A pride flag is carried during a march. (Photo credit: MONIRUL BHUIYAN/AFP via Getty Images)

“Horror” may seem like an overly dramatic word, but I use it advisedly. There is a truly horrific side to the transgender movement. However, it is being carefully hidden, with the cooperation of the media, behind a wall of newly-minted Orwellian euphemisms.

The media routinely speak of such things as “hormone therapy” and “gender confirmation surgery,” as if these things are gentle, benign, and uncontroversial therapeutic measures that always bring peace and healing. But, for many of the rapidly growing number of so-called “detransitioners,” the experience of submitting themselves to the gender “experts” has felt like being a character in a slasher flick.

Teenagers who went through a period of severe emotional crisis, during which they fell under the sway of overzealous ideologues, wake up several years later to find themselves with a body that has been unrecognizably and irreversibly mutilated by the scalpels of unscrupulous surgeons, with perfectly healthy reproductive organs and other body parts cut off and replaced with unconvincing imitations of those of the opposite sex.

So too have their bodies been irreversibly altered by enormous quantities of artificial hormones with effects such as feminine voices permanently lowered into a husky masculinity; breasts grown on the muscular, bony frames of male bodies; and many side effects—including sterility—and physiological dependencies associated with such drugs.







The mutilation of healthy bodies

A person is the unity of soul and body. In making reference to the “soul,” we speak of that which makes the body be what it is, namely, a human person—either male or female person. A person’s sexual identity is not a social construction, but it is an objective fact rooted in our nature as either male or female persons. Nothing can change this reality. A person can choose to mutilate his or her genitals but cannot change their sex. Changing one’s sex is fundamentally impossible. Instead, we are speaking of acts of mutilation against a healthy body, which are acts of violence and are an assault against the person’s innate dignity. This is never justifiable.

Even if it is true that some of the time some people suffering from gender dysphoria do experience relief after “sex change” surgeries, it seems obvious that clinical resources would be better invested in developing less-invasive therapies that do not require the mutilation of healthy bodies. However, what is becoming increasingly clear is that, far from finding relief, many people who have undergone sex changes have only found further, and worse, suffering.

Consider the detransitioners featured in this recent article in The Telegraph. The protagonist of the article—a woman who goes by the name of “Charlie”—is fortunate in that she never resorted to surgical or hormonal measures. Instead, she “socially” transitioned—that is, changed her name, her mode of dress, and other superficial gender-linked characteristics. Not so lucky are some of the hundreds of other detransitioners who she says have contacted her since she went public with her story of regret. As The Telegraph reports: “A few have undertaken full surgical reassignment: double mastectomies, hysterectomies and oophorectomies—removal of ovaries. At least one woman has had phalloplasty: Debbie (formerly Lee), in her early 60s and a victim of extensive childhood trauma including sexual abuse, had flesh removed from her arm to make a penis. She now wants it removed and to be given implants to simulate the healthy breasts she had excised when she was 44.”

Charlie tells The Telegraph: “I’m in communication with 19- and 20-year-olds who have had full gender reassignment surgery who wish they hadn’t, and their dysphoria hasn’t been relieved. They don’t feel better for it.” In many cases, these individuals had a history of sexual or physical abuse, eating disorders, depression, autism, and other mental disorders. In the midst of their trauma and vulnerability, they were “sold this idea that transitioning was magically going to solve their problems.”

But it didn’t.

These people are victims—victims of the “experts” who guided them catastrophically awry. Imagine for a moment what it is like to be a 19- or 20-year-old who is just now realizing that your doctors and therapists have convinced you to permanently maim your body and that you now have to live the rest of your life with the consequences of that decision. People sometimes suffer acute regret after getting embarrassing tattoos. Imagine the frustration and anger after dramatically altering the appearance and function of your body, only to discover further unhappiness on the other side.

One man who underwent “bottom surgery”—that is, the removal of his male sex organs, to be replaced with a simulation of female sex organs—says that, contrary to the promises and media propaganda, the result of the surgery was unconvincing; what was done to him is, he says, “a Frankenstein hack job at best.”

