Family First NZ is calling on the government to halt gender affirmative treatment of minors and for a full inquiry into the long term effects and potential harms of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
The call comes in response to the release of internal files from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) which suggest that the practice of transgender medicine is neither scientific nor medical. Thousands of doctors worldwide rely on WPATH including our own Health NZ Te Whatu Ora – and it’s also pushed by the activist group PATHA in New Zealand.
The “WPATH FILES” include emails and messages from an internal discussion forum by doctors, as well as statements from a video call of WPATH members which was leaked.
As stated by the group who were leaked the WPATH Files, members demonstrate a lack of consideration for long-term patient outcomes despite being aware of the debilitating and potentially fatal side effects of cross-sex hormones and other treatments. Messages in the files show that patients with severe mental health issues, such as schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder, and other vulnerabilities such as homelessness, are being allowed to consent to hormonal and surgical interventions. Members dismiss concerns about these patients and characterise efforts to protect them as unnecessary “gatekeeping.”
The files provide clear evidence that doctors and therapists are aware they are offering minors life-changing treatments they cannot fully understand. WPATH members know that puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries will cause infertility and other complications, including cancer and pelvic floor dysfunction. Yet they consider life-altering medical interventions for young patients, including vaginoplasty for a 14-year-old and hormones for a developmentally delayed 13-year-old.
A growing number of medical and psychiatric professionals say the promotion of pseudoscientific surgical and hormonal experiments is a global medical scandal that compares to major incidents of medical malpractice in history, such as lobotomies and ovariotomies.
Guidelines for Gender Affirming Healthcare in Aotearoa New Zealand comes out of a group called PATHA. In their Guidelines document, they specifically say “WPATH is the international body responsible for producing standards of care… This guideline is not intended to replace the WPATH SOC but to present additional guidance for the provision of gender affirming healthcare in Aotearoa, New Zealand… WPATH SOC v7 guidelines provide internationally recognised standards and criteria for accessing gender affirming hormone treatment.”
Members of the Executive Committee and the Policy and Advocacy Committee of PATHA are members of WPATH and one of them is also a co-author of the latest revision of the WPATH Standards of Care.
Health NZ Te Whatu Ora says on their website – “For referral acceptance to be considered patients need to: meet the eligibility criteria set out in the Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People, published by The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) version seven.”
The most recent guidance from WPATH (version 8) suggested that if parents do not affirm their child’s newly chosen identity, the state may be enabled to intervene in order to assist with the child’s transition.
This new evidence from the WPATH files confirms what many parents and community leaders have been expressing concern about, and is a damning indictment on New Zealand’s approach to ‘transing’ our young people.
Family First will be writing to the Minister of Health to call for the immediate halt of the chemicalising of confused young people (puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, binding, tucking) in the name of gender ideology. These reviews are already happening in a number of other countries.
WPATH was considered the leading global authority on gender medicine – but it’s now been rightly exposed as the wild west of western medicine.
