Damning new HHS report on so-called “gender-affirming care” 

HHS recommends psychotherapy (aka counseling) as the better, safer alternative to chemical and surgical mutilations

In November, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released a report on so-called “gender-affirming care” so damning that not even the top four medical organizations promoting chemical and surgical child mutilation could refute it.

The report comes not a moment too soon, as the U.S. Supreme Court is deciding whether states can ban Christian Change Counseling in Chiles v. Salazar. Liberty Counsel overturned 23 counseling bans in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, but more than 87 bans are still in effect nationwide. Liberty Counsel teed up this case for the High Court, and we have submitted our briefs for the Court’s consideration.

We need your help to win this case and save the children being purposefully deceived by a multibillion-dollar industry seeking to profit from their adolescent confusion. Every donation made to our legal fund today will be DOUBLED by a Year-End Challenge Grant.

Evidence-based medicine is the foundation of high-quality care. Yet, the current standard of care for gender-dysphoric children is not based on evidence at all, but rather primarily on the whims of cross-dressers like Joe Biden’s assistant secretary for health, Dr. Richard/Rachel Levine, and the “trans” folks on the board of WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health).

In one of the largest reviews of studies on childhood “trans” cases yet performed, the HHS found very little evidence to suggest that chemical and surgical mutilation of children is mentally or physically healthy, or even beneficial.

For years, groups like WPATH have claimed that failure to allow a child or adolescent “transition” (which is impossible) will cause the child to kill themselves. Yet the HHS report found serious flaws and outright deceptions in those claims.

What the HHS did find is that WPATH based its gender-bending ideals not on medicine but on politics.

For years, WPATH and the Endocrine Society promoted “gender transitioning” — permanent sex-rejecting procedures — as the only safe and effective method of treating gender dysphoria, claiming that gender-dysphoric children would die if not “transitioned” to the opposite sex.

But an independent review of the two organizations’ guidelines found that “WPATH suppressed systematic reviews its leaders believed would undermine its favored treatment approach.” WPATH’s “favored” approach is chemically and surgically sterilizing children. In an attempt to enforce their warped ideals, the organizations also routinely “violated” their own conflict-of-interest management requirements and scientific rigors to appease “political pressures.”

END the Christian Counseling bans!

“No independent association between gender dysphoria and suicidality has been found, and there is no evidence that pediatric medical transition reduces the incidence of suicide,” according to the HHS study.

Instead, the HHS study found: “The risks of pediatric medical transition include infertility/sterility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone density accrual, adverse cognitive impacts, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders, psychiatric disorders, surgical complications, and regret.”

However, according to the HHS, "A more robust evidence base supports psychotherapeutic approaches” (aka counseling). Such counseling is a safer “noninvasive alternative to endocrine and surgical interventions for the treatment of pediatric gender dysphoria.”

LGBTQ activists have managed to ban Christian counseling in many places by claiming this specialized psychotherapy is harmful. Yet the HHS found that “[s]ystematic reviews of evidence have found no evidence of adverse effects of psychotherapy in this context” (emphasis added).

The HHS delivered this study for peer review to the top three organizations in the United States that promote this nonsense, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and the Endocrine Society. Peer review is the process of evaluating research by other experts in the same field. It acts as a quality control measure to ensure that the research is sound, and that the published work is valid and up to academic and scientific standards.

Not one of the organizations could refute the HHS findings.

Now, thank God, the truth about how WPATH, the Endocrine Society, and high-dollar plastic surgeons that profit off of the promotion of childhood gender confusion is finally coming out, and so is the safety and efficacy of talk therapy, like Christian counseling, to guide children safely out of gender dysphoria.

But regardless of the HHS report, we still have a massive fight to win before the U.S. Supreme Court. More than 87 cities and states still ban this Christian counseling. This is not only a violation of doctor and patient rights, but these bans also run afoul of evidence-based medical science and the First Amendment. I believe we will win at the High Court, but then we will have to file suits in these cities and states to enforce this victory.

Help us save the next generation from the gender-benders’ trap. Help us overturn the Christian change counseling bans by supporting our legal fund today. Every donation made today will be DOUBLED in impact by a Year-End Challenge Grant.

Mat Staver
Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel