A major medical association, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), announced that it does not agree with so-called “gender-affirming care” for children.
The ASPS represents over 90% of plastic surgeons in the United States and Canada.
In a statement to Leor Sapir with the City Journal, the ASPS said it “has not endorsed any organization’s practice recommendations for the treatment of adolescents with gender dysphoria.” The association added that there is “considerable uncertainty as to the long-term efficacy for the use of chest and genital surgical interventions” and that “the existing evidence base is viewed as low quality/low certainty.”
The association noted that it is “reviewing and prioritizing several initiatives that best support evidence-based gender surgical care to provide guidance to plastic surgeons.”
Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Sheila Nazarian told the outlet that she has been “following the international debate on youth gender medicine for some time now and know we [in the U.S.] are far behind in recognizing the lack of evidence for long-term benefits, something that our European colleagues have done.”
Sapir emphasized on X that the association’s statement marked it as the “first major medical association to break from the consensus” over gender-related “care” for adolescents.
Earlier this year, Dr. Hilary Cass, Chair of the Independent Review of gender identity services for children and young people, submitted a report to England’s National Health Service (NHS) regarding gender-related medical care for minors.
“This is an area of remarkably weak evidence, and yet results of studies are exaggerated or misrepresented by people on all sides of the debate to support their viewpoint,” Cass explained. “The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.”
The UK also prohibited private clinics from prescribing puberty blockers to minors for three months, from June 3 through September 3.
