Trans Ideology is Harming our Daughters

Our vulnerable daughters are being harmed by current gender confusion treatment

We are the parents of teens and young adults who have unexpectedly and suddenly announced a transgender identity, after never having demonstrated any signs of gender distress or gender non-conformity in childhood. This condition is more commonly known as Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) and it has placed our daughters on a rapid pathway to unnecessary life-altering medical and surgical treatments, unless we as a society treat their situation with compassion, information and understanding.  

We are keenly aware of the current widespread views on gender identity, and current and past prejudice of this community. Politically we are on the left and on the right. We live in big cities and small towns.  

The number of children self-identifying as transgender has increased exponentially over the past decade, often by children, like ours, who do so abruptly [1]. ROGD is a new phenomenon that is poorly understood both as to why it is happening, and how to best help those who develop it. Its growth has been attributed to increased reliance on the internet and social media, as well as the introduction of gender in school health classes. The spread of these self-diagnoses bears all the hallmarks of a social contagion [2];  ROGD has been observed spreading through clusters of friends and even between siblings.  

The self-diagnosed child or young adult who presents at a gender clinic is generally offered the singular response of affirmation, validation of their new identity. Anything else is labeled as “conversion therapy [3].” Underlying mental health conditions or psychological trauma are often routinely ignored or dismissed as irrelevant, even though ROGD is known to sometimes merely be a symptom of these [4,5]. The affirmed child is quickly placed on a path to socially and medically transition via off-label, experimental [6] prescriptions of cross-sex hormones, often followed by risky surgeries, to “align” the body with their perceived gender. (This is in spite of intense gender dysphoria in younger kids resolving without medication approximately 80% of the time, the corresponding number for ROGD is unknown [7].) There is no medical evidence that this course of treatment is safe or even beneficial.  In fact, although the treatment is common, data on outcomes for this population are not available, and well designed studies, longitudinal or other, have not been done to better inform or support these drastic treatments.  Our vulnerable teenagers have nonetheless been dishonestly reassured that cross-sex hormones and gender alignment surgeries will fix all or almost all of their gender dysphoria and other problems. It is thus acceptable to coach a vulnerable kid into being trans but wrong to question [5] why the child is not comfortable in his/her body.  

Young people subjecting themselves to such “treatments” are committing their bodies to a lifetime introduction of hormones which contradict their biology. Although many dangerous side effects are already known to negatively affect bone density, heart health, brain function, fertility, sexual functioning, and life expectancy, their full impact is yet unknown [8].  

We strongly believe that pre-teens, teenagers and young adults suffering from ROGD should not be given unproven drugs and/or gender affirming surgeries that may leave them sterile and irreversibly damaged until their brains are fully developed -- generally around the age of 25 -- when they are better equipped to make decisions about their treatment options, if their ROGD symptoms persist.  We also hope that transgender care [9] and research [6] will also have advanced sufficiently by then, to provide crucial informed support which is currently lacking.

Almost all of our daughters have other psychological issues such as Asperger’s, ADHD, Processing Disorder, and OCD or have suffered some form of childhood trauma. Many are gifted. Many are gay. Most, if not all, could be seen as “socially awkward.” Although these teens’ conditions in the absence of ROGD may often present challenging parenting issues, kids like this generally turn out to be very successful once they've learned to accept themselves for who they are. Seeking help from an online community or friends, however, they are cajoled into believing that they are “born in the wrong body” when, in reality, being uncomfortable with one’s body as it grows and transitions to adulthood is a normal part of growing up. Kids uncomfortable with their bodies are instructed by online strangers and/or their friends to believe that they can start over with a new one merely by taking cross-sex hormones that will magically transform them into a person of the opposite sex. They are often spectacularly misinformed, as the reality is quite different [10]. They believe they can get rid of their old selves, instead of dealing with the natural consequences of puberty and the quest to find, and feel secure about, their identities and their bodies as they mature. 

All of our daughters seek to “belong”. Young people who have later “detransitioned”[10,11]-- i.e., stopped identifying as transgender -- tell stories of feeling like outcasts, unhappy with their bodies, and then, upon discovering the transgender community, suddenly finding that they “belong” to a family of trans people who welcome and affirmed their gender identity and welcome and affirm them.  

The internet not only serves as a source of shared misinformation, it also schools children to use an identical “coming out” [2] script designed primarily to enable them to jumpstart the social and medical transition. For example, children learn to rewrite their history and emotionally blackmail their parents with the following statements:

• I’ve felt this way for a long time but was afraid to tell you.

