The “Science” of Gender Ideology Is Crumbling. What’s next?

One of the most effective weapons that proponents of gender ideology have traditionally wielded in support of their cause has been “consensus.”

When pressed to explain how blocking a young boy’s puberty or removing a teenage girl’s healthy breasts provides any medical or mental benefit, they often refer to a “consensus” of medical organizations and government agencies.

For example, in 2021, the American Medical Association (AMA) wrote to the National Governors Association concerning children who struggle with gender identity that, “Every major medical association in the United States recognizes the medical necessity of transition-related care for improving the physical and mental health of transgender people.”

Now, only five years later, the New York Times has reported that the AMA released a statement saying that “surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood.” This comes just one day after the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) courageously released guidance for their members stating that “gender-related” surgeries should wait until  a person is at least 19 years of age, and five days after detransitioner Fox Varian was awarded $2 million in a first-of-its-kind settlement from a medical malpractice lawsuit related to her own so-called “gender transition.”

An about-face like this makes one wonder what the AMA was basing its 2021 assertion on in the first place. Has the science really changed that much in five years?

The short answer is no. The science was never there to begin with.

But in light of a growing body of evidence, more people and organizations are saying out loud what common sense has told us all along: no child is born in the wrong body.

Has the science really changed?

While the so-called “consensus” has always been built on shoddy science, new research continues to make it even more glaring that transition drugs and procedures are not appropriate or helpful for minors.

International retreat on “gender affirming care”

European countries that had once embraced “gender affirming care” for minors have begun to reverse these policies.

• In Finland, for example, public health authorities stated in 2020 that “[i]n light of available evidence, gender reassignment of minors is an experimental practice.”
• In 2022, Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare concluded, “At group level (i.e. for the group of adolescents with gender dysphoria, as a whole), the National Board of Health and Welfare currently assesses that the risks of puberty blockers and gender-affirming treatment are likely to outweigh the expected benefits of these treatments.”
• In the U.K., a 2024 landmark review of the available research on the effect of these drugs and procedures by Dr. Hilary Cass “demonstrated the poor quality of the published studies, meaning there is not a reliable evidence base upon which to make clinical decisions, or for children and their families to make informed choices.” The Cass review, commissioned by the National Health Service in England, noted that “[t]he strengths and weaknesses of the evidence base on the care of children and young people are often misrepresented and overstated, both in scientific publications and social debate.”
• Even the World Health Organization updated its guidelines because the “evidence base for children and adolescents is limited and variable regarding the longer-term outcomes of gender affirming care for children and adolescents.”

Under the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued their own report in November 2025 stating, “Medical and surgical interventions for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria (GD) are widely promoted as essential and even lifesaving, yet the evidence base does not support strong conclusions about their effectiveness in improving mental health or reducing GD … Analysis of all available data described in this section of the Review suggests that the risk/benefit profile of medical and surgical interventions for children and adolescents with GD is unfavorable.”

Expert Report: Psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Levine

Dr. Stephen B. Levine is an expert in gender dysphoria and gender identity. Here’s what he concludes in his research.

Politicized science at WPATH

For years, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) has often been spoken of as one of the world’s leading authorities on so-called “gender medicine.” The organization’s “standards of care” have been widely looked to by doctors searching for guidance to help their young patients who may suffer from gender dysphoria.

But recently leaked internal discussions within WPATH and other whistleblowers have confirmed what critics have known and warned of for years: that those “standards of care” are neither scientific nor ethical. Rather, they constitute a politically and ideologically driven campaign that pushes harmful, experimental, unnecessary, and often irreversible medical interventions on confused children and adults.

Detransitioners

Another powerful piece of evidence is the growing number of detransitioners who regret undergoing so-called “gender transition” procedures—people like Prisha Mosley.

At 14, Prisha experienced severe trauma: she was sexually assaulted, became pregnant, and miscarried. By 15, she had been hospitalized for depression. At 16, she was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder and an eating disorder.

Despite this history, a medical resident concluded after a single appointment that she was experiencing a “gender identity crisis” and treated that as the central explanation for her distress. Rather than providing Prisha with loving support and real medical care, her pediatrician and counselor put her on testosterone, and at 18, doctors removed her healthy breasts.

In time, Prisha came to regret those decisions and detransitioned, embracing her female sex. But her voice remains permanently deepened, and she continues to experience the physical consequences of the drugs and surgery. Her body is in almost constant pain. Her breasts are permanently gone, which means that she can never breastfeed. She realized that she’d been lied to by those she trusted to care for her health. A corrupt medical establishment manipulated and forever changed the course of her life.

Studies have shown that the vast majority of children experiencing gender dysphoria who are allowed to progress naturally through puberty will find peace with their sex. But when a child is socially transitioned, more than 90 percent of children persist in their dysphoria.

Expert Report: Psychologist Dr. James Cantor

Dr. James Cantor lays out what the scientific evidence says (and doesn’t say) about the effects of ‘transitioning’ minors.

The house of cards is collapsing

In short, the “consensus” that our media, doctors, activists, and politicians rely upon is no consensus at all, and the house of cards is beginning to collapse. It was never based on proven science but on a commitment to destructive gender ideology. And structures built on ideology rather than reality have a way of folding on themselves.

These gaping cracks in the façade of gender ideology provide hope to those who have long been advocating for the truth—in the courtroom and in the culture:

• The truth that everyone is made in the image of God, male or female.
• The truth that no amount of cross-sex hormones or permanently damaging surgery can change a person’s sex.
• The truth that doctors have a duty to “do no harm,” and that includes being honest with patients about the facts regarding procedures that are mischaracterized as “gender affirming.”

Over the coming years, it is likely that we will see more malpractice lawsuits like Fox Varian’s go to trial and more juries awarding damages for the irreversible harm done by the medical establishment to vulnerable minors confused about their gender.

We will continue to pray that such events lead more medical bodies to halt so-called “gender-affirming medicine,” finally putting an end to one of the biggest scandals in twenty-first-century science.