Written by Patience Griswold

Amid growing international pushback on the transgender movement’s so-called “gender affirmative” approach to gender dysphoria and the rush to give minors experimental treatments including puberty-blockers, cross-sex hormones, and irreversible surgeries, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) has released new draft guidelines recommending a less radical approach than they have held to in the past.

Rather than immediately rushing adolescents into a lifetime of hormone “treatments” and surgeries, the draft guidelines recommend mental health evaluation and several years of monitoring for adolescents with gender dysphoria, although they continue to encourage harmful and irreversible procedures after that.

WPATH, an international organization headquartered in Minnesota, plays an extremely influential role in the use of so-called “treatments” such as cross-sex hormones and “gender transition” surgery. Throughout the rest of the draft guidelines, WPATH continues to recommend so-called “gender affirmative treatments” that have caused permanent harm to young people and adults, yet the proposed draft offers slightly more protection to adolescents struggling with gender dysphoria than recommendations from major medical associations in the U.S. WPATH’s shift, slight though it is, also shows that on an international level, the transgender movement is recognizing that they may be held accountable for the damage they have caused.

WPATH’s draft guidelines added a chapter on adolescents requiring a full mental health evaluation and several years of monitoring before receiving cross-sex hormones or surgery. The guidelines continue to recommend irreversible surgeries for minors, including mastectomies for girls as young as 15 and “bottom surgery” for 17-year-old girls, although they do not recommend similar surgery for boys under 18. The guidelines also removed requirements that adults receive mental health evaluation, despite the fact that many adults who have detransitioned have spoken up about how the mental health struggles that were driving their gender dysphoria were not adequately addressed when they sought help.

At the same time, if WPATH adopts these guidelines, multiple major medical associations in the U.S., including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and the Endocrine Society will be out of step with international standards, advocating an even more radical approach than WPATH. These associations encourage a so-called “gender affirmative” approach known as the “Dutch protocol,” originated by a doctor in the Netherlands who has since cautioned against his own approach. This protocol encourages medically “transitioning” children, disregarding the fact that puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones can lead to dangerous complications including stunted bone growth, pulmonary embolisms, increased risk of heart attacks, and permanent loss of fertility.

Attempting to live in denial of biological reality is always harmful. No amount of surgery or cross-sex hormones can ever change the fact that a man is a man, and a woman is a woman, down to every single cell. People struggling with gender dysphoria deserve compassion, and true compassion never reinforces lies.

The New York Times’ coverage of WPATH’s new guidelines claims that “transition” improves mental health outcomes. However, the best studies show that this is not the case, and the studies that have been used to prop up this narrative are riddled with methodological flaws. One study claiming to show that “transition” improved mental health actually showed the opposite, a fact that the authors of the study eventually acknowledged.

Sadly, the LGBT lobby is actively working to penalize counselors and mental health professionals who would offer compassionate support to minors struggling with gender dysphoria. 20 states have implemented so-called “conversion therapy” bans and, and the five largest cities here in Minnesota have adopted them. These counseling bans interfere with the client-patient relationship and deny help to kids who are struggling with gender dysphoria, insisting that the only option that should be available to them is to be rushed to “transition,” even as a growing number of young people and adults who have detransitioned speaking out about how they have been harmed by transgender ideology.

Children and teens with gender dysphoria deserve better than to be treated as guinea pigs for the sake of advancing radical gender ideology. WPATH’s guidelines, while they offer slightly more protection than they have in the past, are dangerous and recommendations from the AAP, APA, and ES are even more so.

This article was originally published by the Minnesota Family Council.

We learned this week that the love of money is the root of all evil. Well, we learned that in Scripture. This week purportedly conservative Christian governor of Arkansas Asa Hutchinson just reminded us of it when he sold out children to corporate interests.

For those still basking blithely in the afterglow of America’s once shining light or are socially distancing under a rock, the Arkansas legislature sent a bill to Hutchinson that would 1. prohibit doctors from the risky and experimental use of puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones—some of the effects of which are permanent—for the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors, 2. prohibit surgeons from performing mutilating, irreversible cosmetic procedures on minors. and 3. prohibit the use of public funds, including Medicaid, for any of those barbaric, snake oil “treatments.”

