Bill
Muehlenberg posted: "I have penned dozens of articles now seeking to
expose the madness and harmfulness of the radical gender bender agenda.
Children are especially being targeted by these activists, and are being
greatly harmed as a result. The insanity gets worse by the day"
I have penned dozens of articles now seeking to expose the madness and
harmfulness of the radical gender bender agenda. Children are especially being
targeted by these activists, and are being greatly harmed as a result. The
insanity gets worse by the day.
Consider a brief item out of Seattle, Washington: the city council has
declared a ban of any attempts to change unwanted homosexual attractions. It is
now illegal to try to help someone in this area, even if you are a pastor. But
the city of course fully supports the idea of gender bending.
Contradiction much?
Joseph Backholm, head the Family Policy Institute of Washington, points out the
absurdity and contradictions of all this: “So we have the situation where the
city of Seattle has declared that same-sex attraction is always unchangeable –
but your gender is changeable whenever you want to." Yep, makes perfect
sense.
Thankfully some professional bodies have not fallen for this con job,
and have stood strong, exposing the bogus nature of this whole enterprise. A
while back I wrote about how the American College of Pediatricians released a
very important statement called, “Gender Ideology Harms Children”. I offered
the full text of this here:
They have since come out with another, longer statement which everyone
needs to be aware of. The document, “Gender Dysphoria in Children,” is a
7000-word statement fully documented and referenced with careful medical and
scientific research. The abstract of the statement says this:
Gender dysphoria (GD) of childhood
describes a psychological condition in which children experience a marked
incongruence between their experienced gender and the gender associated with
their biological sex. When this occurs in the pre-pubertal child, GD resolves
in the vast majority of patients by late adolescence. Currently there is a
vigorous, albeit suppressed, debate among physicians, therapists, and academics
regarding what is fast becoming the new treatment standard for GD in children.
This new paradigm is rooted in the assumption that GD is innate, and involves
pubertal suppression with gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists
followed by the use of cross-sex hormones—a combination that results in the
sterility of minors. A review of the current literature suggests that this
protocol is founded upon an unscientific gender ideology, lacks an evidence
base, and violates the long-standing ethical principle of “First do no harm.”
Here is its conclusion:
Gender dysphoria (GD) in children is
a term used to describe a psychological condition in which a child experiences
marked incongruence between his or her experienced gender and the gender
associated with the child’s biological sex. Twin studies demonstrate that GD is
not an innate trait. Moreover, barring pre-pubertal affirmation and hormone
intervention for GD, 80 percent to 95 percent of children with GD will accept
the reality of their biological sex by late adolescence.
The treatment of GD in childhood with hormones effectively amounts to mass
experimentation on, and sterilization of, youth who are cognitively incapable
of providing informed consent. There is a serious ethical problem with allowing
irreversible, life-changing procedures to be performed on minors who are too young
to give valid consent themselves; adolescents cannot understand the magnitude
of such decisions.
Ethics alone demands an end to the use of pubertal suppression with GnRH
agonists, cross-sex hormones, and sex reassignment surgeries in children and
adolescents. The College recommends an immediate cessation of these
interventions, as well as an end to promoting gender ideology via school
curricula and legislative policies. Healthcare, school curricula and
legislation must remain anchored to physical reality. Scientific research
should focus upon better understanding the psychological underpinnings of this
disorder, optimal family and individual therapies, as well as delineating the
differences among children who resolve with watchful waiting versus those who
resolve with therapy and those who persist despite therapy.
For those who might prefer a shorter summation of this important
document, there thankfully is one provided by the ACP featuring 17 summary
points. Here it is in its entirety:
1. Gender dysphoria (GD) of childhood
describes a psychological condition in which children experience a marked
incongruence between their experienced gender and the gender associated with
their biological sex. They often state that they are the opposite sex.
Prevalence rates among children are estimated to be less than 1%.
2. It is false that brain differences observed in some studies between
transgender adults and non-transgender adults prove that GD is innate. If
differences do exist in brain structures of transgender adults, these
differences are more likely to be the result of transgender identification and
behavior, not the cause of transgender identification and behavior. This is
because thinking and behavior is known to shape brain microstructure through a
process called neuroplasticity.
3. When GD occurs in the pre-pubertal child, it resolves in 80-95 percent of
patients by late adolescence after they naturally pass through puberty. This is
consistent with studies of identical twins that prove no one is born hard-wired
to develop GD.
4. All complex behaviors are due to a combination of nature (biology), nurture
(environmental factors) and free will choices. Studies of identical twins prove
that GD is predominately influenced by non-shared post-natal events. The largest
study of twin transsexual adults found that only 20 percent of identical twins
were both trans-identified. Since identical twins contain 100 percent of the
same DNA from conception, and develop in exactly the same prenatal environment
where they are exposed to the same prenatal hormones, if genes and/or prenatal
hormones contributed significantly to transgenderism, the concordance rates
would be close to 100 percent. Instead, 80 percent of identical twin pairs were
discordant for transgenderism. This means that at least 80 percent of what
contributes to transgenderism in one adult co-twin consists of one or more
non-shared post-natal experiences.
5. There is no single family dynamic, social situation, adverse event, or
combination thereof that has been found to destine any child to develop GD.
This fact, together with twin studies, suggests that there are many paths that
may lead to GD in certain vulnerable children. Clinical case studies suggest
that social reinforcement, parental psychopathology, family dynamics, and
social contagion facilitated by mainstream and social media, all contribute to
the development and/or persistence of GD in some vulnerable children. There may
be other as yet unrecognized contributing factors as well.
