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Child Abuse Sanctioned by the State—Until Now
The willingness of almost every segment of our society to abuse our children is mind-blowing. How is it possible that parents, the medical and psychiatric community, teachers, and legislators are prepared to destroy lives by promoting transgender treatments with little scientific data to support their efforts? Even as information emerges that their ideology is false and unethical, they persist in pursuing their goals. Fortunately, Gov. Ron DeSantis and his Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo, refuse to comply with the demands of these ideologues. They are stopping the Medicaid funding for transgender procedures.
Recently a young 17-year-old woman named Chloe Cole spoke at a public hearing in Florida about her own disastrous experience:
‘I really didn’t understand all of the ramifications of any of the medical decisions that I was making,’ Chloe Cole, 17, said at a public hearing Friday. She said she was medically transitioned from ages 13 to 16, taking so-called puberty-blocking drugs and testosterone, and undergoing surgery to remove her breasts at age 15. ‘I was unknowingly physically cutting off my true self from my body, irreversibly and painfully.’
SG Ladapo confirms her assessment and warned against transgender medical interventions for children:
‘Medicalization of minors with gender dysphoria might advance the political views of physicians involved in their care, but the data showing any benefits for the actual children is extraordinarily thin,’ the surgeon general told Fox News Digital. ‘The affirmation model runs an unacceptably high risk of harm.’
‘Parents are threatened with fears of suicide, but the treatments have not been shown to actually reduce this risk,’ he added. ‘These patients need compassionate care of their emotional and mental well-being—not to be in embroiled in political views about sex/gender.’
Although there is no consensus about transgender interventions, there is plenty of support for doing more research before these actions are taken:
Dr. Matthew Benson, a board-certified pediatric endocrinologist in Jacksonville, testified that he agrees with the AHCA’s rule. ‘I think the data on which the gender-affirmative model is based is not scientific,’ he said. He cited studies from Sweden and Denmark showing extremely high rates of suicide among people who took transgender interventions, and concluded, ‘We need better data, we need long-term perspective trials where we can look at adverse effects. We need much more robust data to justify these kinds of very robust therapies.’
When the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) proposed this new rule, several organizations pushed back, such as the LGBTQ groups and the American Pediatric Association, and supporters of the rule were characterized as extremist and religious advocates.
This is a summary of the rule:
The proposed rule centers on treatment for gender dysphoria, which the federal government defines as clinically ‘significant distress that a person may feel when sex or gender assigned at birth is not the same as their identity.’
Under the proposed rule, the Medicaid program would not cover puberty-blocking medication, hormones and hormone ‘antagonists,’ sex-reassignment surgeries and any ‘other procedures that alter primary or secondary sexual characteristics.’
The proposal also would establish that such treatments don’t meet a definition of ‘medical necessity.’ That is important because, by law, services provided in the Medicaid program must be deemed medically necessary.
The agency, which oversees the state’s Medicaid program, issued a report last month to back denying coverage of the treatments, which it said were ‘not consistent with generally accepted professional medical standards and are experimental and investigational.’
Although it isn’t clear when the rule will go into effect, it does not need to be enacted by the legislature. DeSantis’s critics claim he has approved the rule in anticipation of the 2022 election. Yet all the arguments supporting the rule included here point to the lack of scientific data, lack of long-term research, lack of medical necessity, and lack of medical standards.
More governors need to call out this misuse and abuse of Medicaid funds.
They have an obligation to protect our children.
Published in Healthcare
It baffles me that any parent can allow transgender medical procedures on their child. It simply doesn’t pass the “stupid” test.
Some of them supposedly think it is compassionate parenting; others are cowed by the teachers and school administration to comply. Whichever way they arrive at the issue, their decisions are bizarre and sick.
Parents are out of the habit of saying ‘no’.
Let’s face it, for some parents it is the affirmation of their politics, not the affirmation of the children’s gender identity. It’s Munchausen’s by Proxy.
Parents as politicians; their core constituency gets what it wants, there are public accolades for taking a
nbold position, and frankly, it makes parents who get their kids braces look like also-rans.Allow me to don my amateur psychologist propeller beanie and declare it to be a form of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Think of the tales you’ll be able to tell your envious friends.
Great post, Susan.
I have a question: does the proposed rule in Florida apply to all sex-change procedures, or is it limited to children? I did follow your link to the proposed rule, and it looks to me like it applies to all procedures, but I’m not completely sure about this.
I agree that children should be protected from these procedures. I also think that adults should be protected from these procedures. The people who want such procedures appear to be insane, or perhaps demon-possessed.
The rule described in the OP link does not allow reimbursement to any recipient, including for the following:
(7) Gender Dysphoria
(a) Florida Medicaid does not cover the following services for the treatment of gender dysphoria:
1. Puberty blockers;
2. Hormones and hormone antagonists;
3. Sex reassignment surgeries.
So it appears that any reimbursement will be denied to anyone.
Red State governors should see this as a priority. After all, Medicaid makes the following claim–that the referenced treatments are not “consistent with generally accepted professional medical standards and are experimental and investigational.”
Totalitarians never see human beings. That’s why they are fine with mass slaughter.
A distinguishing characteristic of Totalitarians is revealed in their language: They love humanity but despise actual people.
I think it was Stalin who said, “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”
There’s a lot going on. Previous comments referencing Munchausen’s by Proxy are spot on. I am pretty involved in this situation with one very young person and have witnessed events from a distance with a young adult.
Where does the “we” come in? A couple of places. One, we’ve managed to make victimhood the coin of the realm. And more and more people are looking for their piece of victim pie.
