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The rapid proliferation of gender ideology over the past decade—especially the surge of adolescent-onset gender dysphoria—stands as one of the clearest examples of social contagion in modern Western societies. A clinical framework once reserved for a very small number of adults with persistent, childhood-onset dysphoria was transformed into a cultural mandate through the convergence of three forces: institutional capture, algorithm-driven identity formation, and activist-driven medical practice.
Between 2015 and the early 2020s, referrals for gender services exploded—driven overwhelmingly by teenage girls with no prior history of dysphoria. Peer-group clustering, sudden identity shifts following intense online exposure, and the complete inversion of historic sex ratios all point to a socially transmitted phenomenon rather than a newly discovered biological one. Yet under the “affirmation” model, minors were placed on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and permanent surgeries despite limited evidence, poorly understood risks, and a professional culture that increasingly discouraged clinical skepticism.
The hardest obstacle to unwind, however, will not be the institutions that enabled this shift. Policies can change, clinics can be restructured, and professional bodies can revise guidelines—as they already have across parts of Europe. The most immovable barrier will be parents. Many acted from compassion, social pressure, or a sincere desire to be “supportive,” but they now face an excruciating truth: they approved irreversible medical interventions on psychologically vulnerable teenagers during a developmental window historically marked by transient distress, identity confusion, and social sensitivity.
Double mastectomies on minors, lifetime fertility loss, and surgeries with complication rates exceeding anything considered acceptable elsewhere in medicine are not abstract debates. They are lived consequences. For parents, acknowledging error would require confronting a moral reality few can bear: that they were active participants in harming their own child. The human mind is built to avoid that revelation at all costs.
As a result, the detransition wave—real, growing, and increasingly documented—will face its fiercest resistance not from clinics or activists, but from within families. Parents will cling to the “lifesaving care” narrative long after the institutions that encouraged it have quietly retreated. They will reinterpret events to preserve psychic stability, even if doing so deepens the suffering of the child who must now live with the consequences.
Reversing the damage will require more than policy reform or legal accountability. It will require a public reckoning with the psychological mechanisms of self-deception, moral injury, and sunk-cost loyalty that allowed an entire society to medicate and operate on distressed adolescents in the name of affirmation. That reckoning—private, painful, and unavoidable—is the hardest part still to come.
References
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The Cass Review – Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People (Interim Report) — NHS-commissioned review (Feb 2022) by Dr. Hilary Cass. Sex Matters
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The Cass Review: Final Report (April 2024) — Hilary Cass’s full independent review. BASW+1
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NHS England: Public Consultation Analysis & Summary – Interim Clinical Policy on Puberty-Suppressing Hormones (Jan 2024) — analysis of feedback on proposed policy changes. NHS England
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Commission on Human Medicines (UK) Report – Proposed Restriction on GnRH Agonists for Under-18s — recommendation to restrict puberty blockers. GOV.UK
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Equality & Health Inequalities Impact Assessment (EHIA), NHS England — assessment of health-inequality risks from the policy change on puberty blockers. GOV.UK+1
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Karolinska Institutet Systematic Review on Hormonal Treatment in Youths (<18) — finds that GnRHa treatment should be considered experimental due to lack of long-term data. Karolinska Institutet News
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Karolinska Hospital Policy Statement (April 2021) — stops prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to minors under 16 except in research settings. Feminist Legal Clinic
Children are being harmed because medical practitioners are either ideologically captured or too scared to speak out against the grotesque medical experimentation undertaken in the name of transgender ideology.
The transgender debate revolves around thought terminating clichés being flung at people rather than actual arguments based on facts and evidence. “No debate”, “TWAW”, and of course “you don’t want trans people to exist!” are all meant to emotionally manipulate and coerce people into agreement or at least silence on the the matters of gender affirming care specifically, and transgender health care in general. This is why (trans) activists almost always take this route because the facts (and medical evidence) DO NOT support their position and said evidence often indicates a risk of significant iatrogenic harm for children and adults.
When talking with the gender religious another dodge they will use is puberty blockers are just being used in a small number of cases. Replace ‘puberty blockers’ with lobotomies or thalidomide treatments to see how well this argument holds up…
This tragic medical scandal is what happens when we allow medical decisions to be made on the basis of feelings and activism, as opposed to evidence based medicine.
