(Daily Caller News Foundation) — The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it would not be issuing recommendations on “gender affirming care” for children or adolescents, citing the lack of scientific literature addressing it.
The WHO is in the process of developing guidelines for the “health of trans and gender diverse people,” but has declined to extend those guidelines to people under the age of 20, according to a Jan. 15 document released by the agency. Scientific findings on the long-term consequences of child sex changes are “limited and variable,” according to the WHO.
“The scope will cover adults only and not address the needs of children and adolescents, because on review, the evidence base for children and adolescents is limited and variable regarding the longer-term outcomes of gender affirming care for children and adolescents,” the document reads.
The WHO defines anyone between the ages of 10 and 19 as an adolescent, according to its website.
The organization’s guidelines focused on several areas including the “provision of gender-affirming care” and how the legal recognition of gender identity should be approached, according to its website. A Guideline Development Group appointed by the WHO will be responsible for formulating its guidance.
Of the 21 members of the panel, only eight are doctors and seven are transgender, Fox News Digital reported.
The WHO joins a growing body of international health authorities who have expressed increased skepticism of prescribing hormones and sex change surgeries to minors. Healthcare authorities in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Finland and France, among others, have recommended greater caution in providing child sex changes, according to U.S. News and World Report.
Many Republican-led jurisdictions in the United States have taken similar steps. Several states, including Florida, Texas, Arizona, Georgia and Montana, have all passed laws banning child sex changes, CNN reported.
President Joe Biden signed an executive order in June 2022 directing the Department of Health and Human Services to take “steps to address the barriers and exclusionary policies,” Politico reported.
A WHO spokesman told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the “FAQs you cited speak for themselves.”
