Tag Archive for: Health Care

Two Out of Three Kids Will No Longer Identify as Transgender by Adulthood, Massive Study Finds

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The vast majority of children who experience gender dysphoria will embrace their biological sex by adulthood, according to a sweeping national study that monitored children for 15 years.

Roughly two out of every three children who identify as transgender will embrace their birth sex by their mid-20s, the study found. People most likely to continue to identify as transgender have low self-esteem and other mental health challenges, researchers found.

A study of children in the Netherlands tracked 2,772 adolescents from the age of 11 to 26, asking them to rate their mental and physical health every three years for 15 years. The Youth and Adult Self-Report (YSR) asked participants to assess how much they agree with the statement, “I wish to be of the opposite sex.” A team of researchers then pored over the data from the Tracking Adolescent’s Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS) to measure “gender non-contentedness.”

The vast majority (78%) of people never felt any feelings of gender dysphoria, researchers noted. “In early adolescence, 11% of participants reported gender non-contentedness,” wrote researchers in the study, published in February in the peer-reviewed Archives of Sexual Behavior. “The prevalence decreased with age and was 4% at the last follow-up (around age 26)” — a desistance rate of 64%.

Researchers also found that adolescents were 950% more likely to feel better about their sex than to feel worse: 19% of participants felt decreased “gender non-contentedness,” as compared with only 2% whose feelings deepened over time. Participants whose gender confusion worsened over the years “more often were female,” researchers noted.

Feeling more severe gender dysphoria as an adult is also “associated with a lower [overall] self-worth, more behavioral and emotional problems, and a non-heterosexual sexual” preference.

“Gender non-contentedness, while being relatively common during early adolescence, in general decreases with age and appears to be associated with a poorer self-concept and mental health throughout development,” they concluded.

Experts felt vindicated by the latest research. “This new study simply confirms what has been known for over a decade,” Jay Richards, Ph.D., told The Washington Stand. In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) “noted that most kids who experience distress with their sexed bodies resolve those feelings after they pass through natural puberty,” Richards — who serves as director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at the Heritage Foundation — told TWS.

The Dutch study acknowledges it did not break new ground. Although few studies follow the same cohort for such a long period of time, the analysts admitted their findings fell in line with the best available literature. “The few longitudinal studies that have been conducted in a clinical setting found low persistence rates of early childhood gender dysphoric feelings into adolescence and adulthood,” wrote the researchers, linking to studies from 2016 and 2021. The latter found, “Boys clinic-referred for gender identity concerns in childhood had a high rate of desistance.”

Yet this and other studies reveal that “minors who are put on puberty blockers for the purposes of ‘gender affirmation’ are extremely likely to go on to take cross-hormones” such as estrogen and testosterone, Richards told TWS. Studies show up to 93% of children who begin on puberty blockers will go on to receive cross-sex hormone injections. Experts say the transgender industry’s early medical intervention actually deepens and prolongs feelings of gender dysphoria that would otherwise go away on their own. “This is what makes ‘gender-affirming’ (that is, sex-denying) medical interventions on minors such a medical atrocity. These interventions fast track troubled kids onto a path to sterilization and lifelong medical problems,” explained Richards.

The harm goes beyond lost fertility. “There is no research into long-term harms, but some evidence suggests decreased IQ and brittle bones. Permanent sterility is guaranteed for minors who go through full hormonal “transition.” Sexual dysfunction appears to be extremely common as well,” wrote Leor Sapir, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, at The Hill. So-called “gender-affirming hormonal treatment” (GAHT) causes “permanent physical changes including excruciating genital growth, vaginal atrophy and tearing and much higher risk for cancer and cardiovascular disease.”

The authors of the new study said they hope their findings will “help adolescents to realize that it is normal to have some doubts about one’s identity and one’s gender identity during this age period and that this is also relatively common.” It should “provide some perspective to clinicians primarily seeing individuals with intense gender dysphoric feelings.”

This study, and others like it, prove that “children need time, not gender-‘affirming’ medical mutilation,” said Sarah Parshall Perry of the Heritage Foundation.

A growing number of young people subjected to transgender ideology at pediatric gender clinics say they wish they had known how common, and fleeting, feelings of transgenderism can be. “Young people, particularly young women, are very susceptible to social contagion. They are the most susceptible demographic,” Prisha Mosley, a detransitioner who now works with the Independent Women’s Forum, told Laura Ingraham Thursday evening. “And as for the 1% who continues to feel that way, they deserve ethical and data-based mental health care.”

She noted how easily she received transgender injections and procedures, as compared to treatment for her bona fide mental health issues. “I had actually been seeking mental health care and services for trauma and other mental illnesses that were diagnosed prior to my gender dysphoria diagnosis for several years. But as soon as I heard about gender ideology online and expressed to my doctors that I felt I was born in the wrong body, I was immediately fast-tracked,” Mosley told Ingraham on Fox News. She said it took her “almost 10 years after getting my diagnosis for Borderline Personality Disorder to find a dialectical behavioral therapist to treat it, but it was less than two years to go from hormones to a double mastectomy and transition.”

Mosley urged parents to guard their children against the predatory transgender industry, cautioning them to be cognizant of “the way people are manipulating and breaking down language” on the issue of gender. “And then do your best to prepare your children for that. Maybe tell them that there are tricky people out there who will twist language and manipulate them, because unfortunately, it’s true.”

“Sometimes these predators — these people — they’ll wear pins that say, ‘You’re safe with me,’ and all of that, but that can oftentimes be a signal that you’re not safe,” warned Mosley.

“This new Dutch study reminds us that children are being subjected to experimental medical interventions to treat what, in most cases, is a temporary psychological state,” Richards told TWS. “This is a grotesque perversion of the medical maxim to ‘first, do no harm.’”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Leaked Files Reveal WPATH’s Awareness of ‘Debilitating,’ ‘Potentially Fatal’ Effects of Trans Procedures

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The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) has a long history. The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh wrote that WPATH “is the organization that major hospitals and gender clinics cite as the all-important authority on so-called ‘trans healthcare.’” Controversial at its core, WPATH has faced immense criticism over the years from those who do not support gender transition procedures, while at the same time receiving strong support from those who see cross-sex hormones, puberty blocking drugs, and surgeries to remove healthy organs as “gender affirming care.”

Despite losing over 60% of its members between January 2023 and January 2024, “WPATH is somehow now taken seriously as the standard-setter in the field, by major hospitals and medical associations,” Walsh wrote. But in reality, he continued, WPATH “is maybe the single greatest scam in modern medicine. … The WPATH of today is the proud product of decades of quackery and sexual experimentation. It is a threat to public health and in particular to children.”

On March 4, the U.S. think tank Environmental Progress released leaked files from WPATH that “revealed that the clinicians who shape how ‘gender medicine’ is regulated and practiced around the world consistently violate medical ethics and informed consent.”

It continued, “In the WPATH Files, members demonstrate a lack of consideration for long-term patient outcomes despite being aware of the debilitating and potentially fatal side effects of cross-sex hormones and other treatments. Messages in the files show that patients with severe mental health issues, such as schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder, and other vulnerabilities such as homelessness, are being allowed to consent to hormonal and surgical interventions. Members dismiss concerns about these patients and characterize efforts to protect them as unnecessary ‘gatekeeping.’”

Most unsettling about the leaked files, experts have pointed out, is that they prove the alleged “medical professionals” are keenly aware “they are offering minors life-changing treatments they cannot fully understand.” On Wednesday, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins highlighted on “Washington Watch” that the “injuries described in the files” that WPATH members are aware of “include sterilization, loss of sexual function, liver tumors, and even death.”

Concerning the leaked files, Dr. Quentin Van Meter, a pediatric endocrinologist and executive committee member of the American College of Pediatricians, observed on “Washington Watch” that “it’s a very large battering ram that’s hit the wall … that has been hiding all of the information that they know, and they willingly discuss among themselves.” He added that the files prove that the procedures they are doing on “these kids are clearly experimental [and] not based on science.”

He explained that doctors have been warning against WPATH and their practices for years in hearings and courts — efforts that have been repeatedly “shot down.” Van Meter emphasized that WPATH considers their work as “saving grace” and that they “save lives.” For years, WPATH has claimed that any contrary belief “is a bald-faced lie, and is politically motivated by right-wing conspiracy theorists,” he said. “That’s been their mantra since we’ve known them on the scene.”

Ultimately, he argued, the “WPATH secrets that have now been leaked show that [they have] no scientific background [and] that they are living and repeating lies over and over again. It’s quite shocking.” But he also described it as a “gift,” since it exposes the truth that “this is not good for children.”

Perkins added, “It exposes the fact that many of these entities that are held out as experts have been compromised by the political agendas of these ideologically driven individuals.” He continued, “This is what happens when this ideology, untethered to truth and ethics, mixes with science. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it.”

Especially since “it leads to horrible outcomes for children,” Perkins contended. Children that “can’t drive … can’t get a tattoo, but we’re letting them cut off body parts and … make them think they’re changing their gender.”

Van Meter agreed. “This needs to be shouted from the … hilltops: ‘Stop.’ The whole world must stop this nonsense, this insanity. We have hurt hundreds of thousands of children irreparably since this whole process began in the mid-2000s, and we’ve got to put a stop to it.”

Perkins asked if the leaked information would be enough to make “the medical associations … stop and rethink” what they’re doing. Van Meter responded, “That would be the intellectually correct thing to do.” However, what unsettled the doctor the most was how “casual” and “flippant” the members of WPATH seem to be discussing this. “The ideology is embedded so deeply in their minds that I don’t think they really care,” he remarked.

“It’s sad,” Perkins concluded. “It is absolutely sad. What an indictment against our culture to allow this to occur.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Pandering to LGBT Activists Just Blew Up in This Politician’s Face

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Dems Want to Give Up U.S. Sovereignty’ to ‘New World Order’: Senator on WHO Treaty

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The Democratic Party in general, and the Biden administration in particular, are eager to hand global governance institutions more influence over U.S. health policy, said the prime opponent of a new pandemic agreement.

The Biden administration has signaled its intention to adopt the World Health Organization’s (WHO) new accord on responding to global health pandemics such as COVID-19 or “Disease X.” The WHO Pandemic Agreement demands the U.S. turn over one-fifth of all vaccines and protective health equipment to WHO for redistribution, adopts a controversial “One Health” policy that makes human health no more important than animals or the environment, and encourages national governments to combat “misinformation” online. The WHO originally described the agreement as a “legally binding treaty” in December 2022 but changed its formal title to an “agreement” after the Biden administration realized it could not win Senate ratification, as the Constitution requires for an international treaty.

