Paediatric gender dysphoria has rapidly emerged as one of the most divisive and urgent issues in medicine today. In the past decade, the number of children and adolescents identifying as transgender or nonbinary has soared. In the US alone, diagnoses among youth aged 6 to 17 nearly tripled from around 15,000 in 2017 to over 42,000 by 2021 signalling a seismic shift not only in culture but in clinical practice. Well, the US Department recently released a scathing review of this practise, with emphasis on critical focuses. And so, today, we ought to address this further in light of the war against so-called gender affirming care.
THE U.S. DEPT. OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES REFUTES THE CLAIM OF GENDER AFFIRMING CARE
And now onto our main discussion on the recent war against gender affirming care. To begin with, children diagnosed with gender dysphoria a condition defined by distress related to one’s biological sex or associated gender roles—are increasingly being offered powerful medical interventions. These include puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and, in some cases, irreversible surgeries such as mastectomy, vaginoplasty, or phalloplasty.
Recently, an umbrella review from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) states that “thousands of American children and adolescents have received these interventions,” despite a lack of solid scientific footing. In addition, while advocates often claim the treatments are “medically necessary” and “lifesaving,” the report concludes “the overall quality of evidence concerning the effects of any intervention on psychological outcomes, quality of life, regret, or long-term health, is very low.” It also cautions that evidence of harm is sparse—but not necessarily because harms are rare, but due to limited long-term data, weak tracking, and publication bias. But, ultimately, the review amounts to a scathing review of the assumptions, ethics, and clinical practices driving gender-affirming care in the US.
“GENDER AFFIRMING CARE” IS BASED ON A DIGRESSION FROM MEDICAL ETHICS
First, at the heart of the HHS critique is a reversal of medical norms. To appreciate this, we would have to consider that in many areas of medicine, treatments are first established as safe and effective in adults before being extended to paediatric populations. However, in the case of gender affirming care, the opposite occurred!
This is to say that despite inconclusive outcomes in adults, these interventions were rolled out for children without rigorous data, and with little regard for long-term, often irreversible consequences. This includes irreversible consequences such as infertility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone development, elevated cardiovascular risk, and psychiatric complications.
For example, puberty blockers, frequently marketed as a reversible ‘pause,’ actually interrupt bone mineralisation at a critical growth stage—raising the risk of stunted skeletal growth and early-onset osteoporosis. When followed by cross-sex hormones, as is common, the harms multiply. Known risks include metabolic disruption, blood clots, sterility, and permanent loss of sexual function. And yet, many clinics operate under a “child-led care” model, where a minor’s self-declared “embodiment goals” dictate treatment.
However, another issue with the child led model used in gender affirming care (in addition to its existence as a model), is the fact it is not based on any credible science – because children do not have a valid and objectively factual reason to claim gender dysphoria, without influence from environmental factors (i.e. social contagion, or the impact that contaminated food and pharmaceutical interventions have on hormones and biological development). This cannot be stressed enough, there is no such thing as organic gender dysphoria – there literally is no scientific basis for it AT ALL! RATHER, where its normalisation comes from is the intercession of medical science and social politics, meaning that it is the product of medical science being heavily influenced by pressure from those lobbying to make sectors of society bend towards political correctness and the LGBT agenda – thus leading to social contagion!
ARE CHILDREN CAPABLE OF CONSENTING TO LIFE-ALTERING MEDICAL INTERVENTIONS?
This brings us to one of the most critical issues to consider in the discussion on so-called gender affirming care – being child consent. More specifically, we ought to ask: Are children capable of consenting to life-altering medical interventions? Generally, we understand informed consent as meaning more than simple agreement informed consent requires a deep understanding of risks, alternatives, and long-term impact (meaning consequences of a choice or action).
This means that, by definition, children often lack full legal and developmental capacity for medical decision-making – because they do not possess sufficient maturity and mental reasoning or processing capacities to understand the gravity of irreversible decisions, beyond a temporary fixation of an assumed benefit. Therefore, when medical interventions pose unnecessary, disproportionate risks of harm, healthcare providers should refuse to offer them even when they are preferred, requested, or demanded by an under-age patient!
THE DECEPTIVELY CONSTRUCTED “MATURE MINOR DOCTRINE
But, the medical industrial complex that benefits from these procedures created a loophole to this issue on minor consent, through collaborating with lawmakers to form the mature minor or minor consent doctrine in a number of states – starting with vaccination and thus creating precedent for gender transitions. In essence, “Minor consent” – which refers to a child being legally able to consent to vaccinations or other treatments without parental consent – exists in multiple US states. For example, in California, minor consent is legal for some vaccines beginning at age 12, while in New York, there is no set lower age limit for a child to consent to Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccination. Washington State is among the most extreme. The pro-vaccine organisation Vaxteen describes Washington’s “mature minor doctrine” as follows. They state that: In Washington, minors of any age do not need their parent’s consent to receive all healthcare services, including vaccinations. This is called a “mature minor doctrine” and essentially means that if you talk to your doctor/healthcare provider and they decide you are “mature enough” to make your own health care decisions, you can.
