State Rep. Brad Paquette on Thursday sent a letter to House Speaker Joe Tate calling on him to act on stalled legislation that would make it illegal for doctors in Michigan to provide puberty blockers or to perform sex reassignment surgery on minors following the publication of leaked documents from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).

The internal documents include posts from a private message board and recorded video calls in which doctors acknowledged that minors are not capable of providing informed consent for treatment, and that there are serious long-term side effects. They were published by journalist Michael Shellenberger, who is one of the reporters who worked on the Twitter files.

Paquette, R-Niles, was also prompted to renew his objection to sex-reassignment treatments for children following major news that England’s National Health Service will disallow the use of puberty blockers by government clinics.

“When I was a teacher, I saw a lot of students that were going through phases, questioning gender. Middle school and high school is an uncomfortable age for a lot of children,” Paquette said. “But if someone feels like they weren’t born in the right body, we need to help them with evidence-based best practices. These leaked files unequivocally show that doctors know that puberty blockers and sex-reassignment surgeries are harmful to children. What we’re allowing to happen to them right now is pseudoscience.”

“Children can’t understand the long-term consequences because they haven’t gone through puberty yet and many haven’t even had a biology class,” Paquette said.

The southwest Michigan lawmaker previously worked as a middle and high school teacher. His legislation (House Bills 4539 and 4540) would make it a felony for doctors to provide puberty blockers or to perform sex reassignment surgery on minors, but those bills have not received a hearing.

REPORTERS AND EDITORS:

To help get you up-to-speed on the recent developments, below is a post from Michael Shellenberger that summarizes the WPATH reporting. Click the image to view the full post on X (previously called Twitter). Subsequent posts (also available on X) provide more information. The full report (link at the end of this press release) is by Mia Hughes.

The full text of Shellenberger’s post is also pasted below:

THE WPATH FILES

Advocates of gender-affirming care say it’s evidence-based.

But now, newly released internal files from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) prove that the practice of transgender medicine is neither scientific nor medical.

American Medical Association, The Endocrine Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and thousands of doctors worldwide rely on WPATH. It is considered the leading global authority on gender medicine.

And yet WPATH’s internal files, which include written discussions and a video, reveal that its members know they are creating victims and not getting “informed consent.”

Victims include a 10-year-old girl, a 13-year-old developmentally delayed adolescent, and individuals suffering from schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses.

The injuries described in the WPATH Files include sterilization, loss of sexual function, liver tumors, and death.

WPATH members indicate repeatedly that they know that many children and their parents don’t understand the effects that puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries will have on their bodies. And yet, they continue to perform and advocate for gender medicine.

The WPATH Files prove that gender medicine is comprised of unregulated and pseudoscientific experiments on children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults. It will go down as one of the worst medical scandals in history.

https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/wpath-files

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