The Biden administration’s willingness to sidestep Congress on the WHO agreement — as it has on student loan “forgiveness,” an eviction moratorium, and other issues — troubles Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who introduced the No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act. But the bill is “not getting much traction here in Congress,” Johnson told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” on January 25, because the international accord has become “a partisan issue.”

“Every Republican except for the bill’s sponsor voted for my amendment, which would have deemed” the WHO agreement, which would give WHO greater authority over all Americans during deadly outbreaks, “a treaty subject to ratification in the Senate. And every Democrat voted against it,” said Johnson. “So, Democrats apparently want to give up U.S. sovereignty.”

Pro-life and pro-family advocates should be most concerned about expanding the WHO’s reach, power, and prestige, as it moves to polarize global health policy in favor of abortion, homosexuality, and transgenderism, say its opponents. At last month’s board meeting, WHO announced it may strike a partnership with the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), a well-funded pro-abortion lobbying group that pressures governments to enact lax abortion laws.

CRR is “one of the most nefarious, aggressively pro-abortion groups on the face of the Earth,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) told Perkins earlier in the same show. That stems, in part, from its secretary-general, Tedros Ghebreyesus, who won his post with China’s endorsement. “I’ve known him for 30 years. He used to tell me how pro-life he was. He is absolutely pro-abortion.”

Smith, the co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, and his wife have tracked the influence CRR and WHO have had on global abortion policy for decades. Two decades ago, Smith entered into the Congressional Record “a document put out by the World Health Organization, and it’s all about the model legislation that they want for every country,” he said. WHO wants “no gestational limits, just like Biden is doing,” establishing a right to “abortion until birth.” WHO and the Democrats also believe pro-life physicians, who object to participating in abortions due to religious or moral reasons, should have “no ability to say no, no right of conscience. They say that is a barrier to access to abortion.”

Democrats and global WHO bureaucrats also oppose mandatory waiting periods, which have been shown to reduce the abortion rate and increase the number of babies born alive. “Very often when there’s a parental notification, or a waiting period, or some other small-but-necessary protection, women rethink it and they come to a different conclusion,” Smith told Perkins. “They want none of that.”

WHO is also scheduled to roll out a global health guidance instructing physicians how to respond to adults who identify as transgender — and stacked the group writing the guideline with radical transgender activists, most of whom have no medical background. One proposed member of the Guideline Development Group (GDG) previously took part in a global LGBT health symposium that “emphasised the need to provide [an] uninterrupted supply of … medical [hormone therapy] and gender-affirmative surgeries for trans people.” The minority of GDG members who have medical backgrounds often carry out, and financially benefit from, transgender procedures, creating a blatant conflict of interest.

WHO’s emphasis on climate change, and its lowering human health to the level of ecosystems, should also give Americans pause, said Johnson. President Dwight D. “Eisenhower, in his farewell address, warned us about four things,” he noted. “The final thing he talked about [was how] we cannot let global society fall into a state of ‘dreadful fear and hate.’” But both have been inflamed by extreme COVID-19 lockdown advocates and Green activists who perpetually flog the threat of “catastrophic climate emergency” while demonizing their opponents, he said. “This is what tyrants do. They control people. They take away your freedom based on a state of fear.”

Johnson said the end game of those promoting the WHO Pandemic Agreement and other destructive policies is “the New World Order, total control, a borderless world. That’s part of the strategy behind an open border here in America.”

He quoted a video produced by the World Economic Forum, “‘You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy.’ That’s basically their rallying cry. It’s sick. It’s frightening.”

“There are a lot of people,” warned Johnson, “in leadership positions who want to take your freedom away.”

He hoped other nations would recognize “that their national sovereignty, their health freedom may be taken away from them in this very dangerous negotiation.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

WHO Chief: Nations Must ‘Counteract Conservative Opposition’ to Abortion, Promote Transgenderism

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A global government body has told nations it is “imperative” that they “counteract conservative opposition” and “enact progressive laws” that legalize prostitution and intentionally infect people with AIDS. At the same time, the international body has indicated it plans to roll out guidelines normalizing transgender cross-sex hormone injections worldwide.

The World Health Organization (WHO) ushered in 2024 with a bulletin titled “Advancing the ‘sexual’ in sexual and reproductive health and rights: a global health, gender equality and human rights imperative,” co-written by WHO’s director-general, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, a former associate of Ethiopia’s repressive Marxist government.

“Political leaders at all levels must champion sexual health as part of sexual and reproductive health to counteract conservative opposition,” states the WHO Bulletin released on January 1. “Policy-makers must enact progressive laws and policies to expand access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services,” it says.

“Countries must repeal laws that criminalize homosexuality, sex work and HIV transmission,” the bulletin advises. Ghebreyesus calls on world leaders to “foster societies where all people can experience their sexuality safely, positively,” couching the advancement of the Sexual Revolution as a moral imperative.

“Upholding sexual health is a moral obligation. Immense suffering is caused when people lack bodily autonomy; control over their fertility” — a likely reference to abortion — as well as “the freedom to experience safe, consensual and pleasurable sexual relationships,” states the bulletin. The bulletin did not explain how having sex with strangers for money and allowing people to spread AIDS with impunity increases sexual pleasure. Surveys have continually found the most sexually satisfied people are committed married couples who had no previous sexual experience.

The WHO bulletin also advocates population control measures in the name of reducing carbon emissions. “Sexual health even impacts environmental sustainability. Slowing unsustainable population growth by investing in family planning and education reduces pressures on natural resources and helps break cycles of poverty,” writes Ghebreyesus.

The bulletin insists that such libidinous concerns as the “right” to pleasure are “not fringe issues” but flow naturally from “universal values that cut across religious, partisan and cultural divides.”

The WHO missive echoed a 2012 report from the Global Commission on HIV and the Law — formed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and funded in part by George Soros’s Open Society Foundations — which called on nations to repeal laws that “prohibit commercial sex, such as laws against … brothel-keeping.” It also opposed laws criminalizing intentionally infecting others with HIV/AIDS, while criticizing “conservative interpretations of religion” and laws based on “morality.”

The new WHO bulletin advocates a broad agenda rooted in the extreme left-wing concepts of intersectionality and equity. “Violations of human rights in the context of sexual health are embedded in hierarchical structures of gender, generation, lineage, race, class, and caste, in which more powerful or privileged people control the bodies and emotions of the less powerful. People with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities often face stigma and discrimination,” states Ghebreyesus.

WHO condemned medical researchers for fixating on 99% of the global population through their “focus on predominantly cisgender and heterosexual populations.”

Ironically, WHO encourages politicians to enact new policies, because “[s]exual health of women and girls and gender-diverse individuals is politicized.” Yet WHO wishes for global support of the Sexual Revolution to go beyond political leaders to become a whole-of-society undertaking.

“Civil society and affected communities must mobilize to demand services, promote rights and reduce stigma,” writes Ghebreyesus. “Global leadership and funding are essential. International institutions should ensure sexual health is integrated within health, development and human rights frameworks.” Foreign aid should prioritize WHO’s goals, as should private nonprofit organizations, the memo states.

The New Year’s Day bulletin came as the World Health Organization asked for comment on the group of radical transgender activists WHO recruited to draw up global health guidelines on transgender procedures. The vast majority have no background in medicine.

After public backlash, WHO announced the group would not decree how doctors should care for minors who say they’re experiencing gender dysphoria. However, the adult guidelines will clearly affirm the transgender industry’s invasive procedures in the name of human rights.

“This guideline has a specific focus on adults and will not address issues relating to children and adolescents,” WHO announced last Monday, January 15.

WHO groused that many global health care settings “lack policies to facilitate access to inclusive and gender affirming care.” It clarified that “gender-affirming health care can include … a number of social, psychological, behavioural or medical (including hormonal treatment or surgery) interventions,” but “these new technical guidelines … will not consider surgical interventions.”

However, the new guidelines will insist doctors “provide more inclusive, acceptable and effective” care for trans-identifying people — by which they mean cross-sex hormone injections. “The guideline will reflect the principles of human rights, gender equality, universality and equity,” the January 15 statement proclaimed. It will also advance WHO’s alleged commitment to two United Nations statements “to protect all people from discrimination and violence on the grounds of gender identity and/or gender expression” and “eliminate discrimination in healthcare settings, including discrimination based on gender identity and gender expression.”

Banning alleged “discrimination” against transgender people could penalize Christian health care workers with faith-based objections to carrying out gender-conversion procedures.

“This is obviously highly concerning for several reasons,” Travis Weber, vice president for Policy and Government Affairs at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “One is the aggregation of worldwide power into entities like the World Health Organization, which are far removed from the proper decision-making authority.” But a more pertinent objection, he said, is the content of global governance bodies’ decisions.

“We’re seeing WHO and other world bodies — the U.N., Organization of American States, World Economic Forum — increasingly aligned with the anti-Christ position,” advancing views that are “antithetical to the Word of God. They are opposed to what Jesus says,” Weber told TWS. “God speaks to us about creation, about creating us male and female, about how before He formed us in the womb He knew us. That’s very different than what the world power centers are saying about reality.”

It is all the more concerning such ideological impositions are being carried out in the name of “science,” he said. Weber compared the use of the word “science” to a cargo vehicle driving down the highway: “We see the car moving, but we don’t see what’s being carried inside it. What’s inside [WHO’s use of the term ‘science’] is ideology. The term ‘health’ is taking on an ideological bent — not only on gender ideology but on abortion, which is the taking of an innocent life. The term health is being used to promote a pro-abortion ideology worldwide.”

The new documents come as the U.S. government is asking citizens to comment on the proposed WHO Pandemic Agreement, originally called a treaty, which the Biden administration is considering adopting without Senate confirmation. The WHO agreement would require the U.S. to redistribute 20% of all vaccines and other equipment to WHO for redistribution, adopts a “One Health” policy equating human health with animal and plant life, and calls on governments to crack down on any social media post WHO dubs “misinformation.”

WHO’s decision to promote legalized prostitution, transgenderism, and population control measures in the name of health makes the global body “a dangerous place for everyone,” Weber told TWS.