• I hate my body and I’m depressed. 

• I’ll run away if you don’t support my transition. 

• I’ll commit suicide if I don’t transition. 

• Everyone at school loves and supports me as I am. Why can’t you?  

• I don’t enjoy doing what other girls/boys like, so I’m transgender.  

There is also advice on what to say to doctors and counselors in order to speedily obtain cross sex hormones and sometimes to enlist support to demonize and pressure non-affirming parents into submission. In fact, medical professionals and counselors are known to advise parents that refusal to affirm places kids at an increased risk of suicide, actually stressing (sometimes in the presence of the child) that a living son is better than a dead daughter.

These kids are not old enough to drink or vote, but are given broad authority to make decisions that will have them medicalized for life [12].  Some (“detransitioners”, no one knows how many there are [13]) have suffered the painful realization that they made a mistake after undergoing hormones and/or sex reassignment surgery that permanently and irreversibly altered their bodies, underscoring the harm of a one-size-fits-all ROGD treatment approach.

The number of “gender clinics” for children and adolescents has risen, from one in 2007 to over 65 today [14].  A growing number of physicians practice “transgender medicine,” promoting unproven, very profitable hormonal and surgical interventions on children, all based on the ideological “belief” that any “gender identity” is “valid.” These Gender doctors promote themselves as experts even though there is no prior knowledge, or degree required. 

Gender transition is big business: Doctors, hospitals, treatment centers, surgeons, and pharmaceutical companies are making hundreds of millions of dollars on transitioning children and are supported by a powerful transgender lobby.  According to Global Market Insights, the global market for transgender  “reassignment surgery” is expected to be worth over $1.5 billion dollars annually by 2026 [15]. The FDA has not approved these puberty blockers or/and cross-sex hormones for treatment of children and young adults in this manner. This absolves the drug companies of responsibility for harm, in spite of the fact that some of the medications have severe (and sometimes fatal) effects [8].  Again, this has become a profitable business! For example, to treat one young person with the puberty blocker Lupron costs $1747/month, another one prescribed for the same thing, Triptodur, costs ~$3,000/month [16].  

Remember the Hippocratic Oath. First, do no harm. Children are being harmed. These drastic medical interventions, widely applied and unsupported by scientific evidence, are a medical scandal like the opioid, multiple personality, repressed memories, and lobotomy crises [17]. 

A 2019 Swedish investigative documentary [18] revealed the extreme lack of evidence for these treatments, which prompted a reassessment of the treatment options in that country.  A judgment in the UK restricting the use of puberty blockers was handed down on 1 December, 2020, in favor of Keira Bell [19], a young woman who regretted her transition but only after she received puberty blockers, hormones and a double mastectomy. The court found that children and teens are incapable of informed consent for such treatment options. More lawsuits will follow, both abroad and here in the US. 

We are concerned about the diagnostic and treatment issues our children and young adults are facing are another facet of current poor medical care for gender related concerns [9].

Our daughters experiencing ROGD are vulnerable and at risk of harm if we, as parents, do not protect them from the doctors, pharmaceutical companies and plastic surgeons who all stand to benefit financially from the current ROGD protocols. We stand to irreparably damage a generation of children if we don’t take action to safeguard their mental and physical health.  We are trying to raise awareness of this issue so that our children and all others similarly suffering can get evidence-based treatment, and psychological and medical support, which they need and deserve.

• Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine, www.segm.org

• Gender Care Consumer Bill of Rights — GCCAN  

• Partners for Ethical Care: Home

• Gender Dysphoria Resource for Providers (gdworkinggroup.org), medical research

• Transgender Trend (parents, selected to provide evidence in UK [23] hearing) 

• Our Duty (parents challenging gender ideology)

• Genspect.org (A voice for parents)

References:

1. See chart at www.segm.org for UK gender clinic referral numbers.  For ages 12-18, 39 kids were referred in 2009, rising to 1497 in 2016.  US ones are unavailable.

2. Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria (Littman, 2018), Outbreak: On Transgender Teens and Psychic Epidemics (Marchiano, 2017) 

3. Affirmation policy is based on misquoting the published literature, see, e.g., Transgender and Gender Diverse Children and Adolescents: Fact-Checking of AAP Policy (Cantor, 2019)

4. For example: Counselling and Mental Health Care of Transgender Adults and Loved Ones (Fig. 1, Bockting et al, 2006), Gender dysphoria in Asperger’s syndrome: A caution (Parkinson, 2014), When your teen says they’re Trans (Singal, 2018), Taking the lid off the box, (Clarke & Spiliadis, 2019), Transgender medicalization and the attempt to evade psychological distress (Withers, 2020)

5. One Size Does Not Fit All: In Support of Psychotherapy for Gender Dysphoria (D’Angelo et al, 2020), Why I Resigned from Tavistock: Trans-Identified Children Need Therapy, Not Just 'Affirmation' and Drugs  (Evans, 2020) 

6. Calls for studies: Docs Say Gender-Questioning Kids Need Better Science (2019), WPATH standards of care (2012): “It is difficult to determine the effectiveness of hormones alone in the relief of gender dysphoria”, Correction of a Key Study: No Evidence of “Gender-Affirming” Surgeries Improving Mental Health(segm, 2020), BMJ spotlight: Gender-affirming hormone in children and adolescents (Heneghan and Jefferson, 2019), Gender dysphoria: scientific oversight falling between responsible institutions should worry us all (Byng and Bewley, 2019, full text), paper on lack of randomly controlled MTF hormone trials here: Antiandrogen or estradiol treatment or both during hormone therapy in transitioning transgender women  (Haupt, 2020) 

7. Gender dysphoria in adolescence: current perspectives (Kaltiala-Heino et al, 2018)

8. Some examples in this 2015 PBS article: When Transgender Kids Transition, Medical Risks are Both Known and Unknown, see also Searchable FDA adverse reports database for e.g., Lupron, Triptodur, spironolactone, www.drugs.com/sfx (under “for Healthcare Professionals”), and [6]

9. Gender Care Consumer Bill of Rights (GCCAN), At What Cost? Trans Healthcare, Manipulated Data, and Self-Appointed Saviors (Helena, 2020)  

10. Andrew Sullivan: Questions About Youth Gender Transitions (Sullivan, 2019), Advice for gender dysphoric teens (Callahan, 2018), Forget What Gender Activists Tell You. Here's What Medical Transition Looks Like (Newgent, 2020) 

11. Dagny on social media, gender dysphoria, 'trans youth,' and detransitioning (Dagny, 2019), The Detransitioners: They Were Transgender, Until They Weren't (Herzog, 2017), The Game Plan for when Transition Hasn’t Worked Out Callahan (2019), Talking About Talking to Doctors (Callahan, 2019).  Besides articles, as of early Dec 2020, there were over 16,000 young adults on www.reddit.com/r/detrans, https://lostintransition.info and www.Detransvoices.org, and plenty on YouTube, e.g., Leoaica Motanelul

12. Planned Parenthood (Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy) will provide cross-sex hormones to any 18-year old who claims a transgender identity after one visit, list of colleges and universities that Cover Transition-Related Medical Expenses Under Student Health Insurance, and online provider, www.Getplume.co

13. The Ranks of Gender Detransitioners Are Growing. We Need to Understand Why (Marchiano, 2020) and [10,11]

14. US-Based Youth Gender Clinics, also many college health services and Planned Parenthood 

15. See, e.g., Sex Reassignment Surgery Market Statistics 2020-2026 Global Report (Global Market Insights, 2019) 

16. Drugs.com price guide: Lupron, Triptodur, retrieved Dec 2020.

17. Why DID or MPD is a Bogus Diagnosis (Lazarus, 2011), The strange and curious history of lobotomy (Levinson, 2011), Forget Me Not: The Persistent Myth of Repressed Memories (Ley, 2019), The Surprising History of the Lobotomy (Tartakovsky, 2019), The Opioid Files: Follow The Post’s investigation of the opioid epidemic (2020), Parallels Between Lobotomy and Childhood "Gender" Transition (Ayad, 2020)  

18. Trans Train documentary (2019): part I (part II (part III  (https://t.co/hxbYfddKcn?amp=1)  

19. Puberty blockers: Under-16s 'unlikely to be able to give informed consent' BBC, Dec 1, 2020, also Keira Bell lawyer warns on internet coverage of transgender issues (2020), After the Keira Bell verdict - An English ruling on transgender teens could have global repercussions (Economist,2020) , Keira Bell: The High Court hands down a historic judgment to protect vulnerable children (Transgender Trend, 2020), Doubts are growing about therapy for gender-dysphoric children The Economist, (2021), There's No Standard for Care When it Comes to Trans Medicine | Opinion (Newsweek, 2021)