President Donald Trump signed a wide executive order aimed at medical care related to the transition for minors on Tuesday.
The order, entitled “Protect children from chemical and surgical mutilation”, intends to restrict access to medical care that gender states, including puberty blockers, hormonal therapy and surgery, for minors , which defines as those under 19 years.
It prohibits federal financing to cover such attention to minors, restricts research and education subsidies to medical schools and hospitals, and addresses the Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue regulations to put an end to such attention for minors.
The order also orders all federal agencies to terminate the orientation of the World Association for Transgender Health, or WPath, a non -profit association dedicated to transgender medical care that issues an orientation widely used by health professionals .
“Throughout the country today, medical professionals are mutilating and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false statement that adults can change the sex of a child through a series of irreversible medical interventions,” the Executive order, using inflammatory language to describe medical care related to the transition.
The order establishes that more children will regret having received such attention and that “they are often trapped with medical complications for life” and sterilization.
“Consequently, it is the policy of the United States that will not finance, sponsor, promote, help or support the so -called” transition “of one child from one sex to another, and will rigorly comply with all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive procedures And of alteration of life, “says order.
Lambda Legal, a LGBTQ legal defense group promised to fight the executive order in a statement on Tuesday.
“This part of the transgender young people condemned to extreme and unnecessary pain and suffering, and their parents to agonized uselessness in the care of their child, all by denying them access to the same medically recommended medical care that is easily available for their classmates Cisgenero, “Lambda said,” Lambda said legal lawyer Omar González-Pagan, referring to the fact that the order does not seem to prohibit puberty blockers, hormonal therapy or similar surgeries for minors that are not transgender.
Attention related to the transition for minors has dominated the holders in recent years, with 26 states that approve laws that restrict such attention. However, recent investigations have shown that a small number of minors really access this type of attention. A study published in Jama Pediatrics in January found that less than 0.1% of adolescents with private insurance in the US. They are transgender or gender and are prescribed puberty blockers or hormones that affirm gender.
Trans minors are treated by case and are legally obliged to receive the consent of their parents or guardians to receive any medical intervention. Before a child begins puberty, medical standards developed by WPath and other medical organizations recommend that a child receive social therapy and transition, or change their hairstyle, clothing, name and pronouns.
Once a child begins puberty, the puberty blockers can begin if they have persistent gender dysphoria, which is the medical term for severe emotional anguish caused by misalignment between gender identity and the sex of birth. Teenagers can begin hormones between sex and, in rare cases, some older adolescents can receive a double mastectomy, where both breasts are eliminated.
Most of the main medical associations, such as the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychology Association, support access to transition care for minors and oppose restrictions.
A section of Trump's executive order, “configuration of the dependence on junk science”, specifically points to WPath, arguing that “it lacks scientific integrity” and directs the secretary of HHS to “publish a review of the existing literature on the literature on the Best practices to promote the health of children who affirm gender dysphoria, fast starting gender dysphoria or other identity -based confusion. “
“The secretary of the HHS, as appropriate and consistent with the applicable law, will use all the methods available to increase the quality of the data to guide the practices to improve the health of minors with gender dysphoria, gender dysphoria quickly U U Another identity -based confusion.
WPath did not immediately return a request for comments.
Half dozen studies in recent years have found that transition related to the transition improves the mental health of minors and reduces suicide rates. However, in December, the United Kingdom indefinitely prohibited new prescriptions of puberty blockers to treat minors for gender dysphoria. The prohibition followed an independent study in charge of the National Health Service of England that found that medical evidence for care related to minors was “remarkably weak.” The study has faced criticism from some researchers and activists.
