Category: Child Care

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Dr. Rachel Levine Is Uninformed, Or Worse

People with Gender-Critical views like mine are constantly told that “the science” is unequivocal on this issue and in favor of “gender-affirmative care.”

Dr. Rachel Levine
Dr. Rachel Levine

Assistant Secretary of Health, Dr. Rachel Levine, who is a Trans-female, and the highest-ranking transgender member of the federal government dismisses those of us who criticize new federal guidelines that recommend “gender-affirming” care for transgender minors — saying that no responsible doctors oppose it.

Here’s a NY Post article with more details of her criticism.

A few days ago, Dr. Levine made the following comment to National Public Radio (NPR)

"There is no argument among medical professionals - pediatricians, pediatric endocrinologists, adolescent medicine physicians, adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, etc -- about the value and the importance of gender-affirming care."

To suggest that “the science is settled” on this issue is patently false.

Here is a recent peer-reviewed and heavily researched article with links to more studies than you could ever read on the subject.

Reconsidering Informed Consent for Trans-Identified Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults. Published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy.

A few important findings.

In less than a decade, the western world has witnessed an unprecedented rise in the numbers of children and adolescents seeking gender transition. Despite the precedent of years of gender-affirmative care, the social, medical and surgical interventions are still based on very low-quality evidence. The many risks of these interventions, including medicalizing a temporary adolescent identity, have come into a clearer focus through an awareness of detransitioners. 

When uncertain parents of children and teens consult their primary care providers, they are usually referred to specialty gender services. Parents and referring clinicians assume that specialists with “gender expertise” will undertake a thorough evaluation. However, the evaluations preceding the recommendation for gender transition are often surprisingly brief (Anderson & Edwards-Leeper, 2021) and typically lead to a recommendation for hormones and surgery, known as gender-affirmative treatment.

Despite the widely recognized deficiencies in the evidence supporting gender-affirmative interventions (National Institute for Health & Care Excellence, 2020a; 2020b), the process of obtaining informed consent from patients and their families has no established standard. 

Social transition, hormones, and surgeries are unproven in a strict scientific sense, and as such, to be ethical, require a thorough and fully informed consent process.

...the dramatic growth in demand for youth gender transition witnessed in the last several years that has led to a perfunctory informed consent process. A rushed process does not allow for a proper discussion of not only the benefits, but the profound risks and uncertainties associated with gender transition, especially when gender transition is undertaken before mature adulthood.

Although the incidence of natal males asserting a trans identity in adolescence has significantly increased, the dramatic increase is driven primarily by the natal females requesting services. Many suffer from significant comorbid mental health disorders, have neurocognitive difficulties such as ADHD or autism or have a history of trauma.

To respond to growing demand, an innovative informed consent model of care has been developed. Under this model, mental health evaluations are not required, and hormones can be provided after just one visit following the collection of a patient’s or guardian’s consent signature....we believe this model is the antithesis of true informed consent, as it jeopardizes the ethical foundation of patient autonomy. Autonomy is not respected when patients consenting to the treatment do not have an accurate understanding of the risks, benefits, and alternatives.

It is common for gender-affirmative specialists to erroneously believe that gender-affirmative interventions are a standard of care. Despite the increasingly widespread professional beliefs in the safety and efficacy of pediatric gender transition, and the endorsement of this treatment pathway by a number of professional medical societies, the best available evidence suggests that the benefits of gender-affirmative interventions are of very low certainty and must be carefully weighed against the health risks to fertility, bone, and cardiovascular health.

The ‘transition or suicide’ narrative falsely implies that transition will prevent suicides. [N]either hormones nor surgeries have been shown to reduce suicidality in the long-term.

Full Article at this link.

For those of you sitting on the fence about where the science comes down on this issue (forget the ethical-religious questions for a moment), you need to read this article published in a medical journal.

Abigail Shrier questions the Secretary…

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The Pro-Pedophile Inventor of “Gender”

A follow up post from my last one. And another article from the pro-woman, pro-child safeguarding news site, REDUXX. [Read the whole thing! The usual link disclaimer applies. 1Links from this blog to online resources don’t necessarily mean I support everything found on these sites. But as adults we should embrace viewpoint diversity. And make alliances where we can.]

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John Money

I’ve known about John Money of Johns Hopkins University for some time now. Money is one of Freud and Kinsey’s leading successors.

Money, a sexologist and psychologist is considered the first to use the terms “gender identity” and “gender role.” In his clinical research Money described the “internal experience of sexuality” and the “social expectations of male and female behavior” respectively.

Money was on record as a hater of Judeo-Christian “repressive religious structures…[and their] anti-masturbatory, anti-sexual fervor.”

Here’s what he had to say about Pedophilia.