The deadline to comment on the WHO Pandemic Agreement is Monday, January 22 by 5 p.m. Eastern time.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Taxpayer-Funded Trans Procedures Lead Even Pioneers to Say Things Have ‘Gotten Out of Hand’

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U.S. taxpayers funded life-altering transgender surgeries, despite that fact that one of the global pioneers in the field says “gender transition has gotten out of hand” and likened it to the “recovered memory” craze that hurt vulnerable patients and tore families apart during the 1980s.

The hospital that opened the nation’s first pediatric gender transition facility, Boston Children’s Hospital, received $1.4 million from the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) of Massachusetts for inflicting “gender transition services” between January 2015 and May 2023. The hospital’s Center for Gender Surgery carried out 204 transgender surgeries between 2017 and 2020 — including 65 gender-conversion surgeries on minors. The controversial facility offers double-mastectomies to children as young as 15 and phalloplasty to girls at the age of 17.

Boston Children’s Hospital would not disclose whether state taxpayer funds paid for minors’ transgender surgeries, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation, which broke the story.

This is far from the only time politicians have compelled taxpayers to fund transgender procedures at the child-mutilating facility. Boston Children’s Hospital received a $3.3 million grant from the Biden administration’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) to build a website targeting young people in other states who identify as transgender, as well as to train the hospital’s staff. The hospital also took part in a five-year, NIH-funded study that monitored minors aged 12-20 who received cross-gender hormones; 240 of its 315 participants were underage. Two committed suicide, and 11 more contemplated ending their lives.

The negative outcomes trans-identifying youth suffer as a result of “gender-affirming care” matches the experience of Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala, a Finnish psychiatrist who established a gender transition clinic for minors in 2011. She has since participated in the evaluation of 500 children dealing with gender dysphoria.

“Soon after our hospital began offering hormonal interventions for these patients, we began to see that the miracle we had been promised was not happening,” she writes in an exposé in The Free Press. “The young people we were treating were not thriving.” Even when “young people insisted their lives had improved and they were happier,” the evidence belied their self-assessment. “They were withdrawing from all social activities. They were not making friends. They were not going to school.” And her colleagues across the continent “were seeing the same things.”

These patients, and the detransitioners who followed, are the “kind of patient who wasn’t supposed to exist.”

In 2015, the children visiting her changed from young men who had always identified as female. Now, the overwhelming majority of her patients were young women suffering from Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD): “90 percent of our patients were girls, mainly 15 to 17 years old, and instead of being high-functioning, the vast majority presented with severe psychiatric conditions.”

“Some came from families with multiple psychosocial problems. Most of them had challenging early childhoods marked by developmental difficulties, such as extreme temper tantrums and social isolation,” she writes. “In adolescence they were lonely and withdrawn. Some were no longer in school, instead spending all their time alone in their room. They had depression and anxiety, some had eating disorders, many engaged in self-harm, a few had experienced psychotic episodes.” One of their patients was mute, and “more than a quarter of our patients were on the autism spectrum.”

An American whistleblower, Jamie Reed, said the same conditions held at The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, where she said clinicians regularly ignored their patients’ panoply of other psychological and social conditions.

Most of the Dutch patients had never presented any gender dysphoria before coming to Dr. Kaltiala, who says ROGD had become the dominant patient profile for everyone working in the pediatric transgender field. The patients’ stories shared so many similarities, “We realized they were networking and exchanging information about how to talk to us.”

Although she authored a 2015 study questioning some aspects of the transgender-industry orthodoxy, she and her colleagues around the world felt pressured to keep their concerns private. “Even during the first few years of the clinic, gender medicine was becoming rapidly politicized,” Dr. Kaltiala writes. Activists in psychologists’ poses promised that young people would find “all their mental health problems would be alleviated by these interventions. Of course, there is no mechanism by which high doses of hormones resolve autism or any other underlying mental health condition.”

The condition holds true in the United States, she affirms, where the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry have refused to hear dissenting voices or read data that contradict their predetermined conclusions. Yet “one new study shows that nearly 30 percent of patients in the sample ceased filling their hormone prescription within four years.”

“Anyone, including physicians, researchers, academics, and writers, who raised concerns about the growing power of gender activists, and about the effects of medically transitioning young people, were subjected to organized campaigns of vilification and threats to their careers,” she states. “We were being told to intervene in healthy, functioning bodies simply on the basis of a young person’s shifting feelings about gender,” she writes. “Identity achievement is the outcome of successful adolescent development, not its starting point.”

The doctor finds the transgender industry’s high-pressure sales tactics, in which they falsely claim a child will commit suicide unless parents allow the industry to begin transgender procedures, disreputable. Research, she notes, showing transgender-related “suicide is very rare. It is dishonest and extremely unethical to pressure parents into approving gender medicalization by exaggerating the risk of suicide.” The U.K.’s Tavistock Institute, which until recently carried out transgender procedures on minors, reported only four out of 15,032 patients had ended their lives. “The proportion of individual patients who died by suicide was 0.03%,” reported a 2022 study. Although these deaths are tragic, “[t]he fact that deaths were so rare should provide some reassurance” to parents.

Dr. Kaltiala likens “[w]hat is happening to dysphoric children” to the “recovered memory craze of the 1980s and ’90s. During that period, many troubled women came to believe false memories, often suggested to them by their therapists, of nonexistent sexual abuse by their fathers or other family members.” The psychologist-guided lies tore families apart, as children falsely believed their family meant them harm.

“[L]ike recovered memory, gender transition has gotten out of hand,” writes Dr. Kaltiala. “When medical professionals start saying they have one answer that applies everywhere, or that they have a cure for all of life’s pains, that should be a warning to us all that something has gone very wrong,” she concludes.

Americans caught up in the transgender debate welcome the skepticism of Dr. Kaltiala and others across Europe, where nations have progressively changed their protocols to protect children and adolescents from these experimental interventions.

“Gender dysphoria is far more invasive than any other diagnosis in the DSM,” Dr. Jennifer Bauwens, director of the Center for Family Studies at Family Research Council, told FRC President Tony Perkins earlier this month. “Not only are we diagnosing early with something that would be considered a lifelong enduring pattern, but we’re also attaching interventions that are really dangerous and life-altering while a person is still a child.”

“Despite the popular spin, even the leading advocates of medically transitioning youth concede there are substantial research gaps and a lack of knowledge concerning long-term outcomes,” states “The Trans Youth Phenomenon: Critiques & Hard Questions,” a publication co-written by Bauwens as a collaboration between Family Research Council and the Center for Urban Renewal and Education.

Nationally, the transgender industry carried out transgender surgeries on 3,678 minors between 2016 and 2019 nationwide, and “405 patients (11.0%) aged 12 to 18 years underwent genital surgery,” according to a report from the Journal of the American Medical Association’s JAMA Network Open. More than one in four (25.3%) of the 48,019 people who underwent transgender surgeries during that time paid the bill with taxpayer-funded Medicaid. After the Obama-Biden administration swelled the ranks of Americans eligible for Medicaid, surging “Medicaid spending is ‘crowding out’ spending on other major state programs, most notably education and transportation infrastructure,” reported the Mercatus Center.

Transgender activists are advocating for Ohio’s Issue 1, which would make it illegal for the state to “directly or indirectly” burden any “individual” right to make “reproductive decisions,” language broad enough to require taxpayer-funded abortion and transgender surgeries for minors without parental notification — a position favored by several of Issue 1’s authors/sponsors.

Dr. Kaltiala’s decision to oppose transgender procedures for minors grew out of the reason she got into psychiatry in the first place: “My patients’ adult lives are still ahead of them, so it can make a huge difference to someone’s future to help a young person who is on a destructive track to find a more favorable course.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

UK Report: Over One Third of Children on Puberty Blockers Experienced Worsened Mental Health

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New research from the United Kingdom is showing that over a third of children placed on puberty blockers and hormone drugs suffered severe mental health deterioration afterwards.

A 2011 study conducted at the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) clinic for children reported that children who were put on puberty blockers suffered no adverse mental health effects. However, new analysis conducted by Susan McPherson, a professor of psychology and sociology at the University of Essex, and retired social scientist David Freedman found that the majority of children put on puberty blockers and hormone drugs experienced erratic and fluctuating mental health, including over a third whose mental health “reliably deteriorated.”

The original study, conducted on 44 children between the ages of 12 and 15, was reportedly based on group averages, while the new analysis relied on individual results, which McPherson and Freedman explained “allows us to look at how a treatment is performing in terms of the percentage of patients improving, deteriorating, and showing clinically significant change. … It is possible, using this approach, to look at patterns, such as who is benefitting and who is not.”

Last year, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) opted to close down the Tavistock GIDS clinic after a government report found that the staff rushed and even pressured minors into taking puberty blockers and hormone drugs with almost no psychological or medical oversight. A reported 96% of child patients were placed on puberty blockers by Tavistock staffers, and concerns were raised over a tendentious focus on “gender dysphoria,” instead of considering other psychological factors in recommending drugs or surgeries for minors, which were summarily dismissed. In fact, the situation was so concerning that Dr. Hillary Cass, the pediatrician tasked by the government with investigating the claims against Tavistock, offered her recommendation to shut down the clinic several months early, saying she had enough information already to justify closing Tavistock.

Cass particularly stressed concerns she had over the use of puberty blockers and other hormone drugs, which the Tavistock clinic had been prescribing to children as young as 10 years old, many of whom were already on the autism spectrum or suffering various mental health issues like depression or eating disorders. In her interim report to the NHS, Cass noted, “There is lack of consensus and open discussion about the nature of gender dysphoria and therefore about the appropriate clinical response.” She added, “There has not been routine and consistent data collection, which means it is not possible to accurately track the outcomes and pathways that children and young people take through the service.”

Over the years, numerous whistleblowers — former staff governor Dr. David Bell, consultants and nurses like Marcus and Sue Evans, child safeguarding officer Sonia Appleby, and countless former patients who now, as adults, regret being put on puberty blockers and hormone drugs — have sounded the alarm over the Tavistock clinic’s practices. Most have pointed out that children and their parents were often denied informed consent as staffers rushed children onto puberty blockers after only three or four meetings. Some whistleblowers even explained that topics like “sexual orientation” were effectively off-limits and that a transgender identity and a battery of hormone drugs were the only options explored by clinicians. Others pointed out that the drastic rise in children going through Tavistock (from about 250 “patients” in 2011 to over 5,000 in 2021) and linked it to the growing puberty blocker and hormone drug industry.