Two, we allow for “protected classes”. The mothers of these children, along with the children, now have an instant shield to protect them from any scrutiny. Child not doing well at school? Transphobia. Mother not elected to PTA? Transphobia. Child not invited to a BD party? Transphobia. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.
I’ve quoted before a comment a gay gentleman made to me at a brunch (of course it was a brunch) a few years ago. I was a couple of Bloody Marys in and said to him “it must suck to be gay now that no one cares”. He replied “yep. Now you aren’t anyone unless you’re tranny”.
At least in my experience, I can’t stress enough how this is a mommy issue. Having a gay child is now no big deal; having a transexual child is the ultimate accessory.
This makes me sad and angry. I cannot understand what we are doing.
I don’t think that we’re doing anything, Spin. You and I and Susan and others are opposed to this whole thing.
What are the people in favor of “trans” mutilation doing? I think that they are denying reality. I think that this is deeply rooted in something like libertarian narcissism, and a rejection of all traditional standards of sexuality, family, and the proper roles of males and females.
This is just what St. Paul said would happen among those who deny God, in Romans 1. Perversion and abomination rule the day. They call good evil, and evil good.
Of course I meant the “royal we”, which is to say not the royal we, simply our country. The general “we” are complicit because we refuse to tell the truth on this issue for fear of being cancelled.
I have strong words, too, for the Christian community that seeks to remain “relevant” to the culture to the point that they give in on this and many other issues.
And I have strong words for myself and for others who are like me, in that we don’t care about remaining relevant, we speak the truth, but we do not engage in spiritual warfare like we should. We forget that we wrestle not against “flesh and blood”. We don’t put on the full armor of God, as it were. So in a way we are also complicit in the downfall of society.
It inspires going on crusade.
That seems like I’m making light, but I can’t cope with this.
I have been introduced to the Ruth Institute. I’m thinking of seeing how I can get involved with it.
Bravo Mr DeSantis. Bravo Dr Ladapo. These poor children are experimental animals for the left.
This is just as understandable (or not) as adults throwing their children into furnaces because they were told that this would lead to fertility of the land and prosperity. It’s fully crazy, but not exactly insane.
Thank you for a fine post on a critical topic, Susan.
While I am vehemently against children “transitioning” — either socially or medically — I’m going to say a word in defense of parents, based on my conversations with actual parents who are going through this with their daughters.
There is essentially no support for a parent who wishes to push back against this. It would be nice to tell them to step up and simply parent their children, reject the nonsense, and have no part of it. And I do encourage parents to do that.
But consider what faces a parent who tries this. The school may be complicit in the child’s “transition,” adopting new names and pronouns, even providing a change of clothes so the child can cross-dress when he or she gets to school. Every counselor the parent consults is likely to echo the standard affirmation-is-the-best-policy line — often even trotting out the suicide trope, a terrifying prospect for any parent. Single parents face the very real possibility of losing access to, even custody of, their child: the network of social media sources urging children to reject and deceive their parents is frightening.
When faced with a daughter who insists you call her by a masculinized name, who screams at you when you don’t, who has absorbed all of the social media advice about how to manipulate parents and counselors, and who is polarizing the family and destroying any kind of peace in the home, it’s easy to see how parents surrender to the seemingly modest demands of social transitioning — not aware that they’re facilitating a cascade of further interventions likely to end in misery.
I’ve watched this happen, and it’s tragic. I have sympathy for the parents, particularly single mothers, caught in this trap.
The best advice I’ve heard — advice given both by Abigail Shrier and by a friend who successfully rescued a daughter who had started down this path — is to take away ALL social media. Take the kid completely off line. Hard as that is, it’s an easier fight to win than the one with a child being coached in what amounts to identitarian victimhood and hatred by a mob of perverse online nihilists bent on wrenching children from their families.
I think if the pressures are this overwhelming, parents need to remove their kids from the schools, too. I understand that parents are suffering, but ultimately they need to make tough decisions. Especially because if kids are desperate enough, they will find a way to get on social media. It’s a horrible situation.
Yes. I think some people Shrier mentions as succeeding in intervention actually moved to the country out of desperation.
I thought of them. A huge sacrifice –but it was successful in some situations.
I suggest that Florida allow medical malpractice lawsuits by adults who were “transitioned” regardless of the state that said “transitioning” occurred in.
Interesting idea.
The high number of celebrities and other high social status people who claim to have “transgender” children does support the suggestion that at least some of the promotion of “transgenderism” may be more about the parents than about the children.
I think that you’re right about this, Hank.
My conclusion, however, is that this means that the libertarian approach to the issue does not work. The abomination of transsexualism should be rooted out.
I was happy to see Jordan Peterson taking a very strong stand on this recently, calling the doctors who perform so-called “transitioning” procedures “criminals.”
That nonsense-spouting Berkeley law professor who accused Sen. Hawley of promoting violence because he said men cannot give birth trotted out a suicide statistic as though that should end discussion. That statistic needs more context. What’s the suicide rate post transition? My understanding is that it’s basically the same. If so,then gender transitions aren’t resolving the suicide problem. Have the suicide statistics controlled for the many other mental health issues “transgender” people often have?
What other mental health issues? Ask any therapist and the only relevant bit is the transgenderism. Nothing else. Nada.
As I understand the law — and acknowledging that I’m no lawyer — it’s been pretty well established that, in criminal matters — states have jurisdiction only over crimes committed with their boundaries.
I don’t know how venue is established in civil cases, but it seems to me that it must be problematic. If I sue a doctor in another state, am I free to have the case tried in whichever state in which I choose to live? I’m guessing that’s unlikely but, again, I’m no lawyer.
Does the Depp-Heard civil suit provide answers to this question?