As Europe and Britain are coming to terms with evidence-based treatment of gender dysphoria in children, countries like Canada, the United States and South Africa, have been slow to respond to the evidence. The ideological infusion of every sphere of Western society with oppressor/oppressed identity politics has led to healthcare policies that are built on utopian ideals, and not hard science. Harm, even irreversible harm, has been the inevitable result of this.
In March 2024 we reported on the current status of the debate in South Africa. South Africa has been a melting pot of competing political and social ideologies for decades now, and it has become a fertile ground for popular but failed ideas from elsewhere in the world. This is also true of gender ideology. The two organisations that have spearheaded the unopposed proliferation of gender-affirmative practice in South Africa are the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society (SAHCS) and the Professional Association of Transgender Health of South Africa (PATHSA). In June 2024 two clinical psychologists of SAHCS published a critical discussion of the Cass Review and promoted their own Gender-Affirming Healthcare Guideline (GAHG). In response to this, First Do No Harm Southern Africa (FDNHSA) unpacked some of SAHCS’s claims, which highlighted some bizarre reinterpretations of the Cass Review and the poor evidence base of their Gender-Affirming Healthcare Guidelines:
“The article references the Cass review and makes a number of misleading statements about its findings. For example, ‘In South Africa, similar steps are needed to both expand gender-affirming care for youth and prevent the collapse of the existing, limited, services,’ implying that the Cass review suggested that ‘gender affirming care’ should be expanded for children.
“The Cass review does not recommend expanding gender-affirming care, medical or social transition, but rather recommends expanding support for children with psychological distress, of which gender confusion may be a component.”
Regarding SAHCS’s Guidelines, also included in Cass’s systematic review, it was found that “SAHCS GAHG scored poorly as a guideline. No reviewers recommended it for use, and it received scores of two or three out of a possible seven Also, it was noted that [gender-affirming] guidelines from around the world relied heavily on each other and this occurred for the SAHCS GAHG as well.”
Given that some professionals have built a career and a professional identity around ideologies that are now being exposed as illusory and even harmful, the disorientation and defensive strategies in response are certainly understandable.
The full article by Dr Allan Donkin, Prof. Reitze Rodseth and Dr Janet Giddy can be read in full here.
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