Improvisation and disregard for informed consent have guided the standard-setters behind Canadian gender medicine

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) promotes its standards of care (SOC) as a lodestar for the treatment of gender dysphoria. Its devotion to the “affirmation” transition model for gender-confused children, involving rapid introduction to hormones and surgery that allegedly prevent suicide, have long dictated policy in hospitals, health authorities and medical schools, including those in Canada.

Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.

Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.

Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.

Don't have an account? Create Account

Last week, WPATH was hit by a bombshell: the release of the “WPATH Files,” a collection of leaked internal communications between WPATH members from 2021 to 2024. The files were analyzed by Mia Hughes, a women’s rights activist, and published by investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger’s Environmental Progress.

In her summary of the 250-page report, Hughes states that “WPATH-affiliated health-care providers advocate for the destruction of healthy reproductive systems, the amputation of healthy breasts and the surgical removal of healthy genitals as the first and only line of treatment for minors and mentally ill people with gender dysphoria, eschewing any attempt to reconcile the patient with his or her birth sex.”

This, in spite of repeated admissions by WPATH health care professionals “that their practices are based on improvisation, that children cannot comprehend them and that the consent process is not ethical.” For example, one doctor shown in the WPATH files is revealed to tell colleagues in a video call that “most of the kids are nowhere in any kind of brain space to really, really, really talk about (fertility risks) in a serious........

© National Post