Transgenderism

On April 7, Wesley J. Smith appeared on Washington Watch with Tony Perkins to discuss the findings of a Finnish study that adolescents who received gender-affirming interventions suffered worse mental health outcomes, contradicting years-long claims that gender-confused children need gender-affirming care in order to avoid worsening mental health. Begins at 18:12

A new medical study out of Finland has found that gender-dysphoric adolescents and young adults who were subjected to gender reassignment interventions had worse mental health outcomes than a control group that did not receive such bodily alterations.

The study tracked 2,083 people who had sought medical services for gender confusion between 1996 and 2019. The findings are quite specific. From, “Psychiatric Morbidity Among Adolescents and Young Adults Who Contacted Specialised Gender Identity Services in Finland in 1996-2019,” just published in Acta Paediatrica (my emphases, citations omitted):

Gender-referred adolescents showed significantly higher psychiatric morbidity than controls both before (45.7% vs. 15.0%) and ≥ 2 years after referral (61.7% vs. 14.6%). Those referred after 2010 had greater psychiatric needs than earlier cohorts, both before (47.9% vs. 15.3%) and ≥ 2 years after (61.3% vs. 14.2%) referral. Among adolescents who underwent medical gender reassignment, psychiatric morbidity increased markedly during follow-up — rising from 9.8% to 60.7% in feminising gender reassignment. After adjusting for prior psychiatric treatment, all gender-referred adolescents had similarly elevated risks of psychiatric morbidity, with hazard ratios approximately three times higher than female controls and five times higher than male controls.

But what about previous studies that gender ideologues often cite to justify puberty blockers and mastectomies for underage patients? They were inadequate to the task at hand:

California reprehensibly enacted a law that prohibits school administrators and teachers from informing parents about their child’s gender confusion. It is almost beyond belief that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals quashed a trial court injunction against the law — but then again, it is the Ninth Circuit. Thankfully, in a per curiam emergency-docket ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court just restored the injunction against enforcement. From Mirabelli v. Bonta (citations omitted, my emphasis): California’s policies will likely not survive the strict scrutiny that Mahmoud demands. The State argues that its policies advance a compelling interest in student safety and privacy. But those policies cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents. California’s policies also appear to fail Read More ›

The ideological fever that pushed the transgender agenda to the forefront of Western cultural and political life has not broken. True, a jury awarded $2 million in damages for medical malpractice to a “detransitioner” woman who had a double mastectomy when she was only 16. And true, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the AMA now oppose transitioning surgeries for minors — meaning that such interventions can no longer be considered the “standard of care” for children experiencing gender confusion. That’s all to the good.

But: The Attorney General of California has sued a hospital that announced it would no longer perform “gender affirming care” on minors. Across the pond, the European Parliament just voted to declare men who identify as women to be women for purposes of discrimination laws — which, while non-binding in law, is expected to influence policies going forward. That’s all to the bad.

And now, a resolution has been introduced in Congress by Representative Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.) — along with scores of cosponsors — to establish a “Transgender Bill of Rights” that would undo all the recent gains that society has made to restore rationality to this most divisive controversy. Among other provisions, it would require that women’s private spaces be open to men who feel they are women, sweep aside religious objections to providing transgender medical interventions, and force women’s and girls’ sports to accept males as competitors.

From H. Resolution 1058, which already has many Democrat House sponsors and is supported by Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey:

The first gender “detransitioner” medical-malpractice case to go to trial resulted in a $2 million dollar verdict against the medical professionals who approved a double mastectomy for the plaintiff, Fox Varian, in 2019 when she was only 16. From the Epoch Times story: A jury on Jan. 30 found a psychologist and surgeon liable for malpractice after they supported and performed breast removal surgery on a 16-year-old girl who at the time identified as transgender. Fox Varian, now 22 and no longer identifying as transgender, was awarded $2 million in damages, with $1.6 million for past and future pain and suffering, and another $400,000 for future medical expenses. The jury found that in many respects the surgeon and psychologist had Read More ›

What do surgical interventions on people with sexual identity disorder actually do to the human body and are any of them reversible? In this episode of Bioethics Babe, host Arina Grossu Agnew sits down with Dr. Patrick Lappert, a twice board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon, former U.S. Navy Captain, and former Chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Portsmouth Naval Hospital. Dr. Lappert spent more than 30 years in the operating room, including decades rebuilding bodies damaged by trauma, cancer, congenital deformities, and combat injuries. In this conversation, he explains in precise medical detail why surgical interventions on people with sexual identity disorder are cosmetic, irreversible, and ethically incompatible with basic principles of surgery, especially when performed on minors. In Read More ›

In this episode, pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Quentin Van Meter reveals the truth behind one of the most controversial practices in modern medicine: the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on children with sexual identity confusion. He also outlines the disturbing legacy of John Money, the man whose unethical experiments helped launch today’s gender ideology. With over four decades of clinical experience, including training at Johns Hopkins and service in the U.S. Navy, Dr. Van Meter explains how chemical and surgical interventions on children with sexual identity disorder swept through pediatrics despite a lack of scientific evidence, how clinics rapidly adopted irreversible interventions, and why so many doctors feel pressured to “affirm” rather than question. Dr. Van Meter shares: He Read More ›

If you thought that the transgenderism obsession was finally ebbing, you’d be wrong. A bill is moving in the Massachusetts legislature to establish a Commission on the Status of Transgender People intended to guide the state concerning, in the bill’s language, “all matters transgender.” As summarized in the Boston Herald story:

The legislation (S. 2725) An Act Establishing a Commission on the Status of Transgender People, would task the commission with conducting an ongoing study of all matters concerning transgender people. The commission would also report its findings to the public, serve as a liaison between government and private interest groups concerned with issues affecting transgender people; assess programs and practices in all state agencies that may affect transgender people, and identify and recommend qualified transgender people for appointive positions at all levels of government, including boards and commissions.

Would the commission be representatives of the entire society and conduct dispassionate analysis about this most sensitive and contentious subject? It would not. Take a gander at how the 21 unpaid commissioners would be chosen, according to the terms of the bill:

We’re told that changing a child’s name, pronouns, and identity is an act of love, but what if that so-called “affirmation” is actually the start of a dangerous medical experiment? Pediatrician, researcher, former Executive Director of the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), and the current Chair of the ACPeds Adolescent Sexuality Committee, Dr. Michelle Cretella says social transition isn’t harmless—it can confuse children when they are not being told the truth about their identity as male or female, disrupt their normal development, and lead them down the path of chemical and surgical interventions. On this episode of the Bioethics Babe Podcast, we’re identifying the hidden risks of social transition in children—and asking the hard questions no one else will. Are Read More ›

What happens when the medical establishment stops protecting children — and starts encouraging medicalizing sexual identity confusion instead? In this episode of Bioethics Babe, Dr. Jill Simons, a board-certified pediatrician and Executive Director of the American College of Pediatricians, exposes how ideology has overtaken science and good medicine in the treatment of children with sexual identity disorder and how this puts vulnerable kids at risk. Dr. Simons shares how her decades of experience in pediatrics led her to speak out against sex-rejecting interventions on children with sexual identity disorder — interventions which are not compassionate and leave lifelong physical and mental consequences. We discuss: Dr. Simons explains why she believes children deserve truth, not a pathway to sex-rejecting transition. Watch Read More ›