Hormonisation and gender surgery: a book says medicine is forgetting its oath to do no harm
- La Petite Sirène
- Apr 25
- 11 min read
Hormonización y cirugías de género: un libro afirma que la medicina está olvidando su juramento de no dañar - Claudia Péro - 19 avril 2025 - Infobae
Subjected to identity-based ideologies, some professionals neglect their essential humanitarian mission. Healthy people, even minors, are transformed into lifelong patients, sterilised or even deprived of a fulfilling sexual life.
When writing The Making of the Transgender Child in 2022—concerned by the speed at which parts of the medical community were directing children toward hormonal treatments to change their sex—French child psychiatrist Caroline Eliacheff and psychoanalyst Céline Masson believed, as they now say “naively,” that “a consensus would emerge on the issue of children.”
Hormonal Treatment and Gender Surgery: A New Book Claims That Medicine Has Forgotten Its Oath to Do No Harm
Under the influence of identity ideologies, some professionals are neglecting their essential humanitarian mission. Healthy individuals, including minors, are being turned into lifelong patients, sterilized, and sometimes deprived of a fulfilling sexual life.
On the contrary, the opposite happened: they were boycotted, canceled, and insulted. Yet this did not discourage them, as shown by their new book: The Sermon of Hippocrates: Medicine Under the Grip of Identity Ideologies (El sermón de Hipócrates. La medicina bajo el dominio de las ideologías identitarias), which has not yet been translated into Spanish.
When they speak about “matters concerning minors,” the authors are referring to a situation similar to that of Argentina regarding the treatment of children and adolescents who identify as trans—that is, who claim to belong to the sex opposite to their birth sex. In both countries, legislation is extremely permissive, and many healthcare providers administer puberty blockers to children as young as 10 or 11 years old (to interrupt sexual development), followed later—around age 15 or 16—by cross-sex hormone treatments to develop the sexual characteristics of the desired gender, and ultimately by surgical interventions (mastectomies, hysterectomies, castrations, the construction of pseudo-sexual organs, etc.).
All of this stems from the acceptance of adolescents’ self-perception, often based on self-diagnosis through interactions on social media, where the transgender lobby is highly active; there too, schools and authorities promote so-called “social transition,” treating as natural—or even celebrating—the declaration by a child or adolescent that they belong to the opposite sex.
This self-determination of children and adolescents is supported by the rhetoric of “progressive autonomy,” the flip side of which is the withdrawal of adults from their responsibilities.
“We had not realized the extent of the proselytizing presence [of activist associations] (and/or their defenders) within every level of the state apparatus, political parties, universities, ministries (particularly Education and Health), municipalities, and other state-dependent organizations (…) and of course, in the healthcare services dedicated to this issue,” Eliacheff and Masson reflect today, in light of the attacks they suffered following the publication of their first book.
The press, both written and audiovisual, has also been infiltrated by trans-affirmative narratives, they warn. That is, the idea that the mere expression of an individual’s will is enough to initiate a gender transition—even for minors or for individuals suffering from other comorbid conditions.
Gender transition is portrayed as “a journey of self-discovery” or as a form of suicide prevention therapy, while the side effects of these treatments, along with their largely irreversible nature, are hidden or minimized. Puberty blockers are compared to a video player’s pause button: development is supposedly halted for a few years and then restarted without consequence.
In their first book (February 2022), they analyzed the exponential rise in cases of gender dysphoria among adolescents, particularly among girls—a fact that the promoters of these practices tend to downplay. This phenomenon is being observed in other countries as well, including ours, as confirmed by case numbers collected by the association MANADA (Mothers of Girls and Adolescents with Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria).
In their new book (February 2025), Eliacheff and Masson explore why so many doctors implement harmful methods for these minors, denounce the abandonment of adult responsibility—always in the name of progressive autonomy—and propose an alternative to the current treatments offered to adolescents suffering from gender dysphoria, suggesting a different understanding of their distress.
The majority of adolescent girls treated as trans “do not meet the diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria,” they assert. There is, they say, an overdiagnosis that masks other underlying disorders.
In the book’s afterword, Professor Didier Sicard—Honorary Professor of Internal Medicine at Université Paris Cité and former President of France’s National Consultative Ethics Committee for nearly a decade—emphasizes that medicine is ceasing to be a humanistic endeavor, increasingly driven instead by financial incentives at the expense of genuine care.
The modification of human beings, he argues, is far more lucrative than healing them. Just as in Argentina, where these expensive treatments are covered under the Obligatory Medical Plan (PMO), full coverage of transition-related treatments in France also acts as “an obvious encouragement: if it’s reimbursed, it must be safe,” the professor observes.
Sicard lists several potential side effects of hormone therapy administered without medical indication to adolescent bodies: liver cancer, meningiomas, bone demineralization, sterility, and loss of sexual function. In short, he says, these children are turned into “laboratory material”—a reality that seems to be the least of concerns for a dehumanized form of medicine.
