Transgender activists, medical professionals and civilians should treat gender dysphoria with compassion and respect, but everyone experiences a bad outcome when encouraging surgical or hormonal treatment for transgender individuals, a public policy expert explained Wednesday.
Transgender activists and treatment opponents agree there’s great pain for gender-confused folks, however, they disagree on the best practice for gender dysphoria treatments, “When Harry Became Sally: Responding To The Transgender Moment” book author Ryan Anderson explained.
“Today, more than 45, pediatric gender clinics have opened their doors,” said Anderson, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation. During an event Wednesday at the conservative think tank, he pointed to the fact children are increasingly in the spotlight. Parents are being told hormone blockers are the only way to prevent youth suicide, however, medical research shows 80 to 95 percent of children outgrow their gender dysphoria naturally and accept their biological sex if nature takes its course.
Transgender treatments are in many ways “self-fulfilling,” said Anderson. Most children phase through gender-dislocation feelings, yet 100 percent of children who use hormone blockers during puberty persist with their chosen identity, Anderson claims. His book was released Feb. 20.
“Their [transgender-activist] rhetoric drips with ontological assertions dressed up as scientific and medical claims,” Anderson said, explaining they’ve co-opted medical institutions by promoting “an alternative metaphysic, which says people are what they claim to be regardless of evidence.”
“Experts” now say parents and teachers should respect two- and three-year-olds’ true gender identity. These youngsters are “our gender-creative children,” transitioning across the gender plane or deciding they have no gender, University of San Francisco Children’s Hospital mental-health director Diane Ehrensaft said.
Top studies show no mental improvement after gender-reassignment surgery. Anderson noted a Swedish study wherein people who successfully transitioned suffered 20 times the suicide rate of their peers and also suffered lifelong mental health issues. (There hasn’t been a single long-term randomized study on the effects of hormone-blocking treatments on children.)
School manuals also avail educators must treat transgender girls like every other biologically female girl, regardless of how policies affect parental rights and privacy. Academia even has protocol for students to transition at school without parental knowledge. Activists claim it could be dangerous if parents find out.
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There are possible dangers to treating transgender individuals as a gender they biologically are not, Anderson notes. For example, medicine affects men and women differently. Further, puberty-blocking drugs are not FDA approved. Treatments are entirely experimental.
Currently, no laws govern or regulate hormone-blocker usage.
Rather than listening to activists’ “ruthless paternalism,” medical professionals should acknowledge natural, physical development then closely examine a child’s confusion, Anderson asserts.
“When it comes to human lives, it’s better to be correct than politically correct,” Anderson said.
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