Much of America has turned a blind eye to how medical institutions in European nations have shifted away from transgender procedures, say doctors who are critical of the U.S. model.

Dr. Julia Mason, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), told The Epoch Times the push in the United States for transgender medical interventions on minors is “primarily political” and linked to profit-making.

“The United States is becoming more of an outlier every day,” Mason said. “Every country that has taken a serious look at the evidence has concluded that medical transition of children is experimental, and the evidence doesn’t support doing it.”

In recent years, leaders in the American health care industry like the AAP have ramped up the promotion and use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and even recommended gender transition surgeries for children.

But as President Joe Biden and blue states harden their political resolve to support what they call “gender-affirming” procedures as the only approach to treatment for the recent surge in gender dysphoria, red states are pushing back with legislation to protect minors from what many Americans see as child abuse.

The Wall Street Journal reported in May that 16 states restricted transgender medical interventions for minors this year, while 16 others introduced similar legislation.

In his remarks at the White House on June 8, Biden condemned attempts to ban sex-change surgeries and transgender medical interventions on children, calling such proposed legislation “cruel and callous.”

In stark contrast, European medical institutions in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and France are growing increasingly skeptical of what supporters call the “gender-affirmation model,” citing a dearth of evidence to show the benefits of such medical interventions for minors are worth the risks.

Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) announced on June 9 it would ban the use of puberty blockers on children, except in clinical trials. Meanwhile, an independent and systematic Cass Review last year led to the closure of the Tavistock Clinic in London.

In America, pushback from detransitioners and conservative, religious, and parental rights groups against gender ideology has triggered protests organized by trans activists including far-left Antifa militants.

Transgenderism, said Mason, has become “a political tribal marker” and a “wedge issue.”

“I’m a Democrat,” she said. “California is one of the most Democratic states, and being pro-transition, pro-transgender, pro-pediatric transition is a Democratic tribal marker, and so California is just leading the way on that topic for that reason.”

Many people are treating the gender-affirming model as though it were settled medical science, she said.

“We’re far from settled science, and it’s just getting more unsettled,” said Mason, noting a paper she wrote, “Far from Settled Science: a Call for Caution in the Care of Gender Dysphoric Youth,” was rejected by the Journal of Pediatrics about three years ago.

Mason, who is based in Oregon, has also drafted at resolution calling on the AAP to align its treatment recommendations for gender dysphoria with findings from systematic reviews of evidence. It states that as of February 2023, “there is no evidence that the AAP plans to conduct a systematic review of evidence related to gender dysphoria treatments, pursuant to the AAP’s Statements, Technological Supports and Manuals in Progress on its Section on LGBT Health and Wellness.”

Although nearly two dozen AAP fellows signed the resolution, Mason couldn’t find anyone in the organization’s leadership to co-sponsor it so it could be put to a vote.

“Nobody will do this,” she said.

Mason is also an adviser to Genspect, an international alliance of professionals, transgender people, detransitioners, parent groups and others that offers an alternative to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) standards of care, and a board member of the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, which promotes “ethical and evidence-informed healthcare” for children and young adults with gender dysphoria and opposes all transgender medical interventions on anyone under the age of 25.

While mature adults can make their own decisions, said Mason, she worries about vulnerable adults, especially those with undiagnosed autism, making life-altering decisions to transition.

“I don’t want to block all transition. I just think people should be made aware of what’s going on,” she said.

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) proposed legislation to block funding for children’s hospitals that offer “gender-affirming care”—such as surgeries, hormone therapy, and puberty blockers—medical interventions that he said aren’t backed by scientific data and “can cause serious irreversible damage” to children.

Crenshaw called the interventions on minors a “human rights atrocity … within the very institutions that should know better,” in a June 9 press release.

“In a place where ‘do no harm’ is the ultimate guiding principle, there is no excuse to ever perform these treatments that permanently alter a child’s physiology,” he said. “From now on, we will not allow a dime of this taxpayer-funded program to go toward children’s hospitals that cater to the harmful pseudoscience that is ‘gender affirming care.’”

At a recent congressional hearing, Crenshaw questioned Dr. Meredithe McNamara, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine and a Democrat witness, about criticisms over his proposal to bar funding.

“We keep hearing this is a politicized issue, this is manufacturing a culture war,” Crenshaw said. “I’ve got to say, we aren’t the ones who did that. We aren’t the ones that came up with this radical new movement that is performing permanent physiological changes to children with no evidence of any benefits. We didn’t start that. We’re just trying to stop it, because it’s crazy.”

He asked McNamara why there hasn’t been systematic reviews of gender-affirming care, considering the British Journal of Medicine looked at 61 systematic reviews and concluded “there is great uncertainty about the effects of puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and surgeries in young people.”

When Crenshaw asked McNamara to name even one study that can show strong evidence of the benefits of gender-affirming therapies, she appeared stumped for an answer, deferring to “standards of care” and the “quality evidence grading system.”

Crenshaw said taxpayer money shouldn’t be used to pay for gender-affirming care for minors when nearly 70 percent of Americans oppose it.

“This is the hill we’re going to die on,” he said, hinting that the gender transitioning of children could emerge as a major issue in the 2024 presidential election.

Earlier this month, the American Medical Association (AMA) passed an Endocrine Society resolution reaffirming its commitment “to protect access to evidence-based gender-affirming care for transgender and gender-diverse individuals.”

The resolution was co-sponsored by the AAP among other organizations, and suggested that policies and legislation that contradict the gender-affirming model “do not reflect the research landscape.”

