Alan Winslow
“What’s going on in Florida is … close to sinful. It’s just terrible what they’re doing … It just, to me, is, I dunno, it’s cruel,” says President Biden.
President Biden sounds pretty disgusted with the state of Florida, no?
President Biden insists underage kids be permitted to undergo legally mandated social transitions and sex change medical treatment on demand if they suffer from a psychiatric disorder called gender dysphoria. The state of Florida disagrees by way of legislation passed and signed earlier this year. Sex change medical treatment for children 17 and under is prohibited in that state. And so it is in fully 18 states, including Indiana as of May.
What kind of legislation would President Biden prefer to see states enact?
Legislation that:
Protects what is called “social transition,” where parents, schools and other social organizations must comply with a child’s demand to be treated like the opposite sex, including honoring name changes and opposite-sex pronouns; where girls locker rooms, showers, swimming pool dressing rooms and public restrooms would have to permit boys who claim they are girls (and vice versa for girls) full access; and where girls sports teams would have to allow boys to compete if they profess to be girls.
And legislation that medically:
Allows the use of drugs called puberty blockers to prevent normal puberty.
Allows the use of opposite sex hormones so a child can begin to achieve some resemblance of the opposite sex.
Allows surgical removal of healthy body parts and tissues coupled with surgical efforts to create male sex organs in girls and female sex organs in boys.
(These are the four steps of sex change treatment care or so-called gender-affirming care for children.)
Our president sees this treatment as a children’s civil rights issue, if they identify as transgender. But those 18 states (let’s call them sanctuary states) see it as child abuse and have made the medical interventions unlawful to prevent lifelong harm to kids.
Not true. Not true. Sex change treatment is life-saving because it reduces suicide risk in transgender kids, according to President Biden’s administration.
Why do they declare such a belief?
Simple. Because the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, the United States Professional Association of Transgender Health, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Osteopathic Association all have policy statements that say sex change treatment “saves children’s lives” and that state laws should not be passed restricting any sex change medical care for children 17 and under.
While several of these groups will identify cautions regarding their sex change practices guidelines, America’s gender care (sex change) clinics appear to operate as if those cautions were themselves a kind of interference in providing “life-saving” care for gender dysphoric children.
So to put it crudely, these leading medical organizations representing thousands of doctors are, in effect, saying, “Bring on your 150,000 American kids who want to change their sex. We’re ready. We can give you puberty blocking drugs, we can give you opposite sex hormones, we can change out your genitals, remove your breasts, give you breasts and we will work to ‘persuade’ your parents to give consent.”
Actual unbiased medical science, though, contradicts the recommendations coming from medical community leadership. But this alternate, science-supported perspective is censored by that medical leadership.
Still, challenging the medical leadership are these prominent but little-known experts: Quentin Van Meter, MD, Miriam Grossman, MD, Stephen Levine, MD, Michelle Cretella, MD, Professor Allan Josephson, MD, and Kenneth Zucker, PhD, and several others.
According to these experts:
Contrary to what the medical organization leadership says, starting sex change procedures does not reduce the higher suicide risk that transsexual children experience. There is no such valid evidence.
Every study (there are 12 of them in the research literature) of sex identity confusion and gender dysphoria demonstrates 60 to 90% of these suffering children will become adjusted to and accepting of their normal bodies by the time they go through puberty. Supportive counseling and compassionate parenting are key to this healthier outcome. Even providing any type of social transition action by parents or school systems (including name and pronoun changes) sadistically works against this healthier outcome and manipulates the child toward seeking medical steps 2, 3 and 4.
Delaying puberty will put a child a year or two behind peers developmentally, including in brain development. It is not known if puberty blockers are fully reversible.
Permanent sterilization occurs when medical steps 3 or 4 are used.
Through the life span of individuals who undergo all of these steps, there will be an increased risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke and bone density concerns.
Lifespans of individuals subject to steps 2, 3 and 4 are decreased markedly.
A dramatically increased risk of suicide occurs through the lifespan of transsexual persons who undergo all medical interventions.
There will be a greatly reduced pool of romantic partners available.
A lifetime of medical care and hormone injections will be necessary.
To be clear, the above specialists are not presenting outlying, fringe views. In fact, the national medical services in England, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Australia, New Zealand and France now urge greater caution or strongly object to any of these transsexual medical services for children, though each previously had paid for and had provided these services for kids for many years.
In the last several years, these nations have drastically reversed their policies because of a growing record of harm, uncertain outcomes and little evidence gender dysphoric kids benefited from transsexual medical care. Neither do they now normally recommend social transition interventions for these children.
Actually, evidence demonstrates these suffering children do better if they are supported for who they are and not for the powerful desires of their emotional disorder, except in the rarest cases.
Yet, all of this makes little difference on our national scene. Our president and his party along with medical leadership and big media are all on board for promoting and providing social and medical affirmation for sex changes in gender dysphoric children.
Pity those children who live outside the protections of our 18 sanctuary states.
Alan Winslow, a resident of Seymour, occasionally writes a column for The Tribune. Send comments to [email protected].