NEW YORK, February 2 (C-Fam) The Center for Family & Human Rights (C-Fam) has released a statement in response to the consideration of the World Health Organization and so-called “gender affirming care.”
Last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced its intention to develop a guideline on the provision of “gender affirming” care for “trans and gender diverse” people, wading into what is an increasingly controversial area of both medicine and law.
C-Fam responded to the WHO’s call for comments with a warning to the UN’s health agency of the potential harms of the project, urging them to discard the project “order to concentrate on the mission of the WHO to improve health care around the world.”
From the beginning, the guideline’s development appeared to be driven by extreme transgender activists—the same activists who in 2018 claimed credit for the WHO’s diagnostic manual being updated to stop classifying gender dysphoria as a mental illness. C-Fam’s comment notes that the guideline development group is populated by people who stand to gain financially or professionally from the transgender medical industry.
The WHO has repeatedly indicated that it includes “gender affirming” interventions as part of “sexual health,” and the guideline will likely include not only clinical information but also legal and policy instructions which will be used to pressure governments using the language of human rights.
The guideline will also focus on the training and education of health workers, raising concerns about the rights of doctors and other health care providers who object to “gender affirming” procedures as a matter of conscience.
C-Fam pointed out in its comment that “gender affirming” interventions are highly experimental, though potentially lucrative to health systems, as they channel patients into a lifelong course of hormones, as well as surgeries that are prone to serious and recurring complications. Furthermore, such interventions are hardly “therapeutic,” as they damage otherwise healthy bodily functions, ostensibly as a way to improve the patient’s mental health, despite the fact that the WHO now asserts that these patients are not suffering from a mental health disorder.
The evidence that “gender-affirming” care has long-term benefits to patients’ mental health is weak and highly disputed, despite activists’ assertions that the science is settled.
Similarly, the case for transgender identity as a matter of human rights is also highly controversial. To the extent that “gender” has been defined in international law, it has always been clearly linked to the binary understanding of male and female. While some UN human rights experts and committees have recently begun to pressure countries to legally recognize gender changes, including on the basis of self-identification alone, these claims are disputed by other UN human rights experts. Moreover, even if the independent experts operating under the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights were unanimous in favor of transgender identity and its legal recognition, their opinions are not legally binding on UN member states.
In 2022, the WHO published a guideline on abortion, urging the removal of all legal restrictions and reduced medical oversight, in collaboration with extreme abortion activists. The agency appears poised to do the same with regard to “gender affirming” medical interventions. If they will not reconsider their plan, which could have harmful consequences for many vulnerable people, including children, at least they have been warned.
View online at: https://c-fam.org/friday_fax/c-fam-warns-who-of-dangers-in-forthcoming-transgender-guidance/
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