Ten parents are suing the Department for Education (DfE) in negligence. The DfE has failed to act to prevent serious harm to children in violation of its own statutory guidance and the law, which prioritises child safeguarding and prohibits political indoctrination.
Over the past 10 years gender ideology has embedded itself across our education system. It is in primary schools and secondary schools; in state schools and private schools; in grammar schools and comprehensive schools; in all areas of the country and in all social groups. No child or family anywhere is safe from its pernicious influence.
Through negligent management of our education system, activists have infiltrated schools and gender ideology has become mainstream in our classrooms, causing untold harms to children and their families; indoctrinating children to believe they were born in the ‘wrong’ body; and encouraging vulnerable children and adolescents to engage in physical dissociation from reality by abandoning their biological sex for some mythical ‘gender identity’ – in some cases leading to dangerous medical experiments with puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and surgery, as well as the breakdown of family relationships.
Policy Exchange has warned in a recent report, Asleep at the Wheel, that three quarters of all schools are teaching children they could have been born in the wrong body. Schools frequently do not inform a child’s parents when a child expresses a desire for ‘gender transition’, or dismiss parents’ concerns as ignorant or bigoted.
But will it be an honest review? Leor Sapir has written an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal asking some important questions. Along with his usually brilliant observations.
The piece is behind the normal WSJ paywall, so here are the highlights.
According to Sapir, the AAP is essentially a trade union. Given its vested interests as a trade union, which understandably prioritizes its members, i.e. the same doctors who have performed gender-affirming care, will this be an impartial review? Or will this be an example of confirmation bias, and/or simple CYA?
The AAP has consistently advocated for the safety and effectiveness of sex-trait modification, influencing various stakeholders from insurance companies to the Biden administration.
The AAP and prominent members have consistently assured policy makers and judges that sex-trait modification is safe and effective and based on strong science. Insurance companies have based their coverage decisions on these claims. Democrats have used them to cast opponents as bigots. The Biden administration regularly cites the AAP in its efforts to guarantee minors unfettered access to hormonal drugs and life-altering surgery. Parents have accepted AAP claims and agreed to allow doctors to disrupt their children’s natural puberty, flood their bodies with synthetic hormones, and amputate their healthy breasts.
Yet existing systematic reviews from European health authorities have foundweak evidencesupporting the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
Given these findings, Sapir suggests the AAP should advise extreme caution in using these interventions for youth gender dysphoria, as other countries have done, while its own review is ongoing. (Reviews typically take 12 to 18 months)
Unlike narrative literature reviews, systematic reviews follow a transparent, reproducible methodology on the same body of research. Anyone who uses the same methodology should arrive at more or less the same result. The existing systematic reviews on the benefits and risks of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, conducted by health authorities in three European countries, all found “very low” quality evidence for these interventions.
Given the finding of every existing systematic review to date that the evidence for “gender-affirming care” is exceptionally weak, the AAP should immediately recommend extreme caution in the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries in treating youth gender dysphoria. This is a no-brainer; health authorities in the U.K., Norway, Sweden, Finland and France have done it. “There is not enough evidence to support the safety, clinical effectiveness and cost effectiveness to make the treatment routinely available at this time,” said the statement from England’s National Health Service.
Certain parts of the Western Church are grappling with the issue of gender identity. Even though labels are tricky, let’s call them the ‘progressive’ wing of the Church. After settling a lengthy same-sex ‘marriage’ debate, transgenderism is being accepted with relative ease and speed by the leaders of the same denominations. Many rank and file members, including whole congregations, have registered their disagreement by voting with their feet.
There is of course a real difference between the two issues. Should a more orthodox Faith beckon, a same-sex union between two consenting adults can be undone. This is not the case with transgender individuals. Surgical alterations are irrevocable. Some functions of the original body are lost forever.
Alarmingly, Trans-Activists champion the idea of urging children to unearth their ‘genuine’ identities well before adolescence, affirming a path toward puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery, if that’s what the adolescent explorer really, really really, wants.
You just read an unmitigated lie from this children’s book.
But while we can’t objectively measure feelings for the same sex, we can know a person’s biology. Except for a very, very few “intersex” cases, you’re born either male or female.
In fact, there are few things in life more empirically verifiable than mammalian dimorphism. Like all mammals we were born male or female. If someone thinks differently, it’s in their head, not in what doctors see. To alter the body of a questioning gender non-conforming person is to address the wrong part of their humanity.
Detransitioners courageously inform us that their treatments haven’t worked. Which stands to reason because Gender Dysphoria is not a physical disability, but a psychological condition.
The Church faces a pastoral challenge: how to reconcile subjective emotions with objective truths. Transgenderism goes against the whole council of Scripture and allof Church history, until about 15 days ago (slight exaggeration). In the name of love and acceptance, feelings are allowed to override facts in Church decisions.
But the Church’s role is to provide spiritual guidance not just validation.
Some transgender activists within the Church audaciously claim Jesus himself was transgender since he was born of a virgin. Other’s think Paul’s words in Galatians 3:28 support transgenderism: “In Christ there is neither male nor female” they claim.
Some denominations have even ordained gender confused priests.
How can someone unsure of their most basic created identity lead the Christian faithful? How?
All should be welcome to attend our Church services, and grow from that experience, but not all are welcome to become leaders.
The Church’s principles, while clear, are challenging to implement. While Christians are called to show compassion with an understanding heart, since all of us fall short of God’s intent for us, it doesn’t equate to endorsing actions that contradict biblical teachings. Gender dysphoria, like other challenges such as alcoholism or depression, requires understanding and support, not mere acceptance. We should embrace without affirming.
The pursuit of truth is paramount. Without it, love remains hollow. Addressing this issue with integrity might not win the Church any popularity contests today, but future generations might laud its commitment to unvarnished truths during these tumultuous times.
