The Florida Health Department recently rejected a call to expand Medicaid coverage for those who wish to seek experimental “gender-affirming care,” which includes puberty blockers and physical “reassignment” procedures, because of the harmful long-term effects. So-called experts, however, say Florida’s decision is unscientific.
Florida’s program would exclude puberty blockers, hormonal therapy, “gender reassignment” surgeries, such as mastectomies and penectomies, and “any other procedures that alter primary or secondary sexual characteristics” from state-sanctioned Medicaid coverage. These treatments, the state argued, are not medically necessary to treat gender dysphoria.
The state is right, of course. Indeed, several studies have found that more than 70% of young adults who struggle with gender dysphoria at a young age grow out of it with time without any treatment at all. Moreover, as the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration noted, prescribed treatments for gender dysphoria “are not consistent with generally accepted professional medical standards and are experimental and investigational with the potential for harmful long term effects.”
Instead of acknowledging Florida officials’ concerns and addressing the substance of their arguments, the scientific and medical communities have responded to Florida’s decision by pushing arguments that defy both scientific data and common sense. Various professors at Yale University, the University of Alabama, and the University of Texas Southwestern, for example, released a report dismissing Florida’s evidence as “so thoroughly flawed and biased that it deserves no scientific weight.” They claim that “gender-affirming” care and social transition are medically necessary because, without it, gender-confused persons are more likely to suffer from depression or even take their own lives.
However, there is plenty of evidence that proves the exact opposite. One recent Heritage Foundation study found that “gender-affirming care” actually increases the risk of suicide among young people. Christel de Blok of Amsterdam University Medical Center echoed this finding when she told Medpage Today that the “mortality risk was higher in transgender people who started gender-affirming hormone treatment in the past two decades.”
These results shouldn’t come as a surprise. “Gender-affirming care” goes directly against the laws of nature. It is irreversible and deeply harmful, not least to those who subject themselves to it.
The fact that our scientific experts are pushing it so aggressively, and even attacking those who raise reasonable concerns about its long-term effects, reveals just how superficial their expertise is. They’ve discredited themselves, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.
Esther Wickham is a summer 2022 Washington Examiner fellow.
