Health
THE WPATH TAPES: Behind-The-Scenes Recordings Reveal What Top Gender Doctors Really Think About Sex Change Procedures

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By MEGAN BROCK AND KATE ANDERSON
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) is the leading authority in the field of gender medicine. Its guidance is routinely used by top medical associations in the U.S. and abroad, while its standards of care inform insurance companies’ approach to coverage policies.
But behind closed doors, top WPATH doctors discussed, and at times seemed to challenge, the organization’s own published guidelines for sex change procedures and acknowledged pushing experimental medical interventions that can have devastating and irreversible complications, according to exclusive footage obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
WPATH published highly influential clinical guidance called “Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8” (SOC 8), which recommends the use of invasive medical interventions such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and sex change surgeries, calling them “safe and effective.”
The DCNF filed a series of public records requests to WPATH SOC 8 co-authors who are employed at taxpayer-funded institutions, making their emails subject to open records laws. Buried in more than 100 pages of responsive records from the University of Nevada was a series of emails between prominent WPATH members and leaders, including WPATH Global Education Institute (GEI) Co-Chair Gail Knudson, that were sent in 2022. In one email, Knudson sent a colleague the link to a folder containing nearly 30 hours of recordings from WPATH’s GEI summit in September 2022 in Montreal, Canada, which included sessions on mental health, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and sex change surgery.
These sessions provided WPATH members with in-depth education on the clinical application of topics addressed in the SOC 8 treatment guidelines. However, the footage reveals WPATH-affiliated doctors advocating for children to undergo risky sex change procedures and even pushing for these treatments for patients struggling with severe mental health issues. Several sessions were dedicated exclusively to treating children and included recommendations for minors to receive puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries.
For instance, WPATH guidance recommends addressing a patient’s mental health issues before giving them sex change medical interventions. However, in one recorded session, a WPATH faculty member and gender doctor claimed that mental health issues don’t necessarily affect a patient’s ability to receive cross-sex hormones.
In another video, a doctor told attendees children should be informed that cross-sex hormones will likely make them infertile but admitted that he will prescribe them anyway if a child says they want the treatment, regardless of the future consequences.
A surgeon euphemistically referred to a phalloplasty procedure, a surgical series that includes obliterating the vaginal cavity and creating a fake penis with harvested tissue, as an “adventure” for young people. He did this despite later admitting that those same procedures will “definitely” have “complications,” such as permanent issues with bladder function and tissue death.
One physician called the entire field of cross-sex hormones “off-label,” referring to the concept of drugs being used for alternative purposes than what they were approved for. The doctor went on to say that female patients might actually appreciate drug side effects that cause them to lose hair, because they’d look “more like men.”
The Food and Drug Administration says that when it approves a drug, healthcare providers generally may prescribe that drug for an unapproved use, or off-label, when “they judge that it is medically appropriate for their patient.”
In several other videos, doctors argued in favor of transitioning patients who experience psychotic episodes. One admitted that some of his patients with schizophrenia have to be careful how much cross-sex hormones they take or they can’t “keep the voices down.”
The DCNF consulted medical professionals from respected organizations, such as Do No Harm, who all argued that the comments from WPATH-affiliated doctors show that the transgender medical industry does not have patients’ best interests at heart.
While the average person, nationally and internationally, likely has never heard of WPATH, the modern medical industry is deeply tied to the organization and relies on it to dictate the standards of care for transgender medicine. WPATH’s guidelines are cited as criteria for obtaining insurance coverage by both private insurance companies and tax-funded insurance plans, positioning them as a lynchpin of the sex reassignment industry.
Additionally, their guidelines help inform policy statements from major medical and professional organizations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Psychological Association and the Endocrine Society. The AAP is currently being sued by Isabelle Ayala, a former patient who was medically transitioned as a child, for allegedly rushing her through sex change medical procedures.
There’s been an explosion in the number of young people, including children, being put on hormones and puberty blockers and getting sex change surgeries, according to a study published in August 2023 by the JAMA Network. This surge has been fueled, in part, by groups like Planned Parenthood, which distributes cross-sex hormones to patients as young as 16. Planned Parenthood saw a roughly 125% jump in the number of transgender services it provided between 2020 and 2022.
Twenty-three states, however, have enacted legislation preventing doctors from performing sex change surgeries on minors amid backlash from concerned parents and doctors who don’t subscribe to the WPATH-endorsed “gender-affirming care” model. Gender-affirming care is another euphemism used by medical professionals to describe the idea that doctors should affirm a patient’s wish to live as the opposite biological sex through social transitioning, hormone therapy and even surgery.
The SOC 8 was released just days ahead of the 2022 symposium and contained several significant changes to how doctors and medical institutions implemented transgender medical treatment. For instance, WPATH removed minimum age requirements criteria that established when a child can or should receive transgender medical services such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex reassignment surgeries.
WPATH’s previous guidelines recommended that hormone therapy be given once a patient was over the age of 16, but the updated version removed this barrier and suggests hormone therapy begin at the first signs of sexual maturity.
