Category: Health Care

The American Academy of Pediatrics, the nation’s premier association of pediatricians, plans to review the evidence for gender-affirming medical care and potentially amend its policies that help guide doctors and clinicians providing the treatment to transgender youth. 

The exact scope of the review has yet to be determined, but is expected to include an evaluation of medical interventions such as puberty blockers and hormones, which are in some cases used to delay puberty or boost physical features associated with a gender different from the patient’s sex at birth. 

The process, known as a systematic evidence review, typically looks at all relevant evidence behind any given treatment, adjusting for bias and other potential flaws. It will be conducted by an external organization, the AAP said. 

“I’ve changed my mind based on the evidence; it’s really not a pause for the vast majority of young people,” he said.

Dr. Stathis, who is medical director of Child and Youth Mental Health Service at Children’s Health Queensland, was referring to Dutch and English data showing that almost all of the young patients started on blockers went on to cross-sex hormones, which have irreversible effects. 

Blockers have often been promoted as a “no regrets” option giving a child time to mature and consider the weighty decision whether to progress to lifelong hormones.

Dr. Stathis, a child and adolescent psychiatrist who founded the gender clinic at the Queensland Children’s Hospital where patient numbers rose from 48 in 2014 to 635 in 2021, made the remarks on July 23 during a lengthy presentation at a conference of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) in Cairns, Queensland.

Dr. Stathis appears to be one of the first gender-affirming clinicians to publicly accept the findings of systematic reviews in Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom since 2019 that the evidence base for medical transition of minors is of low quality and very uncertain.