Ross Douthat has written one of the most pointed, prophetic paragraphs that I have ever read in a newspaper. He writes:
I will make a prediction: Within not too short a span of time, not only conservatives but most liberals will recognize that we have been running an experiment on trans-identifying youth without good or certain evidence, inspired by ideological motives rather than scientific rigor, in a way that future generations will regard as a grave medical-political scandal.
Which means that if you are a liberal who believes as much already, but you don’t feel comfortable saying it, your silence will eventually become your regret.
There is no question that Douthat is right about the destruction that so-called “gender affirming care” is visiting upon the bodies of children and teens across the country. Gender affirming care requires parents and medical professionals to follow the instincts of children who are confused about their gender. Rather than helping children to resolve their psychological distress in a way that affirms their bodies, gender affirming care requires destroying a child’s body. This “care” can include blocking a child’s puberty, the infusion of opposite sex hormones, and sometimes destroying healthy reproductive organs through surgery.
As Douthat points out, the “science” does not support these interventions. Indeed, some studies show that blocking a child’s puberty has irreversible effects including stunting a child’s growth and causing them to have inadequate bone development. Opposite sex hormones not only cause bizarre changes to a child’s body but also cause psychological problems and can render a child infertile for life. And that is to say nothing of the barbaric surgeries that some of these children undergo.
In 2017, National Geographic published a cover story on LGBT identities that had a number of glossy images of people identifying as LGBT. I will never forget turning a page to see the image of a 17-year old boy posing shirtless holding his skateboard. But when I leaned in and looked a little closer, what I saw were two scars right below the chest. I wasn’t looking at a shirtless 17-year old boy. I was looking at a shirtless 17-year old girl who had just undergone a double mastectomy (so-called “top surgery”). And the caption said this:
Assigned female at birth, Hunter Keith, 17, has felt himself to be a boy since fifth grade. By seventh grade he told his friends; by eighth grade he told his parents. Two weeks before this photo was taken, his breasts were removed. Now he relishes skateboarding shirtless in his Michigan neighborhood.
What happened that a young girl’s parents would consent to have their child’s healthy organs destroyed and then to pose her naked body in the pages of National Geographic? If we could tell our grandfathers about that spectacle, they wouldn’t laugh. They likely would have wept. And we should too.
In 2018, Dr. Michael Laidlaw reviewed a book about a 17-year old transgender reality-show star named Jazz Jennings. In one section of the review, Dr. Laidlaw describes the “sex-change” surgery that this minor child was eventually subjected to. Keep in mind, that this child was already being treated with puberty blockers, so his growth had already been stunted before the surgery. Also, Jazz was suffering from depression. Nevertheless, with the support of his parents and healthcare providers, he underwent life-altering surgery. Dr. Laidlaw writes:
What type of surgical procedure(s) is Jazz considering for the treatment of gender dysphoria? Typically, surgery turning a male into a trans-female involves dissecting the penis, turning the skin inside out, and placing it into a surgically created cavity to create a false vagina. After surgery, a dilator has to be placed in this artificial vagina to keep it from collapsing.
But Jazz [this child] has a problem. Since he still has a small child-sized penis (because of puberty blockers), he does not have enough skin to line the false vagina. Potential remedies include sewing in a section of intestine along with the penis skin to make the false vagina. In one episode, Jazz is actually offered two different surgeries: one surgery to create the false vagina and a second surgery two months later to attempt to form the labia. The need for two dangerous surgeries instead of one is directly related to the effects of puberty blockers.
This is the brutal reality of “gender affirming care.” It’s not really gender affirming. It’s body destroying. And yet, our culture appears to be so under the spell of transgender propaganda that even some parents are going along with barbaric medical experiments performed on their own children. Some parents are manipulated into it against their better judgment after gender counselors put before them an ultimatum: “What would you rather have? A dead daughter or a living son?”
If the ideologues have their way, all parents and children will be forced into this madness. The Biden administration recently released guidelines concerning the care of children who are experiencing feelings of gender confusion. The guidelines include putting minor children on puberty blockers to keep their bodies from maturing and becoming fully developed. They allow infusion of opposite sex hormones in minor children. They even allow for sex-change surgeries in minor children where it is medically recommended.
And to make it worse, the guidelines allow the possibility that children might be taken away from parents in cases where parents refuse to endorse a child’s transgender identity and the barbaric medical treatments that go along with it (source, source). It’s an absolute outrage. And it’s not based on science, it’s based on LGBTQ+ propaganda. Children’s bodies being sacrificed for someone’s sick political ideology.
Just yesterday, I read another testimonial from a parent who wishes he could take it all back. But now it’s too late. His child’s body has been irreparably harmed. He writes:
3.5 years ago I was flung into another world. A parallel universe. A world of harm, destruction & devastation. A world where my family was decimated. A world where the medical professionals told us our daughter was really our son. Just like that.
It wasn’t real then & it’s still not real 3.5 years later. Our daughter is not our son. She took testosterone for 1.5 years & it wrought its irreversible effects in that time. Effects that she now deeply regrets & effects that cleaved through our family with consequences that only families in our situation could possibly understand.
The medical professionals who are telling teenage girls to have double mastectomies before they have reached adulthood are evil. The medical professionals telling our girls that being uncomfortable in puberty is a “medical condition ” have lost their moral & ethical compass. A generation of young people are being harmed & failed.
What will you say to these people when they grow up? Will you say that you turned a blind eye? Will you say you were too afraid to speak? For goodness sake what will it take to stop the harm? Did you reach adulthood with your body & fertility intact? I did. Surely we owe it to our children to have that choice. The immature adolescent brain isn’t capable of a decision to be a lifelong medical patient. Join the fight to save impressionable young people. We can’t change sex.
What’s the point in rehearsing all of this? Douthat’s prediction about where this is all going is undoubtedly right. This cannot go on indefinitely. The stories from detransitioners are piling up. Just this week, another heartrending testimony appears in The Washington Post, with this line, “From the day of my surgery, I became a medical patient and will remain one for the rest of my life.” When it comes to nature versus transgender propaganda, nature always wins.
Children who have undergone these destructive interventions are growing up and telling their heart-breaking stories. All it will take is one successful lawsuit for the medical establishment to stop on a dime and do an about face away from gender-affirming care. But in the meantime, who will speak up against these horrific experiments on children’s bodies?
The time is coming very soon when everyone who went along with this madness will have to bury their heads in shame. Don’t be that person. Encourage those struggling with gender confusion to resolve their distress in a way that affirms their body not in a way that attempts to destroy it. Speak the truth in love, and do it now (Eph. 4:15).