The only argument doctors advance to justify these treatments is the goal of alleviating suffering—a suffering that is psychological but which is not addressed at that level first. Instead, they turn to therapies originally intended for different conditions, such as endocrine syndromes, congenital intersex variations (hermaphroditism), or early-onset puberty. In those cases, however, medicine was fulfilling its true function: correcting a disorder, not creating one.
Today, many doctors are setting aside the essential principle of primum non nocere (“first, do no harm”).
Aware that these practices are deeply entangled in the ideological divide between left and right, Didier Sicard stresses that “to equate the defense of children and adolescents with far-right behavior is simply unbelievable.” Medicine, he insists, must not submit to passing fashions.
Eliacheff and Masson’s book denounces medical practices that border on illegality, driven by economic interests, and draws attention to the danger this poses to the future of children and adolescents.
When the issue of trans-identified minors appears in the media, the services promoting these risky treatments claim to take all necessary precautions before intervening—some even denying that they treat minors—but testimonies from patients and their families contradict these assertions, providing evidence of early hormonal treatments even when other concurrent disorders are present. This mirrors what is happening in our own country.
In their book, Eliacheff and Masson denounce—not only in France but also in Argentina—the lack of sufficient information provided to patients and their families regarding the side effects of treatments, as well as the existence of alternatives such as psychotherapy. They also advocate for a cautious, watchful approach, since most cases of adolescent-onset dysphoria naturally resolve over time. The authors are convinced that, “although their pubertal distress is real, [these adolescents] are not truly trans (even if a small minority might eventually be and choose to transition later).”
Transsexual individuals have always existed, they note, “in all civilizations, albeit very marginally.” Like all minorities, they have a right to non-discrimination. However, today, “their victimhood posture has served as a Trojan horse” for “gender activism that seeks to impose itself on the whole of society as a new moral order.”
The majority of minors resolve their gender-related questions by adulthood—provided they have not undertaken social or medical transition—highlighting, according to the authors, the irresponsibility of promoting early transitions for children and adolescents.
Yet professionals who advocate caution—such as proposing exploratory psychotherapy—are systematically labeled as transphobic, abusive, reactionary, charlatans, and, of course, far-right extremists (as Sicard points out).
Trans associations demand that doctors accept an individual’s gender identity immediately and unconditionally, even in the case of minors, and that medical transitions depend solely on the person’s will. They also seek to impose that psychological approaches be exclusively affirmative (i.e., always validating the patient’s self-declared identity), that trans identity be fully depathologized (meaning no therapy should be proposed unless expressly requested by the individual), and that minors have the right to hormonal transition and surgery.
This reality is repeating itself across almost all Western countries. However, those that were pioneers in this field have begun revising their protocols: Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have all restricted treatments for minors. The same is true for 24 U.S. states.
Nonetheless, the authors note, many medical services continue to follow the guidelines of WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) blindly, despite its assumptions that a child knows their gender identity and will not change their mind, that there is no phenomenon of social contagion, and that the rise in cases is due solely to the “liberation of speech.”
WPATH claims that social transition fosters psychological development, that puberty blockers are reversible, and that denying treatment to a self-identified trans person increases the risk of suicide—a risk indeed high within this population. However, Eliacheff and Masson point out that no evidence demonstrates a causal link between medical transition and a reduction in suicide risk, a claim often wielded as a threat against hesitant parents or therapists.
The same phenomenon is occurring in Argentina. Warnings issued by health systems in countries that have reversed course to protect minors from invasive, irreversible, and far-from-benign treatments are largely ignored. For example, the Cass Report—produced after four years of work by an independent team of specialists in the United Kingdom—concluded that transition treatments remain experimental. Following this report, the British government suspended the use of puberty blockers and hormones for minors. Yet in Argentina, the Cass Report was barely covered or debated, even among policymakers responsible for these issues.
On February 6, 2025, the Argentine national government issued Emergency Decree (DNU) 62/2025, banning hormonal treatments and sex-change surgeries for minors under the age of 18.
Surprisingly, the Argentine Society of Pediatrics (SAP) reacted by expressing its “deep concern” in a statement citing children’s rights, invoking the “progressive autonomy” of minors, characterizing the Gender Identity Law (No. 26743) as a “milestone of progress,” labeling the Cass Report a “controversial document,” and reiterating the doctrine justifying these treatments—namely, that “lack of access to comprehensive healthcare increases rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts,” while transition treatments “significantly improve quality of life and well-being.”
The SAP concluded by mentioning its over 20,000 members, raising the question of whether the statement truly reflects the views of pediatricians across the country.
It is worth noting the euphemism “access to comprehensive healthcare,” when what is actually at stake is blocking puberty, administering cross-sex hormones to adolescents, and even performing mutilating surgeries on minors.
Eliacheff and Masson specifically highlight the use of euphemisms by those practicing a medicine in service of ideology. For instance, “torsoplasty” is used to refer to the removal of breasts.
Lobotomy and Sterilization
These practitioners offer “miracle solutions, exploiting emotional immaturity—often associated with psychological disorders in young people—as well as the distress of parents,” the authors assert. They also cite other examples of therapies that caused more harm than good, such as lobotomy. This method, invented by a Portuguese neurologist, involved severing the fibers connecting the frontal lobe to the rest of the brain to treat psychiatric illnesses.
