Australian clinicians have led an international team of authors warning of the likely “serious human cost” of unresolved tensions in medicine, politics and culture over gender identity and care of troubled teens amid a stark divide over gender-affirming care.
In an analysis of the worldwide split between a rights-based approach to treatment that continues to be pursued in Australia and a move by a host of nations towards evidence-based safeguards, the paper outlines growing international concerns over puberty blocker medicines.
The lead authors of the latest preprint are one-time senior clinicians at the gender clinic at the Children’s Hospital Westmead, psychiatrist Kasia Kozlowska and endocrinologist Geoffrey Ambler. They are among a group of NSW clinicians who moved away from gender-affirming care at Westmead in the wake of their professional disquiet over the lack of evidence for the use of hormone treatments in children and concerns at rates of desistance and uncertainty over long-term safety.
Source: ‘Human cost’ warning in gender identity healthcare row