Alberta Premier Danielle Smith addresses a news conference in Ottawa on Feb. 5.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre came to the defence of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith this week after the federal Liberal government criticized her United Conservative Party government’s restrictive new policies on transgender health care.
Mr. Poilievre went after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in particular, saying, “He should let parents raise kids and let provinces run schools and hospitals.”
He has a point. It is the province’s jurisdictional right to, as Alberta is doing, ban the use of puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormone treatments for children with gender dysphoria aged 15 and under, to limit their use for those aged 16 and 17 with strict conditions, and to ban gender-reassignment surgery – so-called top and bottom surgeries – for children aged 17 and under.
This isn’t necessarily controversial. After all, Nova Scotia requires patients seeking top or bottom surgery to be the age of majority, which is 18 in that province, and has done so without raising eyebrows. In British Columbia, where the age of majority is 19, the same rule applies for bottom surgery, but not for top surgery, and no one is outraged.
Provinces set guidelines for the treatment of gender dysphoria all the time without making the national news. There is a reason for that, though: They let their health departments act independently of overt political interference.
That is not the case in Alberta. In her video announcing the new policies, Ms. Smith says that “encouraging or enabling children to alter their very biology or natural growth … poses a risk to that child’s future that I as Premier am not comfortable with permitting in this province.”
Not once does Ms. Smith mention medical science, statistics or relevant data that support her decision.
This is wrong. Her personal views, and the things she isn’t personally comfortable with, while they might conveniently align with those of her socially conservative voters, should not in any way inform medical care in Alberta.
This is a dangerous and anti-scientific position for any premier to take. In Ms. Smith’s case, it could harm children.
The science around gender dysphoria in children is evolving. But the most widely accepted standards of care, prepared by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and supported by the Canadian Paediatric Society, make it clear that gender-affirming care managed by medical and counselling professionals in co-operation with a child and their parents has by far the best outcomes.
This includes the use of puberty blockers that buy time for a young person to further explore their identity without being faced with the pressure of a changing body. The blockers, whose effects are reversible, can also make gender-reassignment surgery, if that’s the eventually chosen course, less complicated and risky.
Gender-affirming hormone therapy is not fully reversible – there can be a permanent change in voice and body shape, for instance – but it is associated with “improved well-being and mental health, decreased suicidality, and decreased body dissatisfaction,” according to the CPS.
Top surgeries on minors – a double mastectomy – is obviously controversial. But WPATH says it is a proven and safe treatment for gender dysphoria. It’s fair to be concerned about this radical procedure for minors; banning it because a politician is uncomfortable with it is not.
Ms. Smith, a self-declared libertarian, is twisting herself in knots with her policies. By banning puberty blockers and hormone therapies for children 15 and under, who may well be fully developed before that age, she is robbing parents of transgendered children of their right to work with their child and health care professionals to decide on the best medical course of action. Parents will effectively be prevented from raising their kids as they see fit.
She is imposing limitations on the treatments recommended by people who actually went to medical school – political gatekeeping that libertarians used to decry.
If she had mentioned even once in her video that her decision was informed by experts in the Ministry of Health, or quoted just one study that demonstrated that she has an understanding of the current state of transgender health care, her policies might not have sparked such outrage.
But of course she didn’t, making it all too clear her harmful policies have very little to do with children’s health, and everything to do with politics.