Critical Therapy Antidote

As regulatory bodies from across the world are waking up to the potential harm of medicalised gender-affirmative practice on minors, the conflict between responsible, evidence-based treatment of children and ideologically-inspired treatment by advocacy groups will only escalate. One such country in focus is South Africa.

We previously reported on the admirable work by First Do No Harm SA (FDNHSA) and the crucial issues they are bringing into public awareness. South Africa is behind the curve of the social contagion of transgender identification among youth. But, as elsewhere in the world, otherwise respectable organisations have stealthily been infiltrated by health- and reality-disavowing advocates in service of a quasi-religious ideology. Organisations who have opted for a simplistic ideological approach to gender distress include the South African Society of Psychiatrists who have endorsed WPATH’s Standards of Care version 8 in their position statement. Other organisations who have followed suit, despite the Cass Review, include the Southern Africa HIV Clinicians Society (SAHCS)’s Gender-Affirming Healthcare Guideline for South Africa and the Psychological Society of South Africa’s Guidelines for Working with Sexually and Gender-Diverse People. As Dr Hilary Cass and her team have found in their systematic review, these guidelines are recycled and reworked policies from pre-existing advocacy groups, who have themselves not adequately dealt with the evidence base of the treatment they are promoting.

Amidst this blind refusal to integrate the solidifying consensus forming across the globe on evidence-based care for trans-identifying youth, the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) released a short statement on 12 August 2024 stating that one of its regulatory boards had “noted a concern … on the off-label use of drugs on children with gender dysphoria.” It is expected that a clearer statement in this regard will be issued by the HPCSA. The full report on this development and the involvement of FDNHSA  and Our Duty South Africa in the non-ideological care and treatment of gender-distressed youth can be accessed here.