The Legislature was wise and compassionate to halt gender affirming treatments on minors.
Four years ago an adolescent female patient who was well known to me presented with confusing thoughts about her gender identity.
With a low dose of “tincture of time” and a few sessions with a psychologist the matter was resolved and we refocused on addressing underlying problems. I was largely uninformed about rapid onset gender dysphoria at that time but the matter stirred my interest so I began digging into the research.
The first thing I learned is that between 60-98% of such patients, if left alone, resolve their confusion and become comfortable in their biological sex by adulthood. My research eventually led me to a legislative committee hearing in January where I spoke on behalf of a bill ending affirming treatments on minor patients.
Not to be ignored are the seven in-depth literature reviews conducted within the last three years (UK, Finland Sweden, Switzerland etc) to evaluate the quality of evidence in published papers. They all have concluded that only low or very low quality evidence exists (“low” means the expected outcome is unlikely to occur).
Furthermore, 95-98% of the published papers are so poor they could not even be evaluated at all using the GRADE system for determining evidence quality.
By far the best research on suicide was published by the Swedes who followed up on almost all of their 324 patients completely transitioned between 1973-2003, an amazing 8-38 year follow-up (Dhejne, 2011). Compared to controls and among other poor outcomes, they were 19 times more likely to have committed suicide compared to nontransitioned controls. The threshold for increased suicide began
to appear at around year 10, thus demonstrating the uselessness of the growing pile of short term studies claiming benefits. The legislators and Gov. Spencer Cox are aware of these facts, and acted, not out of hate or malevolence as some gender confused people claim, but out of concern that struggling children in our state get effective, proven treatments. Finally, making false and incendiary accusations — such as legislators wanting them dead or erased (e.g., recent letter to the Public Forum), or calling it genocide — is way over the top and could lead to additional violent attacks such as the massacre, which occurred in Nashville where seven people lost their lives. Let’s have thoughtful, substantive debate on these complex matters which is what our state Legislature did.
David Boettger, MD, Holladay
