Adopted into law: 2023/10/25

The Montreal Compact for Protection of Trans Safety
We hold as fundamentally important the right of all sentient beings to exist without repression, without threat to their existence or integrity, and in accordance with their identity, all within the limits of basic compassion, avoiding harm caused to others, and decent good sense1. We reject the notion that the basic right to live, to love (with consent of all involved parties), and to identify as one’s own identity2 should be limited on the basis of religion or an adherence to outmoded beliefs which run counter to both up-to-date scientific research and, just as importantly, basic human kindness and empathy.

At the time of the drafting of this document, the overwhelming scientific consensus is:34567891011
1) There is no meaningful scientific evidence to support the belief that the human species (itself a poorly-defined construct) has only two dichotomous genders. There is in turn ample scientific evidence that gender, as both an identity and an aspect of anatomy, is a spectrum.
2) There is no compelling medical justification for denying a person access to gender-affirming care except in rare situations.
3) Affirmation of a person’s identified gender leads, in nearly all cases, to improvement in numerous outcome measures of health, happiness, and well-being. Gender affirming care reduces, subjectively, pain and suffering, and objectively, lifetime suicide risk, and improves physical safety in a variety of settings including ordinary society, prisons, and the military.
4) Years of research supports the notion that identifying as transgender, non-binary, or genderfluid is not in and of itself associated with mental disorder, impaired judgment, impaired functioning, or impaired capacity. When gender dysphoria is present, the single most effective treatment is gender-affirming care.

In light of this evidence, we adopt the following:
1) We affirm the right of all individuals to explore their gender and sexual identity with the same freedom as they would their cultural, vocational, or religious identities.
2) We condemn the use of “conversion therapies” as being both ethically and morally wrong in so far as they have no reliable basis of evidence for their efficacy and have been shown to pose significant risk of harm with little to no benefit in the vast majority of cases.
3) We affirm the right of all individuals to access gender-affirming medical and psychological care, including but not limited to the right to completely or incompletely change their anatomy through medical and surgical interventions. We affirm that this constitutes essential medical care and should be fully covered by the government in a socialized publicly-funded health care setting or by all insurance providers in a privatized setting.
4) We affirm the right of all individuals to legally change their name with a minimum of bureaucratic obstacles and to request that those around them use their preferred pronouns to address them. While no individual can be forced to comply with this request, we condemn those who consistently refuse to comply with this preference.
5) Although we do not condone bullying or doxing in principle, we recognize that often the only recourse of an individual who has been the victim of deadnaming, invalidation, dehumanization, or other victimization is the naming and identification of the culprit. It is furthermore evident that such dehumanizing acts are often already done in public, often with an apparent performative aspect on the part of the victimizer. We therefore support individuals’ rights to publicly name people who, with perversity and forethought, refuse to acknowledge their preferred identity. We at no time condone or encourage other retributive acts and most particularly do not condone the use of physical violence in response to victimization.

[1] Should such a thing ever be proven to exist

[2] Barring exceptional cases defined as pathological by licensed and peer-reviewed mental health care practitioners

[3] https://policysearch.ama-assn.org/policyfinder/detail/transgender?uri=%2FAMADoc%2FHOD.xml-H-65.964.xml

[4] https://www.psychiatry.org/getattachment/d3ef4763-8a0e-4da3-ab01-efe932ca9478/Position-2018-Access-to-Care-for-Transgender-and-Gender-Diverse-Individuals.pdf

[5] https://www.psychiatry.org/getattachment/ad686aa4-8ca9-4a92-b007-cf05a50f8e78/Position-2018-Discrimination-Against-Transgender-and-Gender-Diverse-Individuals.pdf

[6] https://www.psychiatry.org/getattachment/8665a2f2-0b73-4477-8f60-79015ba9f815/Position-Treatment-of-Transgender-Gender-Diverse-Youth.pdf

[7] https://www.psychiatry.org/getattachment/2e35c5a6-8a6b-4f4b-ace8-a1703d9ce367/Position-Sexual-Orientation-Gender-Minority-Status.pdf

[8] https://policysearch.ama-assn.org/policyfinder/detail/transgender?uri=%2FAMADoc%2FHOD.xml-0-3487.xml

[9] https://policysearch.ama-assn.org/policyfinder/detail/transgender?uri=%2FAMADoc%2FHOD.xml-H-430.982.xml

[10] https://policysearch.ama-assn.org/policyfinder/detail/transgender?uri=%2FAMADoc%2FHOD.xml-H-65.957.xml

[11] https://policysearch.ama-assn.org/policyfinder/detail/transgender?uri=%2FAMADoc%2FHOD.xml-0-5094.xml

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