The findings of the new analysis of the Tavistock study are in line with research conducted and published by Family Research Council. Dr. Jennifer Bauwens, director of FRC’s Center for Family Studies, explained earlier this year:

“At one time, gender dysphoria was considered a mental disorder, but now, due to the increasing prevalence of a worldview shaped by gender identity ideology, it has morphed into a human rights issue. The ideology borrows from the mental health aspects of gender dysphoria in order to justify medical ‘intervention.’”

She continued, “Advocates of gender-affirming care insist it is both lifesaving and evidence-based health care for those who identify as transgender. But the research used to make such a claim is full of methodological errors and can be easily disputed as a research body that is incomplete.” Notably, the original Tavistock study from 2011 focused on group studies instead of on individual situations and results. Bauwens added, “Not only are the currently published studies problematic, but there is a lack of ongoing and long-term follow-up reports that address the impact of cross-sex hormones and surgeries.”

In June, the NHS banned the use of puberty blockers and hormone drugs on minors, following a growing swath of European medical experts who have backed off gender transition procedures for children. France, Sweden, Finland, and Norway have also put restrictions on the use of puberty blockers and hormone drugs on children. The U.S. still hasn’t.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

7 Ways the FDA Decision to Sell Birth Control Pills Over-the-Counter Hurts Women

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The Biden administration approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill — a drug associated with mental and physical harms including higher rates of breast cancer, depression, and life-threatening ectopic pregnancies.

On Thursday, Biden’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the sale of Opill (norgestrel) without requiring a physical examination or prescription. Opill is a low-dose minipill also known as a progestin-only pill (or POP), unlike the standard birth control pill which combines estrogen and progestin (E+P).

The FDA press release trumpeting the decision listed “[t]he most common side effects of Opill” as “irregular bleeding, headaches, dizziness, nausea, increased appetite, abdominal pain, cramps or bloating.” But the progestin-only pill contributes to significantly worse side effects which the Biden administration left unmentioned.

1. Cancer. Hormonal contraception of all kinds increases the risk of certain forms of cancer. But studies show taking the progestin-only birth control pill specifically raises the odds of breast cancer, the most common cancer among women aside from skin cancers. In March, researchers at Oxford University found “a relative increase of around 20% to 30% in breast cancer risk associated with current or recent use of either combined oral or progestin-only contraceptives.” Even Biden’s celebratory press release noted, “Opill should not be used by those who have or have ever had breast cancer.”

The threat is not restricted to breast cancer. Progestin-only birth control also raises the risk of developing cancer of the glands (adenocarcinoma) or of the skin (squamous cancer), European researchers found in 2021. The same year, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) listed progesterone among substances that “are known or reasonably anticipated to cause cancer in humans.”

Progestin-only minipills may also cause women to suffer from cancer longer, with greater complications, by camouflaging cancerous cells from the body’s defense systems. “[P]rogesterone helps the tumor cells go unnoticed,” said Christy Hagan, PhD, assistant professor at the Cancer Center of the University of Kansas. “If breast tumor cells circulating in our body are exposed to progesterone, the hormone may conceal the tumor’s danger signals that are normally recognized by the immune system.”

The danger rises if progestin is combined with estrogen. The standard birth control pill (E+P) is a Group 1 carcinogen. The National Cancer Institute admits that “studies have provided consistent evidence that the risks of breast and cervical cancers are increased in women who use oral contraceptives.” Standard contraceptives also increase the chance of cervical cancer, with the risk rising progressively the longer a woman takes it: 10% higher for women who took the pill less than five years, 60% increased risk after 5–9 years of use, and doubling the risk after taking the pill 10 or more years.

Women maintain a higher likelihood of developing cancer for 10 years after they stop taking birth control pills.

2. Depression. Every birth control pill makes women more likely to become clinically depressed, but the progestin-only minipill seems to have the worst impact on women’s mental health. “All forms of hormonal contraception were associated with an increased risk of developing depression, with higher risks associated with the progesterone-only forms,” concluded Dr. Monique Tello of Harvard Medical School. (Emphasis added.)

Dr. Tello found one out of every 200 women who takes hormonal contraception of any kind will develop depression. At least nine million American women aged 15-49 use birth control pills, according to the CDC. That means 45,450 U.S. women will develop depression due exclusively to their contraceptive choice.

Foreign researchers have confirmed the link between POPs and negative mental health. A Danish study found women who took the minipill were 30% more likely to be prescribed antidepressants for the first time, and teenage “users of progestin-only pills experienced a 2.2-fold higher rate” than adolescents (15-19) who never used hormonal birth control. A Swedish study found those who ingested progestin-only pills were most likely to be prescribed antidepressants, especially among teens aged 16-19.

Progestin-only pills can amplify negative conditions and incarnate emotional pain in the rest of the body. Under stress, progesterone increases levels of the stress hormone cortisol; high cortisol levels lead to greater weight gain and fat retention, diabetes, high blood pressure, and osteoporosis. Progesterone levels are “likely causal factors for the mood symptoms experienced by women with premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD),” a team of researchers from Sweden and New Zealand found in 2020.

“A recent review has shown that sex hormones have significant impact on brain areas related to emotional and cognitive functioning,” wrote two researchers at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. “Progesterones have been shown to induce depression, particularly in vulnerable women.” How do women know if they are “vulnerable”? A physician’s appointment could screen women’s hormonal state. Yet doctors sometimes fail to inform women of potentially mood-altering side effects.

“Hormonal birth control is a lie sold to women,” wrote Chrissy Clark of the Daily Caller. “For 15 years I was on the pill & had inexplicable anxiety and depression[,] symptoms my doctors NEVER thought to tell me were the result of hormonal birth control. I’m over 1 year off hormonal birth control now. My skin is clearer, my anxiety is gone, & my depression is non-existent.”

“Ladies, you deserve freedom from these side effects. Get. Off. The. Pill.”

3. Ectopic Pregnancy. Women who get pregnant while taking progestin-only pills such as the Opill have a greater risk of experiencing a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, in which the newly conceived child implants in one of the fallopian tubes instead of the uterus. If undetected, the fallopian tube can rupture, causing serious side effects and even death. “If you get pregnant while taking the minipill, there appears to be a slightly higher chance” of an ectopic pregnancy, notes the Mayo Clinic. WebMD puts it bluntly: “If you get pregnant while taking the minipill, it can cause problems. You’re more likely to have an ectopic pregnancy.”

4. Potential Abortifacient. While they frequently block ovulation, all forms of hormonal birth control have the potential to induce an early abortion by preventing implantation — including the Opill the Biden administration has authorized for sale over-the-counter. “Progestin-only pills don’t prevent ovulation as well as combination birth control pills. Therefore, its effectiveness is slightly lower,” according to the Cleveland Clinic. Instead, the minipill “thickens cervical mucus and thins the lining of the uterus,” notes the Mayo Clinic. “These prevent sperm from reaching the egg and a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb.”

A “fertilized egg” is a dehumanizing term for a newly conceived child.

5. Blood Clots, Heart Attacks, and Strokes. The Mayo Clinic notes that high doses of progestin “sometimes cause some unwanted effects such as blood clots, heart attacks, and strokes, or problems of the liver and eyes,” which “can be very serious and cause death.” While low-dose progestin-only pills are not known to increase blood clots by themselves, selling the pill over-the-counter denies women a medical screening that might detect if they already have elevated levels of progestin, or other factors that put them at high-risk for serious complications.

The standard birth control pill (E+P) makes women two to 10 times as likely to develop blood clots, which can lead to such life-threatening conditions as pulmonary embolism, deep-vein thrombosis (DVT), and increased risk for stroke. The Cleveland Clinic estimates “10 in 10,000 people per year develop [blood] clots as a result of being on birth control.” That means as many as 909 of the nine million American women who take the birth control pill will suffer blood clots attributable exclusively to contraception. Dr. Lynn Keegan found 300-400 women die every year from the side effects of all forms of hormonal contraception.

Considering the wave of seemingly inexplicable hospitalizations and deaths among young people of bothsexes over the last few years, for variousreasons, Americans should be concerned OTC birth control compounds the damage of other Biden policies that benefit Big Pharma.

6. Diabetes. Links between POPs and diabetes seem to be slight and remain under review. Still, researchers in Chile discovered “progesterone accelerates the progression of diabetes” in mice. Korean researchers found progesterone increases blood glucose levels under certain circumstances in 2021, and Chinese epidemiologists found higher levels of progesterone associated with prediabetes in 2019. Specific circumstances multiply progestin’s potential blood glucose impact. “[T]he use of a progestin-only [oral contraception] during breast-feeding was associated with a nearly 3-fold increase in the incidence of diabetes” among women who had previously had gestational diabetes, Japanese researchers discovered.

7. Religious Liberty. Selling birth control over the counter is likely to become a flashpoint in the ongoing battle to preserve religious liberty from encroachments by the Biden-Harris administration. The Biden administration issued an HHS guidance last July, warning pharmacies it will impose stiff, legal “corrective action” on pharmacists who refuse to hand out the abortion pill mifepristone and instruct customers “how to take” it. Liberal politicians and global governance bodies have long argued sexual “rights” should trump religious liberty. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) called on governments to actively counteract “religious” objections to so-called “emergency contraception” in its 2012 annual report, which declared, “Family planning is a human right. It must therefore be available to all who want it.” The Lancet and the Los Angeles Times have even suggested nuns should take the birth control pill to reduce their risk of certain cancers.

Religious liberty is the first liberty enshrined in the Constitution. Religious rights are human rights. And since most church-goers are women, it’s fair to say, “Religious rights are women’s rights.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Whistleblower Explains How the Transgender Industry Convinces Parents to Mutilate Their Kids

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A whistleblower’s explosive account reveals that the transgender medical industry uses high-pressure techniques, employs its own cadre of “experts,” and lies about the impact of puberty blockers and other drugs to convince parents to authorize lifelong “gender-affirming care” that effectively, or literally, castrates their children. When the parents refuse, at least one transgender clinic disregarded the will of the custodial parent, the insider’s testimony states.

Allegations of illegal activity come from an affidavit and accompanying article by Jamie Reed, a far-Left LGBT activist who worked for four years at The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. The affidavit attests doctors in the university’s transgender clinic prescribed experimental drugs to young children, ignored the children’s physical and mental health concerns, and may have committed Medicaid and insurance fraud. Her heartrending report has touched off separate investigations by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) and U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

Yet her record of the pediatric gender clinic’s actions during her 2018-2022 tenure also contains damning information about the way the industry overcomes wary parents’ concerns and traps children into decades of costly, harmful “treatments.”

