“I felt like I had just jumped off a cliff... from the second i woke up in the operating room i knew it was a mistake. … everyone was congratulating me and saying how happy they were for me, but i didn’t share their enthusiasm. it felt like i had just jumped off a cliff and everybody else was standing on the cliff, looking at me on the rocks below, and clapping. my mom took a picture right after i got out of surgery - of me with the bandages wrapped around my chest… i was literally crying because it was so horribly painful.”
These words are from an anonymous 15-year-old girl who described herself as the “youngest patient” on whom her doctor had ever performed a double mastectomy. The reason she went through this was that at the time, she thought she should be a boy. Now, just 9 months post-operation she sees the truth that “I wasn’t a man, I wasn’t male…” and she feels, in her own words, “chagrined.” She is not alone.
About two years ago, Abigail Schrier in her e-book Irreversible Damage discussed a social media (Reddit) page for detransitioners – that is people who “transitioned” to living as the opposite sex and have since reversed course. At the time that Shrier wrote, the thread had 7,000 members. Today, the group has almost 30,000 members.
We have discussed here on this blog the case of an English girlnamed Keira Bell who was just 15 when she began conversations to pursue transgender interventions. In her own words she stated:
“After a series of superficial conversations with social workers, I was put on puberty blockers at age 16. A year later, I was receiving testosterone shots. When 20, I had a double mastectomy. By then, I appeared to have a more masculine build, as well as a man’s voice, a man’s beard, and a man’s name: Quincy, after Quincy Jones.”
Over time, Keira came to regret her decision, and eventually to detransition – and even to pursue a lawsuit against the clinic that provided her chemical and surgical interventions. Keira won her case against them and last month a report revealed that the clinic’s services were “not a safe or viable long-term option” for minors. These interventions can result in sterilization, permanent voice and appearance changes, scarring, and more. Our own U.S. Health and Human Services has just released documents encouraging gender reassignment surgery and hormone treatment for minors. This is not helpful - rather it is harmful to children.
Public policy non-profits like the Family Policy Alliance want to help hurting kids
and bring them the hope they need, not harm them with hormones
and surgeries. See their Help
Not Harm national child safety campaign to learn more about the truth
of this issue – and find out what you can do to help your own children be protected.
No comments:
Post a Comment