Some on the Left Are Worried That the Transgender Craze Has Gone 'Too Far'

“Transgenderism” or “gender identity disorder” is based on an actual, rare, psychological condition known as gender dysphoria. No one is sure how many individuals are actually afflicted with the condition. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) — the Bible for psychiatry — estimates that about 0.005% to 0.014% of people assigned male at birth and 0.002% to 0.003% of people assigned female at birth are diagnosable with gender dysphoria.

That’s an extraordinarily small number of people. And yet, according to a 2014 survey, 1.4 million adults identify as transgender. And that survey did not include the parents who are being railroaded into believing their child is transgender by incompetent or politically active teachers, therapists, and psychologists and then allowing the administration of drugs and hormones.

Obviously, something is horribly wrong. There is very little evidence that puberty blockers improve the mental health of children who are gender-confused. And yet they are routinely administered in the United States. In fact, there are many psychologists who believe that anxiety disorders are often misdiagnosed as gender dysphoria.

Erica Anderson, a transgender doctor, recently told the Los Angeles Times that the growing acceptance of transgenderism is welcomed but was horrified that even 13-year-old children were getting hormone treatment without ever seeing a psychologist.

“I think it’s gone too far,” said Anderson, who until recently led the US professional society at the forefront of transgender care.

“For a while, we were all happy that society was becoming more accepting and more families than ever were embracing children that were gender variant.

“Now it’s got to the point where there are kids presenting at clinics whose parents say, ‘This just doesn’t make sense,‘” she said.

Washington Examiner:

Anderson is far from the only expert concerned about the radical trajectory transgenderism has taken. In much of Europe, there is rigorous debate among doctors and psychologists who believe “gender-affirming care” for young persons is a hasty response to a social phenomenon rather than an appropriate, data-backed medical treatment.

All of the evidence suggests they are correct. It is not a coincidence that the number of young adults who identify as transgender has increased more than twentyfold over the past several years as transgenderism has become more mainstream. What was once a rare mental affliction — gender dysphoria — is now being sold as a solution to any number of common emotional and social anxieties. The result has been a massive surge in transgender-identifying youths, the vast majority of whom, if given enough time, would snap out of it on their own.

Indeed, more and more transgendered people who had gender reassignment surgery are going public with their regrets. And the suicide rate for those who have undergone gender change surgery is through the roof.

An extensive study conducted in Sweden found that 10 to 15 years after sex-reassignment surgeries, the suicide rate of those who underwent the procedure rose to 20 times that of their peers. Another review  of more than 100 follow-up studies of transgender individuals who underwent sex changes, undertaken by Birmingham University’s Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility, found that none of the studies provided conclusive evidence that gender reassignment benefited the patients. And just a couple of years ago, U.S. researchers were forced  to issue a correction to a major 2019 study that claimed transgender individuals who underwent reassignment surgeries showed significantly improved mental health. The study now states, “The results demonstrated no advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care visits or prescriptions or hospitalizations following suicide attempts.”

Transgenderism has always been dependent on the unrealistic, but it is quickly turning into a “grave medical-political scandal,” as the New York Times’s Ross Douthat recently put it , for which there is no defense or middle ground. Women should never be forced to share bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams with men. Young children and adults struggling with the woes of maturation should never be encouraged to mutilate themselves chemically and physically.

The hysterical overreaction of the left and the transgender community to any opposition, any suggestion that their approach is flawed or even dangerous should have been a tip-off to anyone that transgenderism had become almost cultish in its belief system.

“Deprogramming” transgender activists and their fervent supporters will be very difficult, if not impossible. Since they don’t listen to reason or fact-based arguments or accept any view other than their own personal religion, breaking through the programming to illuminate reality is going to be a major challenge.