The Biden administration released documents Thursday that endorse children and adolescents with claims of gender dysphoria to experience “gender-affirming care,” including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and body-mutilating transgender surgeries, including elective double mastectomies and castrations.
Biden appeared in a video stating that those who put up barriers to transgender ideology, sports, etc. are “attacking” those afflicted with gender dysphoria with “hateful bills.”
To transgender Americans of all ages, I want you to know that you are so brave. You belong. I have your back. pic.twitter.com/mD4F0m3rU1
— President Biden (@POTUS) March 31, 2022
Two documents were released by agencies of the Department of Health and Human Service (HHS), one titled “Gender Affirming Care and Young People,” from the Office of Population Affairs, which defines “gender-affirming care” as a “supportive form of healthcare.”
The Daily Wire’s Mary Margaret Olohan posted a screenshot from the document showing how the White House describes such “care.”
Here's how the White House describes "gender-affirming care" pic.twitter.com/6XHyVxkcSo
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) March 31, 2022
The document states:
For transgender and nonbinary children and adolescents, early gender-affirming care is crucial to overall health and well-being as it allows the child or adolescent to focus on social transitions and can increase their confidence while navigating the healthcare system.
“Research demonstrates that gender-affirming care improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse children and adolescents,” the Biden administration goes on to say.
However, Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), says the gravity of the decision to permanently alter one’s body is far too great for a young person to comprehend.
“Minors do not have the ability to give informed consent to irreversible life-changing medical treatments,” Orient told The Star News Network. “The human brain is not fully mature before the early twenties. Children are easily manipulated and exploited by adults who have their own agenda, especially children who have psychological difficulties, as most or all gender-confused children do.”
In 2018 the UK’s Daily Mail reported about 150 vulnerable young autistic children at a British school had been “tricked” into believing they were transgender and given puberty blockers, according to a whistleblower teacher.
Similarly, parents with untreated mental health issues leading to family dysfunction may find the media and political attention lavished on transgender children and families a safe haven to hide from the severity of their own problems.
Orient emphasized biological sex is “genetically determined at conception”:
Every cell is either genotype XX or XY, with rare exceptions recognized to be pathological. This influences development of all systems from the very beginning. It is possible to produce eunuchs, but impossible to turn a male into a female, or a female into a male. Some rare persons who “transitioned” as adults appear to benefit, with constant medical treatments as with hormones, cosmetic surgery, and psychotherapy, as a last resort for a refractory condition that until very recently was recognized to be a psychiatric malady.
The HHS Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Child Traumatic Stress Network also released a document titled “Gender-Affirming Care is Trauma-Informed Care,” which not only attempts to soften the body-mutilating effects of gender transition but also stomps on the rights of others in private spaces and the rights of girls to compete fairly against those of their own biological sex:
Gender-affirming care broadly refers to creating an environment that facilitates youth to move through the world safely as the gender they know themselves to be. This includes developmentally appropriate, evidence-based care provided by medical and mental health experts in partnership with youth, parents, and caregivers. It may include evidence-based interventions such as puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones. Gender-affirming care also includes access to opportunities that all children should have, such as playing team sports, safely using bathrooms in their schools and other public places, and positive relationships with supportive adults.
“Providing gender-affirming care is neither child maltreatment nor malpractice,” the document makes the statement that likely takes a jab at Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) policy identifying gender-affirming treatments for children as “child abuse.”
“There is no scientifically sound research showing negative impacts from providing gender-affirming care,” the Biden HHS document insists.
However, when it comes to “pre-pubescent children,” Orient observed “there are certainly no randomized, controlled, long-term studies of the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or mutilating surgery for the purpose of ‘affirming gender identity.’”
“It would be unethical to subject persons who cannot give informed consent to such an experiment, even if one or both parents consent,” she asserted, adding:
The Biden Administration’s position is radical and without scientific justification. It deprives vulnerable young people of their right to bodily integrity and autonomy and their ability to reproduce.
California endocrinologist Dr. Michael Laidlaw also told Lumen-News:
It is unethical to put kids on a pathway to sterilization as early as age 8 or 9, before they know anything about sex or human development. Blocking normal puberty can be permanently harmful to the bone, brain, and social development of kids.
Transgender surgeries, Laidlaw explained, “cause irreversible damage, and the healthy organs that are removed – such as breasts, ovaries, and testicles – can never be replaced.”
