Is America More Permissive than Europe on Gender Affirming Care?

A confusing non-study by a right wing group is being presented as if it proves America is out of step with Europe on transgender medical care.

by Evan Urquhart

Right wing propagandists have found a new toy, in the form of a report by Do No Harm, a right wing advocacy group that fights anti-racism in medicine. Yes, you read that right, the group is committed to fighting against the scourge of anti-racism, specifically anti-racism in medicine. This means opposing efforts to increase diversity in medical professions or to raise awareness about the many ways racial bias and systemic racism contributes to poor health outcomes for Black Americans and other minoritized groups.

Here’s a screenshot from the “About” page for Do No Harm:

Unsurprisingly, this group created to oppose opponents of racism in medicine has also developed a sideline in opposing gender affirming care. To that end they’ve put out a report which claims the United States is out of step with Europe, making it “the most permissive country” when it comes to transgender medical care.

The report, which is falsely being called a study by some right wing outlets, is a nothinburger the likes of which may have never before been seen. It seems to exist merely as a figleaf for the right to claim that Europe has rejected trans rights and the U. S. is falling behind in some sort of transphobia-race. Each follows a similar template, uncritically repeating Do No Harm’s claim that the U. S. is out of step with Europe when it comes to transgender medicine. However, when you look at the report itself, it is unbelievably underwhelming, barely making any effort to back up its own claim. Instead, it takes a look at 9 areas of policy relating to transgender people, from document changes to access to puberty blockers, and lists the relevant policies for the U. S. and 11 European countries. That’s it. It just… lists them.

When you look at this list of policies, in many cases the section on the U. S. explains that there are actually multiple policies among the different states. In several areas multiple European countries clearly have far more “permissive” policies than the U. S. For example, only Oregon allows children over the age of 15 to recieve puberty blockers without parental consent. Meanwhile more than half the European countries (Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) make some allowance for children under 18 (most typically at 15 or 16) to be prescribed puberty blockers without parental consent.

The report’s summary claims it shows the U. S. is “the most permissive country when it comes to legal and medical transition of children.” But there is no explanation of how that conclusion was reached, what consistutes permissiveness, how it squares with the fact that other countries that are more permissive in many areas, or how they evaluated the policies of the entire U. S. when each state has different rules. Some states, which have banned all access to gender affirming care for minors, are very clearly more restrictive than any European country included in the report. This is not addressed.

Despite having no process or justification for its claims at all, this non-study consisting of a simple list of policies has been covered by Fox News, the Daily Caller, the Daily Signal, the Epoch Times, and Christian Headlines. Each article repeats the claim that the U. S. is more permissive than Europe, despite there being nothing in the report that justifies that claim.