The Gender Identity Phantom

By Michael K. Laidlaw, MD

The New York Times article "Helping Pediatricians Care for Transgender Children" pitches the American Academy of Pediatrics policy paper on comprehensive care for transgender adolescents. This care includes the most radical and risky of hormone manipulations and surgeries. There is a concept defined called "gender identity" which has no physical presence and apparently can only be made known to the person in which it resides. Comprehensive gender affirmative therapy is a high risk, experimental therapy based on low quality evidence and represents a treatment for a condition which cannot be diagnosed by any doctor.

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