GAC is being halted in the UK and across Europe – Canada needs to get its head out of the sand and rejoin the medical community that follows evidence based medicine instead of the strictures of transgender activism. Children’s lives are being ruined because of this quackery and it needs to stop.
The article quoted below by Maria Maynes describes the content of the study. Read the full article here.
“A new study has suggested that damage done by puberty blockers is permanent, casting doubt on claims by trans campaigners that the hormone drugs simply “pause” puberty and provide time for children who question their gender.
The preprint study from the Mayo Clinic, a world-renowned leader in medical research, found mild to severe atrophy in the testes and sperm of male children on puberty blockers. The authors of the groundbreaking study have expressed doubt about the “reversibility” of such blockers, a claim made by campaigners who promote the use of the drugs for gender dysphoric children.
Scientists at the world-renowned clinic who carried out the study found that puberty blockers can lead to fertility problems, withering testicles, and even cancer among children who take them. Authors found that puberty blockers hurt the development of testicles and sperm production in ways that cannot be fully reversed, with problems including impacting users’ ability to have children in adulthood.”
[…]
“The recently published preprint came ahead of the long-anticipated Cass Review in Britain, released on Wednesday, with the independent review warning that healthcare professionals felt afraid to discuss their views on transgender services for children. The report also found that there was no evidence that puberty blockers or hormone drugs “buy time to think” or reduce the suicide risk in children suffering from gender dysphoria.
The publication of the review by paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass has confirmed the NHS in England’s shift away from the medicalised treatment of children struggling with their gender, to one focused on talk therapy and support.
The Mayo Clinic preprint, although not yet peer-reviewed or published, suggests that some of the effects of puberty blockers on testes and sperm may not be reversible, sparking concern from leading medics.
Prof Ashley Grossman, a University of Oxford endocrinologist, has pointed to the study as proof that there is ‘no good evidence’ showing puberty blockers help children.
The endocrinologist highlighted the study, saying that the drugs are too risky to be given to the “greatly increased” number of adolescents who identify as transgender.
“Routine puberty blocking treatment for this use has not yet been adequately studied, and many of these children may have other problems for which they need help,’ he added, hinting at a growing body of evidence showing gender confused youngsters often have other, underlying mental health issues,” he said, as he pointed to the early data released by the Mayo Clinic in the preprint last month.
The UK last month joined the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Norway in a growing list of European nations to have either placed restrictions on or banned medical interventions for gender dysphoric children.”
We need to act now to stop this reckless experimentation on our children.
There is going to be an accountability crisis in our institutions. They have knowingly and actively participated in medical practices (Gender Affirming Care) that have little to no evidence of their efficacy and plenty of evidence of their harm.
The lawsuits are just around the corner as children are still being surgically mutilated and sterilized for life by medical professionals who decided to throw the notion of “do no harm” and “evidence based medicine” out the window in favour of dogmatic fact free ideologies (transgender ideology).
Tildeb is a frequent loquacious commenter here on DWR, but in this comment he really puts a fine point on what is about to happen in so many of our institutions here in Canada. I recommend you check out his work over at Questionable Motives. Tildeb writes:
“Now we get to find out who is actually ethical – and able to change their much ballyhooed ‘just-be-kind’ opinions and beliefs based on best evidence and facts to align with reality – and who is not. Let’s see who the ideologues really are, the modern day snake oil conmen.
We get to see the naked truth about those who remain dedicated to a lie: they are not concerned with what’s true nor are they able to use reality to judge their beliefs. They do so for some other reason… and they leave a trail of victims in their wake… a small price, apparently, to pay for them to feel oh-so-good about themselves.We get to see who is promoting even more deceit in order to maintain this incredibly selfish need to feel good about themselves over and above the basic health of children.
Children!
Now we get to see which of these ‘champions of social justice’ who have claimed they ‘support the science’ step up and actually do so by rejecting the lies of gender ideology. And we will see who is rejecting the science when reality is unable to align with what turns out to be a faith-based belief narrative about gender ideology with its harsh and condemning judgement of it, that implementing this ideology on vulnerable children – supported from the classrooms of the nation to our ‘best’ legal minds – is both scientifically incoherent/unjustifiable and medically cruel.
And we shall see why those who insist that they are concerned about the welfare and mental health of vulnerable children are not the ones acting against these kids’ best interests in the name of this pernicious pseudoscience but those who have been so widely condemned as ‘transphobes’ for their criticism of it.
