Young Children Do Not Receive Medical Gender Transition Treatment

SciCheck Digest

Families seeking information from a health care provider about a young child’s gender identity may have their questions answered or receive counseling. Some posts share a misleading claim that toddlers are being “transitioned.” To be clear, prepubescent children are not offered transition surgery or drugs.

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Some children identify with a gender that does not match their sex assigned at birth. These children are referred to as transgender, gender-diverse or gender-expansive. Doctors will listen to children and their family members, offer information, and in some cases connect them with mental health care, if needed.

But for children who have not yet started puberty, there are no recommended drugs, surgeries or other gender-transition treatments.

Recent social media posts shared the misleading claim that medical institutions in North Carolina are “transitioning toddlers,” which they called an “experimental treatment.” The posts referenced a blog post published by the Education First Alliance, a conservative nonprofit in North Carolina that says many schools are engaging in “ideological indoctrination” of children and need to be reformed.

The group has advocated the passage of a North Carolina bill to restrict medical gender-transition treatment before age 18. There are now 18 states that have taken action to restrict medical transition treatments for minors.

A widely shared article from the Epoch Times citing the blog post bore the false headline: “‘Transgender’ Toddlers as Young as 2 Undergoing Mutilation/Sterilization by NC Medical System, Journalist Alleges.” The Epoch Times has a history of publishing misleading or false claims. The article on transgender toddlers then disappeared from the website, and the Epoch Times published a new article clarifying that young children are not receiving hormone blockers, cross-sex hormones or surgery. 

Representatives from all three North Carolina institutions referenced in the social media posts told us via emailed statements that they do not offer surgeries or other transition treatments to toddlers.

East Carolina University, May 5: ECU Health does not offer gender affirming surgery to minors nor does the health system offer gender affirming transition care to toddlers.

ECU Health elaborated that it does not offer puberty blockers and only offers hormone therapy after puberty “in limited cases,” as recommended in national guidelines and with parental or guardian consent. It also said that it offers interdisciplinary gender-affirming primary care for LGBTQ+ patients, including access to services such as mental health care, nutrition and social work.

“These primary care services are available to any LGBTQ+ patient who needs care. ECU Health does not provide gender-related care to patients 2 to 4 years old or any toddler period,” ECU said.

University of North Carolina, May 12: To be clear: UNC Health does not offer any gender-transitioning care for toddlers. We do not perform any gender care surgical procedures or medical interventions on toddlers. Also, we are not conducting any gender care research or clinical trials involving children.

If a toddler’s parent(s) has concerns or questions about their child’s gender, a primary care provider would certainly listen to them, but would never recommend gender treatment for a toddler. Gender surgery can be performed on anyone 18 years old or older.

Duke Health, May 12: Duke Health has provided high-quality, compassionate, and evidence-based gender care to both adolescents and adults for many years. Care decisions are made by patients, families and their providers and are both age-appropriate and adherent to national and international guidelines. Under these professional guidelines and in accordance with accepted medical standards, hormone therapies are explicitly not provided to children prior to puberty and gender-affirming surgeries are, except in exceedingly rare circumstances, only performed after age 18.

Duke and UNC both called the claims that they offer gender-transition care to toddlers false, and ECU referred to the “intentional spreading of dangerous misinformation online.”

Nor do other medical institutions offer gender-affirming drug treatment or surgery to toddlers, clinical psychologist Christy Olezeski, director of the Yale Pediatric Gender Program, told us, although some may offer support to families of young children or connect them with mental health care. 

The Education First Alliance post also states that a doctor “can see a 2-year-old girl play with a toy truck, and then begin treatment for gender dysphoria.” But simply playing with a certain toy would not meet the criteria for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, according to the medical diagnostic manual used by health professionals.

“With all kids, we want them to feel comfortable and confident in who they are. We want them to feel comfortable and confident in how they like to express themselves. We want them to be safe,” Olezeski said. “So all of these tenets are taken into consideration when providing care for children. There is no medical care that happens prior to puberty.”

Medical Transition Starts During Adolescence or Later 

The Education First Alliance blog post does not clearly state what it means when it says North Carolina institutions are “transitioning toddlers.” It refers to treatment and hormone therapy without clarifying the age at which it is offered. 

Only in the final section of the piece does it include a quote from a doctor correctly stating that children are not offered surgery or drugs before puberty.

To spell out the reality of the situation: The North Carolina institutions are not providing surgeries or hormone therapy to prepubescent children, nor is this standard practice in any part of the country.

Programs and physicians will have different policies, but widely referenced guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and the Endocrine Society lays out recommended care at different ages. 

Drugs that suppress puberty are the first medical treatment that may be offered to a transgender minor, the guidelines say. Children may be offered drugs to suppress puberty beginning when breast buds appear or testicles increase to a certain volume, typically happening between ages 8 to 13 or 9 to 14, respectively.

Generally, someone may start gender-affirming hormone therapy in early adolescence or later, the American Academy for Pediatrics explains. The Endocrine Society says that adolescents typically have the mental capacity to participate in making an informed decision about gender-affirming hormone therapy by age 16.

Older adolescents who want flat chests may sometimes be able to get surgery to remove their breasts, also known as top surgery, Olezeski said. They sometimes desire to do this before college. Guidelines do not offer a specific age during adolescence when this type of surgery may be appropriate. Instead, they explain how a care team can assess adolescents on a case-by-case basis.

