Minors in the U.S. have more access to transgender surgeries and treatments than any European country, according to a newly released study.
Researchers with Do No Harm analyzed laws in Europe and America and found minors in the U.S. can more easily obtain puberty blockers, hormonal therapies, and sex-change surgeries than youths in European countries, Fox News reported.
Dr. William Malone, a board-certified endocrinologist, said America’s political environment makes it more difficult for doctors to criticize the use of unproven, off-label, and potentially risky medical interventions with many fearing political or societal condemnation.
“We are dealing with what may be the biggest medical and ethical scandal of modern times,” the doctor told Fox News. “Transgender medicine is big business, and youth who are transitioning today will be medical patients for life, for the next 60-plus years. Mental health among youth is at an all-time low, making them particularly vulnerable to solutions that suggest an ‘easy fix.’”
As the U.S. leans into transgender treatments for minors, the U.K. is heading in the opposite direction.
CBN News reported in July that England shut down its only dedicated gender identity clinic specifically for children and young people following reports such treatments are “not safe.”
The study found the “gender identity service” at Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust was rushing children into taking risky drugs and undergoing irreversible surgeries in the name of gender dysphoria, often bypassing treatment of mental health issues.
The report stated “brain maturation may be temporarily or permanently disrupted by puberty blockers, which could have significant impact on the ability to make complex risk-laden decisions, as well as possible longer-term neuropsychological consequences.”
Like the U.K., Sweden has also backed away from transgender treatments for minors.
The country’s National Board of Health and Welfare recently updated its treatment guidelines for children exhibiting symptoms of gender dysphoria, admitting “care has been characterized by both deficiencies in accessibility and a lack of knowledge about the results of the care,” reported CBN News.
Updates to Sweden’s policies came several months after the board halted prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to citizens under 18. The board is cutting back on performing mastectomies on minors, too.
Those findings made international headlines as President Joe Biden’s administration has argued vociferously that such life-altering procedures on minors should be covered by taxpayer dollars.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in December the White House supports using government funding for transgender procedures for minors and adults that healthcare providers deem “medically necessary.” Becerra once again repeated the leftist claim that such treatments are “life-saving,” according to CBN News.
And Biden, for his part, told transgender TikTok activist Dylan Mulvaney this fall that laws disallowing irreversible transgender surgeries on children are “outrageous” and “immoral.”