The Norwegian Health Care Research Board (UKOM) called for a review of current "gender affirmation" guidelines after deeming puberty blockers, hormones and sex change surgeries in minors to be experimental.
A UKOM report noted that treatments for children and young people with gender dysphoria should be based on research that ensures clear protocols and safeguards the lives of patients, and this may not be happening due to a lack of medical evidence to support such procedures.
"The knowledge base, especially research-based knowledge for gender-affirming treatment (hormonal and surgical), is deficient and the long-term effects are little known. This is particularly true for the teenage population where the stability of their gender incongruence is also not known," indicates the report of the agency in charge of investigating Norwegian health care.
The Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM), comprised of international physicians and researchers, explained via a thread of Twitter posts that currently Norway's guidelines defining medical treatments for minors with gender dysphoria do not even require psychological evaluations.
"These widely available interventions are irreversible, carry many risks, and rest on insufficient evidence," SEGM shared.
NHIB/UKOM notes that the right to medical care does not include the right to experimental treatments. As an experimental intervention, gender transitions will be subject to heightened scrutiny around informed consent, eligibility criteria, and outcomes evaluation./9
— SEGM (@segm_ebm) March 10, 2023
SEGM also shared some relevant parts of the UKOM report, such as "the lack of specificity regarding assessment and determination of medical necessity of risky and irreversible interventions provided to youth whose identities are still forming," and the disturbing trends of "the rapid rise of gender dysphoria in adolescents (esp. females), the high burden of mental illness (75%) and a high prevalence of neurocognitive conditions (ADHD/autism, Tourette) in the affected youth."
UKOM's recommendations go hand in hand with rectifications made by other European countries such as England, Finland and Sweden, where gender transitions for minors will now be the exception rather than the rule.
