U.S. HHS Report on Pediatric Gender Dysphoria Pushing Conversion Therapy

The U.S. promotes coercive ‘gender exploratory therapy’. Luckily Canada is a refuge where conversion therapy is a crime.

By Morgane Oger

Introduction

On May 1, 2025, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a report that deeply concerns me. Titled Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices (HHS, 2025), it was commissioned under Executive Order 14187 by Donald Trump.

The report promotes “gender exploratory therapy” as a preferred treatment model, challenging long-established medical consensus.

US President Trump displays signed executive order 14187, “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation”, because as a “totally reasonable man” he never behave like a dangerous far-right demagogue targeting trans kids for power.

Groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, among many others, view gender-affirming care as essential and lifesaving for transgender youth (Time, 2025). The HHS report not only questions this consensus, it actively undermines it.

The Report and Its Flaws

What makes the report even more concerning is its reliance on sources that many experts regard as biased and agenda-driven. I am aligned with that view. The report draws heavily from the UK’s Cass Review and the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM), both criticized for anti-transgender biases (Them.us, 2025). Worse still, the authors of the report are anonymous, raising serious questions about transparency and accountability (Axios, 2025).

Advocates and medical professionals have condemned the document for promoting what amounts to conversion therapy under a new label (Them.us, 2025). Calling it “gender exploratory therapy” does not change the fact that it encourages discouraging or repressing trans identities.

Why This Matters

This report arrives amid a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the United States. In 2025 alone, more than 500 bills were introduced targeting LGBTQ+ rights (Time, 2025). Policies like the HHS report do more than stigmatize, they actively harm transgender people, particularly youth.

Denying gender-affirming care increases risks of depression, anxiety, and suicide, a reality well documented in public health research (AP News, 2025). Such policies threaten our dignity, autonomy, and bodily integrity.

Conversion Therapy Must Be Treated as a Criminal Offense

In Canada, we have made critical progress in addressing this harm. I have been a strong advocate for criminalizing conversion therapy because it is not merely unethical, it is dangerous.

When Canada passed Bill C-4, which criminalized conversion therapy, I w@elcomed it as much-needed, saying at the time that

“It is long overdue for Canadians to know that new and existing laws are not purely symbolic…If leveraged and well-understood, they have the ability to make all of our lives equitable and fair.” (Morgane Oger Foundation, 2021).

The HHS report defies this principle. It presents a coercive practice as therapeutic, pushing transgender youth toward cisnormative outcomes. In Canada, I believe that this would almost certainly be illegal under the Criminal Code’s prohibition on conversion therapy (Justice Canada, 2022).

Also, never forget that transporting Canadian children to the US with the intent to expose them to criminal harm such as conversion therapy is also in of itself a criminal act.

Pathways to Asylum for Affected Persons

Given these developments in the U.S., transgender individuals and supportive parents face serious risk. Canada’s refugee laws recognize persecution on the grounds of gender identity and expression (IRB, 2017).

If policies inspired by the HHS report are implemented coercively or punitively, affected individuals may be eligible to seek asylum in Canada. Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board already acknowledges that denying gender-affirming care can constitute persecution, and the Trump administration’s conduct is likely sufficient to justify that this report and the directive that funded it meet the criteria for State-wide persecution imposes by Canadian law and the UNHCR to determine if an asylum seeking person is at risk in their home state. (State as in Country, not State as in regional entity). In these cases, the argument for protection is strong and Canada’s government deeply sympathetic.

Organizations such as Rainbow Railroad offer critical support to LGBTQ+ people facing persecution and can help facilitate access to Canada’s resettlement programs (Rainbow Railroad, 2025). The Morgane Oger Foundation may also be able to help with guidance and ideas.

Quacks like a dangerous bigot. Walks like a dangerous bigot. Probably a dangerous bigot.

The HHS report marks a dangerous escalation in the rollback of trans rights in the United States. By promoting practices akin to conversion therapy, it undermines medical science and threatens human rights.

I reject the notion that trans youth should be subjected to coercive “therapies.” Intensed to change any person’s identity. Canada criminalized conversion therapy for a reason: because it violates human rights.

If you or your family members face persecution as a result of these policies, I hope you know that Canada offers a path to refuge. Your family can emigrate here and get a great job. And if you can’t do that then you can count on Canada as a country that protects asylum seekers who can demonstrate persecution.

If you are Canadian, please continue to stand ready to offer protection to those who need it most.