In a video released as part of the recently leaked files of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), a psychologist asserts that the need to gain informed consent from minors regarding puberty suppression or hormone therapy “is unfair.” She asks: “When a kid takes diabetic medication, do they have to understand everything about their pancreas and everything that’s happening and all of that?”
But the relationship between one’s “gender identity” and one’s body isn’t the same as the relationship between diabetes and one’s pancreas. The attempt to treat these as comparable medical scenarios is profoundly revealing not just of the state of gender medicine, but of our society’s own identity crisis.