The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), which intends to represent the clinical and moral beliefs of 92% of board-certified plastic surgeons in America, differs from most but not all broader bodies within U.S. medicine on treating minors who identify as transgender.
The ASPS issued a statement to Fox News Digital noting that it “has not endorsed any organization’s practice recommendations for the treatment of adolescents with gender dysphoria.”
The group said there is “considerable uncertainty as to the long-term efficacy for the use of chest and genital surgical interventions” and that “the existing evidence base is viewed as low quality/low certainty.”
Leor Sapir, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute was shocked by ASPS´s position, saying “It’s somewhat unexpected that the plastic surgeons of all people would be the ones to stand up for evidence-based medicine and to say we have to be more careful and not just give people what they want, because plastic surgeons have the opposite reputation.”
“But when you think about it, it’s actually not that surprising, because the doctors who actually take the scalpel and cut into people, tend to have the heaviest sense of responsibility on their shoulders,” he added. “It’s understandable that they would be the ones who would want to know that what they’re doing, especially when it involves kids, is actually good, is not harming their patients.”
The US and Europe differ in their standards, which is consistent with new evidence. Conducted at the request of England’s National Health Service, that review suggested interventions for children and teenagers with gender dysphoria had not been shown to reduce or resolve their symptoms —or so claimed Pamela Paul in The New York Times.
Sapir pointed out that European countries have approached the problem differently from the U.S., where he said “evidence-based medicine” has sometimes been replaced by what might be called “eminence-based medicine. He opposed the consensus in favor of gender-affirming treatments and argued that it had been “manufactured,” based on weak evidence.
Although WPATH, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and United States Endocrine Society still advocate for gender-affirming care, this review speculates that WPATH was allegedly pressured by Rachel Levine crossing over to HHS as Assistant Secretary. The Cass Review contends several systematic reviews within Cochrane Library were suppressed and age minimums removed related to surgical policies since she joined.
From 2017 to 2023, — with some girls as young as just twelve and a half— maybe an estimated of between about five thousand to six thousand two hundred ninety-four minor surgery gender conversion fitted chest removing operations were done.
Dr. Richard Bosshardt, a board-certified plastic surgeon and ASPS member of more than thirty years thanked the organization for addressing gender-affirming care issues.
In a statement, he expressed concern and alarm at the wholesale embrace of unproven gender-affirming interventions for minors, saying, “As a proud member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons for over thirty years, a father of three, and a grandfather of six I have viewed the uncritical rush to embrace experimental gender-affirming care for minors with dismay and alarm. Those pushing for puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery on minors have grossly oversimplified something which is incredibly complex and poorly understood as though this is ‘settled science.’”
He also emphasized that, “To what extent are surgeons responsible for determining the medical propriety or necessity of these types of surgeries?” will grow in importance as the debate over “gender-affirming care” in the U.S. rages on.
