There are now nearly 50 hospital-affiliated clinics diagnosing and “treating” kids who wish they were the opposite sex in the US. A few days ago, the illustrious Stanford University, the Harvard of the west coast, announced that its children’s hospital division

has begun to offer medical and other services to transgender children and adolescents, with an eye toward opening within the next year a more comprehensive multidisciplinary clinic to support what health providers say is a growing population.

There it is again: the big increase in kids being sent to these gender clinics. The activists tell us, of course, that there were just as many “trans” kids in earlier years. (Hell, they love to claim strong women in history were actually trans men.) It’s just that now, we can identify “trans” kids. We have treatments for them.

There is no way that the medical and psychiatric literature would not have identified these children as “actually trans” in years past. Because to hear the activists tell it, “trans” kids are all at immediate risk for suicide if they don’t get transition services–now. If this were not part of a contemporary medical/cultural trend, young people would have been threatening or committing suicide in droves throughout recorded history, after telling parents and doctors they could not tolerate life in the “wrong” body.

Families who previously approached Stanford for care would typically be referred to the UCSF center, said Tandy Aye, a Stanford pediatric endocrinologist who started treating transgender children and adolescents about six months ago. She said she saw an “increasing need” and felt compelled to support local families. Aye is currently seeing nine patients and receives several referrals per month. .. Her patients are as young as 4 1/2 years old and as old as 15 years old. “We’re assessing the need, but it seems like the need is there and growing,” Aye said.

The need is growing. The need is growing.

Who is Dr. Tandy Aye? Her Stanford profile lists diabetes as the condition she treats, and her published research is all on that subject as well. Aye is obviously new to the whole puberty-blocker/cross-sex hormone thing, but then, the whole “field” is an experimental frontier, so maybe no surprise there.

“People are noticing, also, that if these children get the treatment they need even from an earlier age and not wait so long, the depression and suicide and other comorbidities … are improved,” Aye said. “Kids are happier.”

The diabetes specialist assures us that “KIDS are happier.” But those kids will grow up to be adults and we know nothing–nothing–about how they will feel when the honeymoon period is over. Do these doctors really believe that every Jane who was born John will happily dilate their surgically-constructed “neovagina” every day for the rest of Jane’s life? Do they not have even an inkling of a doubt that some number of the Jills who become Jacks will come to realize they are, indeed, women? Do they really believe that not a single one of these kids who was sterilized before puberty will regret it?

“People are noticing” that these kids are happier. Are any of these doctors parents themselves? Have they every witnessed how much “happier” most kids are when they are granted their every wish? Have any of them studied child and adolescent psychological development?

Teenagers with persistent gender dysphoria experience a high rate of psychiatric comorbidities, including depression, suicidal ideation and attempted suicide, according to UCSF.

The data that exist show that gender non-conforming young people are more at risk for self harm, suicidal ideation, and bullying. But that includes gay and lesbian young people, and others who simply don’t conform to stereotypes. And in fact, the most recent suicides of trans-identified teens, a cluster in San Diego, CA (the reasons for this cluster need to be identified) were kids who were fully supported in transitioning by their families, referred to by “preferred pronouns,” and so forth.

But at least the article refers to CO-morbidities. There is just as much evidence that the psychological problems experienced by these kids cause the gender dysphoria as the other way around. The trouble is, it has become taboo to investigate mental health issues as possible causal factors for GD.

Aye, along with Stanford child and adolescent psychiatrist David Hong, is also in the midst of a pilot study that will follow both children with and without gender dysphoria for two to three years as they go through puberty. The study aims to examine the physiological effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, an area Aye said has not been studied before in the United States. They are currently accepting study participants.

Bingo: it has not been studied. And let’s remember: While the intent to study these kids is obviously a good thing, the research will take place on children who are already being treated with hormones and possibly surgeries–and these children will be sterilized. Who is going to design a study to weed out the kids who will regret all of this in 20 years?

Who is Dr. David Hong? His publication history and a YouTube lecture reveal that his area of research interest is Turner Syndrome, a chromosomal abnormality in girls (single X chromosome vs the normal XX) that results in short stature, fertility problems, possible heart defects, potential cognitive issues in a minority of the girls. Most girls with Turner Syndrome present with ovarian dysfunction, and according to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), “many affected girls do not undergo puberty unless they receive hormone therapy, and most are unable to conceive (infertile).”

So Dr. Hong has a fair bit of insight into girls rendered infertile by an inborn condition, and he will be participating in “treating” and studying girls who will be rendered infertile by the GnRh + cross-sex hormone treatments they receive from gender clinics like the one planned at Stanford. There’s an irony to this that I find very sad.

And on the “journalism” front…yesterday, another venerable institution, the Washington Post, churned out yet another triumphant story of a grade-school transitioner. Actually, it’s a followup to a story they did 3 years ago on 5-year-old “Tyler,” who is now 8. Though born with two X chromosomes and still in the stage of life when children conflate reality with fantasy, gender specialists are on the case. And surprise, surprise, Tyler–who has been “socially transitioned” all this time–still wants to be a boy.

He and his parents would have to decide whether to visit the doctor monthly for shots or use a surgical implant to inject drugs to stop puberty and keep his body from looking like that of a young woman. “The implant. Definitely the implant,” the third-grader told the doctor. And Tyler is certain about one other thing: “I’m a boy,” he says.

