Norway’s medical watchdog has ruled that “not enough research” has been done on the safety of trans drugs and surgery for children, and that such treatments should be regarded as experimental.
Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board (NHIB/UKOM), a government body with a “mandate… to investigate serious adverse events and other serious concerns involving the Norwegian healthcare services” published its findings on using drugs and surgery to “treat” transgender minors in an official report this month.
While “it has been possible to receive gender confirmation treatment since the late 1950s” in Norway, the Scandinavian country — with a population of only around 5.4 million — has seen a surge in the number of people seeking trans treatment in recent years.
An average of only four people a year were referred for trans treatments from 1975–1990, rising to some 50 to 70 per year by 2007–2010, to an astonishing 400 to 600 per year by 2018–2021.
“There is a lot of expertise in the area, but not enough research has been done,” UKOM reported.
“There is not enough knowledge, in Norway or abroad, about the safety and effect of gender confirmation treatment for the group of young people who are now increasingly seeking help from the health service,” they added, noting that “[i]n particular, we have little knowledge about the long-term effects and stability of gender incongruence and gender dysphoria. That is, whether and to what extent gender incongruence and gender dysphoria persist in the individual.”
They also confirmed that so-called “gender confirmation” treatments are often “irreversible” — for example, “when gender confirmation surgery is performed.”
“The use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy is also partially or completely irreversible treatment,” they added — a fact often glossed over or outright denied by advocates of transitioning children and youths, including medical professionals.
Elsewhere in the report, UKOM stressed that “[t]here are consequences that last a lifetime that we do not have an overview of. For example, the skeleton and the ability to have children can be affected.”
Current guidelines, UKOM observed, are far too open to interpretation, with approaches to supposedly transgender minors often inconsistent.
Patients and relatives of patients told the watchdog they experienced a “lack of competence” on the part of the medical professionals treating them, with their treatment sometimes “started too early or without multidisciplinary assessment and investigation.”
UKOM also noted that there are “many people who live well with their gender incongruity without the need for health care” — and that, perhaps most concerningly, “many people who have gender incongruity who also have various other conditions.”
“For example, 75 per cent of those referred to the national treatment service have a mental disorder or a condition such as Asperger’s or ADHD,” the watchdog revealed.
They also observed that the rise in minors seeking trans treatment appears to be particularly marked “among young people whose birth gender is girl, but who identify as a boy” — a phenomenon also observed in the likes of the United Kingdom, where the perennially ineffectual governing Conservative Party expressed concern at a 4,400 per cent increase in girls being referred for trans treatments over the course of a decade in 2018.
“The knowledge base, especially research-based knowledge for gender-affirming treatment (hormonal and surgical), is deficient and the long-term effects are little known,” UKOM reiterated.
“This is particularly true for the teenage population where the stability of their gender incongruence is also not known,” they added.
The watchdog recommended that “puberty delaying treatment and hormonal and surgical gender confirmation treatment for children and young people are defined as trial treatment”, with such treatments “followed up with systematic collection of data/information for quality assurance and research” in future.