A previous version of the WPATH guidelines did not recommend genital surgery until adulthood, but the most recent version, published in September 2022, is less specific about an age limit. Rather, it explains various criteria to determine whether someone who desires surgery should be offered it, including a person’s emotional and cognitive maturity level and whether they have been on hormone therapy for at least a year.

The Endocrine Society similarly offers criteria for when someone might be ready for genital surgery, but specifies that surgeries involving removing the testicles, ovaries or uterus should not happen before age 18.

“Typically any sort of genital-affirming surgeries still are happening at 18 or later,” Olezeski said.

There are no comprehensive statistics on the number of gender-affirming surgeries performed in the U.S., but according to an insurance claims analysis from Reuters and Komodo Health Inc., 776 minors with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria had breast removal surgeries and 56 had genital surgeries from 2019 to 2021.

Research Shows Benefits of Affirming Gender Identity

Young children do not get medical transition treatment, but they do have feelings about their gender and can benefit from support from those around them. “Children start to have a sense of their own gender identity between the ages of 2 1/2 to 3 years old,” Olezeski said.

Programs vary in what age groups they serve, she said, but some do support families of preschool-aged children by answering questions or providing mental health care.

Transgender children are at increased risk of some mental health problems, including anxiety and depression. According to the WPATH guidelines, affirming a child’s gender through day-to-day changes — also known as social transition — may have a positive impact on a child’s mental health. Social transition “may look different for every individual,” Olezeski said. Changes could include going by a different name or pronouns or altering one’s attire or hair style.

Photo by Irina Schmidt / stock.adobe.com

Two studies of socially transitioned children — including one with kids as young as 3 — have found minimal or no difference in anxiety and depression compared with non-transgender siblings or other children of similar ages.

“Research substantiates that children who are prepubertal and assert an identity of [transgender and gender diverse] know their gender as clearly and as consistently as their developmentally equivalent peers who identify as cisgender and benefit from the same level of social acceptance,” the AAP guidelines say, adding that differences in how children identify and express their gender are normal.

Social transitions largely take place outside of medical institutions, led by the child and supported by their family members and others around them. However, a family with questions about their child’s gender or social transition may be able to get information from their pediatrician or another medical provider, Olezeski said.

Although not available everywhere, specialized programs may be particularly prepared to offer care to a gender-diverse child and their family, she said. A child may get a referral to one of these programs from a pediatrician, another specialty physician, a mental health care professional or their school, or a parent may seek out one of these programs.

“We have created a space where parents can come with their youth when they’re young to ask questions about how to best support their child: what to do if they have questions, how to get support, what do we know about the best research in terms of how to allow kids space to explore their identity, to explore how they like to express themselves, and then if they do identify as trans or nonbinary, how to support the parents and the youth in that,” Olezeski said of specialized programs. Parents benefit from the support, and then the children also benefit from support from their parents. 

WPATH says that the child should be the one to initiate a social transition by expressing a “strong desire or need” for it after consistently articulating an identity that does not match their sex assigned at birth. A health care provider can then help the family explore benefits and risks. A child simply playing with certain toys, dressing a certain way or enjoying certain activities is not a sign they would benefit from a social transition, the guidelines state.

Previously, assertions children made about their gender were seen as “possibly true” and support was often withheld until an age when identity was believed to become fixed, the AAP guidelines explain. But “more robust and current research suggests that, rather than focusing on who a child will become, valuing them for who they are, even at a young age, fosters secure attachment and resilience, not only for the child but also for the whole family,” the guidelines say.

Mental Health Care Benefits

A gender-diverse child or their family members may benefit from a referral to a psychologist or other mental health professional. However, being transgender or gender-diverse is not in itself a mental health disorder, according to the American Psychological Association, WPATH and other expert groups. These organizations also note that people who are transgender or gender-diverse do not all experience mental health problems or distress about their gender. 

Psychological therapy is not meant to change a child’s gender identity, the WPATH guidelines say. 

The form of therapy a child or a family might receive will depend on their particular needs, Olezeski said. For instance, a young child might receive play-based therapy, since play is how children “work out different things in their life,” she said. A parent might work on strategies to better support their child.

One mental health diagnosis that some gender-diverse people may receive is gender dysphoria. There is disagreement about how useful such a diagnosis is, and receiving such a diagnosis does not necessarily mean someone will decide to undergo a transition, whether social or medical.

UNC Health told us in an email that a gender dysphoria diagnosis “is rarely used” for children.

Very few gender-expansive kids have dysphoria, the spokesperson said. “Gender expansion in childhood is not Gender Dysphoria,” UNC added, attributing the explanation to psychiatric staff (emphasis is UNC’s). “The psychiatric team’s goal is to provide good mental health care and manage safety—this means trying to protect against abuse and bullying and to support families.”

Social media posts incorrectly claim that toddlers are being diagnosed with gender dysphoria based on what toys they play with. One post said: “Three medical schools in North Carolina are diagnosing TODDLERS who play with stereotypically opposite gender toys as having GENDER DYSPHORIA and are beginning to transition them!!”

There are separate criteria for diagnosing gender dysphoria in adults and adolescents versus children, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. For children to receive this diagnosis, they must meet six of eight criteria for a six-month period and experience “clinically significant distress” or impairment in functioning, according to the diagnostic manual. 

A “strong preference for the toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender” is one criterion, but children must also meet other criteria, and expressing a strong desire to be another gender or insisting that they are another gender is required.

“People liking to play with different things or liking to wear a diverse set of clothes does not mean that somebody has gender dysphoria,” Olezeski said. “That just means that kids have a breadth of things that they can play with and ways that they can act and things that they can wear.”