American College of Pediatricians: Gender transition of young people is a dangerous experiment

DECONSTRUCTING TRANSGENDER PEDIATRICS

In the life sciences, sex is defined by how a species is organized to reproduce. Human beings reproduce sexually. This means it takes the union of a male sex cell or sperm and a female sex cell or ovum to produce offspring. Human sex is binary – male and female – because there are exactly 2 sex cells. Disorders of sex differentiation are rare congenital, medically diagnosable conditions associated with reduced fertility; they are not additional sexes. Sex is binary, biologically determined at conception, revealed in utero and acknowledged at birth. Sex is not “assigned” according to the whims of doctors.

Gender has been defined as “an internal sexed identity” and it is now claimed that just as every person has a sex, every person also has “an internal sexed identity” [a gender]. There is not a single medical test to diagnose a person’s “internal sexed identity” [gender or gender identity] because these exist in the mind not in the body. No child is born “trans”.

But experts claim medical intervention is life saving; this is a lie. There is not a single long term study to demonstrate the safety or efficacy of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries for transgender-believing youth. This means that youth transition is experimental, and therefore, parents cannot provide informed consent, nor can minors assent to these interventions. Moreover, the best long-term evidence we have among adults shows that medical intervention fails to reduce suicide.¹

Proponents of these interventions for trans-identified youth cite the American Academy of Pediatrics. However, most are unaware that the AAP’s pro-transition policy has been discredited as a gross misrepresentation of science by gender identity psychologist Dr. James Cantor.²

In fact, many medical organizations around the world, including the Australian College of Physicians, ³ the Royal College of General Practitioners of the United Kingdom ⁴ and the Swedish National Council for Medical Ethics ⁵ have characterized these interventions in children as experimental and dangerous. World renowned Swedish psychiatrist Dr. Christopher Gillberg has said that pediatric transition is “possibly one of the greatest scandals in medical history” ⁶ and called for an “immediate moratorium on the use of puberty blocker drugs because of their unknown long-term effects.” ⁷

The vast majority of children with gender incongruence will outgrow it by young adulthood ⁸ and the vast majority of gender incongruent teens are struggling with other psychological diagnoses that predate their gender incongruence.⁹ A recent report confirmed the findings of several older case series revealing that gender incongruent adolescents can embrace their bodies through counseling alone when it is directed toward underlying psychological issues.¹⁰

Stealing is a crime and it is no less so when the stolen item is a child’s normally timed puberty. Puberty is not a disease. ¹¹ It is a critical window of normal development that is radically disrupted by puberty blockers like Lupron. When normal puberty is arrested, valuable time is forever stolen from these children, time during which significant advances in bone, brain, sexual and psycho-social development occur; time that can never be given back. This harm is in addition to well documented negative emotional effects of Lupron.

For example, a UK whistleblower recently revealed that gender-distressed girls exhibited more behavioral and emotional problems, and greater body dissatisfaction while taking Lupron.¹² This is not surprising given that Lupron’s package insert lists “emotional instability” as a side effect and warns users to “Monitor for development or worsening of psychiatric symptoms during treatment.” ¹³

Temporary use of Lupron has also been associated with and may be the cause of many serious permanent side effects including osteoporosis, mood disorders, seizures, ¹⁴ cognitive impairment, ¹⁵ and, when combined with cross-sex hormones, sterility. ¹⁶

In addition to the harm from Lupron, cross-sex hormones put youth at an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, blood clots and cancers across their lifespan. ¹⁷ Add to this the fact that physically healthy transgender-believing girls are being given double mastectomies at 13 and hysterectomies at 16, while their male counterparts are referred for surgical castration and penectomies at 16 and 17, respectively, and it becomes clear that affirming transition in children is about mutilating and sterilizing emotionally troubled youth.¹⁸

Americans are being led astray by a medical establishment driven by a dangerous ideology and economic opportunity, not science and the Hippocratic Oath. The suppression of normal puberty, the use of disease-causing cross-sex hormones and the surgical mutilation and sterilization of children constitute atrocities to be banned, not healthcare.

