At the request of the English National Health Service, the senior pediatrician Hilary Cass has completed the most thorough consideration yet of this field, and her report calmly and carefully demolishes many common activist tropes. Puberty blockers do have side effects, Cass found. The evidence base for widely used treatments is “shaky.” Their safety and effectiveness are not settled science.
The report drew on extensive interviews with doctors, parents, and young people, as well as on a series of new, systematic literature reviews. Its publication marks a decisive turn away from the affirmative model of treatment, in line with similar moves in other European countries.
What Cass does feel confident in saying is this: When it comes to alleviating gender-related distress, “for the majority of young people, a medical pathway may not be the best way to achieve this.”
The Cass report’s findings also contradict the prevailing wisdom at many media outlets, some of which have uncritically repeated advocacy groups’ talking points.
Source: Britain Confronts the Shaky Evidence for Youth Gender Medicine – The Atlantic