Clinical Hospital of São Paulo performs gender transition in 280 children and adolescents

The Hospital das Clínicas (HC) in São Paulo serves 380 patients in gender transition.

Of these, 280 are under 18 – 100 children from 4 to 12 years old, and 180 adolescents between 13 and 17 years old.

The information is from the G1 portal.

The treatment for gender reassignment involves blocking puberty, cross-harmonization, and sexual reassignment surgery.

The state pays for all procedures.

The site interviewed young people and their parents, who told how the procedure works and whose steps involve blocking puberty, cross-harmonization, and, in some cases, even sexual reassignment surgery.

Gustavo Queiroga, 8 years old, was born a biological woman but felt like a boy.

Already with masculine features, he says he “made a dream come true” with his mother’s support.

The child is monitored at the Transdisciplinary Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Clinic (Amtigos).

Currently, 160 families with children and adolescents who do not identify with the gender they were born with are waiting in line to be assisted by the Hospital das Clínicas.

CFM RESOLUTION

The growing demand by young people and adolescents for gender reassignment follows a resolution passed in 2019 by the Federal Council of Medicine (CFM) that reduced the age for sex reassignment surgery from 21 to 18.

Resolution 2,265/2019 also authorized the blocking of puberty in children who say they feel in the wrong body and are already in the 10-year-old range when the most pronounced changes of each sex begin; and released cross-hormone therapy starting at age 16 so that still in adolescence, boys begin to acquire female characteristics and vice versa.

At the time, the normative measure caught even members of the CFM by surprise.

Twelve of the 28 current councilors expressly requested the revocation of the new set of norms approved by the previous administration.

They allege that the resolution was approved without open consultation with medical professionals.

Ignorance about the topic discussed was also alleged after the resolution was passed.

“This resolution was approved in the twilight of lights by the previous management. But it was only published in the Official Gazette during our administration. We had a scare at the time; nobody knew anything about it,” Raphael Câmara, gynecologist and obstetrician, Rio de Janeiro’s representative at CFM (2019-2024 management), told BSM.

Despite the contestation, the resolution was eventually approved by the council.

However, according to Raphael, the feeling of the councilors is that they were deceived into approving the norm.

“It was left in the air that the resolution will be revised even in this administration, which ends in October 2024. I know that there is a working group analyzing it. I realize that the counselors who voted in favor felt deceived, especially after the increase in dropout cases (in the treatment for gender change). Since then, many studies have shown that the person regrets it”, says the counselor.

Moreover, in practice, the approved resolution does not affect public health since the resolution opposes what the ordinance of the Ministry of Health (Ordinance No. 2,803/2013) says about “sexual readjustment in the Transsexualization Process” by the SUS, which funds surgery for those over 21 years old and hormone therapy after 18 years old.

“It is important to clarify that the SUS does not fund it if it does not follow the rules,” Raphael adds.

With information from Brasil Sem Medo