Truth will win out in the end because reality is not a personal opinion or cherished belief. It is not altered by magical words, by playing linguistic games. It is there waiting to arbitrate our beliefs about it. The method to do so is called ‘science’ and it is uncompromising. And that’s why more of us need to support seeking what’s true and be humble enough to go along with its judgement about our beliefs rather than giving in and giving up to activists promoting this most recent example of hysterical popular delusions in the name of something else.”
Powerful stuff. Thank you Tildeb for your words.
This is big folks. The WPATH files show exactly how unscientific gender medicine is. It is a travesty that a ‘professional association’ could be so irresponsible. But see for yourself.
Transgender ideology is based on lies and emotional coercion. Very effective lies and coercion mind you – enough to make doctors forget about the “do no harm” part of their medical training and instead take up gender-woo and non evidence based medical practices.
So here it is – the beginning of the unraveling, and more importantly the beginning of the lawsuits for medical malpractice. The gender cult adherents are about to enter the FAFO phase of what happens when you let feelings supersede evidence based medicine.
Unfortunately, doctors, psychologists, and many other mental health professionals are deep within the folds of the gender-woo cult and will not leave willingly. The road ahead is long, but we are starting to make the trek back to reality and evidence based medicine.
March 4, 2024
Newly leaked files from within the leading global transgender healthcare body have revealed that the clinicians who shape how “gender medicine” is regulated and practiced around the world consistently violate medical ethics and informed consent. The files, which were leaked from within the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), were published today by the US-based think tank Environmental Progress.
WPATH is considered the leading global scientific and medical authority on “gender medicine,” and in recent decades, its Standards of Care have shaped the guidance, policies and practices of governments, medical associations, public health systems and private clinics across the world.
However, the WPATH Files reveal that the organization does not meet the standards of evidence-based medicine, and members frequently discuss improvising treatments as they go along. Members are fully aware that children and adolescents cannot comprehend the lifelong consequences of “gender-affirming care,” and in some cases, due to poor health literacy, neither can their parents.
“The WPATH Files show that what is called ‘gender medicine’ is neither science nor medicine,” said Michael Shellenberger, President and founder of Environmental Progress. “The experiments are not randomized, double-blind, or controlled. It’s not medicine since the first rule is to do no harm. And that requires informed consent.”
The raw files have been published in a report called The WPATH Files: Pseudoscientific surgical and hormonal experiments on children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults, which contains analysis by journalist Mia Hughes that puts the WPATH Files in the context of the best available science on gender distress.
Environmental Progress has made all files available to read at the end of the report. The leaked files include screenshots of posts from WPATH’s internal messaging forum dating from 2021 to 2024 and a video of an internal panel discussion. All names have been redacted other than several WPATH members of public significance, such as Dr. Marci Bowers, an American gynecologist and surgeon who is the President of WPATH, and the Canadian pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Daniel Metzger.
In the WPATH Files, members demonstrate a lack of consideration for long-term patient outcomes despite being aware of the debilitating and potentially fatal side effects of cross-sex hormones and other treatments. Messages in the files show that patients with severe mental health issues, such as schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder, and other vulnerabilities such as homelessness, are being allowed to consent to hormonal and surgical interventions. Members dismiss concerns about these patients and characterize efforts to protect them as unnecessary “gatekeeping.”
The files provide clear evidence that doctors and therapists are aware they are offering minors life-changing treatments they cannot fully understand. WPATH members know that puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries will cause infertility and other complications, including cancer and pelvic floor dysfunction. Yet they consider life-altering medical interventions for young patients, including vaginoplasty for a 14-year-old and hormones for a developmentally delayed 13-year-old.
The WPATH Files also show how far medical experiments in gender medicine have gone, with discussions about surgeons performing “nullification” and other extreme body modification procedures to create body types that do not exist in nature.
A growing number of medical and psychiatric professionals say the promotion of pseudoscientific surgical and hormonal experiments is a global medical scandal that compares to major incidents of medical malpractice in history, such as lobotomies and ovariotomies.
“Activist members of WPATH know that the so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ they provide can result in life-long complications and sterility and that their patients do not understand the implications, such as loss of sexual function and the ability to experience orgasm,” Shellenberger said. “These leaked files show overwhelming evidence that the professionals within WPATH know that they are not getting consent from children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults, or their caregivers.”
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