One woman, Keira, describes how she was prescribed puberty blockers after just three appointments at the age of 16. Later, she started taking testosterone and eventually had a mastectomy—the removal of both of her breasts. However, in her early 20s she suddenly had a change of perspective and realized that changing how her body looked wasn’t the solution to her problems. She also, like many women who enter their twenties, suddenly found herself thinking about having children, something she gave no thought to when she was 16. Despite stopping the use of testosterone, her voice is still low, and she still has to shave and is frequently mistaken for a man.

“I am so angry and I can’t see that going away,” she told The Telegraph. “I feel sick, I feel like I’ve been lied to. There’s no evidence for the treatments I’ve had, and they didn’t make me feel any better. It was maturity that did that.”

The justifiable anger of parents

One recent article in the prestigious British Medical Journal addresses the question of what doctors and therapists should do when parents refuse to allow their children to transition genders. In a truly diabolical reversal of the truth, the doctors conclude that it is the parents’ refusal to the gender transition that violates the “Harm Principle” and “justif[ies] state intervention.” In other words, in cases where parents don’t wish their minor children to undergo gender transitions, the state should intervene and override the parents’ wishes.

Here is a whole new horror.

Imagine, for a moment, being a loving parent of a child who is experiencing gender dysphoria. Now imagine that this child has fallen under the sway of some radical teacher at school or has been affected by the “social contagion” effect, exacerbated by social media, that is clearly fueling the explosive growth in gender dysphoria among adolescents. Your son now claims he is a girl, or your daughter that she is a boy.

And now, imagine that, like any good parent, you have sought out sensible psychological help and urged a “wait and see” approach. This need not mean that you are a conservative who is opposed to transgenderism on principle. It might simply mean that you think it wise for your 13-year-old daughter to wait until she has adjusted to puberty, put normal teenage angst behind her, and gained some life experience before making a decision that will dramatically alter the course of her life.

And now, imagine that some faceless doctor or bureaucrat, who has only known your child for a matter of weeks or months, and who lacks a parent’s loving concern, has convinced your child to demand the right to transition genders. And, upon confirming your refusal, this person has invoked the power of the state, signing off on medical procedures that you fear will harm your child, and returning your child to you with the demand that you speak of your son as “her” or your daughter as “him” with the threat of losing custody of your child if you do not acquiesce.

Imagine the anger, the sense of betrayal, and of loss in such circumstances.

Tragically, there are parents who do not need to imagine this insane scenario, like the unnamed father in Canada, who has refused to consent to his daughter’s gender transition. Last year, British Columbia Judge Gregory Bowden ruled that this man’s refusal to speak of his daughter as “he” and “him” constituted “family violence.” The judge has also put the father under a gag order so that he cannot even speak to the media about his case without risking severe legal repercussions. Then there is the case of Jeffrey Younger, the Texas father who very nearly lost custody of his son because he refuses to speak of him as “her” or to support the gender transition sought for his son by his ex-wife.

This is the naked totalitarianism of the transgender movement. In the UK over the past decade there has been a 4,400 percent increase in girls undergoing gender transitions. The first wave of detransitioners that we are just now hearing from is almost certainly only the tip of the iceberg. In the years to come there will be many, many more. It may well turn out that the power of their heartbreaking stories will slow down or even reverse this out-of-control social locomotive. But in the meantime, how many lives must be destroyed, and how many families torn apart?

Fortunately, it does seem that the backlash is beginning. Encouragingly, a review of the UK’s sole gender transition clinic has been ordered in the wake of a lawsuit alleging abuses at the clinic. There is also a growing push in some jurisdictions for legislation that would protect minors by punishing doctors who carry out irreversible sex change procedures on them.

It is time to stop this madness. We need a movement of parents, doctors, and politicians willing to stand up, speak the truth, and put in place the common-sense regulations that are needed to protect our children and families from the transgender extremists.

Father Shenan J. Boquet is president of Human Life International (HLI).

Editor's Note: This piece was originally published on Human Life International.





