11 july 2024
WPATH Influence Undermines WHO’s Transgender Guidelines
WHO's inclusion of WPATH leaders involved in suppression of evidence sets a troubling context for the WHO effort
The World Health Organization (WHO) has reaffirmed its plans to issue a transgender and gender diverse (TGD) clinical practice guideline. Its prior announcements generated significant public concern from various stakeholders: clinician groups, LGBT groups, and parent groups. These groups raised three key issues (all of which remain unresolved).
First, the WHO guideline development group lacked intellectual diversity, with most members firmly committed to the notion that hormones should be widely available to all who want them. Second, WHO decided not to review the evidence for benefits and harms for hormones and their alternatives, instead focusing on the question of how best to promote widespread availability of cross-sex hormones. Third, women's rights advocates have noted that the mandate of the GDG includes promoting self-identification of gender in legal settings (the so-called "self-id laws") and expressed concern that this will allow biological males unrestricted access to private spaces which should be reserved for women and girls.
In June 2024 WHO attempted to address concerns over the lack of balanced perspectives in its guideline development group (GDG) by adding six more GDG members to the group. Even with these additions, however, the GDG remains unbalanced and heavily influenced by transgender activist groups. No changes to their methodology have been made, and the scope continues to be wide, conflating medical and legal issues. As we outlined previously, if these problems remain unaddressed, the guidelines that WHO intends to produce will be seen as a politicized effort lacking in credibility.
The heavy representation of members of WPATH on the GDG has always been a concern, but this concern has now been increased by a new development. New evidence has emerged that two prominent WPATH members involved in the production of the WHO guidelines were directly involved in suppressing unfavorable evidence related to the availability of cross-sex hormones in the process of creating their society's official guidelines: WPATH Standards of Care 8 (SOC8). Since the availability of cross-sex hormones is a key topic for the upcoming WHO guideline, this sets a deeply troubling context for WHO's current efforts.
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