6. There is a suppressed debate among physicians, therapists, and academics
regarding the recent trend to quickly affirm gender dysphoric youth as
transgender. Many health professionals are deeply concerned because affirming
youth as transgender sends them down the path of medical transition (a sex
change) which requires the use of toxic hormones and unnecessary surgeries.
Healthcare professionals opposed to affirming a child’s gender dysphoria based
upon the medical ethics principle of “First do no harm” are being silenced.
This is true among left-leaning youth trans critical professionals as well as
those who are traditionally more conservative.
7. Human sexuality is an objective biological binary trait: “XY” and “XX” are
genetic markers of sex, male and female respectively – not genetic markers of a
disorder. The norm for human design is to be conceived either male or female.
Human sexuality is binary by design with the obvious purpose being the
reproduction and flourishing of our species. This principle is self-evident. The
exceedingly rare disorders of sex development (DSDs), including but not limited
to androgen insensitivity syndrome and congenital adrenal hyperplasia, are all
medically identifiable deviations from the sexual binary norm, and are rightly
recognized as disorders of human design. Individuals with DSDs do not
constitute a third sex.
8. Human beings are born with a biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense
of oneself as male or female) is a psychological concept; not an objective
biological entity. No one is born with an awareness of being male or female;
this awareness develops over time and, like other aspects of one’s
self-awareness, may be derailed by a child’s subjective perceptions,
relationships, and adverse experiences from infancy forward. People who
identify as “feeling like the opposite sex” or “somewhere in between” do not
comprise a third sex. They remain biological men or biological women.
9. A person’s belief that one is something one is not is, at best, a sign of
confused thinking; at worst it is a delusion.
10. Cross-sex hormones (estrogen for boys and testosterone for girls) are
associated with dangerous health risks. Oral estrogen administration to boys
may place them at risk for experiencing: thrombosis/thromboembolism;
cardiovascular disease; weight gain; hypertrigyceridemia; elevated blood
pressure; decreased glucose tolerance; gallbladder disease; prolactinoma; and
breast cancer. Similarly, girls who receive testosterone may experience an
elevated risk for: low HDL and elevated triglycerides (cardiovascular risk);
increased homocysteine levels; hepatotoxicity; polycythemia; increased risk of
sleep apnea; insulin resistance; and unknown effects on breast, endometrial and
ovarian tissues.
11. Puberty is not a disorder and therefore should not be arrested as though it
is a disease. Puberty-blocking hormones induce a state of disease – the absence
of puberty. Puberty blocking hormones (gonadotropin releasing hormone agonists
or GnRH agonists) arrest bone growth, decrease bone density, prevent the
sex-steroid dependent organization and maturation of the adolescent brain, and
inhibit fertility by preventing the development of gonadal tissue and mature
gametes for the duration of treatment.
12. Pre-pubertal children who receive puberty-blocking hormones (GnRH agonists)
followed by cross-sex hormones are permanently sterilized. Pre-pubertal
children who bypass pubertal suppression and are placed on cross-sex hormones
directly are also permanently sterilized.
13. At least one prospective study demonstrates that all pre-pubertal children
placed on puberty blocking drugs eventually choose to begin sex reassignment
with cross-sex hormones. This suggests that impersonation of the opposite sex
and pubertal suppression, far from being fully reversible and harmless as
proponents claim, sets into motion a single inevitable outcome (transgender
identification) that requires lifelong use of toxic cross-sex hormones,
resulting in infertility and other serious health risks.
14. Adolescent girls with GD who have taken testosterone daily for one year may
obtain a double mastectomy as young as age 16. This is not a reversible
procedure.
15. A thirty year follow up study found rates of suicide are nearly twenty
times greater among adults who undergo sex reassignment in Sweden which is
among the most LGBTQ – affirming countries. This demonstrates that while
sex-reassignment eases some of the gender dysphoria in adulthood, it does not
result in levels of health on par with that of the general population. It also
suggests that the mental health disparities are not primarily due to social
prejudice, but to whatever pathology has precipitated the transgender feelings
in the first place and/or the transgender lifestyle itself.
16. Conditioning children to believe the absurdity that they or anyone could be
“born into the wrong body,” and that a lifetime of chemical and surgical
impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse.
Affirming gender dysphoria via public education and legal policies will confuse
children and parents, leading more children to present to “gender clinics”
where they will be given puberty-blocking drugs. This, in turn, virtually
ensures that they will “choose” a lifetime of sterility, toxic cross-sex
hormones, and likely consider unnecessary surgical mutilation of their healthy
body parts as young adults.
17. There is a serious ethical problem with allowing irreversible,
life-changing procedures to be performed on minors who are too young to give
valid consent themselves. Children and adolescents do not have the cognitive
maturity or experiential capacity to understand the magnitude of such
decisions. Ethics alone demands an end to the use of pubertal suppression,
cross-sex hormones, and sex reassignment surgeries in children and adolescents.
I urge everyone to read carefully both documents, and to share them far
and wide. Way too many children are being ruined for life by this radical
political and social engineering ideology. Treating our children as guinea pigs
in adult social games is just unacceptable.
It is time for some truth to be heard on this nefarious agenda. The
American College of Pediatricians deserves the highest praise for doing just
this.
[1986 words]
