Leaked Files Reveal WPATH’s Awareness of ‘Debilitating,’ ‘Potentially Fatal’ Effects of Trans Procedures

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) has a long history. The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh wrote that WPATH “is the organization that major hospitals and gender clinics cite as the all-important authority on so-called ‘trans healthcare.’” Controversial at its core, WPATH has faced immense criticism over the years from those who do not support gender transition procedures, while at the same time receiving strong support from those who see cross-sex hormones, puberty blocking drugs, and surgeries to remove healthy organs as “gender affirming care.”

Despite losing over 60% of its members between January 2023 and January 2024, “WPATH is somehow now taken seriously as the standard-setter in the field, by major hospitals and medical associations,” Walsh wrote. But in reality, he continued, WPATH “is maybe the single greatest scam in modern medicine. … The WPATH of today is the proud product of decades of quackery and sexual experimentation. It is a threat to public health and in particular to children.”

On March 4, the U.S. think tank Environmental Progress released leaked files from WPATH that “revealed that the clinicians who shape how ‘gender medicine’ is regulated and practiced around the world consistently violate medical ethics and informed consent.”

It continued, “In the WPATH Files, members demonstrate a lack of consideration for long-term patient outcomes despite being aware of the debilitating and potentially fatal side effects of cross-sex hormones and other treatments. Messages in the files show that patients with severe mental health issues, such as schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder, and other vulnerabilities such as homelessness, are being allowed to consent to hormonal and surgical interventions. Members dismiss concerns about these patients and characterize efforts to protect them as unnecessary ‘gatekeeping.’”

Most unsettling about the leaked files, experts have pointed out, is that they prove the alleged “medical professionals” are keenly aware “they are offering minors life-changing treatments they cannot fully understand.” On Wednesday, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins highlighted on “Washington Watch” that the “injuries described in the files” that WPATH members are aware of “include sterilization, loss of sexual function, liver tumors, and even death.”

Concerning the leaked files, Dr. Quentin Van Meter, a pediatric endocrinologist and executive committee member of the American College of Pediatricians, observed on “Washington Watch” that “it’s a very large battering ram that’s hit the wall … that has been hiding all of the information that they know, and they willingly discuss among themselves.” He added that the files prove that the procedures they are doing on “these kids are clearly experimental [and] not based on science.”

He explained that doctors have been warning against WPATH and their practices for years in hearings and courts — efforts that have been repeatedly “shot down.” Van Meter emphasized that WPATH considers their work as “saving grace” and that they “save lives.” For years, WPATH has claimed that any contrary belief “is a bald-faced lie, and is politically motivated by right-wing conspiracy theorists,” he said. “That’s been their mantra since we’ve known them on the scene.”

Ultimately, he argued, the “WPATH secrets that have now been leaked show that [they have] no scientific background [and] that they are living and repeating lies over and over again. It’s quite shocking.” But he also described it as a “gift,” since it exposes the truth that “this is not good for children.”

Perkins added, “It exposes the fact that many of these entities that are held out as experts have been compromised by the political agendas of these ideologically driven individuals.” He continued, “This is what happens when this ideology, untethered to truth and ethics, mixes with science. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it.”

Especially since “it leads to horrible outcomes for children,” Perkins contended. Children that “can’t drive … can’t get a tattoo, but we’re letting them cut off body parts and … make them think they’re changing their gender.”

Van Meter agreed. “This needs to be shouted from the … hilltops: ‘Stop.’ The whole world must stop this nonsense, this insanity. We have hurt hundreds of thousands of children irreparably since this whole process began in the mid-2000s, and we’ve got to put a stop to it.”

Perkins asked if the leaked information would be enough to make “the medical associations … stop and rethink” what they’re doing. Van Meter responded, “That would be the intellectually correct thing to do.” However, what unsettled the doctor the most was how “casual” and “flippant” the members of WPATH seem to be discussing this. “The ideology is embedded so deeply in their minds that I don’t think they really care,” he remarked.

 “It’s sad,” Perkins concluded. “It is absolutely sad. What an indictment against our culture to allow this to occur.”