A major 2025 review from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — the Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices report — has now confirmed what Family First NZ has warned for years: the medical transition of children is being built on political pressure and ideologues, not sound science. This report, a crucial milestone in our understanding, sheds light on the risks, and those carrying the burden of that failure are vulnerable young children and people.
The just-released peer-reviewed study examined the medical dangers posed to children from attempts to change their biological sex. The report’s findings essentially line up with what other landmark reports and high-quality systematic reviews like the CASS Review have found – that the harms from sex-rejecting procedures — including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical operations — are significant, long-term, and too often ignored or inadequately monitored.
The president and chief counsel of the Child and Parental Rights Campaign, in light of this hallmark report in American medicine, noted,
“Children are not experiments. Parents are not bigots for wanting to protect their sons and daughters from irreversible harm. Today, the United States government finally said so out loud.”
The 410-page report reviewed evidence and best practices of treatments for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria, both in the US and in other international contexts, and found the following:
- The HHS review finds that paediatric medical transition rests on very weak evidence, carries significant potential for harm, and is being implemented in a clinical environment lacking adequate safeguards. Psychotherapy, not medicalisation, currently has the strongest ethical and evidentiary basis for care.
- Every high-quality systematic review in the world (Finland, Sweden, Norway, England’s Cass Review, and now HHS) rates the evidence for mental-health benefits of medical transition in minors as very low or low certainty.
- Harms from puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are not speculative—they are grounded in basic endocrinology and decades of adult medical data (sterility, sexual dysfunction, osteoporosis, cardiovascular events).
- Most children with “gender dysphoria” will naturally resolve their distress by the end of puberty if not socially or medically transitioned (historical desistance rates 60–90%; modern cohorts still show significant resolution when non-interventionist care is provided).
- Ethical conclusion: Medical intervention should be extremely rare and only related to the .02% of children born with a medically diagnosed disorder of sexual development (DSD). It should never be driven by ideology or misguided fear of short-term distress.
The report exposes what many clinicians have expressed privately and are now saying publicly – the apparent “consensus” is largely manufactured. The most influential guidelines, including WPATH’s SOC-8 and the Endocrine Society’s recommendations, are riddled with conflicts of interest, poor methodology, and — shockingly — evidence suppression. Even their own experts acknowledged that age minimums for hormones and surgeries were removed due to political pressure, not science. Unsurprisingly, the Endocrine Society, along with the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP), two of the leading voices in support of puberty blockers and other similar medical treatments, declined the invitation to peer-review the report.
Meanwhile, many of the world’s leading public health systems — the U.K., Sweden, Finland — have backtracked, reinstating psychotherapy as the first-line treatment and restricting medical interventions to research settings and calling for a more cautious approach. This includes our Ministry of Health conducting its own review of available evidence. This global consensus validates our concerns: the evidence is weak, low-quality and doesn’t hold.
The HHS report makes one thing crystal clear: the current model of “gender-affirming care” for children lacks robust evidence, and the risks, harms and consequences are too significant to ignore. We cannot continue down this path simply because we fear backlash.
We are glad to see New Zealand taking steps in the right direction, considering this issue. Taking a precautionary approach to caring for children and young people facing gender dysphoria is wise and loving – not unkind and cruel. Cruelty is subjecting our children to irreversible medical treatments. Denial of these harms is morally indefensible and beneath the dignity of any civil society.
The HHS review is a wake-up call for New Zealand.
Children are not protected by medical experimentation.
Truth is not established by silencing debate. Evidence matters. Ethics matter. Children matter.
Family First NZ remains committed to advocating — boldly and unapologetically — for a child-safety, evidence-based, cautious approach that safeguards the dignity of every child and brings back humanity and sanity to the conversation.
*Written by Family First staff writers*
