WPATH Responds to Cass Report Publication

April 12, 2024-In response to publication of the Cass Report the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and affiliated partners ATHI, AusPATH, PATHA and USPATH issued the following statement:

"WPATH supports policies that increase access to high-quality ethical care for transgender youth.

"The foundation of the Cass report is rooted in the false premise that non-medical alternatives to care will result in less adolescent distress for most adolescents and is based on a lack of knowledge of and experience working with this patient population. It is harmful to perpetuate this notion and does not acknowledge the very real fact that medical pathways are an important treatment option for many young people.

"We support the recommendation to widen care from a single center with a very long waiting list by expanding training and service infrastructure to meet the totality of the needs of transgender/gender diverse youth and their families. Such efforts will improve providers' ability to follow the WPATH SOC8, which calls for a comprehensive biopsychosocial assessment and may help increase access to timely transgender adolescent care.

"WPATH also emphasizes the importance of acknowledging the complexity of the human experience and therefore maintains that policies which severely restrict access to physical healthcare, and focus almost exclusively on mental healthcare for a population which the WHO does not regard as inherently mentally ill, are harmful and have no place in medicine where clinical guidelines exist. Only through expanding, not limiting, access to high-quality ethical care for transgender youth, with the appropriate amount of clinical oversight, can scientific advancement take place to further address the unique needs and complexities of this important and diverse patient population, both now and into the future."