OPINION:
The Supreme Court rightly ruled Wednesday that states can protect children from sex-change treatments. The justices not only upheld the Constitution but also sided with the science that shows children are in danger.
The medical evidence is abundantly clear that there is no benefit and tremendous harm from subjecting children to these irreversible and invasive medical interventions. In the past month alone, two big developments have further proved that no child should ever be pushed down the transgender road.
The first major news is a groundbreaking study that looks at the effects of cross-sex hormones on boys who are trying to become girls. The study was published in Discover Mental Health, and one of the authors, Dr. Lauren Schwartz, is a colleague of mine at Do No Harm. Their conclusion is as powerful as it is painful: These biological boys are in for a lifetime of hurt.
Consider what happens when these boys are administered hormones to repress their masculine development and give them female sex characteristics, such as breasts. These boys are five times more likely to develop blood clots and 10 times more likely to have a stroke. One study shows they are more than 26 times more likely to develop testicular cancer. Another study shows they are more than 40 times more likely to develop breast cancer.
If only the damage to their bodies ended there. These boys are also at higher risk of permanent infertility, cognitive decline and possible autoimmune diseases. Many of these risks increase over time, so the longer the boys live, the more likely they are to suffer from entirely preventable medical conditions.
However, they may not live that long at all. The most horrific finding is that these boys have an 80% higher mortality risk. A sex change quite literally endangers their life. The danger isn’t just to boys. Girls who undergo sex-change treatments can also suffer from lifelong complications.
Then there’s the second big development from the past month. One of the leading pro-transgender activists in America, Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, released the results of a trial she had been conducting on gender-confused children since 2015, all on the taxpayer dime. This matters because she refused to disclose her findings in the fall, arguing that people would take them out of context and hurt transgender children. Never mind that American taxpayers spent millions of dollars funding her work.
Now we know why Dr. Olson-Kennedy was afraid. She gave puberty blockers to children as young as 8 on the assumption that the drugs would help them, but the drugs didn’t improve the children’s mental health at all. The children experienced no meaningful change in their depression symptoms, emotional health and other indicators of mental stability. In other words, the foundational treatment in a child sex change didn’t make children better off.
This matters because the entire argument for child sex changes is that children need them to be happy and that without these treatments, they are more likely to commit suicide. Common sense says otherwise, and even the studies created by transgender activists also disagree. Meanwhile, Dr. Olson-Kennedy’s hospital has stopped providing sex-change treatments to children, and the doctor herself is being sued by a former patient who tried to change her gender starting at age 12.
There’s a better way to help these children. Boys and girls who think they are transgender have proved to be more likely to struggle with depression, anxiety, autism and other mental and physiological issues. Addressing these comorbidities, not sex changes, should be the first treatment.
Psychotherapy is the truly ethical medical treatment, as European countries have realized and mandated over the past few years. It can help children come to grips with who they really are. On that note, studies show that the overwhelming majority of these children would stick with their biological gender as adults. Child sex-change treatments take away that option forever. Yet powerful associations such as the Endocrine Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics stubbornly refuse to put child safety over transgender ideology.
The science is becoming clearer by the day: Sex-change treatments should never be given to children. The Supreme Court has given the states the green light to protect children. Now, every state and the federal government should take steps to keep children safe from radical activism masquerading as medicine.
• Dr. Roy Eappen, a practicing endocrinologist, is a senior fellow at Do No Harm.
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