House lawmakers probe HHS on its backing of sex changes for kids

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 29, 2024 / 17:48 pm (CNA).

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability is launching an investigation after the Biden-Harris administration allegedly pressured an international health care organization to promote gender transition drugs and surgeries for minors.

“We are concerned that HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] officials, acting in their official capacity, inappropriately applied pressure for changes to international pediatric medical standards,” Lisa McClain, the chairwoman of the House Health Care and Financial Services subcommittee, said in a letter to HHS secretary Xavier Becerra. 

“The Biden administration’s advocacy for expanding the pool of vulnerable children subjected to life-altering procedures they may later regret is reprehensible,” McClain said.

The investigation comes after court documents suggested that Admiral Rachel Levine — President Joe Biden’s assistant secretary for health — pressured a major transgender health care organization to alter proposed guidelines.

According to internal emails, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) planned to issue guidelines that would have discouraged doctors from offering sex-change drugs and surgeries to young children. But following external pressure from Levine, the group eliminated the age-based suggestions altogether. 

“The reality that WPATH caved to make changes to child patient care recommendations based on blatant political motivations is a stain on the credibility of WPATH and its guidelines,” the letter read.

In internal emails, WPATH staff acknowledged that they lacked sufficient evidence to justify their final guidelines but still removed the age recommendations out of concern that Republicans would use the suggestions to justify legal restrictions on transgender drugs and surgeries for minors. 

“Officials applied this inappropriate pressure by urging for the removal of age limits that expands the pool of children and adolescents recommended for irreversible gender transition surgical procedures,” the letter read. “The committee requests documents and information from HHS to assist our investigation of this matter.”

The lawmakers requested documents that show the communications between Levine and all WPATH staff and a record of all calendar entries for Levine or other HHS staff that show meetings, briefings, and phone calls with WPATH staff. The committee also requested communications that Levine and other HHS staff had with other health care associations related to transgender drugs and surgeries for minors. 

Additionally, the lawmakers asked for documents related to internal HHS guidance about transgender drugs and surgeries for minors and related communications between HHS staff, the White House, and some congressional staff. 

Stanley Goldfarb, the chairman of Do No Harm — a medical association that opposes sex changes for minors — applauded the committee for “investigating the Biden administration’s attempt to subject children to life-altering, irreversible, experimental medical treatments.” 

“Admiral Levine’s pressuring of WPATH to remove age-based guidance for transgender surgeries is unacceptable and [puts] thousands of children in harm’s way,” Goldfarb told CNA. “Do No Harm continues to call on Levine to resign for putting politics before patients.”

In about half of the states in the country, doctors are still allowed to provide sex-change drugs and perform sex-change operations on minors, regardless of their age.