Nihilists, Man: WPATH Goes the Full Lebowski

To mix my movie metaphors: Wonderful thing, subpoenas. 

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) has made a serious turnaround in its public position on pediatric sex changes. For years, it established itself as the pre-eminent scientific voice on transgender transition therapies, and claimed that it had the standing to define the standard of care in that medical ‘discipline.’ The American medical establishment relied on WPATH as legal and political cover for pediatric sex change operations and chemical treatments.

Now that it faces action from the Federal Trade Commission for fraud, however, WPATH suddenly wants to wrap itself in the First Amendment. All of those claims about a scientific basis for chemical and surgical sex changes on children? That was just their opinion, man!

Call it the Full Lebowski. 

Leor Sapir makes it sound more like desperation at the City Journal:

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) now claims that its “standards of care” are merely one opinion in a debate over youth gender medicine. This marks a dramatic change for WPATH, which spent years promoting its approach as the only ethical one to help youth and adults who experience distress associated with their sexual embodiment.

WPATH makes this claim in a legal filing submitted in a lawsuit brought against it by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The federal agency alleges that WPATH has engaged in consumer fraud, specifically listing ten “deceptive claims” made by the defendant about the benefits and safety of medical interventions. According to WPATH, however, the claims in question “are non-actionable opinions about subjects on which there is medical and scientific uncertainty,” and as such protected under the First Amendment and not subject to FTC jurisdiction.

Ahem. WPATH did not just offer an opinion in the public square. They posed as medical experts and established themselves as the leading scientific experts on care in gender dysphoria. That is a professional and commercial claim, no different than entities that make claims that certify health benefits from snake-oil potions and unproven surgeries and therapies. The FTC has spent decades shutting down fraudsters in the medical field who use such organizations’ claims as cover for operations that damage and defraud their patients and customers. 

And also, the First Amendment does not indemnify entities from civil consequences of knowingly fraudulent claims and activities. WPATH’s own internal communications establish that fraud rather clearly, Sapir notes:

Assuming the FTC overcomes WPATH’s First Amendment defense, it has ample evidence to support its fraud allegation, much of it drawn from internal WPATH emails subpoenaed by the state of Alabama and published in 2024.

When developing its eighth and latest “Standards of Care” (SOC-8), WPATH commissioned systematic evidence reviews but then prevented their publication after learning that the results were disappointing. The published SOC-8 guideline asserts, however, that a systematic review for adolescent outcomes is “not possible.” WPATH also eliminated age minimums for hormones and surgeries for political reasons, ignored conflicts of interest among guideline authors, and admitted that its recommendations were designed to secure insurance coverage for expensive procedures and win lawsuits.

We wrote extensively about the collapse of WPATH’s claims after the Cass Report in 2024 exposed the utter lack of scientific support for sex changes, especially among children. As I wrote in December when 19 states sued HHS to reverse a rule barring Medicaid payments for pediatric sex-change therapies:

There is no evidence that pediatric sex-change therapies are either “safe” in the traditional do-no-harm sense, or “effective” in the sense of restored well-being. For nearly two years, all of the evidence has pointed in the opposite direction: that pediatric sex-change therapies in response to gender dysphoria do not improve outcomes for patients, and objectively speaking, does permanent damage to their bodies and mental health. The Cass Report in the UK is particularly damning, focusing not just on the destructive outcomes of these practices but the clear fact that they were never based on proper medical research in the first place. 

Claims that this met a proper “standard of care” in regard to US law and practice are entirely fraudulent. WPATH not only supported those claims, they actively campaigned to expand the practice to children as young as four years old before the Cass Report exposed the fraud. The activists at WPATH are in this fraud up to their gonads, and deserve the legal castration that’s coming to them. 

This isn’t a First Amendment issue. It’s a fraud issue, and now those behind the pediatric sex-change fraud want us to believe that they were just casual observers the whole time. Profiles in Courage, this ain’t. 

Say what you want about the tenets of WPATH and the predators trying to maim children for validation of radical transgender claims, dudes – at least it’s an ethos. Or at least it used to be. Now that it’s just an opinion, man, WPATH and the transgender radicals are exposed as the nihilists they truly are. (NSFW)

Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it’s spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there’s nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.

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