New standards of transgender health care raise eyebrows

Controversial recommendations on everything from transition to castration

Supporters of transgender rights rally outside the Alabama State House in Montgomery, March 30, 2021. Alabama has moved to criminalize gender-affirming medical care for transgender young people, adopting some of the nation's most restrictive language and threatening doctors and nurses with up to 10 years in prison, in a legislative vote on April 7, 2022. (Nicole Craine/The New York Times)Credit: New York Times / Redux / eyevineFor further information please contact eyevinetel: +44 (0) 20 8709 8709e-mail: info@eyevine.comwww.eyevine.com

Sep 22nd 2022

As if more drama were needed in the gender wars, the public launch of the latest standards of care by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (wpath) on September 15th was a mess. Known as soc8, they originally included a list of minimum ages for treatments—14 for cross-sex hormones, 15 for removal of breasts, 17 for testicles. Hours later, a “correction” eliminated the age limits. The head of the drafting committee, Eli Coleman, said the publisher went ahead “without approval” before final changes were made.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Trans plans”