“If I were to see the case of a boy aged ten or eleven who’s intensely erotically attracted toward a man in his twenties or thirties, if the relationship is totally mutual, and the bonding is genuinely totally mutual, then I would not call it pathological in any way.”

Follow this link to a United States Court of Appeals Amicus Brief where Money’s accepting-affirming attitude toward pedophiliacs is documented in court.

The whole brief illuminates the history of our current cultural crisis, a crisis that creates a thick wall of separation between biological sex & gender. And pulls down any suggestion of a Male/Female binary by promoting the concept of “gender-fluidity.” The leading lights promoting this crisis assert in so many words that “inner conviction” trumps biological reality.

As a Christian, I’m compelled to say, this disintegration of human personhood with its body-denying philosophy will not end well. God our Creator will not be mocked.

Read the brief. If you have the time.

If not. Scroll down to page 15 of the Amicus Brief and you will see the following footnote “55”.

In an interview published in Paidika, an international journal for those advocating for pedophilia, Dr. Money said that adult sex with children is normal and often beneficial and said, “regarding paedophilia [sic] that I would never report anybody.” An Interview with John Money, PAIDIKA: THE JOURNAL OF PAEDOPHILIA 12 (Spring 1991).

When Money says he wouldn’t “report anybody” he means report to the police any patient engaged in an unlawful but consensual adult-child sexual relationship.

More details about Money’s legacy at REDUXX. [You should read the whole thing.]

As a culture, if we think biology is irrelevant, in this case puberty, and that only internal desires matter, then how can we say Dr. Money is wrong?

Today’s stigma-free ethic toward gender-fluidity affirms a child’s desire to “transition” at decreasingly younger ages. So as to become their “authentic self” sooner. A self free from the “dictates” of biology and the unwanted changes of puberty. (Pharmaceutical puberty blockers to the rescue!) Many top flight professionals in a variety of disciplines coach us to acknowledge and promote those “authenticating” body-denying desires.

For now, we draw the ethical line at pedophilia. For now.

I know that the vast majority of those who promote our current cultural crisis would never imagine crossing the ethical line just mentioned. But, for me, their body-denying logic leads in that direction.

Is this the world we want to live in? We better come up with some answers quick. Things are moving swiftly.

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Destigmatize Pedophilia?

This one is a must see. From the Feminist News and Child Safeguarding site REDUXX we learn of a published paper in the American Psychological Association’s peer reviewed Journal of Stigma and Health. The findings of the study? Destigmatize pedophilia.

The paper is titled Journalism and Pedophilia: Background on the Media Coverage of a Stigmatized Minority.

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The researchers write that…

“society can and should create a social environment in which minor-attracted persons can accept their sexual interest without fear of disadvantages.”

Because those “sexual interests” are immutable, so we are told, the best course of action will accept pedophilia as a “sexual preference” and call pedophiles “minor-attracted people.” This will avoid unjustified “negative [and] punitive attitudes.”

If not, those negative social attitudes will add…

“to the development of a sexual preference disorder (which is a sexual preference for children accompanied by psychological distress and/or risk for direct and indirect sexual behavior against children) and increases their risk of becoming offenders.

Which is to say pedophiles, sorry, minor-attracted persons, may become child sex abusers if society continues to stigmatize their sexual preference.

Got it?

How about we try this instead.

For non-offending pedophiles who are interested in being healed instead of being accepted we point them toward a long series of therapy sessions with both a trained therapist and a Rabbi, Priest, or Pastor who will lovingly, prayerfully, assist them in changing their unconscionable sexual preference for little boys or little girls.

Some might call this “conversion therapy.” I call it loving your neighbors. Old and young.

As a culture, if we think biology is irrelevant, in this case puberty, and that only internal desires matter, then how can we say these academics are wrong?

Today’s stigma-free ethic toward gender-fluidity affirms a child’s desire to “transition” at decreasingly younger ages. So as to become their “authentic self” sooner. A self free from the ”dictates” of biology. And the unwanted changes of puberty. (Pharmaceutical puberty blockers to the rescue!) Many top flight professionals in a variety of disciplines coach us to acknowledge and promote those “authenticating” body-denying desires.

For now, we still draw the ethical line at pedophilia. For now.

I know that the vast majority of those who promote our current cultural crisis would never imagine crossing the ethical line just mentioned. But, for me, their body-denying logic leads in that direction.

Is this the world we want to live in? We better come up with some answers quick. Things are moving swiftly.

I’m a Classic Christian and regard Gender Ideology as anti-creational to the core. This blog is about “God’s Good Creation.” That’s why I’m writing about Gender Ideology. And “speaking up” as I’m confident Jesus would.

"Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female.'" [Matt 19:4]