Margot Cleveland of The Federalist talked to Dr. Michelle Cretella, executive director of the American College of Pediatricians, who described "two waves" of this trend.

A disturbing report from The Federalist details efforts by transgender activists to school the courts in how to deal with parents who refuse to transgender their young children. In some cases, the courts have seized children whose parents refuse to recognize their child's "true" gender.

"I first began hearing from distraught parents in this situation in 2016 and in 2017, I heard from seven families in as many different states in this situation. In all but one case the child was a 15 year-old girl who never had any sexual identity confusion prior to her parent's [sic] divorce," Cretella said. "The other case involved 4-year-old triplet boys whose mother desperately wanted a girl. The mother was a psychologist herself and had cross-dressed one of the boys for two years, insisting that it was his idea. In each of the seven cases the guardian ad litems and judges removed the right to medical consent and/or custody from the parent who objected to transition with puberty blockers and hormones."

The "second wave" is even worse.

We have since moved on to the second wave, Cretella told The Federalist. "The second wave is going on now, with emergency room staff, therapists, or doctors reporting parents to Child Protective Services who refuse to affirm their child's false gender." More recently, Cretella explains, she has heard from two sets of parents who were accused of being "abusive parents" for refusing to consent to hormone treatments for their teen children. In one case, the parents sought treatment for their son's suicidal depression. Their son was adopted out of an abusive family, had a long history of depression and anxiety, had been in therapy in the past, was on medications, and never had any sign of gender dysphoria. Nevertheless, the emergency room physician at the children's hospital, after interviewing him alone, diagnosed him as "definitely transgender because he insists that he is and that [the parents'] lack of acceptance is causing his suicidal depression. He should be started on puberty blockers and estrogen to transition." This was the first time the 14-year-old boy had ever said such a thing, Cretella noted, yet from this one ER visit, his parents had to fight with the children's hospital for months against allegations of being "abusive and unsupportive" parents. The family finally found a therapist who helped them set boundaries with their son, and his complaints of feeling trapped in the wrong body have stopped. Even with this outcome, attorneys told the parents they could not sue because experts would side with the ER physician, who was following the "standard of care" guidelines.

This legal trend has emerged quietly and under the radar. The reason is obvious: parents don't want to be accused of being "abusive" to their children, and the fewer people who know about their dire situation, the better.

What these incidents tell us is that trans activists have been busy:

Last fall, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a policy statement similarly recommending this "gender-affirming" approach and providing youth "access to comprehensive gender-affirming and developmentally appropriate health care." But as Dr. James Cantor explained in his detailed analysis of the AAP policy statement, "almost all clinics and professional associations in the world use what's called the watchful waiting approach to helping GD children, [but] the AAP statement rejected that consensus, endorsing only gender affirmation." Even more appalling than the AAP's one-sided approach to gender dysphoria is the fact, exposed by Cantor, that the research used to justify the policy "simply did not say what AAP claimed they did." The materials provided attendees of the Rhode Island Judicial Conference also included this one-sided perspective, which treats "sex" as something "assigned at birth" as opposed to biologically determined. Handouts included a "What Every Attorney Representing Youth Needs to Know" flyer created by the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAAD), which included directions such as "Don't assume someone's gender identity," and "Make sure you know your client's preferred pronouns."

How have we descended so far down into the rabbit hole so quickly when there is no scientific evidence to buttress the arguments of transgender activists and their allies in the judicial system? How can parents be allowed to determine the gender of their child? How can they be punished for refusing to accept this nonsense?

The answer to those questions is that LGBTQ activists have a clear agenda and are fanatically devoted to it. They are radicals. And nothing — not the courts, not the schools, not the parents, and certainly not the children — will stand in their way of achieving their goals.

The use of state power to effect social change is not new, but the novel interpretation of the law regarding parental rights is. It will be up to state legislatures to affirm parental rights and enshrine them into law in order to prevent the crazies from forcing parents to conform.

Photo credit: Tim Evanson.