(Getty Images/Guy Smallman)

Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University and former psychiatrist–in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital, who has studied transgendered people for 40 years, believes that patients suffering gender dysphoria need psychological care – not gender reassignment treatment.

“I think their mental problems, often depression, discouragement are the things that need treatment,” Dr. McHugh, who has argued that it is a scientific fact that “transgendered men do not become women, nor do transgendered women become men,” told The College Fix in an interview published Tuesday:

“I believe that these gender confusions are mostly being driven by psychological and psychosocial problems these people have. That explains the rapid onset gender dysphoria (Brown University Researcher) Lisa Littman has spelled out.”

Because their problems are psychological, many people who become transgender find that they no less troubled after the change, he says:

“It would explain why many of the people who go on to have treatment of their body discover they are just as depressed, discouraged and live just as problematic lives as they did before because they did not address the primary problem.”

Also, since so little is known about the effects of the hormone treatments, medical professionals providing them are, basically, just experimenting on their transgender patients, McHugh tells The Fix.

Dr. McHugh predicts that, once people realize the harm it’s doing, transgender treatment will be viewed with regret, much like the eugenics movement.

Read full interview on The College Fix.