The videos obtained by the DCNF give the first glimpse at how doctors and mental health professionals discussed implementing the new guidelines. To highlight the most significant portions of the content obtained in the records requests, the DCNF has decided to publish a series of articles collectively called “The WPATH Tapes.”
Following this release, the DCNF intends to publish all of the videos in their entirety in order to provide the public with necessary information about WPATH’s approach to medical care and shine a light on an influential organization that has largely remained anonymous until now.
The WPATH Tapes Table of Contents:
- Video Shows Prominent Doctors Acknowledging, And Even Challenging, The Experimental Nature Of Sex Change Drugs
- Top Psychiatrist Argues Schizophrenic Patients Can Consent To Sex Change Surgeries
- ‘Keep The Voices Down’: In Unearthed Video, Doctors Discuss Putting Mentally Ill Patients, Including Kids, On Hormones
- Gender Doctor Calls Genital Surgery An ‘Adventure’ For Young People While Describing Grisly Complications
- ‘No Idea About Their Fertility’: Gender Doctors Shed Light On Grim Reality Facing Kids Considering Sex Changes
- Leader Of Gender Medicine Org Says Binary Sex ‘Doesn’t Really Hold True,’ Cheers On ‘Deconstructed’ Biology
- Private Footage Reveals Leading Medical Org’s Efforts To ‘Normalize’ Gender Ideology
Brownstone Institute
FDA Exposed: Hundreds of Drugs Approved without Proof They Work

From the Brownstone Institute
By
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved hundreds of drugs without proof that they work—and in some cases, despite evidence that they cause harm.
That’s the finding of a blistering two-year investigation by medical journalists Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee, published by The Lever.
Reviewing more than 400 drug approvals between 2013 and 2022, the authors found the agency repeatedly ignored its own scientific standards.
One expert put it bluntly—the FDA’s threshold for evidence “can’t go any lower because it’s already in the dirt.”
A System Built on Weak Evidence
The findings were damning—73% of drugs approved by the FDA during the study period failed to meet all four basic criteria for demonstrating “substantial evidence” of effectiveness.
Those four criteria—presence of a control group, replication in two well-conducted trials, blinding of participants and investigators, and the use of clinical endpoints like symptom relief or extended survival—are supposed to be the bedrock of drug evaluation.
Yet only 28% of drugs met all four criteria—40 drugs met none.
These aren’t obscure technicalities—they are the most basic safeguards to protect patients from ineffective or dangerous treatments.
But under political and industry pressure, the FDA has increasingly abandoned them in favour of speed and so-called “regulatory flexibility.”
Since the early 1990s, the agency has relied heavily on expedited pathways that fast-track drugs to market.
In theory, this balances urgency with scientific rigour. In practice, it has flipped the process. Companies can now get drugs approved before proving that they work, with the promise of follow-up trials later.
But, as Lenzer and Brownlee revealed, “Nearly half of the required follow-up studies are never completed—and those that are often fail to show the drugs work, even while they remain on the market.”
“This represents a seismic shift in FDA regulation that has been quietly accomplished with virtually no awareness by doctors or the public,” they added.
More than half the approvals examined relied on preliminary data—not solid evidence that patients lived longer, felt better, or functioned more effectively.
And even when follow-up studies are conducted, many rely on the same flawed surrogate measures rather than hard clinical outcomes.
The result: a regulatory system where the FDA no longer acts as a gatekeeper—but as a passive observer.
Cancer Drugs: High Stakes, Low Standards
Nowhere is this failure more visible than in oncology.
Only 3 out of 123 cancer drugs approved between 2013 and 2022 met all four of the FDA’s basic scientific standards.
Most—81%—were approved based on surrogate endpoints like tumour shrinkage, without any evidence that they improved survival or quality of life.
Take Copiktra, for example—a drug approved in 2018 for blood cancers. The FDA gave it the green light based on improved “progression-free survival,” a measure of how long a tumour stays stable.
But a review of post-marketing data showed that patients taking Copiktra died 11 months earlier than those on a comparator drug.
It took six years after those studies showed the drug reduced patients’ survival for the FDA to warn the public that Copiktra should not be used as a first- or second-line treatment for certain types of leukaemia and lymphoma, citing “an increased risk of treatment-related mortality.”
Elmiron: Ineffective, Dangerous—And Still on the Market
Another striking case is Elmiron, approved in 1996 for interstitial cystitis—a painful bladder condition.
The FDA authorized it based on “close to zero data,” on the condition that the company conduct a follow-up study to determine whether it actually worked.
That study wasn’t completed for 18 years—and when it was, it showed Elmiron was no better than placebo.
In the meantime, hundreds of patients suffered vision loss or blindness. Others were hospitalized with colitis. Some died.
Yet Elmiron is still on the market today. Doctors continue to prescribe it.
“Hundreds of thousands of patients have been exposed to the drug, and the American Urological Association lists it as the only FDA-approved medication for interstitial cystitis,” Lenzer and Brownlee reported.