From age 2, the Post dutifully reports, the kid insisted s/he was the opposite sex and

…felt as though God made a mistake and people were wrong when they said “she” and he hated, hated, hated wearing a leotard to gymnastics.

But it was also rough for his parents — solid, pragmatic, religious schoolteachers — who had a mountain to climb when faced with the extraordinary challenge he presented to them.

Hates leotards. Has “religious schoolteachers” as parents. I can think of a few followup questions, but never mind.

Tyler hasn’t hit puberty yet. What then?

Eventually, some older teens also begin taking hormones of the gender they identify with. So Tyler would get testosterone shots. Those hormone injections, which typically begin at 16, would be a much tougher choice because they make the child sterile.

Just a small note in passing. Not worth a few followup questions, like: Sterilization of children? Isn’t there some kind of international tradition of avoiding that?

Meanwhile, Tyler still a kid, has more mundane concerns than future fertility. Like sleepovers.

“Fortunately, sleepovers aren’t as popular with boys at this age,” [Mom] exhaled. And if he does a sleepover, he’ll do it with friends from his old school, where he was known as the transgender kid.

At some point, [Tyler’s mom will] have to face the request for a sleepover with someone who has no idea that he once had Kathryn in his name. Sleepovers are one of the hot topics at the monthly transgender support group meetings that Tyler’s family hosts at their home. It’s a group that didn’t exist three years ago, and it’s growing every month. At these meetings and at the transgender conventions and conferences and family weekends, Tyler is happy to talk about being transgender.

So many meetings, so many conferences, so little time. And they’re growing every month.

*************************************************************

Meanwhile, a major TV outlet in the UK, Channel 4, is featuring a series over the next few weeks on “trans kids” called “Born in the Wrong Body.” This YouTube transition time-lapse (over 6 million views as of this writing) of a young woman magically turning into a young man is being used as a trailer for the Channel 4 series. Strange, though. As seems to often be the case with media portrayals of young transitioners, there are roughly twice as many negative comments as positive posted on this video.

It’s almost as if they’re trying to sell the public something they don’t want to buy.

I have come late to this party. Like many of my compatriots on the somnolent left, I slept through the initially slow, and now rapidly accelerating pediatric transition trend (or is it actually a “movement” as the Transgender Youth Equality Foundation refers to it?) While we were snoozing, a decision was made by certain activists and medical professionals to pretty much ignore decades of research indicating that the vast majority of kids with “gender dysphoria” grow out it and become (most typically) gay or lesbian adults. Instead of leaving these children alone to play and learn and grow, without feeding the usually transient fantasy that they are (or should be) the opposite sex, we now have professionals and parents jumping to the conclusion that these kids need to change their pronouns, “socially transition,” and otherwise pretend to be something they are not. All in preparation for irreversible medical transition at puberty.

And for anyone new to my blog who thinks I’m just an ignorant transphobe who should trust the judgment of all these good doctors, a little reminder is in order. As recently as 2013, none other than Dr. Norman Spack, founder of the first pediatric gender clinic and considered one of the biggest proponents of puberty blockers and early transition, had this to say in the weighty journal of yet another venerable institution, the American Medical Association (in the very last paragraph on page 484, after the rest of the article touts transition):

Mental health intervention should persist for the long term, even after surgery, as patients continue to be at mental health risk, including for suicide. While the causes of suicide are multifactorial, the possibility cannot be ruled out that some patients unrealistically believe that surgery(ies) solves their psychological distress.

Early intervention in young adolescents, including pubertal suppression, has been initiated only in the past 10 to 15 years; long-term follow-up is awaited to determine whether the outcomes are more favorable.

You heard him:

Depressed and suicidal people might actually not get any better after they hack away at their genitals. We’re going to keep on experimenting on kids. We don’t have any long-term followup, and we have no idea whether the outcomes will be favorable, but we’ll figure that out later.

This is Norman Spack, MD, talking here, not some nervous Nellie, unsupportive parent. You know, the same Dr. Spack who told the New York Times in June that he salivates at the idea of administering puberty blockers to little kids. If he feels the need to issue caveats like this (albeit at the end of an article promoting transition), you know we’re in uncharted waters.

But meanwhile, let’s celebrate “Tyler’s” upcoming GnRh implant, and Jamie’s magic transition. (I wonder: how many new “FTM” patients will be generated from that one glamorous transition trailer?)

No one knows how many of these kids would have grown up to be non-transitioned gay or lesbian adults. No one knows how many will grow up to regret what was done to them by trusted adults when they were children. No one knows. And though some profess to care, the ones with the power–the gender specialists and activists–don’t choose to stop it. How many children is it ok to mistakenly sterilize and turn into lifelong medical patients with permanently altered bodies and brains?

The observation by Joseph Goebbels (who knew a thing or two about propaganda) that “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it” has become reality in the 21st century. We now have some of the most respected, prestigious university-based hospitals participating in experimental “treatments” of minors, most of whom will be sterilized in the process. We have a lapdog media that never bothers to question whether this is a good idea; which, in fact, by its refusal to question and probe, is tacitly operating as a propaganda organ for the gender specialists.

What is the big lie? That we have sufficient evidence to justify the ongoing and accelerating medical experimentation being perpetrated on children… in the name of another big lie: “born in the wrong body.”

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