“Furthermore, there are many detransitioners who deeply regret being medicalized by this experimental treatment, and their voices need to be heard,” he said.
The Biden Department of Justice (DOJ), which, previously, released a document detailing its intent to investigate parents who show up at local school board meetings as potential “domestic terrorists,” now says it plans to muscle states that do not “affirm” individuals who claim to be transgender.
Those states that do not comply with the Biden administration’s push for “gender-affirming care” could lose their federal funding.
Biden’s Justice Department states:
A state or local government must meet the heavy burden of justifying interference with that right since it is well established within the medical community that gender-affirming care for transgender youth is not only appropriate but often necessary for their physical and mental health.
However, Abigail Shrier, author of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, observed the Biden administration, “now owns this absurd position at precisely the moment that many European countries (France, UK, Sweden and Finland) are backing away from these interventions, having examined a decade of evidence that *failed* to establish the purported benefits.”
The Administration now owns this absurd position at precisely the moment that many European countries (France, UK, Sweden and Finland) are backing away from these interventions, having examined a decade of evidence that *failed* to establish the purported benefits.
/2
— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) April 1, 2022
Wesley J. Smith summarized at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism the move by Finland, Sweden, and the UK to clamp down on puberty blockers for children because – unlike for the Biden administration – the “science” supporting them is clearly not settled.
In the UK, for example, BBC reported in April 2021 the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) determined evidence for using puberty blockers to treat young people with gender dysphoria is “very low,” and “subject to bias and confounding.”
On #TransDayofVisibility HHS stands with @HHS_ASH and other transgender and LGBTQI+ leaders in the public health community who are helping pave the way towards #HealthEquity. #TDOV pic.twitter.com/RzRKZCRpFj
— HHS.gov (@HHSGov) March 31, 2022
Biden Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and Democrat Florida Representative Darren Soto (D-FL-09) met Thursday in Florida on what the LGBTQ activist industry called the “Transgender Day of Visibility” to affirm to Florida individuals with gender dysphoria that the state’s new Parental Rights in Education Act intends to inflict “harm,” “hostility,” and “hatred” toward them.
The bill, which bans teaching sexuality concepts to the youngest of school children in grades K-3, is, Cardona said, one of “a growing number of state laws that bully and intimidate LGBTQI+ students and their families.”
Thank you, @SecCardona for visiting the @lgbtcenterorl to hear firsthand how the Don’t Say Gay Law is hurting Central Florida families. #WeSayGay pic.twitter.com/pKQ1rzKV5D
— Rep. Darren Soto (@RepDarrenSoto) March 31, 2022
“We know while many transgender students experience valuable support at school, many others face significant challenges because of hostility directed at them by others,” Cardona said. “This includes a growing number of state laws that bully and intimidate LGBTQI+ students and their families. To transgender students everywhere, I want you to know that we see you, we hear you, we recognize what is happening, and we’re here to support you.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed the Parental Rights in Education Act into law Monday.
Today, I signed HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Education Act, into law.
It ensures parents can send their kids to kindergarten without gender ideology being injected into instruction and they will be notified and have the right to decline healthcare services offered at schools. pic.twitter.com/OLnW2GLrJl
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 28, 2022
Soto referred to the new law as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, though the legislation does not mention the word “gay.”
The congressman continued:
Though we are extremely disappointed in our governor for signing off on these harmful laws, I am hopeful that our community will prevail in the face of hatred and come back stronger than ever. I hope all LGBTQI+ students in Central Florida and across the nation know that they have allies in the highest levels of government who will stand up for them.”
Cardona’s department’s press release included comments from individuals who have come to believe their identity is formed around their beliefs about their sexuality.
A 10-year-old boy, Dempsey, who claims to be a girl, said he did not “understand why people, especially adults, are trying to erase my identity.”
Dempsey’s mother, Jaime, who is also a government teacher, added the Parental Rights in Education law is “about pretending that LGBTQI+ students do not exist.”
“They do exist, they’re here,” she said, claiming “the only safe space they have is in my classroom.”
“It is beyond irresponsible for the White House to endorse procedures for kids that are unethical, medically harmful, and cause irreversible damage to kids’ bodies,” Laidlaw, nevertheless, asserted.
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Susan Berry, PhD is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
