Michelle Cretella, president of the American College of Pediatricians (ACP)—a group that includes conservative physicians—compared the magazine’s approving displays to “institutionalized child abuse.”
“You don’t treat medical confusion by putting people, especially children, on toxic hormones and cutting off healthy body parts,” she said. “Just because a person thinks and feels something does not make it true.”
It’s one of the most perplexing dynamics regarding transgender youth: Adults allow children to lead the way.
Though it’s critical to listen to children, Allan Josephson, a psychiatrist and member of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, says parenting involves guiding kids in what is true: “Children aren’t sure of much of anything, let alone their identity.”
Indeed, studies show as many as 80 percent of children who express signs of gender dysphoria grow out of those feelings by adulthood.
Still, the Endocrine Society approves the use of puberty-blocking drugs to “pause” sexual development and give children a couple of years to figure out one of the most fundamental pieces of their identity.
‘You don’t treat medical confusion by putting people, especially children, on toxic hormones and cutting off healthy body parts.’ —Michelle Cretella, president of the American College of Pediatricians
If children decide to live as the opposite sex, they may begin taking cross-sex hormones at as young as 13. Some of the obvious results: Boys grow breasts, and girls grow facial hair.
Neither process is without peril. Though physicians have prescribed puberty blockers to children entering puberty too early, the practice of giving such drugs to healthy children before natural puberty begins is relatively recent. Some say the drugs could interfere with neurological development and bone growth, since the blocked hormones promote those functions.
In the case of cross-sex hormones, the dangers are more serious: Many will stay on hormones for a lifetime, and doctors warn of increased risk for heart disease, diabetes, and blood clots.
Even more tragic: Cross-sex hormones can induce sterility. That means children as young as 13 or 14 must make momentous decisions about whether they are willing to forgo having biological children later in life. Courtney Finlayson, a pediatric endocrinologist who prescribes such drugs to children, acknowledged the magnitude of children making those decisions during a PBS interview: “I do worry that at that stage in life many of them may not be able to realize how important that would be to them someday.”
Nevertheless, the number of children visiting gender identity clinics is growing. The numbers are hard to track, but the first transgender clinic for children in the United States opened in Boston in 2007. Ten years later, some 40 such clinics exist.
Parents don’t always encourage a child’s gender confusion, but other adults sometimes intervene. In Oregon, the group TransActive Gender Center provides teenage girls with free chest binders—a compression garment for girls who want to compress their breasts to appear male. The group says it’s mailed over 1,500 garments in plain envelopes in the last five years.
At least one “top surgeon”—a doctor dedicated to performing mastectomies on healthy women who want to live as males—has warned of the dangers of chest binding: compressed ribs, collapsed lungs, and back pain.
On the social media site Tumblr, a site full of networking for transgender teens, one woman said she bound her breasts for two years before a mastectomy: “I still can’t take a full, deep breath like I used to.”
If the physical risks seem overwhelming, some parents of young children still are willing to follow the lead of physicians who tell them transition is healthy. An article on the gay website The Advocate told the story of a mother of a “transgender toddler.”
The mother said her 10-year-old child transitioned at age 5, but she knew her daughter was different by 18 months old. Her adamant advice to parents: “Never let anyone question you. If your child is happy and a nice person, you are doing the right thing.”
Comments
Katie
Posted: Thu, 03/30/2017 11:57 amWhat an interesting and important article, thank you. I agree that Christians need to be ready to help what will most likely be a growing number of people suffering from the consequences of an aggressive transgender agenda. The people pushing the agenda are exploiting children, not helping them, and then turning their backs on them when they no longer help the agenda. This is very sad, but let Christians take heed and be vigilant lest we do the same thing in the name of promoting what we think is right. Let us always believe people are more important than agenda.
VSKluth
Posted: Thu, 03/30/2017 01:31 pmGreat coverage of a relevant social topic - thank you, Jamie. I like the quote from Dr. Van Meter, that you can neve truly change a person's gender, because every cell is wired male or female. Reminds me of Jeremiah's divinely-given retort, "can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" (13:23).
JerryM
Posted: Thu, 03/30/2017 05:54 pmJamie, thanks for this important article. It is very true, as you say that "Christians have an urgent task" to expose this form of child abuse.
One thing I would add, and certainly not to legitimize transgenderism, is the unresolved issue of socio-cultural contructs of masculinity and femininity and how this may factor into people's views and choices around this issue.
CR
Posted: Thu, 03/30/2017 06:30 pmJamie's articles are consistently well-researched and well-written. Nice work here!!
RMF
Posted: Fri, 03/31/2017 01:49 amTHank you for this article. We need to see more of them. This is a very, very serious problem. THese children, and their parents, are extremely vulnerable, and the choices too many of them are making are rippling out across our entire society.
RL
Posted: Fri, 03/31/2017 12:44 pmEXCELLENT ARTICLE!! Thank you very much for such a well-researched and thoughtful article. The comparison to The Emperor's New Clothes is apt. Thanks again.
DakotaLutheran
Posted: Fri, 03/31/2017 02:55 pmThis is a well researched article. I would add some comments regarding a too simple response to "transgenderism." The causes, I think, are both complex and commonplace. We have all had issues of what we look like and who we think we are. If we are made to even dress in a way that is contrary to what we would normally do, we don't feel right or might get upset. I'm certain such techniques are used to torture and break people. It is not clear to me what exactly "transgenderism" is. It might be viewed as no more than wanting to look a certain way. We normally accomplish this by more temporary means. We employ clothes, hair, jewerlry, even facial and vocal expressions to accomplish this. We might say that we adorn ourselves in a manner that "fits" our personality. This attitude is nearly universal, but it is available only to those with means, and this generally means the more prosperous. If this is at all right, then "transgenderism" is less about changing our sex than about wanting to look in a way that coheres in some fashion with our personality. If the latter is sin, we are all guilty of it. One might say that even having a personality is a sin. Somehow God allows for diversity in unity. He permits individual ways within the Right and Good. It seems to me that some Christians and what we might call "traditionalists" have unintentionally contributed to the problem. Such groups depict what it is to be "male" and what it is to be "female" in narrowly defined ways. As such, one is often left with the impression that one must fit one or the other way of being. If one does not "feel" like a "male," one must be a "female." I find such sterotypes commonly among, not only transgender folk, but also homosexuals. Transgenderism appears different from homosexuality or heterosexuality. It is more about self-attraction than other-attraction. These are complex relationships, both of which can be and are addressed by and through Christ.Still, I caution, as I think the article does, any simplistic or hasty judgments. These people are not political or cultural footballs, but real individuals, struggling in ways (I think) that we are capable of, but by some accident have missed.
EP
Posted: Fri, 03/31/2017 04:10 pmJamie, so much heart-breaking information in this article. I am truly saddened by all the testimonies, all simply grown out of a non-biblical worlview. Thanks for sharing.
stevenjan
Posted: Sat, 04/01/2017 10:52 amAt six, my son wanted to be an ambulance. My friends daughter wanted to be a cheeta.They both outgrew it.