Four military healthcare providers are demanding that the Pentagon train military doctors to immediately begin gender transition treatment for children who present with gender dysphoria by putting them on hormone treatments and puberty blockers.
The doctors published a paper in the March American Journal of Public Health that tried to make the case that children as young as seven “have an inherent ability and right to consent to gender-affirming therapy.”
The authors demanded that the military train providers in their idea of gender-affirming care for minors even though they acknowledge that 53% of military-affiliated physicians in the Department of Defense health system say they would refuse to prescribe hormones to children regardless of any “training.”
The Defense Department claims that medical decisions are made in consultation between minors and their guardians and says the decisions on changing gender should not be rushed.
But the four providers criticized doctors who pause before changing a minor’s gender to see if the child will grow out of the condition, calling them “unethical.”
“Some well-intentioned military-affiliated clinicians may not be aware that a ‘watchful waiting’ approach has a different risk profile than a gender-affirmative approach (which allows for gender identity exploration), and that ‘conversion therapy’ is unethical, harmful, and generally illegal,” they said. “Patients may face ‘gatekeeping’ and major delays in care, including protracted and pathologizing psychiatric evaluations that question patient motives.”
Further, “Prior research has found that children can begin participating in their medical decision-making as early as age seven years with gradual increases in decision-making capacity, and adolescents prefer shared decision-making.”
Always believe the child — even if he/she is seven years old, right? Sheesh.
Related: Time to Launch Rescue Operations at Children’s Gender Clinics
Dr. Stanley Goldfarb of Do No Harm mocked the claims made by the DoD doctors.
“The notion that 7-year-old children are capable of such decisions is beyond laughable,” Dr. Goldfarb said.
“The existence of a large, perhaps as much as 25% cohort of ‘detransitioners,’ suggests the folly of assuming the soundness of childhood decisions,” he said.
The health providers demanded the DoD publicly declare that it supported a “gender-affirmative position” and convince military members about the “evidence-based medical care” of changing a minor’s gender.
“This may lead to less resistance and politicization, which could work against the overarching goals,” the DoD providers said.
They added that the Defense Health Agency should provide legal services to help skirt recent laws banning “gender-affirming care” for minors. Eight states – Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah – have passed laws or policies that restrict medical interventions to change a minor’s gender.
Who allowed these wack-a-doodles to get anywhere near children, much less treat them? They write that it’s easy to get around state bans on gender-affirming care for children by going underground.
“[A]n implantable puberty blocker, which is generally effective for at least two years, can be administered at a tertiary care military hospital, requiring only routine services easily accomplished in primary care over time. This could be a temporizing measure prior to relocation,” the doctors said.
I’m coming to the conclusion that this hysterical desire to transition children to another gender by ignoring evidence of harm is part of a mass psychosis that otherwise intelligent, able adults have succumbed to. Doctors, activists, and other healthcare providers have become so invested in the transgender phenomenon that it’s become impossible to admit they may have been wrong.
Despite a growing body of evidence that, at the very least, demands that the transgender lobby re-examine their beliefs, it becomes far easier to ignore evidence that runs counter to the narrative and pretend that those challenging their religion have evil motives.
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