The Dangers Of America’s Approach To Gender-Affirming Care

A Critical Look at the State of Childhood Gender Dysphoria

We’ve all gone through puberty. It’s a weird, confusing time for everyone. Your body starts changing, and you start noticing other humans in a way you didn’t before. You also start to see yourself differently, and at times, you’re not really sure who you are anymore. In light of such, gender dysphoria isn’t that surprising. Simply put, gender dysphoria is a feeling of distress when a person doesn’t identify with the gender that’s on their birth certificate. It starts during childhood for most, although some don’t experience it until puberty or adulthood. ¹

Children, whose minds and bodies are still developing, can be easily influenced into thinking the only way out of their discomfort is by changing genders completely through gender-affirming care. Treatments vary but commonly include hormone therapy, surgeries, mental health counseling, voice training, and social transitioning support. Additionally, kids have easy access to media that can plant doubts in their minds and show them how easy and satisfying it is to transition. Influencers display a picturesque life online, easily able to hide any pain, doubts, or fears they experience along the way. ²

Unfortunately, a lot of underlying conditions are ignored throughout the process of transitioning genders. Most of the time, therapists and gender-affirming clinics don’t ask the important questions that may reveal issues of anxiety, depression, eating disorders, neglect, abuse, and more. So instead of treating the problem, physicians end up treating only the symptoms of something much larger. It’s like putting duct tape on a rusty pipe. It may temporarily fix the leak, but eventually, the pipe is going to burst. In Camille Kiefel’s case, a 32-year-old detransitioner, she said, “When I transitioned, my suicidal ideation did not go away.”

The Fast Track to Transitioning

According to Do No Harm, a medical and political advocacy group of medical professionals, “The United States is the most permissive country when it comes to the legal and medical gender transition of children.” France comes in at a close second, but still urges “great caution.”³ Even though most European countries share the United States’ broad support of transgenderism, many of them reject the gender-affirming care model for children. In 2022, the UK’s only national gender clinic for children was shut down by court order. In the Netherlands, the government requires a statement from a doctor, psychologist, or psychotherapist that affirms that one has the “permanent conviction” of belonging to another gender other than the one stated on their birth certificate.⁴ It begs the question: what do their doctors know that American doctors don’t?

From hormone treatments to life-altering surgeries, transgender individuals become lifelong medical patients. Chloe Cole began transitioning at age 12 when she was influenced by doctors into genital mutilation, including a double mastectomy. At one point, her gender specialist asked her parents, “Would you rather have a dead daughter or a trans son?”⁵ The drugs she consumed made permanent changes to her body and now, as a 19-year-old, she is both physically and emotionally changed for life.

“When I transitioned, my suicidal ideation did not go away.”

Don’t you think that when dealing with something so sensitive, personal, and life-altering, the U.S. would put forth more care and effort than their current piecemeal approach? Scientists “still don’t know exactly what causes gender dysphoria, although some experts believe that hormonal influences in the womb may be involved.”⁶ If the people we look to for answers don’t even know the cause, perhaps we should slow down before offering irreversible, life-changing medical treatments to kids.

Furthermore, studies show that only 12% to 27% of cases of childhood gender dysphoria persist into adulthood.⁷ Age restrictions are put in place for other things, so why can’t the same be considered for transitioning genders? We don’t let kids drive, drink alcohol, gamble, get married, consume tobacco, or enlist in the army. These restrictions are both for their safety and for society’s well-being as a whole.

Can Kids Be Protected?

Children can’t be trusted to know what’s best for them. That’s why they’re called children. They need guidance, especially from their parents or guardians. Abel Garcia, another detransitioner, thought he knew what he was getting into, but “Woke up one day, looked at myself in the mirror, and asked myself, ‘what the heck am I doing?’ I realized I would have never been a woman. At best, I would have been a caricature of what I believed a woman was.”

There are so many voices trying to speak into kids’ lives, so it’s no wonder they’re unable to truly identify who they are. They need someone to speak the truth to them about their identity. Like an artist paints a masterpiece, or an architect designs a building for a certain use, there is a Master Designer behind each person’s life.

The Bible makes it abundantly clear: God created human beings in His image. That inherently gives each of us an identity, and God wants us to know it. He isn’t the author of confusion. He’s not hiding His will or intentions for people behind His back, as if we have to guess if the correct choice is in the left hand or the right. If gender is a confusing thing, we can be honest with Him, and He’ll be honest with us about who we really are.

We may live in the “age of sensation,” but just because we think or feel something, it doesn’t mean we’re right about it. Feelings are a great gauge, but a terrible guide. God’s wisdom is that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting.

¹psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria ²prageru.com/video/detrans ³donoharmmedicine.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Do-No-Harm-Reassigned-Report.pdf ⁴ibid. ⁵prageru.com/video/detrans ⁶ibid. ⁷ibid. ⁸ibid. ⁹Genesis 1:27 ¹⁰1 Corinthians 14:33 ¹¹Herbert Hendin, “The Age of Sensation”