Biden administration officials politically pressured World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) members to remove minimum age limits from its care standards, according to Attorney General Steve Marshall.
1819 News reported recently on newly unsealed documents in a lawsuit against Alabama's transgender surgery ban for minors revealed the Biden administration lobbied against including minimum age requirements in the WPATH standards of care for surgeries.
One of those documents showed internal communications of unnamed WPATH members developing a standard of care guidelines discussing lobbying efforts in 2022 from Biden administration officials such as transgender Admiral Rachel Levine, who serves as the 17th Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Biden's cabinet.
WPATH guidance originally recommended age minimums of 14 for hormone treatment, 15 for mastectomies, 16 for breast augmentation and 17 for genital surgeries. However, later guidance from the group included no age minimums.
The Department of Justice is requesting that the Alabama case be stayed or paused while the U.S. Supreme Court hears a similar case from Tennessee. Marshall filed a motion opposing the stay on Wednesday.
"The Supreme Court deserves to know the full story, but the United States seems intent on telling just a piece of it," Marshall said in a filing on Wednesday. "When the United States sought Supreme Court review, it chose its vehicle carefully: a case arising out of a preliminary injunction with a very limited evidentiary record. Then it told the Supreme Court that "overwhelming evidence establishes that … puberty blockers and hormones directly and substantially improve[] the physical and psychological wellbeing of transgender adolescents with gender dysphoria." And it placed at the center of that claim the purported reliability of WPATH's "evidence-based practice guidelines for the treatment of gender dysphoria." As discovery in this case has revealed, these claims are false. As discovery has also revealed, the United States has long known these claims are false. Among much else that was uncovered is the undisputed fact that the United States itself pressured WPATH to make changes to its Standards of Care 8 (SOC-8) based purely on political considerations.
He continued, "Given this discovery, it is no wonder the United States rushed to the Supreme Court with a case without a robust evidentiary record—and then immediately tried to shut this case down."
"Nor is it any wonder that Plaintiffs—having initially rushed to this Court demanding emergency injunctive relief—now seem content with the status quo for at least another year," Marshall added.
Opposing Stay by Caleb Taylor on Scribd
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email caleb.taylor@1819News.com.
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