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The facility referred young people reportedly suffering “gender dysphoria” for an evaluation with a psychologist chosen from on a list of doctors they “knew they would say yes” to the gender transition, Reed states. One psychologist at the hospital was particularly “known to approve virtually everyone seeking transition,” she writes. If no outside psychologist signed the letter, the center referred the child to their two in-house psychologists, who would certify that the child should begin the gender reassignment process.

For the youngest patients, this meant beginning puberty blockers before administering a lifetime of cross-sex hormones. “The Center tells the public and parents of patients that the point of puberty blockers is to give children time to figure out their gender identity,” she writes. But in reality, the center uses those drugs “just until children are old enough to be put on cross-sex hormones. Doctors at the Center always prescribe cross-sex hormones for children who have been taking puberty blockers.” (Emphasis in original.)

The doctors’ insistence, rather than the children’s persistence, may explain another discrepancy: Left to their own devices, approximately 85% of children with gender dysphoria will identify with their birth sex by the time they reach adulthood. But nearly 100% of children placed on puberty blockers continue the gender transition process, notes Jennifer Bauwens, director of the Center for Family Studies at the Family Research Council.

Doctors lie to assure parents will approve the puberty blockers, Reed reveals. “The doctors at the Center tell the public and tell parents of patients that puberty blockers are fully reversible. They really are not. They do lasting damage to the body,” says Reed. Those damages include “sterilization, reduced bone density, cognitive problems, increased body fat percentage and body mass index, decreased lean body mass, and arterial hypertension,” writes Bauwens.

Reed describes meetings between concerned parents, who wanted answers to the scientific findings they had uncovered about the dangers of puberty blockers, and gender clinic employees, who sought to sell them a lifetime of medical interventions. “The clinicians would dismiss the research that the parents had found and speak down to the parents,” Reed testifies. The facility exhibited a thorough “lack of regard for the rights of parents,” as “doctors saw themselves as more informed decision-makers over the fate of these children.” Clinic employees “would also malign any parent that was not on board with medicalizing their children,” says Reed.

That echoes the experiences of relatives in the documentary “Dead Name,” especially Helen, who was told to “celebrate” her child’s transgender identity after her former lesbian partner had introduced Helen’s four-year-old son, Jonas, to transgender ideology. Helen recounts that a parade of preschool officials and therapists presented her preschooler’s decision as a fait accompli. “They never said, ‘We need to talk about this,’” Helen says. “It was always edicts by email.”

Parents who resisted received the ultimate high-pressure sales tactic: “Experts” said they must approve their child’s gender transition or witness the child’s suicide. “A common tactic was for doctors to tell the parent of a [girl], ‘You can either have a living son or a dead daughter.’ The clinicians would tell parents of a [boy], ‘You can either have a living daughter or dead son,’” Reed testifies. The employees made these comments “to parents in front of their children,” which “introduced the idea of suicide to the children” — something that equally violates known research and medical ethics, Bauwens says.

“It is entirely inappropriate and unethical for anyone in my profession to plant the idea that an inevitable outcome will be suicide (even in the absence of expressed suicidal ideation) if the clinician’s counsel for gender-affirming care is not followed,” Bauwens told Nebraska legislators last week while testifying on behalf of Bill 574, the Let Them Grow Act, which would protect minors from transgender injections and surgeries. “This is blatantly manipulative and has no part in promoting psychological or relational health.”

It’s also erroneous. Numerous studies have found gender transition procedures do not help, and sometimes harm, patients’ mental health. “There are no reliable studies showing” a positive correlation between transgender injections/surgeries and improved mental health, Reed writes.

When parents still refused, or withdrew consent for, the procedures employees at the gender transition clinic continued the treatment, Reed alleges. They would even intervene in custody disputes against parents who disagreed with plans to transition their children. “One of our doctors actually testified in a custody hearing against a father who opposed a mother’s wish to start their 11-year-old daughter on puberty blockers,” Reed notes. But they also ignored the judges’ orders and sided with anyone who brought a child into the office for a gender transition. “I was told not to ask for custody agreements because ‘if we have the custody agreement, we have to follow it,’” Reed notes in legal documents.

To make matters worse many, perhaps most, of the young people who entered the university’s gender clinic had not experienced gender dysphoria at all, Reed states, but a form of social contagion. During her four years at the center, the total number of calls the center received increased between 400% and 800%, and girls began to outnumber boys. Traditionally, most cases of gender dysphoria involved males who identify as female. When she began, she heard about 10 calls a month from teenage girls who identified as male; that had increased five-fold by the time she left, with this cohort making up 70% of the center’s calls.

“It became clear that many children coming to the Center had gender identities that were likely the result of social contagion,” Reed writes. A 2018 study from Dr. Lisa Littman found that rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) can be “initiated, magnified, spread, and maintained via the mechanisms of social and peer contagion,” including peer pressure via online platforms. Reed concludes, “Social media is at least partly responsible for this large increase in children seeking gender transition.”

Yet the center lobbied these minors to begin puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones (typically testosterone injections) and ignored the side effects, Reed writes. “The Center never discontinues cross-sex hormones, no matter the outcome,” she says.

The industry is big business. “Certainly pubertal blockers could run thousands of dollars per month in out-of-pocket expenses,” says Dr. Michael Haller at the University of Florida’s department of pediatrics. Transgender surgeries are “a huge money-maker,” said Dr. Shayne Taylor of Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Clinic for Transgender Health in 2018.

The problems Reed identifies affect all cases of transgender identity, because ideological considerations have narrowed the medical standards and available “treatments” for gender dysphoria, Bauwens told The Washington Stand. “A multitude of treatments have been researched to help children through depression. Yet when it comes to gender dysphoria, there’s only one path currently being prescribed: that is to try to become someone else,” she told Nebraska lawmakers.

“These interventions are being endorsed based on consensus, not evidence: Practices were voted on rather than standing on the merits of solid research findings addressing gender dysphoria,” Bauwens noted. “The success rates for nonintervention for gender dysphoria already exceed most psychological interventions.”

Children need to be “protected from misdiagnosis and scientifically unsupported, highly invasive, and potentially irreversible interventions that will impact the rest of their lives.”

Surprisingly Reed — who says, “I support trans rights” — agrees. “Given the secrecy and lack of rigorous standards that characterize youth gender transition across the country, I believe that to ensure the safety of American children, we need a moratorium on the hormonal and surgical treatment of young people with gender dysphoria,” Reed concludes.

Lawmakers promise to act on the legally actionable items in her whistleblower testimony. “Accountability is coming,” Senator Hawley has promised.

But investigations and prosecutions cannot bring wholeness to the lives permanently altered by the gender transition industry.

“It’s important as others are affirming a false identity that we need to go out of our way, as parents and as a community of believers, to affirm our young people in who they are,” Bauwens told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” last fall. “Transing a child is never the answer.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Utah Enacts Law with ‘Massive Loopholes’ for Minors Seeking Gender Transition Procedures

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If the point was grabbing headlines, Utah’s SB 16 has done the trick. More than a dozen outlets, from Fox News to Newsweek to CNN, described the bill Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) signed Saturday as a “ban” on “gender-affirming” procedures for minors. Unfortunately, the bill no more banned ideological experiments on children than cross-sex hormones are “gender-affirming.”

The bill imposed a “moratorium” on “hormonal transgender treatment to a patient who: (a) is a minor … and (b) is not diagnosed with gender dysphoria before the effective date of this bill.” But the moratorium will only last until the state Department of Health and Human Services conducts a “systematic medical evidence review,” the purpose of which “is to provide the Legislature with recommendations to consider when deciding whether to lift the moratorium.” The Health Department must submit its completed report to the legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee, which is chaired by the bill’s sponsor.

It’s unclear how long the moratorium will remain in effect. A sunset provision in an earlier bill draft would have repealed both the evidence review and the moratorium in four years (on June 1, 2027), but it was stripped out by a voice vote on the House floor. The final version of the bill contains no timeline or end date for the evidence review; it could last for four years, or it could be done in less than four months. Once the evidence review concludes, the legislature will be free to replace the moratorium with the Health Department’s recommendation — which will likely permit gender transition procedures on minors.

The study will likely reach a pro-transition procedure conclusion because the Utah Health Department will conduct it “in consultation with” three state licensing agencies, the University of Utah, and a Utah hospital system. Even in deeply conservative regions, universities and hospital systems are often deeply invested in lucrative gender-transition procedures. The University of Utah also prescribes gender transition hormones to adolescents. “You don’t want people who stand to make money off of transitioning kids in charge of determining that this is a safe procedure,” Joseph Backholm, FRC’s senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement, who has testified on SAFE Act-style bills before multiple state legislatures, told The Washington Stand.

Utah’s state agencies also support gender transition. During the period of the review, one involved agency, the Utah Division of Professional Licensing, will also be issuing “transgender treatment certifications” — essentially approving gender transition treatments for minors.

The Utah Health Department will find no difficulty in tipping the review towards the politically desirable outcome because “so much of the research is politicized,” said Backholm. A peer reviewed study published this month found that two studies which represent “the best available evidence for the practice of youth medical gender transition” are “methodologically flawed and should have never been used in medical settings as justification.” With the research playing to their bias, the Utah Health Department will find steering a scientific review towards their desired outcome to be easier than stealing futures from a child — which is exactly what they’re doing.

Even while the moratorium remains in effect, it won’t protect Utah minors from gender transition procedures. “Written into the law is a loophole so big that anyone who wants to get through it can,” Backholm told TWS. The law prohibits gender transition “surgeries and hormone treatments only until a minor is diagnosed with gender dysphoria,” Backholm explained. “These days, that is a very low bar.” All it takes is an “activist psychiatrist” willing to say that a minor has gender dysphoria, he said, and “everyone knows, ‘Hey, that’s the doctor you’re looking for.’”

Backholm compared the diagnosis exception to an abortion law with an exceptions for the “health of the mother.” Such a term is usually defined broadly to include mental health, which could include any form of stress, which telescopes the exception out to cover just about anything, he explained.

Nearly a quarter of the bill’s length is devoted to building an infrastructure to regulate the ongoing administration of gender transition procedures for minors. The bill directs the Utah Division of Professional Licensing to “create a transgender treatment certification” by July 1. It requires mental health professionals wishing to obtain this certification to complete “40 hours of education related to transgender health care for minors from an approved organization.” That requires the state to approve an organization with staff and curriculum providing training on transgender treatment of minors. It provides a system for individuals to renew their transgender treatment certification at the same time they renew their license to practice. Creating these new procedures hardly sounds like Utah intends to pause all gender transition procedures.

