transition reduces suicidality, finding no high-quality evidence to support this oft-repeated assertion. In line with international reviews, it concludes that psychotherapy should be the first-line treatment for youth with gender dysphoria.
This is very much in line with the Cass report, as well as other studies done in countries like Sweden, Finland, and Norway. What the gender fanatics ignore is that almost all the children examined in the Cass Review were suffering from "comorbidities," or several mental health challenges at the same time. Depression, self-harm, eating disorders, and serious obsessive-compulsive behavioral problems. Treating those mental health issues first often made PSH unnecessary.
Naturally, the gender medicine establishment is up in arms about the challenge to their lucrative practices. They claim the HHS report is ideologically biased and in tune with the Trump administration's views.
The second criticism, that the report is politically biased, mistakes correlation for causation. Just because the report’s conclusions align with the Trump administration’s policies does not mean that they are politically motivated. The relevant question is whether the arguments and citations within the report follow the principles of evidence-based medicine. As Canadian commentator Peter Sim noted in his balanced review, the conclusions are consistent with multiple international reviews, and the timing reflects the administration’s desire to make existing evidence available to the public.
Neuroscientist James Cantor wrote on X in response to critics of the HHS study, “Nothing says ‘I don’t know how evidence-based medicine works’ louder than the demand to ‘consider the totality of available data.’”
"In evidence-based medicine (as in science), it is the 'quality' and not the 'quantity' of studies that show the most likely accurate answer," he wrote.
The HHS report "conducted a systematic review of the existing systematic reviews" and concluded that "the evidence supporting pediatric gender transition remains weak and uncertain," writes Wright.
Meanwhile, thousands of U.S. children are being given dangerous drugs that could scar them for life. But the tide is finally turning.
If it forces some doctors, especially parents, to think twice about these treatments, the pace of change will accelerate.
