The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed by Julia Mason and Leor Sapir criticizing an American Academy of Pediatrics study containing the dubious claim that social contagion is not a factor in explaining the rise of trans-identifying youth. Yesterday, the president of the AAP, Moira Szilagyi, replied in the Journal’s letters section.
Rather surprisingly, Szilagyi stated that the AAP “doesn’t push medical treatments or surgery” but rather “for the vast majority of children, it recommends the opposite.” One can only presume that she means “the opposite” to be non-invasive talk therapies. If so, that is a major point of clarification since the AAP policy is often cited by transgender activists to justify the expansion of medicalized gender transitions for minors. Moreover, in its 2018 policy paper, the AAP dismissed “watchful waiting” as “outdated” and smeared evidence-based talk therapies as “conversion therapy.”
Szilagyi argues that the U.K. “isn’t moving away from gender-affirming care. It is moving toward a more regional, multidisciplinary approach, similar to what is practiced in the U.S.” While it is true that the U.K. has not banned medicalized gender transition for minors outright, such treatment has been disincentivized by the closure of its main gender youth clinic over safety concerns, in addition to high-profile malpractice lawsuits from the clinic’s former patients.
But it is misleading to suggest that the decentralized approach will mean the U.K.’s new approach will be “similar to what is practiced in the US.” Decentralization does not mean privatization, nor does it mean less regulation. The “regional, multidisciplinary approach” will still be under the purview of the National Health Service. Moreover, unlike in the U.S., the U.K.’s new model will focus on gender dysphoric patients’ comprehensive mental-health issues, not merely on their identity (as in the “gender-affirming” model) nor meeting patient expectations (as in the U.S., where “the customer is always right”).