German Medical Assembly calls for restricting trans surgeries, puberty blockers for minors
Germany's highest body of doctors has passed two resolutions related to gender dysphoria, one of which warns about the potentially life-long consequences of allowing youth to transition, as current guidelines being prepared by the government recommend an affirmative approach.
The 128th German Medical Assembly passed the resolutions earlier this month to limit trans surgeries or body-altering drugs for gender dysphoric minors to clinical trials, according to the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. The delegation is comprised of 250 delegates from 17 medical associations.
The body also called on the government to amend the planned self-determination law, according to the German news outlet Die Welt, which notes that current guidelines being prepared by the government under the direction of child psychiatrist Georg Romer recommend an affirmative approach that calls for treating people who claim to have been born "in the wrong body."
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In the first resolution, the medical assembly calls for the federal government to only permit minors under 18 to undergo body-altering procedures "in the context of controlled scientific studies" performed with "the involvement of a multidisciplinary team and a clinical ethics committee." The resolution, which passed with 120 votes, also clarified that these types of interventions can only be done after the diagnosis and treatment of other mental health conditions.
"The therapy results of any interventions of this kind must be followed up sociologically, medically, child and adolescent psychiatrically, socially and psychologically over a period of at least ten years and the evaluation results incorporated into the revision of the 'Guideline on gender incongruence and gender dysphoria in childhood and adolescence: diagnosis and treatment,'" the resolution stated.
The medical assembly referred to prescribing puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones for children as a form of "experimental medicine," noting that these types of interventions are usually followed by amputating a minor's genitals. As the resolution noted, this can lead to "the loss of reproductive capacity and the reduction of the sexual experience up to and including anorgasmia."
In addition, the resolution authors stressed that the administration of body-altering drugs and the performance of trans surgeries on minors "must not only be made dependent on the will of a developing child or a young person."
As a 2024 study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found, "gender or sex dissatisfaction is most common at around the age of eleven, and the frequency of this symptomatology then decreases with age. The clear majority of minors show no persistent gender or sex dissatisfaction over the course of their lives."
The second resolution, which the medical assembly adopted after 110 voted in favor, stated that minors should not be allowed to "self-identify" as the opposite sex without a consultation and diagnosis from a psychiatrist.
"From a medical, sexological and biological perspective, a person's gender is a reality that can be determined on the body and in the vast majority of cases is unambiguous, not freely available, but unchangeable," the second resolution states.
"Gender is biologically binary, and the concept is separate from that of gender identity. In rare cases, a person's subjectively perceived gender identity deviates from their objectively given physical gender. The Self- Determination Act attempts to find a solution to the associated internal conflict (gender incongruence) and a problem of primary procedural law by equating the category of gender under civil status law — logically inconclusive — with the psychological construct of 'gender identity.'"
Germany's resolutions comes not long after Dr. Hilary Cass, a pediatrician in England, published a study last month called "The Cass Review." The commissioning of the report happened amid an exponential rise of minors in the United Kingdom pursuing treatment for their gender dysphoria over the past decade.
Following the study's publication, the National Health Service advised gender clinics to implement a pause on first appointments for those under 18.
As Cass noted after reviewing national healthcare guidance, the evidence supporting puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for young people is "remarkably weak." She added that prescribing such hormones should be done with "extreme caution."
The American Academy of Pediatrics was one of the organizations that attempted to downplay the report's findings. In a statement to The New York Times, AAP President Dr. Ben Hoffman remarked that "Politicians have inserted themselves into the exam room, which is dangerous for both physicians and for families."
Cass told The Times that she "respectfully [disagrees] with [AAP] ... holding on to a position that is now demonstrated to be out of date by multiple systematic reviews."
"It wouldn't be too much of a problem if people were saying, 'This is clinical consensus, and we're not sure,'" Cass said. "But what some organizations are doing is doubling down on saying the evidence is good. And I think that's where you're misleading the public. You need to be honest about the strength of the evidence and say what you're going to do to improve it."
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