Of course, it is still vague what mature enough would mean, and based on how proponents of child mutilation surgeries have run away from directly addressing the argument that children are not mature enough to make decisions on permanent or temporary health decisions, you can probably deduce that there is no objective metric to measure the maturity of a child.
Well, in an interesting shift in events, even members of the alphabet community are recognizing that there is no basis for informed consent in so-called gender affirming care. For instance, Jamie Reed testified on the 9th of May in Maine in support of bill LD380, which would require parental consent to medicalise a minor. She correctly differentiates between consent and assent, detailing that in medical procedures driven by minors, at best all those children can provide is assent, meaning agreement to allowing the procedure to take place. However, this does not amount to informed consent, because often the children do not know the extent of the changes and harm they are agreeing to. The pendulum is swinging towards common sense.
Based on this concession from even the alphabet people, it further emphasises that supportive parents cannot shield clinicians from ethical responsibility. Especially considering that any children who present for transition also have autism, trauma histories, depression, or anxiety all of which can impair decision-making. Yet clinicians frequently misread a child’s desire to transition as evidence of capacity.
But, once again, there is no such thing as organic gender dysphoria (meaning gender dysphoria that is not influenced by environmental factors). And not only is there no organic gender dysphoria, but the actual mental illnesses that children are struggling with are being ignored, in order to justify the claim of gender dysphoria. There was even a trend (especially among medical professionals) of not questioning the unstable nature of gender dysphoria claims, and rather affirming the so-called transgender children, in the name of compassion. But, Vivek Ramaswamy correctly stated that that trend was based on a false dichotomy, that resulted in the assumption that compassion can only come with affirming gender dysphoria claims.
Ultimately, there is a general consensus that children are not regarded as fully mature beings who are capable of complete expression or legal consent. The reason for this is that children, in all that they progressively learn, do not always fully appreciate the complex concepts (which is why complex concepts are simplified and taught at their level of understanding), and they are also not fully able to appreciate the consequences of actions, even when they are taught those actions are wrong or right: as I’ve said before, this is part of the reason why five year olds do not drive, or why children do not have legal standing to represent themselves in court, or even why it is considered negligent for an adult to leave a child alone near a large body of water. And so, what is claimed to be intuitive knowledge from a child when they claim to be “mis-gendered” can not be regarded as an objective fact. Furthermore, it is to fail the parental or medical duty to care when children are allowed to transition, while making permanent decisions based on temporary feelings.
“GENDER AFFIRMING CARE” REPRESENTS A MORAL PROBLEM IN MODERN MEDICINE AND LAW
Considering that the medical industrial complex has manufactured a doctrine of minor consent to perform mutilation procedures on children despite the irreversible harms, it becomes evident that the problem is not only medical it’s moral. In light of this, in the aforementioned HSS report, the HHS accuses the medical establishment of abandoning its core duty: which is to protect vulnerable patients. The HHS argues that ideology and activism have taken precedence over evidence and caution.
This is to say that the evidence of the benefit of paediatric medical transition is very uncertain, while the evidence for harm is less uncertain. And among the most disturbing trends highlighted in the report is the sidelining of mental health support. Research suggests that most cases of claimed paediatric gender dysphoria resolve without intervention. Yet clinicians continue to proceed with irreversible treatments. Meanwhile, medical professionals have no way to know which patients may continue to experience the claimed gender dysphoria and which will come to terms with their bodies. This means that they perform treatments that aren’t based on a genuinely conceived mandate to care for the patient, but based on a careless disregard for their duty to care! A detransitioner adds to this account..
Well, you’d recall that in light of this, the Supreme Court in the US heard arguments of gender affirming care in December 2024, and indicated that the majority was leaning toward upholding a Tennessee law that restricts so-called gender transition treatments for minors. Now, this case (in essence) decides whether, under the US constitution, states are allowed to outlaw child mutilation in the name of gender ideology. But, now, a few years or even months back, this case would have been inconceivable because it was considered inherently wrong to allow children to consent to irreversible harm, which would be inclusive of the almost irreversible procedures that are conducted of so-called transgender children. Of course, what then happened is that trans activists intimidated people who opposed gender ideology (especially through the incorporation of cancel culture). What also happened is that there were a number of woke activist judges who were co-opted into the court system.
