The World Health Organization’s “one-sided” approach to developing new guidelines on transgender medical and gender transition medication is being criticized by the UN special envoy on violence against women and girls.
On January 4, Reem Alsalem criticized the working group’s content for its robust support of physiological and clinical care for gender dysphoria in a letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
According to Alsalem, “the majority of the [guideline development group] obviously have strong, one-sided views in favor of promoting physiological gender transition and constitutional recognition of self-assured gender.”
Not one of the 21-person group, according to Alsalem, “appears to represent a voice of caution for medicalizing youth with gender dysphoria or the protection of sexual health spaces.”
Before being appointed to her present position in 2021, Alsalem, an independent advisor to the U.N. on gender issues and gender-based violence, was originally from Cairo, Egypt. In August 2024, her brief tenure in office is expected to come to an end.
The safety and health of female transition medication, particularly for minors, has been questioned by a number of women’s rights and medical organizations in the US and Europe.
Contrary to other organizations like the Endocrine Society, an international group of doctors from Europe, Africa, and the United States emphasized in July that mental therapy should be the first line of treatment for gender dysphoric children.
Stronger evidence-based approaches to youth gender transition that also take into account disorders of gender dysphoria, such as autism, emotional pain, and same-sex attraction, have also been urged by authorities in Finland, Sweden, and England.
According to Alsalem, “the vast majority of people contacting gender-related services globally are then adolescents and younger adults who had no previous history of gender-related distress, and whose gender dysphoria appeared just after puberty in the context of complex mental illness and neurodiverse diagnoses.”
The WHO has been compiling the guidelines development group since June, but the content of the group wasn’t made public until late December, with only three days of public comment.
Ghebreyesus was urged by Alsalem to postpone commenting on the texture of the group until “at least the end of February 2024 for it to be meaningful.”
Alsalem’s email has not received a public response from the WHO, nor has the Washington Examiner been asked for comment.