The purportedly conservative, purportedly Christian Hutchinson vetoed this commonsense bill to protect children from procedures that are devastating young healthy bodies.

Hutchinson might reflect for a moment on who exactly is cheering his decision. Hint: It’s not conservatives. Oh, no, it’s the “trans”-cult; the “entertainment” industry; the medical industrial complex; the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party (i.e., CNN, NBC, MSNBC, NYTimes, and Washington Post); soulless corporate America; BLM; the ACLU; and the Human Rights Campaign.

Word to Hutchinson: If all the good guys are criticizing you and all the bad guys are cheering you, maybe you made a disastrous decision.

On Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program, Hutchinson defended his decision by appealing to conservative small government commitments—the last refuge of conservative scoundrels who want to embrace “progressive” positions on “social issues.” He also said, the bill “goes too far” because it would stop minors who are already being experimented on from continuing with dangerous “treatments” to conceal their biological sex.

Of course, small or limited government doesn’t mean no government. Nor does it mean abandoning children to the “trans”-cult and the godless profiteers who line their pockets with the lucre gained by chemically sterilizing children and lopping off parts of their sexual anatomy.

Many people, stunned by Hutchinson’s decision and not duped by his small government rationalization, look to corporate pressure as the real reason for Hutchinson’s alignment with the dark side.

In March Hutchinson appeared on another Fox News show and was asked about corporate “pushback” against legislation that promotes sexual sanity. Hutchinson responded,

We’re the home of some major global corporations here in Arkansas, they’re certainly worried about the image of our state.

Immediately after Hutchinson’s veto, left-leaning Tom Walton, whose family owns Walmart, issued this public pat-on-the-back to Hutchinson:

We are alarmed by the string of policy targeting LGBTQ people in Arkansas. This trend is harmful and sends the wrong message to those willing to invest in or visit our state. We support Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s recent veto of discriminatory policy and implore government, business and community leaders to consider the impact of existing and future policy that limits basic freedoms and does not promote inclusiveness in our communities and economy.

Our Founding Fathers would be surprised to learn that our “basic freedoms” include the freedom of children to stop puberty, take cross-sex hormones, and have healthy body parts cut off.

According to the Institute of Southern Studies,

Steuart Walton has been a generous donor to the Arkansas Republican Party as well as to Hutchinson’s campaign.

And Tucker Carlson reported that he “spoke with a source” who said that when the term-limited Hutchinson leaves office in 2022, “he would very much like a board seat” at Walmart.

There are some curious omissions in Hutchinson’s public statements on Fox News about the bill he vetoed.

For example, Hutchinson pointed to the depression and high rates of suicide among gender dysphoric minors. He implied that depression arises from gender dysphoria and can be alleviated by cross-sex hormone-doping. He didn’t seem to know that both depression and gender dysphoria could be symptoms of some other underlying problem. And he didn’t address studies showing that cross-sex hormone-doping can increase suicidal ideation or that suicidal ideation increases after “gender confirmation” butchery.

Hutchinson didn’t address the shocking increase in the number of adolescent girls now identifying as boys. Before the “trans”-cult stopped its slow titration of their ideological poison into the body politic, gender dysphoria affected a minuscule portion of the population and affected mostly boys, beginning between the ages of 3-5. Upwards of 80 percent of those boys eventually desisted from identifying as girls.

Now with the secular world promoting opposite-sex impersonation, particularly via social media, there is an explosion in the number of adolescent girls and young women suddenly identifying as male. As psychologists and sociologists know, girls are much more vulnerable to social contagions, like anorexia, bulimia, cutting, and now cross-sex identification.

Hutchinson didn’t mention the politicization of the professional medical and mental health communities. For example, while “trans”-cultists and their ideological allies like to tout the American Academy of Pediatrics’ endorsement of the medical “transing” of children, they don’t like to mention that the pro-“transing” policy was created and voted on by fewer than 50 members of the now-67,000-member academy.

