Protect Children From Misguided "Gender-Affirming" Care

As I knock on doors, I’ve received a lot of questions related to my concerns about “gender-affirming” care taking place on underage children.    After all, how can anyone oppose being “affirming”?   But what is actually taking place is an extreme course of medical treatment:   drugs, hormones, and surgeries to alter the physical anatomy of a child’s breasts and genitals, and drastically interfere with their normal reproductive development.   These treatments often begin at very young ages, and have permanent effects on a child’s life:   sterilization, sexual dysfunction, non-reproductive side effects like bone weakness, and permanent wounds that require (sometimes painful) daily care.  Children are being asked, and encouraged, to commit to this treatment at an age when they aren’t even allowed to decide on a tattoo.   There are a few key points to keep in mind about these treatments:

• There is no credible evidence that these treatments prevent suicide or have any other net benefits for children, which is why some European countries have backed off the “gender-affirming” care model.   The comprehensive Cass Review, commissioned by the UK’s National Health Service, argues persuasively that we simply don't have enough evidence for these drastic medical interventions.    For treatments with these kinds of permanent, irreversible effects, we need to demand a high standard of statistically significant, persuasive, positive evidence— a standard the medical community is nowhere near achieving.     And because widespread childhood gender transition is so new, it’s literally impossible to have reliable data on its long-term effects.

• Parents receive extreme pressure from activist medical professionals to transition their children to “prevent suicide”.   If a pro-trans psychiatrist or doctor is treating a child and thinks they might be transgender, they commonly tell the parents that supporting the transition is critical to preventing suicide.   The Cass Review showed clearly that there is no credible evidence to support this claim.   Yet therapists regularly use the line, famously documented in Chloe Cole’s detransition lawsuit,  “would you rather have a dead daughter or a live son?”    How many parents, previously uninformed on this issue, would dare to question the therapist’s advice after that?     This is why I’m not swayed by the common argument that legislation on this matter is somehow interfering in a decision that should just be left to families and their doctors:  the families are often given extremely biased advice to terrorize them into unconditionally supporting their child’s transition.

• Medical interventions for a child who is diagnosed as transgender can begin as early as age 8, and have many long-term health consequences .    How can a child understand their “gender” before experiencing puberty, which is when critical reproductive processes and instincts are developed?    Puberty blockers can be prescribed as early as age 8, according to a New York Times report, and are often prescribed around age 10-11.  According to the same report, these have been linked to severe long-term harm, most notably by suppressing a growth period when a child’s bones mature.   In addition, one of the nation’s leading transgender advocates, Dr. Marci Bowers, has been caught on video admitting that these treatments often cause permanent sexual dysfunction.    And the puberty blockers are just the beginning:  children under 18 are often subjected to surgical treatments as well, and Dr Bowers has also bragged of performing “vaginoplasties”, creation of a permanent wound where the genitals used to be, in boys as young as 16.  

• Once a child is started on a gender transition, it is very difficult to stop the process, even if they start to have doubts.   The “gender-affirming” care model demands that once a child states they are transgender, the physical and psychological caregivers must consistently “affirm” their new identity, without ever questioning it or seeking other underlying psychological issues.    (How many other situations are there where a therapist is required to unconditionally affirm a patient’s initial self-diagnosis???).  Typically a child will build their entire social life around the new transgender identity, as well as receiving constant pressure from their new trans-activist friend group and the pro-trans medical professionals who are currently treating them.   For a child who is already uncomfortable and socially awkward, this can make it psychologically impossible to turn back if they later have second thoughts.    As one doctor wrote in a NY Post article, “I saw children being fast-tracked onto medical solutions for psychological problems, and when kids get on the medical conveyor belt, they don’t get off.   But the politicization of the issue was shutting down proper clinical rigor. That meant quite vulnerable kids were in danger of being put on a medical path for treatment that they may well regret.”

Thus, for these reasons and many others, I think it’s imperative that the Kansas legislature take action to protect children in our state from this dangerous and unwarranted medical experiment.   If elected, I will make it a priority to re-introduce legislation, like the bill that the incumbent recently voted against, to ban these treatments in anyone under 18.