The American College of Pediatricians issued a sharply worded statement warning against any policies that condition children to accept transgenderism as normal.

“Conditioning children into believing a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse,” the statement said.

One of the statement’s three co-authors is John Hopkins Medical School professor Paul McHugh. The former chief psychiatrist at John Hopkins Hospital, McHugh has long warned that sex-reassignment operations ignore and even worsen a patient’s underlying problems. Monday’s statement made a similar point: “Facts — not ideology — determine reality.”

“When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such,” the doctors went on to say.

Citing findings from the American Psychiatric Association, the College pointed out that “as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.”

The College, whose stated mission is “to enable all children to reach their optimal physical and emotional health and well-being,” noted that “Rates of suicide are twenty times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery, even in Sweden which is among the most LGBQT-affirming countries.”

“What compassionate and reasonable person would condemn young children to this fate knowing that after puberty as many as 88% of girls and 98% of boys will eventually accept reality and achieve a state of mental and physical health?” the doctors asked.

[dcquiz] The College’s statement comes amid a nationwide push to allow school children to use whichever bathroom or locker room conforms most to their “gender identity.” Michigan’s State Board of Education, for example, recently drafted a guidance that would advise the state’s public schools to let children choose which bathroom they want to use, regardless of parental or doctoral input.

Monday’s statement, however, sharply criticized policies like the one being pushed in Michigan. (RELATED: Michigan Schools To Let Students Choose Gender, Name And Bathroom)

“Endorsing gender discordance as normal via public education and legal policies will confuse children and parents, leading more children to present to ‘gender clinics’ where they will be given puberty-blocking drugs,” the doctors warned. “This, in turn, virtually ensures that they will ‘choose’ a lifetime of carcinogenic and otherwise toxic cross-sex hormones, and likely consider unnecessary surgical mutilation of their healthy body parts as young adults.”

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