Pride Month has arguably become Pride Year. And I’m going to save you the usual “consenting adults can do whatever they want” disclaimer. We all know that by now. But in a saga filled with unusual twists that are becoming the norm more than the exception, the Post Millennial has the story of the Annual Magic Pride Festival in Wisconsin last Sunday.
Along with the usual activities, which included a tent restricted to “Queer and Trans People of Color” and their guests (any trespassers would be shown the gate if they ventured inside), there was also a booth sponsored by Integrated Counseling, LLC. The people working the booth were not handing out free bottled water, candy bumper stickers, or pens. Well, maybe they were, but the main purpose of the booth was to distribute “letters of readiness” for people seeking transgender surgery. There is supposed to be a process to this. There are medical and psychological evaluations often required not only by insurance companies but also by hospitals. Usually, the process takes about 12 months. The letters create an end-run around that process. Integrated Counseling was founded by licensed counselor Elaina Meir who, according to the Post Millennial, has the statement “For Trans and gender expansive folx, I use informed consent and self-determination models,” on her profile for Psychology Today.
It goes without saying (or it should) that we are talking about a process that, once complete, is extremely difficult to reverse, and may not be able to be completely reversed at all. These are permanent changes, and to this writer, taking 12 months to think it over isn’t the worst idea in the world. Even the Mayo Clinic suggests having an honest conversation with a doctor to discuss not just gender identity but current and past medications, surgeries and medical procedures, sexual activity, anxiety, and depression. It also suggests the following:
- Age-appropriate screening for cervical and breast cancers
- Age-appropriate screening for prostate cancer
- Age-appropriate screening for colon cancer
- Age-appropriate vaccinations
- Screening for mental health conditions
- Screening for substance abuse
- Screening for HIV
- Screening for hepatitis
Gender aside, for many people, these screenings are just good ideas, anyway.
When it comes to children and teens, the American College of Pediatricians warns that the use of puberty blockers could lead to mental illness. When combined with cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers may contribute to osteoporosis, cognitive issues, seizures and mood disorders, and sterility. There is also an increased risk for strokes, heart attacks, blood clots, and diabetes later in life. Pride Week isn’t much fun when you are an in ICU bed.
Related: Sharing Stories of Trauma on ‘Detransition Awareness Day’
If that isn’t enough to convince you, ask de-transitioner Walt Heyer who spoke at a Heritage Foundation panel as far back as 2019. The Blaze had the story:
Walt Heyer, the trans activist who recently announced that the media and doctors misled him to believe that the answer to gender dysphoria was a transition, warned of the dangers to children of encouraging early transitions.
Heyer, who formerly lived as a woman, explained that many people who wish to change genders have been sexually abused as children.
“Over 50 percent of the people that I’ve worked with — hundreds of people that I’ve worked with over the last 10 years — were sexually abused boys who were abused at a young age,” Heyer revealed, and noted that many of them believe that the only way to “cure” themselves is to “cut off their genitalia and become female…In their mind, that is their defense mechanism for sexual abuse,” he said.
“We are manufacturing transgender kids,” Heyer later added. “We are manufacturing their depression, their anxiety, and turned [it] into a huge industry that people are profiting from after kids’ lives are completely torn apart.”
Some people genuinely suffer from gender dysphoria, and for some of them, transitioning may be the answer. But to encourage the use of drugs and surgery while bypassing medical safeguards and without understanding all of the potential risks and ramifications is not compassionate and it is not caring. It is selfish.
Anyone snapping up one of these letters would do well to remember the old maxim: Act in haste, repent in leisure.
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