Gender transition: HAS publishes its recommendations for adults, no consensus for minors

The High Authority for Health (HAS) published this Friday, July 18, its 152 recommendations for the care of adults undergoing gender transition .

She acknowledges that transitional care is "not a convenience, but a vital issue," and that it must be the same regardless of location or doctor.

The HAS was asked in 2022 by the Ministry of Health to determine how care for transition pathways should be organized. The HAS believes that the healthcare offering for adults remains highly heterogeneous and insists that transgender identity should not be considered an illness.

For minors, the decision has been postponed until 2026 due to a lack of scientific consensus, explains the HAS.

Public authorities have been under intense pressure on the issue, with threats against members of the working group. Anaïs Perrin-Prevelle hopes that the work on minors will proceed more smoothly.

"We would have liked the recommendations to include both minors and adults. It was decided otherwise," says the director of the OUTrans association, which provides training on welcoming trans people.

"It's rather good that we have recommendations coming out for adults today and that we can then work for minors in the most serene way possible," she adds, affirming that "never in the entire history of the HAS" has there been so much pressure.

For his part, the president of the High Authority for Health explains that we must "give time time."

According to the latest figures from the French National Health Insurance Agency, 22,500 people are undergoing gender transition in France today. It is unknown how many of these are minors.