America’s Transgender Revolution: Prescription for Disaster
On May 13, 2016, the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice mailed a joint letter to every public school in the nation directing that they must give biological boys who identify as girls access to girls’ lockers, bathrooms, and dorm rooms. Noncompliant schools risk the loss of federal funding.((www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-departments-justice-and-education-release-joint-guidance-help-schools-ensure-civil-rights))
The directive is a novel rendering of a well-established law known as Title IX meant to give girls equal educational and athletic opportunities in public schools. The bureaucratic reinterpretation undermines the democratic process, defies common sense, and ultimately undermines the law’s original intent. According to Ryan T. Anderson “Neither federal lawmakers nor courts should have the power to redefine what it is to be a man or a woman for all Americans.”(( www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2016/6/government-must-stay-neutral-in-transgender-debate))
Transgender policy threatens women’s privacy and safety
There are several examples of sexual predators who’ve abused transgender rights laws and violated the safety and privacy of women.((http://dailysignal.com/2016/06/03/6-examples-highlight-serious-problems-with-obamas-bathroom-rule/))
As Melody Wood of The Heritage Foundation said, “The interests and desires of transgender persons, especially adults, shouldn’t be placed over the privacy and safety of women and girls. There are ways of accommodating transgender people with private facilities without endangering and silencing women who could be hurt by policies allowing anyone unfettered access to their lockers, showers, and bathrooms.”((Ibid.))
Sex Change is biologically impossible
“’Sex change’ is biologically impossible,” says former Psychiatrist in Chief at Johns Hopkins University Paul Mchugh. “People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.”((www.wsj.com/articles/paul-mchugh-transgender-surgery-isnt-the-solution-1402615120))
Gender is an objective biological reality
An XY chromosome determines maleness and an XX chromosome determines femaleness. Regardless of how strongly one identifies with another gender, it cannot change their genetic code or the accompanying sociological realities.
Gender identity is a psychological and not a civil rights issue. Until 2013, transgenderism was considered a dysphoria by the American Psychiatrist Association. They have since dropped the diagnosis due to political pressure.
The danger of gender transitioning
“Among individuals who identify as transgender, use cross-sex hormones, and undergo sex reassignment surgery, there is well-documented increased incidence of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, substance abuse, and risky sexual behaviors. Patients’ gender-altering and sexual encounter choices are among the factors relevant to these health disparities in transgender patients as compared to the general population.”(( https://cmda.org/resources/publication/transgender-identification-ethics-statement))
“Many diseases affect men and women differently, according to biological sex phenotype. Transgender designations may conceal biological sex differences relevant to medical risk factors, recognition of which is important for effective healthcare and disease prevention. As accurate documentation is necessary for good patient care, healthcare professionals should document patients’ biological sex and any alterations of gender characteristics factually in the medical record.”((Ibid.))
“Although current medical evidence is incomplete and open to various interpretations, some studies suggest that surgical alteration of sex characteristics has uncertain and potentially harmful psychological effects and can mask or exacerbate deeper psychological problems.”((Ibid.))
Children and gender identity
Children who reported identifying as the opposite sex were tracked by both Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic and over time 70-80 percent of them spontaneously lost those feelings.((www.wsj.com/articles/paul-mchugh-transgender-surgery-isnt-the-solution-1402615120))
According to the Christian Medical and Dental Association “Children lack the developmental cognitive capacity to assent or request [gender transitioning] which have lifelong physical, psychological, and social consequences.”((https://cmda.org/resources/publication/transgender-identification-ethics-statement))
“Hormones prescribed to a previously biologically healthy child for the purpose of blocking puberty inhibit normal growth and fertility. Continuation of cross-sex hormones, such as estrogen and testosterone, during adolescence is associated with increased health risks including, but not limited to, high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke, and some types of cancer.”((Ibid.))
Gender transitioning is an abuse of medicine
“The purpose of medicine is to heal the sick, not to collaborate with psychosocial disorders. Whereas treatment of anatomically anomalous sexual phenotypes is restorative, interventions to alter normal sexual anatomy to conform to transgender desires are disruptive to health.”((https://cmda.org/resources/publication/transgender-identification-ethics-statement))
“Medicine rests on science and should not be held captive to desires or demands that contradict biological reality. Sex reassignment operations are physically harmful because they disregard normal human anatomy and function. Normal anatomy is not a disease; dissatisfaction with natural anatomical and genetic sexual makeup is not a condition that can be successfully remedied medically or surgically.”((Ibid.))
What about hermaphroditism?
Rare abnormalities of hermaphroditism exist. According to the CMDA this is where chromosomal and phenotypic sex characteristics are in discord. “These disorders of sex development include congenital adrenal hyperplasia, ambiguous genitalia, and androgen insensitivity syndrome. Treatment of these disorders differs categorically from transgender interventions, which are performed on persons whose sex phenotype is in agreement with their chromosomal sex designation.((Ibid.))