With all the focus on healthcare these days, maybe we should listen to some doctors. Here’s an opinion you won’t hear from The Media (D)…
Michelle Cretella, M.D., President of the American College of Pediatricians, wrote an article for The Daily Signal that gives insight into the growing children’s transgender movement from the perspective of a pediatrician.
Dr. Cretella also wrote a 2016 peer-reviewed article, Gender Dysphoria in Children and Suppression of Debate, that illustrates that anyone questioning the validity of modern ‘treatment’ — which she calls ‘unscientific’ — often find themselves vilified and looking for work.
Dr. Cretella has some pretty hefty credentials, she’s not just a board-certified general pediatrician with a focus in child behavioral health, but now that she has retired from her clinical practice, for the past 12 years she has been a board member and a researcher for the American College of Pediatricians. For the past 3 years, she has been the President of the college. She is also a mother of four.
I also sat on the board of directors for the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity from 2010 to 2015. This organization of physicians and mental health professionals defends the right of patients to receive psychotherapy for sexual identity conflicts that is in line with their deeply held values based upon science and medical ethics.
I have witnessed an upending of the medical consensus on the nature of gender identity. What doctors once treated as a mental illness, the medical community now largely affirms and even promotes as normal.
Dr. Cretella defines the ‘New Normal’ as:
– The nomenclature change from ‘Gender Identity Disorder’ to the more friendly ‘Gender Dysphoria’ (Essentially, it’s no longer a ‘disorder’, it’s an ‘unhappiness’ with your biological gender.)
– The rapid growth of Pediatric ‘Gender Clinics’ that promote the affirmation of children that don’t identify with their biological sex. In 2014, there were 24 of these clinics, mostly in California and along the coast, but now there are 40 nationwide.
– 215 pediatric residency programs now are promoting ‘transition-affirming’ protocols.
– The World Professional Association for Transgender Health has pushed against the refusal of the Department of Health and Human Services to grant Medicare and Medicaid to transition-affirming procedures for children or adults. DHHS has refused because they found that the benefits were unclear and the risks were high. The WPATH has pressed on claiming, without evidence, that the procedures are ‘safe’.
– Two major organizations, The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Pediatric Endocrine Society have also jumped on the transition-affirming bandwagon. The Pediatric Endocrine Society does admit, however, that the transition-affirming protocols are based on ‘low evidence’.
– The transition-affirming view is that a child that ‘consistently and persistently insist’ that they are they are not the gender that is associated with their biology, they are ‘innately’ transgender. However, in psychiatry, and normal life in general, anyone who ‘consistently and persistently insists’ on anything else contrary to physical reality is considered either confused or delusional.
– The transition-affirming protocol states that parents should put Gender Dysphoric children on puberty blockers at age 11-12.
– At age 16, if they are still transgender, they can be placed on cross-sex hormones, and biological girls may obtain a double mastectomy.
– Genital reassignment surgeries, or ‘Bottom surgeries’ aren’t done until after age 18, but some surgeons are arguing against that.
– Public institutions, The Media (D), education, the legal system, and most national medical organizations now embrace the transition-affirming approach. There are institutions that disagree, however. They include: the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, The Catholic Medical Association, as well as the LGBT-affirming Youth Gender Professionals.
The Daily Signal article sums up the main facts as follows:
1. Twin studies prove no one is born “trapped in the body of the wrong sex.”
…in the largest study of twin transgender adults, published by Dr. Milton Diamond in 2013, only 28 percent of the identical twins both identified as transgender. Seventy-two percent of the time, they differed. (Diamond’s study reported 20 percent identifying as transgender, but his actual data demonstrate a 28 percent figure, as I note here in footnote 19.)…
…The fact that the identical twins differed 72 percent of the time is highly significant because it means that at least 72 percent of what contributes to transgenderism in one twin consists of nonshared experiences after birth—that is, factors not rooted in biology.
