Activist Group WPATH Influences Judgment in Case of Prisoner Receiving Trans Surgery
This is Part 2 of a three-part series examining why an Indiana judge found taxpayers should pay for an incarcerated man’s transgender surgery. Part 1 explored the inmates’ history, factors that disqualify him from receiving transgender surgery, and contradictions in his psychiatric evaluations. Part 2 and 3 evaluate the way corrupt “gender-affirming” operators influenced the judge’s ruling.
Federal District Judge Richard L. Young ordered Indiana taxpayers to fund a gender confused felon’s transgender “bottom” surgery by using a “gender affirming” activist organization to justify discarding evidence.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) describes itself as an “interdisciplinary professional and educational organization…engaging in clinical and academic research to develop evidence-based medicine and…promote a high quality of care for transsexual, transgender, and gender-nonconforming individuals.”
In reality, WPATH’s resources and publications amount to a blanket endorsement of transgender medical interventions at any age and in all circumstances. The organization’s members, affiliates and researchers have ideological and financial incentives to create and peddle these materials — regardless of their veracity.
WPATH is perhaps best known for its transgender Standards of Care (SoC), which cobble together so-called “best practices” for treating people with gender confusion. Judge Young explicitly relied on these standards to “reach [his] conclusions” in the case of Jonathan C. Richardson, a convicted murderer who requested the Indiana Department of Corrections provide him vaginoplasty and an orchiectomy.
In his 42-page ruling, Young deems the SoC “credible and reliable” based on “[their] widespread acceptance by other professional medical bodies.”
But WPATH’s SoC bear increasingly little resemblance to international guidelines governing transgender medical interventions.
WPATH’s most recent SoC, for instance, puts no age-limits on minors starting opposite-sex hormones and transgender surgical interventions — a dramatic shift from its previous versions.
In the same year, the U.K. National Health Service (NHS) stopped giving children and minors puberty blockers, writing, “There is not enough evidence of safety and clinical effectiveness.” Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and France — all former leaders of so-called gender affirming care — have also adopted more conservative policies regarding minors’ access to transgender medical interventions.
Dr. Stephen Levine, one of the experts in the Richardson case, testified that WPATH’s SoC “[do] not meet the rigorous standards required for standards of care.” A veteran psychiatrist specializing in “human sexual concerns,” Levine is eminently qualified to make this conclusion. He worked for WPATH’s predecessor, the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, until 2002.
The reason for his departure? He had come to the “regretful conclusion that the organization and its recommendations had become dominated by politics and ideology, rather than by scientific process as it was years earlier.”
Levine’s take did not sway Young from his evaluation of WPATH’s SoC as “credible and reliable.” Instead, the judge questioned Levine’s credibility, citing a previous court case calling the doctor an “outlier in the field of gender dysphoria.”
Young’s dogged trust in WPATH’s authority eventually led him to disqualify Levine’s testimony altogether. Levine was one of two experts that claimed Richardson would be a poor candidate for transgender surgery.
After reviewing Richardson’s medical records, Levine concluded opposite-sex hormones and therapy had adequately treated Richardson’s gender confusion. Instead of surgery, he suggested more time be invested in therapy exploring Richardson’s “sublimated masochism, underexplored erotic life, and willingness to manipulate and mislead doctors.”
Dr. Michael Farjellah, a psychologist, concurred, telling the court that Richardson’s borderline personality disorder disqualified him from going under the knife.
Young dismissed both Farjellah and Levine’s conclusions as “unpersuasive.”
Levine never met with Richardson, which Young wrote made his “opinions about [Richardson’s] eligibility for surgery…completely unpersuasive.” Farjellah did meet with Richardson online — but Young claimed the meeting didn’t count as a “surgical evaluation.” Young further objected to Farjellah’s qualifications, which didn’t include a specialty in gender dysphoria.
The judge found no fault in Levine’s qualifications — just his failure to affirm WPATH research. Young disqualified Levine’s testimony showing “gender affirming” surgery isn’t effective because Levine “ignored” studies “concerning the safety and efficacy of gender-confirming studies,” some of which are cited in WPATH’s SoC. Young ultimately concluded, “Dr. Levine’s conclusions are not rooted in reliable scientific methodology.”
Ironically, WPATH’s shoddy and exaggerated scientific claims are well-documented.
In her systematic review of the NHS’s “gender identity services,” Dr. Hilary Cass, a former president of the U.K.’s Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, wrote:
The WPATH Files, an examination of WPATH documents leaked earlier this year, further notes:
Outside WPATH and its allies, the science suggesting Richardson’s laundry list of mental health issues will improve is nonexistent. The “evidence” pedaled by WPATH is far from beyond reproach. By relying on WPATH as an objective resource, Young not only accepts shoddy research as fact but disqualifies expert testimony disagreeing with WPATH’s “when in doubt, get surgery” approach.
Unfortunately for Christians, conscientious objectors, and citizens who don’t want to pay for other people to harm themselves, Young’s bias in favor of WPATH only deepened after he heard from “experts” on WPATH’s payroll.
Read more about the astonishing double standard in Part 3. Coming soon.
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Additional Articles and Resources
The WPATH Files Exposes ‘Surgical and Hormonal Experiments on Children’
The WPATH Files – Transgender Interventions Are ‘Unethical Medical Experiments’
U.K.’s Review of Child Gender Policy Reveals Profound Failures That U.S. Still Defends
Denmark Joins Growing List of European Nations Limiting So-Called ‘Gender Affirming Care’
Do Not Fall for the ‘Affirm Them or They Will Die’ Lie
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