Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy instructed NBC’s Meet the Press host Chuck Todd in basic biological principles and the moderator’s claim that gender is “a spectrum.”
“Under the age of 18, I think it’s perfectly legitimate to say that we won’t allow genital mutilation or chemical castration through puberty blockers,” Ramaswamy asserted to Todd on Sunday.
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“You’re calling it that,” Todd retorted, “but how do you know it’s that? Again, how do you know? Are you confident that you know that gender is as binary as you’re describing it? Are you confident that it isn’t a spectrum? You know this as a scientist?”
Ramaswamy responded that he is confident.
“Well, there’s two X chromosomes if you’re a woman, and an X and a Y – “ he began to explain, but Todd cut him off.
“There’s a lot of scientific research out there that says gender is a spectrum,” the NBC host interrupted.
But Ramaswamy countered:
Chuck, I respectfully disagree. Gender dysphoria, for most of our history all the way through the DSM-V, has been characterized as a mental health disorder, and I don’t think it’s compassionate to affirm that. I think that’s cruelty. When a kid is crying out for help, what they’re asking for is – you got to ask the question of what else is going wrong at home? What else is going wrong at school? Let’s be compassionate and get to the heart of that. Rather than playing this game as though we’re actually changing our medical understanding.
Todd then asked about parents who believe gender transition medical treatments and surgeries can help their children, or prevent them from committing suicide, as LGBTQ activists frequently claim.
“If a parent is dealing with a child that has these events, and they have these issues, trust me, the parent – the last thing they want to do is consider something like this,” he said. “But if that is what they think could help their child pursue happiness, or not to kill themselves, why take away that option? Again, why shouldn’t it be up to the parents?”
But Ramaswamy related how parents have been victims of an intense fear campaign waged by the left:
So, part of why parents now suddenly feel that way – let’s ask ourselves that Chuck – is we’ve created a culture that teaches parents that they’re being bigoted or that they’re bad people if they don’t actually take those steps. So, part of what I think is – listen, gender dysphoria for the rare few people who have suffered it, it is a condition of suffering. My question is, why on earth are we going out of our way to create even more of it, and there’s no doubt that the cultural movement in this country even education, is creating more gender dysphoria. If it’s a condition of suffering, let’s not create more of it. That’s what we’re doing.
Ramaswamy’s comments come as the Biden administration remains in full support of life-altering gender transition drugs and surgeries for young people.
Top-level Biden administration Health and Human Services official Dr. Rachel [Richard] Levine, who is transgender, recently praised the work of children’s hospitals, such as Connecticut Children’s Medical Center (CCMC) in Hartford, for their “gender-affirming care” clinics that provide children and teens with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and transgender surgeries, including elective double mastectomies.
Levine assured CCMC gender clinic staff the idea of transgender children would soon be normalized, and that their work has “the highest support” of the Biden administration.
“I think that the wheel will turn on this,” Levine told the staff, asserting the transgender trend has grown more popular.
“I think that it’s not going to be politically advantageous,” the HHS official speculated about those who oppose their trans agenda. “It wasn’t particularly in 2022. And so, I think that as we look to all the different elections in 2024, I think the next two years are going to be challenging, but I am positive and optimistic and hopeful that the wheel will turn after that, and that this issue won’t be as politically and socially such a minefield.”
As for “science,” Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist, explained in an op-ed published April 9 at the Wall Street Journal that sex is, indeed, binary, and that the left’s push to transgenderism is an attempt to make what has been simple for eons so complex that it has become chaotic:
When biologists claim that sex is binary, we mean something straightforward: There are only two sexes. This is true throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. An organism’s sex is defined by the type of gamete (sperm or ova) it has the function of producing. Males have the function of producing sperm, or small gametes; females, ova, or large ones. Because there is no third gamete type, there are only two sexes. Sex is binary.
“For the vast majority of people, their sex is obvious,” Wright continued, addressing the issue of those rare cases when individuals are born with ambiguous genitalia.
“And our society isn’t experiencing a sudden dramatic surge in people born with ambiguous genitalia,” he observed. “We are experiencing a surge in people who are unambiguously one sex claiming to ‘identify’ as the opposite sex or as something other than male or female.”
“Gender ideology seeks to portray sex as so incomprehensibly complex and multivariable that our traditional practice of classifying people as simply either male or female is grossly outdated and should be abandoned for a revolutionary concept of ‘gender identity,’” Wright explained. “Ideologues are wrong to insist that the biology of sex is so complex as to defy all categorization.”
Recently, a group called Do No Harm, an organization of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals, debunked a study published by the New England Journal of Medicine that claimed transgender and nonbinary young people who received “gender-affirming hormones” experienced positive effects, including increased life satisfaction and a decrease in suicidal ideation. Two of the 315 participants, however, did commit suicide, and 11 still experienced suicidal ideation.
Do No Harm observed in its report the study had numerous flaws, including the fact that it had no control group:
This study, despite the headlines it has received, is fatally flawed and borderline unscientific. Like other studies on the topic, it obfuscates rather than clarifies questions around the medical transition of children. Policymakers must accept that elite gatekeepers have become cheerleaders and that their recommendations on politicized topics warrant healthy skepticism.
In comments to The Star News Network in March, Jane Orient, M.D., executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) said “there is NO objective, long-term evidence of psychological benefit from “gender-affirming care,” whatever those organizations – or their tiny elite of policymakers say”:
In particular, there is no discussion of how the 85-90% of children who accept their sex after they go through puberty fare in comparison to those who were denied that prospect by their “therapy.” Where is the consideration for the impact of not reaching normal height, having diminished bone and muscle mass, increased cardiovascular risk, and possibly impaired intellectual development? What about the realization at age 35 that you will never have a lifelong mate, especially one who is the other parent of your children?
“Physicians, of course, should always respect their patients and treat them with compassion,” Orient said. “This means they should refrain from treatments they believe to be unethical or harmful, even if requested by a patient and promoted by the federal government.”
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Susan Berry, PhD is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Vivek Ramaswamy and Chuck Todd’” by Kevin Tober.