“Dangling Approvals” and Regulatory Paralysis
The FDA even has a term—”dangling approvals”—for drugs that remain on the market despite failed or missing follow-up trials.
One notorious case is Avastin, approved in 2008 for metastatic breast cancer.
It was fast-tracked, again, based on ‘progression-free survival.’ But after five clinical trials showed no improvement in overall survival—and raised serious safety concerns—the FDA moved to revoke its approval for metastatic breast cancer.
The backlash was intense.
Drug companies and patient advocacy groups launched a campaign to keep Avastin on the market. FDA staff received violent threats. Police were posted outside the agency’s building.
The fallout was so severe that for more than two decades afterwards, the FDA did not initiate another involuntary drug withdrawal in the face of industry opposition.
Billions Wasted, Thousands Harmed
Between 2018 and 2021, US taxpayers—through Medicare and Medicaid—paid $18 billion for drugs approved under the condition that follow-up studies would be conducted. Many never were.
The cost in lives is even higher.
A 2015 study found that 86% of cancer drugs approved between 2008 and 2012 based on surrogate outcomes showed no evidence that they helped patients live longer.
An estimated 128,000 Americans die each year from the effects of properly prescribed medications—excluding opioid overdoses. That’s more than all deaths from illegal drugs combined.
A 2024 analysis by Danish physician Peter Gøtzsche found that adverse effects from prescription medicines now rank among the top three causes of death globally.
Doctors Misled by the Drug Labels
Despite the scale of the problem, most patients—and most doctors—have no idea.
A 2016 survey published in JAMA asked practising physicians a simple question—what does FDA approval actually mean?
Only 6% got it right.
The rest assumed that it meant the drug had shown clear, clinically meaningful benefits—such as helping patients live longer or feel better—and that the data was statistically sound.
But the FDA requires none of that.
Drugs can be approved based on a single small study, a surrogate endpoint, or marginal statistical findings. Labels are often based on limited data, yet many doctors take them at face value.
Harvard researcher Aaron Kesselheim, who led the survey, said the results were “disappointing, but not entirely surprising,” noting that few doctors are taught about how the FDA’s regulatory process actually works.
Instead, physicians often rely on labels, marketing, or assumptions—believing that if the FDA has authorized a drug, it must be both safe and effective.
But as The Lever investigation shows, that is not a safe assumption.
And without that knowledge, even well-meaning physicians may prescribe drugs that do little good—and cause real harm.
Who Is the FDA Working for?
In interviews with more than 100 experts, patients, and former regulators, Lenzer and Brownlee found widespread concern that the FDA has lost its way.
Many pointed to the agency’s dependence on industry money. A BMJ investigation in 2022 found that user fees now fund two-thirds of the FDA’s drug review budget—raising serious questions about independence.

Yale physician and regulatory expert Reshma Ramachandran said the system is in urgent need of reform.
“We need an agency that’s independent from the industry it regulates and that uses high-quality science to assess the safety and efficacy of new drugs,” she told The Lever. “Without that, we might as well go back to the days of snake oil and patent medicines.”
For now, patients remain unwitting participants in a vast, unspoken experiment—taking drugs that may never have been properly tested, trusting a regulator that too often fails to protect them.
And as Lenzer and Brownlee conclude, that trust is increasingly misplaced.
- Investigative report by Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee at The Lever [link]
- Searchable public drug approval database [link]
- See my talk: Failure of Drug Regulation: Declining standards and institutional corruption
Republished from the author’s Substack
Health
Red Deer Hospital Lottery 2025 Winners

The Red Deer Regional Health Foundation is thrilled to announce the winners of this year’s Red Deer Hospital Lottery prizes – including the Dream Home, a $100,000.00 cash prize, and Mega Bucks 50.
James Smith of Spruce View has won the $100,000.00 cash prize.
Montey Brehaut of Red Deer has won the Mega Bucks 50 jackpot, taking home $301,702.50.
The grand prize Sorento Custom Homes Dream Home, including furnishings by Urban Barn and worth $1,074,472 – has been awarded to Oscar Gunnlaugson of Sylvan Lake.
The winner announcements took place at noon on June 26 , 2025 – and was streamed live on Facebook from Red Deer Regional Hospital Center.
“We’re excited to celebrate this year’s winners and deeply grateful to everyone who supported the lottery,” said Manon Therriault, CEO of the Red Deer Regional Health Foundation. “Funds raised will directly enhance patient care at Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre.”
This year’s lottery proceeds will fund essential new and replacement equipment, ensuring Red Deer Regional Hospital Center can continue to serve the 500,000 people who rely on it. While plans for the hospital expansion move forward, healthcare doesn’t wait. Patients in our community need access
to life-saving technology today, and supporting Red Deer Hospital Lottery has made that possible.
A full list of winners, including electronics prize recipients, will be posted on July 2 at reddeerhospitallottery.ca.
Winners will also receive instructions on how to claim their prizes by mail.
The keys to the Dream Home will be presented at a special ceremony this summer.
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