Hutchinson didn’t mention the increasing number of young women who “detransition” and deeply regret having taken testosterone and/or having had their healthy breasts cut off. These young women with permanently male voices and scarred chests that will never nurse a baby feel betrayed by the medical and mental health communities.

Hutchinson didn’t talk about the health risks from the experimental use of puberty blockers and hormones never tested for long-term cross-sex use, risks that include infertility; liver dysfunction; coronary artery disease; cancer; strokes; osteoporosis; and the development of gallstones, blood clots, hypertension, and pituitary gland tumors.

Hutchinson never talked about the ethics of turning healthy children into lifelong medical patients (You know who likes that? Endocrinologists and pharmaceutical companies, that’s who).

Someone should ask Hutchinson whether his limited government principles would lead him to oppose bans on limb amputations for those with Body Integrity Identity Disorder—a condition in which the sufferer experiences a mismatch between his bodily wholeness and his internal sense of himself as an amputee.

And what about Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), which was banned by the Stop FGM Act of 2020 and signed into law by former President Donald Trump? Would small government Hutchinson oppose a ban on the excision of female genitalia from a 14-year-old girl who, for religious or cultural reasons, wants her genitalia mutilated?

While leftists, practiced at the art of deception and the skill of Newspeak, describe the slicing off of female genitalia as “mutilation,” they describe the slicing off of breasts as “gender affirmation care.”

Since girls as young as 13 are having double mastectomies, a 2015 article by Derrick Diaz and published in the DePaul University Journal of Healthcare Law about cosmetic surgery for minors may offer some helpful insights:

Minors should not have access to cosmetic surgery unless found by a court to be medically necessary. … [I]f medical necessity has not been shown, then the service should be prohibited the same as any regulated service or product prohibited to minors.

…

[A] medical necessity determination can be made through a four-pronged analysis. First, does the impairment hinder a minor’s normal physical function; and, is the proposed surgery intended to treat a present or future clinically verifiable disease, deformity, or injury? Second, is the physical anomaly (1) objectively tangible, and (2) unusual or relatively common? Third, what is the state of the minor applicant’s psychological health? Fourth, would a reasonable minor in the applicant’s position be hindered from normal functioning by the condition (e.g., avoiding normal childhood/adolescent activities)?

…

[R]egardless of whether continued [legislative] noninterference is sound policy generally speaking, it is absolutely not so with regard to minors, as states have statutory mandates to protect their health and welfare. When it comes to cosmetic surgery on minors, states must have an intervening hand in preventing the potentially harmful effects of caveat emptor.

“Trans”-cultists and their allies try to get around this position by arguing that amputating the healthy, natural breasts of gender-dysphoric minor girls is “medically necessary.” But it’s not, and leftists have no conclusive, researched-based proof that it is.

On March 30, just days before his surprising veto, Hutchinson met with two “trans”-cultists—both men who pretend to be women, including “Evelyn” Rios Stafford, a justice of the peace in Arkansas, who pleaded with Hutchinson to veto the bill.

Did Hutchinson talk to any parents of teen daughters who suddenly started identifying as boys?

Did he talk to any young “detransitioned” women who grieve over their damaged bodies and the betrayal of adults who didn’t stop them?

Did he talk to any of the members of the American College of Pediatricians who oppose experimentation on the healthy bodies of children?

Did he consult with Abigail Shrier, the Wall Street Journal writer who wrote the book Irreversible Damage about the harm being done to adolescent girls?

Has he read any of the articles by historically leftist Jennifer Bilek who has been exposing the “money behind the rapidly growing juggernaut of transgenderism in American culture and beyond,” which she argues, “all leads back to the pharmaceutical and tech giants that now interface with LGBT NGOs which are driving the normalization of a biology-denying ideology.”

There is some good news emerging from Arkansas. The Arkansas legislature overrode Hutchinson’s unconscionable veto.