Today, the idea seems scandalous and absurd, yet António Egas Moniz was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1949 “for the discovery of the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses.”
The method was introduced into the United States by neurologist Walter Freeman, who partnered with a surgeon and performed thousands of lobotomies, including one that left a sister of John F. Kennedy in a near-vegetative state.
Not all doctors endorsed it, and the method was the subject of sharp criticism from the start, yet lobotomies continued to be performed until the late 1970s.
“Doctors believe they are on the side of righteousness,” Eliacheff and Masson say, “to the point of ignoring all the warnings that challenge their results, their comfort, their reputation, and their acquired powers.”
They also recall the case of hysteria, a predominantly female nervous disorder treated at the end of the 19th century with brutal methods such as clitoridectomy and hysterectomy. As with lobotomy, some professionals at the time denounced these practices as mere mutilations and advocated for psychological treatment instead.
In the 20th century, the authors warn, an ideological shift occurred: hysteria began to be perceived as a genetic rather than an organic problem. Sterilization was supposed to prevent its transmission. This marked the rise of eugenic theories.
“If eugenics concerned hysterical women in the 19th century, 21st-century transhumanism is not unrelated to today’s demands for sex change,” Eliacheff and Masson state.
They cite Pierre-André Taguieff, who writes:
“Eugenicists and transhumanists share a core belief: that traditional religious faiths must be replaced by a new belief centered on the desire to improve the lives of future generations through the reconfiguration of human nature.”
Is there not, they ask, a parallel between removing breasts to alleviate psychological suffering and castrating hysterical women, as the German gynecologist Alfred Hegar believed, asserting that “the removal of the genital glands eradicated the evil”?
The Hippocratic Oath forgets the principle of “do no harm”; a physically healthy person is turned into a lifelong patient—sterile and often suffering from anorgasmia.
A New Clinical Approach
Eliacheff and Masson argue that transversion is based on an ideology that implies a rupture with reality (the difference between the sexes) and a paradigm shift.
Those who promote it seek to convince the public that it is possible to change sex, by applying emotional pressure, shutting down debate, and isolating dissenters.
That is why they argue that the rise in cases is not due to a “liberation of speech,” but rather to a “liberation of supply.”
In a woke logic, they say, talking about biological sex is becoming almost a crime—a form of violence against the LGBTQIA+ community. Criticism is equated with insult. Every difference becomes an injustice to be fought against. Even biology is accused of being discriminatory, intolerant, or even transphobic.
Eliacheff and Masson do not theorize in the abstract: they have followed and continue to follow clinical cases. Based on this experience and their research, they have developed a new clinical proposal for treating adolescent gender dysphoria.
They propose the term Pubertal Sexuation Anxiety (PSA) to describe this condition.
Symptoms include: intense and persistent anxiety, potentially reaching panic attacks upon the appearance of secondary sexual characteristics; rumination, body shame, strategies to hide developing sexual traits, fear, sadness, guilt, feelings of worthlessness, fear of being targeted or mocked for physical changes, fear of adult sexuality, mood swings, and anger.
These symptoms can be aggravated by comorbidities: eating disorders, social anxiety, depression, histories of violence and/or trauma, ADHD, and autism spectrum disorders.
Such youth, they explain, are easy prey for a media and sometimes academic narrative that offers a fast and radical solution:
“If you feel bad in your body, it’s because you are trans.”
An autodiagnosis that reinforces body rejection and prevents adaptation to bodily changes.
What transgender activism promotes, they argue, is the affirmation of being “born in the wrong body,” the refusal to explore the origins of the distress, and the use of suicide threats to obtain puberty blockers.
The approach they propose for PSA is very different:
No hormones before reaching legal adulthood
Comprehensive evaluation (individual, family, social)
Psychotherapeutic treatment, and if necessary, psychopharmacological support
The book opens and closes with a two-voice, first-person narrative of a case of rapid-onset gender dysphoria: a young girl and her father recount three years between her 13th year, when she believed she was born in the wrong body, and her 15th year, when she reconciled with her biological sex.
The LGBT website she had consulted, says Lou (a pseudonym), “only supported the idea that if a boy or girl didn’t fit gender stereotypes, then they must be trans.” She would have preferred to hear:
“It’s normal at that age to feel uncomfortable in your body, and there’s nothing wrong with being a bit masculine or exploring different styles.”
She regrets that her father was reported to the justice system for insisting that he had a daughter and not a son—something that also happens in Argentina.
At 15, she says, she was unaware of the risks and the irreversibility of certain decisions.
The trans-affirmative approach pushes young people in deep distress to make choices that will irreversibly alter their bodies.
Now an adult, Lou sends a message to young people going through the same turmoil:
“It’s important to understand that there are other ways to live with this dysphoria, to ease it, and even to overcome it.”
And she adds:
“Young people should be encouraged to explore their identity and their bodies, rather than to modify them to match the stereotypes of the opposite sex.”
Trad. Chat GPT et DeepL
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