Scientific American, after its publication last month of an article supporting the inclusion of trans women – ie men – on women's sports teams, now joins the list of those weighing in against that Arkansas law banning the prescription of cross hormones or puberty-blockers to supposedly transgender youth under age 18.
The state senate sponsor of the Arkansas bill, Alan Clark, has said that puberty blockers and hormone treatments are “at best experimental and at worst a serious threat to a child’s welfare.” But medical and scientific organizations say his claim is wrong. They include the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) and the Endocrine Society. These groups represent thousands of clinicians and researchers nationwide. Among them, the AACAP recently argued that “state-based legislation regarding the treatment of transgender youth that directly oppose the evidence-based care … is a serious concern” that endangers young people.
Experts say claims that gender-affirming medical treatments are experimental or risky are flawed on several levels. Puberty blockers—a class of drugs called GnRH agonists that dampen the effects of sex hormones—have been used safely for decades to delay puberty in children who start it too early. In transgender youth, the drugs are used to prevent the development of permanent sex characteristics such as breasts and voice changes at the onset of puberty—generally age nine or older. Gender-affirming hormones—testosterone or estrogen—are not usually given until a person is in their teens. These hormones promote the development of sex characteristics that are different from those of the sex that an individual was assigned at birth.
What is this "gender-affirming"? What does it mean? There's an assumption here that all cases of gender dysphoria are entirely genuine, and cannot be questioned. There just so happen to be these people whose "gender" supposedly differs from their "sex assigned at birth", and that's an unassailable fact. Any attempts to deny this or to prevent immediate and irreversible medical intervention therefore can only be wicked and regressive.
But these teens don't suddenly decide in a kind of social vacuum that they've got the wrong gender. It never used to happen on anything remotely like this scale. They're troubled adolescents, soaked in social media trends. It's an entirely responsible position therefore, pace the Keira Bell case here, to ensure that young people of that age shouldn't potentially ruin their lives in pursuit of a fad – in pursuit of this gender identity pseudo-science.
The fact that so many organisations support serious medical intervention in support of "gender identity" shows how widely the nonsense has spread.
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