If Hutchinson’s relationship with God and truth are his first priorities—which they should be—then he should publicly confess his sinful decision and repent. Something tells me, however, that confession and repentance aren’t on his agenda.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Gov. Hutchinson via his official webpage. You can also call the governor’s office during normal business hours to give him and his administration feedback: (501) 682-2345

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Asa-Hutchinson-Sells-Out-Gender-Dysphoric-Children.mp3

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U.S. District Judge William Conley has ruled that Wisconsin cannot exclude gender-reassignment treatments from coverage under the Medicaid program. Judge Conley struck down a 1997 Department of Health Services directive that excluded “transsexual surgery” and hormonal treatment, ruling that denying the treatments constituted sex discrimination under the federal Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

The Judge misleadingly concluded that “there is now a consensus within the medical profession that gender dysphoria is a serious medical condition, which if left untreated or inadequately treated can cause adverse symptoms, such as anxiety, depression, serious mental distress, self-harm and suicidal ideation.” He added that insurance companies now “acknowledge that gender-confirming hormone and surgical treatments for gender dysphoria can be medically necessary.”

Wisconsin estimates that as many as 5,000 enrollees in its Medicaid program may have some form of gender confusion and that treating them could cost as much $2.1 million. The state contends that, contrary to the Judge’s ruling, there is no proven benefit to “transsexual surgery,” and that the scientific literature indicates that supporting gender confusion causes significant emotional harm in patients, up to and including attempted suicide.

A study published by the National Institutes of Health entitled “Transsexual attractions and sexual reassignment surgery: Risks and Potential Risks” states that “Physicians and mental-health professionals have a professional responsibility to know and communicate the serious risks, in particular risk of suicide, that are associated with SRS (sexual reassignment surgery).” The study notes that transsexual attractions in youth often resolve themselves on their own, and/or may be successfully treated through counseling.

The study warns that the idea that one’s sex is fluid and a matter of choice has taken on “cult-like” status:

“It is doing much damage to families, adolescents, and children and should be confronted as an opinion without biological foundation wherever it emerges.” 

The study also notes,

“despite the “lack of contravening evidence that SRS conveyed any benefits compared with any unoperated-upon control groups, the practice of SRS has continued and has been extended into younger age groups.”

Sadly, there is a growing movement of former transsexuals who have learned the hard way that one’s sex is immutable. They have experienced “sex change regret” and have “de-transitioned” back to their true sex. One former transsexual relates the painful surgical process of repairing the damage done to his body: “I still have scars on my chest, reminders of the gender detour that cost me 13 years of my life. I am on a hormone regimen to try to regulate a system that is permanently altered.” Providentially, this man was able to experience love and marriage as God intended: “Eventually, I met a wonderful woman who didn’t care about the changes to my body, and we’ve been married for 21 years.”

Unfortunately, in his ruling, Judge Conley chose to ignore the existence of regretful former transsexuals as well as evidence demonstrating the dangers of attempting to change one’s sex.  By so doing, he is causing great harm to young people and others who are suffering from temporary and treatable gender confusion.

I earnestly hope and pray that every child and adult struggling with gender identity issues will find wholeness, peace, and happiness from the inside out. I earnestly hope and pray that we will live to see the day when every person who feels trapped inside the wrong body will find internal resolution without hormones and radical surgery. At the same time, I wholeheartedly oppose the transgender revolution and predict that, ultimately, it will fail. Here’s why.

1) The transgender revolution is oppressive. As reported on July 16 on Lifesite News, “Failing to refer to a gender-confused student, professor, or staffer by his or her ‘preferred’ pronouns could become a fireable or expulsion-worthy offense at the University of Minnesota, according to proposed guidelines currently under consideration.”

It is not enough to allow a biological male to identify as a female. Hardly. Society must conform, or else. If “he” now identifies as “she” (or “xe” or “ze”) and you fail to use the right pronoun, you will be punished.

This is already the law in New York City. And Canada has taken steps to make this kind of enforced speech the law across the country.

This cannot succeed in the long-term. Society will push back.

2) The transgender revolution is irrational. As a result of trans activism, tampons are now available in some college campus bathrooms. After all, we are told, men menstruate as well!

Yes, a woman who identifies as a man but still gets her monthly period is actually a menstruating man.

And we are supposed to believe this nonsense? We are supposed to shake our heads and say, “How quaint”? I don’t think so.

