First Do No Harm
The phrase “first do no harm” isn’t in either the ancient Greek version of the Hippocratic Oath or the widely accepted current version, but perhaps it should be. The issue of harm swirls around the topic of gender dysphoria, the sense of discomfort that a person may have due to a perceived mismatch of biological sex and gender identity. As a medical term, gender dysphoria is modern and first appeared in medical literature in the 1960s or ‘70s. But since then, the medical and political debate surrounding gender dysphoria has grown. Are the doctors providing care or operating a transgender money making-machine?
Psychologist and sexologist John Money is often credited with popularizing both the term gender dysphoria and the concept that gender is malleable and determined by whether a child was raised as male or female in early childhood. This hypothesis has been discredited, but the medical treatment of gender dysphoria has grown into a $2.1 billion industry. This is expected to grow to $5 billion by 2030.
If an adult has the desire to transition to the opposite sex, most Americans would say that it’s a personal choice, but life-changing medical decisions by children are a different matter. In the case of a rough-and-tumble fourteen-year-old girl, is she a tomboy or is she suffering from gender dysphoria and needs male hormones and a double mastectomy? The World Professional Association for Transgender Health states that transition hormones can be started at age fourteen. However, children have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria as early as the age of five. In many states, such as California, gender-affirming care can be provided without the consent of parents.
Jeff Younger is the divorced father of twin boys. When his marriage ended both boys were left in the custody of the mother and all currently live in Texas. Younger believes that when one of the boys showed an inclination to wear dresses and feminine things, his ex-wife moved too quickly to seek gender-affirming counseling and begin socially transitioning the boy.
Ben Shapiro discusses the Jeff Younger case
Younger states that the child wants “nothing to do with the female identity when not at the mother’s house.” Younger and his ex-wife have battled in the Texas court system, but he still fears the child is “being railroaded by the schools, mental health experts, and courts.” Adding to his anguish, his ex-wife’s medical practice is scheduled to close on October 31 and he fears she will move to California and continue transitioning his son.
Chloe Cole grew up in northern California. At a young age, she was diagnosed with both autism and ADHD, which have been shown to be “common comorbidities with gender dysphoria.” When she told her parents she was a boy, doctors and counselors quickly moved to transition her. She took puberty blockers for several years and underwent a double mastectomy at the age of fifteen.
Chloe Cole speaks Out Against 'Gender-Affirming' Health Care
Hormone therapy often causes sterility. Now eighteen years old, Chloe describes herself as a “former trans kid” and believes “the beauty of motherhood” was taken from her at an age when she couldn’t fully comprehend the loss.
Cole travels across the country to share her story and raise the alarm about gender transition procedures on children, a growing trend she calls “child abuse” and “medical experimentation.”
While this article highlights two cases involving California, there are more than fifty pediatric gender clinics across the United States.
Some have linked the dramatic increase in gender dysphoria to mass hysteria such as that experienced with the Salem witch trials, multiple personality disorder, or repressed memories. Intense media coverage, like that seen with childhood transition, “seems to exacerbate outbreaks” of such hysteria. In that vein, Jeff Younger believes “puberty is the cure for gender dysphoria” and the current practice of transitioning young children is “mass genital mutilation.” This author is convinced that society will come to see the current wave of hormone treatment and surgery as unnecessary, harmful, and ultimately unwanted by many who will have endured it and the abusive practice will end with a tsunami of lawsuits.
Is the recent surge in so-called gender-affirming care an act of love or is it child abuse and mutilation for profit? Let us know your opinion in the comments section below.
