House GOP investigates Biden-Harris admin’s Dr Rachel Levine over removal of age limits for child sex changes in trans health guidelines

The New York Times broke the story in June after years of conservative outlets blowing the whistle on WPATH, the leading international health group for gender transition and sex change. The guidelines from WPATH are used the world over as the standard-bearer for how to diagnose, treat, and advocate for trans youth and adults in mental and medical health settings. Emails, obtained and published by the Times, show Levine advocating to remove age limits for trans treatment on drugs that block puberty, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries.

"WPATH emails reveal direct meetings between Admiral Rachel Levine, Assistant Secretary for Health, and WPATH’s leadership, indicating the Admiral was 'very eager' for the release of the association’s Standards of Care, Version 8 and supportive of its integration within 'health policies of the Biden government,'" said the Oversight Committee.

Levine, House Oversight states, along with "then-Chief of Staff Sarah Boateng asked WPATH if the 'specific ages can be taken out' of SOC-8 and warned that 'having specific ages in the document will make matters worse.'"

Chairwoman on the Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services Lisa McClain issued a letter to Becerra, saying "We are concerned that HHS officials, acting in their official capacity, inappropriately applied pressure by urging for the removal of age limits that expands the pool of children and adolescents recommended for irreversible gender transition surgical procedures." She went on to request documents and records from HHS on these reported communications.

McClain said the advocacy by the Biden-Harris administration "for expanding the pool of vulnerable children subjected to life-altering procedures they may later regret is reprehensible." McClain cites WPATH president Dr. Marci Bowers, who is also trans, and a surgeon who performed sex change procedures on reality television star and former trans child Jazz Jennings.

Bowers has said outright that in Bowers' experience, no male patient who has gone on puberty blockers, then onto cross-sex hormones, before reaching Tanner Stage 2 of development, has gone on to have normal adult sexual function. Bowers, said McClain, "has gone so far as to dismiss the responsibility of medical providers for procedures performed on child patients who she has said must 'own' final transition decisions and 'should not be blaming the clinician or the people who helped guide them' for later regrets about irreversible surgeries." Bowers has performed over 2,000 surgical sex changes.

The Biden-Harris administration came out in June to say that they oppose sex changes for children, but they are also currently locked in a legal battle with the state of Tennessee over that state's banning of the practice entirely. After the consultation with Levine, the guidelines on age restrictions for child sex changes were removed from the guidelines.

WPATH states in their Standards of Care 8, for which Levine was consulted, "Minimum ages for providing gender-affirming medical care were removed from the SOC-8 and replaced by strengthened criteria to help codify the framework that enables every TGD adolescent the opportunity to get their appropriate medical needs met at the appropriate time; these changes to the SOC-8 reflect the fact that one-size-fits-all health care models, especially transgender care, are not accurate or appropriate for every individual person."