Utah established further transgender infrastructure via detailed treatment guidelines. To provide “hormonal transgender treatment” to a minor, a provider must first treat the minor “for gender dysphoria for at least six months,” including at least three sessions. The provider must “determine if the minor has other physical or mental health conditions” and consider whether “an alternative medical treatment … would provide the minor the best long-term outcome” (with the right activist, that answer is an automatic “no”). The provider must discuss risks, expectations, medical information, and “possible adverse outcomes” with the minor and his or her parents, and then obtain their consent. The provider must “document” this information “in the medical record.” Finally, the provider must obtain a mental health evaluation from a second credentialed provider — that is, from a second individual, who could work out of the same hospital or clinic. Far from obstructing gender transition procedures for minors, Utah Republicans seem to have merely regulated them.

The Utah legislature’s inaction appears more scandalous in light of the medical disclosures they require. Puberty blockers “are not approved by the FDA for the treatment of gender dysphoria,” people must say, who are prescribing them to minors for that very purpose. Not only that, but “possible adverse outcomes of puberty blockers are known to include diminished bone density, pseudotumor cerebri, and long term adult sexual dysfunction.” Oh, and there’s no “research on the long-term risks to children,” nor do we know “the full effects of puberty blockers on brain development and cognition.” That’s written into the law.

The medical disclosure for cross-sex hormones unveiled even graver consequences. For males, the risks can “include blood clots, gallstones, coronary artery disease, heart attacks, tumors of the pituitary gland, strokes, elevated levels of triglycerides in the blood, breast cancer, and irreversible infertility.” For females, the risks can include “erythrocytosis [a blood disorder], severe liver dysfunction, coronary artery disease, hypertension, and increased risk of breast and uterine cancers.” What is this, a commercial during a PGA tournament?

Somehow, Utah legislators acknowledged all these risks and concluded that it was fine for children to be exposed to them — so long as a couple of doctors filled out some forms and checked some boxes.

“This bill is politics,” said Backholm. “These legislators certainly heard from parents who are concerned about how this will affect children. [The legislators] want to tell the parents that they protected kids, but left a massive loophole written in the law. Politicians do this all the time.”

Utah’s feint against gender transition procedures stands in sharp contrast to bills introduced in other states, said Backholm, which say, physicians “may not do [gender transition procedures] under any circumstances.”

Backholm was concerned that other states would use Utah as an example simply because they got a good press cycle. “I am concerned that other states will see this as a way to quickly dismiss the issue, so they can tell the uninformed that they protected kids, without actually protecting kids.” Such a compromise is unacceptable.

Backholm said he is “inherently suspicious of Utah because they have mastered the art of compromise.” He said Utah moderates sold out conservatives by inventing the policy surrender known Fairness for All.

Governor Cox’s record is far from conservative on gender identity issues. In 2022, he vetoed a bill to protect women’s sports before the legislature overrode his veto. Yet Cox was willing to sign this bill on gender transition procedures. He described the weak measure as a “nuanced and thoughtful” strategic pause “as we work to better understand the science and consequences behind these procedures.”

“More and more experts, states, and countries around the world are pausing these permanent and life-altering treatments for new patients until more and better research can help determine the long-term consequences,” Cox said.

The question is, when will Utah?

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED VIDEO: Chloe Cole’s Detransition Story

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Report: U.S. Is ‘Most Permissive Country’ for Minor Gender Transition

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UPDATE:

”The United States is the most permissive country when it comes to the legal and medical gender transition of children,” according to a 12-country policy review by medical advocacy group Do No Harm. The group compared “different legal requirements for gender change-related treatments and actions” among the U.S. and the 11 countries of Northern and Western Europe. These countries — Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom — “share the United States’ broad support for transgenderism” yet “reject the gender-affirming care model for children.”

Do No Harm explained that America has adopted a “gender affirmation” policy for children, which “assumes that gender incongruence can manifest as early as age four and that questioning a minor’s gender self-definition is harmful and unethical. The American Academy of Pediatrics has embraced an affirm-only/affirm-early policy since 2018, and most states abide by its guidance despite withering medical and scientific criticism.” By contrast, some European countries “have explicitly abandoned” the gender-affirming care model and “now discourage automatic deference to a child’s self-declaration on the grounds that the risks outweigh the benefits.” They also recommend “months-long psychotherapy sessions to address co-occurring mental health problems.”

The report proceeded with a country-by-country comparison of requirements for the medical and legal gender transition of children.

American restrictions on puberty blockers vary by state, but “the most permissive states do not impose restrictions,” and blockers have been prescribed “as early as age eight.” Oregonians “are legally entitled” to blockers “from age 15,” with Medicaid assistance and without parental consent. In Iceland, there is “no minimum age” except as a “matter of clinical judgment.” The U.K. permits blockers “from the earliest stages of puberty,” while Belgium, France, and Norway permit blockers from Tanner Stage II, or “once physiological signs of puberty manifest.” Denmark, Netherlands, and Sweden allow puberty blockers “from age 12.” Finland allows them “about age 13.” Ireland allows them “under 16 years old.” In tiny Luxembourg, “no official guidance exists,” but “in practice, adolescents almost always receive blockers in a neighboring country.”

Restrictions on prescribing cross-sex hormones (estrogen and testosterone) to minors also vary state by state across the U.S., but “the practice has been documented with parental consent in children under the age of 13.” In Oregon, minors may “access cross-sex hormones from age 15 without consent and with Medicaid assistance.” France has “no age restrictions” on cross-sex hormones, but “clinicians generally will not administer them before Tanner Stage II.” Again, Luxembourg has “no official guidance,” but “Patients almost always receive hormones in a neighboring Country.” In every other European country studied, cross-sex hormones were available “from age 16,” although the U.K. requires that “individuals must have been receiving puberty blockers for at least one year.”

Do No Harm provided few specifics regarding the status of parental consent for these chemical gender transition procedures. They do say that, besides Oregon, “in most states, puberty blockers cannot be administered before age 18 without parental consent,” but they provide no insight on cross-sex hormones. However, California passed a bill in September effectively removing any parental consent requirement.

By contrast, children may not access gender transition chemical treatments until age 16 or 18 in nearly every country. Denmark is the most permissive, allowing children without parental consent to access puberty blockers at 15. In the U.K., “instances of children under 16 receiving blockers without consent are reportedly rare,” although such consent is not required. To access cross-sex hormones without consent in either country, children must be 16. In Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, and Norway, children must be 16 to access either puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones, although Norway raises the age for cross-sex hormones to 18 “if the treatment is considered irreversible.” Sweden also allows cross-sex hormones without consent at 16, “so long as the individual is deemed sufficiently mature,” while it bars puberty blockers without consent until age 18. In Belgium, Finland, and France, neither treatment is available without parental consent until a person turns 18.

The report also compared the number of youth gender clinics in the various countries. The U.S. led by far, with “more than 60 pediatric gender clinics and 300 clinics” that “provide hormonal interventions to minors.” France also has many locations because “care is decentralized,” and “any doctor can prescribe treatment for medical transition.”

But after that the number quickly dwindles. Sweden administers all gender transition procedures through four hospitals, of which three provide surgery. Denmark administers gender transition hormones at only three locations. There are only two hospitals or clinics providing medical gender transitions in Belgium, Finland, and soon the U.K., which currently has one. Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Norway have one gender transition facility apiece. Granted, the United States is far larger than many of these countries. But the U.S. has a population 2.5 times larger than all the countries except France, while it has 20 times as many clinics providing hormonal interventions to minors.

Do No Harm also compared the minimum age at which countries allow persons to legally change their gender in civil registries. In the U.S., “there is no minimum age” for federal documentation, such as passports or Social Security cards, but such changes require the consent of both parents. There is more variation in state documentation, such as ID cards and birth certificates, but at least seven states “permit minors to change their birth certificate gender markers with parental consent.”

Three European countries, Iceland, Luxembourg, and the U.K., have policies similar to the U.S. federal government in that there is no age limit, but children under the age of 18 need parental consent to change legally recognized gender. In Norway, gender markers can be changed, with parental permission, from age six, and from age 16 without parental permission. Netherlands also allows 16-year-olds to legally change their gender without parental permission. In Belgium and Ireland, 16-year-olds may change their legal gender identity with parental consent, and 18-year-olds may change it without parental consent. Denmark, Finland, France, and Sweden do not allow minors under the age of 18 to legally change their gender identity.

The U.S. also exceeds most European countries in legally recognizing genders other than male or female. Federal “passports offer an X gender option,” and a sizable number of states allow a gender marker of “X” on identification documents (22 states plus D.C. on driver’s licenses, and 16 states plus D.C. on birth certificates). Only Iceland permits gender variation, allowing “third gender and/or nonbinary designations” on official documents. Denmark and Ireland allow a third gender option on IDs and passports respectively, but their “civil registry is binary.” In the Netherlands, a person may only obtain a gender neutral designation through a court. In the other seven countries, Belgium, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, and the U.K., “male and female are the only recognized genders.”

“The United States is the most permissive country when it comes to the legal and medical gender transition of children,” concluded the review. “Only France comes close, yet unlike the U.S., France’s medical authorities have recognized the uncertainties involved in transgender medical care for children and have urged ‘great caution’ in its use.”

“Given the growing body of evidence and the European consensus, which is grounded in medical science and common sense,” pleaded Do No Harm, “the United States should reconsider the gender-affirming care model to protect the youngest and most vulnerable patients.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This The Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Killing Unborn Children Will Never Solve Maternal Mortality

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Since its founding, the abortion industry has always targeted minority and economically disadvantaged women as its prime sources of profit. Today, this anti-life narrative often takes the form of arguing that protecting life in the womb will exacerbate the nation’s maternal mortality crisis — a lie that a bogus new study from Boston University and the Commonwealth Fund attempts to perpetuate.

In the study, titled “The U.S. Maternal Health Divide,” the researchers claim that passing pro-life laws in the states will lead to an increase in maternal mortality and the disintegration of existing maternal health care. The legacy media wasted no time in elevating the report, with outlets like The Hill writing, “The new findings from The Commonwealth Fund confirm what many advocates feared: scrapping Roe v. Wade would have a disproportionate impact on women of color and worsen maternal health overall.”

