When it comes to transgender ideology, Dr. André Van Mol says simply being a board-certified family physician in today’s political climate could be considered controversial.
Speaking at the Generation Indoctrination conference last month, Van Mol, who is also the co-chair of the American College of Pediatrician’s Committee on Adolescent Sexuality, said if he was to give testimony in a court of law, attorneys for the other side would work to get his testimony thrown out, claiming he is not an expert. But if he worked for a gender clinic, he would be considered an “expert.”
“If I were a family physician working for the gender clinic, now I’m an expert,” he noted, pointing to what he described as the “ideological capture of medical organizations, legislators, media as a whole, [and] the academic world” by gender politics.
Van Mol called the trans movement “ideology masquerading as science, reinforced with emotional blackmail — ‘You have to support them or they’re going to kill themselves’ — which is also not true.”
That dynamic, he added, is perhaps best encapsulated by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which Van Mol calls an advocacy group.
“All roads lead back to WPATH,” he explained, using the acronym for the organization formerly known as the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association.
Under WPATH Standards of Care (SOC) for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People, said Van Mol, all age restrictions for puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery have been removed.
The latest version of WPATH’s SOC now includes “eunuch” as a gender identity, which it describes as “individuals [who are] assigned male at birth and wish to eliminate masculine physical features, masculine genitals or genital functioning.”
Van Mol’s response to the change was brief but to the point.
“This cannot be science,” he said.
“There’s always a more honest answer to gender dysphoria or confusion in a minor than chemical sterilization and surgical mutilation in what is otherwise a very healthy young body,” he said. “What they need is to address those underlying issues.”
Oftentimes, said Van Mol, much of the controversy stems from a toxic mix of mainstream media headlines and low-quality scientific research.
He pointed to the familiar trend of media outlets chasing headlines rather than following the science.
“You’ll notice that whenever there’s a new study singing the praises of transition, magically, immediately, it’s covered in the media from coast to coast, with pretty much the same talking points, and that can’t be coincidental,” he said.
Van Mol also said studies that support sex-change procedures “uniformly show that those studies are of low to very low quality.”
“By definition that means they fail to show what they claim they are showing,” he added.
He also pointed to the closure of the Tavistock Clinic, Britain’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), the world’s largest pediatric gender clinic, set for later this year following six comprehensive literature reviews out of the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland and Florida.
“What we see now is … four nations that were leading the world in ‘gender-affirming transition medical interventions’ have done a complete turnaround, a complete 180, again, they were leading in it, and now they’re like, ‘No, this is not supported by good data,’” he said.
According to recent data, the number of minors in America receiving a diagnosis of gender dysphoria tripled from 2017 to 2021, with more than 42,000 receiving the diagnosis in 2021. On the social media platform TikTok, which is especially popular among younger people, the hashtag “trans” has logged 50.2 billion views, nearly doubling within the space of a year.
More European nations, he added, are turning away from this “junk science” and instead telling minors who are experiencing gender dysphoria to undergo comprehensive psychological evaluation and therapy — both for the patient and the family.
“There’s decades of literature showing overwhelming probability in a gender dysphoric minor of underlying health problems of adverse childhood experiences, bad family dynamics and a way over-representation of autism spectrum dysphoria, and that these all predate the gender dysphoria,” Van Mol explained.
This approach, said Van Mol, is a more holistic method of addressing what tends to be a deeply complex condition.
“And there’s absolutely no way that happens in a 40-minute visit to Planned Parenthood that gives you hormones,” he added.