The Economist calls for caution on gender in favor of an apolitical science

“For many Americans, the great tragedy of trans rights it’s the story of how Republican governors and state legislatures are stigmatizing some of society’s most abused people, too often cynically seeking votes. This newspaper shares their dismay at these vicious tactics. In a free society it is not up to the government to tell adults how to live and dress, what pronouns to use or what to do with their bodies. However, within that first tragedy there seems to be a second one, this time a well-intentioned tragedy. Thus the Economist dedicates the cover story and a substantial dossier to transgender minors, one of the most taboo topics of our time. On different sides of the Atlantic, Medical experts have weighed the evidence for treating children and adolescents with gender dysphoria. “This treatment is life changing and can lead to infertility. The consensus in America is that medical intervention and gender affirmation are helpful and should be more accessible. Across Europe several countries now believe that such interventions need further study and that, in the absence of evidence, they should be used sparingly. The Europeans are right.”

The English weekly therefore sides with prudence. One estimate found that there were over 42,000 new diagnoses of gender dysphoria in 2021, three times the number in 2017. Medical assistance provides drugs that block puberty and cross-sex hormones (testosterone for girls and estrogen for boys, used in an estimated 10 percent of cases). But also mastectomies and, very rarely in children under 18, the construction of genital surrogates from skin flaps or pieces of intestine. “The goal is to align the patient’s body with the way he thinks about himself.” The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP, the highest American body in charge of children’s health) established committee on “LGBT health and well-being” for “children with gender variation”. Four of the six committee members — Jason Rafferty, Brittany Allen, Michelle Forcier and Ilana Sherer — work in children’s clinics prescribing puberty blockers to ten-year-olds. The decision, which represents the official position of the AAP, was authored by a single physician, Rafferty, and has not been reviewed by anyone else within the organization. A veteran AAP doctor tells The Free Press of Bari Weiss: “The AAP thought trans people were the next civil rights crusade and they let themselves be fooled.”

The healthcare systems of Great Britain, Finland, France, Norway and Sweden, the most avant-garde on gender in Europe, have aligned themselves against this line: everyone raised the alarm, calling the treatments “experimental” and inviting doctors to proceed with “great medical caution”. In London, the Tavistock clinic, the only one for gender reassignment of minors, has closed at the hands of the British health service. In Sweden, the Karolinska hospital in Stockholm has stopped treatment.
Twenty years ago, the typical patient was the male with a long history of dysphoria. Children and adolescents with psychological problems other than dysphoria were excluded from treatment. “These days most patients are teenage girls,” concludes the Economist. “And when medical personnel raise concerns they are vilified as transphobic and, in some cases, face personal and professional scorn. Medical science shouldn’t work that way.”

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• Giulio Meotti

• Giulio Meotti has been a journalist for «Il Foglio» since 2003. He is the author of numerous books, including We will not stop dancing. The untold stories of the martyrs of Israel (Capalbio Prize); They killed Charlie Hebdo; The end of Europe (Capri Prize); Israel. The last European state; The suicide of Western culture; God’s Tomb; Notre Dame burns; The Last Pope of the West? and Europe without Jews.