The pro-abortion narrative is set — the only problem? The study doesn’t actually provide evidence or statistically significant data backing up the claim that protecting life in the womb augments maternal mortality. Rather, the study attempts to correlate the pre-Dobbs maternal and infant mortality rates between 2018 and 2020 with where the state laws now stand on protecting life in the womb in a post-Roe America.

One glaringly obvious issue with the narrative portrayed by this study is that under Roe v. Wade, no state had the ability to enforce a meaningful protection for life in the womb prior to viability. This means that during the period studied, practically speaking, the states now enforcing pro-life protections were indistinguishable from the states that currently allow abortion through 40 weeks of pregnancy.

Furthermore, during the three-year period studied, 20 of the 26 pro-life states reported at least a one-year increase in abortions, with several seeing increases across both years. If abortion were negatively correlated to maternal mortality, then an increase in abortion would cause a decrease in maternal mortality; however, increased rates of abortion in states that are now pro-life did nothing to alleviate the maternal mortality crisis in these states.

The study ignores regions such as our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., where women are almost twice as likely to die from pregnancy complications as mothers in the rest of the nation. The city also maintains one of the most liberal abortion laws in the United States; an abortionist in D.C. can kill a child in the womb at any point in pregnancy, and the abortionist does not need to be a doctor. The D.C. Abortion Fund directly finances abortions for abortion-minded mothers who struggle financially. If abortion were the solution to maternal mortality, why does unlimited abortion fail to remedy the maternal mortality crisis in areas like D.C.?

The answer, of course, is that killing a child in the womb is not a valid solution to any problem — nor is pregnancy itself the problem when addressing maternal mortality. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that 63.2% of all pregnancy-related deaths are preventable. Treating abortion as the solution to the maternal mortality crisis is a waste of time, money, and energy that would be far better directed to addressing real disparities in human flourishing.

For example, limited access to convenient and quality health care plays a major role in whether a woman is healthy before, during, and after her pregnancy. The Commonwealth Fund study attempts to characterize abortion as a solution to maternity care deserts. Of the 26 pro-life states analyzed, the majority are predominately rural, making the solution to a maternity care desert much more complex than simply opening a new hospital. Innovative medical resources, like telehealth services and mobile maternity care units, would go a long way in addressing the maternal health care disparities that abortion attempts to camouflage.

Likewise, abortion is not the solution to poverty. Nine of the top 10 states with the highest poverty rate in the country are states with pro-life protections in place. Poverty often predicts a mother’s ability to access quality health insurance, healthy food, and pharmaceutical resources. In these instances, mothers require assistance to access the resources needed to experience a healthy pregnancy and postpartum lifestyle — not abortion.

A quick glance under the hood of the Commonwealth Fund study reveals the major logical leaps that a reader must make in order to accept the claim that pro-life laws increase maternal mortality. Beneath the misleading pro-abortion framing, however, the report holds some truth: our nation really is suffering from a maternal mortality crisis. But one must only look around the abortion propaganda to recognize that telling poor and minority women that their safest pregnancy outcome is to kill their child is not a real solution.

AUTHORS

Joy Stockbauer

Joy Stockbauer is a policy analyst for the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council.

Connor Semelsberger

Connor Semelsberger is Director of Federal Affairs – Life and Human Dignity at Family Research Council.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

GENITAL MUTILATION IN AMERICA: List of 13 U.S. Hospitals That Operate on Underaged Children’s Sex Organs For Profit

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There are only two genders and a global epidemic of social disorders and mental illnesses. 

We have been writing about the grooming of children by public schools, colleges and universities to provide sex partners for perverts, pederasts and pedophiles.

But even more onerous are those doctors who swore an oath to “first do no harm” that are profiting from the mutilation of the sex organs of underaged children.

This is nothing more than genital mutilation for profit.

No one can change their gender! What they can do is mutilate themselves psychologically, spiritually and physically. This is the greatest and most culturally destructive myth of my generation.

It is barbaric and goes against science and all that is right and the truth. Genital mutilation is not healthcare!

What is most disturbing is the number of “pediatric gender clinics”, a.k.a. genital mutilation factories, that have taken root across America since 2007.

Joshua Arnold staff writer at The Washington Stand in an August 25th, 2022 article titled At Least 13 U.S. Hospitals Perform Gender Transition Surgeries on Minors listed the following hospitals who butcher underaged children to make a buck:

  1. The UCLA Gender Health Program’s pediatric practice (Los Angeles, Calif.) includes “puberty suppression therapy” and “hormone replacement therapy.” It also features “gender affirmation surgery.” According to their website, “most surgical procedures are not recommended until adulthood,” which implies that at least some gender transition surgical procedures may be performed prior to adulthood.
  1. The Gender Clinic at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health (Palo Alto, Calif.) treats both minors and “adults 18 years and older,” offering “puberty blockers and gender affirming hormones.” They provide gender transition surgery to “adolescents and young adults,” touting their “innovative surgical techniques” and “state-of-the-art operating suites.” They boldly state their not-so-medical opinion that “everyone deserves to have their physical body reflect their gender identity.”
  1. The Division of Plastic Surgery at Connecticut Children’s Hospital (Hartford, Conn.) “offers surgical options for gender affirmation to adolescents.” Their Gender Program recommends parents contact them “when puberty begins” for a range of treatments including “puberty blockers” and “hormone therapy.” They also link to various gender dysphoria support groups, including a Hartford group for ages 16-26 and a Bridgeport group for ages 13-24. In these support groups, children could develop close, emotional bonds to adults who are not relatives.
  1. The Essence Clinic at St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital (Boise, Id.) offers “hormonal therapy, including puberty blockers” and “surgical consultations and referrals” to “children, adolescents, and young adults.” Two of its five providers specialize in surgery.
  1. The Gender Development Program at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago (Chicago, Ill., Westchester, Ill.) offers “gender-affirming surgery referrals” for “children and adolescents,” who may “begin care with us up to age 22.” They say they “work closely with several surgeons who are experienced in this type of care and can provide more information and referrals for patients seeking these services.” However, their 19-member gender development team includes two pediatric surgeons, a pediatric plastic surgeon, and an attending physician of plastic and reconstructive surgery, and one of their three locations is a “surgical treatment center,” making it likely that they perform surgeries in-house.
  1. At the University of Illinois Hospital (Chicago, Ill.), “gender affirming surgery” is systematically interwoven into their surgical department, with no division between surgeons performing gender transition procedures and surgeons performing other types of plastic surgeries, and seemingly no division in care between children and adults. As an example, the program’s director “focuses on the reconstructive needs of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults up to age 25” and “specializes with adolescents and young adults in the realm of chest reconstruction, including asymmetric breasts, oversized breasts (female macromastia and male gynecomastia), and top surgery.”
  1. The Boston Children’s Hospital (Boston, Mass.) has offered “gender-affirming chest surgeries for individuals over 15 years old” (see above).
  1. The Child and Adolescent Transgender Center for Health at Boston Medical Center (Boston, Mass.) provides “access to onsite hormone blockers,” “gender-affirming hormone therapy,” and “referral to … other Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery services” for “children, adolescents, and young adults.” The Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery presents a “unified structure” for all “gender affirming care.” An anonymous testimonial on their website indicates they perform transgender surgeries on minors, “As a parent of a child going through the transgender experience, I have found valuable information on this site. After the surgery, I will be caring for him/her at my home.”
  1. The Gender and Sexuality Service at NYU Langone’s Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital (New York, N.Y.) will perform “gender-affirming medical interventions” on a “child, adolescent, or young adult,” working with health insurers “to obtain approvals for presurgical and surgical procedures.” The sizable “Gender and Sexuality Service Team” of nearly 19 doctors include four who represent plastic and reconstructive surgery.
  1. Golisano Children’s Hospital, associated with University of Rochester Medicine, (Rochester, N.Y.) features “gender health services” to “youth and young adults” including “cross-gender hormone therapy,” “pubertal blockade,” and “surgical services” with three surgeons listed.
  1. Doernbecher Children’s Hospital (Portland, Ore., Beaverton, Ore.) offers “a full range of services for transgender and gender-nonconforming children and teens,” including hormone treatments, surgery, and handouts with tips on how to appear more like the opposite sex. They “evaluate surgery for teens on an individual basis.”
  1. The Gender Clinic at Seattle Children’s Hospital (Seattle, Wash.) accepts “new patients ages 9 to 16.” The services they provide include “puberty blockers,” “gender-affirming hormones,” and “gender-affirming surgery.” While gender transition procedures for minors require parental consent, “Washington state privacy laws limit parent and caregiver access to adolescents’ health information. … The patient chooses whether to consent to releasing medical information.”
  1. The Gender Health Clinic at Children’s Wisconsin (Milwaukee, Wisc.) focuses on “children and youth” and “will meet with new patients through age 16.” They offer “puberty-suppressing hormone therapy, gender-affirming hormone therapy, surgical treatments, and speech/voice training.” They refer patients 17 or older to “an adult hormone provider.”

We are saddened that some of our major university medical centers are in the business of doing irreparable harm to underaged children. This is gender mutilation of the worst kind.

This isn’t doing these patients any good to believe that by mutilating their sexual organs they can change their gender. Gender is immutable. Science tells us so.

To perform these types of “therapies” and surgeries is criminal at best.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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“Many people are not living their dreams because they are living their fears.” – Les Brown

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” – Theodore Roosevelt

One of the many great things done by President Trump was putting in place a conscience rule whereby Health Care workers could refuse to perform certain medical procedures or work if it conflicted with their sincerely held religious or moral beliefs.

The bill was never actually put in place as democrats and leftists in dozens of blue states and other liberal advocacy groups tied it up from 2019 onwards in Federal Courts.

Had it been implemented as planned, it would have allowed any and all health workers to legally refuse to provide services like abortions, contraception, gender affirming care, or any other procedure they objected to on religious and/or moral grounds.

The Democrats, as they get closer to losing power, and understanding that as many red states are introducing legislation to reduce or eradicate abortions and transgender care, they are telling this illegal regime occupying the White House to ensure that the Trump conscience bill never becomes law.

After all, these lefties love abortions! Especially those up to birth!! Destroying lives for political gain is their game. Just suck those babies out!! Murder them and call it a “woman’s choice” while refusing certain Americans the choice of if to take the poison – whoops – I mean China Virus Shot!

The plans to permanently remove Trumps conscious clause is underway at the Office of Management and Budget. Weird place to me to do this but what ever works I guess for these tyrants.

