Transgender health care misinformation
[1][2] The claims have primarily relied on manufactured uncertainty generated by various conservative religious organizations, pseudoscientific or discredited researchers, and anti-trans activists.
[1] Elected officials in Central and South America have called for legislative bans on trans healthcare based on false claims.
[3] According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the hub of the pseudoscience movement is the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, which was closely related to Genspect and Therapy First.
[6] A Yale School of Medicine report described them as spreading "biased and unscientific content" and "without apparent ties to mainstream scientific or professional organizations".
[3] Other notable producers of anti-LGBTQ misinformation and disinformation include the evangelical organizations the Alliance Defending Freedom, American College of Pediatricians, and Family Research Council.
[4] "Detransition" refers to the cessation of gender-affirming care and does not necessarily require a reversal of transgender identity or regret for past transition.
[4][11] Former detransitioners Ky Schevers and Elisa Rae Shupe have detailed how they were recruited by organizations and activists who used their stories to limit transgender rights before they retransitioned and started working against them.
[17] The myth was primarily popularized in a commentary by James Cantor in 2020, who argued based on the outdated studies that most children diagnosed with gender dysphoria will grow up to be gay and lesbian adults if denied such care.
[4][8] Recent work has found the vast majority of pre-pubertal children who express transgender identities and socially transition with parental support continue to do so in adolescence.
[4][15] The American Psychological Association stated "misleading and unfounded narratives" such as "mischaracterizing gender dysphoria as a manifestation of traumatic stress or neurodivergence" have created a hostile perception for trans youth.
[15][20] Practitioners of GET frame medical transition as a last resort and argue their patient's gender dysphoria is caused by factors such as homophobia, social contagion, sexual trauma, and autism.
[27][6] In the 1980s and 1990s, Ray Blanchard developed a theory and typology of transfeminine people, classifying them all as either "homosexual transsexuals" – straight transgender women who are alleged to be homosexual men who transitioned to seduce straight men – or "autogynephilic transsexuals", who medically transition due to an alleged sexual fantasy or fetish of being a woman.
[28][29] It was popularized in 2003 by J. Michael Bailey in his book The Man Who Would Be Queen and heavily promoted by the far-right Human Biodiversity Institute of which Blanchard is a member.
It explained that younger children are supported in exploring their gender identity as needed, while medical interventions are reserved for older adolescents and adults and tailored individually "to maximize the time teenagers and their families have to make decisions about their transitions".
[55]In March 2024, NHS England instated restrictions on use of puberty blockers for the treatment of gender dysphoria in adolescents, only allowing them within clinical trials.
[56][57] As of February 2024, Mexican federal deputy Teresa Castell [es] of the conservative National Action Party had repeatedly claimed that gender dysphoria resulted from mental illness or perversion and required psychological treatment.
[59] In late September 2024 in Colombia, far-right groups and organizers who successfully lobbied against a national ban on conversion therapy spread a hoax that the Superintendent of Health had promoted genital surgeries for three year olds.
Despite fact checking from independent reporters, the President (Gustavo Petro), and the Superintendent of Health (Luis Carlos Leal), the hoax has continued to be popular.
[60] In Brazil in November 2024, many politicians and political candidates relied on anti-trans rhetoric and misinformation during their elections, including claims that transgender children don't exist or are being co-opted into being trans by advocacy organizations.
Multiple doctors known for peddling misinformation about transgender healthcare such as Stephen B. Levine and James Cantor in addition to various SPLC-designated anti-LGBTQ groups testified in support of the ban.
They argued the paper "treated gender diversity with an eerily familiar mix of pseudoscience and euphemistic, charged language, while publishing reporting on trans children that omits relevant information about its sources" and noted how its articles had been used to support anti-trans healthcare bans.
"[34] In February 2024, the American Psychological Association released a policy statement which included: [T]he spread of misleading and unfounded narratives that mischaracterize gender dysphoria and affirming care, likely resulting in further stigmatization, marginalization, and lack of access to psychological and medical supports for transgender, gender diverse, and nonbinary individuals [...] [T]he APA opposes state bans on gender-affirming care, which are contrary to the principles of evidence-based healthcare, human rights, and social justice, and which should be reconsidered in favor of policies that prioritize the well-being and autonomy of transgender, gender-diverse, and nonbinary individualsIn the same statement, the APA urged that the spread of disinformation be curbed via greater and more easily accessible scientific research, describing it as essential for protecting access to gender-affirming healthcare.
