The move comes after internal documents revealed that WPATH members had expressed doubts about the medicalization of trans minors.
The leading world medical organization devoted to transgender health care is citing a technical glitch after guidance urging invasive interventions for child gender dysphoria disappeared from its website.
The guidance, which has since been restored to the website, disappeared after records of internal discussions, released by the nonprofit Environmental Progress earlier this month, revealed that members of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) had admitted privately that gender-transition surgeries and hormone therapies are largely experimental and that minors struggle to give informed consent before undergoing the life-altering procedures.
“PLEASE BE ADVISED OUR WEBSITE IS CURRENTLY EXPERIENCING AN INTERNAL SYSTEM ISSUE AND WE ARE CURRENTLY WORKING TO RESTORE IT.
WPATH CONTINUES IT’S MISSION TO PROMOTE EVIDENCE BASED CARE, EDUCATION, RESEARCH, PUBLIC POLICY, AND RESPECT IN TRANSGENDER HEALTH,” reads a message at the top of the WPATH website.
WPATH’s Standards of Care 8 (SOC8) manual, released in 2022, advocates for adolescents who have received a diagnosis of “gender incongruence” to access puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries so long as they demonstrate “the emotional and cognitive maturity required to provide informed consent/assent for the treatment.” Behind closed doors, however, highly-credentialed WPATH members acknowledged that young people often lack the health literacy and maturity to grasp the gravity of the medical decisions they’re making and their possible ramifications, such as sterility, derailed sexual development, and general regret.
As of Tuesday, SOC8 had been removed from WPATH’s website, with the link to the document generating a “page not found” error message. The guidance had been available online as of Monday, according to internet archives. The name of WPATH’s president, Marci Bowers, also disappeared from the website.
Bowers featured prominently in the internal discussions revealed earlier this month.
In January 2022, Bowers said during a board meeting that the effects of puberty blockers on fertility and “the onset of orgasmic response” are not fully known. Boys who have their puberty blocked early can have “problematic surgical outcomes,” she said, and extreme difficulty climaxing.
Yet in public statements representing the institution, Bowers has claimed that opposition to child sex-change operations and pharmaceuticals is a threat to transgender existence. WPATH publishes rare but urgent blanket statements that lack the nuance and caution that its affiliated members have shared behind the scenes.
“Anti-transgender health care legislation is not about protections for children but about eliminating transgender persons on a micro and macro scale,” Bowers said in a May 2023 statement.
WPATH has boasted that many of its SOC8 medical contributors have been cited as authorities on the gender issue by outlets such as the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, the BBC, and most recently, 60 Minutes. For example, under the bio for Adrienne B. Hancock, PhD and associate professor at The George Washington University, WPATH notes she was called “a pioneer in the field” by the Post.
One of the most radical recommendations included in SOC8 was to reduce the age at which children can receive “puberty-blockers” and cross-sex hormones, advocating for the procedures to be made available to children once they reach the stage of puberty known as Tanner Stage 2, which some children reach as early as nine years old. The document also recommends relaxing age restrictions on sex-reassignment surgeries. Originally, WPATH had suggested age minimums, such as hormone treatment at 14 years old, mastectomies at 15 years old, breast augmentation and “facial feminization surgeries” at 16 years old, hysterectomies at 17 years old, and phalloplasties at 18 years old.
On September 15, 2022, however, WPATH issued a correction, striking the age guidance. This stealth scrubbing caught the attention of nonprofit Genspect, which advocates against the medicalization of gender-confused minors.
“Why were the suggested minimum ages for: cross-sex hormones, double mastectomy, breast implants, facial feminization surgery, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, vaginoplasty, hysterectomy, fronto-orbital remodeling, phalloplasty all removed just a few hours after you published SOC8?,” the organization tweeted.
WPATH’s former version of the guidance, SOC7, is still accessible. SOC7 pushed puberty blockers despite insufficient research demonstrating safety and efficacy and endorsed the “informed consent model of care,” which removes psychotherapy as a first resort and allows medical professionals to prescribe hormones at will. Released in 2011, SOC7 then forced the conclusion that mental-health struggles in transgender people are a result of “minority stress,” or stigmatization by society, rather than underlying psychiatric problems.
WPATH did not respond to a request for comment.
Multiple prestigious medical organizations follow WPATH’s guidance on youth gender transition. WPATH’s gender-affirmative standard of care has been endorsed by the professional medical organizations and agencies such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the Endocrine Society, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Population Affairs.
Editor’s Note: This post has been updated to reflect WPATH’s claim that the SOC8 guidance disappeared from its website due to a technical glitch.