Progressive advocates see the removal of the clause as a major step in dismantling the Trump administration’s policy on reproductive rights, something every libtard in the nation hated. After all, they know better so don’t argue! If you do they will call you names covering everything they think will harm you, like racist, homophobe, anti LGBTQUI etc. What was that old expression? Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me! We need to go back to that and stop fearing everything the left throws at us.

Planned Parenthood, one of the most reprehensible and disgusting companies out there that deal in blood, murder and mayhem, are delirious that the Biden Administration may get this done! Certainly no wailing and gnashing of teeth there!! Especially as they keep sucking up tax payers money!!

Jacqueline Ayers, the senior vice president of policy, organizing and campaigns for Planned Parenthood stated joyously “as state politicians continue to strip people of their sexual and reproductive rights and freedoms, it’s imperative that the Biden-Harris administration revoke this discriminatory policy and help ensure people can access the healthcare and information they need when they need it.” Healthcare? Since when did callous pre thought out murder of a living human being become healthcare? Just asking…..

Originally U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer, a Hussein Ovomit – I mean Obama appointed federal judge with a very leftist past and career, was the Judge who initially killed the Trump conscious clause. He got his law degree at Harvard… a liberal bastion of lefties, commies and America haters. He and his wife are both very progressive and woke Jews. Enough said and his bias is obvious.

We will continue seeing this administration under Dumbo in Chief, attacking and destroying as fast as they can, Trumps legacy and finest work.

I call it treason.

©Fred Brownbill. All rights reserved.

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Active and Engaged: Keeping Senior Citizens in Full Vigor

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As we grow older, we might experience physical and mental conditions that may cause limitations in our activities. It becomes challenging to maintain physical and psychological strength because that is the nature of aging.

In this modern era, people tend to be less active because of all of the conveniences available to us. Social activity is also important in our older age, but most of the time we find that we just want to stay at home without realizing it. How can we remain active as we age?

As we love the older members of the society, we must always try to find out best possible ways to take care of them. But sometimes, we may not have the chance to help them ourselves. That’s why assisted living in Houston is one of the best ways to address this as they provide the services to take care of our aging loved ones.

The aim of this community is to provide support for the improvement of both physical and mental condition. a

In this post, we are going to look at some activities for the elder members of society that can help them to stay fit and active. Let’s begin!

Importance of physical activity to stay fit

We have the wrong assumption that physical exercise is just for young people. Having a fitness goal is important for aging people, too. Physical activity helps to in making sure that we live a healthy life.

When we get older, some physical problem can arise such as arthritis, fragile bones, stiff muscles, etc. Also, the coordination and balance may decrease. Fortunately, numerous physical exercises can help to prevent these problems.

Even light exercise can contribute to improving our health conditions. Let’s see how physical activity may help to fight aging problems.

Improve strength and liveliness

As we grow older, we become weak and less active. Strength exercises can improve our physical strength as well as liveliness. Strength exercises can prevent mobility problems.

Strength exercises are activities that make our muscles work harder than during normal conditions. It helps to make our muscles strong, and strong muscles support our bones and joints. It also aids in improving our stability and prevent joint problems to some extent.

Promotes Healing

Experts state that wounds take a longer time to heal, even small wounds when we become old. That might be a serious problem because as long as the wounds remain, the chances of infection can increase. But if we exercise properly, the healing power can be 25% faster than people who don’t exercise.

Prevents diseases

With age, many unwanted conditions come such as stroke, diabetes, stiff muscles, colon cancer, fragile bones, etc. Exercise can delay the onset of these diseases as well as prevent it. As per the National Institute of Aging, exercise can reduce overall hospitalization and death rates.

Improves the immune system

Physical activity is the most effective therapy to improve our immunity.  It is also scientifically proven. Regular exercise promotes circulation and keeps our body and mind relaxed. There is no need to do hard exercises, you can take a walk for 35-40 minutes, or you can join a yoga class, and it will effectively boost your immunity.

Improves digestive health

The digestive system includes the stomach, entrails, and the intestines. It breaks down the food we eat into nutrients. Wrong diet and bad lifestyle are sometimes the causes of problems in the digestive system. It reduces the energy that we need to operate our body.

Anyone can face digestion problems at any age. But seniors face it the most. Exercise can help to improve our digestion system and allow our body to absorb nutrients efficiently. Physical activity improves blood flow throughout the body.

Improves lung function

Breathing exercise can improve the lung function. As per the National Institute of Health, controlled breathing is more beneficial for older people. When we grow older, we don’t take the time to breathe deeply, that can cause us to feel uncomfortable and prevents us in leading a healthy life. Exercises is great for our lungs as we get to breathe in deeply and take in more oxygen.

Importance of mental activity for older people

Like physical activity, mental activity is important for aging people. With age, some mental changes occur like loss of neurons, deposits accumulating within brain cells, slower messaging between neurons, etc. Our brain becomes smaller with time, but it still can function effectively just like that of a younger person’s. You can do following things for mental activity:

  • Reading books, magazine and anything you love.
  • Play games like cards, chess, scrabble, etc.
  • Give more time for social activity.
  • Join clubs that you are interested in.
  • Do gardening to feel refreshed.
  • Practice using memory by playing puzzle games.
  • Join meditation classes.
  • Try to keep yourself busy. Discover new hobbies.
  • These are some task you can do to keep your brain working properly.

There are some benefits of mental activity during our older age. Here are some of them.

Improves cognitive skills

At an older age, we feel lonely, isolated, and bored because there is nothing much to do. Nothing can be better than reading books to prevent this scenario from happening. Books are great to pass our leisure time and acquire new knowledge. Reading helps us to improve our cognitive skills as well.

Improves memory

Senior people can play cards, chess, checkers, and many other games to improve mental clarity. It helps the seniors to make them more social, give them plenty of chances to meet new people to play with and helps in the interaction.

Increases creativity

Senior citizens can be assets instead of being a burden to the society if they use their experience and expertise in different creative works. The creativity of a person flourishes only when he or she is active mentally.

Eliminates anxiety

Anxiety in older age can be a dangerous thing. Many diseases can come out of stress because of anxiety. If we are active mentally, it will reduce our stress and will help us from being anxious.

Improves self-confidence

Being mentally active enhances self-confidence. We can use our leisure time in doing mental exercises. Knowing new things can make us feel that we are still actively learning and that we can keep up with the younger generation. Doing this will help us to have an increased sense of self-confidence.

Boosts brain power

Aging people have a lot of time to boost their brain power. Many activities can keep us mentally active. We can spend our time reading or even surfing the web and learning about new things. It is useful in many ways. It will allow us to spend our time more productively and so many things can be learned along the way.

Takeaway

Seniors can do so much with their time. Keeping them fit both mentally and physically, we can get the assurance that they will be living quality lives. We have so much to learn from them as well. If we can take the time to connect with them, they can teach us so much as they have the life experience and expertise as well. It’s our duty to keep them fit to build a better future together.

 

Socialism Is Harder than You Think by Scott Sumner

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Suppose you wanted to switch to socialism — what would be the ideal place to do so? You’d want a country with extremely high quality civil servants.

That would be France.

You’d want a country where socialism is not a dirty word, and capitalism is.

That would be France.

You’d want a country with the Socialist party in power, a party that was committed to enact the ideas of Thomas Piketty.

That would be France.

So how did things work out in France, when they tried to adopt a Bernie Sanders/Thomas Piketty approach to taxes?

IN THE eyes of many foreigners, two numbers encapsulate French economic policy over the past decade or so: 75 and 35. The first refers to the top income-tax rate of 75%, promised by François Hollande to seduce the left when he was the Socialist presidential candidate in 2012. The second is the 35-hour maximum working week, devised by a Socialist government in 2000 and later retained by the centre-right.

Each has been a totem of French social preferences. Yet, to the consternation of some of his voters, Mr Hollande applied the 75% tax rate for only two years, and then binned it. Now he has drawn up plans that could, in effect, demolish the 35-hour week, too.

Mr Hollande’s government is reviewing a draft labour law that would remove a series of constraints French firms face, both when trying to adapt working time to shifting business cycles and when deciding whether to hire staff. In particular, it devolves to firms the right to negotiate longer hours and overtime rates with their own trade unions, rather than having to follow rules dictated by national industry-wide deals.

The 35-hour cap would remain in force, but it would become more of a trigger for overtime pay than a rigid constraint on hours worked. These could reach 46 hours a week, for a maximum of 16 weeks. Firms would also have greater freedom to shorten working hours and reduce pay, which can currently be done only in times of “serious economic difficulty”. Emmanuel Macron, the economy minister, has called such measures the “de facto” end of the 35-hour week.

At the same time, the law would lower existing high barriers to laying off workers. These discourage firms from creating permanent jobs, and leave huge numbers of “outsiders”, particularly young people, temping.

For one thing, it would cap awards for unfair dismissal, which are made by labour tribunals. Laid-off French workers bring such cases frequently; they can take years and cost anything from €2,500 to €310,000 ($2,700 to $337,000) by one estimate.

Unfortunately, while France is moving away from these polices, the US is like to move some distance in their direction. Of course there are differences. Our minimum wage is still lower than in France, and our top income tax rate is closer to 50% in states like California and New York. But all the momentum is with the socialists, who are especially numerous among the younger voters.

Socialist ideas are superficially appealing. Paul Krugman (who favors very high income tax rates on the rich) often says that reality has a liberal bias. Actually, reality has a neoliberal bias, and if you don’t take incentive effects into account, you may end up disappointed.

Back in the US, Sander’s single payer approach also has problems:

A costing of Mr Sanders’s plans by Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University, using more conservative assumptions, found that the plan was underfunded by nearly $1.1 trillion (or 6% of GDP) per year. If Mr Thorpe is right, higher taxes will be required to make the sums add up. In 2014 Mr Sanders’ own state, Vermont, abandoned a plan for a single-payer system on the basis that the required tax rises would be too great.

Vermont is one of the most liberal states in the union. Now think about the fact that they gave up on the idea, despite it having been previously approved and signed into law. Then think about the concept of rolling out a multi-trillion dollar plan at the federal level, soon after the only experiment at the state level failed to get off the ground.

Is that evidence-based liberalism, or wishful thinking?

This post first appeared at Econlog.

Scott SumnerScott Sumner

Scott B. Sumner is the director of the Program on Monetary Policy at the Mercatus Center and a professor at Bentley University. He blogs at the Money Illusion and Econlog.