HHS Releases Second Report on Transgender “Treatments”

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By John Stonestreet and Timothy D Padgett, Crosswalk.com

Last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a follow-up report on the medical dangers posed by transgender “therapy” on children. This report, which supplements the original released in May, comes in at 240 pages. According to the Child and Parental Rights Campaign, it is “the most comprehensive review in the world to date of the evidence and systematic reviews regarding the benefits and harms of treatment for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria.”

As the press release put it:

The report, released through the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, finds that the harms from sex-rejecting procedures—including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical operations—are significant, long term, and too often ignored or inadequately tracked.

Quoting Dr. Brian Christine, it continued:

What are we going to tell the young people who can’t have children because the medical profession stole that from them? … Our report is an urgent wake up call to doctors and parents about the clear dangers of trying to turn girls into boys and vice-versa.

The report described how medical consultations were “a child-led process in which comprehensive mental health assessments are often minimized or omitted.” Some of these assessments were as abrupt as a single, two-hour session. With no other procedure, especially with consequences as extreme as castration or amputation, would such a brief consultation be tolerated.

And yet, many in the medical field went along, betraying their oaths and suppressing dissent:

The voices of whistleblowers and detransitioners have played a critical role in drawing public attention to the risks and harms associated with pediatric medical transition. Their concerns have been discounted, dismissed, or ignored by prominent advocates and practitioners of pediatric medical transition. … There is evidence that some medical and mental health associations have suppressed dissent and stifled debate about this issue among their members.

As HHS Secretary Kennedy put it, “That is not medicine—it’s malpractice.” And it was not isolated to a few people. Well-respected academics and institutions embraced a trendy ideology that victimized children. Hannah Barnes’ groundbreaking book A Time to Think documented how a mix of activists and medical professionals badgered the entire British National Health Service into going along with what became the Tavistock tragedy. Similarly, in the U.S., medical consensus was fabricated, with groups like WPATH purporting that doctors, and not gender ideologues, led the movement to trans children.

This movement ran on two claims. First, that anyone who refused to go along with transgender ideology had “blood on their hands.” Countless parents were asked whether they would prefer a dead son or a live daughter. Some states even removed kids from parents who would not conform. The HHS report reveals that it was the states, not the parents, that were abusive.

Second, transgender ideology was sold as science, a lie that has now fully collapsed. Last year, the Cass Report out of the U.K. declared that medical treatment for gender therapy was “built on shaky foundations.” The HHS study builds on the British report, but goes much further. Its authors include scientists and scholars such as Alex Byrne of MIT, Kathleen McDeavitt of the Baylor College of Medicine, and Farr Curlin of Duke University. (Dr. Curlin joined a Colson Center Breakpoint Forum on this issue and was a featured speaker at the 2025 Colson Center National Conference.)

A few weeks ago, when ADF’s Kristen Waggoner posted on social media that her kids could not get an Advil at school without her permission but could be transitioned, critics called her a liar. Waggoner responded by, as they say, “bringing the receipts.” Likewise, in May, critics attempted to discredit the initial HHS report, but last week’s follow-up report brings the medical receipts.

As writer Wesley Yang put it, transgender ideology progressed by a “‘no debate’ policy,” relying on “censorship and punishment of dissent as a first resort in its bid to deploy state and administrative power to mandate compliance with their false dogmas.” But “following the science” has led us back to the truth. It is essential that we keep telling the truth. This report affirms that the truth is on our side and, more importantly, on the side of children.

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John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.

BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.