This is how the public health policy that has experimented and mutilated children with gender dysphoria will be remembered. After the publication of the Cass Report last April, the effects have been noted, either with new regulations that restrict or prohibit the use of puberty blockers for minors or requests for investigations are beginning to be raised in other countries… except in Chili.
But In Chile the matter continues to go unnoticed. Article 23 of the Gender Identity Law regulates the professional support programs that children with gender dysphoria can access, which include “psychological and biopsychosocial counseling actions.” As the regulations of the law indicate, the program is voluntary and is only delivered if it is “requested by the child (…) according to his age and degree of maturity, or his family,” unless the child objects. But if the parents oppose the child’s decision, their refusal is ineffective. What matters is the child’s decision, not the parents’.
These programs, run by the Ministries of Health and Social Development, have materialized in the “Gender Identity Support Program” or “PAIG” that is executed in all health services in the country. An analysis of the budget reports of versions 5 and 6 of the PAIG, corresponding to the years 2021 and 2023, reveal that The trans agenda is applied with all its force throughout Chile and we have not yet dimensioned the damage, irreversible in many cases, that will be caused.
The basis of the law, its regulations and the PAIG is that the physical, mental or behavioral health problems of children with gender dysphoria have their origin in the negative reactions of society (transphobia) rather than in the child. That is, instead of exploring and reviewing the child’s other psychological background, the irresponsible path is chosen: enhancing (affirming) his or her self-perception, even when this does not resolve his or her anguish, and, in the process, “transforming” society and culture. , which are the ones that really put your life at risk. The large number of “detransitioners” is partly explained because transaffirmative treatments do not look at the past, but only at the future.
Gender identity affirmation treatments can be divided into three lines of action. The first is the personal and social affirmation of the child or young person through “gender affirmative” care (personal, family and educational). The second is hormonal treatment, which can be suppressive (reduction in hormone levels during puberty and adolescence) or replacement (seeks physical development in accordance with the desired sexual characteristics). Lastly, surgical therapies primarily consist of genitoplasty (surgical creation of a vagina), mastectomy (surgery to remove breast tissue), and phalloplasty (surgical creation of a penis).
The 2021 version of the PAIG has as its target population 3,743 children ages 3 to 17 whose gender identity does not match their sex assigned at birth, out of a potential population of 37,427 children. They consider that at 3 years old, most children have a stable sense of (and manifest) their gender identity. However, they acknowledge that there are no reliable epidemiological studies on its prevalence in the child population, and cite a 2013 study from the United States, which uses data from 2,730 children from 11 to 13 years of age. It is worrying that the PAIG maintains that “caregivers” (it never refers to parents) are the main source of risk for their children. This explains why one of the measures of the program is to “educate” parents and they are “You will train to put into practice a repertoire of parenting strategies that allow you to demonstrate support for your child.”.
This version of the PAIG contemplates only the first line of action: psychosocial support for the child through “gender-affirmative” care, “family guidance” and inclusion of the child in the educational environment. Measures of this last line include “awareness and training sessions for members of the educational community”as well as awareness and training on the existence of protocols “about the use of the company name, about the hygienic services, dressing rooms (…)”. For children in kindergarten and first cycle, advice will be given through the “recommendation of children’s stories related to inclusion or gender.” All in line with violating the right of parents to educate and raise their children in accordance with their convictions.
The 2023 version of the PAIG increases the age range (from 3 to 7 years), but the target population increases and the interventions are more radical: there are 61,376 trans and non-binary people in Chile aged 10 or more, and in 2024 it would correspond to 6,138 people, who can access benefits not only of social affirmation, but also hormonal and surgical.
It is likely that hormonal treatments for children with gender dysphoria in Chile have already been carried out autonomously by the services of the public health network for many years. Since 2023, Las Higueras Hospital has had a children’s and youth polyclinic that “provides care to 80 children in the jurisdiction and is made up of a multidisciplinary team of specialties such as endocrinology, pediatrics, psychology and child psychiatry.” In 2018, the Gustavo Fricke Hospital cared for 30 children in the transition process and the La Serena Hospital cared for 50 children.
The PAIG lines of action will generate a “social contagion” effect in children with gender identity, which in turn will cause an increase in the demand for trans health and this will generate less supervision and care in the performance of any of the lines of action. Just as happened in Finland, Sweden and England.
In Chile we do not know how many children have gender dysphoria, nor how many receive hormonal treatment, nor their age, nor the scientific rigor of hospital protocols, nor the number of parents defenseless in the face of this new uncle’s story. We do not need to commit the biggest medical disaster against children in our history, when other countries are paying the consequences. There is still time to stop PAIG.