References

1. Cecilia Dhejne, et al., “Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden” PLOS One 6(2):e16885 (2011); see also David Batty, “Sex Changes Are Not Effective, Say Researchers” The Guardian (July, 30, 2004), ttps://www.theguardian.com/society/2004/jul/30/health.mentalhealth; Annette Kuhn et al., “Quality of life 15 years after sex reassignment surgery for transsexualism,” Fertility and Sterility 92(5):1685–1689 (2009).
2. James M. Cantor (2019) Transgender and Gender Diverse Children and Adolescents: Fact-Checking of AAP Policy, Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, DOI: 10.1080/0092623X.2019.1698481
3. Australia launches inquiry into safety and ethics of transgender medicine” BioEdge.org, 18 Aug 2019. https://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/australia-launches-inquiry-into-safety-and-ethics-of-transgender-medicine/13182
4. https://www.rcgp.org.uk/-/media/Files/Policy/A-Z-policy/2019/RCGP-position-statement-providing-care-for-gender-transgender-patients-june-2019.ashx?la=en
5. https://www.transgendertrend.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/SMER-National-Council-for-Medical-Ethics-directive-March-2019.pdf
6. https://thebridgehead.ca/2019/09/25/world-renowned-child-psychiatrist-calls-trans-treatments-possibly-one-of-the-greatest-scandals-in-medical-history/
7. Doctors back inquiry on kids’ trans care
8. Kenneth J. Zucker, “The Myth of Persistence” International Journal of Transgenderism 19(2):231-245 (2018).
9. Becerra-Culqui TA, Liu Y, Nash R, et al. (2018), Mental Health of Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Youth Compared With Their Peers, Pediatrics, 141(5) :5, Tables 2 and 3, e20173845
10. Clarke, A. & Spiliadis, A, “’Taking the Lid Off the Box’: The Value of Extended Clinical Assessment for Adolescents Presenting With Gender Identity Difficulties,” https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1359104518825288 , Feb. 6, 2019.
11. Jane Mendle , et al., “Understanding Puberty and Its Measurement: Ideas for Research in a New Generation” J. Res. Adolesc. Volume29, Issue1, March 2019 Pages 82-95 available at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jora.12371
12. Michael Biggs. “Tavistock’s Experimentation with Puberty Blockers: Scrutinizing the Evidence”. Transgender Trend. March 2, 2019 available at https://www.transgendertrend.com/tavistock-experiment-puberty-blockers/
13. https://www.lupronpedpro.com/?cid=ppc_ppd_lupronpedhcp_ggl_brnd_10975
14. https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/new-report-describes-dangers-of-giving-lupron-to-kids-020317.html
15. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6953204_Effects_of_treatment_with_leuprolide_acetate_depot_on_working_memory_and_executive_functions_in_young_premenopausal_women; see also https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5865155_Gonadotropin_hormone_releasing_hormone_agonists_alter_prefrontal_function_during_verbal_encoding_in_young_women
16. Eyler AE, Pang SC, Clark A. LGBT assisted reproduction: current practice and future possibilities. LGBT Health 2014;1(3):151-156; see also Schmidt L, Levine R. Psychological outcomes and reproductive issues among gender dysphoric individuals. Endocrinol Metab Clin N Am 2015;44:773-785.
17. Darios Getahun, et al., “Cross-sex Hormones and Acute Cardiovascular Events in Transgender Persons: A Cohort Study” Annals of Internal Medicine 169(4):205-213 (August 21, 2018); Talal Alzahrani, et al., “Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors and Myocardial Infarction in the Transgender Population” Circulation 12(4):e005597 (2019); Katrien Wierckx, et al., “Prevalence of cardiovascular disease and cancer during cross-sex hormone therapy in a large cohort of trans persons: a case-control study” European Journal of Endocrinology 169(4):471-478 (2013); Priyanka Boghani, “When Transgender Kids Transition, Medical Risks are Both Known and Unknown” Frontline (June 30, 2015), https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/when-transgender-kids-transition-medical-risks-are-both-known-and-unknown/.
18. https://079884cb-6687-4804-8728-0fdc5404a0e2.filesusr.com/ugd/3f4f51_f61d74654b5a4a66b60f4aab73003abf.pdf