A growing number of states and medical professionals are pushing back against the Biden administration’s advocacy of transgender treatment for children.
President Joe Biden criticized Florida’s ban on transgender treatments for minors as “close to sinful,” in an interview.
“It’s just terrible what they’re doing,” Biden said. “It’s not like, you know, a kid wakes up one morning and says, you know, I decided I wanted to become a man, or I want to become a woman.”
Wheels Are Turning
Admiral Rachel Levine, M.D., Assistant Secretary for Health at the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, a biological male who identifies as a woman, said child gender reassignment treatment has the “highest support” of the Biden Administration.
Levine spoke at the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, which offers “gender-affirming” plastic surgery, hormone treatments, and puberty blockers to minors.
“Wheels will turn on this,” said Levine, referring to the normalization and widespread acceptance of “gender-affirming care” for minors.
Under his birth name Richard, Levine fathered and raised two children before transitioning in 2011 at age 53. In 2019, Levine said, “I can’t imagine a life without my children.” Critics called out the contradiction between that sentiment and Levine’s support for irreversible gender transitions in young people that leave them sterile.
Dangerous Game
Levine’s position as a senior government health official “gives credibility to activists” pushing the agenda of normalizing child gender transitions, says Stanley Goldfarb, M.D., chairman of Do No Harm, an organization opposed to radical ideological agendas in health care.
While adults can make reasoned decisions about their health, children “cannot assess the risks and benefits” of gender-affirming care, says Goldfarb.
“(Further) the preponderance of medical evidence does not support the efficacy of gender transition to ameliorate psychological dysfunction experienced by these children,” said Goldfarb.
“A number of European nations have opted to pause or even ban ‘gender-affirming care’ after conducting careful reviews of the medical literature regarding the lack of benefit of the treatment of gender dysphoria.”
High School Biology Lesson
Trying to change one’s sex with drugs and surgery is dangerous and delusional, says David Gortler, Pharm.D., a former Food and Drug Administration official and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
“Using pharmacology to fight against 100 trillion cells in one’s body isn’t going to be safe or ever work out, no matter what Levine, the Biden White House, or any other government official says,” said Gortler.
“I can tell you that the adult human body has around 100 trillion cells in it and all of those nucleated cells contain an XX or XY chromosome sequence, according to any high-school biology education.”
An individual’s sex is unalterable, not assigned at birth, says Gortler.
“That is determined at the moment of egg fertilization by either an X or Y sperm cell, and that decision is final,” said Gortler. “No matter how many gallons of estrogen Levine injects himself with, and no matter how many surgeries he undergoes, he will always be a male with an XY sequence according to a genetic blood test, period.”
‘Tainting the Field’
Transgender activism is “tainting the field” of medicine, says Goldfarb.
“There is the presumption that gender-affirming care is the only proper treatment,” said Goldfarb. “That is just not so. The medical literature does not support its efficacy. Activists urge children who express distress as they enter puberty [to] enter into a potentially irreversible medical and surgical regimen despite overwhelming evidence that many of these children suffer from serious psychiatric disorders.”
Most of these children would go on to develop comfort with their sex were it not for medical interventions, says Goldfarb.
“Watchful waiting and psychotherapy result in the vast majority of such children opting to live in a gender that corresponds to their natal sex,” Goldfarb said.
States Enact Bans
Fourteen states have either restricted or outlawed “gender-affirming care” for individuals under 18 years of age, and more are expected to follow, according to CatholicVote.
The states that have acted include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Dakota, Utah, and West Virginia. In Kentucky, a bill banning puberty blockers for minors was enacted over the veto of Gov. Andy Beshear (D).
Around 150 activists occupied the Oklahoma State Capitol after Republicans introduced bills that would limit reassignment procedures.
Harry Painter (harry@harrypainter.com) writes from Oklahoma.