The fight to protect minors from trans treatments is increasingly becoming a political and non-scientific battlefield due to the stubbornness of radical left legislators and activists. And there are more and more voices from medicine and science expressing their radical rejection of these practices that "seriously harm children." However, progressives continue their crusade to promote hormone therapies or even surgical interventions that irreversibly mutilate children and adolescents who will live with the consequences for the rest of their lives.
A group of pediatricians, medical organizations, and policy organizations have signed a declaration urging a stop to the promotion of harmful interventions on children with gender dysphoria.
Comment and repost if you agree! Then sign the declaration at https://t.co/fcWgwBF5cX pic.twitter.com/8zsiuzk5R9
— The American College of Pediatricians (@ACPeds) June 6, 2024
"Doctors protecting children"
After several reports and complaints from Europe, where some governments have gone so far as to prohibit trans treatments in minors, last week it was the American College of Pediatricians who launched a very tough campaign to raise awareness among medical colleagues and citizens about the reality of these procedures under the title 'Doctors protecting children'. A statement in which a hundred medical professionals and members of the scientific community express their "serious concerns" about the current trend of radical treatments that directly attack the physical and mental health of children, as is the case of the hormonization or the genital mutilation for minors who claim to feel uncomfortable with their biological sex.
The health workers make it clear that their initiative is based on the most basic science and biology. The manifesto is an authentic manual to dismantle the harmful gender ideology, starting with the definition of sex that includes: "Sex is a dimorphic, innate trait defined in relation to an organism’s biological role in reproduction." Furthermore, they emphasize that "this genetic signature is present in every nucleated somatic cell in the body and is not altered by drugs or surgical interventions."
Gender ideology, the view that sex (male and female) is inadequate and that humans need to be further categorized based on an individual’s thoughts and feelings described as “gender identity” or “gender expression,”does not accommodate the reality of these innate sex differences. This leads to the inaccurate view that children can be born in the wrong body. Gender ideology seeks to affirm thoughts, feelings and beliefs, with puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries that harm healthy bodies, rather than affirm biological reality.
Medical decisions without ideological contamination
In response, the signatories demand that doctors leave ideologies aside to address health decisions, especially when they can lead to irreversible and tremendously harmful treatments such as castration:
Medical decision making should not be based upon an individual’s thoughts and feelings, as in “gender identity” or “gender expression,” but rather should be based upon an individual’s biological sex. Medical decision making should respect biological reality and the dignity of the person by compassionately addressing the whole person.
There are no so-called "trans children"
In the declaration, to which professionals who wish can continue to join, professional medical organizations in the United States are called upon to "immediately stop the promotion of social affirmation, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries for children and adolescents who experience distress over their biological sex." Instead, these healthcare professionals note that these organizations should recommend comprehensive assessments and therapies aimed at identifying and addressing, among others, the underlying psychological disorders and neurodiversity that "often predispose to and accompany gender dysphoria."
As physicians, together with nurses, psychotherapists and behavioral health clinicians, other health professionals, scientists, researchers, and public health and policy professionals, we have serious concerns about the physical and mental health effects of the current protocols promoted for the care of children and adolescents in the United States who express discomfort with their biological sex.
Furthermore, doctors deny the existence of so-called "trans children", highlighting that science itself documents that "most children and adolescents whose thoughts and feelings do not align with their biological sex will resolve those mental incongruencies after experiencing the normal developmental process of puberty."
Netherlands: normal doubts in adolescence that disappear when growing up
Results were also collected by a study carried out with minors in the Netherlands over several years. Several doctors followed 2,700 children between the ages of 11 and 25, asking them every three years about how they felt about their sex. While at the beginning 1 in 10 minors expressed "dissatisfaction with the gender corresponding to the sex assigned to them at birth", at the end of the research - 15 years later - only 1 in 25 indicated they found themselves "often" or " ever" dissatisfied with their biological sex.
This led the researchers to conclude that "the results of the present study could help adolescents realize that it is normal to have some doubts about one's identity and gender identity during this age period and that this is also relatively common."
United Kingdom: the Cass report causes the government to end trans treatment for minors
In the United Kingdom, the Cass Report caused an earthquake that led Rishi Shunak's government to order an end to trans procedures for minors. In her conclusions, Dr. Hilary Cass denounced that "alwhile a considerable amount of research has been published in this field, systematic evidence reviews demonstrated the poor quality of the published studies, meaning there is not a reliable evidence base upon which to make clinical decisions, or for children and their families to make informed choices." Furthermore, in this matter, "the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence base on the care of children and young people are often misrepresented and overstated, both in scientific publications and social debate.""
Likewise, the study warns that the use of masculinizing/feminizing hormones in children under 18 years of age also presents many enigmas, despite their prolonged use in the adult transsexual population. "he lack of long-term follow-up data on those commencing treatment at an earlier age means we have inadequate information about the range of outcomes for this group."
As if that were not enough, he added that for most young people, medical treatment will not be the best way to manage their gender-related discomfort. "For those young people for whom a medical pathway is clinically indicated, it is not enough to provide this without also addressing wider mental health and/or psychosocially challenging problems."
France: "One of the biggest ethical scandals in the history of medicine"
In France, a report from the French Senate set off alarm bells, to the point that Senator Jacqueline Eustache-Brinio, of the Les Républicains party (center-right), called it "one of the biggest ethical scandals in the history of medicine." Doctors taking part in the parliamentary inquiry reported an overwhelming increase in requests for sex reassignment, even among very young children.
Like the two previous reports, the researchers highlighted that the vast majority of children treated for "gender dysphoria" are victims of other disorders: Thus, according to the psychologist Celine Masson and the child psychiatrist Caroline Eliacheff, one in four children cared for at Pitié-Salpêtrière for these reasons has dropped out of school, 42% have been victims of bullying and 61% have suffered from depression. Furthermore, 20% of them have attempted suicide. The two mental health specialists reported that minors are offered sex reassignment as a solution to their problems without trying to explore other ways to overcome their suffering.
