The WPATH Files: Child Informed Consent for Hormone and Surgical Treatments Impossible

Leaked internal documents from the perceived global leader in so-called “gender-affirming” medicine reveal medical providers admitting children are developmentally unable to give informed consent for the drug and surgical treatments the “gender medicine” professionals recommend.

Nonprofit Environmental Progress published its report of the files leaked from both the internal messaging forum and a panel discussion of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).

The documents, the report’s executive summary states, show that “the world-leading transgender healthcare group is neither scientific nor advocating for ethical medical care”:

These internal communications reveal that WPATH advocates for many arbitrary medical practices, including hormonal and surgical experimentation on minors and vulnerable adults. Its approach to medicine is consumer-driven and pseudoscientific, and its members appear to be engaged in political activism, not science.

“American Medical Association, The Endocrine Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and thousands of doctors worldwide rely on WPATH,” Michael Shellenberger, president and founder of Environmental Progress, said Monday in a post on X, adding:

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 raw files were published Tuesday in a report called The WPATH Files: Pseudoscientific Surgical and Hormonal Experiments on Children, Adolescents, and Vulnerable Adults.

With analysis by journalist Mia Hughes, the report contains excerpts of discussions among WPATH members, including some on the topic of “Minors Offered Life-Changing Interventions They Cannot Fully Understand.”

For example, child psychologist Dianne Berg, co-author of the child chapter of WPATH Standards of Care 8, admitted children are unable to comprehend the ramifications of the treatments they claim to want:

“[It is] out of their developmental range to understand the extent to which some of these medical interventions are impacting them. They’ll say they understand, but then they’ll say something else that makes you think, oh, they didn’t really understand that they are going to have facial hair.”

The report notes Berg also admits some parents are not knowledgeable enough about health in general to provide legal consent to place their child on puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.

“What really disturbs me is when the parents can’t tell me what they need to know about a medical intervention that apparently they signed off for.”

“She suggests a solution is to ‘normalize’ that it is okay not to understand right away and to encourage patients to ask questions,” the report states. “That way, gender-affirming healthcare providers can do a ‘real informed consent process’ rather than what is currently happening, which Berg thinks is ‘not what we need to be doing ethically.’”

Canadian endocrinologist Dr. Daniel Metzger, who was also the subject of a Project Veritas exposé in October 2022, when Metzger participated in a WPATH video conference, had this to say about child informed consent for so-called “gender-affirming” care:

“We’re often explaining these sorts of things to people who haven’t even had biology in high school yet.”

As the report notes, Metzger also described how children and young teens are so naïve about hormone drugs that they believe they can have their pick of the physical effects of the treatment. For example, some young patients want “a deeper voice without facial hair or to take estrogen without developing breasts,” the report says, observing such a thought process “suggests a very poor understanding of the workings of the human body and the treatment pathway on the part of adolescent patients.”

Metzger discusses the difficulties in explaining the likely results of what young patients and their parents say they want, but fail to grasp:

“It’s hard to kind of pick and choose the effects that you want. That’s something that kids wouldn’t normally understand because they haven’t had biology yet, but I think a lot of adults as well are hoping to be able to get X without getting Y, and that’s not always possible.”

The Canadian endocrinologist further describes what it’s like to talk to young teens about the likelihood of sterility as a result of hormone drug treatment and about their inability, at that point in time, to comprehend they may come to regret this decision in the future:

“It’s always a good theory that you talk about fertility preservation with a 14-year-old, but I know I’m talking to a blank wall. They’d be like, ew, kids, babies, gross … I think now that I follow a lot of kids into their mid-twenties, I’m like, Oh, the dog isn’t doing it for you, is it? They’re like, ‘No, I just found this wonderful partner, and now want kids …’ So I think, you know, it doesn’t surprise me … Most of the kids are nowhere in any kind of a brain space to really talk about [fertility preservation] in a serious way.”

“Activist members of WPATH know that the so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ they provide can result in life-long complications and sterility and that their patients do not understand the implications, such as loss of sexual function and the ability to experience orgasm,” Shellenberger said. “These leaked files show overwhelming evidence that the professionals within WPATH know that they are not getting consent from children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults, or their caregivers.”

As a result, the journalist added, “gender medicine” will ultimately “go down as one of the worst medical scandals in history.”