Dear University President
Dear “University President",
You have our sympathies. This has to be a very difficult time to be a University president, especially at the world-renowned institution that is xxx. We follow with interest and sympathy the fight for racial justice being pursued on campus. We have also been keeping tabs on the University’s approach to the coronavirus.
You see, until “month, year” our child was a student there. She left shortly after the start of her xx year. Her life was subsumed by mental health issues and trans ideology. If you think your university has bypassed the other large controversy swirling now, trans-ideology, we are here to tell you, you are mistaken.
We won’t inundate you with the sad details of our daughter’s experience with both the University and the University Healthcare system. We only suggest that you ask some hard questions of your administration and the healthcare system starting with:
What is the reason for the exponential increase in young women desiring to transition?
If there was a change of this magnitude in any other health phenomenon (decrease in cancer rate, increase in diabetes, you name it) wouldn’t be there a desire to investigate and understand the cause? Especially before treatment begins?
What long term studies are there on the efficacy of cross hormone therapy?
What study supports the contention that the suicide rate is higher among young adults for whom gender affirmation is not the first line of treatment?
If this increase in transition is due to its wider acceptance in society, why is the increase disproportionately affecting young woman? Why do so many of them have other mental health issues (OCD, anxiety and depression)?
We could fill this page with requests for data-based, scientific evidence of the treatment plan our child was prescribed but won’t. You can easily Google that topic to discover the lack of information. But you see where we are going with this. We fear that xxx University is failing its students, and is failing to meet the most basic tenet of health care – do no harm. We love and support our child. We will not insult your intelligence by trying to convince you that we are not homophobic or transphobic. We are neither. But we are convinced that treatment for gender dysphoria (or any health condition) should start with the least invasive treatment, in this case, mental health therapy.
Transitioning is undoubtedly the correct course for some. But should that life altering decision be made at 18 years of age while in the throes of mental illness? According to xxx University, the answer is a definitive yes. And please, no defense that the university healthcare system is divorced from the university itself. We entrusted our child to the institution. The legal hair splitting is of no interest to us.
As we enter the 21st century who could have thought it would be acceptable for young women to be affirmed in their belief that they are in the wrong bodies and that the correct course of treatment is for them to have their breasts removed, their genitals mutilated, be medicated for life and become infertile? This is happening on your watch. Now you can’t say you didn’t know.
The above was mailed to the university president of my daughter’s former university.
The President's response was along the lines of "I'm sure the University Health Care Service is serving him well."
Our young person came to you to hone their critical thinking--have you even read the basis for affirmation? Perhaps Cantor's 2019 rebuttal to the AAP policy? https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2019.1698481
Are you aware that your health services are legally liable since these drugs are off label for treating gender dysphoria with the FDA (since they have not been shown to be safe or effective?)?
I hope you get sued out of existence, but all the money in the world will not undo what you did to these young people when they came to you for help.
[I know your clinic probably tells you there isn't time to get on label, but with around 4% of college students identifying as transgender, don't you think that there would have been at least as much incentive as there was for getting drugs on FDA label for precocious puberty for children, much rarer, and that has happened. In fact, there have been many studies, but none are giving the results for safety and effectiveness that they need to get it on label. And the longest most comprehensive study, done in Sweden, found no benefit to hormones.Look at https://segm.org/ajp_correction_2020 ]
What you are doing the bodies and futures of these young people is unforgivable.
Keep your documents parents. Find the shark attorneys out there. Once your daughter feels her regret and is ready to sue go get the university. Find out who the largest donors are, write them about what the school did to your daughter. Send them the story. Money is the only thing that makes companies and universities like them change.