An unsealed court document has revealed that a top health official within the administration of President Joe Biden successfully pressured the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) to drop age limit guidelines for transgender procedures.
The WPATH, an international transgender health nonprofit organization, initially drafted guidelines in 2021 with a proposed age minimum for various procedures: 17 for genital surgeries and hysterectomies; 16 for breast augmentation and facial surgeries; 15 for mastectomies; and 14 for hormonal treatments. However, the finalized guidelines and WPATH’s eighth edition of its standards of care, released in September 2022, had no age limits for transgender procedures.
This was revealed in a lawsuit filed in Alabama court by the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of five transgender children and their families contesting the state’s ban on transgender surgeries. The lawsuit uncovered emails detailing the interactions between WPATH’s advisory group and Sarah Boateng, then chief of staff to Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
One email indicated Boateng’s belief that specifying ages under 18 could lead to “devastating legislation for trans care.” Another email stressed Levine’s fear that the WPATH’s 2021 draft would make it difficult for American transgender youths to get access to the procedures.
“We sent the document to Admiral Levine … She liked the SOC-8 very much, but she was very concerned that having ages (mainly for surgery) will affect access to health care for trans youth and maybe adults too,” a WPATH member wrote in one internal email released by James Cantor, a psychologist and critic of adolescent transgender procedures, who submitted the emails as evidence to support Alabama in the lawsuit.
Hellbound and Down 