According to a report from the National Post, Dr. Karine Katchadourian – one of the first doctors in Canada to provide hormones to trans-identifying youth – stated at a virtual lecture for the University of Alberta in February that she now believes the “majority of youth” should not be medicalized.
Khatchadourian is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Ottawa as well as a pediatric endocrinologist who works at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario. She began providing hormones to minors with gender dysphoria in 2014 and, according to the National Post, “some 250 to 300 gender-distressed children and teens have been under her care over the years.” According to the National Post’ssummary of the lecture:
The field is in a highly consequential grey zone with contradictory findings at best, the Ottawa doctor told a virtual audience. The evidence doesn’t allow doctors to say with confidence whether puberty suppression has psychological benefits or not and today’s rapidly changing demographics – predominantly biological females with accompanying complex mental health problems and no known history of gender distress when they were younger – make it difficult-to-impossible to predict if someone’s gender dysphoria or incongruence will persist.
Despite Khatchadourian’s precise and careful framing, this is a bombshell analysis. For years, the Canadian medical establishment has spoken almost with a single voice in asserting that “gender affirming care” for children is a human right; that it prevents suicides; that anyone who contradicts this is endangering “trans children’s lives.”
Indeed, when the U.K. NHS’s Cass Report was released debunking these claims, it received virtually no coverage in the Canadian press whatsoever – the CBC only published a story later, quoting doctors who claimed that the Cass Report, which is the most comprehensive review of the available evidence to date, was simply wrong. While transgender “treatments” for minors have been the subject of fierce debate across the West, a steady stream of new studies has been met in Canada primarily with deafening silence.
According to the National Post, Khatchadourian affirmed the reality that many medical professionals avoid speaking their mind on this subject because they are afraid of being targeted by LGBT activists and by their own colleagues. She, however, has now decided to speak out. “The message to patients, providers, the public has to include that what we’re seeing now with the data is this uncertainty of the evidence,” she said.
“Her assessment echoes the findings of a recent series of deep systematic dives into the literature that concluded the evidence supporting gender medicine interventions is, as the editor-in-chief of the influential British Medical Journal summarized, ‘threadbare, whichever research question you wish to consider,’” the Postnoted.
“I can say that, with everything I now know, as of now, I would challenge medicalizing the majority of youth that are presenting to clinics,” Khatchadourian told the National Post. “I strongly believe in this care. But it must be approached with rigour and caution, given the high stakes in this field.” Again, this might seem like an obvious point to make – but in Canada’s climate of censorship, hostility, and targeted attacks by LGBT activists, it is stunning. From the National Post:
In an interview, Khatchadourian said she worries that the increase in teens (mostly natal females) identifying as non-binary – neither identifying as female nor male – may be socially driven. “We know social media and peers have greater influence during adolescence,” she said.
“I didn’t see anyone identifying as non-binary ten years ago when I was training.” She questions the influx now. “It’s so hard to know when you see a patient how much of this story is really that person’s story and how much is based on the influence of peers and social media,” she said.
“We get to a point where we accept certain definitions and certain things, but we should continuously ask why: ‘Why is this happening? What are your theories? Does this warrant medical treatment?’”
“But now they’re connecting with people who are telling them, ‘Hey, I did this and it’s working for me. This may be why you’re feeling disconnected from society. Maybe the reason you’re having trouble fitting in with other girls is not because you’re autistic, or because you’re marching to your own beat. It’s because you are actually a boy inside.’”
Youth can instantly connect with dozens of others who feel the way they do and start down a medical transitioning path. But Khatchadourian worries “we’re changing trajectories for these youth” based on unconvincing and limited data, and with too few mental health assessments by psychologists or psychiatrists trained in the child and adolescent medicine space.
Dr. Kenneth Zucker, a leading psychologist and head of the Gender Identity Service at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) for decades, was fired for essentially taking that position. The canning of such a prestigious figure sent a message echoing through the halls of Canadian medical establishments: Question the manufactured transgender consensus, and you’re next.
These are precisely the sorts of points that people have been persecuted for making for nearly a decade. In fact, these are the sorts of things that many LGBT curriculums are conveying to children in Canadian public schools; “social transitions” for precisely these sorts of reasons are being hidden from parents as a matter of policy. I’m encouraged to see a medical professional saying these things publicly – she is calling for a national review – but it is also mindboggling.
For example, one of Khatchadourian’s key concerns is … wait for it … irreversible damage, like the fact that transgender “treatments” can permanently destroy fertility. “The most challenging conversations are always around fertility,” she said. “Most of the time you’re going to hear youth say they don’t want children, they don’t want biological children, or if they do at some point, they will consider adoption. You have to ask yourself, is that a mature response? Have they really given it considerable thought? Have they truly demonstrated capacity to consent?”
Some people have been asking those questions for years. Other countries reached those conclusions long ago. Maybe, finally, it is Canada’s turn – but I’m loathe to give any credit to those who dogpiled the original whistleblowers and succumbed in silence to the threats of LGBT activists. Many, many young people have already suffered that irreversible damage and, for them, a “national review” that explains why they now suffer will be cold comfort.
