Illinois – Home of Ideology, Not Facts - Illinois Family Institute

If one State Senator has his way, Illinois will become a center for gender affirmation care for children—which is just a euphemism for chemical castration and surgical mutilation. Mike Simmons (D-Chicago) recently introduced SB 1283 which is to be known as the “Gender-Affirming Health Care Protection Act.” He introduced the bill as a response to several states outlawing puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and cosmetic surgery for children who think that they want to transition to the opposite gender of their birth.

The bill immunizes “any person for providing, aiding, assisting, receiving, or otherwise allowing a child to receive gender-affirming care or referring a child for such care. . .” In other words if someone from another states helps a child to come to Illinois for transgender treatment, Illinois will not help the other state prosecute the person under that state’s laws. Illinois law enforcement and others are prohibited from providing information, warrants will not be recognized, civil penalties are to be ignored, extradition is prohibited, civil or criminal subpoenas for testimony or records will not be recognized or enforced.

In our Constitutional system, I don’t know how this law would be legal, but that is for someone else to figure out. The much larger issue is how woke Springfield has become.

The bill says the General Assembly finds “[g]ender-affirming care encompasses many forms of health care support that improve the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse children and adolescents and has been shown to increase positive outcomes for transgender and nonbinary children and adolescents.” Claiming that these treatments are for the health of the child is nonsense. There is no empirical evidence to support that claim.

Even after hormone treatments and surgery, the transgender patient remains at high risk for suicide, drug and alcohol addiction, as well as mental health issues associated with gender dysphoria. These cannot be ignored. There also are the lifelong medical treatments to maintain the transgender status and to treat the side effects of all the surgery and hormones alien to their natural born sex. Even Marci Bowers, the doctor who performed the surgery on Jazz Jennings and on at least 2,000 others, reportedly has had second thoughts on performing the surgery on children. There is not enough “material,” meaning the genitalia are too under developed to obtain the best surgical result, according to Bowers.

There is a growing consensus, based on a growing body of empirical evidence, that talk therapy is the preferred treatment, at least until the underlying mental illnesses are relieved. This is especially true for treatment of children. Also the number of detransitioners is increasing.

The detrans group on Reddit has increased from 38,700 in September, 2022 to 44,200 members this month. These are only the numbers on Reddit. Think of what that means. At least forty-four thousand people have realized they made a mistake. This is a staggering number of mistakes! How many people are transitioning? And what is the real number of detransitioners? We don’t know. Do our legislators know? Do they care?

A recent whistleblower from a hospital in St. Louis has given us some clear insight into gender clinic practices. Jamie Reed, a self-described queer woman who is politically to the left of Bernie Sanders, worked at the Washington University School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases for almost four years. The target group for her unit was HIV positive teens and young adults, some of whom were trans. Because of her experience with that patient population, in 2018 she took a position “as a case manager at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.” That clinic opened in 2017.

After working at the gender clinic for four years and managing the cases of approximately 1,000 youths, Reid

“left the clinic in November of last year because [she] could no longer participate in what was happening there. By the time [she] departed, [she] was certain that the way the American medical system is treating these patients is the opposite of the promise we make to ‘do no harm.’ Instead, we are permanently harming the vulnerable patients in our care.”

According to Reid, her conscience would not allow her to continue in her position. The clinic, she said, lacked formal protocols. More troubling to Reid was the changing demographic of the patients. Historically there were more boys who sought to become girls, than there were girls who wanted to be boys. But that started to change.

Reid handled intakes for new patients and families. “When [she] started there were probably 10 such calls a month. When [she] left there were 50, and about 70 percent of the new patients were girls. Sometimes clusters of girls arrived from the same high school,” Reid said.

Reid was concerned about all 0f the additional issues the youths presented as well, like ADHD, autism, depression, anxiety, and OCD among other problems. Her bosses at the clinic were not concerned with these issues. All the clinic cared about was getting a letter from a therapist that supported transitioning. The clinic would recommend the therapist and even gave a template to the therapist which detailed what the letter of support should say. Remember, Reid is a member of the LGBT community. Moreover, she is married to a transman, yet she has taken a stand against what is being done to our youth. She was not just indicting the St. Louis clinic. Her criticism was directed at clinics throughout the U.S.

Because of Reid’s disclosures, the Washington University transgender clinic is now under civil and criminal investigation by the Missouri Attorney General as well as other agencies.

So far there have been no whistleblowers for clinics in Illinois. Nor for many other clinics in the U.S. Still, there have been enough similar kinds of disclosures to take action. We should take these warnings to heart and pause this rush to embrace child and adolescent transitions.

Are there reasonable protocols in Illinois transgender clinics? What are they? Are they publicly available? Are our clinics ignoring or inadequately addressing the comorbidities of those suffering from gender dysphoria? Are doctors performing surgeries on autistic patients?

How are the clinics insuring that children and their parents are being adequately and meaningfully informed? Are chemical and surgical intervention the best, least destructive, course of treatment? Are the patients and parents informed that any chemical or surgical treatment causes permanent damage? Are they informed that these treatments will not eliminate the high risk of suicide?

How many transgender surgeries are being performed? What does the clinic do when a patient seeks to detransition? What oversight does the government regularly perform?

If our legislators cannot fully answer all of these questions, they need to find out. In the meantime, Senator Simmons should withdraw his bill.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state senator to ask him/her to please oppose SB 1283.

You can also contact State Senator Simmons to ask him to table his irresponsible and harmful bill by call his district office directly. That number is (773) 769-1717.