Recently, however, trans activists have taken things to a new depth of irrationality. Men who identify as women have declared that they get their periods too – just differently! So, other biological realities must now be redefined as well, and a monthly cycle is no longer a physical event.

To quote a “trans girl” directly: “Nobody teaches trans girls about our periods. We just get these weird times where we’re moody and crampy and sad and we don’t know why and just chalk it up to another reason we’re not good enough in life.

“So, just so you all know: Trans. Girls. Get. Periods.”

Enough said. This is beyond irrational.

3) The transgender revolution is unhealthy. Trans advocates tell us that failure to diagnose and treat gender dysphoria will result in depression, suicide, or other forms of self-harm. And I’m sure that, in some cases, post-hormone and post-surgery, many individuals are more satisfied with their quality of life.

Others would point to the high percentage of suicides after surgery, along with the substantial number of people who experience sex-change regret.

But there’s more to be concerned about. A recent headline on a gay website announced, “Hormone therapy linked to dangerous health issues in trans women.” Yes, “Researchers set out to examine heart and circulatory health in transgender people, and found that transgender women face a greater chance of strokes, heart attacks, and blood clots compared to their non-transgender counterparts.”

And what about kids who are put on hormone blockers before puberty, then put on a life-long regimen of hormonal therapy? What will the ill effects be?

4) The transgender revolution is extreme. Scarlett Johansson, one of the biggest female names on the big screen, recently felt the wrath of transgender activists, withdrawing from her starring role as a trans man after protests. How dare a female actor play the role of a trans man when there are plenty of trans men who can play the role.

But isn’t this what actors do? It’s one thing for a white man to paint his face in order to play the role of a black man.

But actors act. They play all kinds of roles that are unrelated to their private lives. They play villains and thieves. They play athletes and politicians. They play liars and saints, good guys and bad guys. They play super heroes and super criminals. They play aliens and vampires. And all that is acceptable – unless they play a trans person.

Enough said.

5) The transgender revolution is dangerous. When you insist that a biological male who identifies as a female has the “right” to use a women’s bathroom, locker room, and dressing room, you are asking for trouble.

A headline from England stated, “Transgender prisoner who was put in a female jail despite not having sex-change surgery ‘sexually assaulted four women inmates before being moved to a male prison’.”

So, a biological male with male organs intact (and obviously, still attracted to women) was put in a women’s prison. Should we be surprised by what happened?

In the States, Planet Fitness sided against a female, former sexual assault victim who protested against the presence of a man (identified here as “Mr. Rice”) in the locker room. As explained in the case being brought by Liberty Counsel, “This is not the only incident with Mr. Rice known to Planet Fitness. Another woman reported that he exposed his naked body to her in the women’s locker room at this location. In another instance, he was involved in an argument with another woman over use of the tanning room. Misogynist, anti-woman harassment should have no place in Planet Fitness locations, and violates Florida law.”

6) The transgender revolution is unnatural. There are fundamental, undeniable differences between men and women, which is why there is an increasing pushbackagainst biological males competing against biological females.

Even among some feminists and lesbians, there is resistance to trans women being accepted as females. And it is for good reason. A biological male will never be a female.

7) The transgender revolution is an attack on children. Trans advocates would tell us that they are helping children, that they are saving them many years of grief and pain and confusion. In reality, for every child they might help (and even at that, in a temporary, non-holistic way) they are confusing many more children — innocent, tender kids.

As the Daily Mail asked, “Are children as young as 11 really capable of making life-changing decisions about their gender?”

We are playing with fire here, and there will likely be many, many casualties before we wake up.

There is much more that could be said, but here’s a final reflection. For decades now, billions of dollars have been invested to discover a cure for cancer. Chemotherapy is not sufficient. Radiation treatment only goes so far. Other “cures” fall short of the mark.

In the same spirit, let us continue to pursue better treatments for those diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Surely there is a better way than hormone blockers for children, double mastectomies and sex-change surgery for older teens, and hormones for life.

Let’s work toward this while firmly resisting the transgender revolution. We owe it to our kids and grandkids.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com.