Studies like this one prove that the belief in “innate gender identity”—the idea that “feminized” or “masculinized” brains can be trapped in the wrong body from before birth—is a myth that has no basis in science.
2. Gender identity is malleable, especially in young children.
Even the American Psychological Association’s Handbook of Sexuality and Psychology admits that prior to the widespread promotion of transition affirmation, 75 to 95 percent of pre-pubertal children who were distressed by their biological sex eventually outgrew that distress. The vast majority came to accept their biological sex by late adolescence after passing naturally through puberty.
3. Puberty blockers for gender dysphoria have not been proven safe.
…a groundbreaking paper in The New Atlantis points out, we cannot infer from these studies whether or not these blockers are safe in physiologically normal children with gender dysphoria.
The authors note that there is some evidence for decreased bone mineralization, meaning an increased risk of bone fractures as young adults, potential increased risk of obesity and testicular cancer in boys, and an unknown impact upon psychological and cognitive development.
4. There are no cases in the scientific literature of gender-dysphoric children discontinuing blockers.
Most, if not all, children on puberty blockers go on to take cross-sex hormones (estrogen for biological boys, testosterone for biological girls). The only study to date to have followed pre-pubertal children who were socially affirmed and placed on blockers at a young age found that 100 percent of them claimed a transgender identity and chose cross-sex hormones…
…There is an obvious self-fulfilling effect in helping children impersonate the opposite sex both biologically and socially. This is far from benign, since taking puberty blockers at age 12 or younger, followed by cross-sex hormones, sterilizes a child.
5. Cross-sex hormones are associated with dangerous health risks.
Adult studies show that result of cross-sex hormones include, but are not limited to:
…cardiac disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, strokes, diabetes, and cancers.
6. Neuroscience shows that adolescents lack the adult capacity needed for risk assessment.
Scientific data show that people under the age of 21 have less capacity to assess risks.
Where are the ethicists out there questioning whether allowing children to make life-altering decisions that have serious health risks is against the ‘do no harm’ portion of the Hippocratic Oath?
7. There is no proof that affirmation prevents suicide in children.
…there is no evidence that harassment and discrimination, let alone lack of affirmation, are the primary cause of suicide among any minority group. In fact, at least one study from 2008 found perceived discrimination by LGBT-identified individuals not to be causative.
Over 90 percent of people who commit suicide have a diagnosed mental disorder, and there is no evidence that gender-dysphoric children who commit suicide are any different. Many gender dysphoric children simply need therapy to get to the root of their depression, which very well may be the same problem triggering the gender dysphoria.
8. Transition-affirming protocol has not solved the problem of transgender suicide.
Adults who undergo sex reassignment—even in Sweden, which is among the most LGBT-affirming countries—have a suicide rate nearly 20 times greater than that of the general population. Clearly, sex reassignment is not the solution to gender dysphoria.
She concludes her article with strong words:
Bottom Line: Transition-Affirming Protocol Is Child Abuse
The crux of the matter is that while the transition-affirming movement purports to help children, it is inflicting a grave injustice on them and their nondysphoric peers.
These professionals are using the myth that people are born transgender to justify engaging in massive, uncontrolled, and unconsented experimentation on children who have a psychological condition that would otherwise resolve after puberty in the vast majority of cases.
Today’s institutions that promote transition affirmation are pushing children to impersonate the opposite sex, sending many of them down the path of puberty blockers, sterilization, the removal of healthy body parts, and untold psychological damage.
These harms constitute nothing less than institutionalized child abuse. Sound ethics demand an immediate end to the use of pubertal suppression, cross-sex hormones, and sex reassignment surgeries in children and adolescents, as well as an end to promoting gender ideology via school curricula and legislative policies.
It is time for our nation’s leaders and the silent majority of health professionals to learn exactly what is happening to our children, and unite to take action.
Source: The Daily Signal
So, what do you think of Dr. Cretella’s points?
Do you agree or disagree?
Let us know in the comments.