For instance, while the Supreme Court was hearing a case on whether banning the medical transitioning of minors violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause, Justice Sotomayor argued that children denied “gender affirming care” may kill themselves or become drug addicts.
Let’s (once again) address this alleged threat of suicide, where children are denied so-called gender affirming care, as also articulated by Justice Sotomayor. I believe that this threat only has an impact because it is not actually analysed. And I do not necessarily blame parents for this: when a parent is told that their child is at risk of ending their life, that easily seems like the worst case scenario and thus has the potential to dilute their concerns about child mutilation, if they do not understand the full extent of the harms that child mutilation also brings. And so, compassion will likely move parents to want to save their children (at least as they are coerced to) – especially if they do not fully understand what the transition would mean for their children.
And so, to address this claim of suicide, let’s look at children (or former children) who are now speaking out against allowing minors to make choices that have an irreversable impact on them. SPOILER ALERT: these children and young adults are advocating hard against allowing minors to make such decisions because they are now dealing with the consequences of having been allowed to make decisions with permanent ramifications on the basis of temporary feelings. This is an excerpt from a documentary titled ‘THE GENDER AGENDA’, produced by the President of Loveworld Incorporated, and available on the Ceflix platform. He documentary zoomed in on cases of minors who were reflecting on having been allowed to make the decision to mutilate themselves.
What is interesting to note, is that children who opted for child mutilation, were actually coerced into it because even they were told they would end their lives if they did not transition! So, it appears that the threat of suicide originated from the medical practitioners who perform these surgeries of distribute the puberty blockers! SECONDLY, if children are not being told that THEY will end their lives if they do not opt for mutilation, they are often already struggling with mental health issues, like depression. Therefore, even in this instance, parents are not risking the lives of their children by refusing to opt for child mutilation – because the depression and mental health issue would exist independent of the option for mutilation or “transitioning”.
Finally, in refuting the suicide claim tha tis used to coerce parents, it is worth noting, especially from the young lady towards the end of the excerpt we just watched from the documentary, that a massive contributor to mental illness or depression is the regret that comes from having undergone the child mutilation processes and then realise that even when you detransition, you may never gain back your biological experiences and privileges, like starying a family. We all watched her weep and lament the sense that she does not think anyone can love her anymore, which I genuinely hope she knows is not true, because even if she was the only person on earth, Christ would have still died for her in his unwavering love for her.
THE GENDER ARE GENDER AS A WEAPON OF POLITICAL MANOEUVRING
But, seeing how gender affirming care has been systematically pushed, we also have to not miss that it has been organised as a political weapon – that is even being wielded by activist judges. And the idea that the gender agenda is a tool of political manoeuvring is not a mere statement or semantics – it really has become utilised in this manner. For instance, those who are proponents of the agenda use it to gain certain privileges or to institute changes in society that are to their favour – no matter how ridiculous. For instance, LA City in June 2024 took down a couple “no U-turn” traffic signs in Silver Lake, California because the signs are anti-LGBTQ. Really, it is almost disturbing how much this is a group that so desperately wants to be “oppressed” or “marginalised”, because that somehow validates their existence.
But, the use of the gender agenda as a political manoeuvering tool is not exclusive to privileges of the change to social standards and law; the gender agenda is now also mechanism for targeting those who dissent to it. In fact, we recently discussed the story of the DOJ’s charge against Dr Ethain Haim in Texas. More specifically, the DOJ unsealed an indictment against Dr Eithan Haim, who last year leaked evidence of cross-sex hormone procedures being performed at a Texas hospital despite the facility claiming to have halted them, with the surgeon facing four felony counts for alleged violations of a medical-records law that could land him in prison for up to 10 years. The DOJ announced on June 17 that it had charged Dr Haim for obtaining protected individual health information for patients who were not under his care, allegedly acting without authorisation and with intent to cause malicious harm to Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH).
We also discussed the fact that, in this case, the controversy actually centers on the fact that the TCH, which the largest children’s hospital in the country, publicly declared in March 2022 that it was halting “hormone-related prescription therapies for gender-affirming services” for minors, citing potential legal and criminal liability after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton declared that prescription of puberty blockers was “child abuse” under Texas law. And that, however, the documents leaked by Dr. Haim purportedly showed that the hospital continued to perform some “gender-affirming” therapies after the announcement, including one procedure on an 11-year-old three days after it made the declaration. And so, he was actually functioning as a whistleblower against an institution that was breaking the law in this case.
Written y Lindokuhle Mabaso
