Gender Disaffirmation and Sexual Mutilation, Part 4, What Other Countries Do

The US is increasingly an outlier in its ideologically driven embrace of gender disaffirming care. The Economist, which has become increasingly woke in general, is less enthusiastic about sexual mutilation, and has a good article and an accompanying editorial on the weakness of evidence to support these treatments, how they are being discouraged in many countries and how events in the US are driven more by cultural and ideological factions than actual benefit to children.   (Economist Article)

The home of the Economist, the UK, uncovered a scandal in its primary sexual mutilation treatment center and has now essentially ended treatment of children.  Norway, Finland and Sweden have joined in that limitation, based on lack of evidence of benefit.  (Norway Article)

Britain commissioned an independent review of these treatments for children, which again found little evidence to support them and noted the lack of mental health assessments in many cases.  The interim report tiptoes around, but it is clear that the real interests of patients were not being served and major changes were needed.  (Cass Interim Rpt.)

This brief review with lots of links to the larger evidence review pieces notes that there is not a single large-scale review of evidence on these treatements for children that found evidence of benefit and most found evidence of lack of benefit and serious risks.  References are included for Cochrane reviews, NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) and other evidence-based medicine reviews, including the Center for Evidence-Based Medicine.   The lack of benefit found in these reveiws is why countries have begun banning these treatments for children.  (SEGM Release)