UNITED KINGDOM., September 18, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Officials in the United Kingdom want to know why there has been an explosion in the number of kids seeking sex “change” treatments.

In just eight years, the increase in children seeking to transgender themselves has gone up 4,500 percent for girls and 1,250 percent for boys.

During the reporting year “2009/10 a total of 40 girls were referred by doctors for gender treatment,” according to a report by UK’s The Telegraph. “By 2017/18 that number had soared to 1,806. Referrals for boys have risen from 57 to 713 in the same period.”

“Officials in the Government Equalities Office will look into whether the influence of social media is driving more children to consider changing sex, and whether it is appropriate to treat pre-pubescent children with drugs,” according to the The Telegraph report.

“A recent study found that almost two thirds of children and teenagers who say they want to change sex have previously been diagnosed with serious mental health disorders,” continues the report. “There are concerns among some doctors that children are being given hormone treatments without due consideration of the long-term side effects, which can include infertility and osteoporosis.”

Medical child abuse?

“Transgenderism is a psychological disorder, not a biological one,” said Dr. Michelle Cretella, MD, FCP, president of the American College of Pediatricians.

“The active promotion of transgenderism has resulted in massive uncontrolled and unconsented experimentation upon children and adolescents,” Cretella warned. “This is child abuse.”

Last year in England, “800 children were given injections to stall the onset of puberty, including some aged 10, with some also given hormones to start the process of changing sex,” according to the The Telegraph report.

“Many children are being permanently sterilized by these treatments and sentenced to a lifetime of toxic medications to impersonate the opposite sex,” continued Cretella. These “medications...cause everything from cardiovascular disease to diabetes to cancer.”

Dr. David Stevens, Christian Medical & Dental Associations CEO, recounted the story of a doctor who once told him, “If a parent came to me with an anorexic child, I wouldn’t recommend a diet in order to affirm the child’s desire to be thinner.” On the contrary, the doctor would be moved to find a cure for the child. That same concept is at play when it comes to parents who seek to support their child’s transgender urges, he said. It ends up being “child abuse.”

Louis Brown, while former director of Christ Medicus Foundation, told LifeSiteNews, “As Catholics, we believe that every man, woman, and child deserves the unlimited love of God. We also know that love is based in truth, and so the measure of our love for any person is measured by our willingness to desire good for them based in truth.”

“Healthcare at its core is about loving a person at one of the most vulnerable moments in that person’s life, when they have a medical need,” continued Brown. “We must seek to love anyone who has need for medical care, but it should be consistent with that person’s biological, sexual and anthropological truth. So for Catholic medical professionals, if we’re not loving each medical patient in truth, we are not really loving them at all.”

Write to Doug Mainwaring at [email protected].