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Adolescent Gender Transitions Are a Dangerous Fad
We now live in an era in which mutilating surgeries are done routinely as part of the preferred treatment for gender dysphoria, the belief that the gender “assigned” to you at birth does not reflect your true self.
Modern science has developed solid evidence that gender is determined at conception, not birth, and is not assigned by anybody but is fixed for life. So until recently, sufferers from gender dysphoria were thought to be confused and maybe need educational counseling while simply waiting for adulthood, when over 80% seamlessly settled into their “birth gender.”
But earlier in this century, a new “best available science” stealthily but comprehensively came to dominate the world of transsexual medicine. Suddenly, gender-confused patients, even adolescents and children, were deemed unerringly insightful regarding their true gender identity. They needed not mental health treatment but physical alteration. And they needed it now.
Few seemed to note that gender dysphoria, unlike most other conditions, had no specific manifestations, no test or objective evidence that could confirm or deny its existence. Thus, based simply on the “feeling“ of a minor unable to drive, vote or get a tattoo because of their manifest immaturity, irreversible therapies were initiated.
These included puberty blockers, followed by sex hormones of the desired sex and then both “top“ and “bottom” surgeries. Planned Parenthood advertised puberty blockers (obviously to pre-pubescent patients) “as early as your first visit.” Parents who proved balky were excluded from decision-making about transition procedures and sometimes even lost custody of their children.
Another suspicious aspect of adolescent transgenderism is that it behaves very differently from other hardwired inborn conditions. Until recently, transgenderism had been confined mostly to young boys. Now, girls outnumber boys three to one. Researchers additionally note that girls especially often seemed vulnerable to “social contagion,” contracting this affliction in groups where gender switching is seen as the path to social approval. It’s what the cool kids do.
There are also regional variations that don’t fit a biological model. California has a rate of transgender identification well above the national average. For example, six percent of the students in Davis, CA, identify as transgender, compared with 1.7% nationally.
Yet the tsunami of children transitioning continues to sweep over the western world. In America, it is endorsed by mainstream professional societies of physicians, pediatricians, psychiatrists, and transgender health professionals. None of these organizations are inclined to counter the concerns of their critics, just to silence and shame them.
Because the US doesn’t have a centralized database, accurate numbers of participation are hard to come by. We do know that in a decade, we have gone from one to 60 “comprehensive gender clinics.”
In the UK, with an experience similar to ours, in 2010 there were 72 referrals to the NHS gender clinic. Ten years later, there were 2,729.
But as we accumulate more experience, the tide may be turning. A growing wave of former patients who received the gender affirmation protocol now bitterly regret their experience. They typically recount being unhappy teenagers who believed from social media sources that transitioning could bring the social approval they craved.
After a cursory evaluation, they were begun on hormones that permanently changed their body form and functions, and finally, surgery removed their now unwanted body parts. Eventually, they realize that by listening to trusted authorities, they had made an awful mistake.
As one lamented, “I am angry. I’m sad. I can’t have kids…I’ll never lose my virginity. I’m left with the scraps of the life I could’ve had.”
Because of cases like these and research questioning the basic premises of transition therapy, Britain recently closed down the famous Tavistock gender clinic. Sweden and Finland have switched to an approach that emphasizes counseling, with drugs rarely if ever used. New Zealand and others are also reconsidering the affirmation model.
But American medical authorities are soldiering on, oblivious to the yellow lights flashing furiously. When will they admit that their recommendations violate the principles of medicine (first, do no harm) and common sense (don’t cause injury treating a condition likely to resolve spontaneously)? Misleading impressionable adolescents into unnecessary, permanent life-altering decisions to serve an ideology is despicable.
Published in Culture
Conversion therapy is illegal, but conversion cutting is fine.
In a decade, and perhaps much less, I think people who currently endorse youthful “gender-affirmation” will be about as eager to recount that enthusiasm as they would be to cite their support for the Tuskegee Experiment — and for equally good reasons.
Thank you for your very informative post. Ricochet is a learning experience for me.
It’s a sick twisted “fad” started by sick, twisted people – the numbers tell you that. Transgenderism is a very rare condition. If social media didn’t exist, the conditioning would not be there. Perversions are everywhere now and accepted more as normal. The destruction of the family, and especially children is planned.
I wish it was started by sick, twisted people. But it’s hard not to see something far more sinister and powerful driving this madness, something that has persuaded mainstream politicians to enact ridiculous “self-identification” laws that have little popular support and get minimal coverage in the media. This is exactly what happened here in Ireland in 2015. Now the consequences of the radical change are becoming evident – and people are wondering how on Earth that happened?
I agree – sick and twisted – those that are following this narrative are following something far more evil than they are aware of, and yes, it is powerful and sinister.
It just makes me sad. Middle and High school are difficult for most kids and the need for social acceptance is strong. Predators have latched onto that and have ruined so many lives at such an early stage. And it’s unlikely they will ever be punished for their misdeeds.
That very very small number who really struggle gender dysphoria need our compassion and help. The vast majority of the rest are embracing today’s adolescent/puberty fad. The previous fashion was anorexia/bulimia. Today it is being really a boy.
Those few who suffer from real, objectively measurable and significant physiological sexual abnormalities deserve whatever help medical science and psychological counseling can provide, and I have nothing but compassion for them.
The much larger group who have no measurable abnormalities but who claim to feel some discomfort in their bodies should, I think, seek counseling. In extreme cases, when counseling and professionals in the mental health field have been unable to alleviate their distress, I personally don’t object to adults pursuing more radical medical solutions. I think it would be best if it happened after years of serious attention to their psychological problems, and then only if sensible people conclude that medicalization really is likely to lead to a better life for people suffering from those mental issues.
I don’t think puberty blockers should ever be administered to physically healthy children. I don’t think social affirmation — using preferred pronouns, etc. — should be done for children. Most kids grow out of gender confusion and discomfort, and I think they’ll be better off being allowed to grow up as (possibly homosexual) adults with healthy bodies.
I would prefer that every state banned hormone therapy and surgery for physically healthy minors, with or without their parents’ consent. I think there will be a lot less suffering if the small number of people who might actually benefit from so-called “gender-affirming care” waited until they were adults to do it, even if they might prefer otherwise. This will save a lot of young people from being swept up in this fad, and a lot of people living with lifelong regret for a foolish choice they made early in life.
I feel most sorry for the children being harmed by this absurd social contagion. I feel sorry for the women athletes having to compete against men. I feel sorry for the tortured language being inflicted on us all. And, frankly, I feel sorry for those adults who have quietly presented themselves as the opposite sex for years without calling attention to themselves, but who are now caught in the crossfire as the woke gender-diversity activists threaten and bully and alienate everyone and make life impossible for those who just wanted to quietly get along.
I am horrified by teachers and medical practitioners who encourage and facilitate children who temporarily hate their bodies, to allow themselves to be mutilated. “Gender Affirming Care” must be one of the most extreme euphemisms since the beginning of time.
Worse than “Reproductive Health Care”?
Both are up there. These horrors could not happen in a proper Christian society. But we are in a post-Christian era, and the idea that life, or body parts, are precious and that we are who God created is spat upon.