Be quiet and defer to the experts

Oct 13th, 2021 | By
Category: Notes and Comment Blog

This is a medical issue, a scientific issue, all these outsider non-medical people shouldn’t be talking about it because they don’t have the expertise. WPATH says so.

The United States Professional Association for Transgender Health (USPATH) and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) stand behind the appropriate care of transgender and gender diverse youth, which includes, when indicated, the use of “puberty blockers” such as gonadotropin releasing hormone analogs and other medications to delay puberty, and, when indicated, the use of gender- affirming hormones such as estrogen or testosterone. Guidelines for the assessment of transgender and gender diverse youth, as well as for the use of pubertal delay and gender affirming hormone medications have been published by reputable professional bodies, including the Endocrine Society, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and the American Psychiatric Association.

USPATH and WPATH support scientific discussions on the use of pubertal delay and hormone therapy for transgender and gender diverse youth. We believe that such discussions should occur among experts and stakeholders in this area, based on scientific evidence, and in fora such as peer-reviewed journals or scientific conferences, and among colleagues and experts in the assessment and care of transgender and gender diverse youth. USPATH and WPATH oppose the use of the lay press, either impartial or of any political slant or viewpoint, as a forum for the scientific debate of these issues, or the politicization of these issues in any way

But wait. Yes we need medical expertise on medical issues – Anthony Fauci rather than Tucker Carlson, for instance. But there’s a step prior to that – a step where people decide what should be done about a psychological state currently called gender dysphoria. That step is not solely about medical expertise. Medical expertise can tell us what “pubertal delay” and “hormone therapy” will do, but it’s a much broader discussion that figures out whether anything should be done about gender dysphoria and whether or not the anything done should be medical as opposed to therapeutic or cognitive or social or an array of other approaches.

It’s not a purely medical judgement to say that puberty blockers will fix or alleviate the symptoms of gender dysphoria, because the category is broad and expansive and subjective.

In short the two groups with a vested interest in “treatment” of trans people have…a vested interest. They have a bias toward medical intervention, and there are other people and groups that have serious questions about whether medical intervention is always necessary, is ever necessary, does more good than harm, and so on. Those questions are not purely medical and cannot be closed to “the lay press” or the lay anyone else.

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