Fox News’ Bill Hemmer appeared floored Thursday after listening to testimony during a House Judiciary hearing about the dangers of child sex change treatments.
Jennifer Bauwens, a licensed therapist, clinical researcher and director of the Center for Family Studies at the Family Research Council testified about the effects of child sex change treatments.
“I’ve considered it a privilege to practice clinical research and train future clinicians and be part of a discipline aimed at protecting and bringing healing to the most vulnerable in our society, which are children. When it comes to gender transition procedures my field is not operating as a helping profession. Instead it is actively causing harm. Historically children have been treated as a special and vulnerable class in the psychological and research fields. Caution has been applied to children in light of the fact they do not have the neurological capacity to understand life long decisions,” Bauwens testified. (RELATED: Dem Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon Accuses Republicans Of ‘Fearmongering’ For Opposing Child Sex Changes)
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“Professional and research ethics tell us that we should proceed very cautiously with regard to intervention for children when empirical evidence is weak, or the research methods are in the early phase as with this case.We should avoid interventions that pose unnecessary risks, particularly when the symptoms are known to change with maturation. But risk avoidance is not what is happening with gender transition procedures. Instead we have too many cases like Mike. Mike was 9-year-old old when he first saw a gender therapist…It was reported that Mike couldn’t distinguish between fantasy and reality. Instead of investigating these symptoms the therapist wrote in the treatment plan, which included puberty blockers, guidance on social transition and education for future hormonal and surgical procedures. This treatment plan was enacted without regard for this child’s known diagnoses of autism, possible OCD, and possible parental diagnoses which were reported in the case notes. Mike is just one example of how so-called gender affirming care is in direct opposition of our knowledge regarding development and our understanding of good research and treatment.”
Bauwens testified that so-called “gender-affirming care” is not “evidence-based” but rather is based off “ideological supporters of the practice.”
Bauwens then laid out several statistics about the medical treatments, prompting Hemmer to express shock at her testimony.
“A stunning hearing here,” Hemmer said. “The first two witnesses take your breath away.”