“Due to widespread misinformation about medical care for transgender and gender-diverse teens, 18 states have passed laws or instituted policies banning gender-affirming care,” the society said in a statement. “These policies do not reflect the research landscape. More than 2,000 scientific studies have examined aspects of gender-affirming care since 1975.”

“As political attacks on gender-affirming care escalate, it is the responsibility of the medical community to speak out in support of evidence-based care. Medical decisions should be made by patients, their relatives and health care providers, not politicians,” according to the press release.

The AMA stated it is opposed to any criminal and legal penalties against patients seeking “gender-affirming care,” family members or guardians who support them in seeking such care, and health care facilities and clinicians who provide such care. Additionally, it will work with federal and state legislators to oppose such policies and collaborate with other organizations “to educate the Federation of State Medical Boards about the importance of gender-affirming care.”

The statement said the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Urological Association, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the American College of Physicians, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology, GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality, and AMA’s Medical Student Section co-sponsored the resolution.

The AMA pointed out the Endocrine Society stated that due to “widespread misinformation” about medical care for transgender and “gender-diverse” teens, 18 states have passed laws or instituted policies banning “gender-affirming care,” and that, according to the Human Rights Campaign, more than 30 percent of transgender youth live in states with such bans.

There are about 1.6 million people aged 13 and older in the United States who identify as transgender, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.

Dr. Michael Laidlaw, a California-based endocrinologist who works with adults, says medical organizations in the United States, including the Endocrine Society and AMA are “completely under the influence of the advocacy organization WPATH.”

Laidlaw said in an email to The Epoch Times that these organizations “show no ability for independent thought” with respect to the treatment of child and adolescent gender dysphoria.

“In contrast, institutions like NHS England in their recent guidance do not appear to reference WPATH at all and instead recommend psychosocial and psychological support and interventions,” he said.

Similarly, other European nations don’t seem beholden to WPATH’s approach, said Laidlaw, who is featured in the released docudrama, “Gender Transformation: The Untold Realities,” which exposes transgenderism and the gender ideology behind it.

“WPATH pushes kids down the path of harmful social transition, puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries even though the majority would have desisted by adulthood if not put on that pathway,” said Laidlaw. “Unfortunately, our American medical organizations care more about being politically correct than looking out for what’s best for kids.”

Dr. Jeff Barke, a primary care physician based in California’s Orange County and member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), told The Epoch Times the recent surge in support for the transgender movement is political and contrived.

“It’s not science. It is politics,” he said. “Europe is moving toward freedom … while we are headed toward more socialism and totalitarianism,” he said.

Barke contends that performing gender transition surgery on minors is a “grotesque” form of child abuse that “should be illegal.”

He suggested that euphemisms such as “top surgery” and “bottom surgery” were created to normalize these surgeries to make them seem benign, and less harmful or invasive.

Just as no surgeon would remove a healthy arm because a patient requested it, neither should they remove healthy breasts or genitals, he said.

He scoffed at the notion “gender-affirming care” is settled science.

“Gender-affirming care and the move towards that is new. This is not settled science. If it was settled science, where was it 100 years ago?” he asked rhetorically. “There is no such thing as settled science.”

Science, by definition, is experimentation, argument, debate, and discovery, Barke said.

Given the high rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide among transgender people, Barke argues that gender dysphoria should be treated as a mental health issue—and “not just simply affirming” patients and using hormones and surgery to “permanently dismantle” and “disfigure” them.

Puberty blockers also shouldn’t be used like a Band-Aid that can be put on or taken off, because they can have lifelong consequences for children, such as affecting their ability to go through puberty in the future and to reproduce, he said.

Another physician and AAP member, who goes by the pseudonym Dr. Grace Clark for fear of retaliation, told The Epoch Times she is deeply concerned about the “shocking and abysmal lack of interest” among America’s medical societies to review “gender-affirming” policies.

Clark said the AAP seems to be “doubling down” on gender-affirming care, and people who dissent from such policies have no recourse but legislation or the courts.

“That’s not where these kinds of things should be decided,” she said. “That’s a really heavy-handed way of figuring out the best medical way forward, but the American Academy of Pediatrics has been so unwilling to entertain a broader point of view.”

From a medical standpoint, Clark said she agrees with Republican views against the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for gender dysphoric children, but recommends focusing on the children instead of political goals.

“It’s become really political rather than medical,” Clark said. “Now, it seems like people on both sides are trying to score points. So, they’re trying to to use this topic for their benefit without actually thinking about what’s good for kids.”

Both Mason and Clark said that because many European countries have nationalized health care, they have a fiduciary responsibility to spend the public’s dollars wisely on medical programs that are evidence-based and subject to systematic reviews.

But in the United States, where health care is more profit-driven, it’s different, Mason said.

Government-run medicine, however, also has its downsides, with many medical professionals interpreting more socialized medical programs to mean every medical procedure should be covered, she said.

“People are interpreting Obamacare to mean … that you have to cover gender-affirming care,” Mason said. “I don’t know if that’s true, but that’s what everyone’s running with.”

A study comparing the United States with 11 European countries on legal requirements to change gender, provisions for medical transition, the minimum age for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and the number of youth gender clinics, found the United States to be “the most permissive” for legal medical gender transitioning of children. The report, released on Jan. 16, was conducted by Do No Harm, a group that seeks to remove “radical, diverse, and discriminatory ideology,” from the health care profession.